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Ray talks with Scott Atlas, the attorney for Ricardo Aldape Guerra (rih-KAR-doh ahl-DAH-pay GYEH-ruh). Guerra was just released from prison, fifteen years after being sentenced for the murder of a police officer. They discuss the history of the case...why Guerra was initially incarcerated, why he was just now released... and the plans that he's making for the future.

Commentator Leslie Lang is getting to know her Hawaiian great grandmother from sifting through a lifetime of her things, and by reading her journals. The writings reflect a long life, lived well. Lang is now keeping a journal of her own which she hopes some descendent not yet born will someday read.

NPR's Richard Harris looks at a controversial new study that suggests there may be an up and down in the universe, after all. Until now, physicists and astronomers have based their theories on the idea that there is NO directionality in the universe -- that it is spread out evenly. But the new report analyzed radio waves from 160 distant galaxies and concludes that there is a kind of north-south axis in the universe.

Ray talks with NPR's Phillip Davis about the case against Army Staff Sergeant Delmar Simpson, who is accused of raping 19 female trainees at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The prosecution rested today. Then a defense lawyer tried and failed to get most of the rape charges dismissed, saying the women had not tried to resist Simpson's advances.

The government has too many secrets according to a report issued today by The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. The commission, chaired by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, (D-NY) says that the government's "culture of secrecy" hinders decision making and wastes billions of dollars each year. The panel says that new procedures aimed at reducing the number of classified documents will better protect the relatively few documents that are important to national security. NPR's Neal Conan reports.

Linda talks about new efforts by President Clinton to clamp down on gun violence.

NPR's Ann Cooper reports that the nearly three-year-long odyssey of Rwandan Hutu refugees is finally coming to a close, as the United Nations prepares to repatriate those who remain in Zaire. This refugee crisis has confounded the relief community and world powers since its inception. Among the two million Hutus who fled Rwanda in 1994 were many thousands who carried out the genocide against the country's Tutsi minority. While receiving foreign aid, these Hutus intimidated other refugees, terrorized Zairean Tutsis, and used their camps to re-arm and stage military raids against Rwanda's new Tutsi-led government.

With passover only a day away, NPR's Joe Palca gives us the low down on why bread rises. And he explains the difference between leavened and unleavened bread.

NPR's Mara Liasson has an update on the Democratic National Committee's fundraising troubles. Congressional Republican leaders said today that Vice President Al Gore may have violated the law by soliciting campaign contributions from the White House. And a Republican lawmaker is suggesting the first lady knows more than she's acknowledged about links between the White House and fund-raising. Indiana Congressman David McIntosh points to a 1994 White House memo. In it, Hillary Rodham Clinton encourages a plan to share computer data on supporters with the Democratic National Committee.

Dan Gunderson of Minnesota Public Radio reports the Red River is expected to crest in Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota by tomorrow. The river burst throught a stretch of dikes in Fargo last night, inundating an entire neighborhood. The Red Cross is expected to declare the disaster along the Red River a Level 5 emergency, its most serious designation.

Movie reviewer Bob Mondello talks about impossible movie geography... when an actor turns a corner and ends up in a different city, or the sun sets gently in the East. It's a commentary about how disorienting it all is... inspired by the idiocy of the newly-released film "Murder at 1600."

Louis Freedberg reports that South Africa's government is trying to deal with a crush of illegal immigrants flooding into the country from all over Africa.

The city of Grand Forks, North Dakota has literally been inundated in the flooding that has paralyzed the northern plains. Ray talks with evacuee Lynn Wooten and Red Cross worker Tim Manatt from a rescue center at the Grand Forks Air Force Base. Wooten says her boyfriend didn't want to leave their apartment until the very last minute. Manatt says several of the kids at the resuce center built a little bowling alley to ease the boredom.

Album of the week

Right now, only kids 12 and older can get a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. Studies underway at multiple sites are gathering data to see if the vaccine can be given to children as young as six months.

Florida's governor has threatened to withhold funding from school districts that adopt a mask requirement. With COVID-19 spreading unchecked, some districts are considering requiring masks anyway.

A statistician compiled data to share with the CDC after friends kept testing positive after a week in Provincetown, Mass. It spurred an investigation that changed how officials saw the delta variant.

It was not the color medal the U.S. had hoped for, but it was a better result than at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics when the USWNT was bounced out of the tournament in the quarterfinals.

The infrastructure bill making its way through Senate is 2,700 pages of proposed spending on roads, trains, broadband and more. The White House is also taking steps to set automobile fuel standards.

A new musical with a score by Sparks and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard opened the Cannes Film Festival. The distinctive rock-opera with a mind and a sound of its own is opening in the U.S.