National News from NPR

The Boston Globe reports this morning that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was baptized posthumously in a Mormon temple in Idaho last year.

Pearl was Jewish and was captured and killed by terrorists while reporting in Pakistan in 2002.

Reuters and The Associated Press are reporting that Egyptian authorities have decided that seven Americans who it has accused of engaging in illegal "political activity" may now leave the country.

An ominous excerpt from the latest BBC News report on what's happening in Syria:

"The Syrian army is advancing on opposition positions in Homs, which has been under artillery bombardment for nearly a month, reports say. Security officials said the city's besieged district of Baba Amr would be 'cleaned' within the next few hours."

One week after saying "you'll have to ask President Obama" when asked if he believes the president is a Christian, Rev. Franklin Graham has issued an apology for "any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama."

As orchards go, truffle orchards are upside-down and backwards. The magic happens beneath the oak and hazel trees, where a richly flavored mushroom sprouts from fungal colonies laced about the trees' roots. They're called black Perigord truffles, or tuber melanosporum.

These truffles are notoriously hard to cultivate, even in France, where Perigords orginate. Now, in the rolling hills and clay soils of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, a growing number of farmers are hoping to establish southern Appalachia as the new truffle capital of the world.

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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.