NPR News

The Supreme Court has just ruled that police need a warrant if they want to place a tracking device on a suspect's vehicle. The court's decision was unanimous.

NPR's Nina Totenberg says that this debate has been a contentious issue in the digital age. Here's how she explained it to newscaster Paul Brown:

At issue here is the case of Antoine Jones, a Washington, D.C. night club owner. Police put a GPS tracking device on his car for 30 days. That helped authorities find a stash of money and drugs.

For a few years now, a handful of scientists have been proposing grandiose technological fixes for the world's climate to combat the effects of global warming — schemes called geoengineering.

Most housing set up to help the homeless comes with a strict no-booze policy.

But a study on a controversial complex in Seattle that allows chronic alcoholics to keep drinking suggests the lenient approach can work too.

Homeless people with alcohol problems decreased their consumption over two years at the facility, called 1811 Eastlake. The average amount of alcohol consumed on a typical drinking day by the 95 study participants had decreased by about 25 percent at the end of the two-year study.

Saying it was a "blatant interference in its internal affairs," Syria rejected an Arab League plan that the organization hoped would bring an end to the violence.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the official state news agency, the government condemed the plan and accused the Arab League of arming terrorist groups, which they say are responsible for killing civilians and attacking state facilities.

Using strong words, Pakistan's military officially rejected a U.S. report, which concluded a NATO strike that killed 24 Pakistani troops was undertaken in self defense. Pakistan's military said parts of the report were "factually not correct."

Two people were killed in the Birmingham, Ala. area after severe storms rolled through the South and Midwest. The storms, reports the AP, triggered tornado warnings in five states.

Currently, the National Weather Service said it expects tornadoes, hail, thunderstorms and winds up to 75 mph to move through Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. These kinds of storms, reports the NWS, are uncommon in the middle winter.

Aiming to reset the narrative after Saturday's bruising loss in South Carolina, Mitt Romney said he would release his 2010 tax returns on Tuesday. The former Massachusetts governor made the commitment last night in an interview with Fox News.

The European Union officially agreed to impose an embargo on Iranian oil, today. The AP reports that the union's 27 foreign ministers agreed on an immediate ban on new contracts for oil and existing contracts will be allowed to run through July 1.

Surely I am not the only one who has harbored secret dreams of being an heiress — not the nouveau riche kind with a reality television crew trailing behind me, but the sort with a full staff, gobs of silver and afternoons spent on the hunt. Though I've come around to my untitled American life, I still adore reading books about drafty old houses and the privileged people who inhabit them.