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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Let's talk about another high-profile job vacancy - this one for pontiff. Now that Pope Benedict has said he'll step down, everyone is wondering who will replace him. Our last word in business today: holy bookmakers.

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Gambling houses have placed odds on who might become the next leader of the Catholic world. At the top of the list of frontrunners are men not from Europe. Names like Ghana's Cardinal Peter Turkson and Canada's Cardinal Marc Ouellette, both popular choices among the bookmakers.

North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted a third nuclear test. It's an important step toward North Korea's goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile that could reach United States.

Minutes after he was re-elected in November, President Obama vowed to fix the long lines that many voters faced at the polls. He mentioned the problem again in his inaugural address. And now, the president is expected to raise it once more in the State of the Union address on Tuesday — this time with some possible solutions.

Jack Lew, the man President Obama has chosen to help oversee the country's biggest banks, has said it plainly — he's no expert on banking. Lew said as much when the Senate was vetting him to head the White House Office of Management and Budget in 2010.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked Lew if he thought deregulation of Wall Street caused the financial crisis. Lew said he didn't consider himself the best person to answer that question.

There have been security flaws in software as long as there has been software, but they have become even more critically important in the context of cyberweapons development.

A worldwide Catholic conversation that many church-watchers say effectively stopped when Benedict XVI was elected pope eight years ago has been rekindled by his announced plan to resign at month's end.

Celibacy. Women's roles. Same-sex marriage. Clergy sexual abuse revelations.

And, perhaps most significantly, the spectacular growth of the church in the more religiously conservative "global south" — Latin America, Africa and Asia — while its fortunes continue to decline in the increasingly secular West.

Kentucky is bourbon country. Bar shelves in Louisville are stocked with a crowded field of premium bourbons; the city's Theater Square Marketplace restaurant alone carries close to 170 different brands. So when news trickled out that longtime distillery Maker's Mark plans to water down its bourbon, locals were stunned.

Bourbon has to be aged at least two years — and that's where Maker's Mark got in trouble. Chief Operating Officer Rob Samuels says the company simply didn't make enough.

Ahead of North Korea's latest nuclear test, the country launched a preemptive barrage of propaganda aimed at the West. But in the age of the Internet, has such ham-fisted messaging lost its punch?

The latest North Korean video, released on YouTube last week in apparent anticipation of Tuesday's test, is something of an amateurish production.

Emails between Sen. Robert Menendez's office and the Department of Homeland Security suggest that the New Jersey Democrat urged action that would help a company holding a port security contract in the Dominican Republic, The New York Times reported Monday.

Police in Jerusalem on Monday detained 10 women for wearing the tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl traditionally worn by men, while praying at the Western Wall.

The Women of the Wall have been fighting for years for permission to worship in the manner that men do at the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism for prayer. The stone structure is part of the retaining wall that surrounded the Second Jewish Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.

Let's say your 62-year-old granny is feeling creaky. One of her hips has been giving her trouble, and her doctor tells her it's time to get it replaced with an implant.

There's a catch. Grandma isn't old enough for Medicare and she doesn't have health insurance. She does, however, have a stack of cash in the bank and is willing to pay for surgery right away.

So how much will it cost her?

Who knows. Seriously.

Robert Siegel speaks with Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, about his article on the Republican party and why it is and will remain the party of white people.

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On March 1st, a big across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester, are set to hit almost every corner of federal spending. Many are warning the consequences would be dire.

PETER MCPHERSON: Sequestration is a reckless and a blunt tool that would force deep spending reductions across critical investments in R&D and education.

President Obama is expected focus on middle-class job growth and the economy in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. And while the president has fought to make the tax code more progressive, broader efforts to address income inequality could be an uphill battle at a time when the government seems bent on tightening its belt.

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It is a very rare thing that Pope Benedict has done in resigning, so rare, in fact, that you have to go back to the Middle Ages to find the most recent papal resignation. That resignation in 1415 ended what's known as the Great Western Schism, and that's what Father Thomas Worcester is going to fill us in on. He's a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Father Worcester, welcome to the program.

FATHER THOMAS WORCESTER: Thank you very much.

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

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world today with his decision to step down at the end of this month. It is the first papal resignation since the 15th century. The Vatican says a new pope may be elected before Easter, but as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, it's not clear how the church will function with two living popes.

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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

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And I'm Robert Siegel.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that it will offer benefits to same-sex military couples, including access to base facilities. But the military stopped short of providing base housing and burial at Arlington National Cemetery, saying those are still under review. Other benefits — like health care — are prohibited by federal law under the Defense of Marriage Act.

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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.

In Los Angeles, a million-dollar reward has led to hundreds of tips in the search for former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner. Dorner is on the run, wanted for the murder of a police officer and two other people. His truck was found torched in a resort town in the mountains east of L.A. But a massive search through a snowstorm over the weekend turned up nothing.

Robert Siegel talks with Sylvia Saadati about her father, Jim Muri, a hero pilot at the Battle of Midway. Muri earlier this month at the age of 93.

There's a global campaign to force meat producers to rein in their use of antibiotics on pigs, chickens and cattle. European countries, especially Denmark and the Netherlands, have taken the lead. The U.S. is moving, haltingly, toward similar restrictions.

Violent video games have been a small part of the national conversation about gun violence in recent weeks. The big question: Does violence in games make people more violent in the real world?

The answer is unclear, but one thing is obvious: Violence sells games. The most popular video game franchise is Call of Duty, a war game where killing is the goal.