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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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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.

Fresh off his big wins in New Hampshire and Iowa, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney took his campaign to South Carolina. That state votes a week from Saturday. The other Republicans are trying to throw up road blocks.

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.