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Liane Hansen speaks with Paul Lukas (LOO-kus), editor and ublisher of "Beer Frame: The Journal of Inconspicuous Consumption," a ublication that looks at unusual and interesting food items in this country and broad.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today on whether people can file claims in state courts against medical device manufacturers when the devices are subject to federal regulation. The case in question involves a malfunctioning heart pacemaker. NPR's Nina Totenberg has the story.

- On May 11th, 1946 - 50 years ago today - the first CARE packages were distributed in (Le Havre) France. Daniel talks with three early CARE package recipients. They are Charles and Mathilde (mah-TILD) Middleberg, French Jews who later moved to the United States, and Klaus Putter (POO-ter) who was a teenage German soldier during the war. Early on, CARE packages consisted of surplus U.S. army rations. Then CARE put together boxed containing such items as flour, coffee, meat, and peanut butter.

NPR's Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr ruminates on the political lap over repealing the gas tax.

Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem on today's attacks y Lebanese-based Hizbollah fighters on Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon, nd retaliatory attacks by Israeli warplanes and artillery. Technically, these ttacks do not violate the latest truce, agreed to after last month's bombing aids between Israel and Hizbollah.

- Daniel speaks with Bernard Loeb, Director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the National Transportation Safety Board, about the investigation into the crash yesterday of a Valujet flight near Miami. Loeb, who's in Florida working on the investigation, says the plane and the 109 people on board lie underneath a murky and muddy swath of swamp in the Everglades. The search for survivors has been called off. And the NTSB is trying to figure out how to tackle the difficult logistics of getting to the plane to remove the bodies. One scenario involves draining the swamp at the crash site.

The residents of Fort Smith, Arkansas and neighboring towns are cleaning up as best they can after a devastating swarm of tornadoes destroyed buildings and left four people dead. Linda talks to Mike Morton of the Fort Smith Public Library about how the residents are coping with the disaster.

phone lines make using the Web more enjoyable because they dramatically increase the speed at which graphics and other information appear on your screen. But ISDN lines remain very expensive and, while costs are coming down in some parts of the country, it's not fast enough to satisfy most computer users.

drop from its charter all language calling for the destruction of Israel.

with Robert Reischauer, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and currently a senior fellow of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institute. Reischauer talks about the real savings in this year's budget and how there are cuts in the deficit. He tells what the government is likely to do towards balancing the budget next year.

NPR's Joe Palca reports that scientists have for the first time deciphered the entire genetic code for an organism that has cells like humans. An international collaboration has sequenced the entire 16-chromosome genome of baker's yeast, which, like humans, have "eukaryotic cells." Researchers believe the achievement will help give scientists an extremely useful tool for learning more fundamental biological functions.

This week we are airing a series of commentaries on the issue of "English only." Today we hear from Judy Chu, a councilwoman for the city of Monterey Park, California. She believes advocates of English-only divide communities and see immigrants as easy scapegoats rather than looking closely at all the ways to bring immigrants and others into the mainstream of American society.