NPR News

Lisa O. Monaco has emerged as the leading candidate to run the Justice Department's National Security Division, two sources familiar with the situation tell NPR.

Monaco would replace David Kris, who retired last week to take a job in the private sector. The position requires Senate confirmation.

Analysts inside and outside government sometimes get caught flat-footed by changing circumstances.

It might have been impossible for intelligence agencies to predict that the current season of protests and regime changes in North Africa and the Middle East was about to occur.

"President Hamid Karzai's brother said Thursday that U.S.-led coalition forces mistakenly killed one of the president's cousins during a raid in southern Afghanistan," The Associated Press reports. "NATO forces stormed 65-year-old Mohammad Karzai's home in the southern city of Kandahar late Wednesday, killing him and detaining his son, according to the president's brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai."

The House Committee on Homeland Security's hearing on what Chairman Peter King (R-NY) says is the domestic threat from "Muslim radicalization" continues on Capitol Hill. We posted earlier on the emotional testimony from Rep.

As Egypt and Tunisia struggle to form viable governments following the exit of their longtime leaders, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to visit the two nations next week. In Congress Thursday, Clinton told Congress that the goal is to help them move toward democracy.

Clinton also said that she will meet with members of Libya's anti-Gadhafi movement. And she said that the Obama administration is suspending all ties to Libya's Washington embassy.

Here's a report filed by Michele Kelemen for Newscast: