We continued research on the molecular mechanism of meiotic recombination in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have focused on an initiating event in meiotic recombination, the formation of double-strand DNA breaks, with an aim towards determining the factors that control the level and position of these breaks, and isolating the enzyme(s) responsible for their formation. In addition we have analyzed several short regions of the yeast genome that contain sequences that stimulate both meiotic recombination and double-strand DNA breaks.