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Commentator Amy Dickinson writes about sibling rivalry. She knows that sisters are often rivals. But in the case of the Williams sisters, it is especially hard, because there is always a winner and a loser.

NPR's Guy Raz reports from Berlin that former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl faced another day of testimony before the parliament today about illegal donations to his political party, the Christian Democratic Union. As before, Kohl refused to name the donors who gave the party some one million dollars in undeclared contributions. He says he promised the donors anonymity, and won't break his word. Kohl denies his government traded favors for the money, as well as allegations that his government accepted bribes from a French company to purchase a German oil refinery.

Scott Horsley of member station KPBS in San Diego reports the first region in California to completely deregulate its electric industry is now facing sky-rocketing electricity bills. Consumer advocates in San Diego have asked state officials to re-impose price controls after the price of electricity more than tripled this year.

The BBC's Elaine Lester reports on the centuries-old conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Against the backdrop of recent calm there, the yearly march of the Orange Order seems more heated than in years past.

NPR's Gerry Hadden reports on Mexican president-elect Vicente Fox's plans for restructuring key government ministers in an effort to fight endemic corruption. Fox is stripping the all-powerful Interior Ministry of much of its duties, and creating a new ministry in charge of federal police and intelligence services. He's also taking some powers away from the attorney general's office.

NPR's Kathleen Schalch reports that the World Bank will not make a controversial loan to China to settle 58,000 poor farmers on land that Tibetans consider sacred. Pro-Tibetan activists hail the decision as a victory. The resettlement project was opposed by human rights groups as well as the United States. Bank directors let the loan die after refusing a recommendation from Bank president James Wolfensohn to further assess the project's social and environmental impact. China said it would finance the resettlement on its own.

NPR's Snigdha Prakash reports that money fertilizes everything in Seattle, sprouting important architecture, philanthropy, and new companies. Most of the money comes from the software, telecom and Internet worlds. Prakash reports on an incipient trend: software moguls using some of their millions to attack problems that technology hasn't been able to solve so far -- like a cure for cancer.

NPR's Brenda Wilson has a special report on South Africa's explosive AIDS epidemic. The crisis is rooted in South Africa's history and the movement of its people. Labor migrations have occurred in South Africa since the beginning of the century. In the decade of the 1970's, under Apartheid, three-and-a-half-million black South Africans were forcibly relocated to rural homelands. The number of men who moved to industrial centers for work, living away from their wives and families for months at a time, significantly increased. Then, in the late 1980's, as white South Africans were being forced to relinquish political power, AIDS hit the country. Greater freedom for blacks brought an increase in travel between homelands and industrial centers and the AIDS epidemic moved with the people. Dependence on cheap, black labor and the removal of black South Africans to the homelands is continuing to drive the epidemic. A tenth of the population of South Africa is now infected with the AIDS virus.

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports on a surprising leader in the high tech industry: Finland. Finnish technology companies like Nokia are among the most dominant players today, though the country hasn't always been so forward-thinking.

In the first part of a summer series on celebrity gardens, NPR gardening expert Ketzel Levine visits actor John Spencer at his home in Bel Aire, California and tours his garden. Spencer is a transplant from New Jersey, and he favors roses, delphiniums, hollyhocs, and the like. Levine points out that those plants don't appear as healthy as the ones that are native to Southern California.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports economic growth is slowing which means that bond prices are on the rise. Economists believe that growth will slow down during the later half of the year.

Commentator Ev Ehrlich says computers and the Internet may allow the economy to reach even greater levels of growth and productivity.