NPR's Morning Edition

Bank of America is offering about 200,000 homeowners a chance to wipe out a big chunk of their mortgage debt. The offers are part of the settlement Bank of America and other major banks reached with state and federal regulators earlier this year, and it's one of the biggest principal forgiveness opportunities so far.

Beatles tunes are very hard to license — the surviving band members and heirs have been choosy about who can play their songs. AMC's Mad Men made the cut. For a reported $250,000, the show was allowed to pay "Tomorrow Never Knows."

About 20 years ago, a Texas car dealership started a competition: Contestants had to keep one hand on a brand-new, fully loaded truck; the last person standing got to keep it.

It may not seem like a gripping drama, but it was the subject of a 1997 documentary. And now, it's the basis of a musical.

It's called Hands on a Hardbody, and that hardbody is, yes, the truck. At a rehearsal at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, it's on casters so the actors can spin it around the stage.

The 17-inning game went so long, that for the first time since 1925, two Major League teams had non-pitchers on the mound. Baltimore won with pitching from Chris Davis, who's trained to play first base.

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Tax revenue coming from shale, oil, and gas development has many states very happy, but the boom is also putting a strain on regulators. There are not enough of them to inspect all the drilling sites. Colorado, for example, has 17 inspectors for more the 47,000 active oil and gas wells. Kirk Siegler reports from member station KUNC.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Each day, Jim Precobb(ph) of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission logs about 400 miles in his state-owned truck.

JIM PRECOBB: It is absolutely staggering.

In France Sunday, Socialist Francois Hollande defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande has railed against austerity measures and urged national unity.

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One country that's very familiar with economic problems, Greece, held a parliamentary vote yesterday, and austerity-wary voters dealt a devastating blow to both main establishment parties.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports the conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK parties failed even to scrape together the necessary minimum to continue their co-governing coalition.

Yemeni officials have announced that an airstrike in Yemen Sunday killed a top al-Qaida leader. The suspect was on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship.

Vice President Joe Biden said he is "absolutely comfortable" with gay couples who marry getting the same civil rights and liberties as heterosexual couples. President Obama does not publicly support gay marriage.

In past wars, the U.S. practically dismantled its military after the troops came home. But today, says MSNBC News anchor and writer Rachel Maddow, we find ourselves in a state of almost permanent war.

In her new book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, Maddow invokes Thomas Jefferson, pointing out that one of Jefferson's main concerns was the danger of having a large military.

Comics used to be seen as cheap throwaway entertainment for children and teenagers. But over the last few decades, comics have grown up; they're even released in longer formats, on nice paper with hard covers, as graphic novels.

Daniel Clowes is one of the artists cited for turning the form into serious art — in fact, the art has gotten so serious that his work is now in a museum. Clowes is one of the best-known comic artists working today, with two of his books made into Hollywood films: the Academy Award-nominated Ghost World and Art School Confidential.

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OK, so it's still officially spring, but the movie world is kicking off the summer blockbuster season this weekend with a whole lineup of superheroes in Marvel's "The Avengers." Here's film critic Kenneth Turan's review.