Morning Edition

Clearwater, Fla., is in the swing county of Pinellas. That county went to George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008. Now it's up for grabs. Steve Inskeep talks to Clearwater Mayor George Cretekos about voters' concerns there.

Among the speakers with a prime-time slot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa this week is South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The speech could propel her into national politics.

The talk about Haley always mentions her gender, her age — 40 — and her race — Indian-American. She wears the labels proudly, and for $19.95 you can read all about them in her memoir Can't Is Not an Option. But there's another label Haley likes: fighter.

On Comedy Central not long ago, she mixed it up with fellow South Carolinian Stephen Colbert:

As extremely hot temperatures continue to hit much of the country, high school football teams are busy getting ready for the fall season.

Last year, five high school football players died of heat stroke. Across the country, experts are trying to prevent those kinds of tragedies.

At the University of Connecticut's Korey Stringer Institute, researchers study the effects of extreme heat on athletes.

Say "adoption" and many Americans think "babies." The U.S. system was largely organized around placing infants, both from this country and abroad. It turns out that, by far, the largest number of adoptions in the U.S. is through the foster care system. That means toddlers, young children, even teens.

Yet many in the field say the system does little to help families cope with the special issues a number of these children will face, even years after adoption.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

A Chinese city set the record for the most women to participate in a parade while wearing bikinis. Over the weekend, Ocean City, Md., set out to break the record of 1,085 — but fell far short at 325. Organizers blame the rainy weather for holding down turnout.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In Russia, three members of a feminist punk band are preparing to appeal their two-year prison sentences. The young women were convicted 10 days ago of hooliganism after staging a protest in Moscow's main Orthodox cathedral. The group, Pussy Riot, also announced on Twitter yesterday that two other members who took part in that protest have fled the country to avoid being arrested. The tweet came after police said they were still searching for the activists, who are part of a broader opposition to Russia's President Vladimir Putin.