Morning Edition

Lynn Neary has the Last Word in business.

Kathy Scruggs of Georgia went to the store to buy a Mega Millions lottery ticket. By mistake, the clerk gave her a ticket for Powerball. Scruggs decided to buy both. The unemployed woman's Powerball ticket was worth more than $15 million.

To celebrate its German roots, residents of Cullman, Ala., usually donned liederhosen and ate bratwurst in. But keeping with Bible Belt values, beer was verboten. This year kegs are being tapped at what had been billed as the world's only dry Oktoberfest.

The Agriculture Department plans to limit potato consumption among schoolchildren to two servings a week. But politicians and farmers in potato-growing states such as Maine say the spud is being unfairly targeted. As it turns out, schoolchildren have strong opinions about potatoes too. Josie Huang of Maine Public Radio reports.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with lawsuits against a big New York bank.

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MONTAGNE: The Bank of New York Mellon is facing two more government lawsuits involving its currency trading business. The suits were filed yesterday by the Manhattan U.S. attorney and New York attorney general. The lawsuits accuse the bank of promising clients, including public pension funds, the best exchange rate, then giving them the worst rate and pocketing the difference.

Israeli chemist Daniel Schectman's discovery of how atoms fit together inside of crystals changed the way chemists look at solid matter.

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LYNN NEARY, host: Samsung says it will file court injunctions in France and Italy to try and block the sale of Apple's latest iPhone, citing patent infringement. Apple unveiled its latest version of the popular smartphone just yesterday. As NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, the new device, called the 4S, didn't make the usual splash.

The Department of Education says that as distance learning has grown so has fraud. An inspector general's report found that scam artists are taking advantage of the popularity of online education to steal federal education money.

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LYNN NEARY, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Lynn Neary. Steve Inskeep is away.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

We're going to hear now about the continuing economic woes of Greece. It's one of the small European Union countries drowning in debt. Today it faces yet another protest. This time, a general strike by workers in the public sector furious about more cuts aimed at them. The pressure to shrink the government payroll is coming from international creditors.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host: The presidency of one of the biggest unions in the country is up for grabs. James Hoffa currently heads the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and he's facing the first challenge by a woman in the Teamsters' 108-year-old history. Sandy Pope is a former truck driver. If she becomes head of the union and its 1.4 million members, her challenge would be to turn around years of declining membership.

NPR's Beenish Ahmed reports.