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Scott Horsley reports negotiators for Bell Atlantic -- now known as Verizon are meeting with union leaders in Washington this week trying to resolve a contract dispute. A third of its workers, including telephone operators, line technicians, and clerical workers, are involved. The company says it has submitted a new contract offer, with a strike deadline looming tomorrow night. A strike could disrupt service for millions of customers in eastern states. In addition to the usual issues of wages and pensions, unionized workers are demanding a larger role in the company's fast-growing wireless and internet access divisions.

Commentator Gary Beach argues a pending bill to grant H1B visas to an additional 200,000 mostly Asian high tech workers won't solve the problem of a persistent shortage. He says drawing high tech workers from Asia also antagonizes that region, which needs people to start its own industries.

NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports on how the nation's broadcasters and cable channels covered the Republican National Convention, and who watched.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that L'Unita, the official mouthpiece of the Italian communist party, folded this month amid dwindling sales and mounting debt. At the end of the Cold War, the Italian Communist party changed its name, but even so the Italian left lost its political clout. With the closing of L'Unita, Italy has lost a cultural institution that for decades featured the writings of leading western intellectuals, as well as East European dissidents.

With the Philadelphia convention over, George W Bush continues his tour of key Midwestern states. NPR's Steve Inskeep has been talking with voters on Bush's campaign path and reports that some focused on a small, carefully worded section of Bush's acceptance speech.

Jazz trumpeter and singer extraordinaire Louis Armstrong was born on this day in 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. We hear a note on his accomplishments on the 99th anniversary of his birthdate.

The Republican party has traditionally had trouble attracting black voters despite being "the Party of Lincoln." John speaks with political political historian Patrick Maney, of the University of South Carolina, about why this is so.

Writer and essayist Beverly Donofrio made a pilgrimage to Mexico from Los Angeles last year and she found redemption in part by hearing a song by Aaron Neville on her car's cassette tape machine. Donofrio's latest book is Looking for Mary, or The Blessed Mother and Me.

Host Jacki Lyden talks with journalist Jim Robbins about the latest developments in the wildfires in Montana. Evacuation orders were lifted south of Helena and as many as 270 families can return home. FEMA director James Lee Witt toured fire damage yesterday and promised federal money. However, danger still looms for many families just outside of Helena including that of Jim Robbins. Robbins , who has been reporting on the fires for the New York Times. New fires are just eight miles from his door.

More and more people are leaving the suburbs behind for the conveniences of urban life in America's cities. The middle class return is having a negative effect, some say an inevitable effect on some of the people who never left. NPR's Byron Henderson reports.