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The White House announced an agreement with several airlines today, under which the carriers will make sure that their cargo holds have fire detectors. The decision is a result of the ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people last May. Investigators say the accident was caused by fire in the cargo hold. NPR's Steve Inskeep has a report.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports from Moscow on the meeting today between Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her counterpart, Foreign Minister Primakov ((PREE-muh-koff)). Despite several hours of talks about a charter between NATO and Russia, both diplomats say there's more work to do.

NPR's Martha Raddatz talks with Noah about how the Pentagon is discounting reports that the Air Force is clearing the General who was in charge of the military housing facility where 19 US airmen were killed in a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia last June. An earlier report..by a special task force headed by a retired Army general...had faulted the Pentagon's entire command structure for paying insufficient attention to terrorist threats.

2:JOSEPH and JULIA QUINLAN. They are the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan. Joseph Quinlan died this past Saturday at teh age of 71. A lawyer for the family said the cause was bone cancer. He and his wife became early pioneers in the "right to die" debate" after they fought for the legal authority to remove a respirator that their daughter was attatched to afer doctors said she had no hope of coming out of a coma. Twenty years ago the New Jersey State Supreme Court issued it's landmark decision (March 31, 1976) allowing their comatose daughter to be removed from a ventilator. She then lived nine more years. The Quinlans wrote about Karen in the book "Karen Ann: The Quinlans Tell Their Story," (Doubleday-1977). In 1980 they used the proceeds from the book to open the Karen Ann Quinlan Center of Hope Hospice in Newton, New Jersey. This interview originally aired April 9, 1996.

Daniel talks with Richard Krimm, Associate Director for Mitigation at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about how communities can reduce the damage caused by floods. His agency favors the "non-structural" approach to flood plain management. Krimm says that levees give people a false sense of security - levees often overflow. Rather than build more levees, he suggests building houses that can withstand floods or not building on flood plains at all. He says federal regulations and insurance requirements eventually will force people to comply with these suggestions

NPR's Mark Roberts reports on today's testimony at the trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh. A publisher of a series of books on how to make a bomb described such a book that McVeigh owned.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports that President Clinton wants to send thousands of tutors out to help kids learn to read. Experts in the field say these tutors will help kids practice their reading, and that could make a big difference. But they say that kids with the most serious reading problems will still require trainined professionals to deal with their problems, and the President's proposal won't help them.

Commentator David Brooks talks about the "Big Thinkers" tent on the National Mall that's part of President Clinton's second inauguration festivities. He says that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have many "big ideas," and that they're making up for their lack of ideology by becoming scandal-mongers.

NPR's Elizabeth Arnold talks with Noah about the implications of the report on House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Many see Gingrich as a weakened leader, and say the ethics problems have shifted more power to the Senate and Majority Leader Trent Lott.

NPR's David Welna reports that over the past month Mexico has expelled half a dozen foreign human rights workers. Until now, Mexico had always tolerated such visits. The crackdown is raising new questions about Mexico's human rights record, as President Clinton prepares to go there next week. A major US human rights group also issued a report this week condemning what it said are widespread human rights abuses in Mexico, especially in rural areas. NPR's David Welna reports.