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Vice President Joe Biden has been an important surrogate for President Obama this year, as he was four years ago. Biden especially excels at connecting with white, working-class voters — a group with which the president has struggled.

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The teachers Union in Chicago votes later today for the second time on whether to and a strike that has kept 350,000 students and their parents in limbo. On Sunday, the union's House of Delegates voted to continue the weeklong strike until they have more time to read the outline on of a tentative agreement. That vote was a setback for union President Karen Lewis and her bargaining team.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports that with the vote pending, some teachers still don't know what's in that agreement.

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Some conservatives have denounced Romney's remarks. The "Weekly Standard's" Bill Kristol called them arrogant and stupid. In the New York Times, David Brooks wrote that it shows Mitt Romney doesn't understand the country or its culture. But others, such as radio personality Rush Limbaugh, have come to the candidate's defense.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

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And I'm Audie Cornish. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney admits he could've used more elegant language, but he's not backing down. Romney was secretly recorded speaking at a fundraiser in May and his comments were publicized yesterday by the liberal magazine, "Mother Jones." Here he is telling wealthy backers that President Obama has a built-in base of support.

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I'm a Pepper, You're a Pepper, but clearly, some people are not Peppers.

Dr Pepper's new Facebook ad campaign featuring an ape moving from all-fours, to seeing a soda on a rock, to an upright man, enjoying a Pepper, is apparently red meat to some creationists who are loudly expressing outrage at the idea that humans evolved from soda-discovering apes.

Every year, we dutifully report on the annual Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation state obesity rankings, and every year, it's a similar story — a handful of southern states, on the whole, are the biggest. (It's Mississippi, Louisiana, and West Virginia in 2011, in case you were wondering.)

The liberal magazine Mother Jones has released video clips of Mitt Romney making controversial remarks to a group of donors. The Romney campaign is scrambling to address the political fallout. Host Michel Martin discusses the comments with U.S. News and World Report columnist Mary Kate Cary and Voto Latino's Maria Teresa Kumar.

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I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, Leo Manzano came home from the London Olympics with a silver medal. It was a proud moment for his family and for the country, but how he displayed that pride landed him in a little hot water. We're going to talk to the runner about that and how he made history in London. That conversation is in just a few minutes.