Morning Edition

It sounds like a typical American success story: A young boy becomes an academic standout, an Eagle Scout and high school valedictorian. Later, he attends college and then law school, all on full scholarships.

But Jose Godinez-Samperio's story is not typical. He's an undocumented immigrant from Mexico — and now he's fighting to be admitted to the Florida bar.

Godinez-Samperio was just 9 years old when he came to the U.S. with his parents. They entered the country legally, but overstayed their visas and settled in the Tampa area.

Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, tells us what she's been reading in a feature that Morning Edition likes to call "Word of Mouth." This month, Brown selects two recent pieces of news commentary and a memoir on political resistors.

A Son's Plea For A Dissident Father

Maurice Sendak, the well-known children's book author and illustrator, has died. He was 83. Sendak is widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are. Steve Inskeep has this remembrance.

The joint venture will create a multi-platform news service for English-speaking Hispanics. The venture will feature a 24/7 cable channel, as well as digital media platforms.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Israel's prime minister has formed a national unity government. Like all Israeli leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu leads a coalition government in parliament. He needs to put together multiple parties to have a majority. And by adding the centrist Kadima party to his side, Netanyahu increases his support and avoids the possibility of having to call an early election. NPR's. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro joins us on the line from Israel to tell us what it all means. Lourdes, hi.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: Hi.

Bank of America is offering about 200,000 homeowners a chance to wipe out a big chunk of their mortgage debt. The offers are part of the settlement Bank of America and other major banks reached with state and federal regulators earlier this year, and it's one of the biggest principal forgiveness opportunities so far.

Opposition politicians in Pakistan are calling for the prime minister to step down. The country's Supreme Court convicted him of contempt for refusing to re-open a corruption case against the president.

The resignation came after shareholder's rejected an $8 million pay package for Andrew Moss. Aviva is the fourth major British company in recent weeks to have executive pay rejected by shareholders.

The elections in France and Greece signaled a resounding popular rejection of the tough austerity measures being pushed by Germany, Europe's largest economy. But Berlin doesn't appear to be changing course.

The arguments for growth policies as opposed to austerity are taking center stage in Europe after the French and Greek elections.

His rhetoric aside, France's President-elect Francois Hollande is not rejecting austerity. In fact, he pledged to balance France's budget by the end of his five-year term, just one year later than his opponent, outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Facebook started what's called a "road show" this week, pitching itself to potential big investors across the country. It's one of the last steps before a company goes public — which Facebook reportedly plans to do next Friday.

But that pitch has to be very carefully calibrated — as you can tell from all the warning language that precedes it on Facebook's road show website.