News

The American Federation of Teachers has awarded a national grant to AFT St. Louis, the St. Louis Public School District and Harris Stowe State University to create professional development programs for early childhood educators.

Each year, more than 2,000 children attend pre-K in St. Louis Public Schools. Through the program, pre-K teachers and paraprofessionals will receive training in early learning so that students have a strong foundation for later learning.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is defending the state's new civil unions law in a dispute over adoptions with Catholic Charities.

State officials say they won't renew foster care and adoption contracts with the group that has received state money for placing children.

The sweltering summer temperatures that have gripped the Midwest are being blamed in the suspected heat-stroke death of a 51-year-old man in southwestern Illinois.

Madison County Coroner Stephen Nonn says Mitsunari Uechi was found unresponsive Sunday night in his Granite City mobile home by his live-in mother and later was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Nonn says the home's air conditioner wasn't working, and the man's body temperature was 104 degrees when he arrived at the hospital.

Thank you for joining us this morning for NPR's special live coverage of this event.

From NPR's "The Two-Way":

"Saying he is prepared 'to take significant heat' from members of his own party in order to achieve meaningful debt and deficit reduction, President Obama this morning again pushed for a big, long-term budget deal with Republicans.

And he heaped praise on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for his efforts to strike such a grand bargain, even though the Republican leader has said that he probably can't get such a plan approved by members of his party. The president said that both he and Boehner need to convince skeptics in their parties' ranks of the need for action.

Less than 24 hours after the Cardinals completed a 4-2 win over Arizona, the sod at Busch Stadium is dug up and gone.