May 25, 1998 All Things Considered (entire program) Requires the RealAudio Player

An index of the day's stories:

MEMORIAL DAY -- We'll hear an excerpt from President Clinton's speech today at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. (4:14)

TELFORD TAYLOR OBIT -- Telford Taylor, the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, died over the weekend at the age of 90. Linda talks with Jonathan Bush, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He worked with Taylor in recent years, co-teaching a seminar on war crimes at the Columbia University Law School. (4:03)

GINGRICH IN JERUSALEM -- NPR's Eric Weiner reports from Jerusalem that Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is in Israel to add his own partisan spin to the Middle East peace process. Having already criticized the Clinton administration's efforts to pressure Israel to withdraw its occupying troops further from the West Bank, Gingrich made it clear that his foreign policy position on Israel is no different than that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (3:51)

INDONESIA -- NPR's Julie McCarthy reports that Indonesia's Justice Minister says that political prisoners will be released under the new government that took over late last week following the resignation of President Suharto. The new regime under former Vice President and now President B.J. Habibie also has said that it will hold new elections. Suharto resigned under increasing pressure from students and other demonstrators demanding political and economic reform. (4:24)

MASSIVE ATTACK -- Charles de Ledesma reviews "Mezzanine", by Massive Attack. They're a British band, with roots in the reggae explosion in 1970s London, and their sound is a slow, pulsing combination of dub and rock, along with electronic samples and ethereal vocals. (3:34)

EAST BOSTON -- Steve Tripoli of member station WBUR profiles his old neighborhood -- the waterfront community of East Boston, Massachusetts. Across the generations, East Boston and its commercial heart, known as Maverick Square, have sheltered waves of Irish, Jewish, Italian and Latino immigrants, setting the stage for generations of American urban history. (12:05)

BELLE WARING -- Linda talks to our poetry guide Catherine Bowman about poet Belle Waring - who has spent more than 17 years as a nurse. She offers a unflinching look at a painful event in a hospital delivery room. (NOTE: The poems contain language that might be offensive to some, please be advised. Belle Waring's latest book of poetry is "Dark Blonde," available from Sarabonde Books.) (7:24)

DANVILLE IL BOMBING -- Tom Rogers of member station WILL in Urbana, Illinois, reports the explosion that injured 33 people during a church service in Danville, Illinois yesterday was a bomb, according to federal authorities. Some 300 people had gathered for Sunday worship when the device exploded. Two teenage girls are reported in serious but stable condition. It is the second bombing at a church in the Danville area in five months. (2:40)

SPACE STATION -- NPR's Richard Harris reports on the challenges faced by NASA and other scientists from around the world in the construction of the International Space Station. Scheduled to be constructed 250 miles above the earth, astronauts are practicing construction techniques underwater at a facility at the Johnson Space Center near Houston...customized tools are being created to handle the rigors of work in space...and backup plans for dealing with catastrophes during the station's construction are being finalized. But the real challenge of the mission could be the politics of paying for the space station and the delegation of authority once the mission is underway. (9:29)

ID DAY -- Reporter Lisa Glazer visits New York's American Museum of Natural History on Identification Day. Visitors can bring in stones, shells or rocks and find out whether they are valuable. Glazer talks with both the hope-filled visitors and the more sober-minded scientists. (3:14)

WASHINGTON MONUMENT -- With the Washington Monument again open to tourists after a five-month renovation, commentator Robert Trout looks back on a previous monument face-lift. As a radio broadcaster in the 1930's, when the monument was covered in scaffolding, Trout broadcast from the very top... hoping to get there before a reporter from a rival radio network. (3:59)

SUDAN -- NPR's Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports from southern Sudan on the United Nations efforts to avoid famine in a region suffering through a long civil war. The Sudanese government recently lifted a ban on U.N. food deliveries in the south, but the U.N. still must combat the rainy season and horrid conditions on the ground to fly in food for some three hundred thousand people facing starvation. (7:33)

AN EXAMPLE -- Commentator Iain Guest says the situation in Sudan -- where the government can cut off international aid at any time to starve the rebels -- highlights a dilemma faced in many parts of the world. Guest says governments are able to mistreat ethnic, racial and religious minorities -- "to hold their most vulnerable citizens hostage" -- because international humanitarian missions have to take a back seat to national sovereignty. He says this must change if international aid agencies are going to be able to fight famine and other disasters effectively. (2:49)

SPRINGFIELD FUNERAL -- The funeral for sixteen-year-old Ben Walker, one of the two students killed last week at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, was held today. Fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel has been charged in connection with the attack, in which more than twenty other students were injured. (2:15)

SUMMER MOVIES -- Movie reviewer Bob Mondello has a roundup of this year's batch of summer movies, from projected blockbusters like "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis and "The Truman Show" with comedian Jim Carrey, to smaller, independent features like "Smoke Signals," a movie made by, and about, Native Americans. (8:02)