Tyler Sullivan will return to class Monday with a note explaining why he skipped school on Friday. The fifth-grader had gone with his dad to a Honeywell plant outside Minneapolis, where President Obama was speaking. When the president shook Tyler's hand, he offered to write an excuse note for him.
Bad economic headlines have not stopped the celebration in Britain. Britons are in the midst of a four-day holiday celebrating Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne. And yesterday the queen herself led a flotilla of a thousand boats on the Thames. It was described as the largest such river pageant in more than 300 years, and Vicki Barker was there.
Now, one way Mitt Romney has challenged President Obama is by going after his foreign policy record. Romney has been especially critical of the president's handling of Iran and Syria. But those attacks aside, some analysts say it's been hard to define where Romney stands on key international issues and whether he differs all that much from the president.
Let's turn to Syria now. Syria's president gave his first public speech in five months yesterday. Bashar al-Assad told the Syrian Parliament that his government was not responsible for the massacre in Houla last month, in which more than 100 people were killed, nearly half of them children. Also, there is new Syria-related violence in northern Lebanon, near the Syrian border. And to talk about this we've reached NPR's Kelly McEvers.