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Mitt Romney may have lost the biggest prize in American politics last year, but that doesn't mean he's left the game for good.

While there's no evidence to suggest he's interested in a third consecutive run for the White House, the man who topped the 2012 Republican national ticket is signaling his intent to play a role in the 2014 midterm election.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Romney indicated what could be read as plans to return to the political hustings to campaign for 2014 candidates, presumably Republicans. The Journal reported:

"He is considering writing a book and a series of opinion pieces, and has plans to campaign for 2014 candidates. But he is wary of overdoing it. 'I'm not going to be bothering the airwaves with a constant series of speeches,' he told The Wall Street Journal, speaking from his home in La Jolla, Calif."

The State Department says Iran has stepped up its efforts on behalf of global terrorism to a level not seen for 20 years, but that the core elements of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan are heading for defeat even as the network's affiliates remain a threat.

"Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism and [Hezbollah's] terrorist activity have reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s, with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa," says the Country Reports on Terrorism 2012.

Among those attacks was one that killed six on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. Other attacks were thwarted in India, Thailand, Georgia and Kenya, the report says.

It says the vehicle for Iran's troublemaking has mostly been the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the militant Shiite Hezbollah movement, Iran's ally and proxy in Lebanon.

The report also says that al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan continues to decline owing to "leadership losses," and what remains of the group is increasingly focused on survival. However, despite "significant setbacks" to Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Shabab in Somalia:

"The dispersal of weapons stocks in the wake of the revolution in Libya, the Tuareg rebellion, and the coup d'etat in Mali presented terrorists with new opportunities."

We are standing in front of a huge bank of screens, in the middle of which is a glowing map that changes focus depending on what the dozens controllers are looking at.

The room looks like something straight out of a NASA shuttle launch. The men and women manning the floor are dressed in identical white jump suits. With a flick of a mouse, they scroll through dozens of streaming video images coming into the center.

This is Rio de Janeiro in real time.

"This whole building is based on technology and integration," said Pedro Junquiera, the chief executive officer of the Rio Operations Center.

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NPR's Ken Rudin and Ron Elving offer a tearful goodbye to Michele Bachmann, a premature but constitutional welcome to James Comey to head the FBI and some Boardwalk Fries to President Obama and Gov. Christie. But they're not sure about Eric Holder's longevity as attorney general.