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A fellow Republican Congressman from Georgia said today that House Speaker Newt Gingrich gave "an erroneous statement" to the House Ethics Committee. Representative John Linder blamed Gingrich's then-attorney, Jan Baran, for the errors. Baran announced yesterday that he had dropped Gingrich as a client. The Ethics Committee is investigating allegations that Gingrich violated tax laws in regard to a college course he taught, as well as whether he misled investigators. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

John Biewen of Minnesota Public Radio reports on the rise of the so-called fringe banks...pawn shops and check cashing businesses which charge very high rates of interest and cater to the poor. An increasing number of poor families have no relationship with a traditional bank or savings and loan. Advocates for the poor say that higher and more pervasive fees are pushing the poor out of banks and into the pawn shops. Bankers disagree and suggest there are lots of reasons why poor people prefer "fringe" banking.

The head of the Boston Archdiocese meets with Vatican officials in Rome, while in Boston there are new calls for his resignation. Cardinal Bernard Law's trip follows revelations claiming he overlooked charges of priestly sexual misconduct longer than previously thought. NPR's Michele Norris talks with John Allen, Vatican correspondent with National Catholic Reporter.

He has made over 70 films, including Alfie, Sleuth, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Hannah and Her Sisters. Caine has worked with such directors as Brian DePalma, John Huston and Woody Allen. He's starring in the new film The Quiet American, based on the Graham Greene murder mystery centered on a love triangle set in the early 1950s, during the rebellion against French control of what is now Vietnam. This interview first aired November 17, 1992.

He is professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Graduate School University Center and director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He has written books on many topics, including a Japanese cult that released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors and Vietnam vets. He will discuss the emotional impact of the Columbia shuttle disaster, as well as the impact of an impending war in Iraq, and the looming nuclear crisis in North Korea.

Their film, About a Boy, is based on the novel by Nick Hornby and has just been released on DVD and video. The Weitz brothers, born to fashion designer John Weitz and Oscar-nominated actress Susan Kohner, first became famous for directing the 1999 teen comedy American Pie. They also wrote the screenplay for the animated movie Antz and directed the Chris Rock movie Down to Earth. They live in New York. This interview first aired June 5, 2002.

NPR's David Welna reports on the tragic death of Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, the Democratic nominee running in a hotly-contested Senate seat against incumbent Republican John Ashcroft, who perished in a plane crash, along with his son and a campaign adviser. Carnahan's death robs the Democrats of one of their best chances at picking up a Senate seat. But more importantly, it robs a state of a very popular public official, and it darkens the mood as the presidential candidates hold their final debate tonight in St. Louis.

NPR's Eric Westervelt has the story of the 1964 recording, A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane. It's a four part piece that expresses Coltrane's faith in God. And it's part of the NPR 100 -- NPR's list of most important American musical works of the last century. (12:30) View the enitre NPR 100 list at: http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that tomorrow, Pope John Paul the Second will proclaim Thomas More the patron saint of statesmen and politicians. Thomas More, the Renaissance humanist, jurist, diplomat and author of Utopia, is revered by Christians as a symbol of integrity and conscience. He was beheaded by King Henry the Eighth for refusing to recognize the monarch as England's supreme spiritual leader. The suggestion to make Thomas More the patron saint of politicians came first from former Italian president Francesco Cossiga.

Bob Mondello reviews the film Thirteen Days, starring Bruce Greenwood as President Kennedy and Kevin Costner as a presidential advisor. The movie is based on the book The Kennedy Tapes--Instead the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis. The story starts in October of 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced the U.S. response to the presence of medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. For the following week, Soviet military vessels raced toward the Caribbean as the rest of the world held its breath. The film opened today in New York and Los Angeles.

Robert Siegel speaks with John Hutson, the dean of Franklin Pearce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire about the legal procedures against the captain of a U.S. submarine that collided with a Japanese vessel off Hawaii earlier this year. Cmdr. Scott Waddle -- the captain of the USS Greeneville -- faces disciplinary action that will likely end his career. Nine people from the Japanese ship -- a trawler used to teach high school students to fish -- died in the accident. Hutson is a retired Navy rear admiral and Navy judge advocate general.

NPR's Steve Inskeep profiles Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. The first-term Republican, who is considered a close friend of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and endorsed him during last year's presidential primaries, is pushing a campaign-finance reform measure that has become the vehicle for those opposed to the McCain-Feingold bill. Hagel's measure, which limits -- but does not eliminate -- soft money contributions, is tacitly backed by President Bush. McCain calls Hagel's bill a "poison pill" that would not change the system in any meaningful way.

Son of actor Richard Harris, Jared has acted in theater and on the big screen. He's appeared in movies like I Shot Andy Warhol, Happiness, Sunday, Smoke, and VH1's Two of Us, in which he plays Beatle John Lennon. He talks to us today about his newest movie called Shadow Magic, which is set in China. Harris plays the man that brought the motion picture projector to China. He lives in New York City.

In the Japanese anime series Death Note, high school student Light Yagami is in possession of a super-powered notebook that allows him to kill anyone, simply by writing down the victim's name. Critic-at-large John Powers offers a commentary.

Iraqi citizens with television sets now can watch Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings every night, along with Fox Network news and the PBS NewsHour. The networks agree to let their news programs be aired on a television channel being established by the U.S. government in Iraq. Critics say the broadcasts will do little to enhance America's image or to improve local journalism. NPR's John McChesney reports.

The choice of Henry Paulson, a 30-year veteran of Wall Street, to be President Bush's new Treasury secretary is a move to breathe new life into the White House's economic policies. Paulson, the chairman of the investment bank Goldman Sachs, is replacing John Snow, who had formerly been a railroad executive.

The Pacific Northwest has been the source for a lot of great rock music — in the early 1990s, for example, it spawned the "grunge" sound made famous by acts like Nirvana and Soundgarden. Music critic John Brady shares some of his favorite new and sometimes quirky acts.

How did "red hot tamales" get to be a staple of the Mississippi Delta? Southern Foodways Alliance director John T. Edge tells Debbie Elliott that it happened a century ago, when migrant Mexican farmworkers came to pick cotton side by side with African Americans in the deep South.

Carolyn and Mary Jane DeZurik grew up on a Minnesota farm, but they rose to musical fame in the 1930s. Their special talents included yodeling and imitations of birds and barnyard animals. Their story is told again by writer John Biguenet in the music issue of Oxford American magazine.

Fans of the band The Clash have long rooted around in record bins for the one album of a similar but obscure British bar band from the 1970s called The 101ers. John Brady reviews Elgin Avenue Breakdown, which has been re-released by Astralwerks.