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NPR's Cheryl Devall talks with a family in Chicago that has benefitted from an Illinois state law that requires a percentage of government contracts be set-aside for minority-owned businesses. The family says it's helped their business grow and helped their family move into the middle class.

NPR's Anne Garrels reports from Moscow that the hostage crisis in the Russian city of Budenovsk (pronounced: bood-YAWN-uhfsk) took a turn for the worse today, as Russian government troops stormed the hospital where Chechen fighters are holding more than one thousand civilians hostage, but failed to end the crisis. Some hostages were freed, around 200. But most remained captive. Negotiations continue. And in Moscow, the political fallout is accumulating, as Boris Yeltsin's government tries to figure out how to end the crisis without further loss of civilian lives.

NPR's Edward Lifson visits the town of Matteson Illinois where local officials have launched a campaign to attract more white residents to their town. This effort at maintaining racial diveristy is a painful, but necessary remedy for many residents who don't want to appear racist but are also concerned about property values.

NPR'S Peter Kenyon reports that in Washington this week, both the House and Senate will be preparing to vote on budget resolutions that Republicans say will bring the huge federal deficit under control. They say these budget blueprints will balance the budget by the year 2002 Lawmakers are still months away from actually cutting any federal programs. But the debate between Republicans and Democrats is at hand, and it's going to be contentious.

Daniel talks with former New Hampshire Republican senator Warren Rudman. Rudman was co-sponsor of a budget balancing act which was passed in the 80's but which was largely ignored by Congress. He says that while the proposed budget is likely to change as it goes through the committee process, Congress is definitely on track to eliminate the budget deficit.

NPR's Edward Lifson reports on block 37 in Chicago... an empty lot in the middle of the downtown area. The lot waws bulldozed in the 1980s real estate boom, but a planned development was never built. On Friday it was announced that Sears Roebuck is considering building on the site.

Last week we asked listeners to call in with words they or their family members have made up. And, are so wonderful, they should be added to the dictionary. Here are the highlights...

Yesterday President Clinton issued an executive order that established the first uniform standards for U.S. agencies in granting security clearances to employees. Among the directives was an order to end the denial of security clearances because an applicant is gay. Daniel talks to Frank Kameny, who was denied government security clearances in the 1950s and 60s and was the first person to fight a discharge from a federal civil service job because of his homosexuality.

Daniel talks with the assistant city editor of the Chicago Tribune, Bill Rectenwald, about the heat wave in Chicago and the recent deaths there. Rectenwald says the temperatures are in the triple digits and police are mobilizing to insure the sick and elderly survive and to avoid the large number of deaths that occured earlier this month. Rectenwald says though such intense heat is not unusual in other states, Chicagoans are unaccustomed to such extreme temperatures.