National News from NPR

Would President Obama swap Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton on his 2012 ticket? NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin is dubious. "Where this comes from I do not know," he declared in his Monday column dismissing the speculation about any plans to replace Biden.

Not all hospital patients are alike. Some are harder to satisfy. Especially those who are admitted to hospitals in and around New York City, Chicago and parts of Florida.

Patients in those places gave some of the lowest evaluations of their hospital stays, Medicare data show. The surveys asked patients how well their doctors and nurses communicated, whether their pain was always handled welland whether their rooms were clean and quiet.

The number of Americans who use food stamps is now close to 46 million, or 15 percent of the population. The government program that provides food stamps is formally known as SNAP, for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And the number of people who depend on it to buy groceries has grown substantially, even since the recession was officially declared over, back in June of 2009.

Update at 2:26 p.m. ET. In a meeting with Italy's president, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered to resign after Parliament approved a budget filled with new austerity measures.

The Guardian reports that President Giorgio Napolitano broke the news in a statement that read in part:

Herman Cain definitely doesn't seem to have this crisis-management thing down yet.

He presumably went on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday evening to fight the latest charge of sexual misbehavior, this one from Sharon Bialek that he made a vulgar and unwanted sexual come-on to her in 1997 when she was seeking his help for reemployment at the National Restaurant Association.

This probably isn't going to satisfy many of those who think of The X-Files as a documentary series, but the Obama administration has now put the White House on record as saying the government doesn't have any evidence of life "out there."

And the Obama team doesn't believe anything's being hidden from us.

Mary, a 46-year-old flight attendant, had a persistent runny nose that was sometimes so bad she had trouble doing her job.

She'd tried antihistamines, nasal sprays and "allergy drops" prescribed by a specialist. None of them helped.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was overheard last week telling President Obama that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "a liar," according to reports from Reuters, The Associated Press and other news outlets.

Sarkozy also said of Netanyahu that "I can't stand him," the stories say.

Good morning.

Our early headlines were:

-- Cain: 'There's Not An Ounce Of Truth' In Latest Allegations.

-- Boxer Joe Frazier, Who Beat Ali In The 'Fight Of The Century,' Has Died.

The allegations that former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused young boys and that university officials, including legendary coach Joe Paterno, had been warned years ago about what was supposedly happening and never informed police have raised an obvious question:

Is it time for the 84-year-old Paterno to step down and for a complete "house cleaning" of the school's football program?