April 20, 1998 All Things Considered (entire program) Requires the RealAudio Player

An index of the day's stories:

RJR on Joe Camel -- Elizabeth Stawicki of Minnesota Public Radio reports on today's testimony at the Minnesota tobacco trial. Lawyers for the tobacco companies are calling to the stand the executive from RJ Reynolds who helped create the Joe Camel ad campaign. Tobacco critics have claimed the Joe Camel campaign was aimed at getting children to smoke. Company officials say that's not true. (3:00)

Tobacco Lobbying -- NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr says that the once-influential tobacco lobby appears to be losing its grip on most legislators. (3:00)

Clinton on Tobacco -- President Clinton today urged Congress to resist lobbying efforts by the tobacco industry and to adopt legislation to curb teen smoking. (1:00)

Congress Back in Session -- All Things Considered host Linda Wertheimer talks with NPR congressional correspondent Peter Kenyon about Congress' agenda after returning from Easter break. Among the issues House and Senate are working on are tobacco bills, aid to education and NATO expansion. (4:30)

Women in Business -- NPR's David Molpus reports that a recent survey of successful women entrepreneurs finds many of the women were successful corporate executives. Many say they left their companies to start their own businesses because they felt ignored or stifled in the corporate structure. (7:45)

New Jersey Drug War -- NPR's Eric Westervelt reports on the mixed results of Newark, New Jersey's efforts to combat the street drug trade. While officers are making more arrests of street drug dealers, an overburdened court system often puts those dealers back on the street within days. (6:00)

Latvia and Russia -- NPR's Andy Bowers reports from Riga on the volatile relations between Latvians and the sizeable ethnic Russian minority in the Baltic republic. Bowing to pressure from Moscow and the West, the Latvian government last week moved to ease citizenship requirements for non-ethnic Latvians. (6:30)

Shroud of Turin -- NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports the Shroud of Turin, the cloth some believe wrapped the body of Christ, is on display at the Turin Cathedral in Italy. A decade ago scientists dated the shroud to the Middle Ages and the Catholic Church officially accepted the verdict. But on Sunday, the Roman Catholic Church opened the exhibit with a solemn mass. The event is seen as a dress rehearsal for the Church's third millenium celebration. (7:00)

Needle Exchange -- Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala endorsed needle exchange programs today, saying research shows the programs do help prevent the spread of HIV, which causes AIDS. But the Clinton administration won't allow federal AIDS prevention funds to be used to support such programs. NPR's Brenda Wilson reports. (4:00)

New Middle East Talks -- NPR's Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will meet separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in London on May 4th. It's the latest effort to restart the stalled peace talks between the two sides. (3:30)

China Dissident -- NPR's Ted Clark reports from Washington on the release this past weekend of Wang Dan, one of China's most famous dissidents. At least two thousand dissidents remain jailed in China. They are largely unknown to the outside world, especially labor and religious activists. Human rights groups are trying to raise the profile of these dissidents and are urging the U.S. Government to work for a group release, rather than the release of one dissident at a time. (4:00)

Tree-Sitting Protest -- Ancel Martinez of member station KQED in San Francisco reports on a woman who is conducting an unusual protest. She's camped out 180 feet up in a northern California redwood tree hoping to prevent some ancient forests from being logged. (4:30)

Burying His Dog -- Commentator Donald McCaid has to kill his dog Moose who has become very sick. It is always hard to do he says, but it helps that for every animal they bury his wife Ann writes a letter to bury with them. Donald likes to think of these letters as "passports" to the afterlife. (3:00)

Carnegie Report on Education -- NPR's Margot Adler reports on a new study that says undergraduate students, particularly freshmen, are being shortchanged by their universities. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching found that undergraduate students are often taught by under-trained teaching assistants. (3:30)

Boston Marathon -- NPR's Tovia Smith reports on the victory of Kenyan Moses Tanui at the 102nd Boston Marathon. It was Tanui's second consecutive win of the oldest marathon in the nation. (3:00)

Pickup Basketball -- All Things Considered host Noah Adams speaks with Chris Ballard, author of Hoops Nation: A Guide to America's Best Pickup Basketball. Mr. Ballard and friends traveled across the country searching for basketball courts where the best games are played. He tells Noah where the five best courts in the country are. (5:00)

Abortion and Racketeering -- NPR's Cheryl Corley reports from Chicago that two anti-abortion groups today were ordered by a jury to pay damages to abortion clinics they had protested against. The racketeering lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women and the clinics 12 years ago accused Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League of waging a campaign to close down the clinics through fear and violence. (6:00)

Grandma's Brownies -- Commentator Elissa Ely inherited her grandmother's brownie recipe when her grandmother moved to a nursing home. Then the nursing home burned down and her grandmother lost everything. The one thing she worries about is what she ever did with her brownie pan. (3:30)