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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with a story of the power of words. Trevis D. Baker swore at a cop in Rochester. Police arrested him, but New York State's highest court threw out the charges. He has a First Amendment right to swear, so long as it's not a challenge to fight. Because the arrest was invalid, the court disallowed a search police conducted afterward.

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Good morning, I'm David Greene with this headline: "Hung-over Energy Secretary Wakes Up Next to Solar Panel." It's a fake story from The Onion, with a doctored photo showing Secretary Steven Chu in bed with a solar panel. Chu played along. On Facebook, he said he won't confirm or deny the charges, but clarified his recent announcement that he's stepping down is unrelated.

He even gave a plug to the energy source, saying: It's no surprise lots of Americans are falling in love with solar.

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It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep. The upside of the approaching storm in the Northeast is that many people have a long weekend. Schools and businesses are adjusting to forecasts of major snowfall. New York City, we're told, could get at least a foot of snow. Two feet are expected in Boston, where the list of school closings is already quite long, and where P.J. Mensel has been getting ready.

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The musician Paul Tanner has died. If you're not a close reader of liner notes, you may never have heard his name but generations of Americans know his music.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "IN THE MOOD")

GREENE: This song, "In the Mood," by the Glen Miller Orchestra was a hit back in 1940. And young musician named Paul Tanner was playing trombone.

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All right. And our last word in business today is snakebite.

Over the next couple of weeks skies in many parts of Asia will be lit up with fireworks to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The Year of the Dragon is ending and Sunday marks the start of, yes, the Year of the Snake.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

It's been a tense 24 hours in Southern California. The former Los Angeles police officer wanted in connection with three murders is still at large this morning, despite a manhunt that has spanned hundreds of miles.

An asteroid the size of an office building will zoom close by Earth next week, but it's not on a collision course, NASA says.

Still, some people think this near-miss should serve as a wake-up call.

"It's a warning shot across our bow that we are flying around the solar system in a shooting gallery," says Ed Lu, a former astronaut and head of the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting humanity from asteroids.

The asteroid known as 2012 DA14 was first spotted last year by astronomers in Spain. It's thought to be about 150 feet across and made of rock.

Congress likes to say it no longer does earmarks, the provisions that direct federal dollars to serve local interests or campaign supporters. And though that may be true, it's also a fact that targeted provisions are still useful in moving legislation — even critical legislation like the bill that pulled Washington back from the fiscal cliff last month.

More than 200 houses of worship damaged in Superstorm Sandy have applied for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But given the separation of church and state, it's unclear whether federal funds are available to them.

The sanctuary of Temple Israel of Long Beach, N.Y., was flooded with more than 10 feet of saltwater in some places, says Rabbi David Bauman.

"Roughly 5 to 7 feet [of water] in most, and there were surges — particularly in our mechanical room — that went upwards of 12 to 14 feet," he says.

If you took one song each from the artists likely to walk away with Grammy awards on Sunday night, you'd have a pretty decent playlist.

In recent years, Canada, France and Britain have added measures of citizen happiness to their official national statistics. The U.S. government is now considering adopting a happiness index as well.

This makes a certain amount of sense. Everything a government does — hiring soldiers, building bridges, providing pensions — is supposed to make citizens happy.

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep with a case of product placement. Corporations pay millions to have their products turn up in the hands of famous people but somehow, they were not thrilled when a photo showed a smartphone on a table next to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This set off fevered speculation about which brand it was.

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Good morning, I'm David Greene.

We've heard that necessity breeds invention. Well, so does discomfort. This weekend, 200 million Chinese are traveling home for the Chinese New Year. And for some this means entire days on standing room only trains.

One gadget being sold to travelers is a padded metal pole. It's to lean your head on so you don't fall over when you doze off. Or how about a luggage cart that doubles as a seat, with cup holders? Many people, though, are going old school with a simple upside down bucket.

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Let's get a glimpse of the troops now fighting Islamist insurgents in Somalia. Forces from multiple African nations have been battling a group called al-Shabaab for years. They're being closely watched now because the international community is considering how to intervene in future months and years against an insurgency in Mali. NPR's Gregory Warner is traveling with a force in Somalia. Gregory, welcome back to the program.

GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Thanks, Steve.

INSKEEP: So where are you, and what have you been doing?

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NPR's business news starts with Boeing's battery problem.

Boeing's new fleet of Dreamliner 787 aircraft is grounded. But there is one in the air right now. The FAA cleared the plane's flight this morning from Fort Worth, Texas to Seattle. Engineers at the Boeing factory there will study the plane's lithium ion batteries and look for ways to reduce fire risk. Regulators around the world grounded the Dreamliner last month after batteries overheated on two planes. Only crew are aboard the 787 currently on its way to Seattle.

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And we have news of another fire sale. Our last word in business today is the buy of a lifetime.

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That's what some are calling the sale of a 20-acre estate outside Cedar Falls, Iowa, which sold for a winning bid of around $600,000. The precise amount was not disclosed. One expert says to build something like that estate today would cost $1.5 million.

In exchange for multibillion-euro bailouts, Greece was required to sell state-owned assets. But the sweeping privatization process is behind schedule. In addition, European governments are nervous that Chinese, Russian and Arab companies are lining up to take advantage of the Greek fire sale.

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. But there's a complication: The park sits on top of the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil.

This creates a dilemma.

Ecuador prides itself on being pro-environment. Its constitution gives nature special rights. But Ecuador is a relatively poor country that could desperately use the money from the oil.

John Brennan, President Obama's choice to lead the CIA, can look forward to a grilling Thursday on Capitol Hill. As Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, he has been associated with some controversial policies, including the use of armed drones. Brennan's nomination comes before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and members from both parties have their questions ready.

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NPR's business news begins with an ending.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: The U.S. Postal Service has just announced the end of first class mail deliveries on Saturday. It is part of an effort to slow enormous financial losses. And NPR's Yuki Noguchi has come into the studio to tell us what all this means for customers and the Postal Service. And Yuki, so when will my Saturday deliveries stop?

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm David Greene.

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Monopoly players, your game will never be the same. Hasbro, which has been making the for some 80 years, is retiring a game piece. The iron will no longer be passing Go or stopping at Park Place. The company ran a Save Your Token campaign, and only eight percent of respondents fought for the iron. The winner? That little Scottie dog, who may prefer the old iron to the token replacing it - a cat - though players using the cat may get nine chances to win.

Thousands of Tunisians are protesting in the streets after the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, a critic of the moderate Islamist group that dominates the country's government. Steve Inskeep talks with Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution's Doha Center.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news begins with an ending.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene.

Manti Te'o won't be tricked again - at least not on Twitter. Te'o's the Notre Dame football player who says he met his girlfriend online. The woman wasn't real, and Te'o says he was the victim of a hoax. He's now deleted his Twitter account. The page had included a quote from author Alexander Dumas: "Life is a storm. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes."

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

The movie "Lincoln" has many fans in Washington. It's reassuring, since the film's politicians shaving the truth and bending the law are doing it for a higher purpose. But Connecticut Joe Courtney is not happy. The film shows Connecticut lawmakers voting to uphold slavery. Courtney looked it up. He found his state's real-life lawmakers voted to abolish slavery in 1865. So he's asking director Steven Spielberg for a correction.

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Leadership of the Boy Scouts of America may take an important vote today. The organization's executive board is wrapping up a meeting in Dallas, and they're talking about whether to drop their policy banning gay leaders and gay scouts. Activists delivered petitions with more than 1.4 million signatures to the national headquarters this week calling for the Boy Scouts to open up the organization.

NPR's Kathy Lohr reports that the issue has ignited a passionate debate about what the 100-year-old group should do.

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We're also tracking a story that federal authorities call one of the biggest credit card fraud rings in U.S. history. Eighteen people are alleged to have created an elaborate web of fake identities and sham companies to steal hundreds of millions of dollars.

NPR's Dan Bobkoff has more.