Friday, March 26, 2004 The Marketplace Morning Report with Kai Ryssdal and Tess Vigeland is a series of seven 9-minute business news modules airing weekdays. This timely report delivers a global business newscast and a hard-hitting feature report. Visit the archive to browse previous stories. Note: Each of the broadcasts contains some of the newscast items below and one of the features. Since only a few radio markets get all seven broadcasts, we've made them available below.

Broadcasts Listen: 2:50 | 3:50 | 4:50 | 5:50 | 6:50 | 7:50 | 8:50 (times are a.m., Pacific Standard Time)

Newscast Stories From Boston: Drug maker Eli Lilly is facing a new federal investigation of its marketing practices. News of the investigation hit Lilly's stock hard on Thursday, though details of the exact target of the probe were sketchy. The U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia launched the civil action. Helen Palmer reports from the Health Desk. From Washington: The contract between thousands of Washington D.C. grocery store managers and union workers expires Saturday and some fear they could be in for a long, drawn-out battle. Southern California's grocery store strike lasted several months. John Dimsdale reports. From New York: According to a new Conference Board survey only 28 percent of online households plan to use the IRS's e-file system. The ones who use the old-fashioned pen and paper to do their taxes say they don't want their personal information on the Internet. Ashley Milne-Tyte has the details. From London: The boss of British Airways has written to his staff complaining about high levels of absenteeism. He says playing hooky costs the airline more than $100 million a year, and that's bad for business. Stephen Beard has that story. From Brussels: European Union leaders are trying to kick-start a grand plan to revive the European economy. It's a 10-year plan that, after four years, has failed to deliver. More from Carl Stiansen. From Boston: The U.S. government picked 28 companies to start offering drug discount cards to seniors this spring. The card could save seniors up to 25 percent on prescription drugs. Helen Palmer has the latest. Features Student Testing Saturday morning more than 300,000 high school students will sit down at desks across the country, pull out their number 2 pencils, and take the SAT. This test used to be - far and away - the highest stakes exam any college bound kid would face. But the No Child Left Behind program has transformed academic testing in America - and kicked off a boom in the high-stakes test writing business.

Basketball Degrees College hoops are once again center court in the sports world this weekend. Sixteen schools are vying to advance into the elite eight round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. But new figures find that when it comes to academics, these schools aren't scoring big points.

"I-5: The Concrete River" series - Stop #5, Seattle In Seattle, it's often a tight 2-lane squeeze along the freeway. To keep folks moving, the city is planning a monorail. But can this transportation system live up to its expectations? Web resource: Check out the "I-5: The Concrete River" series page for audio, facts and Web resources.