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President Clinton, battered by allegations of improper political fund-raising, proposed major reform of campaign finance laws including banning the receipt of campaign money from non-citizens. The President said, "There are many immigrants who play an important role in our country but the essence of our democracy is that the citizens decide. Only citizens can vote. And only citizens' should be able to contribute." NPR's Mara Liasson reports from Santa Barbara, California.

A consumer interest group is saying a needle exchange experiment being planned in Alaska should be stopped. The experiment is designed to show whether offering clean needles to drug addicts will reduce the transmission of AIDS and other diseases...so some addicts will get the clean needles, and others won't. But critics charge that needle exchange programs have already been shown to work, and therefore *not* offering clean needles to some people in the study is unethical. NPR's Vicky Que reports.

NPR's David Welna reports on the new guerrilla uprising in Mexico, led by a group called the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR. The rebels' well-coordinated attacks against military targets have made the government nervous. President Ernesto Zedillo dismisses the EPR as terrorists with little public support, but the guerrillas' ability to operate in various parts of the country suggests they do have some popular backing. The rebels seem to be flourishing in Mexico's poorest regions.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports on the growing humanitarian crisis in eastern Zaire caused by increased fighting between the Zairean army and Zairean Tutsi rebels. In the area around Bukavu (boo-KAH-voo), food is running out for hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the violence. International pleas to end the fighting have gone unheeded, and there are growing fears that the clashes could lead to a wider regional war, involving the government armies and rebel forces of neighboring Rwanda and Burundi.

Heavy rains in the Pacific Northwest have finally tapered off, but several counties in Oregon are still covered by emergency declarations. At least seven deaths are being blamed on the storm which has brought torrential rains to Oregon and heavy snow to Washington State...and tens of thousands of people in the region are without power. Colin (KAH-lin) Fogarty of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on the damage, and efforts to restore power and clean up.

NPR's Eric Weiner reports that the Taleban militia, which now controls about two-thirds of Afghanistan, today criticized the decision by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to suspend relief operations in Kabul. U-N-H-C-R said several members of its local staff have been arrested and Afghan women employees have been told to stay at home since the Taleban captured Kabul nearly two months ago.

Robert talks with Steve Boggan, a reporter for the Independent newspaper in London. They discuss the evidence uncovered by the British media that indicates at least one British company has violated the United Nations' arms export ban on sending arms to Rwanda. Documents found at the now-deserted Mugunga refugee camp in eastern Zaire indicated that the Mil-Tec Corportation supplied arms, via Albania and Israel, to the Rwandan Defence Ministry while the nation was under Hutu control.

Researchers have detected a virus believed to cause Kaposi's sarcoma in the saliva of gay men. Kaposi's sarcoma is a form of cancer that usually only occurs in people with weakened immune systems, such as people with AIDS. Recently, researchers have found evidence that the cancer is caused by a type of herpes virus. In the new research, scientists detected the virus in the saliva of six of seven HIV-positive gay men with a current or previous history of Kaposi's sarcoma. NPR's Joe Neel reports.

Founded five years ago, "The Company of Women," an all-female theatre company, devotes itself to the work of a dead white male...Shakespeare. It was founded by a noted voice coach and a noted psychologist who intend for it to do more than just perform Shakespeare. They want to use theatre - and the workshops they stage wherever they perform - to encourage women to speak up and make their voices heard. Charlene Scott, of member station WFCR in Amherst, reports.

Carolyn Jack reports from Toronto on the growing demands for the resignation of Canada's top military officer. General Jean Boyle has come under fire in the course of an official inquiry into the killings of Somali civilians by Canadian peacekeepers. The inquiry has uncovered allegations of a coverup of the military's handling of the 1993 torture and murder of a Somali teenager. The calls for Boyle's removal escalated when he defended himself by questioning his staff's integrity and moral fiber.