NPR News

South Dakota on Friday became what's "believed to be the first state to pass a law that specifically allows teachers to carry firearms," as The New York Times writes.

During a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, John Brennan was sworn in as the director of the Central Intelligence Office by Vice President Joe Biden.

According to the White House, Brennan took his oath by putting his hand "on an original draft of the Constitution, dating from 1787, which has George Washington's personal handwriting and annotations on it."

The AP reports that with Brennan, President Obama's national security team is set for a second term.

Here's the challenge: Build a rocket engine. Don't worry, you don't need much.

At the SXSW festival in Austin on Saturday, startup companies DIYRockets and Sunglass are launching a competition to create 3-D-printed rocket engines with open source (read: free) technology.

Presidents and dignitaries from around the globe are gathered in Caracas this morning to pay their final respects to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

CBS News reports:

This interview was originally broadcast on Feb. 14, 2012.

Four years after Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tim Weiner published Legacy of Ashes, his detailed history of the CIA, he received a call from a lawyer in Washington, D.C.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Now for nightmare bacteria. They defy all our antibiotics, even our latest drugs. This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that strains of these completely drug-resistant bacteria have quadrupled in the last decade or so, and the bugs have been lurking around in hospitals, hundreds of hospitals around the nation.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Here's some news to raise a glass to: the idea that red wine may help us live longer and healthier lives. Well, it got a new boost this week. According to a team of researchers, a compound found in the skin of grapes could be an antidote to aging by slowing down the process and even fending off disease and inflammation associated with getting old. It's the topic of a new study published this week in the journal Science.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. By now I'm sure you've heard about the real-life nightmare of a Florida man named Jeff Bush. As he lay sleeping last week, a gaping hole opened beneath his home, swallowing him alive. His body was never found. The search has now been called off, and the sinkhole that devoured him is now his grave.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 gun attack that left six people dead and 13 others (including Giffords) wounded, is this year's recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

Oz the Great and Powerful. Say that name aloud and you will smile, I guarantee you: It will conjure up so many images, characters, actors, songs. Then hold that smile as long as you can, because you won't be doing much smiling at the movie called Oz the Great and Powerful, the so-called "prequel" to The Wizard of Oz from Disney Studios.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Leader from around the world have arrived in Venezuela to pay their final respects to President Hugo Chavez, who used his country's oil wealth to put in place his vision of socialism during 14 years in power. And this larger-than-life leader presumably will continue to inspire his followers. The Venezuelan government plans to embalm his body and keep it on display in a glass coffin.

It's been 10 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. That conflict drastically changed the lives of Iraqi women. On International Women's Day, host Michel Martin talks with Iqbal al-Juboori, about how the war affected her personally, and what it's like for women to live in a conflict zone. al-Juboori works to provide job training and life skills to women and their families in rural parts of Iraq.

Catholicism is reaching further into the developing world. Will the Church shift its focus to new concerns in those regions — like poverty, education and rural development? Michel Martin talks with Sister Simone Campbell, Father Patrick Ryan and Yale Divinity Professor Lanim Sanneh about whether the Church's priorities are changing.

Was Senator Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster a smart political move or a total disaster? The Barbershop guys weigh in on that — and how Major League Baseball could be affected by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death. Host Michel Martin checks in with writer Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar, sports writer Dave Zirin and columnist Mario Loyola.

Times were different in 1996 when he signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, former President Bill Clinton writes in today's Washington Post.

We don't know too much about a Nepalese man who's in medical isolation in Texas while being treated for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, the most difficult-to-treat kind. Health authorities are keen to protect his privacy.

But we do know that he traveled through 13 countries — from South Asia to somewhere in the Persian Gulf to Latin America — before he entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in late November. He traveled by plane, bus, boat, car and on foot.

A woman killed by a 550-pound male lion at a conservancy near Fresno, Calif., earlier this week may have been caught by surprise after the animal escaped its cage, investigators say.

According to a preliminary autopsy, Dianna Hanson, a 24-year-old intern for Cat Haven, was killed Wednesday when the lion snapped her neck.

North Korea responded to new U.N. sanctions aimed at starving its nuclear program by vowing to cut a Cold War-style hotline and scrap a nonaggression pact with the South.

State-run media said North Korea "abrogates all agreements on nonaggression reached between the North and the South ... and also notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline."

There were 236,000 jobs added to payrolls in February — many more than expected — and the jobless rate unexpectedly dropped by two-tenths of a point, to 7.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- February Jobs And Unemployment News Likely To Be 'More of The Same'.

-- Cardinals Expected To Set Date For Start Of Conclave.

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

Update at 11:36 a.m. ET. Starts Tuesday:

"The eighth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals has decided that the Conclave will begin on Tuesday, 12 March 2013," reads a statement just sent to reporters by the Vatican Press Office. It adds that:

"A pro eligendo Romano Pontifice Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica in the morning. In the afternoon the cardinals will enter into the Conclave."

Our original post — "Cardinals Expected To Set Date For Start Of Conclave":

Many forecasters predicted a monster storm would hit Washington, D.C., but the nation's capital just got a bit of snow and rain. Channel 5 meteorologist Tucker Barnes did not blame the vagaries of the weather. He took a "timeout," shown on camera sitting in a corner during the broadcast.

Update at 8:35 a.m. ET. Things Were Better Than Expected:

"Pleasant Surprises: 236,000 Jobs Added; Jobless Rate Dips To 7.7 Percent."

Our original post:

Slow job growth and little change in the unemployment rate.

Colorado voters recently legalized small amounts of marijuana. State lawmakers must work out the details and regulations. They put together a special committee. Because it consists of members of both the state House and Senate, it is known by the phrase that such committee always are. Yes, it is the joint committee on marijuana regulation.