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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.

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.

- 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.

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.

Noah talks to Fatemah Ziai (FAH-tee-mah zee-AH-ee), counsel for Human Rights Watch Middle East, about the detention of Iyad al-Sarraj (EE-yad al saw-RAWJ) (rhymes with garage) by the Palestinian Authority. A psychiatrist and human rights activist, al-Sarraj has been critical of the Palestinian Authority's governance of the West Bank and Gaza. Human Rights Watch and two other U.S.-based human rights groups have criticized his detention.

Storyteller Kevin Kling tells of a day on the ball field. This small tale grows to such epic proportions that it would make Homer proud.

A new book recreates the story behind one of England's greatest love affairs — the 17-year relationship between Charles II and Nell Gwyn. Charles Beauclerk is a direct descendant of the pair, and delved into family archives for the inside story.