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NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg reports that the Bush administration is trying to decide whether to fight Democrats over the use of the American Bar Association to screen judicial nominees. The administration would like to eliminate this step in the nomination process, though it's been done since the days of President Eisenhower.

After a five-day struggle to save it, a 40-story-high oil rig sank today off the coast of Brazil with 400,000 gallons of crude oil and diesel fuel on board. Last Thursday, 10 people died when gas explosions damaged the rig. Now officials are trying to prevent an environmental disaster. Noah Adams talks with reporter Tom Gibb.

NASA and its Russian counterpart have been quietly sparring over an American businessman named Dennis Tito. Tito is paying the Russians a reported $20 million for a ride into space. Russia plans to take him to the international space station. NASA doesn't like that idea. NPR's Larry Abramson reports on the first official response by NASA to Russian determination to send Tito to the station.

Congress recently repealed a set of rules governing repetitive motion in the workplace -- rules put in place during the final days of the Clinton administration. Congress did that by invoking a 1996 law that allows the review of federal regulations within the first months after they are imposed by the executive branch. Now some members of Congress want to use the same power to review some of President Bush's rules changes, specifically as they apply to abortion. NPR's David Welna reports.

Commentator and high school junior Thessaly La Force says it's still pretty easy for a teenager to keep her life a secret from her parents. In addition to feeling she has too much independence, she thinks kids only tell other kids their closest secrets because it's too big a risk to tell an adult.

Alan Cheuse reviews Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham. It's the story of runaway black youths in the great American West of the 1870s. The book is published by Doubleday.

Noah Adams speaks with Kathleen Cambor, author of In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden. Her book is a novel based on the events surrounding the Johnstown flood in 1889. The flood claimed 2,200 lives after a dam burst on Memorial Day weekend. The book traces some of the complex social tensions between the residents of Johnstown and the wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists who'd built country homes nearby and on whose land the defective dam stood. The book is published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from Cumbria in Northern England, the region hardest hit by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Farmers are challenging the government's insistence on slaughtering all animals within two miles of infected sites. With "Keep Out" signs posted throughout the English countryside, the outbreak has caused huge losses in the tourism industry, as well. The government has deployed army troops to help dispose of the animal carcasses that have been piling up.

More than armed insurrections, kidnappings or plane crashes, it's the trip across town that often strikes fear in the hearts of foreign correspondents. This is especially true in Latin America, where creative driving is a way of life. But NPR's reporter in South America, Martin Kaste, says that Brazil has become the surprising exception.

NPR's Vicky O'Hara reports on President Bush's White House meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Today, the president said he will not to try to "force peace," in the Middle East. Mr. Bush also said that America's role should be to facilitate talks and not dictate a timetable. For his part, Prime Minister Sharon said he wants an end to violence before he'll resume talks with the Palestinians.