NPR News

"After more than 30 years of handing prayer cards to customers aboard its planes, Alaska Airlines has decided the practice is outdated and will stop doing it on Feb. 1," The Seattle Times reports.

A few things struck us about this news.

Samantha Garvey, the homeless teen who came into the national spotlight after she became a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition, has had a bittersweet 24 hours.

First the bitter part: When the science prize competition finalists were announced today, she was not on the list.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

Cairo's Tahrir Square overflowed with Egyptians today. Traffic was snarled for miles as people jammed bridges and streets. The crowd marked the first anniversary of the popular uprising that drove Hosni Mubarak from power.

And as NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Cairo, many people did not come to celebrate.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

Gov. Rick Perry is back in Texas, after dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He's returned battered and bruised, but he still has strong supporters in his home state.

The Sundance Film Festival is under way in Park City, Utah, this week. The annual independent film festival has more than a hundred films screening over 10 days. Melissa Block checks in with Los Angeles Times film writer Steven Zeitchik. He says the nation's economic struggles are evident in many of the films on display. And it's not just the documentaries — it's also in the fictional films.