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Host Bob Edwards talks with Bill O'Hare, co-author of a report claiming that the overall health of children born in the U.S. increased during the 1990's.

Robert Siegel talks with Robert Matthews, a physicist at Aston University in Birmingham, England and the world's foremost expert on Murphy's Law. Matthews is part of a six-week experiment across Britain that begins today. Up to 150,000 primary and secondary school pupils are dropping buttered toast. If the results prove that the toast is more likely to fall butter-side down, Murphy's law will be validated.

There are plans for a massive new natural gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico. The 750-mile pipe will carry natural gas from Alabama to the Florida peninsula. As NPR's Debbie Elliott report, It's a first for the environmentally-sensitive eastern Gulf.

Commentator Susan Arnout Smith demands zero tolerance for cruelty as a reaction to this past week's shootings in Santee, CA.

It's Oscar time and NPR's Andy Trudeau has his annual sounding of the musical nominees for Best Score. In the first of three parts, he tells Liane about Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Gladiator with music by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard.

Today, according to statements from the Taliban in Afghanistan, ancient Buddhist statues carved into a mountain have been destroyed despite attempts by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to prevent it. Host Lisa Simeone talks with Humanities Professor Crispin Sartwell who says that destruction of idols has a long tradition in Western history. (5:00).

NPR's Sarah Chayes reports on today's municipal election in Paris. Because of recent government corruption scandals, Parisians may select liberal candidates for the first time in100 years.

An explosion in a rural school house in China last Tuesday is believed to have been caused by children making fireworks to supplement the teachers' income. Host Lisa Simeone speaks with NPR's Rob Gifford in Beijing about child labor in China.

Host Lisa Simeone talks with the translators of a new English edition of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel, Anna Karenina (Viking Penguin/2001). Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear are a husband and wife translating team. She's Russian, he's American. They talk about the delicate art of translation.

Host Lisa Simeone talks with NPR's Gerry Hadden about the end of the Zapatistas' trek to the capital to push for legislation that will guarantee the rights of indigenous people.