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The election of the next U.S. president has largely come down to the question of whether ballots in Florida may be recounted by hand. An official tally yesterday of certified results from across the state showed George W. Bush leading Al Gore by 300 votes. But at least two counties say they may want to revise their tallies after rechecking ballots by hand. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports a car bomb exploded in Jerusalem today just as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were preparing to make simultaneous public announcements about a new agreement aimed at ending the five weeks of clashes in the West Bank and Gaza. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

NPR's David Kestenbaum is following the flight path of what appears to be an asteroid headed in the direction of Earth. Initial reports that it had a one in five-hundred chance of hitting Earth in 2030 appear to be wrong. Now it's a somewhat less frightening one in one thousand chance, in 2071. Nonetheless, it's the first celestial object with anything more than a one in some 10,000 chance of hitting Earth.

Fewer Americans have been flying in the period since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and that has idled much of the U.S. commercial airline fleet. Now, with the Bush administration moving closer to a confrontation with Iraq, the Pentagon may use a special program to enlist some of those unused aircraft as wartime transports. NPR's Jackie Northam reports.

Jacky Rowland reports from Belgrade that riots which began in a Serbian prison on Sunday have spread to two more jails. Hundreds of inmates in Sremska Mitrovica, Pozarevac and Nis have set fires and revolted against their guards. They are demanding better conditions. They also want to be included in an amnesty the new authorities in Belgrade are considering for Kosovar Albanian political prisoners -- regardless of the nature of their crimes.

Katherine Perkins of member sation WOI reports on a controversial Iowa law that prohibits listed sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, making most small towns and communities out of bounds for them. The recent arrest of a man in violation of the law is likely to spark a court challenge.

More than a decade after the fall of communism, Russian consumers are beginning to learn about credit. In the early years of transition to capitalism, the economy mostly was cash only. Now, Russians are making the transition from paper to plastic. NPR's Lawrence Sheets reports.

A small but growing number of businesses think trading goods and services rather than paying in cash cuts costs and increases commerce. Barter has grown into a multi-billion-dollar international industry. Bellamy Pailthorp reports from member station KPLU in Seattle.

Opera is the only traditional performance art form with an audience that is getting younger. And some Gen-X fans have found the musical genre via the peculiar route of punk rock. They're drawn by opera's high drama, high volume and intellectual challenge. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

It's been one year since the first al Qaeda and Taliban detainees were transferred from Afghanistan to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hundreds remain there, subject to intense interrogations. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.