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A moment ago we heard warnings that Todd Akin will lose financial support if he stays in the race. For a campaign, of course, money is like oxygen, and the presidential campaigns have set out their latest reports on how they're breathing. President Obama and Mitt Romney each have an advantage, depending on which bank account you're looking at. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

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The business school at UCLA wants to go into business for itself. The Anderson School of Management is part of a public university. Of course, it's in California and the school's leaders find that being part of public education in California right now is a little maddening. Budget battles and state budget cuts have become normal.

Will Stone reports on what the school wants to do instead.

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And our last word in business today is: pumped up kicks.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Nike will soon release its priciest shoe.

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The latest Lebron James-branded basketball shoe, known as - the Lebron X Nike Plus - is expected to retail for $315. I'm hoping that's for a pair, David, and not per shoe.

Anyway, it apparently includes some motion sensing technology - motion sensing technology that can record how high players jump when wearing them.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep. Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin was going to face trouble, no matter what. But it's Akin's fate that he also faces a deadline today.

GREENE: If he should withdraw from the U.S. Senate race by 5 o'clock Central Time this afternoon, it will be easy for party officials to name a replacement. And he is under pressure not to miss this opportunity.

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In Latin America, the highest courts have increasingly been ruling in favor of gay rights, and that includes the right to marry. Now, some countries are moving to allow adoption by people who are gay. It is a hot-button issue that has drawn fierce opposition. One case that could set an important precedent involves a lesbian couple in Colombia. NPR's Juan Forero has the story.

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Okay. It can be a sensitive matter to mention a woman's age, but if people failed to mention it, Phyllis Diller was liable to bring it up herself. Diller died at home in Los Angeles yesterday at the age of 95, after decades of making people laugh by poking fun at herself, as she did in this stand-up performance in 2004.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PHYLLIS DILLER: You know you're old when your walker has an airbag.

(LAUGHTER)

DILLER: And your birthday cake looks like a prairie fire.

(LAUGHTER)

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NPR's business news starts with a really big apple.

It was bound to happen. Apple has surpassed Microsoft as the most valuable company ever. That happened when Apple stock hit $665 per share yesterday, boosting its market value to nearly $624 billion. Microsoft had held the record for market capitalization since 1999. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

It looks like a bright new car wash, but it's a battery swapping station for electric cars in Israel. When a vehicle pulls up, it is slowly pulled through a conveyor. The spent battery is taken out and replaced with one that is fully charged. The entire process takes less than five minutes.

High school students with heavy academic course loads often find the demands of homework colliding with the need for adequate sleep.