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NPR's Guy Raz reports from Berlin on Germany's centuries-old Meister system, which requires craftsmen to complete a lengthy training program before being licensed. German guilds are resisting pressure to relax their rules and conform to the standards of the European Community. EU rules say that a worker from one country should be free to practice his trade in another.

The FCC reports that the market for fast Internet connections is growing rapidly, with the number of residential subscribers about tripling over the past year. But in its annual survey of access to broadband service, the agency says access is still expensive or not available for people in rural or inner city areas. The report adds that some areas might never get service with current technologies because it's simply too expensive.

Orla Guerin of the BBC reports on a United Nations effort to raise money to restore the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

Co-Host Madeleine Brand talks to Republican consultant Frank Luntz about how GOP firebrands like Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and others are long gone or pushed out of sight in favor of a more compassionate conservative message.

NPR's Martin Kaste reports from Santiago on the secrecy that Chile's Supreme Court is maintaining, as to whether it will strip former President Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution. The court met on Tuesday but refuses to announce its decision, or even to say whether it has decided whether Pinochet should face trial.

David Greenberger reviews The Unaccompanied Voice, a collection of songs by two dozen performers singing a cappella.

Host Alex Chadwick talks to Armando Alonzo, professor of history at Texas A&M about the verdict of a jury in Brownville, Texas. Six decades after a New York lawyer bought Padre Island from a Mexican-American family, the jury determined that he had swindled the family's impoverished descendants out of 1.1 million-dollars in oil and gas royalties.

Highlights from Republican vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia last night.

NPR's Mara Liasson reports on events of the third day of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Last night, former six-term congressman, defense secretary and oil executive Dick Cheney accepted the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination and opened a new chapter in his political life. (8:29

NPR's Renee Montagne will speak tomorrow with Thomas Lynch -- a writer who is also a funeral director. Today we'll hear an excerpt from that interview. The name of the book mentioned Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality by Thomas Lynch is published by W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393049272