NPR News

When you think about France, baseball doesn't leap to mind, but the sport has a long history there, dating back to 1889. During World War I, French soldiers played baseball with American doughboys. And now there is a French baseball league. But the games are never televised and the fans are mostly friends and family. But this week, for the first time, France sent its top team to the qualifying matches for the World Baseball Classic, a tournament that was created when baseball ceased to be an Olympics sport.

Republicans continue to press the Obama administration for more details on how they would cut billions from the defense budget if sequestration is put into place in January. The Department of Defense will now have to explain why it has not planned for an event that is becoming increasingly likely.

Audie Cornish talks to Washington Post reporter James Ball about Iran's preparations to create an internal Internet.

On Wednesday a government watchdog issued a report finding widespread failures with the government's "Fast and Furious" gun trafficking operation. On Thursday, the watchdog at the Justice Department, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, told a House panel that federal agents and prosecutors failed to protect public safety — and their bosses didn't pay enough attention.

Two days before the deadly Sept. 11 attack on Americans in Libya, three U.S. officials met pro-government militias working to provide security in the city of Benghazi.

In that meeting, which included the American economic and political counselors, Mohammed el Gharabi, a leader of a prominent militia, says he warned the Americans that the security situation in Benghazi was deteriorating.

Assassinations are becoming rampant; no one is safe, including militiamen like himself, he says he told the Americans.