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Carolyn Jack reports from Toronto that the beleaguered chief of Canada's armed forces resigned today....amid widespread calls for General Jean (JAHN) Boyle's removal over his alleged involvement in a coverup of the 1993 torture and murder of a Somali civilian by Canadian peacekeepers. Boyle's decision to step down follows the resignation last week of Canada's defense minister. An official inquiry is continuing into what Canadians call the "Somalia affair."

Noah talks with Kathy McCoubrey, from the Virginia Dalmatian Assistance League, about dalmatians as pets. Disney is releasing a new version of the movie, "101 Dalmatians" this Christmas season. There are reports of a surge in dalmatian breeding because many children will want them after seeing the movie. McCoubrey says dalmatians should be chosen carefully. They are very high-strung, and they need frequent exercise and plenty of space.

of the social security system -- an advisory panel will recommend this month that social security funds should be invested, one way or another, in the private financial markets...

Federal officials have determined that poverty isn't the only reason why many public housing projects in the United States have deteriorated into virtual war zones where drugs and crime plague residents. They believe that the architectural structure of the complexes may have something to do with it. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports that government architects are exploring new designs for public housing to make them safer places to live.

We note the publication today of the 116th Statistical Abstract of the United States. The 1,000-plus page book is a listing of numbers about births, deaths, the use of automatic teller machines ... just about everything measurable in American life.

This month's Teen Diary is from 18 year-old Melissa Rodriguez. Melissa grew up in foster care. Now she lives with her infant son in New Haven, Connecticut. Through a state-run program, Melissa is able to go to school, hold a part time job and live semi-independently.

We hear excerpts from the ceremony at which President Clinton presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to astronaut Shannon Lucid today. Lucid holds the American record for spending the most time in space. She stayed in space for 188 days earlier this year.

in their investigation of Texaco. Former Texaco executive Richard Lundwall was charged yesterday with obstruction of justice. The arrest comes despite the fact that it was Lundwall who provided prosecutors with incriminating tapes secretly recorded at company meetings. The Texaco officials on the tapes were discussing how to handle a race discrimination lawsuit brought by some 14-hundred black employees.

Commentator Donald McCaig tells the story of "Uncle Peewee" - a 97 year old man - who died recently. For the people of Williamsville, West Virginia, it was the loss of their last nineteenth-century man.

Commentator Reynolds Price remarks on his obsession with time and his constant fear that he will be late and hold someone up. He traces this back to his childhood. He adored his travelling salesman father, but when he would drive around with him, his father often would leave him waiting in the car for endless stratches of time.

General Motors reports that its profits for the third quarter of 1996 are double what they were for the same quarter last year. NPR's Don Gonyea reports that despite the good financial news, more than ten thousand auto workers have been laid off from GM plants in the US and in Mexico due to the Canadian Auto Workers' strike against GM.

Noah talks with Wang Xizhe, an exiled Chinese dissident. Wang has been a leading activist in the democracy movement in China for the last twenty years, and he talks about why he believes that the current repression of dissidents in China is really an expression of the desperation of a shaky regime.

which included a round of golf with Greg Norman.

to eradicate its population of rats.

of the NTSB hearings on the crash of Valujet Flight 592, which crashed in the Florida Everglades last May.

last night after a power failure, which left tens of thousands of commuters stranded.

in Taba, Egypt between Israeli and the Palestinian negotiators about the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Hebron... and the first visit to the West Bank by Jordan's King Hussain since the 1967 War.

Commentator Elissa Ely tells the story of a psychiatric patient whom she was asked to assess, in order to see if he was competent to make decisions. His loving children thought he was not; his social worker thought he was. This man spoke only one word-- but with the help of his social worker, Ely learned volumes about the man's capacity to make his own decisions.

NPR's Eric Weiner reports that King Hussein of Jordan and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat toured the West Bank today in a show of solidarity. The king's visit to the West Bank was his first since Israel captured the territory during the Six-Day War twenty-nine years ago.

measuring compliance with a Presidential order to declassify and make public documents that are more than 25 years old...

under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Robert talks with NPR's Ann Cooper, who's in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, about the uncertainty surrounding the number and whereabouts of the refugees who remain stranded in Zaire. Relief groups generally agree that there are several hundred thousand people still in need of food and water, but they don't really know how many there are, or where they are. One United Nations agency today said it has information that at least one hundred thousand refugees are on the move towards Goma, Zaire, the site of last weekend's mass return to Rwanda of approximately a half-million people.

Phyllis Joffe reports on a program that has been teaching children in impoverished neighborhoods in Pittsburgh how to work with ceramics. The program, now thirty years old, has grown to beome one of the country's most successful art centers and a model for community development. (12:00) (S

Jeff Barry of member station KCLU in Thousand Oaks, California, reports on the giant wildfire in Big Sur. While the fire is mostly contained, authorities say they expect it to consume at least twenty thousand acres before it's completely extinguished.

In another of our audi postcards, NPR's Mike Shuster visits the legendary Uzbek city of Samarkand and tells the story of Ulug Beg, an enlightened 14th century leader and one of the world's first astronomers.