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Politically, climate change is off this year's campaign agenda. Jobs, the economy and social issues are front and center.

But scientists are working as hard as ever to figure out how much the Earth is warming and what to do about it. Some now say it's time for a new strategy, one that gets faster results.

Talk to Durwood Zaelke, for example. Zaelke is a grizzled veteran of the climate wars: He was in Kyoto in 1997 when the world's nations drafted a treaty promising to curb warming, and he has watched that promise fizzle while the planet's temperature continues to rise.

Bill Janklow, an institution in South Dakota politics who was known for his brashness and pushing things to completion, has died at age 72.

The AP has the basics:

The "Battle Over Bain" has become a hot topic at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a key player in politics.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue says he is "disappointed" that some GOP presidential candidates are attacking front-runner and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital in the 1990s.

Only last week we reported on the explosion in the number of twins in this country, largely a result of women turning to fertility treatments.

President Obama acted within his legal authority to appoint Richard Cordray to lead the National Consumer Protection Bureau last week, during a period when the Senate was conducting "pro forma" holiday sessions, according to a memo released this morning by a key unit of the Justice Department.

Steven Rattner, the Wall Street financier who oversaw the Obama Administration's successful rescues of General Motors and Chrysler, now comes to the aid of some other beleaguered members of corporate America — Mitt Romney in his former role as a private-equity CEO, and Bain Capital, the company the Republican presidential candidate once ran.

In a Politico opinion piece, former "car czar" Rattner defends Romney and Bain which he says was among the better angels in the world of private-equity firms.

We've been through this with him before, so talk from Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert about running for president needs to be viewed with suspicion.

But he's at it again and promises a "major announcement" on his show tonight (it airs at 11:30 p.m. ET).

Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his presidential campaign in South Carolina last August, but now his campaign may soon come to an end in the same state where it started. Ben Philpott of KUT News reports on Morning Edition that with the clock ticking down to the Jan. 21 primary, Perry is polling in single digits.

That means Perry has just over a week to convince South Carolinians to vote for him. Philpott spends some time on the campaign trail with Perry, reporting that those attending stops, like Lexington resident Glenn Gainey, know the deal.

Sure, it's tiny. But is it the tiniest?

There's a frog in Papua New Guinea that researchers announced this week is "the smallest known vertebrate species" (that is, a creature with a spine).

It's so small, in fact, that the picture posted by the journal PLoS One with the scientists' report shows the little Paedophryne amauensis sitting on a dime with plenty of room to spare.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Video Depicting Urination On Corpses Won't Derail Peace Talks, Taliban Says.

-- Judge Blocks Pardons Issued By Outgoing Mississippi Gov. Barbour.

The number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose by 24,000 last week from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration reports. There were 399,000 such claims.

Also, "the 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 7,750 from the previous week's revised average of 374,000," the agency says.

Legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who lost his job at Penn State in the wake of the scandal over a former assistant's arrest on charges of sexually abusing young boys, will be honored by the school at some point, university President Rodney Erickson told alumni Wednesday evening.

Most of the 203 pardons, clemencies and sentence reductions granted by outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) just before he left office Tuesday, which ignited a firestorm of criticism and controversy in the state, are now in legal limbo.

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The job-search site CareerBuilder has released a survey on the most outrageous excuses for coming in late. Employers across the country submitted gems like: I thought I won the lottery.

Though experts are warning it will inflame anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan and hurt efforts to start peace talks with the Taliban, a video that appears to show four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of three Afghan men will not affect efforts to begin such negotiations, a Taliban spokesman tells Reuters.

"This is not the first time we see such brutality," the spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said.

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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. It's safe to say that plenty of Republicans would like to see a presidential candidate besides Mitt Romney.

GREENE: It's equally safe to say that at the moment they don't have one. Five of Romney's rivals are struggling to break through after he won both Iowa and New Hampshire.

While GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney savored his second consecutive win in the Republican nominating process, those who finished behind him in New Hampshire also continued on to South Carolina. They are hoping that it is in the Palmetto state where they can get his campaign to to stumble before it becomes unstoppable.

Over the next three years, RBS will cut 3,500 jobs. That's in addition to more than 30,000 layoffs that happened over the last two years. In the U.S., RBS runs Citizens Bank with branches in about a dozen states.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And today's last word in business is plastics.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE GRADUATE")

WALTER BROOKE: (as Mr. McGuire) Just one word.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (as Ben Braddock) Yes, sir?

BROOKE: (as Mr. McGuire) Are you listening?

HOFFMAN: (as Ben Braddock) Yes, sir. I am.

BROOKE: (as Mr. McGuire) Plastics.

INSKEEP: That's a character in the movie "The Graduate," offering career advice to a young Dustin Hoffman.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene, in for Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

This next report underlines the complexity of keeping the food supply safe. The story affects orange juice, like the juice that may be on your table this morning.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

You may wonder what all this means for that morning staple, Florida orange juice. Steve Newborn of member station WUSF in Tampa went to find out.

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLES)

STEVE NEWBORN, BYLINE: It's the afternoon rush hour at Bearss Groves, a green patch that has survived for more than a century in the spreading concrete sprawl just north of Tampa.

ELIZABETH LEGGETT: Have you ever had an edible orchid?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Uh-uh.

Russia had one of the world's most famous revolutions nearly a century ago, in 1917. Yet for centuries, the country has seemed to prefer strong leaders who promised stability rather than revolutionary change. On a trip across Russia today on the Trans-Siberian railroad, NPR's David Greene found many Russians who expressed disappointment with their current government. But most said they wanted changes to be gradual, and were not looking for a major upheaval.

Second of three parts

The annual winter meeting of the Republican National Committee got under way in New Orleans on Wednesday, just hours after Mitt Romney won New Hampshire's Republican presidential primary.