NPR News

The economy shrunk in the fourth quarter — for the first time in three years — and one of the critical reasons was a drop in defense spending. Apparently, contractors took precautionary steps and held onto money in case the federal government failed to avert the fiscal and tax crisis known as the fiscal cliff.

But there's now a new deadline — automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, which may hit at the beginning of March.

The Effect On Contractors

Marco Rubio has been the junior senator from Florida for barely two years, but he's already considered a likely 2016 presidential contender.

The 41-year-old Republican's political star rose still higher this week when he joined a bipartisan group of senators offering a path to citizenship to millions of unauthorized immigrants.

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PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Time to roll on to our final game Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players has 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can, each correct answer now worth two points. Carl, can you give us the scores?

CARL KASELL: Charlie Pierce has the lead, Peter. He has four points. Faith Salie has three. Brian Babylon has two.

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CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Charlie Pierce, Brian Babylon and Faith Salie. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you so much.

(APPLAUSE)

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PETER SAGAL, HOST:

We want to remind everybody they can join us here most weeks at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Illinois. For tickets and more information, go to wbez.org.

You can find a link at our website, that's waitwait.npr.org. There you can also find out about our big simulcast cinema event on May 2nd, WAIT WAIT live in a theater new you. Spoiler alert: we're even more attractive than you imagined. Am I right?

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Take their word for it.