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The Supreme Court has rejected a bid by a Detroit woman for compensation for the car she co-owned with her husband. Authorities had confiscated the vehicle because it had been used for an illegal activity. Her husband had sex with a prostitute in the car. The wife maintained that she was innocent and her property was taken without due process. She asked for 300 dollars in compensation. The couple had bought the car for 600 dollars a month earlier. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports a divided Supreme Court has upheld the state's right to confiscate the car and denied the woman compensation.

Commentator David Kline says that while the media and Wall Street may be going wild over the internet, some 90 percent of Americans are not on-line and do not much reason right now for them to go on-line. He notes that while you can read consumer reports on-line, you can't find someone to fix your washing machine, or sign your kid up for local soccer league, or pay your parking ticket. Until the internet becomes more practical, Kline says, it will still remain useful for just a few.

NPR's Anthony Brooks reports on the latest change to the presidential primary and caucus schedule. New Hampshire, historically the nation's first primary state, announced it was moving its date back one week, to February 1, 2000, because Louisiana had moved theirs back to February 8. Iowa, whose caucuses were scheduled for January 31, may now have to move back to January 24. All in all, another bizarre indication of how the presidential season is starting earlier than ever.

Stephen Brede climbed into a canoe on the Michigan shore of Lake Erie in June. Two months later, he returned to the same spot, from the opposite direction. The Petoskey News-Review reports he has paddled around three of the Great Lakes, and at age 61, he has two lakes to go.

NPR's Guy Raz reports from Berlin that former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl faced another day of testimony before the parliament today about illegal donations to his political party, the Christian Democratic Union. As before, Kohl refused to name the donors who gave the party some one million dollars in undeclared contributions. He says he promised the donors anonymity, and won't break his word. Kohl denies his government traded favors for the money, as well as allegations that his government accepted bribes from a French company to purchase a German oil refinery.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, in the United States for the first time since his last U.N. visit in 1995, has kept a generally low profile. Five years ago, he was wined and dined by the business, media, and foreign policy elite in New York. This year has been different. Castro will be the guest of honor this evening at a church reception, but media and business leaders have shown little interest in seeing him. Tom Gjelten reports that the growing U.S. interest in Cuba does not translate into greater eagerness to deal with Fidel Castro, who is increasingly seen as irrelevant to Cuba's future.

NPR's Joanne Silberner looks at the closure of New York's Central Park, after a report that West Nile virus was isolated from mosquitoes there. Public health officials said they closed the park and initiated spraying for mosquitoes even though the risk of getting the virus was small. People who have immune system disorders or who are elderly may get a brain infection from West Nile virus. Last year, seven elderly New Yorkers died as a result of the infection.

Linda has a series of interviews about tonight's scheduled shutdown of Napster -- the Web-based service that allows users to trade music recordings free of charge. A US District court judge ordered Napster to stop facilitating these trades tonight at midnight, saying the company was aiding copyright infringement. Linda talks to Ric Dube an analyst with Webnoize, which researches and reports on the new media entertainment industry. Then she chats with two university students. First, Jeff Meredith, who will be a senior at Indiana University in the fall, and has 1000 MP3 files on his computer, about 400 of which come from Napster. And finally, Sam Ross, a student at the University of Virginia who has thousands of mp3 files, downloaded courtesy of Napster.

A new magazine arrives on-line today, after a few false starts. Failure magazine is, as its title implies, about failure: battles lost, sports blunders, products that didn't catch on. The fact that someone would even come up with an idea for such a magazine suggests that, in an age when dot-coms come and go like buses, the very notion of failure may not have the stigma it once did when Willie Loman first walked the boards. NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports. (7:30) For more information, visit http://failuremag.com

NPR's Kenneth Walker reports from Pretoria on the intense disappointment and anger that spread across South Africa today when the governing body for international soccer named Germany as the host of the 2006 World Cup. Many had expected South Africa to be selected, and South Africans were prepared for the country's largest celebrations since Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994. South Africa would have been the first African nation to host the Cup. Winning that honor would have also been a huge financial and political boost for the country.