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Dave Thompson of North Dakota Public Radio reports that yesterday Democratic gubernatorial nominee Heidi Heitkamp announced that she has cancer. Despite her illness, Heitkamp will continue her campaign.

NPR's Ted Clark talks with Host Linda Wertheimer about a candid new report on race relations in the United States. The report was issued by the State Department to comply with a U.N. convention on racial discrimination, ratified by the U.S. in 1994.

Oil shortages in Europe and elsewhere in the world have resulted in price increases in the United States -- where gasoline prices are at a ten year high. The nationwide average price of a gallon of unleaded regular is now nearly a-dollar-sixty -- with prices far higher in some locations. The Presidential candidates have been addressing the issue. Democrat Al Gore today proposed tapping the government's emergency oil reserve as a means of lowering prices before the cold weather arrives. NPR's Madeleine Brand reports.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson returned to Capitol Hill today for a grilling by yet another Congressional committee. Today, it was the House Committee on Government Reform. Questions had to do with the high price of gasoline and home heating fuel. NPR's Brian Naylor reports that Richardson -- like Vice President Al Gore -- has warmed up to the idea of releasing some of the national oil reserves as a means of lowering prices.

Washington Post reporter Peter Baker is a journalist who co-wrote the story breaking the news about Monica Lewinsky. He's just written a book about that episode of the Clinton presidency, called The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton. He writes that for all the titillation about thongs and cigars, the story was not so much about sex as it was about power.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Island of Lost Maps: A true Story of Cartographic Crime (Random House) by Miles Harvey.

Noah talks to Wendy Chavkin, MD, Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association in New York City, about the likely availability of RU486 and which doctors will prescribe it.

NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports on the approval today of the abortion drug RU486. The Food and Drug Administration says the drug is safe and effectively produces an abortion, when used with another commonly available drug. Opponents tried to keep the drug off the market, saying it is unsafe not only for fetuses but also for women. But the FDA said the scientific evidence overwhelmingly favored RU486's approval.

NPR's Jon Hamilton looks at the scientific, legal and political history of RU486 in America.

Republicans now have a slim majority of just six votes in the House of Representatives -- and all 435 seats are on the ballot in November. Democrats are hoping to become the majority if they can sweep the close races on the West Coast. One of the most closely watched of these contests is in California's fabled Silicon Valley, ground zero for the micro-chip and personal computer revolution. NPR's Richard Gonzales reports.