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NPR's Allison Richards reports that medical ethicists are awaiting the outcome of a case in Britain in which judges will rule whether doctors may surgically separate Siamese twins in hopes of saving one of them. Doctors have said both babies will die in three-to-six months unless they are separated, but the operation means certain death for one of the infants. The case is important ethically because it involves the power of doctors and courts to sacrifice one life to save another.

As many as 25,000 people from around the world have joined in the fight to put out the wildfires in the western United States. Even with the abundance of manpower, the problem remains — there is a lack of skilled workers on the front line. Kathy Witkowsky reports from Montana's Bitteroot Valley on the what kind of skill and training are needed to fight the fires raging in the West.

NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that environmentalists in Russia are going to court over Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's restructuring of the country's environmental protection system. Activists fear that the new system is really a cover for a plan to open up long protected nature reserves to commercial usage, to bring in badly needed cash to the central overnment. Kelemen visited a reserve in southern Siberia where rangers are worried about their future and the protection of the reserve.

Commentator Bob Mondello looks ahead to the Fall movie season -- a season that he says is full of remakes, sequels and revivals. Among the few original films: a vampire movie for little kids (Little Vampires); a comedy in which Richard Gere plays a flattering gynecologist (Dr. T. and the Women); and a drama in which Cuba Gooding Junior stars as the Navy's first black deep-sea diver (Men of Honor).

NPR's Steve Inskeep compares the differing approaches of Presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush toward reforming the Social Security system. Bush favors a plan that would allow people to invest part of their Social Security retirement taxes in private stock market accounts. Gore opposes radical changes to the current system. He supports keeping all Social Security taxes in the federal system and giving people the option of opening supplemental retirement accounts.

The way that American elections are financed was a major topic in the presidential primaries, when some candidates saw the subject as a way to cut the frontrunners down to size. But then the frontrunners got nominated, and talk about campaign finances took on a different role in the debate. Now, with Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore the party standard-bearers, the subject is mostly used as a metaphor for issues of character. For NPR News, Peter Overby reports.

Mark Scott reports teachers in Buffalo, New York are walking the picket lines today. After two years without a contract, the teachers voted to strike despite a New York State law that forbids them to do so.

Former White House adviser David Gergen. He worked with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Gergen left politics and become a regular analyst on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Nightline. He is also Editor-at-large at US News & World Report. His new book is Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership (Simon & Schuster).

The House failed today to override President Clinton's veto of a bill which would repeal inheritance taxes. The vote was 14 short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. But the Republicans are hoping to use the vote as a wedge issue to run on in the fall. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

The new rule is intended to decrease the use of greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons by 85% over the next 15 years. The gases that are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide.