Morning Edition on Four Corners

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Changes in the health insurance industry are at the top of NPR's business news.

The giant insurance company Aetna plans to get a little bigger. It's buying Coventry Health Care for more than $5.5 billion. Now, if you want to know why, consider the changing landscape in which Aetna does business. Medicaid is expanding under President Obama's health care law, Medicare is expanding as Americans grow older, and those government-run plans include many opportunities for private insurance companies.

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And let's talk about one more bright spot in the American economy - anything that is wrapped in bacon.

Today's last word in business is the double bacon corn dog.

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Yeah. Vendors at the Iowa State Fair delighted - or disgusted - consumers when deep-fried butter made its debut last year. Well, this year, Campbell's Concessions took a hotdog, wrapped it in bacon, dipped it in corn batter, which is infused with even more bacon, and they dropped it, where else, into a deep fryer.

(LAUGHTER)

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For the residents of Janesville, Wisconsin, Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate was a story of a local man becoming the biggest news in the country. But for the librarians of Janesville, it meant something else entirely, as NPR's Don Gonyea found out last week.

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India's government has persuaded companies to shut down more than 150 websites. Authorities blame those sites for circulating claims that led to panic. The claims fueled fears of violence during the Muslim festival of Eid. NPR's Julie McCarthy reports.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm David Greene.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Next week, Mitt Romney's campaign seeks to introduce Paul Ryan again. Even before the selection of the Republican vice presidential choice, President Obama's campaign had been working to define Ryan as extreme on issues from Medicare to abortion. What happens next week is that Romney and Ryan take the stage at the Republican National Convention, one of several things that will happen there.

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Let's listen to the words that made Todd Akin a lot more famous over the weekend. The Republican congressman from Missouri is running for United States Senate. He was probably no better known nationally than the average Senate challenger until he gave an interview to St. Louis TV station KTVI. He was asked why he opposes abortion in nearly all cases, including rape.

American is currently seeking to cut costs in bankruptcy protection so the flight attendants' union pushed hard for this vote — warning that rejecting the contract could mean even deeper cuts or furloughs. The company's trying to cut about a billion dollars in labor costs. Mechanics and other union workers had previously accepted new contracts but pilots rejected American's latest offer earlier this month.