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NPR's Vicky O'Hara reports China continues to hold 24 U.S. service men and women and their surveillance plane, which was damaged in a mid-air collision with a Chinese jet fighter on Sunday. Today, the United States issued a conciliatory statement expressing regret that a Chinese pilot was apparently killed in the accident. But the U.S. stopped short of an apology. It says the U.S. crew was not to blame for the collision.

A day before Game 3 of the World Series, the animal rights organization released a statement saying the term "bullpen" is insensitive to cows and bulls. The suggestion drew mixed reactions.

Host Bob Edwards talks to Edward Goldberg, Director of the Medici Archive Project, about his work with the Medici family archive in Florence, Italy. The archive is a collection of virtually every letter sent or received by the Medici court during its rule from the mid-1500s to the mid-1700s. The correspondence reveals a great deal about Italian art and early modern European history. Goldberg and his colleagues are documenting and digitizing each letter, and hope to have the project complete by 2012. (6:28) For more on the project, check out our Medici Archive Web page.

With Passover approaching this weekend, the search is on by many Jewish families for Kosher beef brisket for their Passover Seder. Brisket has become the traditional Passover entree for many families. But with changes in imports because of foot-and-mouth disease and a fire at a Kosher slaughterhouse in Kansas, brisket is in extremely short supply this year. Robert Siegel talks with Jay Parker, owner of Ben's Best Kosher Deli in Rego Park, Queens, New York.

The Post Office is considering cutbacks in an effort to reduce its costs. Among the ideas on the table, is stopping Saturday delivery. Linda talks with Dave Hirschman, who covers the U.S. Postal Service for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

The Chinese detention of a U.S. spy plane and its crew is affecting every aspect of the two nations' often fragile relationship. And that may create an opportunity for supporters of Taiwan, the offshore island state that China considers a wayward province. The budding crisis may be a boon to members of Congress who want the U.S. to sell state-of-the-art weapons to Taiwan. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports.

The idea of one nation publicly apologizing to another is a relatively recent development in international diplomacy. Robert Siegel talks about it with Elazar Barkan, chair of the cultural studies department at Claremont Graduate University and author of The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices. (4:00) The Guilt of Nations is published by W.W. Norton & Company.

NPR's David Welna reports on today's action in the House of Representatives on the proposed repeal of estate taxes. The plan would reduce the top rate of 55 percent to 39 percent by 2010, and then phase it out altogether in 2011. It's a move that is expected to cost $193 billion over the next 10 years.

Commentator Lenore Skenazy offers a satire about a moneyless high-tech investor who gets offered a sleazy retirement plan full of perils to replace her once sizeable portfolio.

NPR's Emily Harris reports organized labor is disturbed about several Bush administration decisions and is preparing to oppose Republican congressional candidates next year. Organized business, on the other hand, is taking its issues to the administration, especially at the regulatory level of federal agencies.