Lakshmi Singh

Here's NPR's Katie Riddle.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans, a celebration also known as Fat Tuesday, among several events and religious observances this week around the globe, including Lent, the Christian liturgical season of prayer leading to Easter, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and across Asia and beyond the Lunar New Year, it is the Year of the Horse.

The Dow is up 148 points, S&P has risen 26, and the Nasdaq is now up 112 points.

You're listening to NPR News.

Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

Tributes abound today for the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

His family, says Jackson, who battled progressive supernuclear palsy, died this morning.

Jackson is being remembered as a protege of the late Martin Luther King Jr., who would continue to be a powerful force against racism and discrimination.

He was also a powerful political force, one who paved the way for other African American leaders to

such as the nation's first African-American president, Barack Obama.

Jackson was a two-time presidential candidate in 1984 and again four years later, where he delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention that ended with this iconic refrain.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, he was 84 years old.

A second round of nuclear talks between the U.S.

and Iran has ended in Geneva.

Both sides entrenched on key issues ahead of the negotiations, which took place amid a U.S.

military buildup in the Middle East.

Here's NPR's Jackie Northam.

Now to the Winter Olympics, which offers a full spectrum of athleticism from figure skating to curling.

But as NPR's Jonathan Lambert tells us, one sport may have the best athletes, at least by one scientific measure.

The Dow is up 53 point, a last check at 49,554.