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NPR's Jack Speer reports on the creative ways companies have responded to high oil prices. Many businesses are managing to lower their energy bills with the help of new technology.

NPR's Mike Shuster reports that Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked world governments to implement changes in U-N peacekeeping operations, as recommended by a report put together by an independent panel. The Secretary General established the panel last March after publication of two reports on the U-N's failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and to protect residents of Srebrenica (sreh-breh-NEET-sah). The report calls for more efforts to prevent conflict and says peacekeepers must be allowed to defend themselves and their mandate. The report also calls for better peacemaking strategies.

Americans -- especially young Americans -- are losing the battle against fat. The percentage of teenagers who are overweight has doubled in the past two decades. Science reporter Frank Browning reports that the reason has to do with a culture that encourages overconsumption.

NPR's Richard Knox reports the National Institutes of Health has announced new guidelines allowing federally funded researchers to perform experiments with cells taken from human embryos. Research with embryonic cells is controversial. Scientists say cells taken from human embryos may be helpful in treating many serious diseases, including Parkinson's and diabetes. But some people have moral objections to the research because it involves destroying a human embryo. The NIH guidelines attempt to strike a balance by insisting that federally funded scientists can only use cells taken from embryos that are left over from fertility treatments -- embryos that would otherwise be thrown away.

The United States has acknowledge what it calls "less than honorable" actions against Native Hawaiians more than a century ago. Yesterday the federal government recommended that indigenous islanders be given the same sovereign status as most American Indians.

Amy Tardif of member station WGCU in Fort Myers reports on changes in Florida's fire inspection laws. Schools are now required to be inspected by fire marshals, but there's not been enough time to get all schools up to code.

Commentator Baxter Black looks at the trouble some companies have had trying to sell themselves to the public.

Steven Dudley reports from Bogota that non-governmental relief agencies are worried that the newly approved American aid package for Colombia relies too heavily on military solutions to the drug problem. The NGO's say that the 1.3 billion-dollar program puts them in danger.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports on the congressional race in 36th district of California, near Los Angeles, between incumbent Steve Kuykendall and former seatholder Jane Harmon. It's one of the battleground seats in this election, and the Democrats are hoping to retake the seat and others like it as they try to retake control of the house.

Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease. For some reason, rates of asthma keep going up every year. Researchers have been looking at the causes for this increase, which has been found to be much higher in the industrialized world. Everything from exposure to dust mites and cockroaches to diet has been implicated. Now, a new study from the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that there might be another cause: too much cleanliness. The more sterile the early environment for infants six months and younger, the more problems with asthma they seem to have later in life. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.