Morning Edition

Now that the Iowa caucuses are over, all eyes are on New Hampshire and its Republican presidential primary which is next week.

Residents of Wichita, Kansas, are outraged after Boeing announced Wednesday that it will close a massive defense plant there. More than 2,000 highly skilled jobs will be gone by the end of next year. The announcement sparked considerable frustration among elected officials who had been lead to believe that more Boeing jobs were on the way to Wichita.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum finished virtually even in Iowa's caucuses Tuesday, but after Rep. Michele Bachmann's sixth-place finish, she announced Wednesday that she is suspending her campaign. For more on the GOP race and the next contest — Tuesday's New Hampshire primary — Linda Wertheimer talks with NPR's Brian Naylor, who's in the city of Manchester.

Erik McBee, 15, faced a test of his survival skills. He was traveling on Southwest Airlines, and fell asleep. He slept through the landing at his destination, Tulsa. KPHO TV says he woke up in St. Louis with no contacts, no money and no phone.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. A British woman had a break-in in September. Thieves stole a life-size statue of E.T., the extraterrestrial from the famous film. She thought it was gone for good until last week, when a passerby saw it floating in a river and called the police. They reunited the statue with its owner. So, a little late for the holidays, a little soggy, E.T. finally did phone home. You're listening to MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

The Kaesong Industrial Complex is a joint North Korea and South Korea experiment. Every day hundreds of workers from South Korea go to work in North Korea, and thousands of workers from North Korea go to jobs in South Korean factories. Reporter Doualy Xaykaothao has more on what the atmosphere was like there after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died.

The Iowa caucuses — the first contest of the 2012 presidential nominating season — were held Tuesday night. President Obama was unopposed, but Democrats met in caucuses across the state for what was essentially a pep rally.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were the big winners Tuesday night in the Iowa caucuses. They finished first, second and third respectively. Romney won by the narrowest of margins — eight votes.