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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And if life gives you broken glass, make money. A vandal threw a brick through the window of a Pittsburgh printing shop. The owner, undismayed, offered the brick for auction to raise money to fix the window. Sympathetic friends threw in prizes to go with the brick, like tickets to a hockey game. The winning bid was $1,150, enough to fix the window and make a donation to charity.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

A statement from the company says that unit will become a separate publicly-traded company by the end of the year, and allow Time Warner to focus on its TV side. Time Warner had been in talks to combine its magazines with another company but those negotiations broke down.

In Russia, a prominent dancer with the fabled Bolshoi Ballet has confessed to ordering an attack on the company's director. The director suffered third degree burns after acid was thrown onto his face. For more on the scandals at the Bolshoi, Renee Montagne talks to writer Christina Ezrahi, author of Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia.

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"The Wizard of Oz" means to a lot of people, a young Judy Garland in sparkly ruby slippers. But in the hundred years since L. Frank Baum wrote the Oz stories, they, or stories featuring Oz characters, have been produced dozens of times. The latest, a prequel that opens in theaters this weekend, called "Oz the Great and Powerful."

NPR's Mandalit Del Barco has more.

President Obama is hoping for a spring thaw in White House-congressional relations.

The president had dinner Wednesday night with a small group of Republican lawmakers. He's also planning rare visits to Capitol Hill next week to discuss his agenda with both Democrats and Republicans.

Aides say Obama is trying to locate what he calls a "caucus of common sense" in Congress to tackle the country's long-term budget challenges.

A federal judge in Michigan could rule as soon as Thursday on a challenge to the state's ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions. The challenge comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear two cases dealing with gay marriage later this month.

In the Michigan case, a lesbian couple sued not because they want to be married, but because they want to be parents.

When President Obama signs an updated version of the Violence Against Women Act on Thursday afternoon, the law will include new requirements for how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault.

Laura Dunn, who's been invited by the White House to attend, plans to be there.

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NPR business news starts with a big fine for Microsoft.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. This story starts as a business transaction in West Haven, Connecticut. A man ordered coffee at a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts. Then, according to NBC Connecticut, he announced a robbery and tried to climb through the window. Luckily, his hot coffee was ready so the clerk threw it in his face. She followed that with a whole pot. The man fled and the clerk recalled the Dunkin Donuts slogan: Go run on Dunkin, she called after him. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

The world is speculating, furiously, about who will be the next pope. The wait was too much for one German man, who tried to sneak into a closed-door meeting of cardinals by impersonating one. The man, calling himself Basilius was spotted and thrown out by the Swiss Guard, after someone noticed his crucifix was too short and his sash was just a purple scarf. He claimed to be from the Italian Orthodox Church - which does not exist.

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

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

Venezuela is in a state of mourning for its late president, Hugo Chavez. The outsized leader died yesterday in the capital, Caracas, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 58. Hugo Chavez was both a polarizing and charismatic figure, and during his long rule he became an icon, beloved by Venezuela's poor and others in the region who admired his defiant stance toward the U.S.

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The death of Hugo Chavez could mean as much for Cuba as it will for Venezuela. As we just heard, Chavez looked to Fidel Castro for inspiration, and Castro has supplied Venezuela with thousands of Cuban doctors, health workers and security specialists. In return, Chavez sent a massive amount of Venezuelan oil to Cuba at cut-rate prices, and thus helped keep the Cuban economy afloat during years of crisis.

Joining us now is NPR's Tom Gjelten. Good morning.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Good morning, Renee.

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NPR business news starts with markets on fire.

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House Speaker John Boehner held a news conference the day after the November election.

"The American people have spoken," he said. "They've re-elected President Obama. And they've again re-elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives."

Secretary of State John Kerry describes himself as a recovering politician. He's just getting used to the fact that he can't speak quite as freely as he did when he was a senator.

"Each word means more, each relationship is played differently," he said in an interview with NPR, at the end of a nine-nation swing through Europe and the Middle East. "As a senator, you just don't have those stakes riding in it."

I've always felt it's no coincidence that some basketball powerhouses — let us say, off the top of my head, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Indiana — get a few better players because those hoops museums don't do very well with football.

I mean, if I were a big-deal high school recruit, I might very well say to myself, "You know, I'd rather be a Hoosier or a Wildcat or a Jayhawk than I would go someplace where I'm just gonna be a lounge act for the glamorous Mr. Touchdowns."

The latest Morning Edition "Music Moment" focuses on the band Cloud Cult. The group is known to fans for making music to soothe the soul, as it does on the new album Love.

"This album really looks at all the different aspects of the self that need to be healed up in order to facilitate the process of stepping aside and allowing love to speak for our life rather than our wounds," lead singer Craig Minowa says.

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Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne. When Washington state lawmakers proposed a new tax on bikes, the owner of several bike shops protested and ended up in an email argument with a Republican lawmaker, who shot back a novel claim.

State Sen. Ed Orcutt argued that cyclists pollute just by breathing. It is true that a heavy breathing cyclist will emit more carbon dioxide than a person who's just sitting. Orcutt did reconsider, and apologized.

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep with a call for a reform at the United Nations.

Joseph M. Torsella represents the United States on the U.N. budget committee. He says it's a tough budget process, complicated by diplomats who show up drunk. Ambassador Torsella made, quote, "the modest proposal that the negotiating room should be inebriation-free." He says he wants this, even though sloshed negotiators have provided the U.S. with, quote, "strategic opportunities." It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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And our last word in business is, no more working in your pajamas. Best Buy says it's ending its flexible work program, calling its corporate employees back to the office.

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This is getting to be a trend. The move comes after Yahoo stirred debate for ending its work-from-home program. A Best Buy spokesperson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the hope is that quote, "all-hands-on-deck approach will lead to collaboration."

On the opening day Tuesday, Premier Wen Jiabao delivered his version of the State of the Union address. He's due to step down next week. The annual legislative meeting marks the official transition to power of a new leadership team under Xi Jinping.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show if William Johnson is fired when the new owners take over, he'll walk away with a golden parachute worth $56 million. When you tack on stock payouts and deferred compensation benefits, he could get more than $200 million.

Now that the sequester has taken effect, there's a new phrase that keeps popping up in Washington: the "continuing resolution." If Congress doesn't pass a continuing resolution by March 27, the government will run out of money and will likely shut down. Here's a list of four things you might want to know about how a continuing resolution works and how it might soften the blow of the sequester.

1. Exactly what is a "continuing resolution"?