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NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on disappointing results released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress -- a report known as the "nation's report card." Reading scores of fourth graders have improved little over the last eight years and the achievement gap between white and minority students remains substantial.

Robert Siegel talks with Maryland State Sen. Barbara Hoffman, a Democrat from Baltimore, about her proposal to require gun safety courses for all Maryland public school students. The legislation passed the House of Delegates yesterday in a vote 98 to 32. If the Senate passes it, and the governor signs it, Maryland would be the first state in the nation to require firearms instruction.

NPR's John Ydstie reports the unemployment rate notched up another tenth of a percent today to 4.3 percent. And the Labor Department said the economy lost 86,000 jobs in March -- the biggest monthly job loss in nearly a decade.

Despite months of work by the state of California to bail out its largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, the company filed for bankruptcy this morning. PG&E's financial problems are the direct result of the California state law that deregulated the electricity market. NPR's Richard Gonzales reports.

Storyteller Bailey White details adventures in trying to find her car as exhaust fumes cloud her senses and conjure up hallucinations of the underworld.

Robert Siegel talks to Helene Stapinksi, the author of Five Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, a book about growing up in Jersey City, N.J., where the whole town seemed to be on the take. (7:30) Five Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, by Helene Stapinski, is published by Random House, 2001, ISBN # 0679463062.

The Senate approved a budget last night, but with a tax cut smaller than President Bush asked for. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports.

A criminal justice expert at Illinois State University says the FBI is often reluctant to take a lead role in local investigations, such as the one involving graduate student Jelani Day's death.

NPR film critic Bob Mondello reviews the Iranian movie, The Day I Became A Woman. It tells the stories of a young girl, a young woman and an older woman in Iran, and their places in society. It opens today.

The Swiss Army is eliminating its bicycle brigade -- which has been a part of the Swiss force for 110 years. Noah Adams talks with Major General Christian Schlapbach, deputy chief of the Swiss Army and the former head of the bicycle regiment.