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NPR's Peter Kenyon reports that House Speaker Newt Gingrich was re-elected as Speaker today, despite his admission that he had violated House rules. Only a handful of Republicans defected, despite doubts raised earlier by a couple of dozen GOP members about the wisdom of putting a tainted Gingrich back in charge. The election marked the opening of the 105th Congress.

Reporter Frank Browning remembers lawyer and activist Tom Stoddard, who advanced the cause of equal rights for gay men, lesbians, people with AIDS in this country. Stoddard headed up the Lambda Legal Defense and Education fund for six years, making it a nationally influential organization, fighting discrimination against homosexuals and AIDS patients in employment, housing, health care, insurance, family law, and military service.

The Great Plains spent today digging out from under a three-day blizzard, part of a winter storm moving as far south as the Gulf Coast and expected to reach the East Coast by the weekend. In the snow-laden Dakotas, truckers stranded at interstate rest stops were seeking solace in hot showers. Mark Zdechlik of Minnesota Public Radio reports.

NPR's Edward Lifson reports from Belgrade that the government of President Slobodan Milosevic has admitted that the Opposition Party won some of those municipal elections held last November. In a letter to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Serbian foreign minister did not concede his position on the most important elections that were annulled. The Opposition and Western diplomats say it's another Milosevic stalling tactic.

Jennifer Ludden reports that Zaire's longtime ruler Mobutu Sese Seko returned from a four-month absence today. Tens of thousands of people welcomed him as he returned to the capital, Kinshasa. Mobutu has been receiving treatment for prostate cancer in Europe. While he was away a civil war erupted, and the rebellion threatens to split up one of Africa's largest nations.

Beth Fertig of member station WNYC reports that New York Governor George Pataki proposes testing every welfare applicant for drug use, and cutting off cash benefits for those testing positive. They'd be sent to treatment programs "when available," and experts predict chaos because of the number of addicts on welfare far exceeds the number of treatment centers.

NPR's Mary Kay Magistad reports that China is proceeding full speed ahead with construction of a gigantic dam at the site in the central part of the country. Chinese officials said the Three Gorges dam will help alleviate periodic flooding that rountinely kills thousands of people in China, but many environmentalists dispute that. They say the dam will disrupt the lives of thousands of people and do severe damage to the environment.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports from New Orleans, the site of this weekend's freighter accident. Investigators are saying "it's a Christmas miracle" that apparently no one was killed when the giant freighter crashed into a shopping complex on a downtown wharf. NTSB investigators start hearings tomorrow to interview ship officials so that the safety board can try to recreate the accident.

Researchers in Britain are claiming new evidence for the possibility of life on Mars. By looking at a meteorite from Mars that landed in Antarctica--different from the one NASA scientists concluded contained signs of life this past summer--the British scientists say they see a chemical signature that could have been produced by living organisms. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Reporter Joanna Robertson talks to Robert about the volatile situation in Albania, following a weekend of violent demonstrations that the ruling party blames on the rival Socialists. The government today deployed troops in the capital and in other parts of the country to restore order. The violence began when Albanian investors suffered serious losses in the collapse of two national pyramid investment schemes. Opposition parties are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Aleksandr Meksi (MEHK-see).