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James Harkin is a London-based writer. His latest book is Niche: Why the Market No Longer Favours the Mainstream.

On a Monday in late February, I received a Facebook message from a Syrian activist notifying me that a demonstration was due to start in half an hour in a heavily guarded section of Damascus. The occasion was a funeral, and so the protest was likely to be large. "Two of the five martyrs are children, and funeral processions for children are always big," the message explained.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was released this morning from the Fairfax, Va., hospital where he received a heart transplant on March 24.

NPR's Don Gonyea forwards us this statement from Cheney's office:

As the Census Bureau was reporting earlier this morning about a 1.3 percent gain in orders for manufactured goods in February from the month before, automakers were saying that March was perhaps their best month in almost four years, The Associated Press says:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In Britain, scandal has plagued the Murdoch family and its News Corp. media conglomerate. And today, another blow. Under pressure, Rupert Murdoch's son, James Murdoch, is stepping down as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting, also known as BSkyB. This occurs against the backdrop, of course, of the phone hacking and police bribery scandal that has focused heavily on two Murdoch tabloid newspapers. NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik has been covering all of this and he joins us now to sort this out. Good morning, David.

The hacking scandal that has ripped through Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in the U.K. has now led to son James Murdoch's decision to step down as chairman of the satellite broadcast giant BSkyB.

NPR's David Folkenflik tells our Newscast Desk that: