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NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that environmentalists in Russia are going to court over Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's restructuring of the country's environmental protection system. Activists fear that the new system is really a cover for a plan to open up long protected nature reserves to commercial usage, to bring in badly needed cash to the central overnment. Kelemen visited a reserve in southern Siberia where rangers are worried about their future and the protection of the reserve.

One of the issues most often mentioned by voters this election year is education. The presidential candidates Al Gore andGeorge W. Bush are responding. Both men have made schools and education reform a top priority on the campaign trail. But as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, what can the president of the United States really do to improve the nation's schools?

NPR's Phillip Davis reports on the Miami-Dade county mayoral race. The front-runner is Alex Penelas, who made the famous vow that his police force would not help the federal government return Elian Gonzalez to his father, as well as threatening to hold Janet Reno responsible if violence broke out in Miami. The remarks cost him a lot of support in the non-Hispanic community, but apparently have not hurt him in his Cuban base, and he's favored to win in tomorrow's primary.

NPR's Tom Gjelten reports that the United States is supporting opposition figures against President Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavian elections this month... but there is concern that US intervention could be the "kiss of death" for the opposition.

NPR's Steve Inskeep compares the differing approaches of Presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush toward reforming the Social Security system. Bush favors a plan that would allow people to invest part of their Social Security retirement taxes in private stock market accounts. Gore opposes radical changes to the current system. He supports keeping all Social Security taxes in the federal system and giving people the option of opening supplemental retirement accounts.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Steve Goose, the program director of Human Rights Watch, and editor of a report to be released Thursday from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. It shows progress since the signing of the 1997 international treaty to ban the use, manufacture or trade of anti-personnel mines.

Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg talks to Peggy Salinger, the daughter J.D. Salinger about her new book Dream Catcher: A Memoir. A testimonial about life hidden away with the Salinger family. (6:53) Dream Catcher: A Memoir is published by Washington Square Press ISBN 06710

The way that American elections are financed was a major topic in the presidential primaries, when some candidates saw the subject as a way to cut the frontrunners down to size. But then the frontrunners got nominated, and talk about campaign finances took on a different role in the debate. Now, with Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore the party standard-bearers, the subject is mostly used as a metaphor for issues of character. For NPR News, Peter Overby reports.

A jury in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho has found the leader of a white supremacist group, and his former employees are liable for more than 6-million dollars in an attack on a woman and her son outside the group's headquarters. The case involves Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, his former chief of staff and two security guards. Noah Adams talks to NPR's Andy Bowers about the verdict and the lawsuit.

Former White House adviser David Gergen. He worked with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Gergen left politics and become a regular analyst on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Nightline. He is also Editor-at-large at US News & World Report. His new book is Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership (Simon & Schuster).