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Host Howard Berkes talks to Historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, about her research into the countries of origin of African-Americans. While preparing her 1992 book, Africans in Colonial America, Hall discovered court documents that indicated where enslaved Africans said they came from. The information was overlooked for more than 200 years, largely because the documents were in French or Spanish. Hall's findings are of particular interest to African Americans who want to trace their ancestry.

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan reviews the new documentary, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Televangelist Tammy Faye Baker is the subject of the film.

From his childhood in Carthage, Tennessee and Washington D.C., Al Gore was raised not just to be a politician but to be a Democratic presidential candidate. Next week in Los Angeles, Al Gore will take the penultimate step toward fulfilling his lifelong goal when he becomes the Democratic Party's nominee for the White House. NPR's Anthony Brooks reports.

NPR's Scott Horsley reports on a commercial database that keeps track of millions of Americans who have bounced checks. More than 85-thousand bank branches subscribe to the database, called Chexsystem, and use it to screen potential customers. But critics say a single bad check can place someone's name on the database, and once listed, it's unlikely they'll be able to open an account for up to five years.

NPR's Eric Weiner reports that Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid handed over the daily running of the government to his deputy Megawati Sukarnoputri. Wahid made the change in an effort to appease top legislature who accuses him of failure to lead the country out of years of economic and social crisis.

Leonard and Phil Chess were two Polish immigrants who started a record company and gave us the sounds of post war urban America - from Muddy Waters' blues, to Chuck Berry's rock & roll, to the jazz sounds of Gene Ammons and Ramsey Lewis. Biographer Nadine Cohodas tells Liane the story of Chess Records. Her book is called Spinning Blues into Gold (St. Martins Press) (17:00).

Host Jacki Lyden speaks with fire fighter Tim Duck about the fires in the West. Duck has been fighting the fires in the Salmon Challis National Forest in Idaho where U.S. Marines have recently joined the battle.

Jacki talks with George Hudler, professor of Plant Pathology at Cornell University, about a giant fungus. The fungus, which looks like a giant mushroom, is spreading across a forest in Eastern Oregon. It is thought to be the largest living organism in the world.

Studies show few U-S students are proficient at basic geography and it doesn't get much better when they grow up: nearly half of Americans don't know the population of the U.S.; three in ten can't use a map to calculate distance or directions. A group of educators want to change how geography is taught ... making instruction both more relevant and more rigorous. Jodi Becker of Chicago Public Radio reports.

NPR's Tovia Smith profiles the man Al Gore has asked to join him on the Democratic ticket. Joseph Lieberman began life as the son of a liquor store owner who never went to college. But he studied hard, got a scholarship to Yale and then attended law school there. After that it was the state legislature, the state attorney general's office and an upset win over a senior Republican senator in 1988. Now, thanks to his reputation for religious commitment and moral fiber, Lieberman suddenly finds himself on the national stage.