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"Scientists working with data from a large particle accelerator in Europe are now almost certain they have pinned down the elusive sub-atomic particle known as the Higgs Boson," NPR's Joe Palca tells our Newscast Desk.

Or, as it's also known, the "God Particle" (more on that moniker below).

Joe reports that:

Which way the Republican Party?

In the hope of getting answers to that and other questions, many activists, party big wigs and political journalists have descended on a hotel in a Washington suburb to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, which started Thursday.

This annual CPAC gathering is the first since President Obama thwarted Republican efforts to retake the White House, a defeat of Mitt Romney that many in the GOP didn't see coming.

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Testimony began today in a rape trail that has thrown a small Ohio town into the international spotlight. Two football players from Steubenville High School are accused of raping a 16-year-old girl during a night of partying last summer. Lawyers for the boys say the sex was consensual. The case has attracted widespread attention in part because of shocking photos, video and texts that circulated over the Internet.

The number of people filing first-time claims dropped by 10,000 last week from the week before, to 332,000, the Employment and Training Administration says.

That means claims continue to run at their lowest pace since January 2008. They've now fallen for three straight weeks.

The decision to embalm the body of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez so that it could be put on permanent display in the country's Museum of the Revolution was made too late, acting President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday in Caracas.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

The Ohio River town of Steubenville is back in the national spotlight this week, as the rape trial of two high school football players has begun.

Inside the courthouse, a judge is considering whether a 16-year-old girl was so drunk last summer that she couldn't consent to sex — and whether the boys knew it.

But outside, the case continues to spur debate over teen drinking, sex, football culture and the ability of social media to amplify it all.

'They Don't Know Us'

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And today's last word in business is: Life on Mars.

The TV show "Veronica Mars" starred Kristen Bell as a teenage detective. Critics loved it. It gained a lot of devoted fans, but the show was canceled in 2007 after three seasons.

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Yesterday, the show's creator took to Kickstarter to raise money to make a movie version of the show. And in less than 12 hours, those devoted fans pledged more than $2 million, smashing the site's records along the way.

After more than 100 years of ups and downs, General Motors has a lot of history. Most of GM's history is in the form of cars — hundreds of actual individual cars. The company tries to keep at least two of each car in storage. NPR's Sonari Glinton went on a walk through GM's attic to find out about the company's past and future.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A British man is learning the downside to Internet fame. The 62-year-old had been on sick leave from work due to stress for months, which is why his employer was surprised to see him wrestling a shark on an Australian beach in a video that went viral. He's seen dragging the six-foot animal away from shore.

The charity he worked for fired him, although in his defense, the man said the doctor had advised him to take a vacation. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

Tim Kelleher says his Jack Russell terrier, Jack, scarfs down anything he can get his paws on. Which helps keep the kitchen floor clean, but last week Jack was looking very sick. Kelleher took him to the vet, who discovered the dog had consumed a bagel and somewhere along the line more than a hundred pennies. The vet operated and removed the pennies. Kelleher tells the New York Daily News that Jack's back and driving him crazy.

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Gunmen killed a woman in Pakistan yesterday. The news stories about this were formulaic for Pakistan, she was killed in a customary manner by assassins on motorcycles who rolled away with impunity. What's remarkable is the way she lived. Parveen Rehman came from Karachi, one of the world's largest cities. She helped thousands of poor people obtain basic services.

When I first met her in 2008, she told me she studied to become an architect, but doubted the value of the upscale buildings she learned to design.

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In Florida, an investigation into storefront Internet gambling parlors has forced the resignation of one top elected official. Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll is stepping down because of her involvement with a group called Allied Veterans of the World. That group runs dozens of storefront operations where people gamble using electronic slot machines. More than 50 people have been arrested.

And as NPR's Greg Allen reports from Miami, the investigation is sending shockwaves through Florida politics.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

As the white smoke cleared from the skies above the Vatican on Wednesday, one of the first widely reported personal tidbits to emerge about the newly selected pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is that the Argentine cooks for himself. But the new pontiff, who will now be known as Francis, is hardly a foodie, it seems.

When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided to end full-time work-from-home arrangements at her company, a cultural firestorm ignited. But it was just the latest step in Mayer's effort to transform Yahoo's culture.

When the company was founded in the 1990s, it was one of the most exciting places to work in Silicon Valley. Those days are over; Yahoo has fallen woefully behind in the talent wars and now is trying to catch up.

Picture this: Your spouse or child has collapsed and isn't breathing. You call 911, and the paramedics rush in and take charge. But you are banished to another room while the medical people try to bring your loved one back to life.

It's about the most stressful scene imaginable. And it's what usually happens.

Catholics in Philadelphia react on Wednesday to selection of the new pope.

Several weeks ago, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the U.S. is planning what to do about Syria's vast chemical weapons program once Bashar Assad's regime falls. The Syrians are believed to have hundreds of tons of chemical agents, including sarin, one of the deadliest chemical agents. A few drops can be lethal.

So the central question is this: How can those sites be secured so they don't fall into the wrong hands?

It's well documented that some women suffer depression after having a baby. But it's less well-known just how many do.

The largest study to date shows that as many as 1 in every 7 women suffers postpartum depression. And the study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, finds that among women followed for a year after delivery, some 22 percent had been depressed.

The study also recommends that all pregnant women and new mothers be screened for depression.

In the world of fast fashion, two U.S.-based companies loom large: Forever 21 and American Apparel. Both are based in Los Angeles, but the two could not be more different.

American Apparel proudly boasts that the clothes it sells are "made in the USA." In contrast, Forever 21 subcontracts with factories all over the world.

Dov Charney, American Apparel's Canadian-American founder and CEO, has a reputation. "I knew from a very early age — in elementary school — that I was going to rub some people the wrong way," he says.

It happens to the best of us. You drink one too many cups of coffee and, for the next few hours, you end up acting like a hyper preschooler who just can't sit still.

Which can be pretty inconvenient if it's, say, noon and you're at the office, or if it's midnight and you can't fall asleep.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were something quick and easy that you could take to combat the effects of over-caffeination? Something like ... a banana?