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Colorado Public Radio's Howie Movshovitz reports on the remake of the classic Brazilian film, Black Orpheus. Unlike the original, the new movie plays up to the reality of black life in Brazil, including the violence and the poverty, and uses the backdrop of Carnival to highlight the discrepancies in Brazilian society.

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports on two studies from the Rand Corporation think tank that offer starkly different views of the widely publicized improvements of Texas students on standardized tests. The dueling reports have stirred up the debate over education in the presidential campaign.

Linda and Noah read some of the listener mail received during the past week.

Noah talks to Masha Lipman, Deputy Editor of Itoga Magazine who talks about the reaction of the families of the Russian sailors who died on the submarine Kursk after they learned of a note found on the body of one sailor. The note revealed that at least some of the sailors survived the explosion the explosion. It was found in the pocket of Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov, commander of the Kursk's turbine section. The note describes how 23 members of the crew moved from one section to the other after the explosion, and suggested that two or three people might try to escape through the emergency escape hatch.

NPR's Rob Gifford reports from Pyongyang that Secretary of State Albright's trip to North Korea this week afforded a rare glimpse of the isolated country and its grinding poverty. Women in a rural area were seen sweeping up precious grains of rice from the roadway, evidence of the country's on-going food shortage. And in the capital, medical personnel in the freezing cold main hospital were forced to use beer bottles to construct intravenous systems. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in recent months has been reaching out to western countries, possibly because of the country's need for economic assistance.

Anthony Brooks traces the career path that brought Al Gore Jr., the son of a U.S. Senator from Tenessee, to his presidential canidacy. After college and a tour in Vietnam in the Army, he didn't want to enter his father's field of politics. But after a stint as a journalist, he changed his mind.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome on a new study by a panel of six historians on the role played by the Catholic Church during the Nazi Holocaust. The historians examined eleven volumes of documents and concluded that by the middle of 1942, the Vatican was well aware of "the accelerating mass murder of Jews." In their report, the historians asked for more information about the Church response to these crimes.

Commentator Phillip Hoose, a cousin of New York Yankee Don Larsen, remembers a pivitol time in his life when the pitcher's career achievement (throwing a perfect game in the 1956 World Series) helped his status at school.

A draft report by the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that there is strong evidence that humans have contributed to global warming. The panel also predicted that the earth is likely to get hotter than previously predicted. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

NPR's Kenneth Walker in Abidjan reports the day after Ivory Coast's military ruler was ousted in a popular rising there was further violence involving supporters of rival political groups. There were religious overtones to the latest unrest, with several mosques and churches destroyed by rampaging mobs.