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Matthew Ferguson of Michigan Public Radio reports on the ruling against Ameritech. The Chicago-based phone service was fined for failing to clear the credit record of a customer who was wrongly billed for an account. The company, which serves five Midwestern states, has been under investigation in Indiana and Wisconsin for slow repair and service lapses.

Host Jacki Lyden speaks with New York Times Magazine reporter Benjamin Weiser. One of his recent articles gives a detailed account of one man's harrowing journey. Diagnosed schizophrenic Kerry Sanders was falsely imprisoned for two years, a sentence that should have been served by Robert Sanders, a fugitive with a long criminal history.

The House of Representatives today approved a bill that would raise the amount that certain savers can contribute to their tax-deferred retirement accounts. The current annual limit on these contributions is $2,000 but the new legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed by President Clinton, would raise that limit to $5,000. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

Harvey Pitt resigns as chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission. Pitt had a stormy tenure as SEC chief and was recently under fire for his handling of the appointment of William Webster to head an accounting oversight board. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports.

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been covering the recent elections in Iraq. In April, he received the George Polk Award for War Reporting for "his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Falluja."

Personal accounts and reflections of individuals affected by the Iraq war. Jesse Mays has a tattoo parlor near Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he's applied his art to many Marines who train there. They are now in Iraq, and 11 have been killed in action.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warns Syria to stop shipping military gear, including night-vision equipment, to Iraqi forces. He says "such trafficking" amounts to "hostile acts," and says Syria will be held accountable. Hear NPR News.

U.S. accounting firms are increasingly outsourcing data-entry work related to tax returns overseas. This year, as many as 100,000 American taxpayers may have their returns prepared in India. NPR's Elaine Korry reports.

Consumer confidence tumbled in December, the third straight month it has fallen. The decline in the closely watched Conference Board index is another indication that the economy has cooled and that consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the nation's economic activity, is slowing. NPR's Snigdha Prakash reports.

NPR's Robert Smith reports on how President Bush's education proposals are playing out in the states and local school districts that will be charged with implementing them. While many educators welcome his proposals for holding schools accountable, many worry about the demands for more testing and how much it will cost.