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Boring TV is such a hit in the Scandinavian nation of Norway that broadcasters are scrambling to produce even more shows to satisfy the appetites of viewers. One idea being considered is a live show with knitting experts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

When New England Patriots' owner Robert Kraft met with then-Russian President Vladmir Putin in 2005, he showed off his Super Bowl ring. Kraft told a crowd last week Putin put the ring on, and said, "I can kill someone with this ring." He then put it in his pocket, and walked away. The Kremlin says the ring was a gift.

Chen Guangcheng says New York University is ending his fellowship after it received "unrelenting pressure" from "Chinese communists."

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More than 40,000 scientists in Spain have signed a petition calling on the government to end cuts to their budget. They're blaming austerity for an exodus of the country's best and brightest researchers.

Lauren Frayer has more from Madrid.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Spanish spoken)

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Hundreds of lab-coated scientists delivered their petition to Spain's Economy Ministry. They marched there last week because the Science Ministry, itself, was closed in budget cuts.

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Now, as we've been reporting elsewhere in the program, President Obama is in Europe this week for the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland. On Tuesday, he heads to Germany to meet with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany is the EU's powerhouse. Its economic success has given the country political power, in part, because it's the region's biggest lender.

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OK, Scott just made clear economic issues have some competition for top billing at the G 8 Summit in Northern Ireland. We do, though, want to drill down into one economic question this morning, and that's why interest rates here at home are going up. The bond market has pushed them to the highest levels in 15 months, and that includes mortgage rates.

Let's turn, as we often do, to David Wessel. He's economics editor of The Wall Street Journal. David, good morning.

DAVID WESSEL: Good morning.

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NPR's business news starts with an acquisition for Lowe's.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: The home-improvement retailer, Lowe's, has reportedly agreed to buy Orchard Supply Hardware Stores. The sale price is expected to top $200 million. Now Orchard is a California-based hardware-and-garden chain. It was once owned by Sears, and is now about $230 million in debt.

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Let's look now at another change in health care, and this one has to do with paperwork. Hospitals and clinics are slowly replacing paper files with sophisticated electronic health records. But with a variety of systems in use, they often can't easily share medical information with each other, and this can be a pretty serious problem in the case of an emergency.

As Elizabeth Stawicki reports, smartphones might be one way to bridge this electronic gap.

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And let's stay in this part of the world. Over the weekend, Iran overwhelmingly elected a new president, a man seen by many as a reformer. More than half the voters in that country opted for this change.

The relatively moderate cleric, Hassan Rouhani, replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who's been in power since 2005. Rouhani campaigned on a message of ending Iran's international isolation.

For reaction from Tehran, we're joined by The New York Times bureau chief there, Thomas Erdbrink.

Thomas, good morning.

In northern Lake Michigan, explorers are stepping up their effort to find a ship that sank in 1679. French and American archeologists are on the lake looking for the ship sailed by French explorer Rene-Robert Sieur de la Salle. So far, the excavation has uncovered a wooden beam that looks like the mast of a ship.

Jordan is hosting major military exercises known as Eager Lion 2013. More than 15,000 soldiers from 18 countries, including the U.S., will be participating. The war games kicked off as Syria's civil war rages next door.

President Obama is in Northern Ireland Monday — the first stop on a three-day European visit that includes a G-8 summit meeting and a side trip to Berlin.

The president begins his tour with a speech in Belfast, celebrating Northern Ireland's peace process and urging young people in the country to keep it moving forward.

Later, Obama joins leaders of other industrial countries at a remote golf resort in County Fermanagh for talks on Syria, trade and the global economy.

Call it the Affordable Care Act, call it Obamacare, call it whatever you want — it's coming. And soon. In less than four months people without health insurance will be able to start signing up for coverage that begins Jan. 1.

A lot has been said about the law, most of it not that understandable. So starting now, and continuing occasionally through the summer and fall, we're going to try to fix that.

Today is Blumesday. Not the Bloomsday where readers celebrate James Joyce's novel Ulysses — that was Sunday. Today's Blumesday is also a holiday for literature lovers, but of a different sort.

Blumesday creators Joanna Miller and Heather Larimer are writers, and they're pretty well-read. But they were never huge fans of Ulysses. "We sort of self-deprecatingly said, 'Well, the only way we could participate in Bloomsday was if it were Judy Blumesday.' And then the joke turned into, 'Wait, why aren't we doing this?' " Miller explains.

A little more than a year ago, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker survived a recall election after an epic battle with unions that gave him folk-hero status with many conservatives. Some political observers now consider him a presidential contender.

But Walker is downplaying that talk, even as he takes steps that hint at national ambition.

Washington lawyer Clifford Sloan is expected to be President Obama's pick to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, NPR has confirmed.

The Associated Press, which first reported the news, said Sloan will reopen the Office of Guantanamo Closure, which was shut in January. A formal announcement is expected Monday.

Sloan is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP law firm. His bio on the firm's website says:

America's privacy concerns go back to the origins of the country itself.

Long before became known as Will Schuester — the lovable Spanish teacher and show choir director on TV's Glee — Matthew Morrison was dancing and singing, garnering Tony nods for his work on the Broadway stage.

Through it all, there was one song he always kept at the ready: "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady.

Calling it an era of wisdom and moderation, Iran's new president, Hasan Rowhani, vowed to integrate the country back into the international community and asked Western nations to adopt a more "respectful rhetoric" toward Iran.

His triumph Saturday with 18 million votes, slightly over half of the cast ballots, surprised many Iranians who had suspected that the leadership would repeat the controversial elections of 2009 that led to the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. By accepting Rowhani's victory, the regime may be taking a step to restore some of its lost legitimacy.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday defended his order to forcibly evict thousands of anti-government protesters from Istanbul's Taksim Square, saying he had simply carried out his "duty" as the nation's leader.

In a speech to hundreds of thousands of supporters, Erdogan also railed against foreign media coverage and social media amid criticism of his government's handling of the protests, The Associated Press reports.

Pope Francis blessed a thundering parade of thousands of bikers on Sunday as Harley-Davidson riders descended on Rome to celebrate the motorcycle maker's 110^th anniversary.

The Associated Press reports that the Harley's patented super-loud engines nearly drowned out the Latin recitation of "Our Father."

The AP writes:

The World's Smallest Office competition is over. But will the Smoffice create jobs?

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The White House says it's open to "senior-level" talks proposed by North Korea, but only if Pyongyang lives up to its U.N. obligations to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Sunday that North Korea must meet "its obligations to the world." The U.S. will judge Pyongyang by "its actions and not its words," she said.

Earlier Sunday, Pyongyang proposed the high-level discussions with the U.S. just days after its direct talks with rival South Korea fell apart.

Jordan's King Abdullah says his country stands ready to respond to any threat from a spillover of the civil war in neighboring Syria, a day after the U.S. announced it would leave fighter jets and Patriot missiles in his country after joint military exercises end this week.

"If the world does not help as it should, and if the matter becomes a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take the measures to protect the country and the interest of our people," Abdullah said, speaking to graduating military cadets.

Hasan Rowhani's stunning presidential election victory in Iran has opened the door for improved relations with the West, but the U.S. and Israel remain cautious about making progress on their key demand — dismantling Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the international community "must not give in to wishful thinking or temptation and loosen the pressure on Iran for it to stop its nuclear program."