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We remember TV and radio writer Philip Rapp, who died at the age of 88 Tuesday in his Beverly Hills home. He created the character "Baby Snooks" for Fanny Brice and the "Battling Bickersons" for Don Ameche and Francis Langford. We hear clips from those two radio skits.

Laura Sydell of member station W-N-Y-C in New York City reports on those profiting and trying to profit from one of the largest snow storms of the century.

Robert talks with Carolyn Lama, mother of a 4-year-old boy who has been recognized by monks as the reincarnation of a Tibetan spiritual leader who died in 1987. The boy, named Sonam Wangdu, will move from Seattle to Katmandu, Nepal on January 25th to be raised by monks. His mother will make periodic visits to Nepal but will continue to live in Seattle.

In Chicago an indictment is expected today in a corruption case involving eight public officials, including several alderman. They are accused of accepting bribes in return for city contracts for hauling construction debris. NPR'S Cheryl Corley reports.

The Senate Whitewater Committee in hearings today questioned an attorney with the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Arkansas. NPR's Jon Greenberg reports testimony before the panel centered on how the law firm began working for a savings and loan and what Hillary Rodham Clinton has said on the subject. The committee chairman, Sen. Alfonse d'Amato, said today he does not plan to call Mrs. Clinton to testify.

SIDNEY JONES, is regional director of Human Rights Watch in Asia. Recently Human Rights Watch published a report on abandoned children in China, and their treatment in China's state-funded orphanages, "Death by Default: A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China's State Orphanages." The report finds the death rate in the orphanages "staggering," and in some cases constitutes a sinister "systematic program of child elimination."

Linda talks with Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, about his recent trip accompanying Madeleine Albright to African nations on a mission of "preventive diplomacy." Albright is the U-S Ambassador to the United Nations. One country they visited of particular concern is Burundi, where Tutsis have been persecuting Hutus. The Hutu tribe makes up 85 percent of Burundi's population and the Tutsi, 15 percent. The Tutsi control the army and the government. Many observers fear an explosion of violence similar to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

the big storm that hit New York in 1947.

NPR's Joanne Silberner reports on the constroversy over whether women who undergo abortions increase their risk for breast cancer. Studies examining this questions have produced mixed results. A new study out today found there appears to be a slight risk, but the question remains unresolved.

NPR's Anne Garrels reports that Chechen rebels reportedly have freed 45 hostages seized during a raid in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. They had been held for more than two weeks. The Chechens are still holding about 24 Russian policemen saying they will trade them for the release of captured guerillas. In Grozny, Chechens still hold about 30 Russians who worked at a power plant. They were seized a week ago.