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This is a great weekend to be selling used furniture in Burlington, Vermont. About 12,000 college students flood the area this time of year, and like most students on a budget, they are looking for an affordable way to decorate rooms and shared houses. Host Jacki Lyden speaks to Todd Myers, co-owner of Myers New & Used Furniture, about the annual boom in furniture sales.

Last week, the National Institutes of Health issued long-awaited guidelines that will allow scientists receiving federal funds to study stem cells taken from frozen embryos. The embryos used will only be those that are formed as a result of in-vitro fertilization, and are then abandoned at private clinics. Their use has been a deeply-contested issue. Host Jacki Lyden discusses the ethical concerns over this type of research with Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennyslvannia.

This summer the World Health Organization rated the French healthcare system best in the world. Instead of crowing, French researchers questioned the methodology of the WHO study. The high cost of the health system has plagued the French government for a decade. Still, as NPR's Sarah Chayes reports from Paris, if you have the misfortune to get sick, France is a good place to be.

Host Jacki Lyden speaks to reporter Sherry Devlin of the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Montana, about fires that are still burning out of control in western states. Almost six million acres have already been blackened this summer, with another one-and-a-half million still burning.

Koreans living in this country watched with mixed feelings earlier this month when South Korean families were briefly reunited with their North Korean relatives after 50 years. There are no diplomatic relations between communist North Korea and the United States, and currently U.S. the government does not offer assistance to Korean-Americans seeking reunification with their families. Host Jacki Lyden visits the Korean Central Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia, where she speaks to Koreans who hope the U.S. government will change its policy and begin assisting them in trying to locate their lost relatives.

Commentator Jonathan Kaplan surprised a lot of people when he quit his day job to train full-time for a triathlon. He tells us about his decision.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports on the Teamsters' endorsement of Democrat Al Gore for President. James Hoffa, President of the Teamsters says the decision is based on a poll of the union's one-point-five-million members. Gore received an enthusiastic welcome at the Teamsters' convention in Las Vegas yesterday and then appeared last night at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills, hosted by Rob Reiner.

Tom Banse reports from Seattle that Americans living along the Canadian border have the option of watching live, unedited Olympics coverage on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

NPR's Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg reports that the creators of Curious George are about to introduce another character...an adventurous penguin. The penguin was actually invented before Curious George, but his stories have never been published...until now.

NPR's Michael Sullivan reports on the growing business of sex slaves in Nepal. Each year approximately twenty-thousand young girls are sold into slavery in brothels of New Delhi, Bombay and other Indian cities. One woman has established an organization to put an end to the slave trade in spite of threats from traffickers.