Here and Now

The Battle of Wanat is one of the bloodiest battles of the war in Afghanistan. Nine American soldiers were killed and more than two dozen were wounded when hundreds of insurgents assaulted the Army outpost they were building in Waygal Valley on July 13, 2008. It was just after 4 o’clock that morning when the American soldiers were blasted with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and hand grenades.

When author Cammie McGovern’s oldest son was diagnosed with autism, she looked for an outlet where he could be with other children with similar difficulties. That led her to form the group “Whole Children,” an after-school and weekend program for children with disabilities.

Now, a decade later, those kids spurred her to write the new young adult novel “Say What You Will” (excerpt below).

Citigroup and the Justice Department are reportedly closing in on a $7 billion deal that would settle allegations that the bank sold shoddy mortgages in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The deal is expected to be announced in the next week and comes after months of tense negotiations between the bank and government officials — negotiations that became so tense that in June, the Justice Department threatened to sue if the bank did not agree to the government’s proposed penalty.

The world’s most storied bicycle competition, the Tour de France, has been imperiled by spectators trying to take selfies.

Riders have taken to social media with pleas for fans to show restraint, since fans turning their backs on the race to take photos are unaware of where the riders are and how fast they may be going.

Here & Now’s Robin Young speaks with Bill Strickland, interim editor of Bicycling magazine about the phenomenon and get his take on this year’s race.

Baseball fans in many cities, including Kansas City, can no longer count on the price of single game tickets during the season. Teams are using variable ticket pricing and selling tickets according to projected attendance.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Greg Echlin of KCUR reports that teams are looking at factors including the opposing team, day of the week and who’s on the pitching mound.

This summer, consider going on a journey of a different kind – a trip through time.

Note: See an update on this story here.

City leaders in Leawood, Kansas tonight will take up 9-year-old Spencer Collins‘ Little Free Library.

The boy had put up a slightly larger than a birdfeeder box containing a free book exchange in his front yard, but a neighbor complained it was an eyesore and “an illegal detached structure” that violated the town’s zoning ordinances.

Olga Bielkova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament says, “what is happening between us and Russia right now is a threat to the whole of Europe; Russia is just testing grounds for what it could to do other countries.”

Bielkova told Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson that Ukraine is better prepared to take on pro-Russian separatists, and she thinks that the government will begin winning hearts in Eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian sentiment runs strong.

GoPro stock options began trading today, less than two weeks after it went public. The company, which makes wearable point-of-view action cameras, has come a long way since it was born 10 years ago. GoPro is now one of the best selling cameras in the world, and it’s spawned a whole new category of cameras.

Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson talks to Lauren Goode, reporter and review columnist for Re/code, about GoPro’s success, its competitors and the future of wearable cameras.

In today’s “On Stage” segment, we look at the art of storytelling, which has taken off in venues across the country.

We go to Orlando, Florida, and the Orlando Story Club. The club was co-founded by South African-born Robin Cowie, who has a background in bringing powerful stories to life as a former Hollywood producer. He helped launch the pseudo-reality horror genre as co-producer of the 1999 film, “The Blair Witch Project.”

The cherry on top to yesterday’s encouraging jobs report was a record close for the Dow Jones industrial average.

Derek Thompson, senior editor at the Atlantic talks to Here & Now’s Robin Young about what the record means in context, for the economy as a whole, and for the average American

Ben Franklin is arguably the most famous American ever. His youngest sister Jane is mostly lost to history. But a Harvard historian found her in the letters she and her brother exchanged over their long lives.

They were called Benny and Jenny, and Benny wrote more letters to Jenny than he did to anyone else. Most of his survive; many of her’s do not.

Walter Dean Myers, the award-winning children’s book author and former ambassador for young people’s literature, died this week at the age of 76.

He was a longtime advocate of children’s reading. Earlier this year, he appeared on Here & Now with his son Christopher to discuss the lack of characters of color in children’s literature.

Our homes are becoming more and more connected. Thermostats, televisions, lights and appliances can all be controlled remotely by our smartphones, tablets and computers, with smart-home software.

But Gunter Ollman, chief technology officer of tech security firm IOActive, tells Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson that technology has not caught up to current security measures, and all this connectivity is leaving us vulnerable to hacking.

The German Parliament voted today to set the country’s first national minimum wage, 8.5 euros, which is $11.60 per hour. The new minimum wage will be phased in starting next year.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government supported the move at the insistence of her government coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats. The minimum wage passed over arguments that it would hurt Germany’s economy, which is Europe’s largest.