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Miracle is the word that comes to Dan Sligh's mind after he and his wife, Sally, survived a plunge off a highway bridge in Washington state on Thursday evening.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene. Some photos on Twitter ended Anthony Weiner's congressional career. The latest online image, not quite as damaging. Weiner launched his campaign yesterday to be mayor of New York City, and a gorgeous city skyline showed up on his homepage: the skyline of Pittsburgh, my home town. I'm honored if the Web designer is impressed with our city's skyline.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

Fracking may have met its match in Germany, where beer makers have lined against it. Fracking, of course, is a way of bringing up natural gas by pumping water and chemicals into the ground. Germany's powerful beer industry is concerned fracking would pollute groundwater. Half of Germany's 1,300 brewers have their own wells and say the pure water is the essence of their famous beers. And if there's one thing Germans take seriously, its beer. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And for the past few months, global stock markets appeared to be on an escalator going up, relentlessly reaching new highs. This week, that ride seems to be over - or maybe not. To find out, we turn, as we often do, to David Wessel, he's the economics editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Good morning.

DAVID WESSEL: Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: David, put the stock markets into perspective for us. Apart from the day-to-day ups and downs, which we have been seeing, how have the markets been doing?

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And our last word in business today, quite a tongue lashing for McDonald's. The company held its annual shareholders meeting in yesterday, and when the floor opened for questions, a nine-year-old girl approached the microphone.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Hannah Robertson spoke loud and clear, saying quote, "there are things in life that aren't fair, like when your pet dies." And she continued, "I don't think it's fair when big companies try to trick kids into eating food."

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

More now, on the new federal health care law. States are preparing for that law to take effect. In California, officials have now unveiled plans and prices from millions of residents who will be using a new health insurance exchange two purchase their coverage next year. This is a key test of the federal health law's ability to draw competitive bids from insurance companies.

Sarah Varney reports.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with a comeback.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MONTAGNE: Procter & Gamble made a surprise announcement last night. It's bringing back its former CEO as the company's new CEO. A.G. Lafley will replace Bob McDonald. Procter & Gamble is behind names like Crest toothpaste and Tide laundry detergent. The 170-year-old company has been struggling to grow in emerging markets. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

As the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring approaches, commentator Miles Hoffman reminds us that — as earthshaking as that infamous debut was — the composer soon branched out into a variety of musical styles that would surprise his fans and critics.

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The Boy Scouts ban on openly gay scouts is coming to an end. That's the result of a vote held today by the leadership of the Boys Scouts of America.

WAYNE PERRY: Our vision is to serve every kid. We want every kid to have a place where they belong, to learn and grow and feel protected.

For the first time in seven years, the U.S. Senate has confirmed a judge to sit on the important federal appeals court for the District of Columbia. The Senate unanimously confirmed Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan on Thursday for the seat previously held by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's wicked, waggish sense of humor — and knowledge of baseball — were on full display Wednesday, when she presided over a re-enactment of Flood v. Kuhn, the 1972 case that unsuccessfully challenged baseball's antitrust exemption.

The event, put on by the Supreme Court Historical Society, took place in the court chamber, and as Sotomayor took her place at the center of the bench, normally the chief justice's chair, she remarked puckishly, "This is the first time I've sat here. It feels pretty good."

The Boy Scouts of America has agreed for the first time to allow openly gay boys as members, but a vote of the organization's National Council left in place a ban on gay Scout leaders.

The Associated Press reports that of the local Scout leaders voting at their annual meeting in Texas, more than 60 percent supported the proposal. The policy change approved by the 1,400-member National Council would take effect Jan. 1, 2014, the organization said.

Unusually warm ocean temperatures and favorable wind patterns mean the Atlantic is likely to see "an active or extremely active" hurricane season this year, say officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency expects between seven and 11 hurricanes and as many as 20 named storms during the 2013 season, which runs from June 1 through November.

Everybody itches. Sometimes itch serves as a useful warning signal — there's a bug on your back! But sometimes itch arises for no apparent reason, and can be a torment.

Think of the itchy skin disorder eczema, or the constant itching caused by some cancers. "A very high percentage of people who're on dialysis for chronic kidney disease develop severe itch that's very difficult to manage," says Dr. Ethan Lerner, an associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Scientists now say they've got a much better clue as to how itch happens.

As predicted, abortion opponents on Capitol Hill are wasting no time in their efforts to turn publicity over the recent murder conviction of abortion provider Kermit Gosnell to their legislative advantage.

Their latest goal: a federal ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversees the branch of the agency that targeted conservative groups, has been placed on administrative leave a day after she refused to answer questions in a congressional probe of the scandal.

Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., says he will leave Congress effective in August to take a senior position at the University of Alabama.

Bonner, who has represented Alabama's 1st District for six terms since 2003, will become vice chancellor of government relations and economic development at Alabama. His sister, Judy Bonner, serves as president of the university.

Quite a few medical school students have something against obese people, and most of those who have such a bias are unaware of it.

That's the conclusion of study appearing in the July issue of Academic Medicine. It was conducted at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. The study's author says the subconscious judgments could affect how patients are treated.

During his time as the first black president in the White House, President Obama has occasionally been criticized by a group he once belonged to as a U.S. senator — the Congressional Black Caucus — for not doing more to ameliorate the difficult lives of many African-Americans.

The local food movement has a powerful new poster girl.

More glowing than American Gothic, Oprah Winfrey and her pal, Bob Greene, appear on the cover of the June issue of The Oprah Magazine, standing in what looks to be a field of kale.

"Oprah's New Farm!" reads the headline splashed across the pair's checkered shirts. "How She's Growing Healthier — and You Can Too."

The state of Texas is turning down billions of federal dollars that would have paid for health care coverage for 1.5 million poor Texans.

By refusing to participate in Medicaid expansion, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, the state will leave on the table an estimated $100 billion over the next decade.

Texas' share of the cost would have been just 7 percent of the total, but for Gov. Rick Perry and the state's Republican-dominated Legislature, even $1 in the name of "Obamacare" was a dollar too much.

Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. search for a coherent counterterrorism strategy has revolved around three basic questions:

1. How do we locate suspected terrorists?

2. Once located, how do we go after them?

3. If captured, what do we do with them?

In a major speech at the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday, President Obama addressed all three questions that have been the source of shifting policies and fierce national debates for over a decade.

The tornado that devastated Moore, Okla., Monday destroyed some 12,000 homes, according to Oklahoma City Police. And for one family, it was the second house they've lost to a tornado in the past 14 years. Rena and Paul Phillips say that the recent loss won't make them move.

The Phillipses told their story to Rachel Hubbard of Oklahoma member station KOSU, who reports on how they're coping with the loss — and the search for belongings in the rubble of their home — for Thursday's All Things Considered.

It's not every day that a 9-year-old girl chastises the CEO of one of the world's biggest fast-food chains.

Yet that's exactly what young Hannah Robertson did Thursday morning at McDonald's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago. When the meeting opened up to questions, Hannah was first up at the mic with a pointed criticism.

"It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time," she told McDonald's CEO Don Thompson.

Ouch.