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NPR's Eric Westervelt reports from Las Vegas on the attempts of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), to unionize Wal-Mart's nearly one million employees. But Wal-Mart's deep pockets and extremely high employee turnover rates are big obstacles for UFCW.

NPR's Christopher Joyce reports on a White House announcement that President Bush will not implement the climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. Democratic leaders in Congress and environmental groups promised to fight Mr. Bush on the Kyoto climate treaty and other recent policy reversals they call setbacks to the environment.

David Darman of New Hampshire Public Radio reports that the state legislature is considering its first-ever sales tax. New Hampshire's governor is pushing the idea, over the protests of shopkeepers who say a sales tax will change the way they do business.

NPR's John McChesney reports on the latest development in the race to provide music online. Four companies, including AOL and Real Networks, are working to form a service called Musicnet. This online subscription music service would compete directly with a project by Sony and Vivendi Universal.

One of the advances heralded by the mapping of the human genome moves a step closer this week. Differences in the way people respond to particular drugs is determined by the presence or absence of certain genes. NPR's Richard Harris reports that the identification of one of the genes responsible should make it possible to predict in advance who will benefit from a certain treatment and who will not.

NPR's David Welna reports from the Capitol on the other matter the Senate took up late yesterday after passing McCain-Feingold -- President Bush's budget proposal. The House passed that measure quickly and easily, but prospects for Senate passage are less certain.

From member station WRNI in Providence, Nate Di Meo reports that a Rhode Island judge is letting state officials pursue their lawsuit against companies that sold lead-based paint. They hope to set a national precedent by holding paint companies liable for health problems linked to lead in their product.

NPR's David Kestenbaum reports that a new study shows how shifts in the world's climates will affect outbreaks of infectious diseases such as malaria. But even the study's own researchers say that despite advanced technology, it's still very difficult to make detailed, accurate predictions in this field.

The numbers are hard to estimate but as many as 25,000 or even more transgender people live in the United States. For those males redefining themselves as women the voice can be a difficult part of the transition. From member station KUOW in Seattle Cathy Duchamp reports on a voice therapy program designed to help them sound more feminine.

From member station WHYY, Fred Mogul reports on the debut of composer Stephen Paulus's Voices of Light by the New York Philharmonic. Based on the work of two little-known medieval poets, this new sacred choral piece draws more on a "spiritual element" than evangelical tradition.