Ina Jaffe

It's officially summer vacation time. But if you're a candidate running for president, you'll spend your summer shaking hands in early voting states. Here, a look at the required stops and must-see attractions in Nevada.

Las Vegas may be in the middle of a desert, but once you're on the Strip, you can pretend you're anywhere. Just pick a hotel: Paris, New York, Monte Carlo. Republican candidates generally go Venetian.

Several Republican presidential contenders spoke on Saturday at the RightOnline conference, a gathering of conservative technology activists. NPR's Ina Jaffe was there.

President Obama took his licks from progressives who are meeting in Minneapolis at the Netroots Nation Convention, the annual gathering of liberal bloggers and other social media activists.

The panel that drew one of the biggest crowds at Netroots Nation so far was called "What To Do When The President's Just Not That Into You."

"It's like the president's not our boyfriend anymore," Joan McCarter, an editor at the Daily Kos website, said during the discussion.

There are at least a dozen Republicans considering a run for the White House in 2012. NPR is profiling some of them to find out what first sparked their interest in politics.

But for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, there may have been no spark. Though he spent years as a Southern Baptist minister, he always considered politics his calling.

Earlier this month, NPR reported on the dramatic increase in violence at California's state psychiatric hospitals. At Napa State Hospital, an employee was killed last year, allegedly by a patient. Now, less than six months later, there has been another death at the hospital in Napa. This time, though, it was a patient who died.