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Republican lawmakers have given up their effort to allow states to bar the children of illegal immigrants from public schools. President Clinton had threatened to veto the overall immigration reform bill if it came to him with the ban included. The provision was supported by Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports that negotiators from the House and Senate agreed to drop the amendment in order to save the rest of the immigration bill.

- Daniel visits 15-year-old Zak Forrest, who just won the grand prize in a nationwide American Film Institute contest with his two-and-a-half minute film called "Saturday." Zak shot the film himself and did all the editing on his computer. TV and movie actor Tim Allen was one of the judges in the contest...Danny talks with him about the film, and about the advances in technology that make filmmaking accessible to more people.

have filed an application with the Treasury Department, registering their intention to accept a billion dollar grant from Libya. The government could attempt to block the transaction under the new anti-Terrorism law, which makes it a criminal act for a U.S. citizen to engage in financial dealings with any country on the State Department list of nations suspected of sponsoring terrorism. Libya is on that list. Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam appear ready to challenge the law in court.

Susan talks with UCLA professor of Soviet Studies Richard Anderson about the recent turmoil in Russia with Boris Yeltsin's sacking of his national security chief Alexander Lebed. (4:30) (outcue: (STAMBERG) "Richard Anderson is professor of Soviet Studies at UCLA."

Neal talks with Hugo Gassioles who just completed a 3- and-a-half-year, 12,000 mile, horseback journey from his native Argentina to the U.S.

About a half-million elderly immigrants receive assistance under the Supplemental Security Income program. It's an income assistance program that also entitles them to Food Stamps and Medicaid, which pays for nursing home care for thousands. Laws passed by Congress in the last term would make immigrants ineligible for the assistance. NPR's Vicky Que looks at the possible impact of the changes on a Vietnamese couple in Philadelphia, who are too old to work and have no family in the U.S. to help them. (An adopted son is in trouble with the law.) It's not clear that either local and state public service agencies or private organizations can or will step in.

government's ineffectual handling of a disastrous oil spill...and the country's consequent political difficulties.

Women taking estrogen may be taking a risk if they also drink alcohol. For reasons yet to be determined, one or two drinks can increase the amount of estrogen circulating in the blood. And high levels of estrogen have been linked to an increase in breast cancer, though that link has never been conclusively proved. NPR's Vicky Que reports.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's prospects for the New Year. Bowers says that with Yeltsin's heart bypass surgery behind him, the Russian leader appears to be entering 1997 in a relatively strong political position. But he does have to contend with some enormous economic problems.

and important science story of the year...the announcement that scientists had found possible evidence of ancient life on Mars.