Ever since Apple introduced the iPhone, the number of people who use cell phones to actually make calls has dwindled says the Wall Street Journal. Worried that the trend will affect their bottom line, the cell phone industry is doing away with plans that let customers opt for only the amount of minutes they need and is replacing them with flat, unlimited calling plans. Companies say going unlimited-only is just a way to eliminate the confusing options out there…too bad it also eliminates the option to choose a less expensive plan.

The New York Times gets to know J Paul Reddam in today’s paper. The owner of Belmont competitor I’ll Have Another makes his money in a business that California’s former governor compared to loan skarking. He runs a chain of storefront lenders called Cash Call. Before that, he was a philosophy and ethics professor.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was the clear winner in yesterday’s election.The clear loser? Unions. It was the first time in U.S. history an incumbent governor retained his office during a recall, which was demanded after Walker stripped public-service unions of their collective bargaining rights back in 2011, says the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

There’s going to be lots of swapping at lunchtables in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. Those are the only three states that have opted to continue serving “lean, finely textured beef”—otherwise known as pink slime—to school kids says the Argus Leader. After a New York Times exposé earlier this year, the USDA offered states participating in the National School Lunch Program the option of ordering ground beef without the questionable filler.

Remember that exclusive interview Barbara Walters got with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?  Well, the New York Times says in the months after, Walters tried to secure a job at CNN, and admission to Columbia University, for Assad’s aide, who helped orchestrate the interview. Neither attempts were successful…or that unusual. As a TV news executive puts it: “It’s a little ugly to see how the sausage is made to land these big interviews.”

Is that…? Mark Koch is used to that half question. He gets it a lot when he’s tooling around in his boat, a 23-foot-long replica of the Titanic. Although there are no icebergs in Louisana’s waters to worry about, the New Orleans Times-Picayune says Koch’s mock-ship does run into some problems. On a recent morning, so many people stopped to gawk at him sailing by that traffic, and angry commuters, built up on the road above him.

As part of its summer book preview, the Washington Post rounds up “10 books we’ve loved this year” for today’s paper. Topping the globe-trotting list is Lauren Groff’s “Arcadia,” a story set in upstate New York. Books set in Mumbai, Vietnam, Canada, Iraq, as well as the late New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid’s memoir about Lebanon (“House of Stone”) also make the list.