Steve Inskeep has business news.

Steve Inskeep talks to NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who is in southern Sudan, which becomes the world's newest nation on July ninth. It comes six years after a peace deal that ended a two-decade civil war between Sudan's north and south.

Elections in Thailand produced the country's first female prime minister on Sunday. Yingluck Shinawatra, 44, is a businesswoman with no political experience other than her carefully stage-managed election campaign.

Yingluck's real test will be to make peace with a political establishment and military that deposed her brother former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup five years ago.

In Syria, the city of Hama has been the scene of the largest anti-government protests in the country.

Rallies have often been met with armed retaliation by security police. That didn't happen at Friday's mass rally, and the city's governor was fired. There were reports of tanks advancing on the city.

Hama is a sensitive place. Thirty years ago, the Syrian army crushed an Islamist rebellion there, killing tens of thousands.

Now, a new generation is on the streets, demanding democracy.

A Coming Backlash?

Visually impaired Kentuckians face obvious obstacles.  Adding to the potential problems is access to technology and transportation. Cora McNabb of the state Office for the Blind says they’re likely to re-appear on the next needs assessment.

In 1971, at Stanford University, a young psychology professor created a simulated prison. Some of the young men playing the guards became sadistic, even violent, and the experiment had to be stopped.

The results of the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that people tend to conform — even when that means otherwise good people doing terrible things. Since then, the experiment has been used to help explain everything from Nazi Germany to Abu Ghraib.

On Monday, New York's Coney Island will host Nathan's Famous annual hot dog eating contest. The contest is in its 96^th year.

But, the origin of the popular summer food is still cloudy.

Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the online magazine Visual Thesaurus, says there are a lot of myths about the name 'hot dog.' One is about a New York Evening Journal cartoonist, Tad Dorgan.

A very small number of Americans are now serving in the military — less than 1 percent. Some are looking for direction; others are inspired by a sense of patriotism or by a family member who served in an earlier war. In the series Who Serves, NPR looks at the soldiers that made a decision few others today have — to fight in America's wars.

Private First Class Dave Kroha from Cromwell, Conn. is a lanky 23-year-old stuffed into the back of an armored vehicle that rumbles along a dusty road in Afghanistan. His wire-rimmed glasses are held together by tape.

Twenty-three years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence.

It was 235 years ago this Monday that church bells rang out over Philadelphia, as the Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Below is the original text of the Declaration, alongside photos of the NPR staff members and contributors who performed the reading.

Declaration Of Independence

Everybody knows that Iowa is the corn-growing capital of America. Agriculture is king.

And that means a top item on your campaign itinerary has to be the annual Iowa State Fair.

Some will check out the hog-calling contest. Then, they'll hit the midway and try out the fairgrounds delicacies — something deep-fried and served on a stick. And they'll drop by a booth run by the Des Moines Register, where they'll stand among the bales of hay and make a short, impromptu speech, as Hillary Clinton did four years ago: