Morning Edition

Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Spring last year, and many regard it as the most Western-looking nation in the Arab world. Yet it's also waging a roaring debate over how to define freedom of expression in an evolving society.

Tunisian protesters attacked the U.S. Embassy recently in response to the anti-Muslim video Innocence of Muslims. This was just the latest of several episodes in which hard-line Muslims have acted out publicly to what they see as attacks on their religion.

NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, has snapped photos of rocky outcroppings that jut out from the alien soil, and scientists say they look like the remnants of an ancient stream bed where water once flowed on the surface of the red planet.

The exposed rocks look like broken slabs of concrete sidewalk, about four inches thick, and are made of rounded bits of gravel in a sandy matrix. The rock has eroded a little bit, and some of the smooth pebbles — about the size of M&M candies — have fallen down into a little pile.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Somebody in Pittsburgh took the law into his own hands. More precisely, the person took a paintbrush into his own hands. He or she is apparently upset that in 2009 the city denied requests to paint crosswalks in the Polish Hill neighborhood. This unknown person painted unofficial crosswalks. Authorities are publicly scolding the crosswalk vigilante. But by coincidence, they're also promising to install real crosswalks within weeks. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested a connection between al-Qaida in North Africa and the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She did not give any further details on what role the al-Qaida affiliate may have played in the attack