NPR News

In the old days, wiretapping was easy: Law enforcement officials just tapped a wire. Even with cell phones, police merely had to take a warrant to the phone company and tell it to tap the number.

But now, in this age of Skype and instant messaging, things are a lot trickier, and law enforcement says it needs help.

Federal law already requires tech companies to cooperate with court-ordered surveillance. The problem, says FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni, is that the companies offering services like Web-based e-mail or social networking sometimes can't cooperate.

Amid reports of violence in Libya, Italian newspapers were filled Tuesday with articles describing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's "very close" relations with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The friendship — both personal and political — is beginning to be an embarrassment for Italy vis-a-vis its European allies, which have sharply condemned Gadhafi's violent crackdown on demonstrators.

Italian newspapers carry photos showing Berlusconi kissing Gadhafi's hand.

He's been called "the man who changed the world," by the editorial board of the Boston Globe, and the Karl Von Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare" by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The drift of non-college educated whites to the Republican Party has been chronicled for decades. Thomas Frank's 2004 book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" and the work of Ruy Texeira among many others have pondered the long-term trend.

It's sandbag season in North Dakota and Minnesota, where communities are banding together to keep the coming spring thaw from overrunning riverbanks and swamping towns. But one town's plan to pay sand-baggers has sparked anger across the river.