News From NPR

As he rose to begin his nearly 13-hour filibuster Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said "no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court." He would filibuster John Brennan's nomination to be CIA director, Paul said, because he wanted a clear statement from the Obama administration acknowledging that U.S.

If your shoes say a lot about you, as we learned last year, what does it say if the ones you're wearing don't match?

-- That it's not a good idea to get dressed in the dark?

-- That perhaps this blogger needs to pay more attention to what he's doing in the morning?

-- Or that he buys boringly similar shoes?

Imagine my surprise when I looked down at my feet after getting to work this morning.

Now, please make me feel better:

The student victims of the Connecticut school shooting rampage that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead in December have been granted an unprecedented one-time waiver on taking standardized tests.

The AP reports:

China's citizens do not report as much as $2.34 trillion of what they make every year, hiding "gray income" that would represent nearly 20 percent of the country's GDP, Chinese economics scholar Wang Xiaolu says, in a report from the news site Global Voices.

Before The Two-Way launched in May 2009, a smart decision was made: We would sit with, and work closely with, the producers, editors and anchors on the NPR Newscast Desk. It made sense to put the hosts of a breaking news blog with the team that gets breaking news on the air. The Newscast team has helped us in countless ways.

The Two-Way lost a dear friend Thursday, someone who brought her sharp mind and editing skills to NPR's newscasts and always gave us good guidance. She also had a wickedly funny sense of humor that made it fun to come to work.