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. After a prolific start the Republican controlled- Congress stagnated a bit in this election year. But following Bob Dole's resignation from his position as Senate Majority Leader, Congress finished with several bi-partisan compromises, passing some sweeping new laws.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez asks: when is a child's kiss an innocent show of affection..and when is it sexual harassment? Judging from two incidents this week, some public school officials are having a hard time telling the difference. One involved a six-year-old, the other a seven-year-old...both were suspended for kissing a classmate. The kisses illustrate the difficulty schools have with defining -- and dealing with -- the topic of harassment.

Noah talks with Michael Donner, who has compiled oodles of palindromes into a new book: I Love Me, Vol. I -- S. Woodrow's Palindrome Encyclopedia. Probably the most famous palindrome, which is a word phrase which reads the same forwards or backwards, is "Able I was ere I saw Elba."

NPR's Ted Clark reports that the Clinton Administration is sending Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the Mideast this weekend to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the eve of new peace negotiations at Erez on the Gaza border. Christopher's Mideast visit, only days after the two-day Israeli-Palestinian summit at the White House, underscores the importance the US is placing on reviving the Middle East peace process.

NPR'S Eric Westervelt reports on today's court hearing during which a judge ordered Major League umpires back to work. The umpires had threatened a protest strike over the delayed punishment meted out to Orioles player Roberto Alomar, who spit in the face of an umpire when he got into a heated argument over a call.

who last week was convicted in a terrorist conspiracy to blow up US airliners. Authorities also believe that Yousef was the man responsible for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. He's set to stand trial for that bombing sometime next year.

where computer industry executives are up in arms over a proposition that would allow shareholders to sue companies if their share price fluctuates wildly. Voters will have the chance to vote on the proposition in November.

On election day, voters in many states will be asked to check several boxes on their ballots for state judges. Most people won't know much if anything about the candidates. And that's a problem, as NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports. Critics of the practice of electing judges say justice and politics are a dangerous mix. But the candidates say raising money and pleasing voters doesn't affect their objectivity.

Robert talks to poet and translator Stephen Mitchell, who has just issued a new translation of the book of Genesis. Mitchell is fascinated by the mystery and strangeness of many of the stories in the book... the talking serpent in the Garden of Eden, the fact that Jacob wrestles and defeats God... and thinks that other translators and scholars often gloss over them. Mitchell has not divided his book into its traditional chapters, but has instead identified each story as being the work of a specific writer.

Weekend Edition entertainment critic Elvis Mitchell tells Susan about the new movie "Sleepers."