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An explosion followed by gunfire in Kabul on Friday claimed the lives of at least two attackers and wounded a small number of civilians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which appeared to have been aimed at offices of the International Organization for Migration and stretched over several hours as Afghan security forces tried to hunt down those responsible.

As night fell in Kabul, it was unclear whether the incident was over or not.

Representatives of President Bashar Assad's regime have agreed "in principle" to attend an international peace conference aimed at ending more than two years of brutal warfare in Syria, Russia's foreign ministry said Friday.

Monday's tornado in Moore, Okla., killed 24 people and caused an estimated $2.2 billion worth of damage. As the community reflects on what happened, one question is: How did so many manage to survive such devastating destruction?

Lifelong Oklahoman Kristi Freeman has seen her share of tornadoes, but she says the twister that tore through her neighborhood Monday was something else.

"This tornado was like a monster. It was like something that was alive. It destroyed your peace, your comfort," she says.

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

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Miracle is the word that comes to Dan Sligh's mind after he and his wife, Sally, survived a plunge off a highway bridge in Washington state on Thursday evening.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. Some photos on Twitter ended Anthony Weiner's congressional career. The latest online image, not quite as damaging. Weiner launched his campaign yesterday to be mayor of New York City, and a gorgeous city skyline showed up on his homepage: the skyline of Pittsburgh, my home town. I'm honored if the Web designer is impressed with our city's skyline.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

Fracking may have met its match in Germany, where beer makers have lined against it. Fracking, of course, is a way of bringing up natural gas by pumping water and chemicals into the ground. Germany's powerful beer industry is concerned fracking would pollute groundwater. Half of Germany's 1,300 brewers have their own wells and say the pure water is the essence of their famous beers. And if there's one thing Germans take seriously, its beer. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The popular series "Arrested Development" returns this Sunday with 15 new episodes, released all at once. They're coming from Netflix, which earlier this year, released "House of Cards." Online video companies are producing more of their own shows - not just Netflix, Hulu and Yahoo are getting into the act, as well.

Now, Amazon also wants to join, but they're doing things differently, letting viewers help choose the new lineup. Here's what TV critic Eric Deggans thinks of that approach.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

On November 28, 2010 we woke up to some pretty stunning revelations. People suddenly had access to hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables - classified secrets about the war on terror and backdoor diplomatic relations. It all came from WikiLeaks.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WE STEAL SECRETS")

P.J. CROWLEY: This leak is industrial scale. It touches every relationship the United States has with other countries around the world.

In Massachusetts, what's been a relatively lackluster campaign to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry is heating up. Veteran Democratic Rep. Ed Markey is running against Republican Gabriel Gomez, a businessman and former Navy SEAL. Gomez is a political newcomer.