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A set of 13th-century Byzantine frescoes — plundered after Turkey invaded Cyprus and on display in Houston for the last 15 years — is headed home at last. It's the closing chapter in what turns out to be a remarkable odyssey.

It all started in the summer of 1974, when the Turkish army invaded Cyprus and nearly 200,000 Greek Cypriots became refugees fleeing south.

"And so all the churches and homes and art was left behind," says Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection in Houston. "And after years, some of these churches began to be looted."

There's been a major development involving a notorious warlord from Central Africa who snatched thousands of children and sent them to war on his behalf.

While reading over an analysis of decades-old studies of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism last week, I found that the so-called number needed to treat was 6 to prevent alcohol misuse. In other words, treat six people and one would benefit.

Imelda May began her affair with rockabilly early on in life — by the time she was 9, she'd already begun to emulate Elmore James and Billie Holiday. In 2007, after years of singing in clubs, May stole the spotlight with Love Tattoo. The 12-track collection shot to the #1 spot in Ireland, stealing the hearts of audiences and contemporaries the world over.

A day before he begins serving his prison sentence, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich will give one final press conference. As The Chicago Tribune puts it, talking into a microphone was, after all, one of his favorite things to do as governor.

The disgraced governor was sentenced to 14 years in prison back in December, after he was convicted of, among other things, trying to sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR news, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

I'm Robert Siegel.

One last day of freedom, one last time before cameras and microphones. Former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich reports to a federal prison tomorrow to begin serving a 14-year sentence for corruption. But before leaving, he stepped outside his Chicago home today to make a public statement.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. In South Africa last week, tens of thousands of people took to the streets. It was a one-day workers' strike, one of the largest protests since the end of Apartheid. The strike, organized by South African unions, included 32 cities that caused large sectors of the economy to shut down.

As Anders Kelto reports, protesters were demanding the government do more to help South Africa's poor and working class.

I think everyone can agree that the Republican Party's search for its presidential nominee has been a long, strange trip. For me, one of the strangest things about it is that, after all this time, I barely know who's running Mitt Romney's, Rick Santorum's and Newt Gingrich's campaigns. You see, over the past 30 years, political strategists have gone from being shadowy figures to being celebrities in their own right.

According to new research, 3.7 million Americans who live at elevations close to high tide could face more frequent flooding because of the sea rise caused by global warming.

The New York Times reports:

The cacophony of hoots being directed at Mitt Romney Wednesday for his poor performances in Alabama and Mississippi primaries is somewhat curious, especially since it was the conventional wisdom as recently as last week that the Deep South was likely to be very tough going for him.

After U.S. troops inadvertently burned Qurans in Afghanistan last month, Afghans staged nationwide riots that left 40 dead and hundreds injured in unrest that lasted days.

In the days since 16 Afghan civilians were shot dead on Sunday, apparently by a lone U.S. soldier, the Afghan reaction has been relatively restrained so far.

Why such different responses? It can seem especially confounding to Americans, who consider the shooting a far graver offense than the Quran burnings.

Listen to the conversations around you — colleagues at the office, customers in the coffeehouse line, those who serve you, those you serve, the people you meet each day. "Give me a tall latte." "Hand me that hammer." "Have a good one."

Notice anything missing? The traditional magic words "please" and "thank you" that many people learn as children appear to be disappearing.

The Pentagon says an Afghan drove a stolen truck onto the airfield of a British base in southern Afghanistan at high speeds until it crashed into a ditch and exploded into flames.

The incident at Camp Bastion happened around the same time that U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta landed in the country.

"At no point was the Secretary or anyone on the aircraft in any danger from this incident," the International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

Cooling a person's hands while exercising can make for a better workout, especially for people who hate to exercise because it makes them all hot and sweaty.

This might help the many, many people who have a hard time keeping up with exercise because it's just plain uncomfortable.

Researchers tested the idea with obese women in their 30s and 40s who worked out on a treadmill. The women whose palms were cooled with a device that circulated ice water were able to exercise longer than the women whose palms were exposed to room temperature water.

There's a new record in the Iditarod: A 25 year old has become the youngest musher to win the approximately thousand-mile trans-Alaskan sled dog race.

Dallas Seavey slid into Nome, Alaska, at 7:29 p.m. yesterday with nine dogs, finishing the race in nine days, four hours, 29 minutes and 26 seconds.

"We went into this race with a dog team that I knew had the ability to win the Iditarod," Seavey said in a post-race press conference in Nome. "We spent most of the race building a monster – a dog team that couldn't be stopped."

Greg Smith is a fairly ordinary name — but it's now one that's all the talk of Wall Street after he quit his position at Goldman Sachs today in one of the most amazingly public ways:

With an essay in The New York Times that accuses Goldman Sachs of having a money-is-everything culture that is "toxic and destructive."

A year into the Syrian uprising, with the world community reluctant to intervene, one international group has taken a direct and risky role in Syria — even taking part in the high-profile rescue of Western journalists from the besieged city of Homs.

Avaaz, a global online pressure group based in New York, has given crucial support to the uprising and the Syrian activist networks that aim to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad.

When it comes to reality TV — and competitive cooking shows in particular — there are many reliable ways to create drama: menacing judges, preternaturally ticking clocks, the threat of elimination, and, of course, clever editing.

President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron are due to hold a news conference at the White House just after noon ET.

We'll live blog as they speak, so check back as the time approaches and hit your "refresh" button every once in a while after they get started.

After two years of going with the wrong team to win it all, President Obama is counting on North Carolina — the team he correctly picked to win the 2009 NCAA men's basketball championship — to end up No. 1 this year.

As he has each year since taking office, the president spent time with ESPN going over his bracket for the tournament.