Morning Edition on WAMC

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died over the weekend at the age of 82. Steve Inskeep talks to Neil Degrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, about Armstrong's impact on space exploration.

John Walker Lindh was a middle-class kid in Northern California who converted to Islam and went to travel the world. U.S. authorities eventually captured him in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, when he was allegedly fighting alongside the Taliban.

His story was the focus of a Law and Order episode, and a song called "John Walker's Blues" by Steve Earle.

For the past five years, Lindh has been living in a secret prison facility in Indiana with convicted terrorists, neo-Nazis and other inmates who get special monitoring.

After a month-long offensive in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, rebels are struggling under a fierce counter offensive by the Syrian military and the outcome is far from clear. But the future of Aleppo, the country's financial hub, is already under discussion in secret meetings on the Turkish border.

Over cups of sweat tea in a Turkish border hotel, Moeihmen Abdul Rahman, a lawyer from Aleppo, sits down for his first meeting with Abu Riad, a commander from the Al Tawheed brigade, a coalition of rebel militias leading the assault on Aleppo.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says he favors keeping all of the Bush-era tax cuts and then adding some more. To pay for these cuts, he would reduce or eliminate some of the tax deductions that many Americans have come to rely on. But his proposals are already facing a lot of resistance.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

Today's shooting in New York City draws special attention because of the location: at the base of the Empire State Building, perhaps the most famous building in New York, one of the most famous buildings in the world. The gunman opened fire there. Several people were shot and wounded. We're getting conflicting accounts of how many, although news photographs from the scene do show a number of people down on the ground.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with condolences to the U.S. Postal Service. The Post Office is stuck with hundreds of millions of stamps bearing the likeness of Homer Simpson. The service predicted the stamps would be twice as popular as Elvis Presley. One billion stamps were printed. Bloomberg reports only 318 million have been sold. An inspector general's report says that kind of overprinting adds to the post office money losses.

DAN CASTELLANETA: (as Homer Simpson) Doh.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

A year after Hurricane Irene tore through farms from North Carolina to Vermont, some farmers are still grappling with the aftermath.

An early spring followed by cold snaps, a dry summer and an expected spike in feed costs from the drought in the Midwest have added to some farmers' woes.

But officials say growers are optimistic about the season.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture paid farmers nearly $80 million for insurance claims covering storm-damaged farmland in nine Northeast states.

A small liberal arts college in western Massachusetts is offering a new scholarship to illegal immigrants.

Hampshire College officials say the endowment and scholarship will finance one student's education every four years. The student will get at least $25,000 in scholarship annually, beginning this fall.

College spokeswoman Elaine Thomas on Thursday declined to identify this year's recipient, citing federal student privacy rules.

An estimated 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate from American high schools each year. Five to 10 percent of them apply for college.

Roads maintained by Ulster County will not be treated with brine used from fracking wastewater.  County Executive Michael Hein signed legislation Thursday at the county highway garage in New Paltz banning the brine from being used on county roads.

The byproduct of fracking will not be used on our roadways,” said Hein. “The truth is that the environmental costs are off the charts. Their bargain is bad and the price is too high.”

County Legislator Kenneth Wishnick, a New Paltz Democrat, introduced the legislation.