Morning Edition

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Let's turn now to proposed rules to protect patients from abusive debt collection practices, specifically at nonprofit hospitals. The rules come from the Treasury Department. They were required by the 2010 federal health law.

Jenny Gold of our partner Kaiser Health News has more.

JENNY GOLD, BYLINE: When Deb Waldin arrived at the emergency room of Fairview Health Services, a nonprofit hospital system in Minnesota, on a scale of one to 10, she says her pain was a 12.

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Two dozen people on four continents have been charged with trafficking in stolen credit cards and bank account numbers. Eleven of the defendants were arrested in the U.S. They were caught after allegedly using a website set up by the FBI as part of a sting operation.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: FBI officials said the arrests yesterday amounted to the largest coordinated international law enforcement action in history. It involved 13 countries in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia.

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This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

Debby has now weakened from a tropical storm to a tropical depression, but it's still bringing flash floods and the threat of tornadoes to Florida cities, including Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville. Debby first formed in the Gulf of Mexico last weekend. Jessica Palombo of Florida Public Radio has more.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAIN)

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College football fans are belting out a one word chant this morning: Finally. As in finally, there's a post-season playoff at the sport's highest level. Yesterday, a committee of college presidents approved a four-team, three game plan. When it starts in 2014, it'll end major college football's isolation as the only big time team sport that does not decide its championship with a playoff. NPR's Tom Goldman has more.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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A publicity storm from the hacking scandal has shaken media conglomerate News Corp. Now, the company is taking steps to split in two - the smaller newspaper and book publishing arm and the vastly more profitable broadcasting and entertainment side. NPR's David Folkenflik has more.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Newspapers have been News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's first and most enduring love. And of late, they have been his heartache, too.

In advance of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Obama health care law, Renee Montagne talks to Jamal Greene — associate professor at Columbia Law School and former clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens — about how the Supreme Court thinks through momentous cases.

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NPR's business starts with living wills for banks.

The nation's biggest banks are getting ready to file plans with the government for how they would unwind their assets if they were to fail. The plans are called living wills. Regulators want to avoid the type of damage the collapse of Lehman Brothers had on the financial system. Big banks have a July 1st deadline to submit their living wills to the Federal Reserve and FDIC. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

"The election of muslim brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi is another step in the balance of power counter-revolutionary process that many wrongly characterized as a revolution eighteen months ago.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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Over the past 24 hours, the Syrian regime has engaged in escalating fighting with rebel fighters, who took on an elite unit of the army and attacked a pro-Assad television station.

As Allison Aubrey and Dan Charles reported today on Morning Edition, meat has more of an impact on the environment than any other food we eat. That's because livestock require so much more food, water, land, and energy than plants to raise and transport. (Listen to the audio above for their conversation with Morning Edition's Linda Wertheimer.)

Take a look here at what goes into just one quarter-pound of hamburger meat.

In Chicago, a new policy on marijuana possession would mean adults who are caught with a small amount of the illegal drug would receive a fine instead of being arrested.

It's mostly about money and how best to use police resources.

Under current Illinois law, anyone found with less than about 1 ounce of marijuana can be charged with a misdemeanor. If found guilty, they face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Nora Ephron brought us two of the most indelible scenes in contemporary cinema — and they're startlingly different.

There's the infamous "Silkwood shower," from the 1983 movie, with Meryl Streep as a terrified worker at a nuclear power plant, being frantically scrubbed after exposure to radiation.

Then there's the scene in which Meg Ryan drives home a point to Billy Crystal at Katz's Deli, in 1989's When Harry Met Sally. You know — the one that ends with "I'll have what she's having."

Framed in my library is a sketch that LeRoy Neiman dashed off of me on the back of a menu, when he was watching me speak several years ago. LeRoy, who died the other day, was somewhat better known for another sketch, the "nymphette" that has appeared in Playboy since 1955 — but, of course, he's ever famous for simply being our most celebrated sports artist.