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NPR's Melissa Block reports on the victory of Democrat Carolyn McCarthy, giving her a House seat from New York state. McCarthy was widowed after the Long Island Railroad shootings, and defeated incumbent Republican freshman Daniel Frisa after he voted to repeal an assault weapons ban.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Turkey on new government efforts to shift policy toward the Kurds. A 12-year-long battle with Kurdish insurgents has created millions of homeless refugees...most of them are pouring into Turkish cities. Although the new pro-Islamic government is trying to return these refugees to their homes, the Kurds are suspicious.

The Burmese military government detained more than a hundred pro-democracy activists and blocked all roads to democracy movement-leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house today, to keep a meeting of the National League for Democracy from taking place. Governments around the world are watching the situation closely and are concerned about the apparent deterioration of the situation in the Burmese capital of Rangoon. The BBC's Jonathan Miller has this report.

On election day, voters in many states will be asked to check several boxes on their ballots for state judges. Most people won't know much if anything about the candidates. And that's a problem, as NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports. Critics of the practice of electing judges say justice and politics are a dangerous mix. But the candidates say raising money and pleasing voters doesn't affect their objectivity.

NPR's John Ydstie reports the unemployment rate edged slightly higher in September...and now stands at 5.2%. Labor Department figures released this morning show an economy that's cooled considerably since June. Wall Street was surprised by a decline in business payrolls, which declined by 40,000 in September.

- Reporter Eileen LeBlanc of member station WHQR in Wilmington, North Carolina, says the cleanup in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran has begun. Estimates of damage from the storm run as high as $1 billion. LeBlanc says that in addition to causing severe damage along the Carolina coast, the hurricane swept inland, causing serious flooding in the Appalachian mountains.

Noah talks to Aleksandr Vasovic, a foreign editor at B-92, an independent radio station in Belgrade. B92 is the only independent station in Belgrade...it is also the only media outlet reporting extensively on the protests against the government. Today, Slobodan Milosevic shut down both Radio B92 and closed down the transmitter of student station Radio Index.

NPR's Mark Roberts reports from Denver, the site of the Federal trial of Oklahoma City bombing defendant, Timothy McVeigh. Throngs of media and family members of the 168 victims are nervously awaiting a verdict outside the Byron C. Rogers Federal Courthoue. On Friday, the case went to the jury. The jury continues it's deliberations today.

Chris Nuttall reports from Ankara, Turkey, on an effort by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to convince a group of Turkish Kurds to leave their camps in northern Iraq and return to Turkey. The Kurds have been in the camps since 1994 when they fled fighting between Turkish security forces and Kurdish separatist guerrillas.

Julian Crandall Hollick reports on the Shidhis, Pakistanis whose skin color and features are distinctly East African. Many are descended from slaves that were brought across the Arabian Sea to Pakistan. They say they are discriminated against because of their color; they say they are treated as second-class citizens in Pakistan. And many, still, are essentially slaves, sold as parts of dowries from family to family.