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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now, Greg mentioned Plaquemines Parish. Look at a map of Louisiana and you'll see that parish, a finger of land sticking far out into the Gulf of Mexico. Jennifer Hale of WVUE Television is in the parish, spent the night there. And Ms. Hale, where are you now?

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. Hurricane Isaac made landfall last night in Louisiana and it is battering the Gulf Coast with high winds and a lot of rain. For the latest we turn to NPR's Greg Allen. He's in New Orleans and we have reached him by telephone. And Greg, give us a sense of this storm. It sounds like, you know, Category 1, which, you know, makes you not worry so much, but a lot of people fearing that it could just stay in one place for a good while.

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Finally, Larry Bird looms larger than Magic Johnson. The two players fought a famous rivalry in the '80s. Bird's Celtics and Johnson's Lakers battled for NBA titles again and again. But one thing could never change. In the college championship game in 1979, Johnson's Michigan State beat Bird's Indiana State. Now, Indiana State plans a 15-foot tall statue of Larry Bird, larger than any existing statue of Magic Johnson. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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And today's last word in business is a home run for Major League Baseball.

ESPN agreed yesterday to pay the baseball association $5.6 billion over the next eight years for broadcast and digital rights to games. That is a record, we're told, for baseball broadcasting rights. It is also about double what ESPN currently pays to broadcast Major League Baseball games, although the sports network will be getting a lot more for its money this time around - more international rights, radio rights, rights to more games.

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This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Water has been slopping over at least one levee in Louisiana this morning. The levee is down the Mississippi River from New Orleans, near the place where Hurricane Isaac came ashore. So far, the storm has caused street flooding along much of the Gulf Coast and left hundreds of thousands of people without power. But the full-scale of its effects will depend in part on just how long Isaac sticks around.

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NPR's business news starts with upping the oil output.

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GREENE: The group of seven most industrialized nations are urging oil producing countries to ramp up production. In a statement yesterday, the so-called G-7 nations warned of the risks, quote, "posed by elevated oil prices." Demand for gasoline usually starts to wane at the end of the summer but right now gasoline prices are hitting new highs. Oil prices are surging because of tensions with Iran and the ongoing concern about Hurricane Isaac.

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The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates says he noticed something about one of this year's major news stories. When Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, was killed by a white man in Florida, there was widespread dismay. And then President Obama spoke.

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Certain forms of art are performed in private. The painter is alone when he paints, the writer likewise.

But the most pertinent aspect of the performing arts is that they are watched. Dance, music, drama and sport are most challenging — and most thrilling — precisely because they are real, before our eyes.