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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.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

We're going to hear next of the Penn State scandal as it looks from State College, Pennsylvania. The university says it accepts the penalties imposed yesterday by the NCAA. College sports' governing body responded to what it called a tragic failure to expose child sexual abuse by a former assistant football coach.

But some in State College say the penalties are too much, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.

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There's a lot more to talk through here, and ESPN.com senior writer Don Van Natta, Jr. has been following the story. He's on the line. Good morning.

DON VAN NATTA, JR.: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: And welcome to the program. You've written that Penn State was not actually found to violate a specific NCAA rule. How did they justify the penalty, given that?

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

Three days remain before the Olympic Games. They're billed as the world's greatest sporting event. They're in London. So why aren't the British happy? The British have been grumbling so much about the games that the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has told them all to stop whining and, in his words, put a sock in it. Yet still the protests and complaints continue. Let's take a ride across London with NPR's Philip Reeves.

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We're remembering this morning the first American woman to go into space: Sally Ride. She died yesterday in San Diego. Ride made her historic trip into space in 1983 aboard the space shuttle Challenger, a trip that made her an instant folk hero. NPR's Joe Palca has our report.

JOE PALCA, BYLINE: Sally Ride was born on May 26th, 1951. She grew up in the San Fernando Valley, just outside Los Angeles, where she went to Westlake High School.

SUSAN OKIE: She prided herself on being an underachiever.

Top influenza researchers around the world published a statement back in January saying they would temporarily hold off on any work with contagious, lab-altered forms of a particularly worrisome form of bird flu.

The unusual voluntary moratorium was supposed to last only 60 days, but it's been more than six months. And scientists don't agree on what should happen next.

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.

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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.