Morning Edition

The Mars rover Curiosity is exploring the surface of the Red Planet in the Gale Crater, and it is also tweeting about its mission. The rover has a distinct personality, albeit one made by the strokes on a keyboard from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif.

A Senate panel found last year that Goldman Sachs marketed four sets of complex mortgage securities to banks and other investors, but failed to tell clients the securities were very risky. The Justice Department said the "burden of proof to bring a criminal case" could not be met.

The allegations this week against London-based Standard Chartered Bank raise questions, not just about the bank's viability but also about the efficacy of U.S. laws when it comes to foreign banks. Standard Chartered allegedly violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, and regulators said the bank's executives lied to investigators as part of a cover-up.

The case serves as yet another reminder that U.S. regulations, which have strengthened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, apparently did not deter foreign banks from laundering money through their U.S. operations.

The Mars rover Curiosity is beginning its fifth day on the red planet, and it's been performing flawlessly from the moment it landed.

That's been especially gratifying for NASA landing engineer Adam Steltzner. Last Friday, while Steltzner was still on pins and needles waiting for the landing to take place, I told the story of Steltzner's decision as a young man to give up his life as a rocker and go for a career in space engineering.

Zoe Chace and Robert Smith are reporting from European borders this week. This is the third story in a four-part series.

The eurozone was supposed to create one big labor market by making it easy to cross borders for work.

But Gerhard Wiegelmann, a CEO in Stuttgart, Germany, can't find enough workers to staff his company — even with unemployment in Spain over 20 percent. He's had to turn down projects because he can't hire enough people.

The tragic shooting at a Sikh house of worship in Wisconsin this month has turned the spotlight on the Sikh faith and the nation's Sikh community.

Earlier this year, Surinder Singh and his son Rupinder visited a StoryCorps booth in San Francisco, where they reflected on their own experiences standing out among their peers and neighbors.

Both practicing Sikhs, Surinder and Rupinder wear turbans, and maintaining that tenet of their faith has made for some difficult experiences.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NBC's coverage of the London Olympics is a ratings hit, which can present a problem for other networks looking to lure viewers, especially those dedicated to broadcasting sports.

John Ourand is a media reporter for Sports Business Daily and he's been checking to see what else is on.

More than 20 percent of online retailers have referred to the Olympics in their promotional materials in recent weeks. But unless they're official sponsors, they can't directly use trademarked Olympic symbols or even the word Olympics. So many have had to get creative, using language such as "go for the gold," "podium" or "world-class" to catch the attention of fans.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

At the London Summer Olympics, it's one star-studded 200-meter race down and one to go - today. American Allyson Felix won the women's 200 last night and was part of a U.S. track and field medal-winning binge. The Americans took seven medals at Olympic Stadium, helping push the Americans past arch-medal rival China in the overall race.

Not that anyone's counting, right, Tom Goldman?

Conservative men from many religions demand that women dress modestly so the men can avoid feeling tempted. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Israel are selling special glasses that blur men's vision so they can't see women clearly.

U.S. gymnast McKayla Maroney was disappointed when she took silver in the Olympic vault competition. A photographer snapped her wearing the medal around her neck and a big scowl on her face. That photo has now been Photoshopped on to all sorts of other pictures on the Internet.