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Misty Hyman, an American, defeated Australia's Susie O'Neill Wednesday for the gold medal in the 200 meter butterfly. O'Neill, nicknamed Madame Butterfly by her countrymen, was heavily favored in the race, and Hyman, a first-time Olympian, reacted to her victory with joyous disbelief. Americans fared well in the pool, also capturing gold in the women's 4x200 freestyle relay. Jenny Thompson anchored the US team, winning her seventh career gold medal. Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands won swimming's glamour event, the 100 meter freestyle, making him the surprise star of the swimming competition. NPR's Howard Berkes reports.

NPR's Michelle Trudeau reports on two new research studies that give clues about clinical depression, an illness that afflicts 18 million people in this country. Writing in two scientific journals, this month's issues of The American Journal of Medical Genetics and The American Journal of Psychiatry, these researchers report finding a genetic clue that may explain why many more women suffer from depression than men, and a specific brain abnormality that may help lead to an explanation of why depression tends to strike repeatedly in many people.

A handful of nonprofit companies, mostly church-based, are challenging holiday shoppers to give money that will buy practical gifts to help needy people in developing countries. They ask Americans: 'instead of buying for the person who has everything, why not buy for the family that has nothing?' For more information...Alternative Gifts International 800-842-2243; Serve International 800-723-3712; World Concern 800-755-5022; Heifer Project International 800-422-0474; American Friends Service 888-588-2372

Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov has written a Latin American Passion, according to Saint Mark. The Passion tells the story of Christ's betrayal, death, and ressurection; perhaps the best-known Passions are those by Johann Sebastian Bach. Our music critic Tom Manoff says Golijov's achievement is remarkable, a musical drama set in a New World for a new time. It's a mixture of traditions — Spanish, Latin, and Aramaic words are set to a music that draws on Latin American folk music, African drumming, flamenco and Gregorian-like chant melodies. • Listen to Fred Child's interview with Osvaldo Golijov for Performance Today, April 8, 2002.

On the eve of a likely invasion of Iraq, NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations about the history of casualties in war. In Vietnam, the United States lost more than 58,000 soldiers. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 147 were killed on the battlefield. Many Americans have come to expect fewer casualties to be the norm for conflicts. Boot is the author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. We also hear from people in San Diego, Cleveland and Austin about what they expect will be the number of battlefield deaths if war occurs.

Foreign aid workers, contractors and journalists are increasingly becoming targets of kidnappings across Iraq. The Al-Jazeera news network broadcast a video of a captured American soldier who identifies himself as 20-year-old Pfc. Keith Maupin. An American and a Danish citizen were seized Friday in separate incidents, and dozens have been kidnapped over the past two weeks. Many have been released fairly quickly -- but one, an Italian, was murdered by his captors. NPR's Philip Reeves reports.

In a turning point in American history, the Supreme Court ruled 50 years ago that separate educational facilities for blacks were inherently unequal. A look at how Americans reacted, through the letters they wrote to their president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Carolyn Jack reports from Toronto on a proposed law in Canada which would give Loyalists who fled to Canada during the American Revolution the right to sue for compensation for property seized by George Washington's army. The legislation is a tongue-in-cheek response to the Helms-Burton Law passed in the US this year. Helms-Burton gives Americans the right to sue foreign firms which invest in Cuban property expropriated by Fidel Castro's revolution. While the Canadian bill is satire, it is meant to drive home a point about the anger at Helms-Burton in Canada, which is one of Cuba's largest trading partners.

Janet Heimlich reports that while most Americans take running water, and electricity for granted, there are still pockets of the US where such amenities are lacking. Tamina, Texas is a small, poor, predominantly African American Community about 30 miles north of Houston. Although Tamina is near one of Houston's wealthiest suburbs, the community lacks a sewage system and many residents depend on septic tanks or the outdoors for waste disposal. The community is too poor to afford its own sewage system and county officials say it's not their job to provide this service. A survey by state officials in Texas has already identified nearly 400 communities in the state that have waste water problems.

A talk about the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness Program, and other post-Sept. 11 security measures. The Total Information Awareness Program would allow federal agencies to share information about American citizens and aliens through the mining of databases from driver's licenses, bank statements, telephone records and more. Lawyer David Cole thinks such measures violate the American tradition of civil liberties. He's a professor of law at Georgetown University, legal affairs correspondent for The Nation and the author of Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security.