NPR News

Irish banking officials should have known there were problems with the controversial 10-euro coin commemorating James Joyce, according to Ireland's RTE News. The coin misquotes the author's Ulysses, and bears an image of Joyce that his estate did not approve.

Two men were arrested and removed from a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet Friday. It had been on its way from Lahore to Manchester when something that happened aboard led authorities to scramble Royal Air Force fighter jets and divert the passenger plane to London Stansted Airport.

There's been an explosion followed by the sound of gunfire in Kabul, NPR's Sean Carberry and other journalists report from the Afghan capital.

Reuters says the explosion occurred "at about 4 p.m. local time in a downtown district. ... There was no word on any casualties." The BBC reports gunfire can be heard near the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence service.

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.

As the residents of Moore, Okla., and surrounding communities continue to recover from Monday's devastating tornado that killed at least 24 people and injured more than 375, we're keeping an eye on the news from there:

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

(Most recent update: 10:50 a.m. ET.)

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.