Morning Edition

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. We have learned this morning that North Korea has agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests and uranium enrichment activities. This is according to State Department officials just back from a trip to China, where they met with North Korean negotiators. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more on what could be a step towards reviving nuclear disarmament talks.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch's son James, 39, is leaving his job as executive chairman of News Corp.'s newspaper arm, the company said Wednesday. He'll focus instead on the international TV business at the company, which has been embroiled in a scandal over phone and e-mail hacking in Britain.

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At this year's fishing contest on Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin, they weren't just fishing for sturgeon. People arriving to fish parked their cars too closely, and the ice gave way. No one was hurt but three dozen vehicles were pulled out of the lake.

The deadly violence in Afghanistan over the burning of Qurans by the U.S. military has brought the American-led NATO mission to a crossroads. Among the dead have been four Americans — two of them by an Afghan policeman inside a supposedly highly secure government ministry building. The U.S. pulled all its advisers from those ministries.

Pakistani journalist Pir Zubair Shah has been following drone strikes in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than half a decade. He talks to Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep about his recent article in Foreign Policy magazine titled "My Drone War."

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NPR's business news starts with an invitation from Apple.

Journalists were invited yesterday by Apple for a product event next month. And that was enough to send the company shares to another all-time high. There's wide speculation the event will introduce the next generation of its iPad tablet. The iPad 3 is expected to have a faster processor and a high definition display. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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And that brings us to our last word in business on this Leap Day: a rare proposal. Traditionally in many European countries Leap Day was considered the only day when a woman could propose to a man. And one restaurant in Swindon, England seems to be capitalizing on that.

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GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney turned back challenges from former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in Arizona., where Romney won easily, and in Michigan, where he eeked out a close win in the state where he was born. Before Tuesday night, Romney's last primary win was in Florida a month ago.

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And while Mitt Romney was eking out that win in Michigan, he pretty much walked away with yesterday's Arizona primary. Romney was expected to win in Arizona, but he walloped his closest challenger - that would be Rick Santorum - by 20 percentage points. Helped, in part, by the support of the last Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain.

And while all the attention was on Michigan throughout the night, NPR's Ted Robbins reports that in the all-important delegate count, the Arizona win counts for nearly as much.

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As NASCAR fans know well, this year's Daytona 500 race was marked by rain delays and a massive explosion when a race car collided with a jet dryer truck. The race was supposed to be run on Sunday, but after all the delays, it got done early Tuesday morning.

Russia's presidential election is on Saturday. The projected winner will be the current prime minister — and former president — Vladimir Putin, the subject of a new biography, The Strongman. Author Angus Roxburgh is a longtime journalist who served briefly as a public relations advisor to the Kremlin. He joined Morning Edition's David Greene to discuss the complicated figure who dominates and defines Russian politics.

Interview Highlights

On Putin's ability to manipulate others

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A touch of Paris has arrived in L.A. Angelinos, like Parisians, can now enjoy fine dining with their pet dogs. The Health Department has deemed dogs perfectly safe as eating companions. Effective immediately, canines will be welcomed in the outdoor seating areas of restaurants. But pet dogs will be denied some elements of standard restaurant service. For one thing, dining does not include sitting on a chair. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Gean Brown Jr. was installing pipes in an attic in Spring Hill, Kan., and somehow he lost his wallet. He never expected to see it again. More than three decades later, Brown received a call last week. The current owner of that house had found the wallet.

In certain parts of Syria, the violence is unending and it is mainly focused on the city of Homs. For the past 25 days, the Syrian army has been bombarding the neighborhoods of Homs that have been resistant to the government.

David Greene has business news.

Privacy protections on Internet browsers are anything but ironclad. Companies circumvent them routinely. Most people know they are being observed online but figuring out how is complicated.

Ford is betting technology can help relieve traffic congestion around the world. In a speech Monday, Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. said the company is investing in systems that will bypass traffic jams, locate parking spots and communicate with other vehicles to avoid accidents.

The senior police official investigating wrongdoing by journalists in London says there was a culture of illegal payments at the Sun tabloid to create a network of paid informants across the British government. The Sun is the second tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to be the focus of wrongdoing.