There were 2,000 fewer first-time claims for unemployment last week than in the week before, the Employment and Training Administration reports.

It says there were 351,000 such filings.

In 1968, Hugh Masekela was not quite 30 years old and though he was in exile from his homeland of South Africa, he seemed ready to become at home on the American jazz and pop markets. That summer, he had scored a number one single, "Grazing in the Grass." A year earlier, he'd been one of the few international performers at the 1967 Monterrey International Pop Festival and had appeared in its D.A. Pennebaker documentary. Yet strangely enough, over the next 45 years Masekela never quite found his sweet spot.

A fourth death in Tennessee appears to have brought the toll from severe storms that swept through parts of the Midwest and South on Wednesday to at least 13.

Chrissy Keuper of WUOT-FM in at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has told our Newscast Desk about the fourth fatality in the Volunteer State.

The airline hired the coach to train its flight attendants to speak in hushed tones while serving passengers. Crews will be trained on tone and volume. The low tones are reserved for Virgin's new upper class dream suite.

Two more American military personnel were killed in Southern Afghanistan today when, officials believe, an Afghan civilian grabbed a weapon from an Afghan soldier and opened fire, NPR's Quil Lawrence reports from Kabul. At least one other attacker may also have been involved.

Quil adds that "we don't know yet whether this attack is linked to the Quran burnings, which set off so much violence — including the killing of four U.S. servicemen in the week that followed."

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A suspect in Iowa will not have to go far to find a jury of his peers. Jury selection was underway in a court in Waterloo when a potential juror left her wallet on a bench. She returned from a break and found cash missing. Witnesses and security cameras in the court led authorities to a suspect. The man was another potential jury member. Police arranged a court date for him in the same legal system he had been serving a short time before. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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NPR's business news starts with a prognosis from Ben Bernanke.

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INSKEEP: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is back on Capitol Hill today, for a second day of testimony. He's speaking to Senators one day after he told House members that the economic recovery is, quote, "uneven and modest." He showed no sign of what his predecessor once called irrational exuberance.

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

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

The battle over social issues in the Republican presidential primaries has extended through most of another week. This time the flashpoint was a remark by Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor said he opposed, and then clarified that he actually favors, legislation involving contraception.

NPR's Tamara Keith reports it was not what Romney intended to discuss in Ohio.

Acorn Media distributes British TV series in the United States, and now it's acquired a controlling interest in the estate of Agatha Christie. The late author of murder mysteries has sold billions of books.

Beginning Friday, the Bank of Greece will stop exchanging drachma notes for euros. The deadline comes at an uncertain time for Greeks, who worry that their country's debt crisis could eventually force it out of the eurozone.