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NPR's Peter Kenyon reports on a new allegation against Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft that opponents hope will hurt his chances for confirmation. Paul Offner, a health-care expert at Georgetown University, said that when he was applying for a state job in Missouri, then-Governor Ashcroft asked him about his sexual orientation. Yet during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft insisted that he would not consider sexual orientation in hiring for the Justice Department. James Hormel, Bill Clinton's ambassador to Luxembourg who is openly gay, was part of a news conference today called by Ashcroft opponents.

On Monday, NPR News will begin a series exploring the war on drugs in collaboration with Frontline, the PBS documentary program. Each night next week, on All Things Considered, reporter Deborah Amos will examine in detail an aspect of a sixty billion dollar industry in this country...illegal drugs. One of the people we'll hear from in the series is John Hensley, who tracked the flow of drug money from the U.S. Custom's Service. He dramatizes the sheer volume of that flow. There's more at http://www.npr.org/news/specials/drugwars/.

Linda talks to Tim Poor, National/World Editor at the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, about the election races in Missouri, where George W. Bush made a stop today. Bush has the edge in Missouri, according to a Zogbe poll. Other major races include the Senate race between incumbent Republican John Ashcroft, and the state's Democratic Governor Mel Carnahan, who has died in a plane crash. Carnahan remains on the ballot, though, and his wife has said she will serve in his stead if he wins. And House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt is running for re-election.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Ashton Carter, Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Co-Director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project. Carter was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1993-1996, and senior adviser to the DoD's North Korea Policy Review from 1998-2000. Mr. Carter discusses the history and significance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: which countries signed, which countries didn't, and what it means to be party to the treaty.

The average American got quite a leg up yesterday -- at least according to politicians of both major political parties. When Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) declared his intention to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, he said he'd fight for regular people. And President Bush said he is thinking about all Americans in working on his economic stimulus package. Commentator Jake Tapper says that both politicians are good at seeming like regular guys - but he's not sure that a regular guy is really what voters want.

In Tuesday's debate with Sen. John Edwards, Vice President Dick Cheney answered a charge about his role at Halliburton by referencing a Web site, factcheck.com. The site, an advertising holder for encyclopedia companies, was overwhelmed with visits before forwarding all traffic to George Soros.com -- which bears the headline, "Why we must not re-elect President Bush." The vice president meant FactCheck.org. Hear NPR's Robert Siegel and NPR's Melissa Block.

British director John Boorman joins host Jacki Lyden for a discussion of his latest film, In My Country. Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche co-star in this story set during South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up to address the legacy of apartheid.

On the campaign trail, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are taking aim at U.S. immigration policies -- and at the 7 million Latino voters expected to cast ballots this November. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.

After being introduced by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton outlined what he called basic philosophical differences between the Republican and Democratic parties -- and between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry.

President Bush taps Alberto Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, calling the man who currently serves as White House counsel "a calm and steady voice in times of crisis."

The Pew Research Center releases the results of its final pre-election poll before Tuesday's national election. The survey has President Bush with a three-point edge among likely voters, 48 percent to 45 percent for Sen. John Kerry. The study has a 2.5-percent margin of error. Hear NPR's Jennifer Ludden and Pew Research Center director Andrew Kohut.

Blues singer and guitarist B.B. King celebrated his 80th birthday on Sept. 16, 2005, and also released the new album 80, featuring blues duets with musicians including Elton John and Eric Clapton. This interview originally aired on Oct. 22, 1996.

The Green Bag law review makes it its mission to get the legal profession to loosen up. Along those lines, they created bobblehead dolls in the likenesses of Supreme Court justices William Rehnquist and John Paul Stevens. NPR's Michele Norris talks with editor and bobblehead creator Montgomery Kosma.

His latest film Bubba Ho-Tep is based on the short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale. In it, Elvis Presley is an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his death and then missed the chance to switch back. He teams up with another resident who thinks he is President John F. Kennedy. The two codgers battle an evil Egyptian entity. It stars Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. Coscarelli also wrote and directed the films Phantasm, and The Beastmaster.

The late John Fahey, an eccentric guitarist and music historian, co-founded Revenant Records. Fahey's last project before he died in 2001 was American Primitiven Vol. 2, a collection of early 20th-century American recordings by artists so obscure that folk music archivists had overlooked them.

Authorities want to move the war-crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor from Sierra Leone to The Hague. Chief prosecutor Desmond de Silva gives John Ydstie his insights about where the trial of the accused warlord is headed.

On opening day of Major League Baseball's season, host John Ydstie shares his own childhood memories of the game and finds out why baseball has generated so much more literature than other sports. He interviews Tom Goldstein, editor of Elysian Fields Quarterly, a journal of baseball literature.

As Democrats prepare to formalize John Kerry's presidential nomination in Boston this week, the race between the Massachusetts senator and President Bush continues to be a close one, according to the latest NPR poll. NPR's Mara Liasson reports.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader calls for supporters to attend his rallies -- but to feel free to vote for Sen. John Kerry in November if the Bush-Kerry race is close. Nader, saying his campaign is meant to steer the Democratic Party toward a more progressive agenda, made his comments during a trip through the Midwest, where Kerry and Bush are in close competition for several states. Hear NPR's Robert Siegel.

Black Angus has taken over the cattle world. The breed fetches a premium at cattle auctions and the "Certified Angus Beef" brand has become more prominent than the USDA ratings. NPR's John Ydstie visits the experts to find out why Black Angus became the beef to buy.