Here and Now

Last night, the U.S. Olympic Committee tabbed Boston as the American city that will bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. City officials and representatives from Boston2024, the organization that backed the bid, discussed next steps during a press conference this morning.

Athletic shoe companies are clamoring to become the first official training shoe of the U.S. military.

In the 1940s, a law was created requiring that all components of the U.S. military uniform be made domestically, but there was a catch. Training shoes were not included in the requirement because, at the time, they were not produced domestically. But now, companies like Saucony, New Balance and Adidas are vying for the spot.

Twelve people were murdered in Paris on Wednesday at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, apparently over offensive cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

In the days since, media outlets around the country and the world have struggled with whether or not to display the publication’s cartoons in their own pages, websites and television broadcasts.

Today, the U.S. Olympic Committee is expected to name the city that will bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Boston, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles are competing to win that competition. The U.S. hasn’t hosted the summer games since Atlanta in 1996.

Rio won the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics and Tokyo got the nod for the 2020 games. London hosted the summer games in 2012, so we thought we’d check in there to see what the legacy is two years later. Did the games live up their promise as a boost for the city?

California is the nation’s number one dairy state. It’s branded as the state with happy cows, but not necessarily happy dairy owners. For many of them, drought, feed costs and development pressure mean it’s getting tougher to make a living.

That’s why some are some selling their cattle and heading to the Midwest.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Grant Gerlock of Harvest Public Media reports.

The recent start of the college football playoffs drew the largest audience in the history of cable television, with 28.2 million TV viewers watching Oregon beat Florida State. And NFL games continue to dominate primetime TV.

This comes as football is under increased scrutiny for the injuries sustained by many players, and amid controversies over how the NFL handles players accused of domestic abuse.

Fans binge-watching the newly-released, high definition episodes of HBO’s classic cop show “The Wire” might feel like the decade-old show’s storylines are ripped from today’s headlines.

A number of military veterans are among the new members of Congress set to swear in Tuesday. Many will have served in the recent wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. Notably, however, the 114th Congress will be without a World War II veteran for the first time since 1944.

Average rents increased across the country by 3.6 percent in 2014, according to new data from the real estate research firm Reis, Inc. The average monthly lease rate is now $1,124.38, the highest number since Reis started collecting data in 1980.

It’s the fifth year in a row that rents have been on the rise, but this year rent increases affected residents in smaller and midsize cities, and not just the largest cities in the U.S.

A Florida judge said Miami-Dade County can immediately start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, meaning Florida’s first gay weddings may begin shortly.

Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel on Monday lifted a stay on her July ruling that Florida’s same-sex marriage ban violates equal protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Miami-Dade County Clerk Harvey Ruvin says he will begin issuing licenses immediately, so the first gay and lesbian weddings could take place Monday afternoon. A gay rights group already lined up two couples to be the first.

Keeping up with road repair — and finding funds to pay for it — is a struggle for many states, particularly in places where winter weather takes a toll on highways and streets. Wisconsin’s transportation department faces a deficit and is looking for ways to raise $750 million over the next two years.

American composers, singers and other musicians have produced some great music, from country-western to jazz and hip-hop. In a new Here & Now series, host Robin Young asks people to share a playlist of songs they view as quintessentially American music. Up first is Here & Now pop culture critic Renee Graham, who shares the playlist below.

If you love a piece of music, chances are you want to know more about the musician. What event prompted them to write a particular song, or what happened in the studio during the recording — the good, the bad, and, of course, the ugly. At minimum, maybe you want to know who produced an album and who it’s dedicated to.

You can usually find this kind of thing on liner notes — the printed little pamphlets slipped inside a CD or vinyl cover.

Yesterday on our program we talked to a restaurant in Kentucky that has a no-tipping policy — doing away with tipping and instead adding a service charge is one of new food trends that is starting to take off.

On the first day of trading in 2015, we look at what’s expected in the stock market this year — after a strong year in 2014.

Mike Regan of Bloomberg News joins Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd to share his outlook.

American television loves nothing better than a spot of tea, singing medieval knights, frightfully polite heirs and heiresses, and those delightful accents.

NPR’s TV critic Eric Deggans joins Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins about a few of the British-themed shows we’ll be seeing on television in 2015.

Today is the beginning of a new year, and it is cold. Around the country temperatures are dropping below freezing putting citrus crops at risk in California and freezing fire hoses in Wyoming.

Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd speaks with Joel Nelsen, president of California Citrus Mutual about how growers are dealing with the low temperatures.

The pay gap between men and women is at the lowest level for the Millennial generation, according to a new study by the salary information service PayScale and “personal branding agency” Millennial Branding.

Derek Thompson, senior editor at the Atlantic, tells Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins that some jobs have almost no pay gap, a phenomenon economists explain using the “sticky floor theory” of the wage gap.

Roger Ebert once said that movies were an “empathy machine” — they allowed us to have more insight in to lives of other people who are sharing this human journey with us.

That may explain why he won a Pulitzer Prize and went on to become perhaps the most famous film critic in America, the “thumbs-up” partner to Gene Siskel on their TV program about the movies.

It was a big year on Earth, but enough of that — let’s talk about space!

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel talks to Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins about new spacecrafts, new missions, and space triumphs and failures of 2014.

Twenty states across the nation will ring in the New Year with higher minimum wages — increasing pay for around 3 million workers, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

The highest minimum wage in the country will be in Washington state, where the minimum wage will rise to $9.47. The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

Every list of “best books” of the year is as different as a special little snowflake.

Here & Now’s Robin Young speaks with NPR’s Weekend Edition editor Barrie Hardymon about her picks for the best books of 2014.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan may be over, but for hundreds of thousands of veterans who served in that conflict, the scars may never heal.

There are physical wounds, of course, but many are also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Troops who served in Afghanistan are among the estimated 20 veterans who kill themselves every day.

It would seem that the last place a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict would want to return is the front lines of battle. But that is exactly what some U.S. military veterans did recently.

A snap general election in Greece next month has triggered uncertainty among investors and government across Europe.

The election came about when the Greek Parliament rejected the presidential candidate nominated by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

The radical left Syriza party is leading in opinion polls, and its leader opposes the deep budget cuts and austerity measures that have been instituted in Greece as a condition of financial bailouts.

It’s been one year this month since the first case of Ebola was found in Guinea, setting off what has become the deadliest Ebola epidemic in history. New cases have slowed down — but there are reports today that a dozen or so new cases have erupted in Liberia along the border of Sierra Leone.

The Centers for Disease Control in the United States say the virus has killed more than 7,600 people in West Africa.

It is no secret: the smartphone industry is booming. But as the number of users rise to one-third of the world’s population, so rises the number of smartphones stolen and traded on the black market.

It is a multibillion dollar industry growing increasingly complicated as security analysts look for answers and black market entrepreneurs work to stay ahead of the curve.

Every December, economists make predictions about the year ahead, and each year they get hit by unexpected events that make them look clueless. Take the plunge in oil prices — nobody saw that coming.

Still, top economists’ forecasts did get a lot right for 2014.

Last year at this time, most were predicting low inflation, more jobs and rising stock prices — and that’s what we got.

Now they are making their predictions for 2015.

[Note: This show is from a previous interview that aired on March 28, 2014.]

Comedienne Susie Essman plays the sassy Susie Greene on HBO’s acclaimed “Curb Your Enthusiasm” series, bringing to it her own brand of biting sarcasm, pointed insults and no-nonsense panache.

Essman is also a veteran of late night comedy and the world of stand-up, where she made her mark.

Coca-Cola’s recent decision to eliminate their voicemail system at their Atlanta headquarters may be a sign of the times.

The company says this isn’t a cost-cutting measure – Coke estimates it will only save them $100,000 annually – but a move to increase worker productivity.

[Note: This show is from a previous interview that aired on November 13, 2014.]

There are federal regulations designed to keep American mineworkers safe, but this year, an NPR investigation found that there’s a loophole in the regulation, allowing mine owners to operate unsafe mines across the country.

For years, the mine owners have failed to pay penalties even as workers continue to be injured.