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Republicans came to power in Congress in 1995 promising to end business as usual in Washington. They managed to implement a number of changes to the culture of the Capitol, including a ban on accepting gifts and compliance with labor laws. But they have not made as much headway on other reform issues. NPR's Brian Naylor reports that this was supposed to be "Reform Week" in the House, but the centerpiece is a campaign finance measure that critics label a phony and a sham and which is by no means certain of gaining approval.

The president of Colombia, Ernesto Semper, has been accused of taking millions of dollars in campaign contributions from drug cartels. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports from Bogota, Columbia, on the reaction in the city to the allegations and their fallout internationally. The U-S has publicized many of the accusations, but many Colombians think the criticism by the U-S is unjust and support their President.

America Online spent much of yesterday offline, with problems that began early in the morning and lasted until late last night. America Online officials explained that the outage was caused by a faulty installation of internal system software. Thousands of small businesses and others were left without access to e-mail and other network services and many learned that that they are more dependent on computer networks than they realized. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

The election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel last May came about in part because of the staunch support of the nation's ultra-orthodox Jewish community. As Eric Weiner reports from Jerusalem, that new political power has created tensions between religious and secular Jews, as the ultra-orthodox seek to make the rest of the nation's Jews conform to their own conservative religious beliefs and social behavior.

Despite today's new Department of Justice statistics on decreasing violent juvenile crime, the trend at the state level is towards harsher treatment for youthful offenders. Many state legislatures are eliminating traditional protections such as confidentiality and the erasure of criminal records when juvenile offenders become adults. A proposed new bill in Congress would adopt some of these changes in federal court. NPR's Chitra Ragavan reports.

The Senate is expected to pass a welfare reform bill today. In earlier votes today, the Senate approved amendments that would make the legislation more acceptable to President Clinton, who has already vetoed two other welfare reform bills this session. The Senators voted not to make the food stamp program a state block grant, and not to let states restrict Medicaid benefits for poor families. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

In Washington tomorrow, The Federal Communications Commission will release detailed regulations governing how the local telephone markets will be opened to competition. The FCC faces a complicated task in trying to balance the interests of several industries, while at the same time protecting consumers from price hikes. Consumer groups are worried that local phone service may become far more expensive in some areas. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports.

NPR's Michael Goldfarb reports from London that with two weeks before the General Election, Prime Minister John Major is facing a rebellion within his own Conservative Party. His party is divided about adopting the proposed single European currency. Instead of campaigning for votes for his party, Major has been forced to campaign within his party for support of his European policy.

NPR's Wendy Schmelzer reports on new findings from a study on hormone replacement therapy in women who have already gone through menopause. Researchers have developed a mathematical formula that balances the risks and benefits of estrogen therapy -- and they discovered that estrogen adds six months to an average woman's lifespan. But other scientists say the study is flawed and that the last word isn't in on the value of estrogen therapy.

Kim Childs of member station WBGO in Newark reports that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the worst year of the Irish famine that took more than one million lives and sparked unprecedented emigration from Ireland. Now some descendents of those who fled say there is an information gap about the policies that caused their ancestors to go hungry, and they want scholars to focus more attention on the root causes of the famine.