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NPR's David Welna reports on the Democratic tax-cut proposal. Led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Democrats are pushing for a $300 rebate to every taxpayer (and a $600 rebate to every couple), using about $60 billion from the budget surplus. They are also proposing an immediate cut in the lowest tax rate. Their proposal would be separate from President Bush's signature $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan, and Republicans fear that such a proposal would take the momentum away from Mr. Bush's program.

In the past eight months, a video of a young guitarist playing a modern version of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D Major has become a sensation on the Internet. The video has been viewed on YouTube.com more than 7.6 million times -- but nobody knew the identity of the guitarist. Recently, that changed.

Chevron and two other oil companies announce that they have successfully tested a new oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico. An exploratory oil rig, drilling to a record-setting depth and pressure, flowed at a rate of 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and the find has the potential to be a significant new energy source.

After 25 years as the host of ABC's Nightline, news anchor Ted Koppel is retiring. Nightline started out in March 1980 as extended news coverage of the hostage crisis in Iran. Koppel has won 37 Emmys and 6 Peabody Awards, as well as many other honors.

Commissioners on the Sept. 11 panel call on the White House to declassify a presidential briefing dated Aug. 6, 2001. The document warned that Osama bin Laden was planning attacks inside the United States. In Thursday's testimony, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that and other pre-Sept. 11 warnings were too vague to act on. Hear NPR's Pam Fessler.

The son of a former priest and a one-time nun, John Fugelsang says he wasn't sure if he should have been born. He's turned funny stories from his life into a one-man show, All the Wrong Reasons. It's at the New York Theater Workshop until May 6.

Every year, the week of the Oscars, Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas, partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and about 12 counters go to an undisclosed location in Southern California and hand count all 6,000 ballots. It takes the team about three days to determine the Academy Award winners.

NPR's Wendy Schmeltzer reports on macular degeneration, a vision disorder that now afflicts roughly 1.7 million older Americans. Researchers who study vision loss believe that macular degeneration could impair the vision of over 6 million Americans within the next 30 years as the baby boom generation ages. Macular degeneration currently has no cure, but various social service organiations that work with the elderly are trying to help macular degeneration patients by teaching them ways to cope with their disability while remaining independent.

He's been at the forefront of contemporary jazz for over 40 years. He played with a number of bop groups in New York during the 1940s with quintets led by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Later, a quintet led by him and Clifford Brown, came to epitomize the sound known as hard bop. During the Civil Rights movement, Roach was composing some of jazz' strongest political statements.(REBROADCAST from 6

A report says Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) will step down as Senate Republican leader following a furor over remarks that seemed to endorse America's segregated past. Lott faced a Jan. 6 vote on his status as incoming majority leader and a challenge for the post from Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN). NPR News reports.