Morning Edition

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A special odor is added to natural gas. You know that smell meant to warn you of possible trouble? Last weekend New York officials added an odor to mask the odor. They were fixing a pipeline in Harlem and didn't want a flood of 911 calls over gas leaks that weren't considered dangerous because they were in the open. So they masked the smell by adding cinnamon to the gas. We have no word if area coffee shops sold out of rolls. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm David Greene with congratulations to Laura Gramble. She graduated from Indiana University. To celebrate, mom ordered a cake - Indiana red and white with a photo of Laura's face. And one more request, a graduation cap made of icing. The baker evidently misheard and drew a cat, instead, on Laura's head; pink nose, white whiskers. The Gramble laughed it off and kept the cake from the bakery. Laura says they must have thought she was going to become a veterinarian.

Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

On a Tuesday, it's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene.

When the Supreme Court nears the end of a session, you can feel the drama on a day like yesterday. Some big decisions loomed - cases dealing with affirmative action and gay marriage.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

Thirty years ago Tuesday, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. She was aboard the shuttle Challenger. Less than three years later, it would explode on takeoff, killing seven crew members.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news begins with Ben Bernanke's future.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: OK, President Obama has given the clearest hint yet, that Ben Bernanke's time as chairman of the Federal Reserve may soon be up. In an interview that aired last night on PBS's "Charlie Rose" program, the president said this...

(SOUNDBITE OF "CHARLIE ROSE" SHOW)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think Ben Bernanke's done an outstanding job. Ben Bernanke's a little bit like Bob Mueller, the head of the FBI...

CHARLIE ROSE, HOST:

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Some other news. Authorities in New York have announced the arrest of eight men and one woman who operate several 7-Eleven convenience stores in New York and in Virginia. They're accused of staffing their stores with undocumented workers and then stealing those workers' wages.

From member station WNYC, Ilya Marritz has details.

Mary Louise Kelly used to cover the national security beat for NPR, but lately she's turned her attention to teaching and writing fiction. Her new novel, Anonymous Sources, follows rookie journalist Alexandra James as she investigates a shady banana shipment and a clandestine nuclear plot. The tale is fiction, but it draws on Kelly's own experiences reporting on the spy beat, including things she couldn't say when she was a journalist.

The furor over recently exposed government surveillance programs has posed an abundance of political challenges for both President Obama and Congress. Relatively unmentioned in all of this, however, is the role of the courts — specifically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, and how its role has changed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

On a Monday, this is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene. We're reporting this morning on a decision just out from the U.S. Supreme Court. The court tossed out an Arizona law that required proof of citizenship for its voters. In a 7-2 decision the justices said the state's voter-approved Proposition 200 interfered with federal law.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. Mayoral races across Mexico are turning into a zoo. In Xalapa, a cat named Morris is running with the campaign slogan: Tired of voting for rats? Vote for a cat. Candidates in other cities include Chon the Donkey and Tina the Chicken. Now, Morris the cat is in the lead - at least on social media.

He has 115,000 likes on Facebook, more than any of the five human candidates. And to think if he loses, that cat has eight more chances. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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.