Morning Edition

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he favors keeping all of the Bush-era tax cuts and then adding some more. To pay for these cuts, he would reduce or eliminate some of the tax deductions that many Americans have come to rely on. But his proposals are already facing a lot of resistance.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

Today's shooting in New York City draws special attention because of the location: at the base of the Empire State Building, perhaps the most famous building in New York, one of the most famous buildings in the world. The gunman opened fire there. Several people were shot and wounded. We're getting conflicting accounts of how many, although news photographs from the scene do show a number of people down on the ground.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with condolences to the U.S. Postal Service. The Post Office is stuck with hundreds of millions of stamps bearing the likeness of Homer Simpson. The service predicted the stamps would be twice as popular as Elvis Presley. One billion stamps were printed. Bloomberg reports only 318 million have been sold. An inspector general's report says that kind of overprinting adds to the post office money losses.

DAN CASTELLANETA: (as Homer Simpson) Doh.

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This week the publisher Penguin confirmed it is releasing a book about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The book is called "No Easy Day." And as of this morning, it is number one on Amazon's bestseller list, even though it is not due out until September 11.

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And some other news on this eventful morning. Lance Armstrong says he is no longer fighting the doping case against him. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says as a result the cyclist will be stripped of his seven titles on the Tour de France. NPR's Mike Pesca joined us to talk about it. Good morning.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.

INSKEEP: How did this happen? Did Armstrong effectively admit guilt here by saying he's not fighting the charges?

Brian Baker, 27, is a tennis player from Nashville, Tenn., who's had a Disney-like comeback season after being out of the sport for seven years with injuries. Baker started the season as 458th in the world. He's now 79th after making it to Wimbledon's fourth round. Now, Baker will be playing in his first U.S. Open since 2005.

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NPR's business news starts with a big patent ruling.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: This is a case of Apple against Samsung - and if that sounds familiar, it's because there's more than one patent case here.

While a jury in California deliberates a huge multibillion dollar patent infringement case, which we've been discussing this week, a ruling on a similar case with the same players has been issued today in South Korea.

In a commentary this week on Morning Edition, Frank Deford said the "proof is in the pudding." A listener wrote in to say that keeping proof in a pudding would be messy. The original proverb is: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And what it meant was that you had to try out food to know whether it was good.

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And we are also following a guilty verdict in the case of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. A court in Oslo also declared that he is competent, not insane. And we talked about this with Alan Cowell, a correspondent for the New York Times.

So what does this mean for Breivik?

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Now, the summer blockbuster season at the movies is nearly over, which means some smaller and more independent films are making their way into theaters. Film critic Kenneth Turan saw "Robot and Frank."

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In Tampa, where Republicans are gathering for their convention, Todd Akin has been meeting with supporters, including the Family Research Council, which, like Akin, opposes abortion rights. Connie Mackey heads the council's political action committees.

Mr. Akin, as I'm sure you know very well, as he defended his action, he said he misspoke, but then he said that he had said one word in one sentence on one day that was wrong. Is that all he got wrong?

Talk in Israel of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has reached a fever pitch. Last week brought the news of an alleged "war plan" leaked to a blogger. This week, a well-informed military correspondent in Jerusalem reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "determined" to attack Iran before the U.S. election.