Morning Edition

The airline is molding ice cubes into Richard Branson's image to promote the in-flight bar.

While in the Afgan capital Kabul Tuesday, President Obama signed a partnership agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Also in Kabul, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a deadly attack that was carried out shortly after Obama left the city.

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

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And I'm David Greene.

We are following developing news, this morning, in China. The Chinese dissident who sought protection with American diplomats in Beijing is now free and apparently heading to a new life.

INSKEEP: Chen Guangcheng is a human rights lawyer, a blind man who became involved in issues like forced abortion in China. Last week, he escaped house arrest by Chinese security forces.

Islamist protesters, unhappy their candidate was among several people disqualified from the election, held a demonstration outside the Defense Ministry. Five people were killed and more than 100 people were wounded in fighting that involved sticks, stones, batons and bullets.

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Pfizer, one of the worlds largest drug companies, will pay Brigham Young University nearly half a billion dollars to settle a patent related lawsuit involving the company's blockbuster painkiller Celebrex.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, the settlement comes as the case was about to go to trial.

The Occupy protest movement was out in force Tuesday. May 1 is traditionally a day for labor demonstrations. For the most part, the demonstrations were noisy and theatrical but restrained.

The group was convened by Florida's governor and legislative leaders. The move comes after Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen, was shot to death by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Since the law's passage in 2005, there's been growing concern about the law among police, prosecutors and judges.

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Americans are now eating more chicken than beef or pork. And meeting that demand is an industry that some have dubbed big chicken. Texas is a major player in the industry, and so now Texas must manage a problem that in other circumstances we might describe as fallout or blowback. Dave Fehling of member station KUHF in Houston explains what that problem is.

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NPR's business news starts with falling profits for UBS.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: Suisse Bank UBS announced today that their profits fell 54 percent in the first quarter of this year. The drop is blamed on a decrease in investment banking income, and also because of an accounting charge on its debt.

The Lebanese classical musician and composer Marcel Khalife is often compared to Bob Dylan — not for his music, but for his politics. The Middle Eastern musical and political icon sings about freedom and nationalism.

Khalife is famous for translating poetry into music. For years, he collaborated with the nationalist Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

"It began when I graduated from the music conservatory in Beirut. The civil war started in Lebanon — I wanted to change the world with music," says Khalife.

Like hundreds of cities across the country, Chicago is trying to tackle the issue of too many foreclosed and vacant homes. The city is now requiring lenders to ensure that those abandoned properties are secured and maintained. Other cities have similar laws.

But the federal government is suing Chicago over its new rules in what's seen as a test case that could affect whether any city would be allowed to keep lenders on the hook for abandoned properties.