All Things Considered

The U.S. and other Western countries are often trying to isolate Iran, but this week the country is in the international spotlight as it hosts a summit of 120 nonaligned nations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kim-moon decided to go, ignoring the advice of Israel and the U.S. He promised to deliver a tough message, but others are skeptical, arguing that his visit plays into the hands of the Iranians and to U.N. detractors in Washington.

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Encounters between humans and bears have risen in Western states, especially in Wyoming and Colorado. That's due largely to drought. Bears are traveling longer distances for food because the berries they usually eat have dried up.

As we hear from Aspen Public Radio's Marci Krivonen, hungry bears are turning to dumpsters, kitchen cabinets and refrigerators.

Nominating the presidential and vice-presidential candidates is just part of the business conducted at a party convention. Delegates and guests also spend time attending workshops and policy sessions. And then there's the partying — lots of partying.

As Isaac continues to pound the Gulf Coast from Louisiana east through Mississippi, Republicans gathered in Tampa for their 2012 national convention continue to strike a balance between going on with their politicking and partying while trying not to look indifferent to the suffering of others.

This year is on track to be the worst ever for West Nile virus in the United States. Here are the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• 1,590 reported cases, nearly 500 more than a week ago for a rise of 44 percent.
• 889 cases, or 56 percent, involve severe neurological disease.
• 66 deaths, compared to 41 last week.

There is growing international criticism over plans by Gambia's hard-line president to execute all of the country's death-row inmates within the next couple of weeks.

Gambia's leader, President Yahya Jammeh, has long faced criticism for his human rights record. In a recent speech marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, the president vowed to put to death all prisoners facing the death penalty by mid-September, as a way to curb crime.

Key speakers Tuesday include New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ann Romney, the wife of the GOP presidential nominee.

One of the biggest debates in Washington, D.C., these days has nothing to do with taxes, health care or the economy. It's about baseball and whether the Washington Nationals should end the season of their young pitching star, Stephen Strasburg, just as the team may be headed for the playoffs.

Two years ago, Strasburg's promising career was threatened when he tore a ligament in his pitching arm. He needed surgery and couldn't pitch for a year.

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This afternoon in Tampa, Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus raised a gavel.

(SOUNDBITE OF REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION)

REINCE PRIEBUS: This convention will come to order.

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And I'm Audie Cornish. In New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu delivered this news this afternoon.

MAYOR MITCH LANDRIEU: Isaac has now formed into a hurricane so we are officially in the fight and the city of New Orleans is on the front lines.

A judge has given Ohio unions a preliminary injunction stopping a new state law that could endanger provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct, even if the cause is poll worker error.

Officials in Texas say they will cut off state funding to Planned Parenthood following a federal court ruling last week. The decision by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the state can defund the health clinics because Planned Parenthood is associated with abortion.

The late Stephane Grappelli is perhaps the best-known jazz violinist in history. His collaborations with guitarist Django Reinhardt have influenced countless musicians. A comparison to Grappelli is one of the highest honors a young, rising violinist can receive.

The movie 2016: Obama's America just did something that's hard for any political documentary to accomplish: it took seventh place on the list of this weekend's highest grossing movies. Usually, when any documentary pulls in more than five million dollars, it's about, say, Katy Perry. But 2016 looks at the ideologies and global movements that it says helped intellectually mold the President of the United States from a critical, conservative perspective. And the ending imagines an America economically undone by four more years of an Obama presidency.