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NPR's Jackie Northam reports on the Immigration and Naturalization Service proposal to consider domestic abuse a legal basis for seeking asylum in the US. If the rules take effect after the comment period, battered women will be considered members of a "social group" being persecuted. Women trying to leave their home countries, as well as women in the US seeking to stay permanently, will be eligible. Critics of the rule say it could trigger thousands of asylum claims.

NPR's Howard Berkes reports on tough talk from a White House anti-doping task force about the dangerous role doping plays in American athletics. Drug Czar Barry McCaffery wants a cleaner Olympics when Salt Lake City hosts the winter games in two years. But international critics doubt how committed officials are to sacrificing player performance to sobriety.

NPR's Tom Gjelten reports that the electoral predicament in which United States finds itself today, while unprecedented in the U.S., is familiar in many other nations around the world. Other governments have found ways of dealing with this sort of split electoral results, often with U.S. counsel and assistance. There are election lessons that even Americans could learn.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports that state and local governments across the country are now seriously considering a change in the way their citizens vote. In California and other states, there are calls to banish punch cards. Some people suggest using optical scanners, touch screen computers, or ATM type voting technology. The way electors are distributed is also up for debate in Illinois, which currently has a winner-take-all system.

Leda Hartman reports from North Carolina, where the pregnancy rate for young Latina women has remained high, during a drop in the teen pregnancy rate nationwide. While experts have identified possible factors that encourage pregnancy among teenage Latinas, institutions have been slow to address the problems.

Teenage students who are academically gifted but classified as illegal aliens, often fail to go on to college after high school because they lack proper documentation and fear deportation if they seek higher education. Recently, the Board of Regents in Dalton, Georgia ruled that students, who are here illegally, will be allowed to attend the state's colleges if they are academically qualified. Rob Hilton reports.

A stand of trees near Brandenburg, Germany is being cut down today, in an action to eliminate a remaining vestige of the Nazi era. When the trees turn color in the fall, the colors form a swastika that contrasts against surrounding evergreens that can be seen from the air. Noah talks with Adam Tanner, a reporter for Reuters News Service in Munich, Germany, who has been covering the story.

Sad accounts of babies being dumped to die prompted many areas of the country to designate places where parents could safely abandon their newborns and escape prosecution. However, hardly any infants have been turned in this way. NPR's Jerome Vaughn reports from Detroit that supporters of the idea say they just need to back their good intentions with publicity.

Lawyers for George W. Bush were shuttling back and forth between two trials this morning in Tallahassee, Florida. Lawsuits filed from Seminole and Martin counties were attempting to disallow thousands of absentee ballots cast in those counties, most of them for Bush. The suits allege that Republicans seeking absentee ballots got special help in qualifying for them. NPR's Andy Bowers reports from Tallahassee.

High school students went to the polls yesterday. Over 40,000 teenagers across the country cast their ballots for president as a part of Kid V-O-T-E-S -- a mock election designed to get young people excited about the democratic process. For the last three elections, it's also proved to be an accurate predictor of which candidate their parents will chose the next Tuesday. NPR's Allison Freeland reports.