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In a series of reports for Morning Edition, NPR Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford profiles five people from across China who symbolize the massive changes the country is undergoing as it makes its transition away from communism. The latest segment features Wu Dongmei, a young woman who, in search of a better life, migrated 1,000 miles from her village to work at a clothing factory.

Jude Johnstone has written songs for some of the biggest stars in the music business, including Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Nicks, Trisha Yearwood and Johnny Cash. Now the songwriter has stepped up to the microphone to perform her own songs on a debut CD. Renie Montagne profiles Johnstone and her music on Morning Edition. (8:50) Jude Johnstone's album, Coming of Age, is on the independent BoJak Records label.

On July 29, 1967, 134 U.S. sailors were killed aboard the USS Forrestal in Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin. They fought a fire that threatened to destroy the ship and the 6,000 men aboard. On Weekend Edition Saturday, Scott Simon talks to the author of a new book about the fire.

Security-minded lawmakers are turning their attention to the U.S. chemical industry, because chemicals from a sabotaged plant could threaten lives of millions of people in cities across the nation. NPR's Jack Speer travels to Freeport, Texas, where Dow Chemical operates one of the nation's biggest chemical plants.

For Kentucky students wanting to participate in sports, their sex would be determined by the sex printed on their birth certificate and an affidavit from a doctor ascertaining that information.

Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of-work architect, invented a game that players say perfectly balances skill and luck, risk and reward. As part of Morning Edition's Present at the Creation series, sportswriter and Scrabble expert Stefan Fatsis explores the unlikely origins of an American game.

This week the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival features Steve Straight, whose new book of poems, The Water Carrier, was just released by Curbstone Press. He's an English professor and director of the poetry program at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Conn. He reads his poem, "Lesson" for Weekend Edition Saturday. We also pays homage to independent producer Phyllis Joffe, who filed nearly 175 stories for NPR over 20 years, including producing the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. Joffe died last weekend.

Ten years after the Earth Summit in Rio, delegates gather for another United Nations global conference. With Rio's failed global treaties as a backdrop, organizers are looking for small successes. And this time around, the emphasis is not on the planet, but on global poverty. NPR's Richard Harris reports for All Things Considered.

Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro meld their voices in beautiful harmony, but the songwriters-turned-performers couldn't stand each other when they first met. They did learn to work together -- if not to always get along. Lowen & Navarro chat with Morning Edition's Bob Edwards about their career and perform some of their songs.

Until about 70 years ago, musical instruments remained pretty much the same as they were for centuries. Then a new invention changed modern music and popular culture as well -- the electric guitar. For the continuing series Present at the Creation, NPR's Christopher Joyce traces the origins of an instrument that changed popular music forever.