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There were 351,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, unchanged from the four-year-low level of the week before, the Employment and Training Administration just reported.

It adds that "the 4-week moving average was 359,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week's revised average of 366,000."

Saying that "we must reject the conclusion that privacy is an outmoded value" and that it has been "at the heart of our democracy from its inception," President Obama this morning released his administration's "Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy" — a "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights."

"Two U.S. troops have been shot to death and four more wounded by an Afghan solider who turned his gun on his allies in apparent anger over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, an Afghan official tells CBS News."

Officially, the International Security Assistance Force says that:

Mount Healthy United Methodist Church in suburban Cincinnati offered a drive-thru blessing. Believers could get the traditional cross of ashes smudged onto their foreheads without getting out of their cars.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti wants more transparency so he made his cabinet disclose their finances. That sparked so much interest, the government website crashed. Ministers own real estate in New York, Brussels and Paris. One made $9 million last year.

"A rapid series of attacks spread over a wide swath of Iraqi territory killed at least 50 people on Thursday, targeting mostly security forces in what appeared to be another strike by al-Qaida militants bent on destabilizing the country," The Associated Press reports.

Ten months and a score of debates ago, the Republican Party and a slew of news organizations brought forth on our TV screens a new definition of a presidential nominating process — conceived in targeted marketing and dedicated to the proposition that no number of debates was too many for hardcore conservatives.

Republican presidential hopefuls have had a field day attacking President Obama for the federal government's trillion-dollar deficits and promising things will be different when the GOP is in charge.

But while the candidates talk a good game about stemming the tide of red ink, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says their proposals don't necessarily add up.

Syrian government troops are continuing to bombard the central city of Homs. The United Nations says more than five thousand people have been killed during the 11-month uprising. Syrian activists say the number is much higher. Yesterday, two foreign journalists were among those killed.

Renee Montagne has the Last Word in business.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

Back in October, a group of Republican voters in Arizona gathered at NPR's request to watch one of the early GOP presidential debates on TV. Wednesday night, they got together again. NPR's Ted Robbins watched with them in Saddlebrooke, a retirement community northwest of Tucson, and asked them to share their thoughts.

Mitt Romney is campaigning as a businessman who knows how to turn the economy around — a skill he says he learned during his time turning companies around, as president of the private equity firm Bain Capital.

So today, we're going to take a look at two deals that Bain did while Mitt Romney was heading the firm. This afternoon, we'll tell the story of one of Bain's successes.

The U.S. Supreme Court took up the subject of lying on Wednesday.

Specifically at issue was the constitutionality of a 2006 law that makes it a crime to lie about having received a military medal. But the questions posed by the justices ranged far beyond that — from advertising puffery to dating lies.

Take a look at this rock:

That's a 12.76-carat pink diamond that was found at Rio Tinto's Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia. The mine said it is the biggest of its kind found in the country, which is a big deal because that mine produces 90 percent of the global market diamond supply.

The Telegraph reports:

Since we introduced you to AeroShot, a product the delivers a blast of caffeine through an inhaler, a few months back, it seems a lot of folks — mostly around college campuses in New York and Boston — have tried the quick pick-me-up.