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Commentator Dave Bean, an English teacher at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, wonders what's happened to Ricky Valarde, a student flirting with gangs and dropping out of school, who gets excited about climbing. He presses Bean to take him and they work in exchange for the gear. Bean goes climbing with him one last time, and learns they can count on each other.

NPR's Steve Inskeep reports that Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush is campaigning today with Senator John McCain on the West Coast.

In the 1980s, Dungeons and Dragons inspired millions of kids to spend their spare time pretending to be wizards and dwarves. A new version of the D&D rule book comes out tonight, and the designers are betting it will lure today's kids away from video and computer games.

Linda and Noah read from the All Things Considered listener mailbag, including reactions to commentator Carol Wasserman's Aug. 8 essay on the realities of aging.

Charles de Ledesma reviews the new CD from Trilok Gurtu, called African Fantasy. Gurtu is a composer and percussionist from Bombay, well known for incorporating the sounds of his native India with other music, like jazz and rock. This CD explores the common musical ground of India and Africa. The Label Is The Verve Music Group.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports from Long Beach, California, where the Reform Party convention has split in two. Supporters of Pat Buchanan control the convention hall. Yesterday they refused entrance to delegates for John Hagelin, so Hagelin's supporters moved to another site, at a theater next door. It now appears there will be two different Reform Party presidential candidates.

Researching family history, short-story writer Desiree Cooper turns to classified ads from the 1700s which describe runaway slaves. She wonders if the man who fled wearing a blue suit and carrying a fiddle might be a distant relative.

Noah speaks with Coast Guard Commander Rick Ferraro about the search for the ship that dumped oil off of Florida's southern coast. It's the area's worst spill in at least a decade. Since Tuesday, investigators from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been tracking down vessels that were in the area at the time the spill occurred. Ferraro says oil samples from all of the known vessels have been collected, and a lab is comparing those samples with oil from the slick.

The famous North Beach bookstore founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is about to be named a historic landmark in San Francisco. From member station KQED, Cy Musiker reports.

Janet Babin of member station WCPN reports that scientists at a small company in Ohio have come up with what they see as a solution to a growing problem in many U.S. lakes. Eurasian water milfoil is a weed that grows so large and fast that it clogs the water and makes boating difficult. The company is using a tiny beetle which feeds on the weed to control it.