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Northern California is bracing for another winter storm that could bring more precipitation to an area still recovering from the effects of heavy rains and severe flooding. In the Central Valley, officials are worried the rain could cause swollen rivers to break through levees already weakened by the earlier storms. The Red Cross is re-opening shelters and stocking up on food, blankets, and medicine in case more people are forced from their homes by high water. Ancel (AHN-sel) Martinez of member station KQED in San Francisco reports.

In the Port of Aden, Yemen, divers are searching water-filled areas of the U.S.S. Cole for bodies of the crew members caught in last week's explosion. They're using metal cutters to clear their way through the wreckage. The Defense Department says a small boat armed with explosives rammed the side of the Navy Destroyer in a terrorist attack, killing 17 sailors. Noah talks to John Burns of The New York Times, who is stationed in Yemen, about the ongoing search for victims, the investigation into the attack, and the cooperation of the Yemeni government.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports that, before adjournment, Congress voted to limit the development of low power radio. Low power stations broadcast within an area of four to seven miles, and are meant to benefit schools, churches and others in a local community. Broadcaster groups, including NPR, have said those new stations could interfere with currently licensed FM broadcasters. The omnibus spending bill approved by Congress and sent to President Clinton includes a ban on removing the cushions that protect individual FM signals, except in nine test markets.

Officials at the World Health Organization say that an outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in the African nation of Gabon seems to be coming to an end. Twenty-six cases of the disease have been diagnosed there since July, and at least 17 people have died. As a result of the outbreak in Gabon, two cases of Ebola have been diagnosed in Johannesberg, South Africa. That has created a great deal of concern in that huge metropolitan area, though public health officials say the disease does not appear to be spreading there. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

The Clinton Administration's chief housing official, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, has won Republican praise for some of his initiatives to help depressed urban areas. Those programs include elements of GOP housing policies and have alienated some Democrats. But Republican critics in Congress say Cisneros has not gone far enough toward the GOP approach. NPR's John Nielsen reports that the partisan dispute and the choice of former congressman Jack Kemp as the Republican vice presidential nominee have raised the profile of urban issues in the presidential race.

NPR's Gerry Hadden reports Mexican authorities have begun evicting some foreign residents, including Americans, from their homes on a disputed piece of the Baja peninsula, a coastal area just south of California. The Mexican Supreme Court has ordered that the land be returned to a Mexican company, saying that the company was wrongfully stripped of the land almost 30 years ago. The high court acknowledged that the foreign residents were unaware of the title problem when they built their homes, but said they still must vacate. Authorities gathered in force to carry out the order and changed the locks as soon as the foreign residents had left. The U.S. Consul General in Tijuana says some 350 households have received eviction notices.

Steven Dudley reports from Bogota that Colombia's President Andres Pastrana has ordered an investigation of the military's involvement in an attack that resulted in the deaths of six schoolchildren. It took place 40-miles from Medellin. The children, aged 6-to-12, were on a school hike when gunfire erupted. The regional army commander initially said the children had been caught in crossfire between military forces and guerrillas. But survivors said that there were no guerrillas in the area and the children were pinned down for 45 minutes by military fire. The killings occurred just two months after the U-S Congress approved one-point-three billion dollars of mostly military aid to help Colombia fight the drug trade and guerrilla movements.

NPR's Nina Totenberg reports on today's Supreme Court decision limiting the scope of the federal Clean Water Act. The court split along its familiar ideological lines, 5-4, in ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers can't use the law to forbid the building of a landfill in a migratory bird habitat. The area, near Chicago, contains abandoned gravel pits that flood with water and attract birds for nesting and breeding. The court majority ruled that Congress intended the Clean Water Act to apply to large or navigable bodies of water.

Laurie Neff reports from Jerusalem on Israel's decision today to go head with the construction of a large housing project in disputed east Jerusalem. That decision was made despite U.S. misgivings and a Palestinain warning of violence. The Har Homa project will place 6,500 homes for Jews in an area claimed by Palestinians as their future capital. Paelstinians see the move as Israel's attempt to solidify its claim over all of Jerusalem before final status talks on the future of the city can be held. Israel says it simply needs more housing for all the people who want to live in Jerusalem, and has pledged to build 3,000 units of arab housing near Har Homa as well.

Health officials in Houston, Texas, have discovered mosquitoes carrying the virus that causes St. Louis encephalitis in seven areas of the city. NPR's Wade Goodwyn travels with one of the health department's "mosquito men" as he makes his way through Houston's extensive sewer system, trapping mosquitoes and sending them back to the lab for testing. (6:15) CORRECTION, aired on All Things Considered Sept. 6, 2001: Wade Goodwyn's report about a mosquito surveillance officer in Houston brought out the science police in the audience. Dr. Victor Sloan of Scotch Plains, N.J., writes this: "In Wade Goodwyn's excellent story on Houston's mosquito hunters, he said 'when the dry ice melts.' Melting is the act of a solid becoming liquid. Dry ice does not melt, it sublimes. That is, it goes directly from a solid to a gas, without ever becoming liquid. When I was about 10, my father tried to explain this to me. It took me years to believe him."

Commentator Jim Culleny lives in a depressed area of Massachusetts where the residents are tempted to accept casino gambling as an answer to a slow economy. But as he watches a man play a "scratch and win" game at his local convenience store, Culleny is struck by how gambling is kind of like the myth of Sisyphus, the participant alwys ends up back where he started. In this country of innovation, he says, we can do better than to count on casinos and blind luck for our personal fiscal salvation.

Linda Wertheimer talks with Dr. Jeanne-Marie Col of the United Nations about the Great Tangshan (tang-SHUN) earthquake which occured in northeast China 20 years ago this week. Col recounts how the citizens of Qinglong (Ching-long) were able to accurately predict the quake, take precautionary measures, and thereby prevent any loss of life. By contrast, in the city of Tangshan and other nearby areas where people did not take such measures, it is estimated that 240-thousand people died and over 600-thousand were injured.

NPR's David Welna reports that over the past month Mexico has expelled half a dozen foreign human rights workers. Until now, Mexico had always tolerated such visits. The crackdown is raising new questions about Mexico's human rights record, as President Clinton prepares to go there next week. A major US human rights group also issued a report this week condemning what it said are widespread human rights abuses in Mexico, especially in rural areas. NPR's David Welna reports.

George is the name of a four-foot tall wild turkey living in a Newtonville, MA neighborhood. Because of him, mail delivery in the area has become a bit of a problem. Turns out George doesn't like the mail carrier all that much. Tim Hoban is the man who draws George's ire. The bird lunges, squawks and pecks at Hogan while he travels his daily route. He won't attack other carriers, just Hogan. Robert talks with postman about the foul fowl.

Dogs are attacking and killing deer in Southern Minnesota. Attacks are taking place at Myre -- Big Island State Park, which is in Albert Lea, about 15 miles north of Iowa Border. In the past three weeks 25 deer have been killed. Hardened snow packs are making it easy for dogs to chase the deer; a deer can usually outrun a dog in normal conditions. Noah Adams speaks with Jeanine Vorland, an area wildlife manager for the Owatonna region of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, about the problem.

NPR's Elaine Korry reports that the Supreme Courts of California and New York are reviewing cases that could change the way courts handle so-called "move away" cases. In many courts, a divorced parent with custody of a child risks losing that custody if he or she moves out of the area where the non-custodial parent lives, even if the move is for important financial reasons. Non-custodial parents say its unfair for them to lose visitation rights just because the ex-spouse decided to move. Custodial parents, usually women, complain this makes it difficult for them to seek better schooling or a new job just when they need it most.

Linda talks with Vice President Al Gore and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Chief James Lee Witt about what they've seen as they tour the flood-ravaged Ohio River Valley, and what FEMA is doing to help the region recover. Waters levels continued to rise today in what's been the worst flooding along the Ohio River in three decades. Thousands have been forced from their homes and businesses, and President Clinton has declared dozens of counties in Ohio and Kentucky disaster areas.

Noah talks to Steve Delsohn (del-SON), author of 'The Fire Inside: Firefighters Talk About Their Lives.' Delsohn interviewed 108 firefighters for his book. Two of those firefighters, Phillip Buffa of Washington, D.C.'s Rescue 3 and Keith Walker, Jr. of Alexandria, Virginia's Engine 55, met with Delsohn while he was visiting the Washington area. The firefighters talked about their fears of flashovers (when entire rooms ignite all at once) and of being trapped alone in a burning building. Delsohn says that about 100 firefighters are killed in the line of duty every year while another 100,000 are injured. (The Fire Inside: Firefighters Talk About Their Lives' is published by Harper-Collins.)

Kentucky's governor has declared a state of emergency in the eastern part of the state, where sludge from a coal mine spilled into two streams last week. Two-hundred-million gallons of toxic slurry -- a byproduct of coal washing with the consistency of wet cement -- have made the usual sources of drinking water in ten county area unfit for use. Noah interviews Larry Priest, a resident of Martin County, Kentucky, with a mobile home next to Cold Water Creek. Priest calls the spill the biggest black milkshake you've ever seen in your life.

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.