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Earlier this week, a Japanese company announced a $20 billion bid for a majority stake in Sprint-Nextel, America's third-largest mobile carrier. The deal was launched by the CEO of Softbank - an executive who says he has a 300-year business plan and who is fond of making investments his peers call crazy.

Lucy Craft has this profile.

LUCY CRAFT, BYLINE: In a society where conformity, conservatism and harmony are virtues, CEO Masayoshi Son breaks all the rules, says his biographer, Shinichi Sano.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts a plan to save the euro.

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MONTAGNE: A week after the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize, its leaders are meeting in Brussels to discuss strengthening their fiscal union to help stabilize European economies. Any the afterglow from receiving the peace prize has been dimmed by renewed divisions on how best to tackle the debt crisis, which suggests that this meeting won't make much progress.

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

America's presidential debates have long inspired debate parties and media coverage that brings together American voters to offer their impressions. This week, we've expanded that concept all the way to China. NPR invited eight people to watch the debate at our bureau in Shanghai and then asked them for their opinions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the candidates' on China generated some interesting reactions.

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Let's go now to a different type of media: late night television, where huge changes are afoot. Jimmy Kimmel is getting a better time slot. Arsenio Hall is coming back. Jay Leno took a pay cut, and Jon Stewart cleans up at 11 o'clock.

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JON STEWART: Yes! President Barack Obama decided to attend this debate. And the two candidates can finally have a truthful, substantive discussion about how much they (bleep) hate each other.