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Commentator Jeffrey Tayler visited the village of Tarasawka in southeastern Belarus, near where the Chernobyl disaster occurred. There he meets one of the "old believers"-- a woman who has tried to maintain traditions extending back to the earliest days of the Russian Orthodox Church. In spite of all she has seen and experienced -- World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war, Stalin's famine, World War II, the Chernobyl disaster, and the collapse of the Soviet Union -- it is the deathof her son she cannot forget.

Kate Seelye in Damascus reports Bashar Al-Assad has, as expected, been chosen as Syria's new president. But his overwhelming victory in yesterday's referendum masks growing discontent in the country.

Commentator Daniel Ferri -- a grade school teacher in Chicago -- relates the story of his relationship with one of his students. Ferri gets off on the wrong foot - so to speak - with the boy - and is relieved at the boy's ability to forgive his teacher.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on a new media campaign designed to provoke pre-election discussion about how to improve American education. Television commercials will advocate better choices for families of all income levels. The group that sponsors the campaign is led by businessman Ted Forstmann. Forstmann is "on record" advocating government-paid tuition vouchers. But another participant, Senator John McCain says he doesn't support that. Former Reagan Administration official Robert Bennett says other options include support for home schooling and more student access to high technology.

The Peoria Housing Authority has promised to repair the units where Direna Gardner's family of seven is expected to live during the Taft redevelopment.

General Barry McCaffrey testified before a House subcommittee today on his White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's efforts to get its message out through the media. McCaffrey defended past efforts at trading ad time for anti-drug messages in TV show scripts. And though he did not specifically address it in his testimony, in his PRINTED statement he indicated that his office would be exploring ways to collaborate with Hollywood. NPR's Brooke Gladstone reports.

Commentator Matt Miller says, he has an idea that will save Television executives from airing boring programs and serve a societal purpose. If death penalty fans consider capital punishment to be a deterrent, he says, airing executions should persuade people not to kill one another.

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg profiles painter Ed Ruscha. The California artist is the subject of a retrospective at the Hirschorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

Israeli Prime-Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat have joined President Clinton for peace talks at Camp David outside Washington DC. The two leaders left sharply divided public opinion at home -- Prime Minister Barak narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in the Parliament yesterday -- to attempt to make progress in their negotiations, which have been stalled for some time. Linda talks with NPR's Ted Clark who is at the media center near Camp David.

NPR's Richard Knox reports from the 13th International AIDS conference in South Africa, on a new strategy for treating AIDS. Doctors at the National Institutes of Health reported in Durban, South Africa, that they have had success with an on-and-off regimen of AIDS drugs. Patients could safely stop the drugs for a month or two, then start them again. But many warn patients not to try this until studies had proved that it is not dangerous.