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When 21-year-old Kevin Smith decided he wanted to be a filmmaker, his sister gave him some advice: "Don't say you want to be a filmmaker; just be one." So he did. He made his first film, Clerks, on a shoestring, shooting at the convenience store where he worked.

One of the defining elements of the 2012 presidential campaign is money. Not that the candidates themselves have raised all that much; except for President Obama, they haven't. But two dozen wealthy Americans have put in at least $1 million each.

Mostly, they're a mix of Wall Street financiers and entrepreneurs. One of the biggest donors is Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate who is worth about $25 billion.

Don Draper, the main character on the hit TV show Mad Men, is said to have been inspired by a real Madison Avenue ad man: George Lois. Lois was a leader in the "Creative Revolution" in advertising during the 1950s, and became one of the most influential art directors in advertising history. His work helped make brands like Xerox, Lean Cuisine and Jiffy Lube famous. Lois is perhaps best known for creating iconic Esquire magazine covers, many of which now reside in the Museum of Modern Art.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with Apple's giant pile of money.

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INSKEEP: The maker of iPads, iPhones and computers is sitting on almost one hundred billion dollars in cash and securities. And today, Apple announced that it will spend some of that money paying a stock dividend to shareholders and buying back some company stock. NPR's Steve Henn has been following developments, and joins us on the line from Silicon Valley. Steve, good morning.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Good morning.

Four years since they first began making music together, the Brooklyn-based duo Tanlines is finally releasing an album: Mixed Emotions, out tomorrow. The band is Eric Emm, who sings and plays guitar, and Jesse Cohen, who plays drums, keyboards and an assortment of electronic instruments. Cohen is also the chattier of the two.

"We use a lot of different drum kits that are in a computer," Cohen explains. "We also play a lot of stuff live, and a lot of time you can't really tell which is real and which is fake. That's sort of a thing that we like to play with."

The student government at the University of California, Irvine voted Thursday night to call for the resignation of Dr. Hazem Chehabi, who is the chairman of its school's foundation. He also serves as the Syrian consul general in California. He is a personal friend of Syria's dictator Bashar Assad.

If you're trying to determine whether the ground chuck you buy in the grocery store contains so-called pink slime, or lean beef trimmings, you won't find it on the ingredient list. "It's not required to be labeled," explains Don Schaffner, a food scientist at Rutgers University.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Jiro Ono, 85, owns a small sushi restaurant in a Tokyo subway station. The 10 seats at the sushi bar require reservations months in advance. In the new movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, director David Gelb explores the chef's relationships with his sons and the art of sushi-making. Gelb talks to Renee Montagne about Ono's story.

The Department of Agriculture has announced it would give schools the choice to order ground beef that does not contain Pink Slime — otherwise known as lean beef trimmings. But beef trimmings aren't just found in school lunches.

In NCAA men's basketball action Thursday night, Iowa State defeated the the University of Connecticut 77-64. The Huskies were last year's champions. Also, VCU beat Wichita State 62-59 to advance to weekend play.

The Taliban has announced it is suspending peace talks with the U.S. At the same time, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded the U.S. pull troops out of rural areas by next year following a deadly shooting spree by an American soldier. These signals have come at an already difficult time for the U.S. in Afghanistan and further complicate the U.S. exit strategy.

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep talks to Francisco Goldman, of The New Yorker, about his article "Children of the Dirty War.'" More than 30 years ago in Argentina, children were stolen from their birth parents. it was a terror campaign waged by the military junta against members of the opposition.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The Israeli film "Footnote" has racked up a pile of awards - Best Screenplay at Cannes, nine awards at Israel's Oscars, and a nomination for Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards.

Film critic Kenneth Turan says it's all deserved.

KENNETH TURAN: "Footnotes"'s subject matter sounds dry, unlikely, even obscure. The film is set in Jerusalem's Hebrew University and deals with the implacable rivalry between two scholars of the Talmud, the complex and sacred text of the Jewish religious tradition.