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A national heat wave has Americans dripping in sweat from San Diego to Boston and the strain on the electrical grid is causing power outages. Record amounts of electricity are being used today, and air quality in some regions is reaching unhealthy levels.

One company has abandoned the concept of a regular workday. Best Buy, the giant retailer of electronics, is encouraging much of its corporate staff to work whatever hours they want, and to do so wherever they please. The company says productivity is booming.

The number of American babies born prematurely has been creeping up, and nobody knows entirely why. An Institute of Medicine panel recommends a national effort to reduce these births, which cost the nation $26 billion a year.

Jack Devine, a 32-year CIA veteran, says the next person put in charge of the agency needs to rally the organization's sagging morale, and then turn his attention to the problems of Iraq and Afghanistan. Devine worked in the CIA's clandestine services. He left in 1999.

Members of Congress hope to block a deal that would place control of several U.S. ports in foreign hands. Dubai Ports World has agreed to buy a company that operates six major seaports. Federal officials insist the purchase does not pose a security risk.

The last one-room school in the state of Hawaii closed in 2005, just a few weeks before the school year began. There had been a school in the village of Ke'anae, on the north coast of Maui, for 96 years.

Chris Wood of Modeski, Martin and Wood and his brother, Oliver Wood, take listeners on a rootsy journey through American music on acoustic bass and guitar.

The United Nations says Iran has ignored the Security Council's call to suspend all nuclear fuel enrichment. Instead, the U.N. says Iran has accelerated its program. Bush administration officials say it is now time for the Security Council to act against Iran.

In Salinas, Calif., tens of thousands agricultural workers heed the call for a national work boycott by staying away from the fields. As Ben Adler of member station KAZU reports, they had union and industry support for the action, designed to demonstrate immigrant worker strength.

A few miles from the Turkish border, in the former mining town of Vale, stands the House of Culture. Once the heart of the community, the huge structure is now a monument to post-Soviet decline. One flamboyant resident of Vale, known by locals as "Uncle Gocha," has worked without pay for 15 years to keep what's left from collapsing.