Morning Edition

The City Council in Trenton, N.J., rejected a contract to supply paper products because they didn't like the high price of hot drink cups. But without the contract, the city also didn't buy toilet paper. Finally, the city had to approve an emergency purchase. Senior centers, police headquarters and other city offices were running out of toilet tissue.

March Madness has barely begun and a key figure in Georgetown basketball has suffered an injury. Team mascot Jack the Bulldog has torn the doggie version of his ACL. Jack's keeper tweeted the injury was likely from jumping on the couch.

On the popular movie-rating website Rotten Tomatoes, Eddie Murphy's latest film A Thousand Words received zero positive reviews.

It was a big night for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. He won the primaries in Mississippi and Alabama. Mitt Romney was running third in both states.

Even as the job market is improving and other indicators are positive, the Federal Reserve wants to keep interest rates super low until 2014. The Fed reaffirmed that policy Tuesday. That's likely because the economy is still growing slowly — not nearly fast enough to sustain consistent, long-term job creation.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Britons are struggling with the issue of faith in the workplace. Two British women, one an airline employee and the other, a nurse, were suspended or barred from doing their jobs because they wore crucifixes at work. Now the two are taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

To find out how this debate is playing out in the UK, we called Lucy Kellaway, she's a columnist for the Financial Times. And she joined us from London.

Lucy, good to talk to you again.

LUCY KELLAWAY: Hello.

Buford is an old railroad town which was once home to thousands, but now has a population of one. Don Sammons plans to retire from managing his businesses and move. Up for auction next month:a gas station, convenience store, garage and a home.

Pizza chefs from around the world are gathered to compete in events like: largest dough stretch, fastest pizza-box folding and freestyle acrobatic dough-tossing.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We're following news this morning of more killings in the Syrian city of Homs. That's the city where rebel neighborhoods came under artillery fire for weeks and where two Western journalists were killed. Rebels later retreated, but residents and activists say pro-government militias have massacred dozens of civilians, mainly women and children. NPR's Kelly McEvers is following this story from Beirut.

And, Kelly, what evidence you have?

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

When an American soldier reportedly walked through two villages in southern Afghanistan and methodically killed 16 civilians, including children, it caused an uproar from Kabul to Washington, D.C. Now, let's get a view from where the killings happened - Kandahar. I first met Ehsan Ullah two years ago when I reported on a Canadian-funded girls' school that he runs in that city.