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.

People along a wide swath of the Gulf of Mexico coastline are making preparations for Tropical Storm Isaac. The storm is headed toward New Orleans, and is scheduled to develop into a hurricane that could make landfall as early as Tuesday.

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.

If you're a student, you may have harbored the fantasy of learning lessons while you sleep. Who wouldn't want to stick on a pair of headphones, grab some shut-eye with a lesson about, say, Chinese history playing in his ears — and wake up with newly acquired knowledge of the Ming Dynasty?

Sadly, it doesn't work. The history lesson either keeps you from going to sleep, or it doesn't — in which case you don't learn it.

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.

The Republican National Convention will come to order at 2 p.m. in Tampa, Fla., and then quickly go into recess. Because of Tropical Storm Isaac, the main events have been delayed until Tuesday. This is the second convention in a row where the GOP had to delay the opening because of bad weather.