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Noah speaks with Coast Guard Commander Rick Ferraro about the search for the ship that dumped oil off of Florida's southern coast. It's the area's worst spill in at least a decade. Since Tuesday, investigators from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been tracking down vessels that were in the area at the time the spill occurred. Ferraro says oil samples from all of the known vessels have been collected, and a lab is comparing those samples with oil from the slick.

Hadassah Lieberman went home today to Gardner, Massachusetts, the town where her family made a new life after surviving the Holocaust in Europe. Arriving at Elm Street School, she got a celebrity's welcome as the wife of the man the Democratic Party will nominate next week for vice president. NPR's Tovia Smith reports.

The Reform Party opened its national convention in Long Beach California today, still divided over the official standing of presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Supporters of the firebrand conservative insist he has won a mail-in primary for the Reform nomination, while other party members say he has been disqualified. Buchanan supporters had the upper hand in the convention hall, so the dissenters walked out. NPR's Andy Bowers talks to Noah live from Long Beach.

Alan Cheuse reviews Alice Lichtenstein's first novel called, Genius of the World, about an American family in turmoil. The publisher is Zoland.

In the 1980s, Dungeons and Dragons inspired millions of kids to spend their spare time pretending to be wizards and dwarves. A new version of the D&D rule book comes out tonight, and the designers are betting it will lure today's kids away from video and computer games.

Actor, singer and drag queen Ru Paul. The six-foot seven entertainer is even taller in heels and has fashioned for himself a supermodel persona. He attributes his mainstream appeal to his non-threatening sexuality and his "non-bitchy" drag queen personality. Ru Paul is appearing out of drag in the new comedy But I'm A Cheerleader. He plays an ex-gay rehab counselor. Ru Paul's other films include Crooklyn, The Brady Bunch Movie, and Wigstock the Movie.

NPR's Guy Raz reports from Berlin that the under the pressure of globalization, the German government is moving to loosen up the country's highly regulated economy. German officials are considering whether to abandon the country's strict regulation of shopping hours. Shops are still forbidden to open on Sundays and must close by 8 pm during the week.

Commentator Dave Bean, an English teacher at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine, wonders what's happened to Ricky Valarde, a student flirting with gangs and dropping out of school, who gets excited about climbing. He presses Bean to take him and they work in exchange for the gear. Bean goes climbing with him one last time, and learns they can count on each other.

NASA has decided to take advantage of the next landing opportunity on Mars and put two robotic rovers on the planet's surface. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports on what will be the the first-ever "twin-rover" expedition to explore the surface, and the first touchdown since last December's crash landing of the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander mission.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports from Long Beach, California, where the Reform Party convention has split in two. Supporters of Pat Buchanan control the convention hall. Yesterday they refused entrance to delegates for John Hagelin, so Hagelin's supporters moved to another site, at a theater next door. It now appears there will be two different Reform Party presidential candidates.

NPR's Steve Inskeep reports that Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush is campaigning today with Senator John McCain on the West Coast.

Noah talks with Sam Norris a biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and a former president of the West Virginia Mycological Association. He says it's been an unusually good year for mushrooms due almost daily warm rains in the highlands of West Virginia. They've collected large amounts and rare varieties including one mushroom which changes to the color blue when picked.