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NPR's Emily Harris reports on a four-day meeting in Ottawa to discuss whether genetically engineered food should be labeled as such. Many common foods contain genetically engineered ingredients. Food manufacturers are worried if product labels disclosed that, consumer fear would put an end to the promising field of biotechnology.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports that Vice President Dick Cheney previewed recommendations for Bush administration energy policies that calls for more power plants and oil drilling in Alaska's wild lands. He said conservation and alternative energy sources are not enough to prevent the nation from experiencing the crisis now seen in California.

Host Bob Edwards talks with L.A. Times reporter Anthony Kuhn in Beijing. A team of U.S. military experts will arrive in China later today to examine the downed U.S. Navy spy plane there.

NPR's Jack Speer reports the nation's economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, or GDP, expanded at a 2 percent annual rate, according to the Commerce Department. Most economists expected the economy to grow no faster than 1 percent in the first quarter. Analysts said the economy was helped along by strong consumer spending and a narrower trade gap.

NPR's Kate Seelye reports from Damascus on a group of African-American Muslims sent to Syria to study Arabic and Islam for two years. The hope is, when they return, they will be able to teach others what they've learned and build community life within mainstream Islam in the United States.

Dogs have been guiding the blind for more than 70 years in the United States. The first guide school opened in 1929, and since then has trained more than 12-thousand dogs to assist the visually impaired. But this year, at a farm in North Carolina, another animal is learning the craft. From member station WFAE in Charlotte, Scott Jagow reports.

NPR's Emily Harris reports that child safety advocates testified before a congressional committee yesterday that children between the ages of five and nine need additional seatbelt protection. They recommended that parents be required by law to install booster seats for children who are too big for infant car seats but not big enough to be protected by regular seat belts.

Legislators in North Carolina and throughout the Southeast and Midwest are proposing cuts in higher education to deal with their budget shortfalls. North Carolina has called for a 7 percent reduction in higher education. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports the proposal has met with student protest rallies and prompted administrators to say they will have to cut course selections and lay off faculty.

NPR's Guy Raz reports from Berlin on a controversial exhibit that is drawing huge crowds. The artist -- German anatomy professor Gunther Von Hagens -- mummifies human and animal organs and bodies by immersing them in a polymer solution. He then poses and displays the bodies. Von Hagens says his exhibit is intended to "enlighten" the public, and indeed many visitors see it as educational. The Roman Catholic Church, however, sees it as a perversion.

Maura Ferrelly of Georgia Public Radio reports that residents of Savannah, Georgia are divided over a statue that would commemorate slaves and their contribution to the city. The focus of the controversy is an inscription on the proposed slave memorial by poet Maya Angelou describing the horrors of the "middle passage," the voyage slaves took from Africa to the New World. Opponents say the inscription is divisive, others believe it is an accurate reflection of the voyage.