NPR News

Tilikum, the orca responsible for the death of its trainer in SeaWorld Orlando a year ago, returned to performing today. Back in February of 2009, Tilikum jumped out of the water, took hold of its trainer Dawn Brancheau, pulled her under water and violently shook her until she died.

Hey, KV Phamaceuticals, that new, $1,500-a-dose drug of yours is about to get some competition!

The Food and Drug Administration said in an unusual statement that it's quite all right for pharmacists to go ahead and make their own version of the medicine, given by injection to help some women avoid preterm delivery of their babies. Many of them had been doing that for years anyway and charged $20 or less per dose.

Speaking at Georgetown University, President Obama just said that he is setting a new goal: "one that is reasonable, one that is achievable, and one that is necessary." The goal: reducing the nation's oil imports by one third in a little more than a decade.

"It is time to do what we can to secure our energy future," the president said.

"We will keep on being a victim to shifts in the oil market until we finally get serious about a long-term policy for secure, affordable energy," Obama also said.

Google has agreed to adopt a comprehensive privacy program to settle federal charges that it deceived users and violated its own privacy policy when it launched a social networking service called Buzz last year.

Google triggered a fierce user backlash when it integrated Buzz into its Gmail email service in February of 2010. The service automatically created public circles of friends for users based on their most frequent Gmail contacts.

But many users complained that they didn't want their all their email contacts to become part of a social network for anyone to see.

Syrian President Bashar Assad blamed "conspirators" Wednesday for an extraordinary wave of dissent against his authoritarian rule, but he did not lift the country's despised emergency law or offer any concessions in his first speech since the protests began nearly two weeks ago.