In a near carbon copy of this year's Kentucky Derby, I'll Have Another raced from behind on a deep stretch to defeat Bodemeister at the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday.

Bodemeister broke to the lead and held onto first place for much of the race, but as the horses headed for home, I'll Have Another bolted past the field, took aim at Bodemeister and won the charge to the finish line, reports The Associated Press.

The next race in the Triple Crown series, the Belmont Stakes, is June 9 at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. If I'll Have Another wins that race, he'll be the first horse since 1978 to win the Triple Crown. It was 34 ago when Affirmed swept the Derby, Preakness and Belmont and became the 11th and most recent Triple Crown champion.

Since Affirmed, 11 horses have won the first races in the Triple Crown series, only to come up short in the Belmont. The most recent was Big Brown in 2008, who was pulled up around the turn for home and did not finish.

When asked about I'll Have Another's chances at Belmont, trainer Doug O'Neill said that he's "a special horse," according to The New York Times.

"We're thinking Triple Crown, baby ... We'll see how he comes out of it, and if he comes out of it in good shape, we're heading to New York, baby," O'Neill said.

Here's a video of the race from SportsGrid:

Update At 7:47 P.M. ET. Chen Guangcheng Addresses A Crowd Outside New York University:

Addressing a crowd outside New York University, Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng said he was grateful to the U.S. Embassy staff in Beijing for providing him a "safe haven." Through an interpreter, he said he was gratified that the Chinese government was handling his situation with "restraint and calm" and thankful for the opportunity to leave China to study at NYU.

Chen said he hoped Beijing would keep its promise to protect the family he had left behind.

Update At 6:34 P.M. ET. Chen Guangcheng Arrives In U.S.:

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng and his family have arrived at Newark International Airport in New Jersey. His United Airlines plane landed shortly after 6 p.m.

"Chen is now expected to enroll at New York University School of Law, where his friend Jerome Cohen helps direct the U.S. Asia Law Institute," NPR's Joel Rose said in a report for NPR's Newscast unit.

"Chen's supporters described him as happy," Rose reported, "but they say he remains concerned that his friends and relatives in Shandong province will suffer retribution because of his escape."

Our Original Post Continues:

Chen Guangcheng is coming to America. The Chinese activist whose escape from house arrest sparked a diplomatic crisis abruptly boarded a plane bound for Newark, N.J., early this morning.

Accompanied by his wife and two children, Chen left Beijing and is purportedly on his way to study law at New York University. His departure is an artful conclusion to an episode that tested U.S.-China relations, as NPR's Frank Langfitt told Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon:

"This was a very clever way to get around an impasse between the U.S. and the Chinese government. The Chinese were furious that he got away from house arrest, and Chen did not want to go into exile. So a New York University professor came up with the idea — he said, 'Why don't you come study in New York?' And the government, the Chinese government, was able to say 'Sure there's no real big problem here, it's common for Chinese to go study in the U.S.' And this provided a face-saving way out and paved the way for the departure today."

Chen's journey to the U.S. began last month when he escaped from house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing — just ahead of a high-profile visit from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times has the State Department's official take on Chen's exit:

"In a statement, U.S. officials obliquely praised the Chinese government for its cooperation in resolving what became a diplomatic headache for both countries. 'We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen's desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals,' Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said."

"What's quite good about this," Langfitt says, "is these two countries, the United States and China, were able to work out a deal. And China, in a sense, gave up quite a bit — in the sense that this is a dissident who had humiliated them."

It's a happy ending that still leaves something to be desired. Chinese dissidents tend to become irrelevant as soon as they leave the country. Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch told The Guardian that by getting rid of Chen, the Chinese government has less incentive to investigate wrongdoing:

"This is a reflection of the fact that there is no room for human rights defenders in China. We don't know if this will turn into a temporary stay or exile, but in either case, it begs the questions why someone like Chen Guangcheng cannot freely operate in China. What is it that stops the authorities from tolerating or even embracing someone like Chen?"

From a pragmatic perspective, Langfitt notes, the case "shows that neither side is going to let the human rights issue hijack the relationship — there's simply too much at stake these days."

"The truth, though, is if you follow Chinese and U.S. relations over the last couple of decades, human rights really hasn't been a pivotal issue for a very long time — and this kind of shows that."

What it also shows is how far China has yet to go in developing the rule of law, Langfitt adds.

"Leading up to this point, Chen had been jailed. He'd been beaten; he'd been under house arrest – all essentially because he challenged local authorities on illegal forced abortions. The central government didn't really do anything about this, and so what you have here is the world's second-largest economy — an increasingly important country, but with no rule of law. And the government can kind of do what it wants."

Once he lands in the U.S., Chen will also be able to do what he wants. That may include another departure; Bloomberg reports he told Hong Kong Cable Television, "I don't know when I'll come back, but I'll definitely come back."

There's a jockey switch for tonight's Preakness Stakes in Baltimore: the 2004 Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux won't ride Tiger Walk in the race. He failed a breathalyzer test administered yesterday at Belmont Park, in New York.

Although it sounds surprising, jockeys are now required to take a daily breathalyzer test in New York if they plan to ride, according to the Daily Racing Form. Desormeaux's level was .05 percent or higher and that's considered impaired. He was also removed from three races yesterday.

Although the Preakness is staged in Maryland, not New York, the horse's owner, quickly parted ways with the jockey. Tom Mullikin, the general manager of Sagamore Racing, tweeted "...We can't have any distractions this weekend. We spoke w/ Kent and wished him well." Jockey Ramon Dominguez will ride Tiger Walk instead tonight.

Desormeaux's experienced this before: in 2010, he failed a breathalyzer test at a Canadian track, according to ESPN. His replacement guided his mount to win the day's biggest prize.

The Preakness starts at 6:18 PM eastern time. Be prompt: the New York Daily News notes the race is one and 3/16's of a mile, so it'll all be over in a couple of minutes. Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another will be looking to catch the second jewel in horse racing's triple crown, notes AP.

At 73, Tamae Watanabe is the oldest woman to summit Mount Everest — again. The last time she made the record, she was 63.

She reached the top with four other team members Saturday morning after an all-night climb, Asian Trekking says. The Japanese mountaineer was leading Asian Trekking's International Everest Expedition 2012.

Ang Tshering of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association in Nepal tells The Associated Press that the team is in good condition and heading back to the base.

Asian Trekking has a list of Watanabe's other mountaineering feats, which have taken her all over the world, including Alaska's Mount McKinley in 1977.

The oldest man to climb Everest was Min Bahadur Serchan, who was 76 when he reached the highest point on Earth in 2008, according to the Guinness World Records. Radio Australia News reports the youngest person to climb the mount was 13-year-old American Jordan Romero in 2010.

Moments after ignition, a privately funded spacecraft aborted its liftoff, delaying its mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX's unmanned rocket had a one-second window to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Saturday morning, and the failed launch means the next opportunity won't be until early Tuesday morning.

The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, had been tweeting from the company's California headquarters leading up to the scheduled launch time of 4:55 a.m. ET.

"Whatever happens today, we could not have done it without @NASA, but errors are ours alone and me most of all," he said.

The successful launch would have been just the beginning in a series of tests for the private spacecraft.

The Dragon capsule, perched atop the Falcon 9 rocket, would become the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. Even after it eventually launches, though, it will be a few days — filled with more trials — before the Dragon can berth.

Read More

Back in 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, there were no guarantees. There were no guarantees that they'd make it there and there were no guarantees that they could make it back home.

President Richard Nixon and his speech writer William Safire knew that. So, imagining a situation in which the American astronauts were doomed in an alien land, Safire drew up a plan to mark their inevitable demise in a dignified way.

In a speech, the president would thank them and say that while there was "no hope for their recovery," there is "hope for mankind in their sacrifice."

A clergyman would commend their souls to the "the deepest of the deep." And at some point, before their death, NASA would cut communication.

We're not saying our ants are American heros. But when we dropped them into their blue habitat with NASA gel, we didn't know where it would lead.

During the past week or so, the ants have slowly begun to die.

It doesn't look good: The ants left alive are trying to bury their dead at the top of the farm. But, slowly, stemming from the cadavers the blue hue of the gel has been tainted with a brown, reddish growth.

Corrie Moreau, assistant curator of the division of insects at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, tells us our ants are faced with a common fate.

That reddish growth is probably mold or mildew or a wind blown pollen. In gel-based colonies, says Moreau, it could also be that a fruit fly has laid eggs and maybe soon, we'll see larvae crawling around the tunnels.

The ants, says Moreau, are trying their best to "groom" themselves. They're moving their dead from the tunnels to the top of the farm to avoid disease. But at some point, besieged by disease or old age, the dead will litter the tunnels and their colony will crumble.

How long that will take is anyone's guess. The places that sell these ants, said Moreau, usually collect the ones foraging on the outside of the colony. They're usually the older ones.

We asked Moreau what would happen if we let the ants free. Unaccustomed to Washington's climate and predators, they won't live long, she says. Even if they survived, without a queen, they have no chance of establishing other colonies.

It's bleak. It's sad. It's a lot like what happens in nature, Moreau says, when a queen gets old and starts laying fewer eggs and the ants can no longer bring in enough food and care for their home and their tunnels start crumbling.

Taking inspiration from Safire, this is our goodbye. As we predicted in our first post, the ants created a thing of beauty — a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers created with uncanny team work.

Before it gets ugly, we're pulling the plug. The NPR AntCam will go dark at midnight.

Flanked — literally and figuratively — by British royalty, the Olympic torch was flown from Greece to England, where it will begin a final 70-day journey before the 2012 London Olympics.

The Telegraph reports that after a rainy ceremony in Greece, the torch was taken aboard British Airways Flight 2012. The paper adds:

"The flame, lit by the sun's rays in Greece a week ago, was transported home in four lanterns that occupied the best seats in business class, seats 1A and 1B. The Princess Royal was relegated to 1F, across the aisle from the unique hand-luggage she collected in Athens on Thursday.

"David Beckham, was three rows back, one behind Sebastian Coe and London mayor Boris Johnson, but took a leading role in the ceremonies that, after 10 years of planning seven years of hype, started the final 70-day countdown to the Games."

The Guardian reports that about 7:25 p.m. local time, the torch was on British soil for the first time since 1948, when it arrived via Rolls-Royce and ship.

Here are a few images from the ceremonies:

You lucky West Coast folks! A stunning solar eclipse will occur late Sunday afternoon, and people in the western U.S. will get the best views. Live on the East Coast? It's already going to be dark, so the only way we'll get to experience this is via webcam.

The event starts about 5:30 PM Pacific time and the maximum effect will occur about 6:30 PM, according to NASA.

This is an annular solar eclipse, not the total blackout we imagine when the moon passes in front of the sun. NASA says as the moon travels, there will be an 'annulus of sunlight' that peeps all around the moon's shape - that's the ring of fire effect. The sun, hidden behind the moon, will look like it's a big black hole.

This bears repeating: during the eclipse, don't look at the sun. And don't use your home telescope to peer directly at the eclipse; you should have special solar filters fitted for it. Here's NASA webpage on eye safety during eclipses.

In the U.S., the eclipse's shadow will travel from the Pacific Coast in Oregon and cut toward the southeast. The shadow will move over northern California, swing directly over Reno, Nevada, cover quite a bit of Utah, edge northern Arizona and slide directly over most of New Mexico. The Texas panhandle will see it, too. (Tokyo will also have a great view.) NASA says the ring effect may last up to four and a half minutes.

If you can't bear to miss it, check out Panasonic's website. The Japanese electronics company is sending a video team up Mt. Fuji to capture the event, notes AFP. There's a cool map that will mark the team's ascent to the top and a link to the eclipse video stream. If you'd rather see the eclipse in person, check out Reno. The Las Vegas Sun reports the city's hotels are offering discounts for the event and the local planetarium is staging a festival.

Don't worry if you missed out on Facebook's initial public offering. Chances are, if you own shares in a broad-based index fund, you'll be holding onto some Facebook soon enough.

Facebook is such a huge offering -– with an initial market capitalization of more than $100 billion, it instantly becomes one of the 25 largest "cap" stocks — that it could have a distorting effect on some funds, at least in the short term.

"Clearly, they're going to have to be buying a lot of it," says Robert Jennings, a finance professor at Indiana University.

Index funds are a type of mutual fund designed to mirror the returns of a stock market index. They add stocks to their lists in one of two ways: either through selection by a committee, as with the Standard & Poor's 500, or based on certain rules, such as the size of a stock's market capitalization.

Either way, a lot of those funds are going to be buying Facebook in the coming weeks. That could help the social networking company's share price, if only temporarily.

Read More

With National Dog Bite Prevention Week set to start Saturday, the Insurance Information Institute wants Americans to know that:

— Insurers paid $479 million in home owner insurance claims involving dog bites last year, up 16.1 percent from the year before.

— The number of such claims rose 3.3 percent, to 16,292.

— The average cost per claim grew by 12.3 percent from the year before, to $29,296.

— And the average cost per claim has soared 53.4 percent since 2003, when the institute began tracking those figures. That compares to a 22.3 percent increase in the consumer price index (which tracks inflation overall at the consumer level).

Institute spokeswoman Loretta Worters says medical costs and increases in the size of settlements, judgments and jury awards have combined to sharply boost the cost of claims related to dog bites.

The institute is one of several organizations working to promote dog bite prevention week. Among the others involved is, not surprisingly, the U.S. Postal Service, which says that 5,600 USPS employees were attacked by dogs last year. The Post Office is out with its annual list of the 25 cities with the most dog attacks involving its personnel.

According to USPS, Los Angeles led that list with 83 attacks in 2011. San Diego was second, with 68 attacks. Houston, Cleveland and Dallas followed, all with more than 40 attacks.

Speaking of mail carriers, why do dogs seem inclined to bite them? According to Bark magazine:

"The majority of dogs who bite do so because they are afraid. Fearful dogs are often especially scared of people who are carrying things, which puts people who deliver the mail at risk. Furthermore, these mail carriers turn their backs and walk away, an action that can give frightened dogs just enough confidence to act on their fears by biting."

The president of Malawi vowed to overturn her country's ban on homosexual acts.

The BBC reports that President Joyce Banda made the vow in her first address to Parliament.

"Some laws which were duly passed by the August house... will be repealed as a matter of urgency... these include the provisions regarding indecent practices and unnatural acts," Banda said according to the BBC.

Back in December, the United States said countries that criminalize homosexuality could face cuts to their foreign aid. As we reported, when Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced the new rules, she said "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights."

According to The Guardian, Banda made a reference to that when she said she wanted to normalize relations with "our traditional development partners who were uncomfortable with our bad laws."

The AP adds a bit more background:

"Malawi had faced international condemnation for the conviction and 14-year prison sentences given in 2010 to two men who were arrested after celebrating their engagement and were charged with unnatural acts and gross indecency.

"Then President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned the couple on 'humanitarian grounds only' while insisting they had 'committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws.'

"Mutharika died in office in April. Banda, who was vice president, stepped in to serve out his term which ends in 2014."

The BBC reports that Banda's party has control over Parliament so her plans should be able to go forward.

It was just this February when Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's West Indies vacation home was broken into by a machete-wielding robber who stole $1,000. No one was hurt.

Now, the Washington Post reports that his D.C home was robbed of housewares:

"According to a police report, the burglar appears to have entered by breaking a pane of glass near the front door; a pair of $500 silver candlesticks and a 100-piece set of silver valued at $2,500 were taken. Arberg confirmed that no material from the court was missing. Gwyndolyn Crump, a spokeswoman for the D.C. police, said the investigation remains open."

Before this pair of Breyer incidents, the last time a justice was victim to a crime was 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on a city street, according to the AP.

A unlikely coalition failed to derail the government's practice of holding terror suspects for indefinite periods of time.

Some Democrats and Tea Party Republicans put the issue to a vote through an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have ended the practice but it ultimately failed, today, in the GOP-controlled house by a vote of 238 to 182.

The AP reports:

"'The frightening thing here is that the government is claiming the power under the Afghanistan authorization for use of military force as a justification for entering American homes to grab people, indefinitely detain them and not give them a charge or trial,' [Rep. Justin Amash] said during hours of House debate.

"The policy's supporters argued that ending it would weaken national security and coddle terrorists."

The amendment was sponsored by Amash, a Republican from Michigan, and Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington.

The Hill does a great job at breaking down in detail what the debate is all about. The essence of it is whether people detained in the U.S. on terror charges still have the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Those who opposed the Amendment, for example, believe that suspected terrorists shouldn't be protected by the Miranda rights and shouldn't have the right to remain silent, for example, because the government should be able to extract important intelligence.

Smith and Amash would like to see suspected terrorists tried by the civilian justice system and take away what they say is the president's "extraordinary" power. Smith and Amash say the Constitution protects everyone in the country.

The Hill points out that the House did authorize a separate amendment to the NDAA that "affirmed U.S. citizens would not be denied habeas corpus rights."

A newly released Justice Department study reports nearly 1 in 10 inmates have experienced sexual violence.

The data, based on a 2008 survey of people who served in state prisons, says the abuse disproportionately hits gay and bisexual inmates. And victims who reported the problems often were retaliated against or ignored, the study said.

The study was released on the same day President Obama decreed that a 2003 law meant to prevent rape in prison protects people in all federal facilities, not just ones overseen by the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Prisons.

States have up to one year to decide whether to adopt reforms but states that don't follow the new rules could lose 5 percent of federal funds and become ineligible for new grants. California, Oregon and Massachusetts have already made changes.

"No matter how serious the crime an inmate has committed, his or her sentence does not include being raped," said Pat Nolan, president of the Justice Fellowship, which advocates for prisoners.

But Nolan and others raised alarms about whether detainees in immigration facilities, who may not have committed any violent crimes, would receive second class protection under the rape prevention law.

The Department of Homeland Security had fought inclusion under the 2003 law, known as the Prison Rape Elimination Act. NPR has reported on behind the scenes battles over whether the Justice Department could oversee DHS facilities or make rules to cover them.

The White House apparently reached a compromise making clear DHS must follow the law but giving the agency six months to come up with its own rules for doing so.

"DHS has an abysmal track record of preventing and investigating the serious and systemic problems of sexual assault and abuse in its facilities," said Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel at the ACLU National Prison Project.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R - va, a co author of the 2003 law, objected to the delay since rules were supposed to be finished in June 2010.

"I am deeply disappointed that it took so long," he said. "who knows how many rapes could have been prevented if these standards had been put in place sooner. "

A senior Justice Department official said the rule making was one of the most complicated in decades.

The new standards forbid pat downs of female inmates by guards of the opposite sex, require prisons to do more to advise inmates of their rights and services that could help them, and impose audits every three years by an independent overseer. The standards also direct authorities to decide on a case by case basis whether to house transgender inmates in a male or female facility.

We'd seen the video of the world-record paper airplane toss — 226 feet, 10 inches.

What we didn't realize until reading this story in today's Wall Street Journal is that there's a controversy brewing among "paper-plane enthusiasts" over whether it was right for designer John Collins to have Joe Ayoob, a former University of California-Berkeley quarterback, do the record-breaking throwing back in February.

"I reckon [Collins] should train up and do it himself," Dylan Parker, a paper-plane throwing competitor, told the Journal.

Former record holder Stephen Kreiger is also questioning whether it was right to bring in a designated thrower. "Competitive paper airplane flying had always been, in my mind, what can one person do with one piece of paper," he said to the newspaper. About using a ringer, Kreiger said: "I don't really think that's the spirit of the competition."

Ayoob doesn't buy such arguments. "We broke a world record," he said to the Journal. "If people want to try and hate on that, then that's all good."

This has us wondering:

By the way, there wouldn't seem to be any way Ayoob or any other ringer could toss the largest paper airplane ever built into the sky. After all, as the Los Angeles Times reported in March, it weighs 800 pounds.

Update at 1:17 p.m. ET. Support Afghanistan In 'Different Way':

During their meeting in the White House, President Francois Hollande, the new socialist leader of France, said he told President Obama that he was committed to withdrawing French troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

But, the AP reports, Hollande said he was committed to supporting Afghanistan in a "different way."

This was Obama's first meeting with Hollande.

The two leaders also said they wanted Greece to remain a part the European monetary union.

The pool report notes that the two leaders joked a bit.

Hollande promised not to say anything against cheeseburgers and Obama quipped that that they go "very good with French fries."

Our Original Post Continues:

Later today, President Obama welcomes leaders from the Group of 8 nations to Camp David, Md., for a two-day summit. (Which countries are part of that group? See below.)

Sunday, he joins NATO heads of state — and invited leaders such as President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan — in Chicago for the 25th NATO summit. That gathering continues on Monday.

But before all that, he hosts new French President Francois Hollande at the White House this morning. And Hollande is expected, as The Associated Press reports, "to announce a pullout of all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end" — about two years early (there are about 3,300 French troops in Afghanistan).

"That could infuriate NATO allies and embarrass his re-election-minded host — and may well be logistically impossible," AP adds.

The G8 nations are:

— Canada

— France

— Germany

— Italy

— Japan

— Russia

— U.K.

— U.S.

Good Friday morning - here are some of the stories we're looking at.

Like It Or Not, It's Facebook's Day On Wall Street.

Greek Debt And Spanish Banks Downgraded, Asian And European Stocks Wobble On Euro Fears. (Reuters)

Obama Administration Nominates Ambassador To Myanmar, Inches Toward Normalizing Relations. (Wall Street Journal)

NATO Summit This Weekend In Chicago, Protests And More: What To Expect. (Chicago Tribune)

Olympic Torch Arrives In Britain; Soccer Star David Beckham First Torchbearer. (BBC)

Mississippi Highway Murder Suspect Arrested, Did Not Impersonate Cop. (AP)

Spectacular Solar Eclipse Coming This Sunday. (MSNBC)

John Edwards Corruption Trial Goes To Jury. (Los Angeles Times)

Among the key things to know about what's in the hundreds of pages of evidence and other materials related to the Feb. 26 shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, which were released Thursday:

— Sanford, Fla., police investigator Christopher Serino concluded that Martin's death was "ultimately avoidable." If neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman had just stayed in his car and waited for police to arrive, Serino wrote, his fatal encounter with Martin never would have happened.

— Martin's father initially told investigators that the voice heard on a 911 recording calling for help was not his son's. Later, the boy's parents stated that they believe the voice was their son's.

— A witness told investigators that a black man was "mounted" on top of a white or Hispanic male, and was punching the prone man. Martin was African-American. Zimmerman is the son of a white father and Hispanic mother.

— Martin was shot in the chest at close range — from 1 to 18 inches away. An autopsy showed there was marijuana in his system. At the time of his death, Martin was suspended from school for having been caught with a bag of marijuana.

— Zimmerman suffered injuries during the fatal encounter. He had cuts on his face, a possible broken nose and cuts on the back of his head.

NPR's Greg Allen rounded up the latest news on Morning Edition.

From what's being reported about the evidence, the material could support Zimmerman's claim that he acted in self defense. But as The Orlando Sentinel says, "the evidence, though, was also noteworthy for what was missing: any clear indication of who started the fight that led to the fatal shooting."

Zimmerman, 28, had called police the evening of Feb. 26 to say there was a suspicious young man walking around his neighborhood. Martin, 17, was visiting the area with his father and had walked to a convenience store to buy some snacks. A police dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to follow the young man. But Zimmerman left his vehicle. Soon after, the two encountered each other.

When local authorities didn't arrest Zimmerman, Martin's parents and supporters began a campaign to call attention to the young man's death. The case eventually "went national" and sparked renewed discussions about race relations and racial profiling as the story spread on the Web. On April 11, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Facebook's much-publicized first sale of stock to the public started with a bang late this morning as the price per share jumped. But though the volume of shares sold was a record for an initial public offering, the stock's price gave up its gains as the day continued.

By the end of trading in the U.S., Facebook had settled right at the $38 initial offering price that had been set before shares went on sale.

Still, though the social media giant's stock didn't hold on to the gains it made immediately after going on the market, the interest from investors was obviously high.

As The New York Times' Deal Book blog wrote in late-afternoon:

"The volume of Facebook shares traded on Friday topped 485 million shares with nearly a half hour left to go. That easily tops the previous record for a new stock, General Motors, which had more than 458 million shares changing hands on its first day, Nov. 18, 2010."

And at $38 a share, the sale brought Facebook and its investors approximately $16 billion.

The social media giant's share price immediately rose from $38 to about $42.50. The 12 percent rise just after the 11 a.m. ET start of trading in the company's stock highlighted one of the most-anticipated debuts on Wall Street in decades.

Minutes later, the stock had settled a bit and was trading around $40 — still about a 5 percent gain over the initial offering price of $38.

Around 11:50 a.m. ET, it slipped back to about that $38 level. At mid-afternoon, the stock was trading around $41.25. With about 30 minutes to go before the close of trading in the U.S., it was back near $38 and stayed there.

Update at 3:30 p.m. ET. Underwriters Stepped In To Keep Price Above $38, Bloomberg News reports:

During today's trading, "Facebook's underwriters purchased the company's stock to keep it from falling below $38, people with knowledge of the matter said," according to Bloomberg News. "The bankers supported the stock amid Nasdaq's difficulties delivering trade execution messages, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the transactions are private."

Update at 1:45. p.m. ET. Trading Problems Reportedly Continue:

Brokers, such as Fidelity, are telling clients who attempt to purchase the stock that "certain marketplaces are experiencing slowness resulting in delays in execution for Facebook orders." The Wall Street Journal says trading problems "persisted after the open as traders had trouble changing or canceling orders."

Update at 12:05 p.m. ET. Disappointment?

The Wall Street Journal's Steven Russolillo writes:

"Make no mistake, this is a big disappointment. Facebook was supposed to be the catalyst that lifted all tides, especially in a very dicey market environment. The Dow has only had two up days this month as investors are fretting over Greece, Spain and the rest of the eurozone. Facebook was supposed to offer a glimmer of hope. Instead, the opposite has played out. Facebook shares are essentially unchanged. The Dow is trading at session lows, down 51 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is slumping even more, down about 1%. Oy vey."

But should any of that be surprising? As Gigaom writes, most digital media companies "have had a bumpy ride" on Wall Street.

Our original post and earlier updates follow:

We've told you it's coming. We've told you the initial price will be $38 a share. And we've said it's not going to be easy for regular folks to get the stock at that price.

Now, all everyone can do is wait for social media giant Facebook's first public offering of stock to hit the market.

Things will really get going, as The Deal Journal blog reports, around 11 a.m. ET.

That's when Nasdaq expects to release Facebook's 421 million shares for trading.

We'll keep an eye on how trading goes and update with news as the day continues. We're also embedding a widget that should let us track the stock (trading symbol FB).

Meanwhile:

— NPR's Steve Henn wrapped up the news and previewed the IPO on Morning Edition.

— There's a Facebook "timeline" here.

— The New York Times put together an interactive graphic about how the Facebook IPO compares to other companies' debuts in the market.

Update at 11:30 a.m. ET. It's Trading; Opens Around $42.50 A Share.

Update at 11:18 a.m. ET. Still On Hold, And Some Are Concerned:

"This is getting a bit worrisome. Still nothing more than 15 minutes after Facebook was supposed to start trading," The Wall Street Journal's Steven Russolillo writes. "Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld told WSJ the exchange was 'well prepared' for the start of trading. We'll see."

Update at 11:02 a.m. ET. A Delay:

Nasdaq says trading in Facebook has been delayed at least five minutes.

Update at 10:45 a.m. ET. Anticipation Builds, Blogging Begins:

Various news outlets are firing up their live blogs. On its, The New York Times notes that Facebook's "$16 billion offering dwarfs the total capital raised by all I.P.O.s in the United States combined so far this year ($12.1 billion), according to Thomson Reuters data."

The Financial Times says traders expect to see "incredible volume today."

The Wall Street Journal's David Benoit is predicting the stock will open at $46.25.

Update at 9:35 a.m. ET. Zuckerberg Rings The Bell:

Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg just set off the electronic bell that marks the start of NASDAQ trading for the day. But, remember, Facebook shares aren't supposed to hit the market until around 11 a.m. ET.

For many people, Bike to Work Day (which is today) is a reason to put air in their bike's tires and see if their chain is too rusty to get them to work on time. And as a growing list of photographs shows, many people who follow NPR online also ride to work.

You can submit a photo of yourself and your bike, a scene from your commute's route — or, if you can manage it safely, a picture of yourself actually riding to work. Just post the image to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #NPRbike.

For Grant Petersen, Bike to Work Day probably feels like just another day — after all, he has been riding his bike to work for three decades.

"It's always been easier for me that way," Petersen tells NPR's David Greene, for an interview on Morning Edition. "I've never really taken to the car. I don't hate cars; I own a couple. But, I like to ride my bike."

Petersen is the iconoclastic founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works and the author of Just Ride, a new book that distills practical bike wisdom he has gleaned from years of riding and designing bikes. In it, he makes the case for putting comfort ahead of aerodynamics, and fun over efficiency.

Ditch The Special Clothes; Read More: