Here and Now

Who boxes nowadays? Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson went to The Ring Boxing Club in Boston and found that fighters ranged in age and were of both genders.

He talks to several boxers as well as Springs Toledo, author of “The Gods of War: Boxing Essays” (excerpt below), about the continuing appeal of the sport.

Foreign buyers have helped boost luxury real estate prices in places such as Manhattan for several years now. But that trend may soon push into non-luxury markets across the United States.

The real estate website Zillow soon plans to publish its for-sale listings in Mandarin. Diane Francis of the National Post joins Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti to discuss the recent announcement.

There are still many questions and few answers related to the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that crashed Thursday, killing all 298 passengers aboard. The commercial airliner may have been shot down by a missile along the Russian and Ukraine border.

Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, joins Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti to discuss the steps that would normally be taken after a plane crash.

In 2011, University of Southern California history professor Deborah Harkness introduced readers to professor and reluctant witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont in “A Discovery of Witches.”

It was the first in what has come to be called her “All Souls Trilogy.”

As President Obama announces new actions on climate change, a tight congressional race in southern West Virginia coal country is bringing environmental issues to the forefront.

In West Virginia’s third congressional district, Evan Jenkins, a Republican state senator, will try to unseat Democratic incumbent Nick Rahall, who’s been in office since 1977.

3D printers are capable of producing a variety of consumer products, from children’s toys to prosthetic limbs. Now, a company in the Phoenix area is trying to take the technology to the next level with cars. From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Carrie Jung of KJZZ reports.

Last summer we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones.

Now Keith Richards and Mick Jagger and the rest of the band are rocking in their 51st year. The Stones just put the finishing touches on a European tour and they will play shows in Australia and New Zealand in the fall.

Hope for a ceasefire in the Middle East ended today as Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza. Palestinian officials say more than 190 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes so far. At least four Israelis have been seriously injured since the violence flared.

The ceasefire had been brokered by Egypt. The Israeli attacks resumed after Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel.

From Gaza City, the BBC’s Rushdi Abualouf gives Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti a view from the ground.

The tobacco giant Reynolds American agreed today to buy its rival, Lorillard, bringing together two of the country’s biggest tobacco producers at a weakening time for the industry.

The deal, worth an estimated $27.4 billion, is expected to reshape the tobacco industry amid a longtime decline in smoking among Americans due to smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma.

Today we’re listening to summer oldies with DJ Mike Haile, more commonly known by his DJ moniker “Mike in the Morning,” at WHMS in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson used to listen to him when he was growing up in the area.

Nadine Gordimer, a South African author who won the Nobel Prize for novels that explored the cost of racial conflict in apartheid-era South Africa, has died at the age of 90. The African National Congress declares they have lost an “unmatched literary giant.”

Gordimer wrote in startling detail about the poverty and institutionalized racism that blacks faced under the apartheid system. But it wasn’t politics that moved her to write. Rather, Gordimer once noted that it was learning to write that sent her “falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.”

The Federal Communications Commission has approved a plan to spend $2 billion to increase wireless service in schools and libraries across the country.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said at a hearing last week that because of the plan, “ten million kids will be connected next year who otherwise wouldn’t.”

Not all find the plan beneficial. There is controversy from some Republicans who oppose the plan, saying that this will lead to an increase in phone bills for some Americans.

When the weather is warm and the days long, we often get a chance to see and talk to our neighbors more often than we do when winter’s cold keeps people indoors.

Of the range of people you can know in the world, the neighbor occupies a curious spot.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Sean Hurley of New Hampshire Public Radio has these thoughts on what he’s learned about the people who live near him.

Volunteers in Iowa are getting a great deal — $900 for eating a banana. It’s part of a human feeding experiment to test genetically-engineered bananas.

Researchers hope that blood drawn from the volunteers will show higher levels of vitamin A, so the bananas can head to Uganda, where bananas are a staple and vitamin A deficiency is widespread.

NPR’s Dan Charles joins Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti to talk about the experiment, and what this may mean for fortified produce.

“On Stage” is our look at what’s happening on the boards across the country, from comedy shows to celebrations of slices of American life.

Today, we turn to the Colorado Black Arts Festival, kicking off in Denver today. The festival features three full stages with jazz, blues, reggae and gospel music, as well as traditional African drumming and dance.