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NPR's Brian Naylor reports on what's being accomplished in the last days of this Congressional session. A foreign aid bill, which includes more than four hundred million dollars for international family planning assistance, was passed yesterday and sent to the White House. It also includes more than four hundred million dollars in debt relief for poor nations. But immigration reform and tax relief remain in limbo.

NPR's Emily Harris reports on the effect of technology on American lives. A new UCLA study found that a lot of Americans are logging on. The study showed little or no difference in the social lives of avid users and non-users. But it did reveal widespread concern about increasing lack of privacy resulting from the unprecedented ability of companies track and collect personal data (3:22).

NPR's Jonathan Miller reports on the latest from Peru, where President Alberto Fujimori has announced a nationwide search for disgraced former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. Montesinos' exposure in a corruption scandal last year weakened Fujimori's control of the country and led him to announce he will resign from the presidency two years early.

NPR's Barbara Bradley reports on attempts to rework the juvenile justice system. After juvenile crime dropped steadily last decade, many people are taking a look at the system and wondering if it's too heavy-handed. Nearly every state has made it easier to charge children as adults. Opponents to this policy say once a youth gets in the adult system, he's more likely to continue committing crimes. Several states are now considering a change in the way they try and sentence juveniles.

NPR's Anthony Brooks reports on the final push towards election day for Al Gore and George W. Bush. With less than two weeks to go, the presidential candidates traded shots at each other while campaigning to hold states each had once thought guaranteed.

Mark Zdechlik of Minnesota Public Radio reports on the Justice Department's attempts to force Northwest Airlines to sell its controlling interest in Continental. The case could impact other pending airline mergers.

NPR's Kenneth Walker reports the head of the military junta that took power in Ivory Coast last Christmas Eve has been forced out by violent street protests. The demonstrations against General Robert Guei began yesterday when he refused to recognize his apparent defeat in Sunday's election and declared himself the winner. The protests increased today, despite the presence of troops who responded to rock and bottle-throwing with gunfire, most of it into the air. The public, enraged by ten months of governmental instability and continuing economic decline, refused to be intimidated and gradually, some members of the military began joining the protests. General Guei finally stepped down and is reported to have fled the country. The presumed winner in the election, socialist Laurent Gbagbo, has assumed power, but the election results still are likely to be contested by other candidates.

Noah talks with Cheryl Stearns, a world-class parachutist from Rayford, North Carolina about her plans for an attempt to break the high-altitude skydiving record. Stearns says she's going up 165,000 feet in a helium balloon to jump. Stearns says there have been several people in the last forty years to experiment with what she calls "high-altitude ejections." She leaves for Austin, Texas tomorrow to start training with her team.

A Democratic candidate for Congress in Maryland, Terry Lierman, has invoked the "equal time" provision of the Federal Communications Act to get NPR member station WAMU to run his political ads. His opponent, incumbent Republican Connie Morella, will not counter with her own ads on WAMU. Instead she says she'll try to work in Congress to correct what she calls a "loophole." NPR's Shirley Jahad reports.

In the final part of our Changing Face of America story Mom's Good Move, the moving van comes to Peg Collison's house where she has lived for almost 30 years. She and her partner Chaz have decided to move to a retirement community. Moving day is sad and emotional---their new home is the "University Retirement community" in Davis, California--a new facility. The place is much better than the children had expected, except that all the residents are over the age of 65. Peg has to meet new friends, find a new church and new children to tutor. But rather than finding a sedate life, sitting around, reading books -- she is just as busy as she was in her old home -- and seems just as happy.

N-P-R's Martin Kaste reports on Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. Chavez is notorious for his long lectures, so much so that he's earned the nickname El Profesor. But his strategy of addressing the public often has made Venezuelans feel more involved in their government. Sixty percent of the population supports the president, and his new political ideology.

NPR's Charles Maynes reports form Moscow that divers are beginning to recover bodies from the Kursk, the Russian nuclear submarine that sank in the Berents sea three months ago. All 118 crew members were killed in Russia's worst naval disaster ever.

Throughout this campaign year, education has ranked among the top concerns of voters -- especially those suburban women who often cross party lines and decide electoral outcomes. NPR's David Welna went to the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights to talk to moms with school-age children in a neighborhood George W. Bush visited this week.

Linda Wertheimer talks with Mahmoud Zahar, a leader for Hamas, about resolving differences between Hamas and Chairman Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Zahar says both groups now believe in retaliation against Israel for recent Palestinian deaths. In the past, the Palestinian Authority has promoted negotiation rather than acts of violence. Hamas has always believed in resisting the Israelis with force.

NPR's Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem reports the upsurge of violence in the Middle East has sparked a new phenomenon in that region...cyber war. Hackers have attacked the Israeli Army and Foreign Ministry websites, among others, apparently in retaliation for a cyberattack on the website of the Lebanese Islamist group Hizbollah.

Linda and Noah read some of the listener mail received during the past week.

N-P-R's Claudio Sanchez reports on a perennial election year issue: school vouchers. The issue is particularly controversial in Michigan, where a ballot initiative, known as Proposal One, has drawn both praise and criticism. School vouchers are also on California's ballot next month.

NPR's Tom Goldman reports the subway series could be all over tomorrow. The Yankees beat the Mets in the fourth game of the World Series last night to take a three-to-one lead over their rivals.

Host Rene Montagne talks with two friends of music pioneer Tracey Sterne. Sterne introduced listeners to 20th century American composers as well as traditional music from around the world. A new double-CD set honors both her work at Nonesuch Records and her earlier career as a concert pianist.

Colorado Public Radio's Howie Movshovitz reports on the remake of the classic Brazilian film, Black Orpheus. Unlike the original, the new movie plays up to the reality of black life in Brazil, including the violence and the poverty, and uses the backdrop of Carnival to highlight the discrepancies in Brazilian society.

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports on two studies from the Rand Corporation think tank that offer starkly different views of the widely publicized improvements of Texas students on standardized tests. The dueling reports have stirred up the debate over education in the presidential campaign.

Commentator Phillip Hoose, a cousin of New York Yankee Don Larsen, remembers a pivitol time in his life when the pitcher's career achievement (throwing a perfect game in the 1956 World Series) helped his status at school.

Noah talks to Masha Lipman, Deputy Editor of Itoga Magazine who talks about the reaction of the families of the Russian sailors who died on the submarine Kursk after they learned of a note found on the body of one sailor. The note revealed that at least some of the sailors survived the explosion the explosion. It was found in the pocket of Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov, commander of the Kursk's turbine section. The note describes how 23 members of the crew moved from one section to the other after the explosion, and suggested that two or three people might try to escape through the emergency escape hatch.

NPR's Rob Gifford reports from Pyongyang that Secretary of State Albright's trip to North Korea this week afforded a rare glimpse of the isolated country and its grinding poverty. Women in a rural area were seen sweeping up precious grains of rice from the roadway, evidence of the country's on-going food shortage. And in the capital, medical personnel in the freezing cold main hospital were forced to use beer bottles to construct intravenous systems. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in recent months has been reaching out to western countries, possibly because of the country's need for economic assistance.

NPR's Phillip Davis reports that two Salvadoran generals face wrongful death charges in the case of four American churchwomen who were raped and murdered by National Guardsmen in El Salvador in 1980. The families of the victims are seeking damages -- and closure on the case.