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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

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.

Top U.S. intelligence officials confirm that North Korea has an untested ballistic missile believed capable of reaching the western United States. At a Senate subcommittee hearing, CIA Director George Tenet and Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also say it's likely North Korea has at least one nuclear weapon. NPR's David Welna reports.

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.

In the final part of her month long series on money, NPR's Susan Stamberg reports on the question of money in marriage and divorce. She focuses on a highly publicized divorce case involving a stay-at-home mother, whose husband was a top level corporate executive. The net worth of Gary and Lorna Wendt was $100 million in 1995, when he filed for divorce. She contested a settlement of 10 million dollars and was then awarded $20 million, plus $250,000 per year in alimony for life. (7:36) (Lorna Wendt is founder of www.equalityinmarriage.or

The program calculates anti-prime numbers used in everyday software. His discoveries won him top prize in the Broadcom Masters, an engineering competition for middle school kids.

Adele is the first female artist to have an album spend 10 consecutive years on Billboard's top 200. She's only the tenth artist to hit the milestone, joining the likes of Metallica and Bob Marley.

In the weeks and months immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a working group of top military lawyers considered how to handle captured prisoners. Ret. Rear Admiral Donald Guter was the Judge Advocate General of the Navy at that time.