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Bob Dole says if he is elected president, he will "end the IRS as we know it". He wants to transform the agency by firing up to a third of its personnel, privatizing some of its functions, and switching its focus from conducting audits to helping citizens file their taxes. Critics say the U.S. can't afford the loss of income that could result from those changes. NPR's John Nielsen reports.

NPR's Michael Skoler reports from the Zairean capital Kinshasa on the tremendous uncertainty engulfing the city over who's running the country. Last night Zaire's parliament voted to remove Prime Minister Kengo wa Dondo from power, but supporters of Kengo and his patron, President Mobutu Sese Seko, say the vote did not pass by the constitutionally-required margin. Meanwhile, the army asserted its independence from the politicians today, declaring that it will no longer rely on the finance ministry for its funding, but will instead take its money directly from the central bank.

NPR's David Baron has a report looking at what progress has been made in the five years since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Back then, heads of state from around the world assembled to discuss the earth's environmental problems and they agreed to several treaties designed to reverse global warming, reduce acid rain, and improve water quality -- among other goals. Some progress has been made, but environmentalists say much more needs to be done.

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.