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Noah reads from listeners' comments. To contact All Things Considered, write to All Things Considered Letters, 635 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Washington D-C, 20001. To contact us via the Internet, the address is ATC@ NPR.ORG.

A major environmental lobbying group has broken ranks, issuing a report that calls the Endangered Species Act a failure. The Environmental Defense Fund says the law hasn't protected species on private land and that the law needs to be overhauled to extend its reach to these areas. But other groups don't want Congress to tinker with one of environmentalism's monumental achievements. And as NPR's John Nielsen reports, ranchers and farmers are also opposed to any changes.

between the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago over Meigs Field, the tiny airport on Lake Michigan, which is very convenient for state officials traveling to and from the capital in Springfield. The State legislature has voted to take control of the airport site, something Mayor Richard Daley promises to fight in court. Chicago wants to make a public park on the land.

The National Transportation Safety Board meets this week in Florida to review all data collected about last May's ValuJet crash. Transcripts from cockpit voice recordings reveal that the pilots knew just how much trouble their craft was in. Investigators will also review results of the data analysis to try and repeat the condition that led to the fire that brought down the plane. NPR's Dan Charles reports.

The Department of Energy is announcing a two-step plan to get rid of the nation's stockpile of plutonium waste. About 50 tons of the highly radioactive material have accumulated during the making of atomic bombs, weapons that are now being dismantled. NPR's Richard Harris reports on the government's plan to bury part of the waste and to combine the rest of it in fuel used by commercial nuclear plants.

For the first time in Russian history, voters used a referendum election to decide their future. NPR's Andy Bowers reports that they used the referendum ballot to stop plans for a Cerhnobyl-style nuclear power plant. The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry had wanted to finish a plant in Kostroma, 250 miles northeast of Moscow. Residents turned it down by a nine-to-one margin.

Marj Halperin reports on the new "Children's Room" for kids who visit Chicago's family court. The children are anxiously awaiting the outcome of their custody, abuse, and foster care hearings, and while they wait they are often calmed by hands-on-art activities, live performances, and special phones where they can role-play about their fears with privacy.

by the resort of Vail to double in size by buying up three nearby mountain ski regions in Colorado, giving it 43 percent of the state ski business. This worries competing resorts as well as skiers who suspect it might mean monopoly pricing.

Tonight, public television will air "A Strong, Clear Vision," a documentary about Maya Lin, creator of the design for the Vietnam War Memorial. In conjunction with the broadcast, PBS has created a site on the World Wide Web to enable people to share their thoughts and experiences on the war. Like the wall of names on the Washington mall, the site is meant to serve as a kind of "blank space" where people can insert their own thoughts and feelings about a seminal event. NPR's Margot Adler has this report.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports on the intense political crisis gripping Zaire, one of Africa's largest nations. A rebellion which began several weeks ago in the east of the country is steadily spreading, and Zaire's underpaid and poorly disciplined army is putting up very little resistance. To compound the problem, President Mobutu Sese Seko (mo-BOO-too SAY-SAY SAY-koh) has been out of the country for months, as he recuperates from cancer surgery on the French Riviera.