The Filter: What's Up With Airline Potties?

(April 8) -- With so many news aggregators out there, who can keep up? AOL News filters the filters to steer you to the headlines that really matter.

Skip Those, Read This: The Slatest and The Daily Beast lead with the upheaval in Kyrgyzstan. The latter goes with a New York Times report of protests Wednesday that forced the president to flee the capital as a transitional government was formed by a former foreign minister. "You can call this revolution. You can call this a people's revolt. Either way, it is our way of saying that we want justice and democracy," said Roza Otunbayeva, the former minister. Opposition leaders "were angered last spring when Obama administration officials courted [President] Bakiyev -- who they admitted was an autocrat -- in an ultimately successful attempt to retain rights to the military base, Manas, used to supply troops in Afghanistan," the Times reports. Otunbayeva said the base will remain open for now. For a quick primer on Kyrgyzstan's history, check out Wikipedia.

Nuke Deal: The Huffington Post leads with an Associated Press report on President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signing a nuclear arms pact in Prague today. The agreement will shrink each country's nuclear arsenal to 1,550 over seven years. And both nations reaffirmed that they're committed to preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons. It's the most significant nuclear arms agreement in a generation.

Catch of the Day: The Slatest picks up a New Orleans Times-Picayune report about a New Orleans police shooting of innocents a week after Hurricane Katrina struck. Michael Hunter became the first officer at the scene -- New Orleans' Danziger Bridge -- to plead guilty for participating in the shooting, while two investigators confessed to covering up the crime, which left two men dead. Hunter "said a New Orleans police sergeant fired an assault rifle at wounded civilians at close range after other officers stopped shooting and after it was clear that the police were not taking fire," reports the Times-Picayune. "He also says he saw another officer in a car fire a shotgun at a fleeing man's back, although the man did nothing suggesting he was a threat to police. That man, 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who was severely mentally disabled, died of his wounds." U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance said, "I don't think you can listen to that account without being sickened by the raw brutality of the shooting and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up."

False Alarm: The Daily Beast links to a Los Angeles Times story on Wednesday's scare aboard a plane flying from Washington to Denver. Flight attendants smelled smoke coming from the bathroom while Mohammed Al Madadi, a Qatari diplomat, was inside. When asked what he was doing, he replied, "Lighting my shoes on fire," an allusion to Richard Reid's attempted airline shoe-bomb attack in 2001. He was escorted to his seat and surrounded by air marshals. F-16s accompanied the plane to its destination. But it turns out Madadi was just joking -- he was smoking a cigarette. That's a felony, but Madadi may not be punished because of diplomatic immunity.

Pay to Pee: Speaking of airplane potties, cost-slashing European airline Ryan Air is considering charging passengers to use the toilet. The Slatest picks up the Consumerist report, which says a bathroom trip will cost about $1.40. The airline will also be cutting the number of toilets on each plane so it can install more seats.