Morning Edition

It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction.

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

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

And I'm Linda Wertheimer.

As we've been hearing, clock is ticking on the sequester. That is the Washington term for the across-the-board cuts that will take effect March 1, unless Congress acts to put them off.

The impact the $85 billion reduction in government programs could have became a bit clearer yesterday, as NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

The lives of the 26 people murdered by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December were eulogized and celebrated after the tragedy. But many discussions about Lanza's first victim, his mother, Nancy, were marked by both sympathy and suspicion, particularly as the news emerged that she had taken her son to shooting ranges.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has put the state on what he calls a "glide path to zero" income tax. But that glide path is far from being clear or smooth.

On the face of it, Brownback seems to enjoy a remarkably strong political position. He's a conservative Republican, flanked by GOP supermajorities in both legislative chambers. His allies helped purge moderate Republicans from the state Senate in last year's election.

"I think the road is open," Brownback says. "I think we do provide an alternative model. I think we do provide a red-state model."

The film No revisits the moment in Chile's history when 56 percent of the country voted to oust a dictator from power. It's the tale of the ad campaign that helped persuade Chileans to cast their ballots against Gen. Augusto Pinochet in a national referendum.

"This is an epic story, the story of a triumph," says Director Pablo Larrain. "It's how they defeat a dictator — probably one of the biggest bastards that we ever had in humankind."

Warren Buffett is teaming up with another big investor in the $28 billion deal. Berkshire Hathaway has been looking for places to invest, with other recent deals involving consumer icons Coca-Cola and Mars.

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Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. This summer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Preparedness 101, a just-in-case guide for of a zombie pandemic. Yesterday, a Canadian parliament member asked the foreign minister how his country's preparing for zombies. The foreign minister said he's dedicated to the proposition that...

(SOUNDBITE OF PARLIAMENT SESSION)

JOHN BAIRD: Canada will never become a safe haven for zombies, ever.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Here, here!

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Chocolate is bad for dogs and cats, but that doesn't mean they won't be feeling the love on this Valentine's Day. The National Retail Federation says Americans will spend more than $800 million on gifts for their pets - from heart-shaped treats to heart-healthy vitamins. And in honor of Valentine's Day, the ASPCA hosted an online dating show to match humans and animals in need of a home. They called that event "Puppy Love." It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murder after his girlfriend was shot dead Thursday at his home in South Africa. Pistorius is the sprinter and double-amputee known as "Blade Runner."

What do you do when you're a scientist and you have no job and no money for your research? If you're Ethan Perlstein, you try crowd funding. He raised $25,000 to investigate where the drug methamphetamine is stored in the brain.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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Pre-school is one example of how President Obama says the government can play a constructive role in the U.S. economy. In his State of the Union speech, President Obama tried to refocus a debate that, for two years, has been all about cutting. The president is highlighting government programs that even many Republicans support.

Here's NPR's Scott Horsley.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: The U.S. economy is slowly recovering from the Great Recession, but President Obama says the government could be doing more to help.

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Two years ago today, more than 100,000 people rallied in the Gulf nation of Bahrain; a peacefully protest against the rule of their autocratic king. Despite harsh government repression, the protests continue. Many Bahrainis are critical of U.S. support for the country's monarch despite the growing popular opposition.

Independent producer Reese Erlich reports from Bahrain's capital, Manama.

The boards of American Airlines and US Airways just approved a merger of the two airlines. But the deal still has to win the approval of antitrust regulators at the Justice Department — regulators who last month sued to stop a merger between the beer giants Anheuser-Busch InBev and Grupo Modelo, which brews Corona.

The antitrust division has dozens of economists on staff. Their job, essentially, is to figure out whether a merger would reduce competition so much that a company could raise prices without losing business to competitors.

Throughout his career, English musician Bryan Ferry has been one of popular music's most forward-looking performers. His band Roxy Music remodeled rock into an artsy, cosmopolitan sound in the early '70s and spearheaded the New Romantic style of the '80s.

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Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. Republican Senator Marco Rubio delivered the Republican reply to the State of the Union. In mid-critique, Rubio wanted water but water was out of reach. The senator ducked down, reached off screen, found it, sipped it and resumed. But the Twittersphere had left the building. Water tweets flooded the nation. Rubio tweeted too - a picture of his water bottle. You're listening to MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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In New York, it's hard to get a dinner reservation to a trendy restaurant on Valentine's Day. And apparently, for hipsters in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, it can be tough to get a spot on a romantic tour of a sewage treatment plant. New York's Department of Environmental Protection says this Valentine's Day, it had to add an extra tour because of the demand. Why the sewage plant tour is so trendy? Hmm, maybe the pheromones.

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NPR's business news starts with an unlikely call for assistance.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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And also watching the president's address last night was NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith. She was in the chamber and spoke to members of Congress afterwards.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News with Linda Wertheimer. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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Throughout today's program, we're hearing parts of President Obama's State of the Union Address and many reactions to it. This is the part of the program where we take a close read of the speech. We've done this nine years running. In some cases we're checking facts. And in other cases we're asking what some parts of the speech really mean.

U.S. companies that have their networks routinely penetrated and their trade secrets stolen cannot be surprised by a new National Intelligence Estimate on the cyber-espionage threat. The classified NIE, the first-ever focusing on cybersecurity, concludes that the U.S. is the target of a major espionage campaign, with China the leading culprit.

The political crisis in Tunisia is deepening after last week's murder of a prominent secular politician. Tunisians are increasingly divided over their country's government and future, just two years after collectively overthrowing the dictator in a popular revolution.

Gentlemen of a certain age might make a nostalgic note that today, Valentine's eve, is the 80th birthday of Kim Novak.

One of Miss Novak's most famous movie roles was in Picnic, where she played the gorgeous ingenue who could've married the son of the richest man in town but instead fell for a hunk of a bum who was an old football star.

Picnic is being revived on Broadway, as is Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, where — guess what? — Maggie, played by the beautiful Scarlett Johansson, is married to a hunk of a bum who is a former football star.

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Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. For Valentine's Day dinner, consider Ne Quittez Pas. The haute Tokyo restaurant has patrons digging deep in their wallets for an apparently chic ingredient - dirt. For $110 each you can dine in four courses of favorites like the soil surprise, a dirt-dusted potato ball with a truffle center. Or if you're feeling gritty, try the soil sorbet. I say go for the fish soup. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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KRTV viewers in Great Falls, Montana were interrupted by a bizarre emergency message yesterday: Zombies On The Attack.

(SOUNDBITE OF EMERGENCY MESSAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living...