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NPR's Mark Roberts reports on the difficulty many small towns have recruiting volunteer firefighters. Many potential volunteers must commute to other areas for work, and are unable to respond quickly to emergency calls. Others find the demand on their personal time hard to deal with. Some municipalities are adding to a few paid firefighters to their volunteer staffs, but even that solution has its drawbacks.

NPR's Ina Jaffe reports that civil rights groups and people who've sued the Los Angeles police department over racial profiling want to become monitors of the city's consent decree, which is designed to reform the L.A.P.D. With President-elect Bush on the record opposing such decrees, they are concerned that an appointed federal monitor won't effectively enforce the city's agreement.

As part of National Geographic's Radio Expeditions, NPR's Alex Chadwick checks in on African ecologist Mike Fay. Fay just completed a treacherous conservation walk through Central Africa to the coast of Gabon.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Professor Yaron Ezrahi , Senior Fellow with the Israel Democracy Institute about the political situation in Israel. Former Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu says he won't run against Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Susan Gage of Florida Public Radio reports on the 25 people who cast the state's contentious electoral votes for George W. Bush. Electors say they've been in a bright and unexpected spotlight in the weeks since the election.

NPR's Steve Inskeep reports on President-Elect George W. Bush's trip to Washington. Yesterday, he met at the capitol with leaders of both parties from the House and Senate. Bush says he still plans to send an education reform bill to Congress after he takes office, and he will also pursue a large tax cut, though some Republican leaders seem wary of it.

NPR's Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg continues her December series on "giving," in a conversation with Lois Lowry, author of the Newberry Award winning novel, The Giver. It's a coming of age tale aimed at adolescents.

Host Bob Edwards talks with author and stand up comic Wallace Wang about how computer users can protect themselves from internet dangers. Privacy and personal information CAN be protected online...he says it just takes some work. Wang's book is "Steal This Computer Book 2: What They Won't Tell You About the Internet."

NPR John Ydstie reports one of the first challenges President Elect Bush and his top advisors will likely face is how to restart the stalled US economy. Bush has said a tax cut is the solution. Some experts disagree.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Joe Stephens, investigative reporter for the Washington Post, about the paper's series called The Body Hunters. The series is exploring how US pharmaceutical companies are taking their research and development programs abroad. This way of doing business is not illegal, but there are ethical questions as companies seek cheaper and less stringent regulatory markets to do what they can't do in the US.