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NPR's Phillip Martin reports on this week's NAACP National convention in Baltimore. After years of sagging influence, the organization is now returning as a political player. Presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush addressed the convention, as did President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Throughout the meetings, members worked to set the organization's future agenda, which includes a moratorium on the death penalty and establishing coalitions with other civil rights groups.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports that at the heart of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is insistence on ruling the tiny, one-mile-square old city of Jerusalem, a site sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. Since its conquest of the city in the 1967 war, Israel has ruled the old city insisting that it must remain the undivided capital of the state of Israel. Palestinians are demanding sovereignty over, at least, the areas of old Jerusalem where Arabs are a majority.

Tim Crowley of North Carolina Public Radio reports North Carolina like several other states is rethinking the effectiveness of private prisons. The state department of corrections recently cancelled a contract with the private Corrections Corporation of America allowing the company to run two medium security prisons. State officials say they were concerned with the quality of staff CCA provided. The company blames its staffing problems on the rural setting of the prisons and says it didn't mismanage the state's prisons.

Jon Miller reports from Lima that the government of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has engaged in talks with the political opposition on democratic reforms. The two sides are considering ways to restructure institutions throughout the government, from the military and intelligence services to the judiciary. Fujimori agreed to the talks under intense international criticism of the country's last election, which returned him to office for a third term. His immediate obstacle is convincing opponents that with his record, he can become a champion of democracy.

NPR's Martin Kaste reports from Cartagena, Colombia on the international convention of Narcotics Anonymous, a 12-Step Program for recovering drug addicts. About 15-hundred members of NA, mostly from the Americas, gathered in the Caribbean port city to celebrate their ongoing recovery from drug addiction. Ironically, the host country, Colombia, is the world's largest supplier of cocaine, and the second largest supplier of heroin and marijuana.

Former White House adviser David Gergen. He worked with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Gergen left politics and become a regular analyst on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Nightline. He is also Editor-at-large at US News & World Report. His new book is Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership (Simon & Schuster).

NPR's Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports from George, South Africa. This morning, the two-day-old trial of former President P.W. Botha was suspended until June. Botha is charged with refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Prosecutors at the trial also have been submitting evidence about alleged state-sanctioned human rights offenses committed during Botha's term as president.

Federal prosecutors file a complaint alleging that John Allen Muhammad killed six people in Maryland and one person in Washington, D.C. The 20-count document could pave the way for a federal death sentence. NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports.

U.S. prosecutors file a complaint alleging that John Allen Muhammad killed six people in Maryland and one person in Washington, D.C. The 20-count document could pave the way for a federal death sentence. NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports.

During the 36 years that Gen. Francisco Franco ruled Spain, tens of thousands of his political opponents went missing and are now believed to have been executed. Their descendants are still searching for the bodies in mass graves. Claire Marshall reports.