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Bob Mondello has an appreciation of the life and work of Polish filmmaker Krysztov Kieslowski (chris-TOFF ke-SLOV-ski), best known in this country for directing what he called his tri-color trilogy: the films BLUE, WHITE and RED.

Shoko Asahara, the leader of Japan's doomsday sect Aum Shin Rikyu, goes on trial tomorrow on murder charges for the nerve gas attacks on Tokyo's subways last year. As NPR's Julie McCarthy reports, the attacks have shattered the image of Tokyo as a peaceful place and cast doubts on the abilities of the city's world-renowned police department.

Commentator Marion Winik tells of the terror of losing her kids in the grocery store.

Noah talks with Mike O'Connor, who's in Tuzla reporting for the New York Times. War crimes investigators have discovered extensive tampering of evidence at a suspected mass grave site in eastern Bosnia. O'Connor says this site is particularly important because three witnesses claim that the Bosnian Serb military commander, General Ratko Mladic, was present while the mass executions took place. This discovery also calls into question the assurances by U.S. officials that suspected mass gravesites would remain intact for investigators. (4:00) Funder 0:29 XPromo 0:29 CUTAWAY 1B 0:29 RETURN1 0:29 NEWS 2:59 NEWS 1:59 THEME MUSIC 0:29 1C 6. HISTORY STANDARDS - NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on the release today of a new set of national history standards. The first standards, released 2 years ago, were roundly criticized for offering too many negative examples about American history. The new standards are decidedly more positive about the American experience, but more importantly they omit the specific curriculum suggestions that many people objected to in the original draft.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that there may have been as many as 12 corporate executives travelling with Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown when his plane went down over Croatia today. The executives were exploring business opportunities in Bosnia and Croatia, which are about to begin a massive rebuilding campaign.

Robert Siegel profiles a series of cases heard by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. All the cases are murderers trying to get out of prison before their sentences are up. We'll hear the pleas of victim's families trying to keep their loved one's killer in jail. We'll hear the families of the inmates- hoping to get their loved one a chance on the outside. And, the parole board members weigh in on how they approach the difficult task of making these decisions.

NPR'S Kathy Lohr reports that authorities with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have arrested two men in connection with the seizure of bomb-making equipment about 90 miles outside Atlanta, Georgia. Despite earlier reporters, federal officials say there is NO evidence there was any plot to explode a device at the Summer Olympics.

Commentator David Crystal says poets aren't the only ones to invent new ways of describing the world.

Drummers...maybe hundreds...are filling the town of Santa Cruz, California, with rhythm...lots of rhythm...non-stop rhythm. The drummers are exorcizing the spirit of Robert Bly...they're energizing their bodies; freeing their spirits; celebrating the joy of being alive. They're also REALLY making the people of Santa Cruz mad. Tonight, the city council votes on an ordinance to ban drumming between the hours of 8PM and 10AM. The drummers are bummed. Kathy MacAnally reports.

NPR's Melissa Block takes note of a trend among politicians to quote the words of William Butler Yeats. Irish-American politicians tend to quote him most frequently. There are complaints that taking Yeats' lines out of context distorts their meaning and that over-using Yeats can devalue the poet's work, reducing his lines to political cliches.

NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr says that somehow, the U.S. must find a way deal with Iran when negotiating peace in the current Israel-Lebanon crisis.

NPR's Eric Weiner reports on a speech Yassar Arafat delivered today in Gaza. The PLO leader accused Iran of ordering a wave of bombings on Israel. He also criticized the Jewish state for sealing the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, NPR's Dan Charles reports that similar nuclear plants continue to operate throughout the former Soviet Union. More than a dozen plants with similar design flaws remain in operation, despite calls to shut them down. The biggest impediment is money to pay to replace the power the plants generate.

whether English should be made the official language of the United States. Tonight, we conclude our series with a commentary form Ruben Martinez, who is living in Mexico City, for a perspective from the other side of the border.

On a day in February, Jason Reinier put a call out to sound recordists. He asked them to record the sounds in their neighborhoods, and to send those sounds to him . He took those sounds and put them together as an audio snapshot of February 17th 1996. We play them for you today on the first international noise awareness day. (8:00) (IN S

on the $35 million campaign the AFL-CIO is planning this year to defeat 75 House members -- almost all of whom are Republicans. Labor hopes to reassert itself as the important voting block it once was. But many union members voted Republican in the last election and getting them to follow the union leadership's guidance on election day is a formidable task.

NPR's Chitra Ragavan reports on what's at stake in the up-coming Indian elections that begin Saturday. Voters, which could number almost 6-hundred million, are turning out to cast ballots for one-third of the seats of Parliament. Voters of all classes and castes are said to be disgusted with the government's corruption and question the benefits of democracy.

NPR's Joe Palca reports that a new study has shown that genetically engineered foods can produce unexpected food allergies. In the study, being published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that genetically engineered soybeans could provoke an allergic reaction in people who are allergic to nuts that supplied the engineered genetic material. An editorial accompanying the study says it raises questions about the adequacy of safeguards by the Food and Drug Administration.

Linda talks with Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist at the University of California at Berkeley, and David Cole, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan, about the strike at General Motors that has shut down 21 assembly plants across the country and threatens to escalate into a national ordeal. Cole talks about the industry's push to become leaner and their use of "just-in-time manufacturing." Following the lead of Japan, GM now keeps only a very small supply of critical components, like brakes, in stock. Shaiken explains how this practice gives union strikes considerable leverage because a small number of strikers can paralyze a large organization.

NPR's Mary Kay Magistad reports that China's war games and missile tests have apparently failed to cow the Taiwanese on the eve of Taiwan's presidential election.