A legislative plan to pave the way for a horse slaughtering facility in Oklahoma is drawing fierce opposition from animal  rights groups.

Several animal protection groups plan to rally at the state Capitol Thursday for "Humane Lobby Day" and urge legislators to oppose the bill to allow horse  slaughtering in the state.

As we await Friday's much-anticipated report about the February unemployment rate and how many jobs were added to employers' payrolls last month, there are these new bits of economic data to chew over:

-- The Employment and Training Administration says there were 340,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week. That's down from 7,000 the previous week. Claims continue at a pace that's the lowest since first-quarter 2008.

After nearly 13 hours during which he had only a few short breaks while sympathetic senators took over the talking, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky ended his filibuster of John Brennan's CIA nomination early Thursday.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. The life of a rabbit isn't always a piece of carrot cake. Heidi is a 15-pound continental giant rabbit in Dorset who suffers from arthritis. So a month ago, her vet prescribed an unusual treatment for a rabbit: hydrotherapy. Twice a week, she's strapped into a little orange life vest and paddles in a heated pool. Her owner told the BBC that Heidi has taken to it like a duck to water. Heidi also loves her post-swim shower. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And if life gives you broken glass, make money. A vandal threw a brick through the window of a Pittsburgh printing shop. The owner, undismayed, offered the brick for auction to raise money to fix the window. Sympathetic friends threw in prizes to go with the brick, like tickets to a hockey game. The winning bid was $1,150, enough to fix the window and make a donation to charity.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Norman steals the spotlight on this week’s OneSix8 with numerous performances and family-friendly activities.

As Roman Catholic cardinals prepare to elect the next pope, old-style Vatican secrecy has prevailed over American-style transparency.

Under pressure from Vatican-based cardinals, their American counterparts canceled their daily briefings that drew hundreds of news-starved journalists.

The clampdown was part of what is shaping up as a major confrontation over the future of the church between Vatican insiders and cardinals from the rest of the world.

Just an hour before the scheduled American briefing, an email announced it had been canceled.

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Pro hockey's Chicago Blackhawks have played 24 games without a loss in regulation time. They defeated the Colorado Avalanche last night. That gets the Blackhawks to the midpoint of the season with 21 wins, no defeats in regulation, three losses in shoot-outs or overtime. It's a league record start for the team that last won the Stanley Cup in 2010, possibly a big deal for a sport playing a season shortened by a lockout.

NPR's David Schaper is a lifelong Blackhawks fan, and just happened to be at last night's game. Hi, David.

A statement from the company says that unit will become a separate publicly-traded company by the end of the year, and allow Time Warner to focus on its TV side. Time Warner had been in talks to combine its magazines with another company but those negotiations broke down.

In Russia, a prominent dancer with the fabled Bolshoi Ballet has confessed to ordering an attack on the company's director. The director suffered third degree burns after acid was thrown onto his face. For more on the scandals at the Bolshoi, Renee Montagne talks to writer Christina Ezrahi, author of Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia.