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Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush have been all but bumper-to-bumper on the campaign trail this week as they concentrate on Midwestern swing states. Yesterday, Bush addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before heading to Illinois. Today, Gore spoke to the same VFW meeting before making his way to Chicago. Bush told the veterans that the Clinton-Gore administration had allowed U-S military readiness to deteriorate. Gore today enlisted the help of former Defense Secretary William Perry to rebut those charges. NPR's Melissa Block reports from Milwaukee.

Ron McKay, a scientist at National Institutes of Health, joins Robert Siegel in NPR's Washington studios to talk about new guidelines for stem cell research.

Barbara Bradley reports on today's announcement that Attorney General Janet Reno will not appoint a special counsel to investigate Vice President Gore's 1996 campaign fundraising. Reno says further investigation would not result in a prosecutable case, so a special counsel is not warranted. Gore's campaign spokesman says the vice president is pleased with the announcement. His opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, says he understands the American people are tired of investigations, but also says Gore engaged in questionable fundraising activities.

President Clinton's legal defense fund released its semi-annual report today showing the same friends of the White House contributing as in past years. The fund was established when the president began accumulating big legal bills to deal with investigations by Congress and a series of independent counsels. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

Robert Siegel and Jacob Weisberg, Chief Political Correspondent for the online magazine Slate, talk about the latest round of presidential campaign ads. 1969 is the title of Al Gore's latest. The George W. Bush campaign has released a new one called Education Agenda, and re-released an earlier ad called Hard Things. (7:00) Slate's address is http://slate.msn.com

NPR's Mike Shuster reports that Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked world governments to implement changes in U-N peacekeeping operations, as recommended by a report put together by an independent panel. The Secretary General established the panel last March after publication of two reports on the U-N's failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and to protect residents of Srebrenica (sreh-breh-NEET-sah). The report calls for more efforts to prevent conflict and says peacekeepers must be allowed to defend themselves and their mandate. The report also calls for better peacemaking strategies.

Americans -- especially young Americans -- are losing the battle against fat. The percentage of teenagers who are overweight has doubled in the past two decades. Science reporter Frank Browning reports that the reason has to do with a culture that encourages overconsumption.

Noah Adams and Laura Kraut, a member of the U.S. Equestrian Olympic team discuss how the team's horses are shipped to Australia for the Sydney games. The horses are quarantined before participating in the competition.

Still enjoying the lift provided by his speech at the Democratic national Convention, Vice President Al Gore campaigned through the Midwest this week in an open-collared shirt and an upbeat mood. NPR's Anthony Brooks reports that Gore is borrowing heavily from his father's populist campaign style and, for the moment at least, it seems to be working.

Russia has released of a Hungarian World War Two prisoner after 53 years. Andras Tamas had been diagnosed as psychotic by his captors, and ended up in a Russian psychiatric hospital. Two weeks ago, the head of the Hungarian National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology brought Tamas home to Hungary. Robert talks with Giles Whittell, the Moscow Bureau Chief for The Times of London, about his visit with Tamas in Budapest.

Robert Siegel speaks with sportswriter Stefan Fatsis about the WBNA. The professional women's basketball league is in the midst of it's championship final series. The Houston Comets may win the title for the fourth straight year after defeating the New York Liberty last night to take the first game in the best of three series. This is the league's fourth year and while its growth may have reached a plateau, there's still a lot of enthusiasm for the game.

Commentator Amy Dickinson heads for her hometown in New York state every summer. She sent us this audio postcard about this year's vacation -- and how her quiet getaway has changed.

Campaigning has posed a new challenge this week for Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, who has seen his pre-eminent position in the polls slip for the first time since March. Bush has also struggled to keep his focus on the issues he believes will carry him to victory, including his tax cut plan. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

John Burnett reports on the debate over liberalizing US immigration policy along the Mexico border to allow guest worker visas.

NPR News Correspondent Richard Gonzales reports on a ruling by Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that persecution because of sexual preference must be considered a legitimate reason for the INS to grant an immigrant political asylum.

For more than thirty years photographer Mark PoKempner has been taking pictures of Chicago's legendary blues clubs. His new book Down at Theresa's: Chicago Blues is a visual artist's tribute to one city's musical legacy. Host Jacki Lyden tours some of Mark's favorite South Side clubs. (16:00) (Down at Theresa's - Chicago Blues: the Photographs of Mark PoKempner, by Wolfgang Schorlau; ISBN: 3791323008 (2000) For more information, check out our feature on "Down at Theresa".

Host Jacki Lyden talks to travel writer Chris Elliott about airlines' efforts to crack down on fliers who buy tickets for "hidden cities." Some travelers are finding it cheaper to buy tickets for longer flights, and then get off in a connecting city, or to pay a lower round-trip fare for a one-way flight. Airlines say that's costing them money.

Commentator David Weinberger says making predictions is a waste of time, especially when it comes to trying to guess the future of technology.

Four years ago, a new federal law was enacted to limit the use of pesticides in American food production. But that was just the beginning of the fight. Enforcing the new law has proven difficult, beginning with the writing of detailed regulations. And a coalition of farm organizations and pesticide manufacturers has been working to slow the process, as well. Now there's a new bill pending in Congress that would cloud the picture further. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

A team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a new technique to recover information from magnetic tapes and disks. Noah talks with David Pappas, who heads that team, about the possibility that this technique could be applied to blank portions of the Nixon White House tapes, analyzed during the Watergate scandal. Recovering voices, he says, would be a long shot. But it might be possible to tell whether the tapes had been erased.