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President Clinton is using his executive powers to help boost beef prices and ease the rise of gas prices. NPR's Mara Liasson reports on the President's decision to stabilize beef prices by buying more beef and opening conservation acreage for grazing. This decision comes in the wake of his announcement yesterday to sell oil reserves to increase market supplies.. this to combat price hikes in gasoline.

NPR's Michael Shuster reports on the Clinton Administration decision to reorganize the State Department. The restructuring will bring the independent Arms and Disarmament Agency and the US Information Agency under the umbrella of the Secretary of State. The move, long sought by Senator Jesse Helms and other Congressional Republican conservatives, was made in hopes of encouraging the Senate to approve the Chemical Weapons ban when it comes to a vote on next week.

NPR's Michael Goldfarb reports from London on the troubles of British Prime Minister John Major. With a little more than three months before a general election, his authority within the Conservative party is disappearing. The most recent setback is over his get-tough-on-crime legislation. Last night, the House of Lords rejected a key portion of that legislation which concerned wiretapping.

(STEREO) - Linda visits people and politicians in the two neighboring New England states to find out why the aura around them is so different. Though they both have small, mostly rural populations, New Hampshire is conservative and anti-tax, while Vermont is seen as progressive on environmental and economic issues. Linda explores the historical and geological differences between the two states as well.

Linda talks with Ron Elving and Phil Duncan of Congressional Quarterly magazine. They discuss the make-up of the 105th congress -- which includes a Senate that's more conservative, and a House that's picked up a few more Democrats. With Republicans maintaining control of both houses of Congress and a Democrat in the White House -- both men agree that we can look forward to an era of compromise.

NPR's Steve Inskeep has been following one of this year's tight congressional races, between incumbent Democrat Paul McHale and Republican challenger Bob Kilbanks. One of the big factors as the campaign becomes increasingly tense is fundraising -- and Kilbanks is running into problems because some in the business community are still bitter that he beat their favorite candidate in the primary, or they think Kilbanks is too conservative to win.

Environmental groups opposed to the nomination of Gale Norton as Interior secretary joined their voices in protest today. They say Norton, the former attorney general of Colorado, expounds theories of land use well outside the mainstream of contemporary legal thinking. But Norton has the backing of conservatives who say she simply follows a strict interpretation of the Constitution and the intent of the founding fathers. NPR's David Welna reports.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with several prominent moderates about their inclusion in the Republican Party. Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mike Castle of Delaware, former Masachusetts Gov. William Weld and Jane Swift talk about the fight for social positions that differ form the conservative ones now dominating the party. They each look to 2008, with hope that a pro-choice Republican will be on the ticket.

Billy Graham, the most famous American evangelist of the 20th century, has died. He preached during a time when the U.S. was less polarized politically and culturally, and he was known as "America's Pastor." Largely silenced by illness in his final years, Graham was somewhat eclipsed by his son Franklin, who took his father's ministry in a far more conservative direction.

The 108th Congress goes to work with a number of fresh faces in the crowd. In an occasional series charting the course of Congressional "freshmen," NPR's Andrea Seabrook visits with Republican Thaddeus McCotter, representing Michigan's 11th District. McCotter's conservative pedigree goes hand-in-hand with his love of rock 'n' roll music -- see photos of family, staff and new Capitol office.

The Senate is planning to vote on welfare reform next Tuesday, and today, President Clinton, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich all appeared on radio to stake out their positions. Clinton expressed his support for Senate progress on the plan, although he warned that if conservative voices prevail and the Congress walks away from bipartisan progress, welfare reform will die. Dole and Gingrich predicted welfare reform would pass.

NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Philadelphia, where the Republicans are holding their Platform Committee hearings in preparation for next week's presidential nominating convention. Republicans, following the lead of their presumed nominee, George W. Bush, are taking some of the tougher-edged rhetoric out of this year's document. But it remains a strongly conservative platform, as abortion-rights advocates were once again thwarted in their efforts to modify the plank.

NPR's Joanne Silberner reports that the House debates a health insurance bill (with a vote later this evening) that will allow people who have insurance to keep it even if they get sick or change jobs. But conservative Republicans have tacked on a number of features for insurers, small businesses, doctors and other interest groups that are bound to give the bill problems when it meets the more streamlined Senate version later this spring.

The election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel last May came about in part because of the staunch support of the nation's ultra-orthodox Jewish community. As Eric Weiner reports from Jerusalem, that new political power has created tensions between religious and secular Jews, as the ultra-orthodox seek to make the rest of the nation's Jews conform to their own conservative religious beliefs and social behavior.

NPR's Michael Goldfarb reports from London that with two weeks before the General Election, Prime Minister John Major is facing a rebellion within his own Conservative Party. His party is divided about adopting the proposed single European currency. Instead of campaigning for votes for his party, Major has been forced to campaign within his party for support of his European policy.

After 10 years of liberal government in South Korea, the political pendulum is about to swing the other way in the country's presidential election Wednesday. The former mayor of Seoul, the conservative standard bearer, leads a field of 12 candidates, but he has been tainted by financial scandal. Still, his principal challenger, a former minister in President Roh Moo-hyun's Cabinet, admits that it will be a miracle if he wins.

Prosecutors in Milwaukee are conducting a probe into a death last year at the county jail. An inmate died of dehydration, after staff allegedly turned off the water to his cell. It's one of four deaths in recent years at the facility, which high-profile Sheriff David Clarke oversees. Although he runs as a Democrat, Clarke is a frequent conservative commentator and served as a surrogate for President Trump on the campaign trail.

Mexico elects its next president July 2. The race is hotly contested between leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon. Mexico's electoral system has long been known for fraud, financing irregularities, and the outright buying of votes. While Mexico has improved dramatically under an independent electoral watchdog, shadows of its past remain. Michael O'Boyle reports.

While recent polling suggests public opinion is weighing against the GOP's approach to the government shutdown, the message is very different for Republican congressmen from deeply conservative districts. The word from back home is to continue to take a hard line. That's the case in one district in the northwest corner of Georgia, which is home to Congressman Tom Graves, a leader of the defund Obamacare movement in the House who was elected in 2010.

When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got to work on his new book on immigration, he was expected to be out in front of his party urging a broader conversation with Hispanics and more open legislation. After all, he had previously supported a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally. Instead, it's fellow Florida Republican Marco Rubio in the lead, and Bush who's explaining an apparent reversal on the issue of citizenship. Both are likely candidates for president in 2016.