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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

A guilty conscience needs no accuser. The Barry County Sheriff's Department in Michigan received $1,200 in cash yesterday with an emotional letter. The writer admitted stealing $800 from a convenience store some 30 years ago; writing, quote, "I can't begin to say how sorry I am, but have lived with this guilt too long."

A noble gesture but keeping up with inflation, the robber would technically owe another $600.

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

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Our last word in business today is filial piety.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

That's the ancient Chinese ethic of young people showing care and respect to their parents and older relatives. Now it's the law in China. Starting this summer, if kids don't pay enough attention to their folks, mom and dad can sue.

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When President Obama recently called for stricter gun control laws, he started out by saying this.

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is the land of the free, and it always will be.

INSKEEP: The land of the free, he said. But he added this.

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OBAMA: We don't live in isolation. We live in a society, a government of and by and for the people. We are responsible for each other.

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And the Republican Party has issued a blistering assessment of why it lost the 2012 election. The Republican National Committee Growth and Opportunity Project told the party that if it wants to win national elections in the future, it needs to change the way it communicates with voters and runs its campaigns.

NPR's Mara Liasson reports.

The ongoing battle between historians over who was really first in flight was rekindled last week.

New research advances the theory that a German immigrant in Connecticut is responsible for the first powered and controlled flight, rather than the Wright brothers in North Carolina.

But historians at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum are saying not so fast.

Finding The Evidence

A controversial government proposal to test the anthrax vaccine in children would be unethical without first conducting much more research, a presidential commission concluded Tuesday.

"The federal government would have to take multiple steps before anthrax vaccine trials with children could be ethically considered," Amy Gutmann, who chairs the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, tells Shots. "It would not be ethical to do it today."

Alzheimer's disease doesn't just steal memories. It takes lives.

The disease is now the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and figures released Tuesday by the Alzheimer's Association show that deaths from the disease increased by 68 percent between 2000 and 2010.

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NPR's business news starts with a new labor secretary.

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MONTAGNE: President Obama has chosen justice department lawyer Thomas Perez for the post. Perez is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. He ran the labor department in his home state of Maryland and he will add a high profile Latino voice to the cabinet. But, NPR's Carrie Johnson reports, his nomination is not without controversy.

Two Democrats and 16 Republicans are running for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District seat in a special election Tuesday. The seat is open because former Rep. Tim Scott was tapped to replace Sen. Jim DeMint, who retired midterm.

The biggest name in the race is former Gov. Mark Sanford, whose infamous affair led to his political downfall. Sanford is trying to stage the political comeback of a lifetime.

And he's doing it one diner at a time — greeting customers over eggs and grits at Page's Okra Grill, just outside Charleston in Mount Pleasant.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

Sixty years ago, Pvt. Bob Rodgers arrived at Fort Campbell, Ky., for training. He wrote his wife a letter. He said all he did was, quote, "shine boots, shine boots and shine more boots - and brass and more brass."

Sixty years later, the Postal Service finally delivered that letter to Jean Rodgers. A postmaster says she has no idea why it took so long. But the postmaster adds the important part of it is, it did get delivered.

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OK. The field is set for the NCAA Division One men's basketball tournament. Top seeds include Kansas, Louisville, Indiana and Gonzaga. The team previously known for its heroic upsets in the NCAA tournament is now one of the teams to beat. NPR's Mike Pesca is here to discuss the selections. Mike, good morning.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.

INSKEEP: How'd Gonzaga do it?

PESCA: I know, right? You read those other teams, and it's, like, perennial power, perennial power, perennial power, Jesuit school from Spokane.

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If some of your co-workers seem distracted today - well, it's not any old Monday - huh, Steve?

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

I'm sorry, Renee. We're you saying something? I was busy filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket here. Our last word in business, as a matter of fact, is about that. It's lost productivity.

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

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

First, Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to French actor Gerard Depardieu. Now, Putin is hobnobbing with the actor Steven Seagal. The star of Under Siege toured a new sports facility with Putin, who used the occasion to call for reviving a Soviet-era fitness program in which kids threw javelins, learned to ski and fired guns.

Reba Williams of Columbus, Ohio, finished her last class back in 1925. But the 106-year-old didn't receive her high school diploma until Wednesday. Her daughter told the Mansfield News-Journal that young Reba, who was a good student for all 12 years, was headstrong. She refused to read a book assigned by her teacher that she'd already read and didn't like.

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Ten days after his death, Hugo Chavez's remains are being moved to a museum after being on display at a military academy. The government has been debating what to do with the body long term. His political heirs simply say they want to keep his memory and image alive.

Touch-screen devices have opened up video gaming to a whole new demographic: cats. Cat-food company Friskies has already made a few tablet games designed specifically for cats to play. One features virtual fish swimming around, taunting kitties to paw at the iPad screen. If you don't believe it, go to YouTube.

U.S. government pronouncements about the danger of a major cyberattack can be confusing. The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and the head of the U.S. military's Cyber Command, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, delivered mixed messages this week while testifying on Capitol Hill.

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.