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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

If you think this has been an unbelievable week of news, try telling it to Joe Berti. Mr. Berti traveled to Boston for that city's marathon and crossed the finish line seconds before the first bomb exploded. He was OK and he went home to Texas, where he was close enough to a fertilizer plant to see it explode on Wednesday night. Some people might feel star-crossed at that point, but Mr. Berti considers himself lucky.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. Earlier this week we told you about a Michigan judge who held himself in contempt when his cell phone went off in the courtroom. He said judges are not above the rules. An Oregon judge this week showed that jurors are not above the rules, either. During a trial in the town of Salem, the judge noticed that a juror's pocket was glowing.

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All morning we have been following the extraordinary events in Boston, where a manhunt is underway for one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. The brother of the young man the police are searching for, his brother was killed in a shootout last night with police. Meanwhile, this American city, the city of Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods are in total lockdown.

For the latest on the Boston Marathon Bombing case, David Greene and Steve Inskeep talk to Fred Bever of member station WBUR and Chechen expert Thomas de Waal of the Carnegie Endowment for International peace

David Greene and Steve Inskeep talk to David Boeri of member station WBUR, NPR's Dina Temple-Raston and Zolan Young, an intern at The Boston Globe, about the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Many areas in Boston are on lock down as authorities continue the hunt for one of two Russian-born brothers of Chechen background. For details, David Greene talks to Jeff Brady.

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And let's turn now, briefly, to West, Texas, the scene of this week's fertilizer plant explosion. Many questions remain unanswered there. In fact, it's still hard to estimate how many people were killed. We do know that regulators had a few concerns with this plant in the past, though it's not clear if anybody questioned the plant's location near homes and a school.

And amid all these questions, the people of West are picking up and taking stock. Here's NPR's Wade Goodwyn.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

On a Friday morning it's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. And, David, I guess we cannot say enough this morning that everything we're telling you about unfolding events in Boston is provisional. Anything could change. The information we're getting is changing all the time.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We're keeping track of all the different stories in an amazing week of news, including the manhunt in Boston overnight. We'll have an update on that shortly again. And also this. The man charged with mailing letters containing poison to the president and a U.S. senator, along with a judge, appeared yesterday in court in Mississippi in shackles and wearing a Johnny Cash t-shirt. His lawyer said Kevin Curtis denies he put ricin in those letters. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports on new details in the case.

Under the rule of its late president, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela became a nation sharply divided between those who supported his self-styled socialist revolution and those who opposed it.

But after a disputed presidential election in which Chavez's deputy was ruled the winner by a razor-thin margin, the country appears more polarized than ever.

In 1987, Jack Richmond was driving a forklift at work when the vehicle overturned onto him, crushing his leg below the knee. His daughter, Reagan, was just 2 months old at the time.

"Initially when they told me I would lose my leg, I was in denial and disbelief and kind of like, 'What, why? Can't you fix it?' " Jack tells Reagan in a visit to StoryCorps in Knoxville, Tenn. "But it just couldn't be saved."

"And you had a brand new daughter — me," says Reagan, now 25. "What were you thinking?"

In state legislatures around the country, lawmakers are debating important subjects — education reform, election laws, gun control and abortion. But in Florida, one of the hottest issues to come before the Legislature this term involves cats.

There, lawmakers are considering a contentious bill that would offer legal protection to groups that trap, neuter and return feral cats to their colonies.

An Alternative To Shelters

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

We're learning more about last night's fire in the Texas town of West. The fire started in a fertilizer plant, and a father in a vehicle nearby was taking video of the flames when the plant exploded.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Are you OK?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yeah. I can't hear.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. We're listening to a memorial service in Boston for victims of the Boston Marathon.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BOSTON CHILDREN'S CHORUS: (Singing in foreign language)

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All this morning, we have been following the aftermath of a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas last night. When volunteer firefighters in the city of West, Texas - that's about 20 miles north of Waco - first arrived to battle a fire at the plant, they encountered a disaster in the making.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We're told this fire was burning at the site of a couple of storage tanks, each of which had the capacity to carry 12,000 gallons of ammonia.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The nation's attention turns this morning to a tiny city in Texas. It's simply called West. It is the site of a fertilizer plant from which a message went out to police radio last night.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: There has been an explosion on the fire scene. There are firefighters down at this time. Again, there has been an explosion on the fire scene. There are firefighters down at this time.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. There may be only one place in the world you will not hear Psy. His video "Gangnam Style" was seen 1.5 billion times, including several thousand in my household. His new video, "Gentleman," has 142 million views so far but is not on South Korean Public Broadcasting.

In that video, Psy dances up the street and kicks an orange cone that says no parking. South Korea's KBS says abusing public property does not meet its standards. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning, I'm David Greene.

Dating can be tough in a small country like Iceland. There are only 320,000 people and many of them are distant relatives. So the government came up with an idea. They created a genealogy Web site. There's even a Smartphone app. Just tap phones with your date. And if you happen to share a grandparent, you'll get an alert. If a date is out of the question, the app does also track relatives' birthdays and so you can send them a card.

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Two prominent Harvard economists have admitted there are errors in an influential paper they wrote on government debt. This paper was widely cited in recent budget debates. But the economists insist their mistakes do not significantly change their research.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: In their 2010 paper, Ken Rogoff and Carmen Rinehart argued that economic growth falls significantly when a country's debt level rises above 90 percent of its Gross Domestic Product or GDP.

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Now, President Obama had promised to put the full weight of his office behind getting Congress to pass new gun control legislation. That weight was apparently not enough. When the legislation failed yesterday, Obama went into the White House Rose Garden and made a blistering speech, calling it a shameful day for Washington.

NPR's Ari Shapiro was there.

Like many California cities hit hard by the real estate crash, Indio (near Palm Springs) has been forced to make steep cutbacks to avoid bankruptcy. But unlike other cities, Indio hosts the highest-grossing music festival in the world — Coachella — which wraps up this weekend. It has made city leaders eager to capitalize on Coachella's riches.

Sam Torres, plumber by day, Indio city councilman by night, says he was prepared to become the most hated man in the city, and he very well may have achieved that goal. His offense? Proposing a 6 percent tax on Coachella tickets.

April 18, 2013, is a big day for Superman. The Man of Steel, more powerful than a locomotive, turns 75. Most of us know Superman's story — faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Less well-known is that the superhero is not native to the lost world of Krypton, nor the rural Kansas burg of Smallville. Superman is Cleveland's native son — at least as far as the city's residents are concerned.

At the 2011 Academy Awards, the film Restrepo was among the documentaries nominated for an Oscar. It follows an American platoon on a remote mountaintop in what was, at the time, the most dangerous place in Afghanistan.

To make the film, writer Sebastian Junger teamed up with British photojournalist Tim Hetherington — who, walking the red carpet that night at the Oscars, might as well have been a young actor straight out of central casting: tall, handsome, charismatic.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with good luck to Sean Parker and his bride-to-be. She's a singer; he's a Facebook billionaire and founder of Napster. Mr. Parker committed $10 million to their wedding. He paid for waterfalls, bridges and ancient ruins created for the occasion. Guests will wear outfits created by the costume designer from "Lord of the Rings."

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm David Greene.

Chris Holmes worked at a London airport, but his true love was always making cakes. So Holmes decided to quit his job to run his own bake shop, which brings us to his resignation letter. He wrote it on a cake with icing. He said he wanted more time with his family. He wished his colleagues well. It took two hours, more time than he had ever spent on a birthday message or anniversary wish. A photo of his work went viral, publicity that he really felt was icing on the cake.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

The special agent in charge of the FBI Boston office hopes someone somewhere heard something that will point to a suspect in the Boston Marathon attack.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now, the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon struck at a very special type of sporting event. Marathons have been called the most democratic of sports, with the fewest physical barriers between athlete and spectator.

NPR's Mike Pesca examines whether the attack could permanently damage that accessibility.

Oakland, Calif., was once a hub of African-American culture on the West Coast.