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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. We begin this hour with the drought and how it could affect your grocery bill. Today, the U.S. Agriculture Department designated 76 more counties as disaster areas because of the drought and excessive heat. And it said that severe drought will likely affect prices for corn and other field crops, although it's too soon to know how much prices will go up.

President Obama's speech to the National Urban League conference in New Orleans on Wednesday night coincides with a debate over the role of government in helping small businesses succeed.

Some black Americans say they have an especially hard time when it comes to owning and operating their own businesses.

On the northern edge of New Orleans' French Quarter, Shaka Zulu and his wife, Na'imah, are trying desperately to protect a slice of local culture that sometimes gets lost here.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on Capitol Hill Wednesday to talk about the implementation of Dodd Frank. But the questions focused on why the New York Fed, under Geithner, didn't act more aggressively when it first learned about possible manipulation of a key interest rate.

Sandy I. Weill, the former Citigroup CEO who helped usher in the era of super banks, said during an interview with CNBC today that big banks should be split up.

We've taken a look at government spending in a few different ways lately, including the posts 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph in May, and, more recently, Dissecting Federal Spending With An Eye On Cuts.

A fierce drought has been scorching crops this summer, but it's still too soon to know exactly how much of a hole it will burn in your wallet.

Taxes may be certain, but growth and job creation aren't.

As the U.S. edges closer to a year-end "fiscal cliff," Democrats and Republicans haven't budged in their fight over expiring tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — and how best to help the middle class and get the country back to work.

New York City held its first and only public hearing on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on super-sized sodas Tuesday. One critic of the ban said a lazy lifestyle contributes to obesity just as much as soda; a supporter said he lost 50 pounds by cutting out sugary drinks. The health board will vote on the ban in September.

The gross domestic product fell seven-tenths of a percent from the first quarter — much more than expected, and the most in three years. Output shrank in part because of unusually rainy weather and the extra public holiday because of the Queen's Jubilee.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Millions of people lost power in the Derecho storm that lashed the mid-Atlantic last month, and a big reason for that was trees falling on power lines. Utility companies have been criticized for that. So some have been aggressively removing trees to prevent future damage and they're getting criticized for that, too, as Sacha Pfeiffer of member station WBUR reports.

SACHA PFEIFFER, BYLINE: There's a strange site rolling through Boston's suburbs lately. It's called a Brontosaurus, and it's a massive tree-cutting machine.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Today, we conclude our series about an attempt to diversify Silicon Valley. It's called NewME, which stands for New Media Entrepreneurship. Seven entrepreneurs, women and African-Americans, are getting a crash course on how to launch a start-up. And as Amy Standen from member station KQED reports, one of them is getting more attention than he bargained for.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Also disappointing, Apple's earnings report yesterday. Wall Street was underwhelmed.

And as NPR's Steve Henn reports, Apple's shares fell more than 5 percent.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Apple brought in $35 billion in revenue, but the company still managed to disappoint Wall Street analysts, like Walter Piecyk at BTIG.

WALTER PIECYK: Apple missed on iPhones - they only sold 26 million. The street was expecting much more.

Apple reported its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, and depending how you look at it, they're either amazing or disappointing.

The company says it made $8.8 billion in profits over the course of three months. That's more than enough to buy every share of Alcoa, the global aluminum giant, which was worth just under $8.6 billion when the stock market closed this afternoon.