Mark Memmott

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Louisville Player's Surgery A Success; Leg Break Shouldn't End His Career

-- Texas On 'High Alert' After District Attorney's Killing

"Security is high this morning for both elected officials and employees" in Kaufman County, Texas, after the shooting deaths of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthina, KERA reports.

"University of Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware underwent successful surgery Sunday night to repair the gruesome open fracture of his right tibia he suffered during the Cardinals' 85-63 win over Duke in the Midwest Regional final," the Louisville Courier-Journal reported Monday morning.

Google Nose was unveiled Monday morning. It's "the new scentsation in search." Just put your nose to the screen to sample "15M+ sentibytes." Google's also offering new options to its "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, including "I'm Feeling Wonderful" and "I'm Feeling Hungry."

Twitter is out with "Twttr," a version that only lets you use consonants.

Calling them "sensible standards for cars and gasoline that will significantly reduce harmful pollution, prevent thousands of premature deaths and illnesses [and lead to] efficiency improvements in the cars and trucks we drive," the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed national rules to reduce the amount of sulfur in gasoline.

Being one of the living dead would be a big advantage if you're charged with murder.

And you could probably trash your neighbor's property and not be successfully sued.

There was a slightly larger-than-expected increase of 0.7 percent in consumer spending from January to February, the Bureau of Economic Analysis says.

Higher gasoline prices, though, were much of the reason for the rise. According to the bureau, if spending is adjusted for inflation the increase was a more modest 0.3 percent — the same as in January. And higher energy costs were behind most of the inflationary pressures last month.

The same weather system that left a few inches of snow on parts of the eastern U.S. earlier this week is now over the North Atlantic, and Jason Samenow of The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang says he's not sure he's ever "seen a storm this big before."

Richard Griffiths, who millions of Harry Potter movie fans loved and likely despised as the cruel Uncle Vernon Dursley, has died.

The BBC, The Guardian and other news outlets in the U.K. report that he passed away Thursday at the age of 65. There were "complications following heart surgery," the BBC says. The Guardian adds:

Friday morning's cheat sheet about the NCAA's Division I men's basketball tournament (or March Madness, as it's better known):

-- Hoosiers Zoned Out: It's probably never right to say that a Syracuse win is a huge surprise, given the many years of success enjoyed by coach Jim Boeheim's Orange. But the 'Cuse are a No. 4 seed in the tournament's East region. So Thursday night's 61-50 win over No. 1 seed Indiana is worth noting.

Standing in front of mothers whose children have died in shootings, President Obama said Thursday at the White House that if the nation fails to toughen its gun laws, "shame on us."

"Shame on us if we've forgotten" the 20 children and 6 educators killed three months ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and all the others who have died in gun-related violence before and since then, Obama added.

Police found hundreds of rounds of ammunition, guns, three photos of "what appears to be a deceased human covered with plastic" and other evidence when they searched the Newtown, Conn., home of killer Adam Lanza, according to records released Thursday.

There's much angst over the cyberattack that we and others reported about Wednesday — a denial-of-service broadside allegedly aimed at an anti-spam group by a Dutch hosting company, Cyberbunker. It led to reports about, supposedly, major congestion on the Web.

Well, there are two things everyone needs to know this morning:

The U.S. economy grew at a 0.4 percent annual rate in fourth-quarter 2012, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday morning.

In the end, the Heat couldn't take it.

LeBron James and his Miami teammates saw their win streak end at 27 games when they got gored in Chicago on Wednesday night — losing to the Bulls by a score of 101-97.

So the Los Angeles Lakers' 33-game run, set during the 1971-72 season, still stands as the NBA record.

Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius can travel outside his native South Africa while he awaits trial for allegedly murdering his girlfriend, a judge in Pretoria ruled Thursday.

Banks in Cyprus reopened Thursday morning — after two weeks in which they had to keep their doors closed as European leaders worked out a bailout deal for the island's struggling financial sector in a bid to keep its problems from triggering similar crises in other ailing EU nations.

Praising their "detailed reportage, often from dangerous locations," the judges of the 72nd Annual Peabody Awards have singled out NPR's Kelly McEvers and Deborah Amos for their coverage of the conflict in Syria.

(We most recently updated the top of this post at 1:45 p.m. ET.)

There seem to be four solid votes on the Supreme Court — and possibly a fifth — to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, NPR's Nina Totenberg told us after Wednesday's oral arguments before the nine justices.

But there's a big "if."

As in: There's possibly a 5-vote majority to strike down the law if the court first decides it should even issue an opinion.

Soccer fans, lend us your expertise.

The 0-0 tie Tuesday night at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City is being hailed this morning as basically a victory for Team USA over its archrival, Mexico's national team.

(Note: Don't click on the videos we're writing about here unless you're prepared to be scared.)

As we wait for the Supreme Court to convene again at 10 a.m. ET and begin the second of two historic days of oral arguments focusing on legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage, there's a natural question:

Did Day 1 — a case about California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage — tell us much about how the justices will tackle Wednesday's case?

NPR's Nina Totenberg told us Tuesday that the short answer is no.

Once we mention them, get these Jackson 5 songs out of your head:

-- "ABC"

-- "I Want You Back"

Or how about "Love Child" from The Supremes?

Deke Richards, "leader of the Motown songwriting, arranging and producing team known as The Corporation" that came up with those and many other hits, has died.

Richards was 68. According to Universal Music, he passed away at a hospice in Bellingham, Wash., from esophageal cancer.

(Our most recent update was at 12:50 p.m. ET.)

The housing recovery continues:

If it's March and there's madness, then the University of Connecticut women's basketball team must be in the middle of it all.

Tuesday's news from Afghanistan underscores the challenges that remain as the U.S. and its allies try to hand over security to that nation's military and police.

-- "5 Afghan Police Killed In Suicide Attack In East": The Associated Press writes that "eight suicide bombers attacked a police headquarters in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday, killing five officers and wounding four others, a security official said."

Amanda Knox, the young American whose murder conviction in Italy captured attention around the world, learned Tuesday that Italy's highest court has overturned a lower court's 2011 decision to dismiss that verdict.