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A variety of Alaska residents tell what they plan to do with their 1,130 dollar checks they've just received. Anyone who has lived in Alaska for the last 18 months received one. The checks are called Permanent Fund Dividends. The Permanent Fund was set up by oil companies as a reserve. Half the earnings from an average year are given back to Alaskans as dividends. We hear from Alaskans living in Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Commentator Marianne Jennings confesses that she has average kids...they don't hold concerts with Luciano Pavarotti, and they don't do flips on the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team. She sometimes feels lazy for not taking them from lesson to lesson, but she realizes that having average kids is a tribute to parents who don't have to live vicariously through their children...and have the inner strength to give a child a childhood.

Linda talks with Ronald Boster (BOSS-ter) about the economic plan Dole announced yesterday. Dole said if he were elected president he would cut taxes by 15 percent across the board and also balance the budget by the year 2002. Boster says Dole's plan would not allow for government savings and investment. Boster is a vice president of the business-supported Committee for Economic Development and a former GOP aide to the House Budget committee.

Noah talks with Sally Friedman about her new memoir, detailing her training as a long-distance swimmer, planning to swim the English Channel, and the death of her husband Paul on the eve of her departure for England. Paul's death was six years ago and he remains young in her mind; she, however, feels much older, having more in common with the widows she knows in her New York neighborhood.

reports on a new group of vigilantes operating in Russia.

- Jackie speaks with the BBC's Owen Bennet Jones in Geneva about an unusual and problematic proposal that Switzerland has received from the World Hindu Federation. The federation is asking the Swiss government to ship 230,000 Swiss cows to Nepal. Jones says the animals may be infected with Mad Cow Disease and have been slated for destruction. The federation argues the animals will be protected in Nepal, where they are considered sacred.

reports on US hopes for a pan African peacekeeping force

and Weekend Edition's sports commentator Ron Rapoport discuss baseball.

Linda and Noah discuss the opening of the thirty-sixth Republican National Convention in San Diego, California. Republicans are hoping that this meeting will showcase their ideas and their candidates...and can help jump-start the Dole campaign. Patrick Buchanan's withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Dole earlier today has helped pave the way for a greater party unity...which is what the convention is hoping to accomplish.

The thirty-sixth Republican National Convention opened today for what amounts to a four-day salute to presidential candidate Bob Dole and his running mate Jack Kemp. The opening session was devoted to consideration of the party platform, but the most contentious differences -- over the party's position on abortion -- were resolved last week. The message of the convention has been scripted, but some moderate Republican governors say they feel excluded. NPR's Mara Liasson reports.