The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Women seeking an abortion in Ohio would have to wait longer to undergo the procedure and listen to their doctors describe all of the fetus' "relevant features" under a measure being considered by state lawmakers.

The Republican-led Legislature's most recent attempt at curbing abortions would also require doctors to tell women that the procedure increases the risk of breast cancer and may cause pain to the fetus.

The bill will be presented Wednesday at a House committee hearing.

At a ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday, NATO officially handed over security of Afghanistan to the country's forces. It marked the first time the whole nation has been under Afghan control since the coalition invaded to oust the Taliban in 2001.

From Brussels, Teri Schultz filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Afghan forces are now leading security operations all over the country, as NATO-led forces gradually drop back into a supporting role in the remaining, most difficult, districts.

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Some other news. Authorities in New York have announced the arrest of eight men and one woman who operate several 7-Eleven convenience stores in New York and in Virginia. They're accused of staffing their stores with undocumented workers and then stealing those workers' wages.

From member station WNYC, Ilya Marritz has details.

In a 45-minute interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, President Obama defended a government program that collects vast data about the electronic activity of Americans.

Obama rejected comparisons to the Bush-Cheney administration, saying his administration had implemented new safeguards to protect Americans' privacy.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene, good morning.

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut six months ago, many states looked for ways to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses. Now, a new law in Connecticut can take gun licenses away from people who voluntarily check into mental health facilities. Some people fear this will discourage people from getting help.

Thirty years ago Tuesday, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. She was aboard the shuttle Challenger. Less than three years later, it would explode on takeoff, killing seven crew members.

Mary Louise Kelly used to cover the national security beat for NPR, but lately she's turned her attention to teaching and writing fiction. Her new novel, Anonymous Sources, follows rookie journalist Alexandra James as she investigates a shady banana shipment and a clandestine nuclear plot. The tale is fiction, but it draws on Kelly's own experiences reporting on the spy beat, including things she couldn't say when she was a journalist.

The furor over recently exposed government surveillance programs has posed an abundance of political challenges for both President Obama and Congress. Relatively unmentioned in all of this, however, is the role of the courts — specifically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, and how its role has changed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.