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Like many states, California is turning up the heat on its public schools with tough new policies designed to force them to improve. In the first of a series of stories, Richard Gonzales looks at one San Francisco Bay-area school's struggle to turn itself around.

NPR's Rob Gifford reports on a controversy over the design of a new national theater building in Beijing. Building a national theatre is a matter of great pride to the people of Beijing. The Chinese capital has no such facility and lags far behind the city of Shanghai in theatre arts. But many are upset over the design, by a French architect. It calls for something resembling a huge titanium egg, surrounded by the monolithic, very square Stalinist buildings that rim Tiananmen Square, the spiritual heart of the city.

Robert talks with Edward Wessex, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth, about his new project Crown and Country III. It's a 6-part series that begins airing this evening on public television. Edward Wessex wrote, produced and directed the series which explores British sites and their relation to the monarchy through the ages. (7:30) Find more information on the internet at http://www.pbs.org/whatson/press/fall/crown_city.html

Kate Seelye in Beirut reports Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas are now holding another Israeli captive, in addition to the three soldiers seized earlier this month in a border ambush. Hizbollah's leader says the fourth captive is an Israeli intelligence agent. The Israeli government says he is a businessman.

(Update) Host Bob Edwards talks with NPR's Ted Clark about the emergency summit trying to revive the Middle East Peace process. President Clinton is extending his stay in Egypt as the talks enter their second day.

(Update) NPR's Anthony Brooks reports from St. Louis, the site of tonight's third and final Presidential debate. Despite the informal "town hall" style, the stakes are again high, with Vice President Al Gore and Governor George Bush still in a statistical dead heat with only three weeks left until the election.

Commentator James Ponewozik says that the biggest innovation of the TV season isn't a show that's new this fall - it's the long life of one of the biggest hits of the summer. Survivor is still going strong - with cast members showing up in many CBS TV. shows this fall. It will keep the buzz about Survivor going until the next show - Survivor in Australia - goes on the air in January. In its brilliant efficiency, CBS is sort of like the Plains Indian tribes who used every part of the buffalo: from ads to books to soundtrack CDs, CBS has figured out how to sell every part of Survivor.

NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, where the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are meeting with President Clinton and other world leaders in a bid to halt the continuing violence in the West Bank and Gaza.

The lion rules the animal kingdom, but in the advertising jungle, it's tigers who are fighting it out for dominance. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the Kellogg cereal company could sue the oil company Exxon for copyright infringement. The straw that broke the spotted back? Exxon using the big cat to advertise their mini-marts. After thirty years of peaceful co-existence, Kellogg alleges you can have a tiger in your tank, but not in your cereal bowl.

NPR's John Nielsen reports on the plan by several of the largest multi-national corporations to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The newly formed "Partnership for Climate Action," aims to identify gas emissions and voluntarily cut back on them. The plan is based on the idea of 'emissions trading systems,' which allow manufacturers to buy and sell the right to emit certain global warming gases. The plan will be monitored by the watchdog group, Environmental Defense. Other environmental groups are skeptical about such market-based methods of reducing pollution.