Morning Edition

Federal food regulators are backing off of proposed changes to what craft brewers can do with the leftover grains from the beer making process.

Craft brewers in New York have said the proposal would hurt their businesses.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) had called for the Food and Drug Administration to abandon the change. He announced Thursday FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg agreed to revise the rule to avoid "unintended consequences" that would harm brewers and farmers.

Brewers provide spent grain to dairy farmers as a low-cost or free source of cow feed.

The Oswego City School Board has passed its budget for next year, but parents and students from one school aren't happy with it.

The $79.9 million budget eliminates about 28 positions, ranging from teachers and coaches, to mechanics and custodians. It reduces other spending by more than $500,000 and increases the school tax four percent. It also postpones a voter proposition to borrow money for new buses. The cuts fill a $1.7 million budget gap, and leaves some funds in reserve for the future.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.

Amsterdam is not quite the wide-open city you thought it was. Prostitution is legal in the Netherlands, and nobody prosecutes the possession of small amounts of marijuana. It's sold openly in shops. The mayor, though, wants to prevent you from doing those two things together. A court has upheld his effort to ban marijuana cafes within the Red Light District. So, it does not matter what you do in Amsterdam, but it does matter where you do it.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo gathered local leaders from around the state to talk about reaction to past storms, and to plan for future ones.

Cuomo invited government leaders from Long Island, the North Country, central New York and other locales that experienced damage from Hurricanes Irene, Lee and Sandy. They gathered to praise their past efforts to react to the storms, and to report on the steps they are taking to prepare for future disastrous weather events.

A spate of heroin overdoses last week in Syracuse has created a more urgent tone for one community organization’s program meant to fight overdoses. The Opioid Overdose Prevention Program run by ACR Health in Syracuse hopes to prevent stories like this in the future.

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And today's last word in business is: SuperShoes.

This new high-tech offering is not exactly footwear. SuperShoes are squishy insoles that fit inside your shoes.

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And inside those insoles are vibrotactile ticklers that are linked to your mobile device. You enter a destination and apparently these ticklers will guide your way, with a tickle to the left or a tickle to the right.

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The CIA is ramping up a program to ship arms to rebels in Syria - more powerful weapons than in the past. The United States had resisted this step until now. We're learning about it from NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman who's in our studios once again. Tom, good morning.

TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: What kind of weapons are we talking about here?

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

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And I'm David Greene. Good morning. President Obama is on the first leg of a four-country trip to Asia and today he reassured Japan that the U.S. will defend it in territorial disputes with China. China is not on the president's itinerary this time, but that country looms large over the trip all the same. NPR's Anthony Kuhn joins us from Seoul, which is the president's next stop. Anthony, good morning.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Good morning, David.

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OK, we know mom and pop shops have been struggling for some time now, trying to compete against big-box stores and online retailers. Just in the last quarter, online sales jumped by 16 percent. But all is not lost for the shop around the corner. Some small retailers are actually embracing their size by making their businesses very, very specialized.

Here's NPR's Sonari Glinton.

(SOUNDBITE OF A CROWD)

There’s more urgency now than ever for New York state residents to dispose of certain electronic equipment. That’s why e-waste was emphasized in one central New York community on Earth Day this year.
 

Starting in 2015, you won’t be able to dump old TVs or computer monitors in any New York state landfill. Madison County has a head start, with a ban in place for several years now, and has been shipping these TVs to a Rochester-area recycler. But Madison County Landfill Director James Zecca says they’ll still feel an impact.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Some stores post a warning: Disobedient children will be given and a puppy and an espresso. Maybe that's not so bad. Kids at a Melbourne, Florida elementary school were given caffeine. Each kid was offered trail mix and Mountain Dew on the morning of standardized tests. A grandmother got the school to stop, but the principal says she read a study on keeping kids' energy levels stable. By the way, Creole Elementary is rated an A+ school. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Winnie the Pooh is often found head-first in a jar of honey. For a bear in Canada, birdseed was too much to resist. Residents in Sudbury, Ontario spotted a bear stumbling down the street, unable to see where it was going, because a large jar of birdseed was stuck on its head. It even bumped into a police car. The cops, you will be happy to know, got experts there to sedate the bear and cut the jar off its head.

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A new poll finds that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is still feeling the fallout from the demise of his Moreland Commission, a panel that was investigating corruption in the legislature. Cuomo disbanded the commission as part of the state budget deal.

The Siena poll finds Cuomo’s decision to end the Moreland Commission, in the midst of a corruption probe, doesn’t sit well with voters. Since the budget was settled, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has said he’ll continue with the investigations, and has asked for and received all of the paperwork on the probes.

Cornell University’s state-of-the-art particle accelerator won’t face a loss of funding for the next few years at least. The National Science Foundation will spend $100 million to keep the synchrotron running.

Cornell’s High Energy Synchrotron Light Source, or CHESS, is one of only two of its kind in the United States. CHESS uses high intensity x-ray and radiation to test hypotheses in physics, biology, and chemistry.

The lab will now receive $100 million over the next five years.

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Our last word in business is: Veggie Ice Cream.

Japanese parents trying to get their kids to eat vegetables can skip to desert.

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Haagen-Dazs is testing vegetable-flavored ice cream in Japan. Flavors include tomato cherry and carrot orange.

At preschools in Tulsa, Okla., teachers are well-educated and well-paid, and classrooms are focused on play, but are still challenging. One nonprofit in Tulsa, the Community Action Project, has flipped the script on preschool. The idea behind its Career Advance program is simple: To help kids, the group believes, you often have to help their parents.

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Whether they like it or not, libraries in some cities serve as homeless shelters. People come off the streets to find quiet and warmth. If libraries want to do something about this, they have some choices: They can put homeless visitors back out on the street. San Francisco libraries want to get them back on their feet.

Scott Shafer reports from member station KQED.

Research finds when hospitals initiate rapid response programs to treat stroke victims, response time is cut and fewer patients die. The stroke patients also have fewer significant disabilities.

Steve Inskeep talks to Lee Bollinger, a former president at the University of Michigan, about Tuesday's ruling. Bollinger was president during two earlier landmark affirmative action cases.

Public works crews have already patched 2,000 potholes on Syracuse streets in April, but there are so many more, they now have their own email address.

City officials Tuesday unveiled a new pothole repair truck and called on residents to help report potholes around town. A quarter of those repaired so far came from city complaints, officials said.

Finding more shouldn't be a problem.

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

The Supreme Court this morning, upheld a ban on using racial preferences in admissions to the public universities of Michigan. The ban was enacted by referendum as an amendment to the state constitution in 2006 and struck down by a lower court. Today, the justices voted 6-to-2 to say the federal courts could not do that and the ban had to stand.

The Cortland County clerk’s office has backed out of a pilot run of a re-certification program for gun owners, part of the state’s stricter gun control laws, because it didn’t feel it was getting enough support from the state.

Under a provision of the January 2013 SAFE Act, current pistol permit holders must update their permits by 2018. That means verifying addresses and what weapons are owned.

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

Stop the presses, as they used to say before news was spread by Twitter. You will not be making drinks with powdered alcohol yet. We reported yesterday on plans to sell Palcohol mixed drinks to which, like lemonade, you just add water. Now federal regulators say stop, they were wrong to say Palcohol was ready for market. A federal approval for the label was given in error. The company must have a drink and start again.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

A new poll finds Gov. Andrew Cuomo with a double digit lead against his Republican opponent for the fall elections. But the survey finds that ratio changes if a progressive third party candidate emerges.

About 200 central New York runners marked the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombings last night. The running bond remains strong a year after the bombing that left three people dead and scores injured.

A bagpipe serenaded runners hitting the pavement of Onondaga Lake Park to mark the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings.
 

The federal government spends almost $8 billion on preschool programs across the country, mostly on low income 4-year-olds. States spend billions more. But with at least 30 states planning to expand access to pre-K and President Obama promoting "preschool for all," what constitutes a quality preschool program?

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Since the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, more than 70 measures have gone into effect around the U.S. actually loosening restrictions on guns. And tomorrow the governor of Georgia is expected to sign a bill that will allow gung to be carried in more places. Among those against the gun bill are cities in Georgia concerned about having to spend more on security. Susanna Capelouto has this report.

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Millions of people know the singer Kelis for "Milkshake" - that's her hit from a decade ago. It's the sort of song that nobody really thought was about a milkshake.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MILKSHAKE")

KELIS ROGERS: (Singing) My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and their like, it's better than yours, damn right, it's better than yours. I could teach you, but I'd have to charge. My milkshake...