Morning Edition

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

On a momentous Thursday, it's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

We're expecting Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to make an announcement today. From now on, women will formally be allowed to serve in ground combat.

INSKEEP: To sense just how dramatic this change is, consider how many other milestones the military passed before reaching this one. The move for women comes 65 years after the Armed Forces ended racial segregation.

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Staying in the tech world now, later today Microsoft releases its earnings for the final quarter of 2012. And no matter what the computer software giant announces, it won't mask the fact that last year was a brutal one for the personal computer industry.

Dell - one of the largest computer makers on the planet - is in talks to be taken over by a private equity firm. PC sales are declining globally.

And as NPR's Steve Henn reports, some see a technological shift in the works that could undermine the empire built by Microsoft.

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It took a very long time for this...

(SOUNDBITE OF WOLF HOWLING)

MONTAGNE: ...to evolve into this:

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)

MONTAGNE: But the gray wolf is the ancestor of all domesticated dogs, including that Jack Russell terrier we just heard. Just how wolves came to live with people isn't really known. But as NPR's Veronique LaCapra reports, a new study suggests that food may have played a role.

VERONIQUE LACAPRA, BYLINE: Most dogs will eat just about anything.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG EATING)

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK. Let's turn to a rivalry between siblings. Today's last word in business is Harbowl - or Harbaugh Bowl.

An Indiana man tried to trademark those two phrases last year, according to ESPN.com.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Roy Fox figured the Harbaugh brothers - both NFL coaches - might someday meet in the Super Bowl. This year it is happening. Jim Harbaugh's San Francisco 49ers face John Harbaugh's Baltimore Ravens a week from Sunday.

There's still more to learn about the risks of smoking and the benefits of quitting.

Studies in this week's New England Journal of Medicine show that the risk for women has been under-appreciated for decades. New data also quantify the surprising payoffs of smoking cessation — especially under the age of 40.

A week has passed since the terrorist attack on a natural gas facility in Algeria, but risk analysts and security experts are still undecided about the incident's likely impact in the energy world.

The price of oil, a good indicator of anxiety in the energy market, went up modestly right after the attack, but then it stabilized. No energy company has suspended operations in Algeria, nor has any company announced it will hold off on future investments in North Africa, a key source of oil and gas supplies.

English critic Samuel Johnson once said of William Shakespeare "that his drama is the mirror of life." Now the Bard's words have been translated into life's most basic language. British scientists have stored all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets on tiny stretches of DNA.

It all started with two men in a pub. Ewan Birney and Nick Goldman, both scientists from the European Bioinformatics Institute, were drinking beer and discussing a problem.

At 72, the prince of R&B has reverted to childhood. Aaron Neville has a new album called My True Story, and it's a collection of the songs he sang growing up in the projects of New Orleans in the 1950s and '60s, back when doo-wop was king.

"I've been into every doo-wop there is," Neville says. "I think I went to the university of doo-wop-ology."

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A Scottish sports reporter recorded a soccer team press conference using his phone. Great idea, but inevitably the reporter's phone rang. The soccer team manager picked it up.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hello?

INSKEEP: It was the reporter's wife, who hung up in confusion, but then called again. And the manager answered again.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

A 13-year-old boy started his own news organization last fall. He put in a request to cover the inauguration from the White House briefing room. He soon discovered the place to be on that day was the Capitol.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne. In Israel last night a surprisingly close election. Voters appear to have reelected Prime Minister Netanyahu for another term. That was expected. But Netanyahu's right wing alliance suffered serious losses. Centrist and left wing parties defied opinion polls and won half the seats in parliament. As NPR's Larry Abramson reports from Jerusalem, the prime minister will now have to turn these fractured results into a government.

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NPR's business news starts with pipeline plans.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MONTAGNE: Nebraska's governor has approved a new plan for where the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will pass through his state. In 2011, the governor opposed the pipeline for its potential environmental impact. Yesterday, he wrote a letter to President Obama saying the new route avoids the more environmentally fragile parts of Nebraska.

It now falls to the Obama administration to approve the project. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK, the Pentagon says the U.S. commander in Afghanistan is cleared. Gen. John Allen was caught in a scandal last fall. You may recall, he'd been corresponding by email with a Florida socialite; and the question for the Pentagon was whether Gen. Allen's emails were inappropriate. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman followed the story back then. He's with us now. Tom, good morning.

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.

The National Institutes of Health should retire most of its chimps that are currently living in research facilities, according to a working group put together by the NIH to look at the future need for biomedical research on chimps.

The group did recommend keeping a small number of chimps in reserve in case they are needed for studies later on. But it also laid out a detailed description of the kind of living conditions that would be needed for those chimps, and said any proposed research should go through a review committee that includes members of the public.

Sports fans are jealous of sportswriters, because it's a dream job where you get to watch games free, which is, above all, what sports fans want.

Once upon a time this was true. The sportswriters watched games, keeping score, me. . .tic. . . u. . . lous. . . ly, and then wrote it all up, so that the poor devils who had real jobs could read about the games.

Well, that's the way it was.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. A business owner is asking for some advice. It's Karl Baxter. He does wholesale retail in Britain and he bought three huge shipments of DVDs titled "The Science of Lance Armstrong." As you might know, the cyclist has admitted to doping and Baxter is not convinced his 10,000 DVDs will sell. He's considered building a DVD tower or making a dominoes track for his kids, but he's looking for other ideas. Which sounds like a good idea in itself. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

When a labor dispute shutdown Hostess, the maker of Twinkies, many people rushed out to buy a box or two. Nancy Peppin bought 12 boxes. Not to eat, but as art supplies. The Reno, Nevada woman makes art out of Twinkies. She is confident that another company will eventually bring Twinkies back. But in the meantime, she wants to be ready to keep making sculptures like her depiction of "The Last Supper," which also includes Ding Dongs and Ho Hos.

Morning Edition introduces listeners to another installment in the NPR series "Heavy Rotation," featuring Matt Fleeger of member station KMHD. In "Sweet Pea," by PROJECT Trio, listeners are treated to a sort of rhythmic, jazzy groove that incorporates themes from classical, hip-hop and Americana.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene.

Four years ago, President Obama delivered an inaugural speech that many viewed as somber. He took office facing two wars and a global economic crisis.

INSKEEP: Yesterday, the president declared a decade of war is now ending. And he took a position in the economic battles that remain.

Staten Island's PS22 student choral group performs as people file onto the National Mall hoping for a glimpse of President Obama later.

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RENEE MONTAGE, HOST:

And let's rejoin Steve, now, over at the Capitol.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Yeah. And let's bring one more voice into the conversation, here. Michele Flournoy is a former undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, was mentioned at one time as a possible secretary of defense in a second term. Ms. Flournoy, where are you this morning?

MICHELE FLOURNOY: We are on our way from Bethesda, downtown.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Well, from the studio, I'm going to go out again to talk to NPR's Linda Wertheimer. She is at a place that has a very good view of the activities there on the Mall. That happens to be the Canadian embassy. And just one thing: the West Front of the Capitol is decorated in red, white and blue. That is the backdrop for President Obama's second Inauguration. And Linda has seen every Inauguration since the second time President Richard Nixon was sworn into office, his second inaugural. Good morning.

NPR hosts and correspondents check in at the Capitol as Inauguration Day festivities get under way.