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Noah Adams travels to Southwestern Virginia to talk to people there about the pain-relief drug OxyContin. Now is the best selling narcotic pain medication in America, the drug has proven to be highly-effective for many users, but OxyContin is also being abused for fun and profit, and reports of overdoses and addiction to the drug have been steadily increasing.

Robert Siegel speaks with Bill and Miriam Brownwell, who founded WeTip, a non-profit organziation where citizens can anonymously report information regarding a crime. The Bromwells says that citizens fear reprisal from criminals if they report crimes to the police, so they act as the neutral third party.

As part of the Changing Face of America Series, NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports on the way the power to sue has changed both companies and consumers. The number of lawsuits filed hasn't really gone up, but more people are becoming comfortable with them as a way to attack the companies they see as irresponsible or dangerous. And the threat of litigation has businesses on the defensive.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Del and the Boys by the Del McCoury Band.

NPR's Howard Berkes traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where a 4,000-acre blaze came close to destroying dozens of homes, some valued in the millions of dollars. Many of the houses had taken no steps to make them more fire resistant.

Children with severe mental disabilities often need expensive treatment or round-the-clock supervision. NPR's Joanne Silberner profiles one family that had to give up custody of their child because they could not afford the care he needed.

Polls show that Americans are worrying more about their personal privacy. With easy access to personal information via the Internet and computer databases, are threats to privacy worse than ever? NPR's Bob Garfield ponders privacy issues.

From the Midwest to the East Coast, millions of Americans are feeling the dog days of summer. High temperatures combined with high humidity -- the so-called "heat index" -- are pushing the mercury into the triple digits across much of the nation.

NPR's David Molpus profiles short story writer George Singleton as part of Morning Edition's series on emerging Southern Artists. Singleton writes about the absurd and the grotesque...and finds plenty of inspiration in rural Dacusville, South Carolina, where he lives. His work includes a story about love at the local recycling center, a directive on how to collect fishing lures at the local flea market, and an examination of how a first marriage went sour because the husband went a little crazy caulking the house.

NPR's Joanne Silberner reports on the dangers of multitasking. While working on several projects at once has become a workplace standard, experts now say that multi-tasking actually takes longer than doing things one at a time.