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James Comey, the president's choice for FBI director, had a relatively easy time fielding questions Tuesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lawmakers wanted to know about surveillance, waterboarding and other controversial issues, but they posed their questions gently.

A former judge for the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court raised questions about the court's approval of government data collection programs on Tuesday. He was testifying before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency considering recently uncovered surveillance efforts.

The former president is in Egypt to observe its first free presidential election, which begins on Wednesday.

Not known as a hotbed of experimentation, the world of publishing has been slow to embrace the transition from print to digital. But in New York this past week, the publishers who gathered were more interested in exploring new ideas than arguing about the death of books.

LIBOR — the London interbank offered rate — is being sold. How can an interest rate be sold? Well, like anything that is a brand name, LIBOR has value, even if that value has been undermined in recent years by scandal. The NYSE Euronext will acquire LIBOR from the British Bankers' Association. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

CNBC is far and away the ratings leader in the financial cable news business — and its executives, producers and reporters are working hard to keep it that way. They're telling some guests they can't appear on rival channels amid breaking news.

The new head of the Bank of England is a Canadian — Mark Carney, currently Canada's central bank chief. It's the first time Britain has chosen a noncitizen to lead its central bank.

Audie Cornish and Robert Siegel note that the ashes of some celebrities' were launched on the SpaceX Falcon rocket on Tuesday. They include those of James "Scotty" Doohan of Star Trek and astronaut Gordon Cooper.

Israel's prime minister has called for parliamentary elections more than a year ahead of Israel's next scheduled vote. Netanyahu and his Likud party are running strong in the polls, but issues such as Iran, the Israeli economy and the role of the ultra-Orthodox will factor into the campaign.

On Thursday, residents of parts of Kansas heard thunder and saw lightning as heavy snow fell. Laura Lorson of Kansas Public Radio describes the storm, while meteorologist Lee Grenci of the blog Weather Underground tells us that thundersnow is not rare. He points out that it just means that the snowflakes that always occur in the upper atmosphere during a storm reach the ground.