NPR News

(Feb. 22, 7:15 a.m. ET: Scroll down for an update. "The water's safe, authorities say.")

The gruesome discovery this week of a young woman's body inside a rooftop water tank at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles is not the Cecil's first brush with such notoriety, as Southern California Public Radio's KPCC reports.

Chris Nichols, associate editor at Los Angeles Magazine, told KPCC about the hotel's "long, dark history."

Doctors do stuff — tests, procedures, drug regimens and operations. It's what they're trained to do, what they're paid to do and often what they fear not doing.

So it's pretty significant that a broad array of medical specialty groups is issuing an expanding list of don'ts for physicians.

Update at 1:30 p.m. ET. State of emergency in Missouri.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency due to the heavy snowfall. The declaration allows state agencies to work directly with county and city emergency responders.

Jennifer Davidson of member station KSMU reports that about 40 people are staying at The Salvation Army in Springfield, which provides beds, blankets, and food for families in need.

This week's stories about alleged cyberthieves based in China have news outlets chasing related angles. Today's include:

-- "Chinese Cyberspies Have Hacked Most Washington Institutions, Experts Say."

Consumer prices were flat in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. But a driving force behind that good news has reversed itself since then. According to BLS, gasoline prices fell 3 percent last month. In February, though, gas prices have risen sharply. So watch for next month's BLS report on consumer prices to tell a different story.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

• Open Culture dug up an old picture of Mark Twain, who clearly did not heed his own (possibly apocryphal) advice: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A rooster, a mallard, and a white duck walked into a pond and into a beautiful friendship. A white duck with a limp, a rooster nicknamed Cocky and a mallard have settled down together at a pond on the grounds of a retirement community in White Rock, South Carolina. The State newspaper reports the trio has captured the imagination of residents there, who can't get enough of the birds of different feathers flocking together. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Syria's minority Christians are caught in the middle of the country's 23-month conflict. Many members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East are fleeing Syria. Those who stay say they fear they will be targeted by Islamist militants — a growing force among rebels fighting President Assad's regime.