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During a "series of secret meetings in recent months," the White House began to "consider for the first time whether to prepare for unilateral strikes" aimed at terrorist groups operating in North Africa, The Washington Post writes this morning.

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NPR's business news starts with Iran's currency plunging.

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INSKEEP: Iran's money hit another record low today. Depending on who's trading, a single American dollar in Tehran can now cost around 38,000 Iranian rials.

Western sanctions, intensified this year by the Obama administration, have been wrecking Iran's economy. It's also harder for Iranians to get their hands on dollars, which are vital for international trade.

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And that brings us to today's last word in business, which is Blossom One. Blossom One is not the name of a new car, though it's nearly as expensive as some.

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It's a coffee-maker, designed by some folks who've worked for the likes of BMW, Tesla Motors and NASA. Coming in at a little over $11,000, the coffee-maker does have the whiff of rocket science about it.

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President Obama has held a lead over Mitt Romney in the polls for several weeks now, and that's prompted a conservative reaction. Some are charging that big media outlets are intentionally designing their polling to make it look like the president is getting the kind of voter surge he had in 2008. NPR's David Folkenflik has the story.

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

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

Both the presidential candidates are preparing for debates while staying in swing states. For a few days, each becomes a kind of candidate-in-residence.

INSKEEP: And so it was that President Obama abruptly appeared at a campaign office in Henderson, Nevada yesterday and delivered pizzas to the staff. Who knows? Maybe these candidates will be delivering pizzas to swing voters before we're all done.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

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'Tis the season for new car buying. Fall is when automakers roll out their latest models - with new technologies and better fuel efficiency. And to talk about the latest trends, we reached Michelle Krebs in Detroit. She's a senior analyst at the auto information website Edmunds.com.

Good to have you back, Michelle.

MICHELLE KREBS: Glad to be back.

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And here in the U.S., for retailers, the cost they pay for consumer fraud is going up. Merchants who sell their products using mobile devices or sell internationally are seeing their costs climbing higher still - almost 40 over last year.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.