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After years of study, Rocky Mountain National Park has become the first national park to establish a "critical load" for pollution. The load represents the limit beyond which pollutants cause harm to wildlife and plants. The nitrogen levels in the park are already more than twice the critical load.

With the federal deficit soaring, annual interest payments on debt will reach $916 billion by the end of the decade. Serious consequences have long seemed like far-off problems, but they are now likely to hit the country with considerable force within the next several years. And although everyone can see the train wreck coming, lawmakers seem powerless to stop it.

One in two of persons newly infected with HIV in the U.S. is African-American, according to a new report from the Black AIDS Institute. Given the alarming numbers, some are pushing for more government resources aimed at resolving the country's domestic health crisis, particularly among minorities. Phill Wilson, of the Black AIDS Institute, explains.

Communities on the Canadian border say that increasingly strict identification rules since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are threatening the cozy neighborliness of their way of life. Their concerns led them to persuade Congress to postpone and water down the passport rules for land-crossings.

Storytelling is the central theme in Ivan Doig's nostalgic new novel, The Bartender's Tale. Young Rusty learns what makes a good story as he pieces together the chaotic past of his father Tom, a gruff bartender in a small Montana town.

Five years ago riots in Benton Harbor, Michigan drew national attention to racial issues and poverty there.Today an arm of the Whirlpool Corporation wants…

Russia say tens of thousands of people have been displaced from South Ossetia, where the conflict erupted a week ago. Fighting has largely stopped in the area, but reports of looting and banditry continue.

Michigan is taking ownership of a dam on the Manistique River in the Upper Peninsula.That will allow the federal government to build a new barrier there…

In Baghdad, overburdened hospitals struggle with the absence of electricity and the lack of drugs and sterilization equipment. In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, British forces begin efforts to restore running water to the city's more than one million residents, and to re-establish law and order on the streets. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels and NPR's Mike Shuster.

Negotiations to ease the crisis in Fallujah produce a ceasefire that provides amnesty for insurgents who disarm and refrain from future attacks, but U.S. forces remain poised to strike the Iraqi city if the pact fails. Officials from Fallujah, U.S. authorities and the Iraqi Governing Council met over the past three days in an effort to end the standoff. NPR's Emily Harris reports.