Morning Edition

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. In Stockholm, engineers on the Swedish commuter rail line have found a new way to skirt a dress code. The drivers were told no more shorts, even though the heat in the cab can top 95 degrees - just long pants or skirts. So many of the male engineers are now wearing skirts. Women are allowed to, so the company says it will not discriminate. Something tasteful in an A-line, or pleats, perhaps? It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Sheriff's deputies on patrol in the Florida Keys spotted a deer on the side of a road with an empty bag of Doritos stuck on its head. "It must have wanted the last chip in the bottom," a deputy told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Winners of 14^th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition were announced Sunday night in Fort Worth, Texas. The competition was held over 17 days.

Vadym Kholodenko, 26, of Ukraine, won the top prize of $50,000, but he said the rankings don't mean that much.

"It's kind of fun for audience, for press. It's interesting to put first, second, 10^th and so on. But in life, not so important," Kholodenko says.

And, he says, so much of life involves competing no matter what you're doing.

City life can be harsh on people. For example, it pushes people to work longer and sleep less. A new study suggests that city life can have a somewhat similar effect on birds too. It shows urban blackbirds wake up earlier and go to bed later than their forest dwelling cousins.

In Sanford, Fla., Monday, jury selection begins in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer charged with shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012. Police at first declined to charge Zimmerman after the shooting because of Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which gives immunity to people who, fearing for their lives, use deadly force in self-defense.

The Guardian has identified its source for a series of reports it published in recent days on secret U.S. surveillance activity. The paper says the source is Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA who now works for a private-sector defense and technology consulting firm.

As privacy advocates and security experts debate the validity of the National Security Agency's massive data gathering operations, the agency is putting the finishing touches on its biggest data farm yet.

The gargantuan $1.2 billion complex at a National Guard base 26 miles south of Salt Lake City features 1.5 million square feet of top secret space. High-performance NSA computers alone will fill up 100,000 square feet.

The Utah Data Center is a data farm that will begin harvesting emails, phone records, text messages and other electronic data in September.

In California, a high-profile lawsuit is seeking to halt construction of a new $500 million rail yard next to the Port of Los Angeles. Activists, including a national environmental group that's spearheading the opposition, say the massive project would mean even more pollution for nearby neighborhoods that already have some of the worst air in the country.