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NPR's David Kestenbaum reports on a new set of rules from the EPA that would reduce the amount of arsenic in drinking water tenfold below current limits. Arsenic usually comes from natural sources and doesn't occur in all parts of the country. But the new rules will require upgrades in water systems in thousands of small towns and rural areas.

Mark Moran of member station KJZZ reports on efforts by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to crackdown on illegal immigrants in the southwestern United States. The smuggling of undocumented immigrants has become a multi-billion industry in the US and the INS hopes to curb the practice through a new initiative called operation denial.

Noah talks with Sam Norris a biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and a former president of the West Virginia Mycological Association. He says it's been an unusually good year for mushrooms due almost daily warm rains in the highlands of West Virginia. They've collected large amounts and rare varieties including one mushroom which changes to the color blue when picked.

NPR's David Baron reports that new preliminary data from measurements of the Earth's temperature in 1995 supports theories that global warming is occurring. According to surface temperature measurements, last year was the warmest on record. Experts caution, however, that it remains unclear how much of the increase may be due to natural variation.

earthquake. 6000 people died in the quake; it was one of the worst natural disasters to strike Japan in this century.

Bob Dole has placed on the issue of illegal immigration, while campaigning in California. Advocates for immigrants say it's possible Dole's strategy could backfire motivating naturalized citizens to vote Democratic.

NPR's Adam Hochberg reports on a controversial National Park Service project to remove wild ponies from the outer banks of North Carolina. The Park Service says the ponies are destroying the island's natural vegetation; animal rights activists are worried about the ponies' precarious futures.

Host Liane Hansen talks with Jack Hermansen, whose company, Language Analysis Systems, has created a tool that helps law-enforcement officials and corporations track difficult-to-spell foreign names. The Name Reference Library was used by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents to reconstruct the movements of the 9/11 hijackers in Florida.

NPR's Ketzel Levine explores the natural beauty of wildflowers in Arizona. Last fall the area got about 4 inches of rain, which made for an early-blooming, and record-setting wildflower season this year. (6:10-6:35) For more, check out Talking Plants.

In a bare-bones cabin on Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau wrote a bible for people who want to live in harmony with nature. On Morning Edition, Jill Kaufman explores the origins of Thoreau's Walden as part of NPR's Present at the Creation series on American icons.