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Los Angeles film critic Kenneth Turan reviews the new movie Meet the Parents. It stars Ben Stiller as a prospective son-in-law who needs to win over his girlfriend's over-protective father before he can propose. Turan says both Stiller and Robert De Niro, who plays the father, turn in solidly comic performances in a film that has wide appeal.

This year's Miss America Pageant is undergoing an overhaul. The stage sets, the swimsuit competition and the selection of the judges is all new. One of the most radical of changes is the music. There She Is, the song made famous by Bert Parks, has been redone in a techno style. Robert talks with Jeff Margolis, the producer and director of this year's pageant, about the changes to this year's show.

Linda and Robert read letters from All Things Considered listeners. (2:45) Send e-mail to: atc@npr.org or traditional mail to: Letters, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 635 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20001.

NPR's Linda Gradstein reports on the Israeli political Left. The last two weeks of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians have divided liberal politicians who previously supported the peace process.

Commentator Richard Rosenfeld talks about how the issue of religious tolerance was an issue in the Presidential campaign two hundred years ago. Then the candidates John Adams and Thomas Jefferson battled over the formation of an official state religion. Today the role of spirituality in public life is again being debated.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Rami Khouri, an Amman-based journalist and an expert on the Middle East, about the latest situation in the region.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden in the Gaza Strip reports on some of the victims of the past two weeks of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian protestors. Even in grief, many of the families of the slain Palestinians say the uprising must continue.

NPR's Jack Speer reports on the current state of the Stock Market. Yesterday, the Dow hit its fifth worst single-day decline ever. Turmoil in the Mideast and a major spike in oil prices are two culprits in the market's dive.

Ev Ehrlich comments on the Nobel Prize in Economics. Economic theory has changed over the years to reflect contemporary conditions, and the choices for recent prizes reflect those shifts.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that two of the nation's largest oil companies are merging. Chevron is acquiring Texaco in a stock swap valued at more than 35-billion dollars. The deal announced today is seen as an answer to other recent mergers in the oil industry, including the mergers of Exxon and Mobil and British Petroleum with Amoco. The new company will be called Chevron Texaco and will be headquartered in San Francisco.