NPR News

This interview was originally broadcast on Apr. 9, 1991.

Publisher Barney Rosset, who championed the works of beat poets and Samuel Beckett and who defied censors with the publication of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, died on Tuesday. He was 89.

There was a 0.9 percent drop in sales of new homes in January vs. December, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development just reported.

The annual sales rate, 321,000, was still 3.5 percent above the pace of January 2011, however.

And The Associated Press notes that the dip in January from December may have partly been due to the fact that "the government said the final quarter of 2011 was stronger than first estimated."

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- U.S., Other 'Friends Of Syria,' To Call On Syria's Assad To Step Aside.

-- Obama's Tax Plan Is 'Step Forward,' But Not Enough, Key Republican Says.

In a move that likely opens him up to some obvious Democratic attacks, Mitt Romney is turning to members of President George W. Bush's economic brain trust to craft what he hopes will be a winning economic message.

Campaigning in Michigan Thursday night, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reached out to Tea Party voters — a segment of the party that he's had a hard time winning over in previous states during this primary season.