Morning Edition on KRVS

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

It's been a decade since the first permanent International Criminal Court was created. Today, it delivered its first-ever sentence. The Hague-based court ordered a Congolese warlord to serve 14 years in prison. Thomas Lubango was convicted in March of recruiting and using children as soldiers in his militia. During a four-year conflict, Lubango forced children to fight for him, taking up arms and machetes which they used to slaughter Lubango's tribal enemies in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Over a decade ago, Britton Nicholas Newlife bet with a bookmaker that Roger Federer would win Wimbledon seven times. The bet was for $2,300 and the odds were 66-1. Newlife died three years ago, but he left his betting ticket to the international charity Oxfam. On Sunday, Federer won his seventh Wimbledon title. Oxfam will receive more than $150,000 in winnings.

The latest fundraising numbers are in for the two presidential campaigns, and the amounts are eye-popping. President Obama and the Democratic Party raised $71 million, which is an enormous haul. But it was dwarfed by Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee, which together raised $106 million in the month of June.

The first in an occasional series, Fiscal Cliff Notes, which breaks down the looming "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and deep automatic spending cuts set to hit around the first of year.

Much of the political focus when discussing the Bush-era tax cuts is on the wealthy, but they're not the only ones who would be affected if the tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of this year.

The vast majority of American taxpayers would take a hit, including Randi Cartmill and Josh Walling, who live in Madison, Wis., with their three children.