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In one Illinois county, a dedicated staff of four people has managed to clear the welfare rolls. They didn't set out to do it, but they've moved all their former welfare recipients to jobs or some other type of support. Urban counties are wondering if they could repeat the feat, as Chicago Public Radio's Jackie Northam reports.

Immigration officials have cleared the way for nine Cubans to seek residency in the U.S. The refugees survived a plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week. NPR's Philip Davis reports this has angered Cuban officials, who say the refugees stole the state owned plane, and they should be returned to Cuba.

Robert Siegel speaks with Dr. Darrell Burnett, a sports psychologist who specializes in counseling young athletes. He believes involvement in sports for young people is good for them, though intense specialty at an early age may not be the best thing for a youngster below the age of 13 or 14. Kids that young may burn out and lose interest. Dr. Burnett also says kids must pursue their sport based on their own interest, not that of their parents. Dr. Burnett is author of Youth, Sports, & Self Esteem: A Guide for Parents. (9:00) Burnett's WebPage is: http://www.djburnett.com

Commentator and novelist Reynolds Price says writing can indeed by taught -- at least to serious college students, who can learn serviceable prose. He adds that some skill at creative writing can be acquired, but superior creative work is the far rarer result of inborn "neural tilt," and early environment.

BBC's Adam Brimelow reports that today a British court will rule on whether doctors can separate six-week old Siamese twins in an operation in which one will die.

Watching the Olympic games in Sydney, Commentator James Finn Garner yearns for the days when the U.S. had a rival to reckon with.

Track and field gets underway at the Olympics Friday, with American sprinters Marion Jones and Maurice Greene competing in qualifying rounds. But the big track news was made OFF the track. As NPR's Howard Berkes reports, the mysterious French runner Marie-Jose Perec left Sydney a day before her first heat, claiming an intruder forced his way into her hotel room and threatened her. Perec, the defending Olympic champion in the 200 and 400 meters, avoided all public appearances in the weeks before the Games, communicating only through her Website.

NPR's Tom Goldman visited several families with children involved heavily in elite youth sports. The kids' schedules are demanding -- often taking them out of state for tournaments. And the costs involved, including fees, private coaching and equipment, can take a toll on the family budget. But these parents told Goldman that immersing themselves in the sport along with their children is rewarding.

With the presidential election up for grabs in many big states, the candidates and their supporters are flooding the airwaves with political commercials designed to rev up their supporters and convert the undecided. The ad war is particularly fierce in several Midwestern states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri. NPR's Steve Inskeep spent much of this week watching television in suburban St. Louis to get a flavor of what voters there are seeing each day.

NPR's Joanne Silberner watched the struggles of Tyler Handerson and his family as they waited for the restart of an experimental medical study. Tyler has a cancer that affects nerve cells and the brain. The study aims to use a new kind of "gene therapy" to cure the cancer. But the trial was one of many put on hold last year after the death of a Pennsylvania teenager.