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As North Korea gears up to launch a long-range rocket, political changes are afoot, too: Pyongyang has consolidated its succession process, giving a new title to its new leader, Kim Jong Un, who came to power in December after his father's death.

The rocket launch, which could come as early as Thursday in North Korea, has been condemned by the international community as being in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. So why now?

Update at 4:45 p.m. ET. And With That, The Fun Is Over; Texts From Hillary Decides To Call It A Day:

Saying that "as far as memes go — it has gone as far as it can go," the Texts from Hillary guys have decided to stop adding to the blog.

As they say, "TTYL."

But we still suggest checking out our original post:

Seen Texts from Hillary yet?

The fallout from the consumer backlash to so-called "pink slime" continues to hurt meat sales. Now, some companies are taking steps to label the product they call "lean, finely textured beef" in hopes that they can earn back consumer trust.

Tyson and Cargill, two multinational firms that sell ground beef containing the processed trimmings, say they have submitted labeling requests to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in hopes that some customers will feel better about buying ground beef containing LFTB if it's labeled.

The Federal Reserve's policymakers seem to be reluctant to consider any more efforts to inject a monetary stimulus into the U.S. economy — but that doesn't mean you should expect the central bank to raise interest rates any time soon.

Nadine Gordimer's trademark characters live for politics, the Struggle. You get the feeling they would be sick to their collective stomachs if they ever even tried to bite into a gourmet cupcake.

In Bahrain, demonstrators are demanding the release of imprisoned activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. He has been on hunger strike for more than two months and his family now fears for his health. Guest host Viviana Hurtado speaks with his daughter, Zainab al-Khawaja and Middle East expert, Joshua Landis.

Transcript

VIVIANA HURTADO, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm Viviana Hurtado. Michel Martin is away. She's visiting Syracuse University and member station WRVO is Oswego, New York. Still to come, we take a look at some of the political upheaval in the Middle East. As another deadline has come and gone, the violence continues in Syria. More on that in a few minutes.

Carole King initially found it extremely difficult to navigate the social hierarchies of high school. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter was a few years younger than her fellow classmates and was often dismissed as being "cute."

"And it was like, no, I don't want to be cute, I want to be beautiful and smart," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "And that wasn't happening, and then I connected through music. So music became a way of identifying my particular niche. How lucky for me."

After hearing that football coach Bobby Petrino had not only lied about who he was with when he had a motorcycle accident on April 1, but that he was also having an affair with that young woman, had paid her $20,000 and had arranged for her to get a job with the university, Arkansas Razorbacks fans are saying they agree with the decision to fire him.

For President Obama, the Buffett Rule is the political equivalent of a Swiss army knife, a tool he clearly intends to use any number of ways as he fights to be re-elected and deny the White House to Republican Mitt Romney.

From the Democrats' perspective, the proposed rule, which would require that superwealthy taxpayers with at least $1 million in taxable income after deductions, pay taxes at a minimum 30 percent rate, has so much going for it, they can hardly stop talking about it.

Apple Inc. and other publishers have conspired to limit competition and fix the prices of e-books, the U.S. Justice Department alleges in a suit filed today.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

The yearlong tumult of the Arab Spring has reached all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A stunning and timely new show, "Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition," covers exactly the places caught up in modern day revolts, and many of the developments from more than a millennium ago are closely linked to the events of today.

If you need another reason to be wary of Tax Day, some Canadian researchers have found one.

Fatal car crashes rise on the deadline for filing federal taxes. That's April 17 this year, if you're making travel plans.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Tsunami Watch Canceled In Indian Ocean; Quake Struck Near Indonesia.

-- Trayvon Martin Death: Prosecutor Plans Announcement By Late Friday.

As al-Jazeera and other news outlets report being told by activists that Syrian government forces are shelling the city of Homs and attacking and arresting opponents of President Bashar Assad in other places, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan continues to press for a true ceasefire to take effect on Thursday.

Patrick Sullivan, the former sheriff in Arapahoe County, Colo., who's serving a 38-day sentence for trying to trade methamphetamine for sex with a man, isn't being held any longer in a jail that bears his name.

Shortly after we learned Tuesday that George Zimmerman's lawyers said they had lost contact with their client and were withdrawing from the case, there was an announcement from special prosecutor Angela Corey's office that she would be making an announcement about the case within 72 hours

Some of the morning-after analyses of what Rick Santorum's exit from the Republican field means for the 2012 presidential campaign: