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Robert Siegel speaks with Stanley Hoffman, a professor of the civilization of France at Harvard University, about the late Francois Mitterrand. Mr. Hoffman discusses Mitterrand's efforts toward European integration and his gradual move from the right to the left.

We remember bluegrass fiddler Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise who died this week at the age of 80.

Robert talks with Nicholas Scoppetta, who has served as a New York State prosecutor, deputy mayor, and commissioner for Investigations under two New York City mayors. He has been appointed by mayor Rudolph Giuliani to lead a new agency overseeing child welfare.

Linda Gradstein reports on the trial of confessed assassin Yigal Amir, who drew gasps from court spectators when he was handed a gun to demonstrate how he was tackled after shooting Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Linda talks with Thomas Bartlett, editor-in-chief of Baylor University's campus newspaper, "The Lariat." Bartlett describes the excitement among students over the impending change in the traditional Baptist univeristy's 150-year injunction against dancing.

Today's budget talks have been suspended. Robert Siegel speaks with NPR's Mara Liasson from the White House and Peter Kenyon from Capitol Hill about the why the negotiaitions broke down. Budget negotiators gathered again at the White House today, amid reports from both sides that the talks are on the verge of ending, either with a balanced budget agreement or a failure. Republicans had been hinting that, if they can't reach a settlement with President Clinton, they will bypass him and cut a deal with congressional Democrats to cut spending and taxes.

Daniel remembers the Challenger explosion, which took place ten years ago today. He speaks with Karen Colby, a former student of astronaut Christa McAuliffe who is now a teacher in New Hampshire; and with Gene Kranz, who was at mission control for NASA when the explosion took place.

NPR's Mike Shuster in Sarajevo reports on problems facing Sarajevo as it nears another important mile-post under the Bosnian peace plan. The Serb suburbs of the city are to be handed over to the Bosnian government this coming weekend under the supervision of an international civilian police force. However, the deployement of those police is slow and crime is on the rise.

(host copy) Poet Joseph Brodsky died today. The Russian exile, who lived in New York, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987. He went on to become the U.S. Poet Laureate. We'll hear Brodsky read his poem, "Bosnia Tune."

Linda Wertheimer speaks with Alex Crosby, a medical epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, and author of a new report on suicide and the elderly. After many years of declining rates of suicide among persons 65 and older, the rates have started to increase.

Lynne Terry reports that in advance his visit to the United States, French President Jacques Chirac called an early end to his government's controversial series of underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Saying that the tests guarantee a "viable and modern defense," he announced that the sixth test would be the last.

In our ongoing series of stump speeches delivered by the Presidential candidates, we hear an excerpt from an address by Alan Keyes.

Daniel speaks with Sandy Rikoon, a sociologist at the University of Missouri about Rachel Caloff (KAY-loff), a young woman who in the 1890's left her native Russia for the United States marry a man she'd never met. Together, Caloff and her new husband moved to North Dakota where they became part of a small Jewish farming community. Rikoon found a manuscript of Caloff's memoirs in an historical archive and worked with the family to get it published. It's called 'The Rachel Caloff Story' and is published by Indiana University press.

NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr says that U.S. relations with China appear to be heating up again, just in time for the U.S. presidential election.

In the third part of our series on the income gap, reporter Elaine Korry examines whether America is still the land of opportunity or whether that cornerstone of our national identity has been eroded by years of stagnant wages and a growing disparity in incomes.

Film critic Bob Mondello reviews "A Midwinter's Tale", Kenneth Branagh's behind-the-scenes farce about an English production of Hamlet.

Noah talks to the BBC's Chris Nuttal about a group of rebel Chechens who hijacked a Russian ship today in Turkey and are holding the passengers hostage.

Robert talks with journalist Tom Goltz about freedom-fighting Turks of Caucasian ancestry and the hostage crisis on the Black Sea. Chechens have taken 200 people hostage aboard a ferry boat and have threatened to blow the boat up once they reach Istanbul. Goltz spent the last four years in Turkey and the Caucasus and is writing a book about the wars in the post-Soviet Caucasus.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports a commission headed by former housing secretary Jack Kemp is recommending the current income tax system be replaced with a single rate system -- the so-called flat tax. The panel's recommendations come as the flat tax issue is a major topic of debate in the Republican presidential campaign.

NPR's Joe Palca reports that astronomers have found evidence for the existence of two new planets outside our solar system. Both putative planets are about 35 light years from Earth, and are orbiting stars at a distance that would allow water to exist on them. One appears to be orbiting a sun in the constellation Virgo, while the other appears to be orbiting a sun in the Big Dipper.