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NPR's Debbie Elliot reports that if you survey the wake drawn this week by Hurricane Opal, you'd find that the barrier islands off the northwest coast of Florida were especially hard hit. Residents who'd fled the area returned today for a temporary visit...that's all the authorities would allow them... to see what the storm had done to their homes and businesses.

In order to promote "traditional" family values, the Virginia Housing Authority, has decided to stop making housing loans to gays and unmarried single people. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports that the agency, which loans money to low and moderate-income first-time home buyers, has taken the step at the urging of Republican Gov. George Allen. Federal officials are examining policy changes for possible civil rights violations.

This week, the United States captured first place in the "Olympics of Bread Baking" Championships in Paris, France. Danny speaks to Tom McMahon, the Executive Director of the Bread Bakers Guild of America and a judge at the three-day event. Teams from eight countries participated in the event. McMahon says the American breads were so popular, the international judges took some home with them at the end of the competition.

Residents of South Lake Tahoe are starting to return home after evacuation orders were downgraded as firefighters made headway on the Caldor Fire.

In the first part of a summer series on celebrity gardens, NPR gardening expert Ketzel Levine visits actor John Spencer at his home in Bel Aire, California and tours his garden. Spencer is a transplant from New Jersey, and he favors roses, delphiniums, hollyhocs, and the like. Levine points out that those plants don't appear as healthy as the ones that are native to Southern California.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports on his way home tomorrow, President Clinton will stop off in Cairo for urgent talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the stalled Middle East peace process. Clinton is urging Mubarak to try to get his fellow Arabs to agree to continued Israeli sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem, something Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat refuses to accept.

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington is moving its archives. Thousands of rare recordings are being carefully packed up and sent to their new home. The collection is an eclectic mix of Americana, consisting of 34 years of recordings from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the catalog of Folkways Records. All Things Considered Director Bob Boilen went to visit the collection and archivist Jeff Place as he boxes up some of America's great musical treasures.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson returned to Capitol Hill today for a grilling by yet another Congressional committee. Today, it was the House Committee on Government Reform. Questions had to do with the high price of gasoline and home heating fuel. NPR's Brian Naylor reports that Richardson -- like Vice President Al Gore -- has warmed up to the idea of releasing some of the national oil reserves as a means of lowering prices.

The last time Australia hosted the Olympics, in 1956, Hungary was a power in water polo, and scored a victory over the Soviet Union. It was important because at the time, Hungary was trying to win a real war back home against the Soviets. Robert talks to Ervin Zador, who was injured in that 1956 game. Since then he's been coaching water polo and swimming in the United States.

Midwestern singer-songwriter Greg Brown is both a road poet and a keen observer of the natural world. He says that he likes to think about his work as stories sanded down into songs. His new CD is called Covenant; it's his 17th album. He talks to Jacki from his home in Iowa City. (Red House Records 2000)