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The Department of Energy is announcing a two-step plan to get rid of the nation's stockpile of plutonium waste. About 50 tons of the highly radioactive material have accumulated during the making of atomic bombs, weapons that are now being dismantled. NPR's Richard Harris reports on the government's plan to bury part of the waste and to combine the rest of it in fuel used by commercial nuclear plants.

Noah talks with Congressman Bill Richardson (D-3rd District of New Mexico) about how his promise of rice, a few jeeps and radios, and a health survey of rebel children, won the release of three Red Cross workers who had been held captive in Sudan for more than five weeks. The four jeeps, nine radios and five tons of rice came from the Red Cross stocks.

The federal government is looking at a new generation of safety technologies for the airline industry. The effort follows a year in which scores of people died in two highly publicized crashes of TWA and Valuejet planes. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports the new safety measures could save lives, but the cost will be high and industry executives are worried about having to bear the burden.

on TV and radio advertising. Many are concerned that the move will only encourage teens to switch from drinking beer and wine to drinking distilled liquor.

Linda and Noah give suggestions for disposing of plutonium from over the years.

Biological and chemical warfare. LEONARD COLE has written "The Eleventh Plague, the Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare."(W.H. Freeman and Company) In it, COLE tells about the extraordinary danger posed by biological and chemical weapons. He reveals, among other things, how the United States Army conducted tests for many years using both biological and chemical agents on Americans. In addition, COLE explores the current debate over what has been called "The Gulf War Syndrome." Some 80 thousand veterans have requested special Government medical examinations to determine if they are suffering from health problems related to their service in the war. COLE is a professor of Science and Public Policy at Rutgers University at Newark.

Outdoor sculpture is part of the visible history of a town or city. Since 1991, a group called "Save Outdoor Sculpture" (S.O.S) has made its mission the conservation of this history -- from the effects of acid rain, pigeons, and graffiti artists. NPR's Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg spoke with members of S.O.S. when they met in Washington DC recently. Members from Philadelphia; Astoria, Oregon; and Washington, DC, say the conservation efforts have produced beautiful results. And the Mayor of Rock Hill, South Carolina, says the city ended up saving itself by saving its sculpture.

NPR's Tovia Smith reports that John Salvi, convicted of killing two health clinic workers in 1994, was found dead in his Walpole, Massachusetts prison cell today, the victim of an apparent suicide. Salvi killed the two people and wounded five others in the most serious anti-abortion violence in US history when he fired shots at 3 different abortion clinics. He claimed he was combatting an anti-Catholic conspiracy.

NPR's Richard Harris reports that two mathematicians have independently arrived at conclusions that show that the inclusion of wild cards in poker games upsets the balance of five-card poker. When wild cards are included, the hand that's technically the hardest to achieve does not always win the game.

Gillian Sharpe reports on the first sentence to be handed down by the United Nations' Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. A young Croat was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he had participated in one of the worst massacres in the former Yugoslavia... the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, a U.N.-designated safe area.