KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio

Will there be any clues in coming days and weeks about which cardinal will replace the now-departed Pope Benedict XVI?

My father, sister and I sat in the near-empty Chinese restaurant, picking at our plates, unable to avoid the question that we'd gathered to discuss: When was it time to let Mom die?

On a day when we're in the final countdown for sequestration, Washington is still abuzz over whether or not White House economic adviser Gene Sperling threatened journalist Bob Woodward.

Shakes on a plane aren't all that funny to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Update at 2:30 p.m. ET. Rescue Hopes Dim Further:

"Hopes for the rescue of a man sucked into a sinkhole were dimming Friday as authorities tried to determine whether the ground nearby was stable enough for a rescue operation," the Tampa Bay Times writes.

The Times also has a harrowing account from Jeremy Bush, who survived, of his brother Jeffrey's disappearance into the sinkhole:

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

It's like Groundhog Day, as NPR's Ari Shapiro said on Morning Edition.

Or maybe you prefer the way baseball's most quotable notable, Yogi Berra, would put it: "Deja vu all over again."

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne with news of shakes on a plane.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARLEM SHAKE")

BAAUER: (singing) The Harlem Shake.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

The new Berlin International Airport is scheduled to open for business October 2011. Yeah, they missed that deadline. Trouble with safety equipment caused delays, but one system is working; all the airport lights are on, every window ablaze. Work crews cannot turn the lights off. The technical director speaks as if the lights were some living being. We haven't progressed far enough with our lighting system that we can control it.

Earlier in the week in our "On the Run" series, we heard a mom explain how mac and cheese was more affordable than fresh fruit. Morning Edition reached out to Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, a nutritionist and economist, to explain why that would be true.