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2: Comedian BRETT BUTLER had an abusive marriage before getting on stage with her comedy act. She is now the star of the sitcom "Grace Under Fire," one of the top rated shows of the season. Her character is a single mother with three kids, and, like BUTLER, is divorced from an abusive husband.

Author LORENZO CARCATERRA (Car-CA-terra). He is managing editor of the CBS weekly series "Top Cops." He's written a memoir, "A Safe Place," (Villard Books) about growing up the son of a violent, loving, murderous, and generous father. They lived in New York's Hell's Kitchen during the 50s and 60s. Lorenzo found out at the age of 14 that his father had murdered his first wife when she threatened to leave him. REBROADCAST. ORIGINALLY AIRED 1/

A sound montage of a few prominent voices in this past week's ews, including a Ukrainian student welcoming President Clinton to the country; resident Clinton speaking about post Cold-War relations; Red Cross spokesperson ary McAndrew and flood victim Alice Henderson on the flood waters in and around ew Orleans, Lousiana; Representative Rosa Delauro (D-CT) on Bush's decision to top supporting the NRA; U.S. Attorney Pat Ryan on the charges against Terry ichols; Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Pete Domenici (R-NM) on alancing the Federal budget; and Vice President Al Gore criticizing the epublican medicare proposal.

In Cornwall, England, an 83-year-old woman went missing. The search for her came up empty until a passerby heard the woman's cat meowing. The cat was on top of a ravine where the woman had fallen.

Apart from its better-known roles in bluegrass and Dixieland, the banjo was once a sought-after status symbol in late 19th-century America. Young ladies learned to play parlor music on the banjo; there were banjo societies and banjo virtuosi; and manufacturers fought wars over who could make the fanciest banjos. On top of that, this was primarily a northern phenomenon. It's chronicled in a new book, America's Instrument: The Banjo in the 19th Century, by Philip Gura and James Bollman. Paul Brown reports. (7:45) (America's Instrument: The Banjo in the 19th Century is published by University of North Carolina P

A sound montage of some of the voices in this past week's news, including White House spokesman Joe Lockhart on the Middle East summit at Camp David; former South African President Nelson Mandela at the closing ceremony of the international AIDS conference; Texas governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore at the NAACP Convention in Baltimore; Judge Robert Kaye, who presided over the civil lawsuit in Miami against the top five tobacco companies; Phillip Morris attorney Dan Webb and smokers' attorney Stanley Rosenblatt on the $145 billion punitive damages verdict.

NPR's Richard Harris reports that the Defense Department says it is starting to refocus its investigation of illnesses among Gulf War veterans as a result of recent revelations that some troops may have been exposed to chemical weapons during clean-up efforts after the war. The Pentagon's top doctor, Steven Joseph, says the realization is "a watershed" in trying to understand the mysterious ailments. The Pentagon now presumes some soldiers have been exposed to chemical weapons, though no illnesses have been clearly linked to the chemicals.

Blanton helped research information for The Cuban Missile Crisis. In the book, released documents and top-secret files reveal how close the US came to a nuclear entanglement. In 1987, the National Security Archive filed suit against the US government for failing to produce the documents they requested. Since then there has been more compliance with the archive, especially since the Russian government told the US to go ahead and release the Kennedy-Krushchev letters.

Host Bob Edwards talks to Richard Allen, National Security Adviser under President Ronald Reagan, about the tape recordings he made in the White House Situation Room the day President Ronald Reagan was shot. Most every top administration official was in the room that day, and the tapes provide a rare glimpse of their private conversations about who was in charge, whether the assassination attempt was part of a conspiracy, and what to do about Soviet subs closer than usual to U.S. shores. Next week marks the 20th anniversary of the attempt on Reagan's life. This interview is the first of two parts.

Vice Premier Qian Qichen is in Washington. He is the highest ranking Chinese official to visit since the Bush administration took office. Qian will meet with the president tomorrow at the White House. China's top concern right now is a decision Mr. Bush must soon make on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Taiwan wants to buy advanced anti-missile technology (Aegis destroyers) but China is adamantly opposed to such a sale. If the sale goes through, some analysts say China will drop the more moderate stance it has recently adopted toward Taiwan. Other analysts say China's views should not be a factor in any U.S. decision to sell weapons to Taiwan.