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Focusmate pairs you with another procrastinator for 50-minute "virtual co-working" sessions. While it may sound creepy, the Boston Globe reports some people swear by it.

In this session, what you're going to hear are solo performances — just Pallett, using effects and looping to create layers of sound.

Timber Unity will rally in Salem tomorrow. The Portland Baroque Orchestra is the third largest period orchestra in the country. The Portland Winter Light Festival aims to lighten up winter's dreary days.

In Washington, political types are looking forward to Congress coming into session later this month. But commentator Byron York wants to look a little farther into the future of politics -- five years -- to 2008. That's the year the first of the Generation Xers will be the age that President Kennedy was when he went into office, and he thinks that they will be ready to take political leadership then. York thinks that the Baby Boomers are too bogged down by the history of Vietnam to lead in the most important areas now -- homeland security and defense -- so we might skip an entire generation of leadership -- the Baby Boomers -- and go on to the Xers.

Since losing his bid to become the Republican party candidate for president last year, Arizona Senator John McCain has pushed ahead with his cry for campaign finance reform. McCain and Democrat Russell Feingold have been promised a March Senate debate on their campaign finance reform bill by Majority Leader Trent Lott. Lott has also promised to discourage filibusters of the bill. Filibusters killed the bill in the last two congressional sessions. Robert talks with the Arizona Senator about what it will take to win the battle this time.

The Republican-controlled Florida legislature today held a special session to name its own set of electors to the Electoral College, a move that Democrats have decried as intended to ensure George W. Bush wins the state's 25 electoral votes, and thus the national election. The Florida Supreme Court's ruling today sets up the possibility that there will be competing sets of electors, if a final vote tally turns in favor of Al Gore. We hear about today's action in the Florida legislature, and what is expected to happen Monday, when the two houses reconvene, as Robert talks to Ginny Brown-Waite, President Pro-Tempore of the Florida state senate.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports from Tallahassee, where a committee of the Florida state legislature voted to authorize a special session that would consider the appointment of presidential electors. The race between Al Gore and George W. Bush remains deadlocked over the results in Florida, with the stalemate threatening to go beyond the December 12th deadline to certify electors. Republicans, who control the Florida legislature, want lawmakers to be in position to name the electors if a presidential winner is still unnamed. But the electors would certainly be Republican electors, and furious Democrats insist that any involvement by the legislature at this stage would be premature.

The nation's 108th Congress convenes Tuesday with a considerable hangover of unfinished business from its last session. Before adjourning, lawmakers failed to strike agreement on extending unemployment insurance for 750,000 jobless people. Hill-watchers also expect heavy lobbying from the White House for quick action on the administration's new economic stimulus package. NPR's David Welna reports.

NPR's David Welna traveled home with Kentucky Congressman Ken Lucas, the state's only Democratic representative in Washington, D.C. and reports on Lucas' meetings with his constituents. The visits came just days before President Bush was to address a joint session of Congress on his new budget proposals. Lucas, whose district voted for Bush, is one of the most conservative members of his own party, and is one of the Democrats whom the president is hoping to win over. The two-term House member says that he and his district are in sync on most of issues.

Classes were canceled at Bethel Park High School when this week's snowstorm hit. Instead of a weightlifting session, the coach told players to help the community by shoveling driveways — for free.