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The Great Gatsby is on the screen again, re-opening the perennial debate about whether or not it is the great American novel. Or was that Huckleberry Finn? Or are we still waiting for the great American novel? Is the title vacant, like most recent Tour de France championships? In the arts, the argument over the great American novel is a rather unusual great fuss about the greatest. In most disciplines there simply doesn't seem to be a passion to constantly assess who's No. 1. Except, except ...

Except in sport.

Across the country, cash-strapped state and local governments are not just cutting services — they're also cutting access to courts. The tip of the iceberg may be small claims courts.

These courts, dealing with disputes involving small sums of money, are the workhorses of the judicial system. There are thousands of such courts across the country, but perhaps nowhere are they being cut more dramatically than in California.

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Lawmakers in Albany tried to continue business as usual in the wake of one of the worst scandals in recent decades, that has overshadowed most other news coming out of the Capitol. Much of this week’s legislative session has been canceled, but politicians who were in town insisted that their agendas are not being derailed.

The post office in Baldwinsville is now named for a fallen Marine born and raised in the town. On Monday, a ceremony was held to dedicate the building.

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Good morning. I'm David Greene. Hipsters: They're known for roasting their own coffee, riding vintage bicycles, listening to vinyl records from obscure bands, and now also for being unpopular. A new report from Public Policy Polling finds only 16 percent of Americans think hipsters are still hip. More than a quarter of those polled said hipsters should have to pay a special tax for being so annoying.

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Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.

Americans have celebrated Charles Ramsey almost every possible way and that includes Stephen Munhollon's tattoo. Ramsey saw trouble at a neighbor's house and rescued the three kidnapped women. Munhollon says he was caught up in the celebration. He's a tattoo artist. Fox 8 in Cleveland says he sat for five hours while another artist tattooed Ramsey's face on the back of his leg. Munhollon says people will ask to have their picture taken next to his calf.

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Now, the murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell is likely to bring more sparks to the already heated abortion debate in Washington and across the nation. Those on both sides of the divide have been gearing up for what comes next. Here's NPR's Julie Rovner.

If the headline caught your eye, here's more good news.

Seven in 10 Latino high school graduates in the class of 2012 went to college, according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

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A Philadelphia doctor who performed late-term abortions is now facing multiple murder convictions and a possible death sentence. A jury found Kermit Gosnell guilty on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies that prosecutors said were delivered alive and then killed. Gosnell was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a female patient. He was acquitted on one count of murder in a fourth abortion.

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This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep, in Washington, with David Greene.

In 2011, Jessica Buchanan was an aid worker in northern Somalia, helping to raise awareness about how to avoid land mines. The north was the relatively safe section of the country; that October, she traveled to the more dangerous southern region for a training. The night before she left, she texted her husband, Erik Landemalm, also an aid worker in Somalia. She asked him a question: "If I get kidnapped on this trip, will you come and get me?"

Last year, almost the entire Michigan apple crop was lost because of 80-degree days in March and then some freezing April nights. This year, the apples are back, but everything always depends on the weather. The state was under a freeze warning Sunday night — a scary prospect if you're an apple grower and your trees have just come into bloom.

In December 1944, the Nazis looked like a spent force: The U.S. and its allies had pushed Hitler's armies across France in the fight to liberate Europe from German occupation.

The Allies were so confident that the Forest of Ardennes, near the front lines in Belgium, became a rest and recreation area, complete with regular USO performances.

For the second time in less than two years, back taxes have been paid on the Hotel Syracuse, effectively scuttling plans for the city of Syracuse to take control of the property, and sell it to a developer. So, city officials are now looking at a "Plan B."

Dairy farms in northern New York and Vermont have faced a major labor shortage, which means that migrant laborers from Mexico and Guatemala are now milking many of the region's cows. But farm country here is not an easy place to be a migrant worker: It's rural, hard to get around, and there's not a big Latino population. But a new law means that migrant workers in Vermont will soon be able to drive legally.

British Prime Minister David Cameron meets at the White House with President Obama on Monday. Steve Inskeep talks to Cameron about the options for dealing with the Syrian conflict.

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Good morning. I'm David Greene. What the mayor of Dorset, Minnesota lacks in experience he makes up for with youthful enthusiasm. Mayor Bobby Tufts is four years old. He won his seat by having his name picked out of a hat. That's an annual tradition for the small town of 22. Mayor Tufts is celebrated in town as a singer, a dancer, and fisherman.

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Etta May Lopez needed help. She wanted to quit smoking. She decided she needed to go someplace where she could not go buy cigarettes. And the place that came to mind was jail. Ms. Lopez says this is the reason she went to a jail, walked up to a Sacramento sheriff's deputy and slapped him in the face. The deputy took her inside the jail where she slapped him again. After pleading no contest to a misdemeanor, she faces 63 smoke-free days.

If you said the "s" word in the ninth century, you probably wouldn't have shocked or offended anyone. Back then, the "s" word was just the everyday word that was used to refer to excrement. That's one of many surprising, foul-mouthed facts Melissa Mohr reveals in her new book, Holy S- - -: A Brief History of Swearing.

David Greene speaks with Jessica Buchanan and her husband Erik Landemalm about their book Impossible Odds. It's the story of Jessica's abduction, along with a fellow aid worker, by Somali pirates in 2011. In the first of the two-part interview, we hear how Jessica was abducted, and how she refused to fall into despair while in captivity.

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On a Monday, it's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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The last time Nawaz Sharif was prime minister of Pakistan, it did not work out so well for him. Sharif won a big election, moved to consolidate his power, and named a new army chief - only to see that same general overthrow him in a coupe in 1999.

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Again and again, President Obama's administration tries to pivot attention toward East Asia. Administration officials believe China and its neighbors are where the economic future lies.

GREENE: And yet it's the Middle East that keeps demanding the president's attention. It brings to mind that line from F. Scott Fitzgerald's: So we beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Google Glass isn't even for sale yet, but it's already facing backlash.

When she was just 6, Emily Gorospe became very tired and sick. The spunky girl, now 8, developed a fever that wouldn't go away, and red blotches appeared across her body.

"She's got so much energy usually," says Emily's mother, Valerie Gorospe. "Just walking from one part of the house ... she was drained." The little girl was also very pale. "She just didn't look like herself," Valerie recalls.

As a Republican senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe was known for her willingness to stand alone. A moderate with independent views, she had substantial influence in the health care debate as both sides vied for her vote. Earlier this year she left the Senate, out of frustration, she says, with the inability to get anything done.

Climate scientists have a good reason to want to get away from it all. To get an accurate picture of the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, you have to find places where the numbers won't be distorted by cities or factories or even lots of vegetation that can have a major local impact on CO₂ concentrations.

Victims of Lyme disease converge on Albany today for an awareness rally meant to focus attention on the tick-borne disease, that can attack a person's skin, nervous system, heart or joints. Over 95,000 cases have been reported to the New York State Health Department since Lyme disease became reportable in 1986, including hundreds in central New York.

As more Americans try to eat healthier, consumers are trying to find out more information about the food they purchase at the grocery store. And that means reading the labels. But terms like "organic" and "all natural" can be confusing. Lorraine Rapp and Linda Lowen, hosts of WRVO's health and wellness program "Take Care," recently spoke to NYU professor of sociology and nutrition, Dr. Marion Nestle about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates food labels and how consumers have demanded changes in those rules.