21.   Northern Alliance negotiators are trying to strike a deal with several Taliban commanders but there is no agreement among them.

22.   Negotiators must try to bridge the gap through some sort of compromise, possibly combining power-sharing with separate divisions of authority.

23.   Negotiators tried to overcome these mutual suspicions by locking in a meticulous timetable for exact actions to be taken by both sides.

24.   Senate-House negotiators are trying to work out differences between the line-item-veto bills passed by each house.

25.   Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark Hatfield said negotiators would try to find a bipartisan solution and invited White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to meet with them tomorrow.

26.   Senate negotiators have tried to draft a more lenient bill in the hopes of gaining White House support.

27.   So, key negotiators will try again this evening, when they meet senior officials from the White House.

28.   Supporters say the negotiators will try again in March at the earliest.

29.   That is because industry negotiators have been trying for more than two years to agree on a way to connect a digital set to a digital cable box.

30.   The catch-phrase among senators is that negotiators are trying to make it easier for people to vote and harder for people to cheat.