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in downtown Philadelphia. The building was destroyed by fire six years ago, but it's still standing as a monument to litigation and inaction...right across the street from city hall. Structural engineers argue over what could or should be done, they say implosion would be too disruptive and expensive. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed, the current case is between the building's owners and their insurance company.

Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick (guh-RELL-ick) said today that "a serious set of problems" has been found in the FBI crime laboratory, but she said it was too soon to say whether remedial steps would prevent harm to a limited number of prosecutions. NPR has obtained copies of summaries of interviews conducted by the Justice Department involving the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. One of the problems reported was that the crime scene may have been compromised when the memorial service for victims of that bombing was allowed to take place on the site before all the evidence had been gathered. NPR's Chitra Ragavan reports.

endorsed needle exchange programs for drug addicts, who are likely to spread AIDS. The officials stopped short of lifting the ban on federal funds for the program. While supplying addicts with free, clean syringes can slow the spread of the virus, the idea has been controversial since it was proposed early in the epidemic. More than 50 cities currently run a needle exchange program, but they're funded through local or private funds.

NPR's Mandalit Delbarco reports that while President Clinton visited southern California this week, local officials were scrambling to figure out how they'll cope with the new welfare reform act the President has said he will sign. The reform would cut legal immigrants off from many key support payments (such as SSI, food stamps and Medicare), and cities like L.A., with a high number of immigrants, will have to look to state and local coffers to pick up the costs that may result.

In the first of two reports, NPR's Ann Cooper profiles two Russian families... how they view their lives and how they intend to vote in next week's Presidential run-off election. One family lives in Moscow and supports Russian President Yeltsin. The other family lives in Ivanovo (ee-VAH-noh-vuh), an industrial city northeast of Moscow, and supports Communist Gennady Zyuganov ((gen-AH-dee zyu-GAH-noff)). Today's report features the family living in Ivanovo (e-VAH-noh-vuh), where industrial reform has been a disaster.

NPR'S Margot Adler reports that the U.S. State Department and New York's Mayor Giulini have announced tough new parking regulations for diplomats. Starting April 1, diplomats will no longer be exempt from parking fines. Those who ignore the law and refuse to pay tickets within one year run the risk of losing their special license plates. The news isn't being received well among envoys. One Russan diplomat says the city was mounting virtual warfare against the diplmatic corp.

Laurie Neff reports from Jerusalem on Israel's decision today to go head with the construction of a large housing project in disputed east Jerusalem. That decision was made despite U.S. misgivings and a Palestinain warning of violence. The Har Homa project will place 6,500 homes for Jews in an area claimed by Palestinians as their future capital. Paelstinians see the move as Israel's attempt to solidify its claim over all of Jerusalem before final status talks on the future of the city can be held. Israel says it simply needs more housing for all the people who want to live in Jerusalem, and has pledged to build 3,000 units of arab housing near Har Homa as well.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports that relief agencies were able to bring food and medicine to the Zairean border town of Goma today, but the aid will not reach the one million Rwandan refugees displaced by warfare there. The supplies will be distributed to the tens of thousands of local residents who stayed in the city after Zairean rebels captured it earlier this month. But Zaire's army, along with exiled Rwandan Hutu militias, is fighting the Zairean rebels just to the west, preventing delivery of the aid to the vast numbers of people driven from their refugee camps by the recent fighting.

Robert talks to two young baseball fans, one in Atlanta and one in New York City, about the World Series, which is currently being led, three games to two, by the New York Yankees. Dominic Daugherty is a student at Evansdale Elementary School in Atlanta. He's still optimistic and advises Braves coach Bobby Cox to make a locker room speech to rouse the sagging team. Roberto Soto, a twelve-year-old Yankees fan from the Bronx, talks about his excitement at seeing the Yankees with the lead in the Series, and what he thinks the team needs to do to wrap up the championship.

In Yugoslavia, the nationwide protests against the Milosevic government continue. Those protests began a month ago in Serbia's second largest city, Nis (NEESH), when Opposition party victories in local elections were disallowed. Now a local court has re-instated the Opposition victory there. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli was in Nis recently and reports that information about the election, the vote fraud by the ruling Socialist party and the court's re-instatement have been carried by a private radio station and private television... a job neither had ever expected to perform.