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CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

When it comes to profound depression, many people just can't get relief from current treatments.

Now there's more evidence that the anesthetic ketamine, sometimes abused as a club drug, has potential as a fast-acting treatment for the condition.

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic gave 10 patients ketamine twice a week as an infusion that lasted 100 minutes. All the people had depression that had resisted other treatments. The patients got ketamine until their symptoms abated or they'd had four infusions of the drug.

The two Koreas have agreed in principle to talks aimed at mending their almost nonexistent relations, but they are stalled on the question of where to meet.

South Korea has suggested that high-level talks take place in its capital, Seoul, but North Korea has countered that only lower-level negotiations should take place and they should be held in its border city of Kaesong.

The rival Koreas have not met face to face for such negotiations since February 2011.

There's "no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued."

And as The Associated Press says, "what happens at Bilderberg, stays at Bilderberg."

Recording under the name Villagers, Dublin singer-songwriter Conor O'Brien released his debut album, Becoming a Jackal, in 2010. A critically acclaimed Mercury Prize nominee, that record was stripped-down singer-songwriter fare.

But O'Brien changed a bit during the two-plus years leading up to the release of {Awayland}. The songwriter had listened to lots of techno in the interim and approached the new album with Cinemascope ambitions.

So much for a Heat sweep:

"Tim Duncan overcame a slow start to finish with 20 points and 14 rebounds, Tony Parker banked in a desperation jumper on a broken play with 5.2 seconds left and the San Antonio Spurs withstood LeBron James' triple-double to beat the Miami Heat 92-88 on Thursday night in a thrilling Game 1 of the NBA finals." (The Associated Press)

Syracuse city worker Gary Clifford saw a mother duck leading a dozen little ones down a busy street. He followed in his truck, stopping traffic along the way. Until they walked across a storm drain and four ducklings fell in. Syracuse.com reports a city crew was called in and took the feathered family to a creek.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Fresh reports about the massive amount of electronic data that the nation's spy agencies are collecting "raise profound questions about privacy" because of what they say about how such information will be collected in the future, NPR's Dina Temple-Raston said Friday on Morning Edition.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Linda Wertheimer.

He has performed around the world for millions of screaming fans. Now, Justin Bieber is taking his talents off the planet. Bieber put a quarter-million dollar deposit on a seat on Virgin Galactic's spaceship. The singer wants to shoot a music video in space.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield already did that last month, singing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on board the International Space Station.

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