National News from NPR

In NCAA men's basketball action Thursday night, Iowa State defeated the the University of Connecticut 77-64. The Huskies were last year's champions. Also, VCU beat Wichita State 62-59 to advance to weekend play.

The Taliban has announced it is suspending peace talks with the U.S. At the same time, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded the U.S. pull troops out of rural areas by next year following a deadly shooting spree by an American soldier. These signals have come at an already difficult time for the U.S. in Afghanistan and further complicate the U.S. exit strategy.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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

The heirs to one Latin America's biggest media conglomerates, a brother and a sister, spent years with their real identities in question. They've long been thought to be part of a group of children stolen from their birth parents more than 30 years ago. That was during Argentina's Dirty War, the terror campaign waged by the military junta then ruling Argentina against members of the opposition.

The United Nations estimates some 8,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began one year ago. One of them was Abdulrahman Abu Lebdeh, 24, who was killed in the town of Tal Kalakh last fall. His parents, his brother and one of his friends, who was also an activist, told the story of his life and death to NPR's Kelly McEvers and Lava Selo.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The Israeli film "Footnote" has racked up a pile of awards - Best Screenplay at Cannes, nine awards at Israel's Oscars, and a nomination for Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards.

Film critic Kenneth Turan says it's all deserved.

KENNETH TURAN: "Footnotes"'s subject matter sounds dry, unlikely, even obscure. The film is set in Jerusalem's Hebrew University and deals with the implacable rivalry between two scholars of the Talmud, the complex and sacred text of the Jewish religious tradition.

The Federal Trade Commission is looking at complaints raised last month when it was discovered Google was bypassing the privacy settings on Apple's Safari browsers to track user activity on the web. The agency wants to know whether the company "misrepresented" its privacy policy.

Real estate is about location, location, location. And foreclosure is no different. Depending on the state, it can take an average of three months or three years to process a foreclosure. And the disparity in how states deal with foreclosures is getting bigger.

The fate of thousands of troubled homeowners in Central Florida rests in the hands of Lee Haworth, foreclosure administrative judge for Florida's 12th Judicial Circuit. "We were hit pretty hard," Haworth says.

The SXSW music convention takes over Austin, Texas, for five days each March. This year, NPR Music's Ann Powers is in Austin trying to catch as much of the action as she can. At South By Southwest's midpoint, Powers spoke to Morning Edition's Renee Montagne about the highlights so far (including that awesome Springsteen keynote, which you can listen to in its entirety), and what she's looking forward to seeing over the festival's second half.