National News from NPR

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. We have learned this morning that North Korea has agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests and uranium enrichment activities. This is according to State Department officials just back from a trip to China, where they met with North Korean negotiators. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more on what could be a step towards reviving nuclear disarmament talks.

Some people are serious when they say, "I want him dead." That is just one of the astonishing revelations chronicled by The Los Angeles Times in a feature on the misadventures of Essam Ahmed Eid.

Eid, as we learn, was the Las Vegas poker dealer turned Internet entrepreneur behind HitmanForHire.net, a site that once promised to bring together people with problems and people with solutions.

In what could be a diplomatic breakthrough, the United States said today that North Korea had agreed to cease nuclear weapons tests and enrichment and will allow U.N. inspectors to verify activities at its main reactor.

The announcement comes just two months after the country's leader Kim Jong Il died and the Communist Party handed the reins of power to his son Kim Jong Un. The AP reports that the agreement also includes a moratorium on long-range missile tests.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch's son James, 39, is leaving his job as executive chairman of News Corp.'s newspaper arm, the company said Wednesday. He'll focus instead on the international TV business at the company, which has been embroiled in a scandal over phone and e-mail hacking in Britain.

Good morning! And happy leap day.

Our early headlines:

-- At Least One Killed, 13 Injured By Possible Tornado In Mo.

-- UPDATED: Official Questions Identity Of Man Thought To Be Al-Qaida Leader

Concussions affect the thinking of teenagers more than they do that of adults or children, according to a new study. But all three age groups show lasting problems with working memory after sports concussions.

As the phone hacking scandal that roiled his father's international news company deepened, James Murdoch is stepping down as Executive Chairman of News International.

The AP reports that News Corp., owned by James' father Rupert Murdoch, said he was stepping down "to focus on the company's international TV business."

We'll have more on this story as it develops.

Update at 9:28 p.m. ET. Murdoch's Statement:

During the last three months of the year, the U.S. economy picked up its pace of growth. The Commerce Department revised its previous estimate today and said the gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3 percent, which exceeded the previous estimate of 2.8 percent and was better than the third quarter's 1.8 percent pace.

The AP reports:

"The growth estimate was revised up because consumers spent more than first thought, and businesses cut spending by much less.

Dino Laurenzi Jr., the man who collected a urine sample from the Milwaukee Brewer's left fielder Ryan Braun, is defending himself for the first time.

Laurenzi was thrust into baseball's drug testing debate, when Braun questioned his integrity during a press conference on Friday.