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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now that Isaac has passed by Tampa, the Republican National Convention gets underway today, but voters living in swing sates have already heard plenty of messages from both political parties - unprecedented waves of ads.

NPR's Steve Henn reports there is an app - an application that can help you figure out who's behind them.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: If this is what your TV sounds like...

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ANNOUNCER #1: Two wars. Tax cuts for millionaires. Death.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And we have some news to report from Israel this morning. A court has absolved the Israeli military of all responsibility for the 2003 death of a young American protestor on the Gaza/Egypt border.

Sheera Frenkel has this report from Haifa.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with an eye on oil prices.

Isaac is not expected to grow beyond a Category 1 hurricane and that is easing some concerns it could damage oil and gas refineries along the Gulf Coast. Still, several have shut down operations and will probably be offline for a couple days. Depending on Isaac's severity, analysts say gas prices could go up by about 10 cents or so in the coming weeks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK. Microsoft had to know there would be critics when it released its new logo late last week. And today's last word in business is: mixed reviews.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Microsoft used the old logo for 25 years. The tech world has certainly changed a lot since then. PCs, not iPads, where the big thing then and Microsoft dominated the software for them. Now, Microsoft says it's time to change its look.

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.

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.

One day Theresa Hamilton, a mother of 12, was struck by how hard it is to come by human dignity when you are down on your luck. For instance, you can't use Food Stamps to buy toilet paper or laundry soap.

So Theresa founded Giving The Basics — an organization that provides people with toothbrushes, feminine hygiene products and other human-dignity necessities.

It's the closest these Floridians will ever get to an actual snow day.

The threat of Isaac canceled most official business at the Republican National Convention Monday. But the storm went west, sending a little wind and rain to Tampa. The typical summer afternoon thunderstorm is worse.

So members of Florida's delegation were free to engage in a political snowball fight — they ate, partied and trashed a political traitor: former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

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.