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NPR's Mara Liasson reports from Helsinki, Finland, where the presidents of the United States and Russia have begun their summit meeting. Tonight, the main event was an informal dinner. Tomorrow, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin sit down to talk about NATO. President Clinton's position will be that NATO should expand eastward to include countries in eastern and central Europe. President Yeltsin's position will be that any NATO expansion is a strategic mistake. Both sides are warning that there might not be much progress toward solving the problem.

Several months ago, six thousand hemophiliacs agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit against the makers of a blood-clotting factor that was contaminated with the AIDS virus more than a decade ago. Under terms of the settlement, hemophiliacs or their survivors would receive 100 thousand dollars each. But as Neil Tickner of member station WHYY reports, the deal has been delayed by the government and private insurers claiming that part of the settlement should be used to pay off benefits provided to hemophiliacs over the years.

Barbara Mantel has the second in a series of reports on a student teacher at Emerson Junion High School in Yonkers, New York. Lea Ricci (LAY-uh RITCH-ee) is trying to gain the skills that will allow her start teaching on her own in the next school year. What she's mostly learning is that all the theory and creative projects that seemed so promising to her while she was in college often need to take a back seat to simply teaching the fundamentals.

Sarah Chayes (CHASE) reports from Paris on French President Jacques Chirac's decision to call parliamentary elections 10 months earlier than planned. Chirac's government is faced with imposing austerity measures on the budget in order to join the European single currency. Analysts believe Chirac wants the vote now to keep his conservative coalition in power because there's little chance the conservatives would be elected AFTER the budget-cutting measures take effect.

More than 12,000 Goodyear workers are on strike today after union and management officials failed to reach agreement on wage-and-benefit and job security issues. Goodyear says its labor costs are already too high and vowed to keep factories running, though it didn't say how it planned to do that. The Goodyear workers are represented by the United Steelworkers Union, which absorbed the United Rubber Workers' Union in 1995. Maryanne Zeleznik of Kent State Public Radio reports.

House Republicans reintroduced a bill today to ban certain late-term abortions. The measure's supporters are encouraged by an admission by a prominent abortion-rights advocate that he lied when he said the procedure is performed only rarely. NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports that members who want the ban hope President Clinton will reconsider his opposition. Mr Clinton vetoed the bill last year, saying it failed to make an exception for cases in which the mother's health and childbearing potential are at stake.

NPR's Joe Palca reports that the rate of AIDS deaths dropped dramatically in New York City in the first seven months of last year, according to public health officials there. The drop is being attributed to the dramatic effects of new AIDS drugs introduced at the beginning of 1996. At the same time, the rate of new HIV infections nationwide fell in young gay men and young injection drug users -- but rose precipitously in young heterosexual men and women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NPR's David Welna reports that Ecuador's young democracy has survived the political crisis of the past week, but with its weaknesses more exposed. Ecuadorans are proud that the military did not step in and take power when three different people were claiming the presidency. But the crisis also showed that the military remains the final arbiter of power. It was the country's generals who essentially told the congress how to resolve the showdown. The turmoil also demonstrated that the US embassy retains a tremendous amount of political influence.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped past another milestone today, surpassing 7,000 for the first time. The other major indexes were also up sharply today as optimism about corporate earnings spread though the broader market. It was just four months ago that the Dow passed 6000, making this the fastest 1000 point jump in the Dow's 100-year history. NPR's John Ydstie (IDD-stee) reports.

NPR's Mark Roberts reports on this week's pre-trial hearings for the upcoming trial of Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh and Terry Nichols are charged in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, which killed 168 people. The judge denied a defense request to have key eyewitness testimony excluded from the trial. The judge also heard prosecutors claim that explosive residue on Timothy McVeigh's clothing connect him to the crime.