Ratings agencies Standard & Poor's and Moody's both have warned that they might downgrade the United States' AAA bond rating if a deal between the White House and Congress on raising the debt ceiling isn't reached before an Aug. 2 deadline. NPR asked a trio of economists what it would mean if the bonds were downgraded. The economists are Edwin Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington; Gregory Dago, principal U.S.

Lincoln County Jailer David Gooch is going after those he claims have defamed him by posting unkind and untrue comments about him anonymously on the gossip website Topix. Gooch filed a lawsuit in Lincoln Circuit Court alleging “unknown defendants intentionally and maliciously published statements on the website Topix with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statements.” The “false statements” injured Gooch’s personal and professional reputation and caused severe emotional distress, humiliation and embarrassment, the lawsuit maintains.

Cholera is back in Haiti.

More than 700 Hitachi employees, including upper management from Japan and across the country, attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday in honor of the company's expansion, which will create 145 new jobs over the next three years. Harrodsburg's Hitachi plant already employs 2,000 workers. Gov. Steve Beshear was on hand in September when the company broke ground for the $48 million project.

Tickets in one hand, wands in the other - both at the ready. Roughly 1,500 fans attended the midnight screening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2,” the last in the movie series, at the Great Escape Theaters’ Bowling Green 12 today. The theater showed “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1” at 9 p.m., followed by the sold-out midnight showing of “Part 2” on every screen in the theater.

Kentuckians are getting fatter. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact, according to the latest study of obesity rates in the United States by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Kentucky ranked sixth in the nation in the 2010 study with 31.5 percent of all adults being obese, up from 29 percent from a similar study conducted in 2009. The obesity rate for Kentucky high school students also rose, going up 2 percent, to 17.6 percent from 15.6 in 2009.

We began the day noting that one of Rupert Murdoch's own publications was describing him as "defiant" in the face of the snooping scandal that has engulfed some of his News Corp. newspapers in the U.K.

President Obama and House Republicans have clashed in negotiations over how — or whether — to raise the federal borrowing limit, known as the debt ceiling. Obama had a news conference Friday, his second this week to discuss the spending cuts and revenue increases he thinks are needed to fix the problem. Mary Louise Kelly talks with NPR's Brian Naylor about the news conference and the partisan battle.

After cycling 152.5 kilometers (or 94.7 miles) from Pau to Lourdes, Norway's Thor Hushovd crossed the finish line in triumph on the 13th stage of the Tour de France. Hushovd picked off Frenchman Jeremy Roy near the end and beat the peloton by nearly nine minutes.

The overall leader remains Thomas Voeckler, with eight of the Tour's 21 stages to go. The 98th edition of the race ends on July 24th in Paris.

The Barbershop guys weigh in on the News Corps phone hacking scandal, the Roger Clemens case, and the relevance of "Boyz N the Hood" as it celebrates its 20th anniversary. Host Michel Martin speaks with author Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar, syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette and NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik.