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Noah talks with Phil Whitten, the Editor of Swimming World Magazine, who is covering the Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis. He joins by phone, poolside, to talk about new swimsuits, which are intended to make swimmers faster. The Olympic Committee had approved them, but several countries have objected, so they will re-evaluate that decision.

NPR's Ted Clark reports thaT Venezuela's nationalistic President Hugo Chavez is set to be the first elected head of state to visit Iraq's Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War. U-S officials are clearly displeased and have sought to pressure him not to visit Baghdad. Chavez, who was just re-elected under a new constitution he helped draw up, is touring OPEC countries to urge a summit and appears to be enjoying showing his independence from US policy.

In the final installment of a three-part series on the Sicilian Mafia, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Palermo that many Sicilian women are playing a more assertive role in their society. Long relegated to the shadows of a society steeped in religion, superstition and machismo, Sicilian women have now joined the battle against the Mafia.

Commentator and musician John Paul talks about playing Trio Sonatas by J.S. Bach on A Lautenwercke (LOW-ten-work) -- a harpsichord with gut strings that give it the sound of a lute. (3:45) {STATIONS NOTE:} John Paul plays Lautenwercke with Shawn Leopard on a CD entitled "Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Trio Sonatas," from Lyrichord Discs Inc. Catalog number LEMS-8045. Copyright 2000.

The governor of Montana is expected to announce today the closure of vast areas of public land in the southwestern corner of the state. Nearly a million acres are blackened across the West as firefighters try to keep up with the worst wildfire season in fifty years. Kathy Witkowsky reports from Missoula, Montana.

Noah talks to Stacy Jessop, a teacher at Corvallis Middle School in CorvalLis, Montana, about being evacuated from her home to avoid an oncoming wildfire. She's now staying at a Red Cross shelter at Westview Middle School in the town of Hamilton, Montana. She says she could hear the fire roaring nearby as she fled her house with her family. She also describes an effort to retrieve her wedding ring and her family's pets.

Wireless phone and data service providers are in need of more "airwave real estate." As the number of customers for their products increases, wireless companies are ready to pay big money for use of the public airwaves. NPR's Larry Abramson reports the government is preparing to auction more frequencies. But there's a catch -- they're being used.

It now appears there will be two Reform Party conventions getting underway tomorrow in Long Beach, California. The party had planned to nominate its presidential candidate this week, but a preliminary meeting on delegate selection deteriorated, leaving a deep division among party activists. Noah talks to NPR's Andy Bowers.

NPR's Phillip Davis reports on Internet companies aimed at Latin America that are setting up shop, not in their native countries, but increasingly in Miami. They're doing so mainly because it's easier to get to Latin America from Miami than anywhere else. But Davis also says doing business from Miami helps alleviate traditional rivalries among Latin American countries.

NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr says that the presidential campaign would restrain a more candid Defense Department from calling a halt to the development of a national missile defense system.