Here & Now

This weekend, the city of Aurora, Colorado, will remember the 12 people killed and 70 injured in the mass shooting at a movie theater one year ago.

But some community leaders in nearby Denver say there are other shootings that deserve attention too.

They wonder how to get the public to care when people are killed in a steady trickle, often in poor neighborhoods.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Andrea Dukakis of Colorado Public Radio reports.

Tyler Perry has two new shows on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN): “The Have and The Have Nots” and “Love Thy Neighbor.”

At first, the shows received a record number of viewers for the network, but ratings have since dropped off.

“The Have and Have Nots” is a soap opera-like show about the tensions between rich and poor, black and white.

Millions of children across South Africa sang “Happy Birthday” to Nelson Mandela today as he turns 95.

People around the world are joining South Africans in celebrating his life.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson is among those volunteering 67 minutes in their communities, to honor the 67 years Mandela gave to the struggle against apartheid and creating a new South Africa.

In New York’s Times Square, South African artist Paul Blomkamp is showing his giant portrait of Mandela, which he says was inspired by the leaders great energy.

Law school enrollment is taking a nose dive, and law schools are trimming their faculty rolls.

The legal market has yet to recover from the recession, and that means fewer students are applying to law school.

Middle-tier schools are among the hardest hit, and legal experts say it could be years before their enrollment returns to pre-recession levels.

Netflix’s “House of Cards” made Emmy history Thursday with a top drama series nomination, the first time that television’s leading awards have recognized a program delivered online as equal in quality to the best that TV has to offer.

The nomination, one of nine nods earned by the political thriller, is a marker in the unfolding revolution in how we get and watch video entertainment.

As he prepares his summer reading list, book lover and journalist Danny Heitman says he’s worried college students aren’t reading for fun anymore.

In a recent writing course he taught, he asked his students the last book they read for pleasure. Many of them hadn’t read a book for fun since “Harry Potter.”

Heitman is hesitant to offer a reading list to college-age young men and women, since lists tend to have an air of assigned reading. But he offers these 10 titles.

As many as 10,000 athletes from across the country — ranging in age from 50 to 90 plus — are gathering in Cleveland, Ohio, to compete in the 14th National Senior Games.

The games, which get underway tomorrow and run for two weeks, include competitions in 19 sports, including cycling, swimming and track and field. There’s also badminton, bowling and Bocce ball.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, David C. Barnett of WCPN reports on a how a few of the participants are preparing for their events.

A study released last week by Boston-based Strategy Analytics has revealed that, in general, Americans really don’t want their TVs watching them.

The research found that “43 percent of people would never allow a camera or sensing device to be connected to their TV.”

On the other hand, 14 percent said they’re okay with their TV viewing their behavior and their data being collected.

Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that federal student loan debt now tops a trillion dollars.

Many people across the country are trying to figure out a solution to that problem. One proposal from Oregon has been attracting a lot of attention.

It’s called “Pay It Forward,” and it would allow students to learn now and pay later based on a percentage of their future income.

The idea grew out of a seminar class at Portland State University.

For the first time since the big housing crash five years ago, it appears that some lawmakers are getting serious about replacing the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie and Freddie back most of the mortgages in the country. Now, two prominent senators — one a Democrat and one a Republican — have a proposal to phase them out.

NPR’s Chris Arnold explains what this could mean for the future of the housing finance system.

The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida says a U.S. drone strike has killed a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who rose to become the group’s No. 2 figure.

The announcement, posted on militant websites, gives no date for the death of Saudi-born Saeed al-Shihri.

In January, Yemen’s official SABA news agency had reported that al-Shihri died of wounds from a drone strike three months earlier.

The monitoring group SITE said today that al-Shihri was eulogized in the video by a senior official in the terrorist group, known as Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Coca-Cola reported disappointing second-quarter results, citing bad weather and weak global growth.

But the company has steadily lost consumers in the United States, as people become more wary of consuming sugary drinks.

So what are Americans drinking instead?

If you’re part of the health-conscious foodie crowd, there’s a good chance you eat quinoa.

Five years ago, a lot of people couldn’t pronounce it and had never heard of it. But a boom in the popularity of this so-called Andean “super-grain” is pushing demand sky-high.

As Americans eat more of it, there are suggestions that people who live closest to quinoa — the indigenous people of the Andes — are being deprived of the food because the price has gone so high.

But NPR food and health correspondent Allison Aubrey says the truth is complicated.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on Wednesday on the future of the Voting Rights Act. In June, the Supreme Court nullified a key provision of the act, ruling the law was outdated.

The decision ended the requirement for more than a dozen states to clear new election laws with the Department of Justice.

Now it’s up to Congress to update the formula used to determine which states need extra oversight, based on their history of past voting rights abuses.

The first big heat wave of the summer is here, bearing down on all parts of the U.S., following temperatures that blistered the West Coast in June.

Typically heat waves occur twice every summer. Meteorology director Jeff Masters of Weather Underground says expect the current bout of oppressive heat to last a bit longer than the usual three days. Look for relief by Saturday.

Heat wave highlights

The Los Angeles duo Quadron released their new album “Avalanche” back in May, but it hasn’t made a lot of waves.

And that’s a shame, according to Here & Now pop culture critic Renee Graham, she says because it’s the perfect album for summer listening.

“It’s so light, it’s breezy, it’s easy,” Graham said. “It’s beautifully produced music.”

Officials in Massachusetts are investigating whether to file criminal or civil charges after an auditor’s report last month found that the state had handed out $18 million in questionable benefits — including welfare — to more than 1,000 dead people.

Michigan’s governor Rick Snyder just signed a law to make sure that dead people are not eligible for food assistance.

Is Yahoo making a comeback? The company’s stock is up nearly 36 percent this year.

Investors have had high hopes since the arrival of CEO Marissa Mayer, who joined Yahoo from Google.

Jason Bellini of the Wall Street Journal joins us to talk about how the company is doing overall.

Back in 2005 we introduced you to a group of young men from inner-city Baltimore who spent a year studying in Kenya as part of a small education program called the Baraka School.

The idea was to get the boys away from the crime and drugs in their neighborhood. Their experiences were featured in a documentary called “The Boys of Baraka.”

Bookies are taking bets on the future King or Queen of England: gender, weight, name — even future university and profession.

They’ve hauled in $1.5 million — a record for a non-sports event.

Memorabilia has hit the shelves too — “I love Aunt Pippa” bibs, the “baby duo” pink and blue nail polish kits, “royal baby” cookie tins.

Peter Hunt, the BBC’s royal correspondent, joins us from St. Mary’s Hospital in London where Duchess Kate is expected to give birth.