Morning Edition

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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.

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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.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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

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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...

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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:

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.

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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.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And today's last word in business is home detention.

The story comes to us from New Zealand, where authorities have been locking up some criminals in their homes rather than jail. House arrest is a lot cheaper, but it turns out that serving time at home is not as comfortable as you might think.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

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.