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NPR's Eric Westervelt has an update on the war in Afghanistan. An explosion outside a United Nations guesthouse in Kabul yesterday punctuated the U.S. military's sober assessment of the war that came just hours earlier. Instability still seems to plague Afghan cities. The war is now characterized by skirmishes, while coalition forces hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives along the Pakistani border.

Puzzle master Will Shortz quizzes one of our listeners, and has a challenge for everyone at home. (This week's winner is David Yoskowitz from Lexington, Massachusetts. He listens to Weekend Edition on member station WBUR in Boston.)

Host Brian Naylor talks with Timothy Docking of the Institute of Peace about the Bush Administration's Africa policy. The president has said he will not attend the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development that kicks off in Johannesburg tomorrow. But Secretary of State Colin Powell is to attend. He is expected to announce $4 billion in development aid for Africa.

The confusion of the 2000 presidential election led to calls for more reliable ways to vote -- but federal election reform remains stalled. With the 2002 elections only weeks away, Maryland isn't waiting for the feds to take the lead. NPR's Pam Fessler reports on the state's new high-tech voting machines -- see the machines in use, and view an online simulation.

Some 30 years ago, a public health investigator overheard a story about a doctor being reprimanded for treating an elderly black man with syphilis. The investigator had stumbled upon one of the most notorious medical experiments in U.S. history: 399 black men with syphilis went untreated so scientists could study how the disease ravages the body. NPR's Alex Chadwick reports for Morning Edition.

Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton reviews three CDs highlighting jazz groups working the so-called "jam-band" circuit, attracting young rock fans to a new breed of jazz: Medeski Martin and Wood's Uninvisible (Blue Note), Stanton Moore's Flyin' the Koop (Verve) and John Scofield's Uberjam (Verve).

Sitting under glass in Yale University's Beinecke Library is a map faded to the point of near invisibility. It is the oldest known map depicting North America -- unless it is a fake. Scientists and historians have argued over the authenticity of the famous Vinland Map for a third of a century. Now two scientific papers are re-opening old wounds. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports for Morning Edition.

Laura Rothenberg is 21 years old and she's already had her mid-life crisis. Laura has cystic fibrosis, a lung and digestive disease, and she's not expected to live far past age 30. Still, she fights for every year she can get. Monday on All Things Considered, hear "My So-Called Lungs" -- Laura Rothenberg's audio diary.(22:00) Laura's audio diary features instrumental bits of three pieces of music: Green Day's "Time of Your Life," Tom Waits' "Long Way Home" and Iron and Wine's "Faded Winter."

For millions of Americans with special needs -- the disabled, the mentally ill, ex-offenders, youth leaving foster care -- a home is a vital first step toward a stable life. NPR News explores the subject in a yearlong special reporting project, Housing First. In Tuesday's report, NPR's Ina Jaffe profiles a California program that finds homes for youth who are "aging out" of foster care.

After two major studies link hormone replacement therapy to serious health risks like heart disease and breast cancer, millions of menopausal women -- and their doctors -- are reconsidering their options. Millions of those women are now reconsidering their use of hormone replacement pills. And doctors around the country are trying to figure out what to tell them. NPR's Joe Palca reports for Morning Edition.