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Laura McCallum of Minnesota Public Radio reports on flack Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is getting over his latest part-time job. Ventura will be a commentator on the new XFL football league, which will take him out of the state for 10 weekends during the up-coming legislative session. Some lawmakers say Ventura's moonlighting is taking time away from his elected duties. But Ventura says it's his business, and many Minnesotans agree. (

Less than a day after Florida's presidential vote was certified, Vice President Al Gore challenged the results in three counties. Gore and other Democrats said they believed there were enough uncounted votes in these counties to change the outcome of the election. But Texas Governor George W. Bush pressed ahead with transition activities, confident the courts would uphold his narrow victory in Florida and thus his expected majority in the Electoral College. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

NPR's Peter Kenyon reports on conversations going on in the Senate about how they expect to accomplish anything in the 107th Congress. With one race still undecided, the new Senate now stands at 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats. If Democrat Maria Cantwell ultimately unseats Republican Senator Slade Gorton in Washington State, it will be 50-50 -- with control resting on who wins the White House. Democrats are already floating the idea of a power-sharing agreement.

Oregon is the only state in the nation where physician assisted suicide -- is legal for terminally ill patients. The law remains highly controversial. But, in fact, very few dying patients have asked their doctors for help in ending their lives early. And, as NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that nationwide -- a majority of dying patients support physician assisted suicide, but few would take advantage of it.

NPR's Tom Gjelten reports on claims that U.S. military deployments overseas for peace keeping duties prevents the U.S. military from meeting its larger defense commitments. The facts are somewhat mixed. Military chiefs maintain that where U.S. forces are stationed for peacekeeping, such as in Bosnia, morale is high with a sense of duty and re-enlistment's are higher than normal. But the picture for officers with families on long-term overseas assignments is not as positive.

Another boy band? Hardly. 2gether is sort of a Spinal Tap for the turn of the century. The group was "created" as a parody of such boy bands as N'Sync. A mockumentary called, 2gether, aired on MTV earlier this year and a strange thing happened. The parody band generated 300 fan Websites; the soundtrack hit the charts; and Britney Spears asked the parodists to open for her last tour. It gets weirder. The musicians have started to take themselves seriously. Alix Spiegel reports.

NPR's Richard Knox reports on the continuing controversy over study of a possible AIDS vaccine. Over the objections of the company that makes the vaccine, researchers published the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week. It shows that the vaccine has limited potential. The company charged that the study omitted data showing positive effects. It is suing one of the authors of the study for $7 million. The researchers say it was the company that was trying to suppress the negative data. Now NPR News has learned that the company also fought to withhold information about the vaccine from the National Institutes of Health.

NPR's Snigdha Prakash reports that Viacom is buying BET Holdings, the owner of the nation's only cable-TV network specifically aimed at African-Americans. Viacom will pay 2.5 billion dollars in stock and take on about 500-million-dollars in debt. The deal announced today allows Viacom to add another choice property to its lineup, which includes the CBS and UPN broadcast networks and the MTV and VH1 cable-TV channels

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports that thousands of California's convicted sex offenders have failed to register their addresses with local police, despite a requirement that they do so every year. An analysis by the Associated Press shows that close to half of rapists and child molesters have failed to register since the state set up a database in compliance with a 1996 federal law. National victims' rights groups said they believe the problem is not limited to California.

While many U.S. officials react cautiously to North Korea's announcement that it will abandon a global nuclear weapons treaty, Secretary of State Colin Powell says the North "thumbed its nose" at the international community. And President Bush talks to China's leader in an effort to calm the growing confrontation. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.