Kentucky is now in the record books as this year's NCAA Division I men's basketball champion after its 67-59 win over Kansas last night.

Survivors are telling harrowing tales about what happened Monday morning at Oikos University in Oakland when a man who police say once attended the small Christian school allegedly ordered the dozen or so people in a classroom to line up against a wall, drew a handgun and started firing.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm David Greene. A Florida woman is putting her car in park after 576,000 miles. Rachel Veitch bought her Mercury Comet, new, in 1964. The car has been through 18 batteries and it's outlasted three marriages. Rachel even appeared on "The Tonight Show" with the vehicle. Now, her failing eyesight is forcing her to hang up her keys. She told Fox News she is not giving that car to her family, because they won't take care of it like she did. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now a word about the media in China - it is heavily controlled by the government. That reality was clear on Saturday when new restrictions banning commenting were imposed on two Twitter-style websites. This followed online rumors about a military coup in Beijing. The government says the rumors aren't true. And today, the restrictions were finally lifted, but the government certainly made a point about who's in charge.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

Writer Lawrence Sheets once described the Soviet Union as an ill-fitting, stained glass mosaic. That is certainly not the image any Westerners had as they watched the Soviet collapse in 1991.

LAWRENCE SHEETS: We saw the Soviet Union as a monolith, through a few symbols like Red Square or men in fur hats, empty store shelves - these sorts of things.

The Kentucky Wildcats beat the Kansas Jayhawks 67-59 Monday night in New Orleans, claiming their eighth NCAA men's basketball title and head coach John Calipari's first.

The Jayhawks trailed by 14 at halftime, and just 5 points separated the teams with about a minute left in the game. But Kansas couldn't get any closer to beating Kentucky, a team stacked with young talent that had dominated the whole tournament.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We're going to look now at an animal whose habitat is slowly disappearing. Polar bears live on sea ice. But Arctic sea ice, which used to stay frozen in the summertime, is now slowly disintegrating. This poses a unique challenge for scientists, government officials and others. How do you preserve the polar bear and prevent it from going extinct decades from now? Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post has been reporting on this issue. And she joins us now to talk about what she's learned.

Juliet, good morning.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The city of Detroit is broke - verging on bankruptcy, in fact. And we may have come to a moment of reckoning. This week, Michigan's governor is giving city officials a choice: either they allow the state to help run Detroit's finances, or the state will appoint an emergency manager with total authority over budgetary matters. WDET's Quin Klinefelter reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF PEOPLE CHANTING)

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with what happens in Vegas...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas, especially if it involves taxpayer dollars.

The head of a federal agency has resigned after reports of inappropriate spending at a conference near Las Vegas. Martha Johnson led the General Services Administration, which manages the federal government's property.