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Noah talks with Kathy McCoubrey, from the Virginia Dalmatian Assistance League, about dalmatians as pets. Disney is releasing a new version of the movie, "101 Dalmatians" this Christmas season. There are reports of a surge in dalmatian breeding because many children will want them after seeing the movie. McCoubrey says dalmatians should be chosen carefully. They are very high-strung, and they need frequent exercise and plenty of space.

The Justice Department has turned down a third request for an independent counsel to investigate possible campaign finance violations involving former Democratic fundraiser John Huang. But NPR's Barbara Bradley reports that the Attorney General is referring the case to an internal Justice Department campaign finance task force. The Justice Department says the case does not meet the criteria of the Independent Counsel Act: It doesn't involve high administration officials and it doesn't create a conflict of interest for the Justice Department. Senator John McCain made the request, and says the decision not to appoint an independent counsel may make congressional hearings necessary.

Alan Cheuse reviews the translation of Jules Verne's lost manuscript Paris in the 20th Century, which has just been published in the U-S. The story was written over one hundred and thirty years ago, and describes what Paris might be like in the 1960's. It would be a city in which art is consumed by science and business and which people communicate by a machine eerily similiar to a fax machine. Paris in the 20th Century is published by Random House.

The state of Virginia executed more people than any other state in the last year. The reason? Virginia has a new law that limits death row appeals. Laura Womack of member station WAMU reports.

NPR's Eric Westervelt reports on the arraignments of an Army captain and two staff sergeants at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The charges include rape, sodomy and sexual assualt. The accusations - which surfaced last month - touched off a wave of sexual misconduct reports throughout the Army. The soldiers will face trial early next year.

Linda talks with NPR's Howard Berkes about the defense and prosecution strategies in the Unabomber case. Kaczynski's lawyer has been trying to delay the trial as long as possible, and the prosecution may be trying to outflank him by trying to have his New Jersey trial take place before his trial for killing two people with explosives in California.

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.

Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski makes an appearance... via satellite broadcast... in a New Jersey courtroom to answer charges that he killed a New Jersey advertising executive. Madeleine Brand of member station WBGO in Newark reports.

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 Rick Karr tells us how Chicago's Michigan Avenue is lit up every year for the holidays...a feat he can't seem to duplicate at his house.

NPR's Sunni Khalid reports on changes in the economy of Syria. The country has been governed by President Hafez al-Assad since 1970, and for most of that time the economy has been under his tight controls as well. But five years ago, the government enacted Public Law Number 10, which relaxed the government's control of production and trade. Since that time, Syrian consumers have had access to more foreign goods, and more Syrian-made products are for sale in the rest of the world.

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.

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

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.

The National Transportation Safety Board meets this week in Florida to review all data collected about last May's ValuJet crash. Transcripts from cockpit voice recordings reveal that the pilots knew just how much trouble their craft was in. Investigators will also review results of the data analysis to try and repeat the condition that led to the fire that brought down the plane. NPR's Dan Charles reports.

Noah talks with Wang Xizhe, an exiled Chinese dissident. Wang has been a leading activist in the democracy movement in China for the last twenty years, and he talks about why he believes that the current repression of dissidents in China is really an expression of the desperation of a shaky regime.

In another of our audi postcards, NPR's Mike Shuster visits the legendary Uzbek city of Samarkand and tells the story of Ulug Beg, an enlightened 14th century leader and one of the world's first astronomers.