You might think Harry Potter fever would be petering out now that the books and the films have come and gone. You, of course, would be wrong, as Ben Bergman reports on today's Morning Edition.

New monitoring equipment will help determine whether earthquakes in northeast Ohio are resulting from
the disposal of brine used in natural gas drilling.

Deputy director Andy Ware of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources tells The Vindicator that four new seismographs have been set up in the Youngstown area, which has seen eight minor earthquakes this year. The latest was a 2.1-magnitude quake that occurred Nov. 25 just a few blocks from a brine injection well.

A key state lawmaker isn't comfortable with a proposal to let the State Highway Patrol investigate crimes
within Ohio's new casinos.

Republican state Rep. Matt Huffman, of Lima, said during a hearing Tuesday that he has concerns about extending the patrol's turf to private property. The Columbus Dispatch reports Huffman chairs a House panel overseeing legislation related to gambling.

One day after dozens of people were killed in two suicide bomb attacks aimed at Shiites, there's been another deadly explosion in Afghanistan:

With his government embroiled in controversy over a memo that many in Pakistan view as potentially treasonous, President Asif Ali Zardari's sudden departure for medical treatment in Dubai has "people [here] questioning the timing" and wondering if Zardari might be about to step down, NPR's Corey Flintoff reported this morning from Islamabad.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Linda Wertheimer. American Airlines filed for bankruptcy last week. Now, they might lose a customer after kicking Alec Baldwin off a New York flight. Baldwin tweeted he was reamed out for playing the mobile game Words with Friends after lights out for electronic devices.

He later boarded another American Airlines flight but hinted it might be his last. He tweeted: There's always United. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

The Discovery Channel program MythBusters took safety precautions, going to a California firing range for a segment involving a cannon. They aimed the cannon at water-filled barrels and a concrete wall. But when they fired, the cannonball sailed over the targets, toward a house. People sleeping inside woke to find the cannonball ripped through the house and it struck a minivan.

"We don't kill our people ... no government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person."

So says Syrian President Bashar Assad to ABC News Barbara Walters in an interview that's airing across several of the network's shows today.

Pushing back against reports from the United Nations and witnesses in several Syrian cities, Assad denied that his security forces have killed thousands of civilians.

It's been a busy week for the 29 families of the coal miners who lost their lives last year in the explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

President Obama put Congress on notice Tuesday in a speech in Osawatomie, Kan.

He said that unless a temporary payroll tax cut is extended this month, 160 million Americans would see their taxes go up next year by an average of $1,000. But there's concern on both sides of the political aisle that the payroll tax holiday might be undermining the solvency of Social Security.