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We're going to profile the musician Sia in a moment. But first we have a little music economics courtesy of Taylor Swift. The pop superstar wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal yesterday about the future of the music industry.

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She's optimistic, despite the industry's tumultuous business landscape. According to Swift, however, the value of an album is based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A new study of traffic congestion finds, in the U.S., Honolulu has the worst, followed by Los Angeles. In Europe, Londoners spend more than 83 hours a year in traffic.

But one lucky person could cut that down dramatically. The London Netflix office is hiring a tagger - someone to watch Netflix titles and categorize them as drama or cult sports movies - a job involving a commute to the couch. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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In recent weeks we've been reporting on changes in Cuba. One is Cuba's small but growing private sector. The government is letting entrepreneurs open their own businesses, which leaves many trying to find the goods their customers want. The U.S. trade embargo means you can't just order from a distributor in Florida. But Cubans can still get U.S. goods. NPR's Greg Allen visited stores in the Miami suburb of Hialeah.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: On the map, it's right next to Miami. But culturally speaking, Hialeah is just as close to Havana.

Prisoners who are released invariably make it back to the areas where they came from. Does this have a positive or negative effect on crime? Research triggered by Hurricane Katrina offers insight.

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Brazil faces Germany today in the semi-finals of the World Cup.

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Deep into the tournament, Brazilian fans have developed a game day routine.

INSKEEP: So we present to you now, with NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in Sao Paulo, Brazil's World Cup ritual in four acts.

MONTAGNE: Act one - getting to the game.

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Preliminary results are out for the run-off in Afghanistan's presidential elections. And the winner seems to be former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani. His opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, was considered the front-runner after winning 45 percent of the vote in the first round back in April. Now Ashraf Ghani appears to be winning with almost a million more votes than Abdullah. NPR's Sean Carberry joins us from Kabul. Good morning.

SEAN CARBERRY, BYLINE: Hi, Renee.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Weddings are always a whirlwind - from the engagement to the wedding photos, which for a couple in Saskatchewan, Canada involved a real tornado. As the bride and groom posed for a close-up, down the road from their ceremony a funnel cloud swirled behind them. The tornado touched down far enough behind them that the wedding photographer was able to capture the moment - perhaps the best wedding photo-bomb ever. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Remember that old safety advice - if your fireworks don't go off, lean over the top and shake them. That's a joke but this is not. John Fletcher of Michigan celebrated Independence Day by setting off 10,500 firecrackers attached to his body. He's done this for years. In the past, he's fractured ribs and been knocked unconscious. This year, he only got a bloody nose. Though he admits, he says, he is a little nuts. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Let's take a moment to remember Edward Shevardnazde. He was the foreign minister for the Soviet Union in the 1980s. That means he was one of the faces of the Soviet Union during its final period of reform under Mikhail Gorbachev. When that union broke apart, Shervardnazde became the president of his home republic, Georgia. And he has died at the age of 86. We're going to talk about Shevardnazde with Pavel Palazhchenko. He was an interpreter for both Gorbachev and this Shervardnazde. He's on the line. Welcome to the program.

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And here's our last word in Business today.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A HARD DAY'S NIGHT")

THE BEATLES: (Singing) It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog. It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log.

INSKEEP: You hear the screaming in the background. "A Hard Day's Night" premiered at London's Pavilion Theater on July 6, 1964.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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When investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson left CBS this year, she did not go quietly. She contends, the network refused to run stories that might damage President Obama. And her claims have become a flashpoint in arguments over ideological bias in the media. NPR's David Folkenflik has more.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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Good morning. I'm David Greene. Last year, British graffiti artist Banksy took New York by storm with a month-long guerrilla art campaign. Part of that included putting dozens of his signed, spray-painted works up for sale for just $60 each at an anonymous sidewalk stall. It was not a huge success. Over seven hours, just three people bought eight pieces of art. Now two of those have been sold at auction in London for $215,000, roughly 1,800 times the original price. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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"For most people, this is going to be the most expensive hamburger they've eaten in their life," says economic analyst Joe Deaux of the street.com. Prices are soaring because of the on-going drought.

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China's president is in Seoul to meet his South Korean counterpart. In a not-so-veiled gibe at North Korea, the two leaders repeated their opposition to nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

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OK. I'm fine with that theme you just heard. It begins this segment every morning. But this morning, how about this?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL NIGHT LONG")

LIONEL RICHIE: (Singing) All night long, all night, all night long.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

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And I'm David Greene. Good morning. We begin this hour with more positive signs about the nation's economy. The Labor Department this morning said the U.S. unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in nearly six years last month, and employers added some 288,000 jobs to their payrolls. Here's NPR's Jim Zarroli.

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Sunni militants claimed vast swaths of Iraq last month, thanks largely to the collapse of the Iraqi army.

But three weeks later, the army has been able to win back some territory. The gains come after a call to arms by Shiite religious leaders in the holy city of Najaf, where deep emotion and symbolism are inspiring Shiite volunteers.

Najaf is home to the ancient Valley of Peace cemetery, which seems crowded. Miles of desert stretch under blistering sun, the gilded domes of mausoleums pressed up against the dusty headstones of the ordinary dead.

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Now let's get one more perspective on a deeply polarized debate, a debate set off by this week's Supreme Court ruling in a case brought by the craft store chain Hobby Lobby. The court found that some business owners with religious objections to contraceptives cannot be required to provide them to their employees with their health insurance plans. But does that ruling end there? Our Steve Inskeep digs deeper into what's fueling this debate.

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And our Last Word In Business today is, if they won.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RULE, BRITANNIA!")

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Imagine an America where trucks are called lorries, garbage cans are bins.

GREENE: Taxicabs are black, elevators are lifts, and English muffins are, well, just muffins.

MONTAGNE: That's the idea behind, If We Won. It's a cheeky, new advertising campaign from Newcastle Brown Ale. It envisions what the United States would be like if Britain had won the Revolutionary War.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. Ukraine wants its dolphins back. It seems when Russia invaded the Ukrainian nation of Crimea, it also seized Ukraine's military dolphins. Those dolphins were trained to detect mines and enemy divers. Now they're under Russian control. A Russian news site reports Ukraine is demanding Russia return the dolphins as it has other military equipment. But Russia is saying nyet, the dolphins are in the navy now - the Russian Navy. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.