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NPR's business news starts with a goodbye to Nook. All right, the giant book retailer Barnes & Noble is splitting in two. The company says it is separating its profitable retail bookstores from its weak Nook digital operation. Nook has lost $700 million in its e-reader and e-book business over the past two years. Microsoft will invest in the new Nook media as it tries to catch up to digital book leader Amazon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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The drought in California is growing more serious by the day. Yet, one-quarter million homes in California still lack the most basic conservation device there is - a water meter. Nowhere is this problem more clear than in the state capital, Sacramento. Joe Rubin reports.

JOE RUBIN, BYLINE: It's not quite daylight when, at 5:15 a.m., Ron Carpenter hops in his car and begins to patrol the Sacramento neighborhood, looking for signs of lawn watering.

RON CARPENTER: Up here it looks pretty shiny down here. Let's see what this is.

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The word gamer is pretty much synonymous with this sound.

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MONTAGNE: And also the image of someone glued to a video game. But many people are still getting together in real life to play games - board games, card games. And businesses are cropping up to provide venues for old-school gamers. Marielle Segarra has more.

MARIELLE SEGARRA, BYLINE: This is Brooklyn Game Lab, a gaming workshop and store in New York City.

Brazil is pouring nearly a billion dollars into Cuba's Mariel port. Brazil, via Cuba, will practically have its own port near U.S. shores — so it's a major geostrategic move.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne.

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And today's last word in business. "Like A Rolling Stone" - the only handwritten copy of that famous Bob Dylan song about a person down on his luck, sold at auction this week to someone who clearly isn't.

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An anonymous bidder got it for $2 million. That's believed to be a record. This draft version of the song also includes rejected phrases, including dry vermouth, you'll tell the truth - also, something about Al Capone leading into the line, like a complete unknown.

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NPR's Business News starts with more banking fines. The former Credit Suisse banker David Higgs has been handed $950,000 in fines and penalties by New York court. Higgs pled guilty to conspiracy for his part in hiding subprime mortgage bond losses, back in 2012, worth $100 million. Last year, his former boss was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in the same case. This is one of the few criminal prosecutions to come out of the 2008 financial crisis. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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A British jury has reached verdicts in a trial stemming from a scandal involving hacking by tabloids. Several former editors and executives of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers face charges. Former News of the World editor, Andrew Coulson, was found guilty. Other editors were not. NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik has been covering this story. Hi, David.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.

INSKEEP: OK, so what are the verdicts here?

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A new report is calling into question how the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse investigation was handled. Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, was convicted of sexually assaulting 10 boys. Now, Pennsylvania's attorney general says Sandusky could have been brought to justice sooner. NPR's Jeff Brady has this story.

JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: Reports that Jerry Sandusky was abusing children at circulated for years. So when he was arrested in 2011, Kathleen Kane had this question.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I am Renee Montagne. Here in California today, a controversial gun control bill gets its first hearing. It was introduced in the wake of last month's mass murder near the campus of UC Santa Barbara. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: When California lawmakers began debate today, expect the case of Elliott Rodger to come back into focus.

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U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, is back in Iraq on a week-long mission to try to hold that country together. This morning, he's in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north. And his job won't be easy. Just yesterday, Kurdistan's president said it might be the time for the region to go its own way. Jackie Northam is with Kerry and joined us from Erbil. Good morning.

JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Good morning Renee.

MONTAGNE: Now, what exactly did the Kurdish president say?

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Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne. Lawmakers in New York State have passed a bill banning selfies with tigers. Apparently dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid are filled with pictures of single men showing off their adventurous, yet tender, sides by cuddling with the big cats. Now, anyone caught posing next to a tiger could be fined up to $500. But single New York men looking for mates worry not. Selfies with bears and lions are still fair game. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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NPR's Business News starts with a powerful merger. Consolidation among the companies that feed our electrical grid is continuing with a proposed deal between two power utilities in the Midwest. Chuck Quirmbach of Wisconsin Public Radio reports.

CHUCK QUIRMBACH, BYLINE: Milwaukee-based We Energies says its proposal to buy Chicago-based Integrys for $9 billion is a good fit. We Energies' vice president Rick White says the number of publicly traded electric utilities has been shrinking.

The U.S. economy faces great risks from climate change, according to a new study that focuses on the current and future effects of climate change on everything from jobs, to crop yields, to energy production.

Though the study presents no new climate science, it paints a dire picture of the business and economic effects if action isn't taken, including crop yields that fall by more than 70 percent in the Midwest and billions of dollars' worth of property literally underwater on the East Coast.

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Next, let's try to make sense of the warring sides in Iraq. Sunni Muslim extremists have captured much of that country. Secretary of State, John Kerry, was in Baghdad yesterday seeking ways to help the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.

On this program yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, suggested neither side is much worth helping.

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And our last word in Business today is a thriller.

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Or is it a coming-of-age novel?

INSKEEP: Well actually, it's a case of mistaken identity. "Joyland" is the title of bestseller Stephen King's new book.

MONTAGNE: "Joyland" is also the title of the debut coming-of-age novel by Emily Schultz published back in 2006.

INSKEEP: Aw. Some readers thought they were ordering the newest Stephen King book from Amazon and instead they got confused.

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu joins us next. Israel's military has been rounding up politicians or operatives linked with Hamas. That military operation on the West Bank came after the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. Prime Minister Netanyahu, welcome back to the program.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Thank you. Good to be with you, Steve.

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Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne. Summer has arrived and so have the great whites. A new report finds a big jump in the numbers of great white sharks off the East Coast - up to 5,000 of them. Scientists say the surge in sharks on both coasts is because they've been protected since the late '90s. But swimmers need not fear. Only 13 people have been killed by sharks in U.S. waters in the last 100 years. Still, seals - a favorite shark snack - should be afraid, very afraid. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

With its large sand dunes, rivers, big lakes and seas, Saturn's biggest moon is one of the most Earth-like planetary bodies in the solar system. But Titan is no place to call home.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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Let's go now to David Greene who's in Miami, just back from a week reporting in Cuba. It's a hard place to get in, and he's been looking into the changes and reforms that are being put into play in what has been a largely closed Communist state for decades now. David, welcome back, and tell us what we'll be learning from your reporting in the coming days.

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Two journalists in Cairo got seven years in prison and third received 10 years. Egypt's government accused them of helping the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

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You know, I was driving with the windows down on Sunday afternoon and suddenly heard roaring crowds cheering and chanting U.S.A.. It was a lovely summer day here in Washington, D.C., and the car rolled between two outdoor restaurants where people watching the World Cup on TV saw the U.S. score a goal to go ahead. In the end, the U.S. only tied Portugal 2 to 2. They were playing in the city of Manaus, in the thick heat and humidity of the Brazilian Amazon. NPR's Tom Goldman was there.

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