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Three top Air Force officials have been relieved of command in connection with the plane crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 other people in Croatia. The Air Force says the brigadier general and two colonels responsible for the 86th Airlift Wing have lost the confidence of their commander, because of facts revealed in the probe of the plane crash. The statement does not assign any blame for the crash. The investigation continues. NPR's Martha Raddatz reports on today's developments.

Bob Dole ended his Senate career today with an emotional farewell speech before a packed Senate chamber. He reminisced about the joys and struggles of his life, including 35 years in Congress, and telling some of his favorite anecdotes about other senators. NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports on Dole's last day as Majority Leader, as he now turns his attention full-time to the presidential campaign.

Sylvia Poggioli reports on the Italian port city of Trieste (tree-EST), where the first East-West confrontation of the Cold War took place in 1945. Between 1945 and 1954, a total of one hundred twenty thousand U-S soldiers served a peacekeeping mission in Trieste similar to the current mission of U-N peacekeepers in the former Yoguslavia. Trieste recently welcomed back the American peacekeepers who served there after World War Two and thanked them for their service.

NPR's Tom Gjelten reports the House of Representatives today passed a bill that would impose sanctions against foreign individuals or companies investing in Iran or Libya's oil industries. The legislation is similar to the Helms-Burton Law, which punishes certain foreign firms doing business in Cuba. As with Helms-Burton, the Iran-Libya bill is raising the ire of America's trading partners, who say it violates international rules of free trade.

NPR's Dan Charles reports that rain forecast for the Everglades is expected to hamper recovery efforts at the site. So far, NTSB investigators have recovered the caps of oxygen generators embedded in one of the tires the plane was carrying. An explosion and fire are suspected of causing the crash of Valujet 592 that killed 110 people last week. Questions are now being raised about the kind of fire detection and suppression equipment the DC-9 was carrying in the cargo section.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports that some key decisions against affirmative action in higher education have stunned educators who've spent the past 25 years working on improving diversity. At a recent meeting of the National Conference of Blacks in Education, many educators say that they're comfortable with the prospect that affirmative action may be scaled back at the nation's colleges and universities, and they're looking for other ways to improve admissions for minorities.

Jennifer Griffin reports from Beirut that the people of Lebanon and Northern Israel today enjoyed the quiet of a ceasefire announced yesterday between Israel and Hizbullah. The deal was brokered by Secretary of State Warren Christopher...and ended sixteen days of fighting which killed more than 150 Lebanese and forced thousands of Israelis and hundred of thousands of Lebanese civilians to flee their homes. In Lebanon today, waves of displaced families began returning home to towns and villages in Southern Lebanon.

- Harriet Baskas reports on the origin of the Soap Opera. These daytime serial dramas date back to the 1930's and the early days of radio. Most of the advertisers on these programs manufactured household products - so the shows were dubbed "soaps." We'll hear excerpts from many radio soaps,including TODAY'S CHILDREN, THE GUIDING LIGHT, and JOYCE JORDAN,M.D. - and we'll hear interviews with some of the actors who performed in them.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports that thousands of people, many of them children, assembled on the National Mall today. "Leave no Child Behind" was the slogan for the day -- in an event organized by Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Children and adults from across the country were there -- no official crowd estimates yet. Conservatives criticized the event, saying it was just a party where liberals could push for more government spending.

NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports that GOP presidential candidate and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole met today on Capitol Hill with billionaire Steve Forbes to talk about taxes. Dole says he plans to make a proposal soon on reforming the current tax system, but he said he has yet to work out the details. Forbes' campaign against Dole in the GOP presidential primaries centered on replacing the current tax system with a seventeen percent flat tax.