Morning Edition on WAMC

In a surprising deal about 3 ½ hours before the first pitch, the Yankees and Mariners completed a momentous trade, acquiring 10-time all star Ichiro Suzuki for a pair of young pitching prospects. Before switching clubhouses Ichiro held in emotional press conference

(Audio)

After leaving the only major league team he’d ever played for, Suzuki went from last place in the AL West to first in the AL East and he played like it, singling his first at bat as a Yankee and beating his former team 4-1.

Ulster County Executive Michael Hein announced on Monday that he is applying for Community Development Block Grant funding to assist low income homeowners in need of housing improvements with priority given to homeowners needing repairs due to Tropical Storms Irene or Lee.

Rural Ulster Preservation Company will administer the program for the county.  The county and RUPCO will apply for $750,000 with applications from homeowners due on August 7. Funds are expected to be available in the spring 2013.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with continuing coverage of the Pittsburgh Mills shopping mall. Yesterday, we told you of a bear that strolled into Sears, had to be tranquilized and taken away. Now a second bear has appeared at the same mall near the Olive Garden. Didn't stick around but later returned, backing up traffic on the highway. State game officials say they now plan to set a bear trap. In case the bear is listening, they plan to set that bear trap on Monday. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

WNYT's Paul Caiano delivers his morning forecast. 

WAMC's Ian Pickus gets the morning headlines from Mike Spain, associate editor of the Albany Times Union.

Transcript

Stop by most any unirrigated farm across the lower Midwest and you'll see crops in distress. Midwestern corn and soybean farmers are taking a beating during the recent drought, but it's not likely to drive many out of business.

Most of those farmers carry terrific insurance, and the worse the drought becomes, the more individual farmers will be paid for their lost crops. The federal government picks up most of the cost of the crop insurance program, and this year that bill is going to be a whopper.

Among those on Mitt Romney's list of potential running mates, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan has youth and experience, he's a conservative from a swing state, and he has big ideas and the policy chops to back them up.

But the chairman of the House Budget Committee would not be the safest of choices.

Back in February, when the Republican primary was still in full swing and the party's right wing was conspicuously unhappy with the idea of Romney, tax hawk Grover Norquist spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Second of five parts

I'm standing next to a ridge, looking at the Syrian town of Salaqin. Just up on the ridge you can see the silhouettes of a mosque and couple of water towers. It looks like a very small, inconsequential town, but because it's on the Syrian-Turkish border it's very important to the rebels.

What the Syrian rebels are trying to do right now is carve out a kind of safe zone, a buffer zone where they can gather, assemble and plan attacks against the Syrian regime's army, and also a place where they can move weapons and money into Syria.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nev., on Tuesday. It's a sort of launching pad for a foreign trip that will take Romney to three countries over the next week: the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland.

Romney, a man with a lot of domestic policy experience, is now trying to demonstrate his proficiency with international affairs.