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It's tempting to make a "fight club" reference (and some news outlets have), but the outrageous nature of the allegations seems to call for a more straight-forward approach:

From the window of my room at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Pittsburgh, I can see a sliver of the hotel fitness center. This morning I looked down there and saw a guy with an earpiece. Secret Service.

So I wasn't entirely surprised to walk into the tiny exercise room a little after 7 a.m. and find the Republican vice presidential candidate working out. There was a row of about half a dozen elliptical machines and treadmills, one workout bench, a small rack of dumbbells, an inflatable exercise ball, and a folding workout mat.

America's oldest citizens are generally getting healthier, living longer and doing better financially. But there's lots of room for improvement.

That's the take-home from an exhaustive picture of Americans over 65 put together by the federal government and released last week during the summer doldrums.

Rosie O'Donnell has chosen an unusual way to tell her fans that she suffered a heart attack last week:

In verse.

On her blog.

And she's using the experience to urge other women to "listen to the voice inside" and call 911 if they suffer the symptoms she did — which she tried to ignore for a day.

Good Tuesday morning - we're following these stories today:

In Afghanistan: General's Plane Damaged; Afghans Start Spying On Own Troops.

As Deadline To Drop Out Nears, Rep. Akin's Best Defender Is His Opponent.

An aircraft that had been set to fly Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey out of Afghanistan today was damaged by shrapnel from rockets fired at the Bagram air field north of Kabul from outside its fences.

Two maintenance workers on the ground were slightly wounded, NPR's Tom Bowman reports. Dempsey was not near the aircraft at the time. He later left Afghanistan on another plane.

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad has ended her third recent attempt to swim the 100 miles or so from Cuba to Key West, Florida, her official Twitter page says.

That word followed reports from ABC News' Good Morning America and CNN.

As a volunteer at the Phoenix House Academy of Dublin, 21-year-old Sofia Capria helps teenagers battle drug and alcohol addiction — just as she did herself three years ago.

"Right away, I was hooked," Sofia says of her own drug use, which began at age 11. But for her, the road to recovery wasn't easy.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

OK, we're about to hit a new low. The London-based record label Decca held a competition earlier this year. The label was looking for someone who could sing an incredibly low note: the low E.

TIM STORMS: (Singing) E.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

OK, we just heard some prominent Republicans speaking out on the Akin situation. We wanted to know how voters are feeling in Akin's state of Missouri.

Here's Tim Lloyd of St. Louis Public Radio.

TIM LLOYD, BYLINE: About a mile from where Todd Akin thanked God for a surprise primary victory on August 7th, Rheudeana Ferguson is shopping with her mom at a road side produce stand. She voted for Akin when he was an underdog in the primary, and what he said Sunday morning hasn't changed how she feels.