.htaccess riddle - guru needed!

[davide101]

I have some working .htaccess code (below). I would love to make this a [R=301] permanent redirect so PageRank is passed from our old links. When I simply add [R=301] to the last statement, it adds .php to hte urls.

.htaccess below: /headlines/
.htacess with R=301: /headlines.php/

Any ideas on how to do this properly? I'm not sure why the redirect changes the working rewrite.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /news/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?(.*)      $1.php/$2       [L]