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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The up and down Iran nuclear talks appear to be in a down cycle as negotiators prepare to meet tomorrow in Moscow. Difficult talks in Baghdad last month were followed by contentious comments on both sides. And all this as new oil sanctions against Iran are due to take effect July 1st. NPR's Peter Kenyon has more from Moscow.

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(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFE IS A BALLGAME")

SISTER WINONA CARR: (Singing) Life is a ball game, being played each day...

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

If life is a ball game, then NPR's Mike Pesca is our man in Miami, relishing the heat, never cowering from the thunder. Hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Possibly setting fire to the rain, very good.

(LAUGHTER)

Many in Egypt today stayed home. That enthusiasm and joy to be voting in a free election for the first time had given way to resignation, during the second round of presidential voting, which started yesterday.

That's the picture reports out of Egypt today are painting.

Perhaps that was most evident with Hussein, a Cairo taxi driver that Ahram, the Egyptian newspaper, spoke to at one of the polls.

It's an election year, and that may be good news for those of us who like our summer reading: Laura Miller of Salon.com says a lot of publishing companies don't want to release all their best books in the fall because they'll have to compete with all that presidential campaign news. And that means more great books to choose from when the weather is hot.

Oregon and California are locked in a dispute over something that happened 433 years ago, when Sir Francis Drake became the first British explorer to make contact with Native Americans.

It happened on what is now the American West Coast. The question is where? Oregon or California? The National Park Service is now poised to officially recognize one state's claim.

The European soccer championship is taking place for the first time in former East Bloc countries Ukraine and Poland. The tournament is supposed to highlight Europe's post-Cold War unity, but the age-old plagues of racism and nationalism persist.

Ukraine is home to a small number of Africans and Asians, many of whom came during the Soviet period. One prominent expatriate in Kiev is Charles Assante-Yeboa, president of the local Africa center.

Assante-Yeboa says four years ago, a group of Ukrainians wielding knives and clubs attacked him.