Mark Memmott

ABC News is beginning to release bits of Katie Couric's conversation with Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o, and the first highlight the network is spotlighting is this:

"Manti Te'o briefly lied to the media and the public after discovering his online girlfriend did not exist ... he admitted in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Katie Couric."

As Mom would say, bundle up. If you go outside today just about anywhere from North Dakota east and south through the upper Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and up into New England, it's freezing.

The photo is quite striking, to be sure.

Agence France Press photographer Issouf Sanogo writes that when he was with French soldiers in central Mali on Sunday, "a helicopter was coming in to land and churning up tremendous dust clouds. Instinctively, all the soldiers grabbed their scarfs to avoid getting a mouthful of sand."

Sanogo started taking pictures.

Update at 6:14 p.m. ET. Backing Off?

President Obama "welcomes" the plan by House Republicans to vote Wednesday on a three-month extension of the nation's borrowing limit, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters today, and "would not stand in the way of the bill becoming law." (The Hill)

"We fire when we have to," and sometimes that means you "take a life to save a life."

Though they dipped 1 percent in December from the month before, 2012 was the best year since 2007 for sales of existing homes, the National Association of Realtors reports.

It estimates that 4.65 million previously owned homes were sold last year, up 9.2 percent from 2011 and the most since 2007's 5.03 million.

We're hearing for the first time today from one of the people caught up in the story that led to retired Gen. David Petraeus' resignation from the post of CIA director last November.

Good morning

Monday's presidential inauguration continues to dominate the news. If you want to see how the day played out, check the live blogging we did. For all of NPR's coverage, click here.

Meanwhile, we've started our day with news about the big freeze:

It felt like -51 degrees Fahrenheit in Langdon, N.D., on Monday and brutal wind chills like that are going to continue across northern states as winter really sets in.

Even in the "warmer" places, it's not going to feel like it's much above zero for the next few days. And "lake effect" snows are expected to pile up around the Great Lakes.

The big "get" goes to Katie Couric.

While Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o has spoken to ESPN — and said he did not participate in the hoax about a "dead" girlfriend who turned out to be neither real nor dead — that wasn't on camera or recorded.

Good morning.

It's Inauguration Day in the U.S., and that's going to require much of our attention today. But as always, there is other news.

Our early headlines:

-- Join Us For Coverage Of Inauguration Day; Here's The Schedule

-- Reports: Death Toll In Algeria At 80

Update at 1:50 p.m. ET: Three Americans Were Killed, State Department Says (See Statement Below).

Our original post:

As feared, the reports from Algeria about the number of people killed during last week's hostage crisis at a gas plant are getting grimmer.

Super Bowl XLVII will be a never-before matchup of teams coached by two brothers.

The Baltimore Ravens, led by John Harbaugh, will play his younger brother Jim's San Francisco 49ers on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.

Maybe it should be called the Harbowl, as they're saying on NFL.com.

Good morning.

Though he and the vice president have already taken their oaths of office, President Obama is due this noon to stand outside the Capitol for his ceremonial swearing in and then to deliver his second inaugural address.

The bizarre story of Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o and the girlfriend he now says never existed has exploded on to news sites and TV channels this week.

As it does each Friday, the Supreme Court has released audio recordings of the week's oral arguments.

Which means we can now hear what it was like when Justice Clarence Thomas broke his seven-year silence.

In a move that could head off another bruising battle over increasing the nation's debt ceiling, GOP leaders in the House plan to approve a three-month increase in the nation's borrowing authority next week, NPR's S.V. Date reports.

But, he tells our Newscast Desk, Republicans want to tie a longer-term increase to the passage of a budget that cuts spending.

His report continues:

"The plan comes from Majority Leader Eric Cantor as House Republicans wrap up a retreat in Southern Virginia.

The remains of Urooj Khan, the Chicago man who last July died one day after his $425,000 check from the Illinois lottery was cut, were exhumed today, the Chicago Tribune reports.

A masked assailant threw acid into the face of the Bolshoi ballet's artistic director on Thursday in Moscow in what may have been a "reprisal for his selection of dancers in starring roles at the famed Russian company," The Associated Press reports.

Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o "perpetuated the heartbreaking story" of a girlfriend's death after he supposedly had learned he was the victim of a hoax and that she never existed, The Associated Press writes.

After Part 1 of cyclist Lance Armstrong's confession about doping aired Thursday night on the Oprah Winfrey Network, the Livestrong cancer charity he helped found released a statement that says, in part:

(We updated the top of this post at 8:55 ET.)

An American worker has been confirmed dead at the natural gas complex in eastern Algeria where Islamic extremists seized hostages, the U.S. State Department said Friday evening in a statement.

The State Department identified the man as Frederick Buttaccio, a Texas resident, but did not provide additional details on the circumstances.

Pauline Phillips, known to millions of advice-seekers around the world as the original "Dear Abby," has died. She was 94.

The company that syndicates Dear Abby says on its website that she "died Wednesday ... in Minneapolis after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease."

Good morning

Sorry we're late again with the roundup. We'll try to do better tomorrow.

Our early headlines:

-- In Algeria: Some Hostages May Have Escaped; Military Operation Launched

-- Manti Te'o: Story Attributed To Parents Hard To Reconcile With Hoax Report

As those who care wait anxiously for Part 1 of cycling superstar Lance Armstrong's confessional with Oprah Winfrey, there's word that the International Olympic Committee has asked Armstrong to return the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics.

The IOC's statement says:

If you're trying to make sense of the news that Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o now says he was the victim of a hoax and that the woman he thought was his "girlfriend" never existed and never died, you'll want to read an Oct. 12 story published by the South Bend Tribune.

There were 335,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, down 37,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration reports.

That's the lowest total for any one week since January 2008.