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Robert talks with Ze'ev Schiff, military correspondent for the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, about the secret negotiations between Israeli and PLO negotiators over the creation of an unarmed Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the culmination of their current peace process. Schiff says the two sides already have drafted ideas for such a state.

Last week, as Israeli newspaper revealed a series of clandestine meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. Robert Siegel talks with one of the settler leaders in Gaza and the West Bank, Yisrael Harel, who says that the newspaper story was a leak from Prime Minister Shimon Peres's office. Harel and two others took part is secret meetings with Palestinians.

Scientists in Idaho have produced the world's first cloned mule. Born May 4, Idaho Gem is the brother of a champion racing mule race, Taz, and some are betting cloning may provide a way to reproduce champion mules -- and horses. NPR's Joe Palca reports.

A House Government Reform Committee meeting focuses on distribution of grants for urban disaster-response planning. New York and other large urban centers complain that they got less money this year than last.

Environmental activist John Francis spent 22 years on a journey across America, mostly on foot and deliberately without the aid of motorized devices. He's written about those years in the book Planetwalker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time.

Robert speaks with Marjorie Miller, Los Angeles Times Bureau Chief in Jerusalem, about the meeting in Gaza today of the Palestine National Council. For decades, the P-N-C has been the government in exile for Palestinians. This is the group's first meeting in territory controlled by Palestinians and Yasser Arafat is asking the council to remove their constitutional clause calling for the destruction of Israel. Many of the participants have rejected any accommodation with Israel in the past.

on the West Bank and Gaza. Yesterday was the official start of the campaign for the 88-member council that will govern the newly-autonomous regions. The elections are January 20, 1996.

- Daniel speaks with reporter Laurie Neff about today's extraordinary diplomatic events in the Middle East. Neff says the day began with special U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross announcing that he was abandoning his efforts to strike a deal between Israelis and Palestinians over an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron. Then Jordanian King Hussein unexpectedly jumped into the picture, flying to Gaza to meet PLO leader Yasir Arafat and then to Tel Aviv, where he's meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ross, who postponed his departure. Now, after weeks of rollercoaster diplomacy, Neff reports there's cautious talk of a breakthrough that also will address the thorny issue of a timetable for further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank.

last night of a U.S. plan to provide emergency economic relief to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many Palestinians are experiencing hardship because Israel closed off those areas after a wave of terrorist bombings.

Ed Gordon talks with jazz piano legend Herbie Hancock about his new CD Possibilities, which features collaborations with pop vocalists old and new.

Robin Meloy Goldsby has spent decades making "pleasant and unobtrusive" background music as a cocktail lounge piano player. Now she steps front and center with a memoir called Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian.

Noah speaks with Saud Abu Ramadan, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, about a 17-year-old youth who was recruited by Islamic extremists to become a suicide bomber. In describing the recruitment process, Abu Ramadan says extremist leaders keep an eye out for especially religious youths and brainwash them into believing that their impoverished lives on earth are failures. He says they then convince these young people that the awards of paradise await them if they become martyrs for the Islamic cause.