Morning Edition on HPPR

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Stop someone in the street. Ask them about the case of Malala Yousafzai. They will likely know — after the worldwide publicity given to her story — that Malala is the Pakistani teenager who was shot for demanding the right of girls to go to school.

They will surely know, too, that the people who shot Malala in the head from close range were the Pakistani Taliban. They will probably view Malala as the heroine she clearly is. And the Taliban will be seen as the violent fanatics that they surely are.

Microsoft, the company that defined the PC, is still enormously profitable — but not as profitable as it once was.

This week, Microsoft will try to regroup. It is rolling out the largest upgrade of its Windows software in more than a decade. All of this is meant to help the company break into the exploding market for mobile.

While the company still commands a formidable computing empire, it is now under attack.

Microsoft's CEO is Steve Ballmer, a big, bombastic, balding guy. These days he's riled up about Windows 8.

In what may come as a pleasant surprise to people who fear the Facebook generation has given up on reading — or, at least, reading anything longer than 140 characters — a new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project reveals the prominent role of books, libraries and technology in the lives of young readers, ages 16 to 29. Kathryn Zickuhr, the study's main author, joins NPR's David Greene to discuss the results.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Lance Armstrong became a bicycle racing legend when he won every Tour de France from 1999 to 2005. But after what happened today, there will be no official record of all those victories. Cycling's international governing body announced it will not appeal sanctions by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Diet soda. We love it or hate it. But there's no doubt that consumption is on the rise. More Americans than ever are drinking diet colas, along with other zero- and low-calorie alternatives.

While diet drink consumption is up across the entire population — about 1 in 5 of us consume them — it's higher-income, middle-aged women who are most likely to be sipping diet drinks, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In November, Democrats have an uphill battle if they want to try and take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. But one bright spot for the party is the Sixth Congressional District in Maryland. State Democrats redrew the district's boundaries and now it favors their party. And that leaves 10-term Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett in trouble. NPR's Jeff Brady has our story from Hagerstown, Maryland.

A judge in New York City is holding hearings on the controversial NYPD practice known as stop-and-frisk. This case focuses only on stops that take place in privately-owned apartment buildings. It's the first of three major legal challenges to stop-and-frisk to make it to court.

Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN")

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Doctors who specialize in treating infertility are making a big change in their position on a controversial practice. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has concluded that freezing women's eggs to treat infertility should no longer be considered "experimental."

The group plans to officially announce the change on Monday.

Robert Griffo was living the high life at an investment firm on Wall Street when the stock market crashed 25 years ago on Black Monday. Along with the Dow Jones industrial average, Griffo's life tumbled.

Griffo tells StoryCorps he worked with the investment company for 11 years.

"I was making a lot of money," he says. "I used to walk over homeless people at Grand Central Station when they were begging for money, and I'd say, 'You need to get a job.' But I lost myself on Wall Street."

When the market crashed on Oct. 19, 1987, Griffo thought he would be let go.

When our series began yesterday, we brought together five economists from across the political spectrum and had them create a platform for their dream presidential candidate. It's a platform — Get rid of a tax deduction for homeowners!

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Back in the late 1700s, the resentful subjects of France's Marie Antoinette gave her the nickname Madame Deficit. The queen's extravagant lifestyle ended at the guillotine. But she left behind some treasures, including a delicate pair of green and pink silk striped slippers. On the anniversary of her execution this week, they were sold by a Parisian auction house at a price fit for a queen - more than $65,000. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And the Governor is one of many politicians from both parties who we're hearing from in this election season. Was it the town hall or a town brawl? That's what some pundits are asking a day after the very heated second presidential debate, between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Earlier this week, a Japanese company announced a $20 billion bid for a majority stake in Sprint-Nextel, America's third-largest mobile carrier. The deal was launched by the CEO of Softbank - an executive who says he has a 300-year business plan and who is fond of making investments his peers call crazy.

Lucy Craft has this profile.

LUCY CRAFT, BYLINE: In a society where conformity, conservatism and harmony are virtues, CEO Masayoshi Son breaks all the rules, says his biographer, Shinichi Sano.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

A young Bangladeshi man has been charged with conspiring to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commented on the arrest at a press conference last night.

RAYMOND KELLY: This individual came here for the purpose of doing a terrorist act.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Israel's newsstands are looking noticeably less crowded these days, as a crisis in the Israeli press threatens several of the country's oldest publications. Media experts in Israel say that market competition and a tendency to buy political influence through media ownership have crippled Israel's once-thriving newspaper market.

Watching a presidential campaign, it's easy to think that the nation is deeply divided over how to fix the economy. But when you talk to economists, it turns out they agree on an enormous number of issues.

So we brought together five economists from across the political spectrum and had them create their dream presidential candidate. Over the next few days, we'll have a series of stories on our economists' dream candidate. We start this morning with some changes to the tax code.

Former Maine Gov. Angus King is convinced that if the math works out he could be the power broker in the U.S. Senate, the independent candidate whose vote will break the political gridlock in Washington. But first he has some explaining to do.

Everywhere you look right now, it seems like American symphony orchestras are fighting for their lives — strikes, lockouts, bankruptcy. Perhaps the biggest example is the world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra, which is just coming out of its own bankruptcy. Tonight, its new 37-year-old music director takes the podium as the venerable orchestra begins a reboot.