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Pope Francis is leading a mass prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square Saturday night, building on his calls to avoid violence in the escalating conflict over Syria. Tens of thousands of people have come to the Vatican on what the pontiff has declared a day of fasting and prayer in the name of peace.

Speaking to the crowd Saturday, Francis said that when people withdraw into selfishness, the world fills with violence, division, disagreement and war, according to updates from the Catholic News Service. The agency estimates that when the pope's address began, more than 70,000 people were in St. Peter's Square.

From Rome, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports for our Newscast unit:

"Last Sunday, Pope Francis spoke out in anguish for the victims of a chemical weapons attack in Syria. But he strongly opposes a Western military intervention saying, war begets war, violence begets violence.

"In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the G-20 countries, the pope asked them to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution and to speedily enact initiatives promoting peace through negotiations.

"In addition to tonight's four–hour-long vigil, Francis has urged Christians, believers of other faiths as well as all people of goodwill to join him in fasting for peace in Syria."

America's most powerful European allies agree that Syria should be held responsible for what the U.S. calls a chemical weapons attack on Syrian citizens on Aug. 21. Despite Secretary of State John Kerry's request to support military strikes, members of the European Union believe diplomacy should be the priority.

NPR's Teri Schultz reports for our Newscast unit:

"Seeking to forge a common position on Syria, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton says the 28 EU governments are unanimous that the Syrian regime is the likely perpetrator of the Aug. 21 chemical attack and that something must be done.

"'A clear and strong response is needed to make clear such crimes are unacceptable and there can be no impunity,' she says.

"Ashton gave no sign the bloc as a whole is shifting toward support for military action. So far, only France backs possible strikes on the Syrian regime and Ashton welcomed the French promise to delay any moves until U.N. inspectors conclude their report on the attack.

"Asked whether the EU is urging Washington to also wait on U.N. conclusions, Ashton said the ministers didn't ask Secretary Kerry to 'pledge anything.' "

President Obama has come home from the Group of 20 summit with essentially no more international support for a strike on Syria than when he left the U.S.

He spent the last three days in Sweden and Russia, lobbying U.S. allies on the sidelines and on the public stage, with little movement.

The conflict has presented perhaps the biggest challenge yet to Obama's multilateralist inclinations.

'A Hard Sell'

At a press conference Wednesday in Stockholm, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt showed why president Obama's coalition-building effort is an uphill climb. Reinfeldt stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the American president and said, essentially, they won't be shoulder-to-shoulder on Syria.

"Just to remind you, you're now in Sweden, a small country with a deep belief in the United Nations," he said.

But Russia and China are making sure the United Nations Security Council stays gridlocked. On Friday in St. Petersburg, Obama said fine.

"If we are serious about upholding a ban on chemical weapons use, then an international response is required, and that will not come through Security Council action," he said.

But wait, there's more: Everyone assumed that Britain was on board, until Parliament pulled the rug out from under British Prime Minster David Cameron.

Then on Friday afternoon, the White House released a joint statement from about a dozen countries that called for a "strong international response" to Syria's use of chemical weapons, but the statement did not endorse a military strike.

In St. Petersburg, Obama said he would keep pushing. "It's a hard sell, but it's something I believe in."

Multilateral Tendencies

This effort is personal for Obama. It means giving life to words he's been saying from the start of his political career.

"The words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable," he said in 2009, while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

Four years later, he said almost the exact same thing during this trip: "And so the question is: How credible is the international community when it says this is an international norm that has to be observed?"

Multilateralism has been the foundation of Obama's foreign policy, and not just on issues of war and peace.

As soon as he took office, Obama emphasized the larger Group of 20 major economies over the smaller G-8 forum. He has also tried to balance China's rise by bringing Asia and Latin America into one great big trans-Pacific partnership.

Barry Blechman of the nonpartisan Stimson Center says there are philosophical and economic reasons for this. The U.S. is coming out of a decade of war and an economic recession — acting alone costs money.

"The burdens rightfully should be shared. There's no reason to expect the American people to pay the price of imposing peace and order on the world," Blechman says.

When 'We Must'

This is not the first time Obama's multilateralist philosophy has been tested. During Libya's revolt two years ago, Obama summoned a broad alliance including the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council and more.

"We are acting as part of a coalition that includes close allies and partners who are prepared to meet their responsibility to protect the people of Libya and uphold the mandate of the international community," he said.

More recently, when Islamist fighters overran cities in Mali, French soldiers took the lead. The U.S. provided intelligence and transportation, but never combat support.

Now, in Syria, this strategy seems to have hit a wall. Yet Obama plows ahead, even as one ally after another takes a pass.

"Multilateralism is an important part of his foreign policy," says Dennis Jett, who teaches international affairs at Penn State, "but I always think of the quote from Madeleine Albright: 'Multilaterally whenever we can, unilaterally when we must.'"

And indeed, Obama has said that while he'd prefer an international team, if Congress approves a strike on Syria, he is prepared for America to go it alone.

It sounds like something out of a sit-com – in this case, the original British television version of The Office: jobseekers being compelled to dance for a chance at a sales position at a U.K. electronics retailer.

Applicant Alan Bacon, who hoped for a position at a Currys Megastore in Cardiff, was made to do "rubbish robotics in my suit in front of a group of strangers" to the French electronic duo Daft Punk's "Around the World".

Bacon was quoted by The Mirror as saying that "Another middle-aged guy looked upset as he danced to a rap song."

"Everyone thought it was a joke. But they were serious," Bacon said.

The applicant said he'd spent the week prior to the interview researching the company, "and looking forward to being able to express myself and talk about what I love doing."

Instead, it might have made more sense for him to hit the nightclubs and brush up on the latest moves.

"It was degrading, but I am desperate for work, so I just smiled and got on with it," Bacon said, adding that he told his father it was "like a scene out of The Office."

Currys Megastore on Thursday issued a statement apologizing for the hiring incident:

"We are extremely disappointed that one of the management team at the store in question did not follow our official recruitment processes."

"We are extremely sorry to those interviewees impacted; all are being asked to attend another interview where they will be given a proper opportunity to demonstrate how they can contribute to our business."

Raghuram Rajan, the new governor of India's central bank, swept into office this week infusing a sense of optimism.

He announced hard-headed measures Wednesday that remove uncertainty which has characterized the Reserve Bank of India's moves.

By Friday Indian equities and the rupee were clawing back.

But analysts say the exuberance — and honeymoon with the suave MIT-trained economist — is unlikely to last.

After decade-long high growth rates India is now the sick man of the Asia.

Growth has crashed to a four-year low. The rupee has plunged 16 percent since June, driving up the cost of imports and threatening to widen India's massive current account deficit.

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Here's a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.

Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly announced that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.

For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by Politico. The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March. Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won't be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times notes, adding:

"And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants."

That's a pretty disturbing thought for anyone who's followed the slew of stories regarding food safety failures in China in recent years. As we've previously reported on The Salt, this year alone, thousands of dead pigs turned up in the waters of Shanghai, rat meat was passed off as mutton and — perhaps most disconcerting for U.S. consumers — there was an outbreak of the H7N9 bird flu virus among live fowl in fresh meat markets.

What's more, critics fear that the changes could eventually open the floodgates for a whole slew of chicken products from China. As the industry publication World Poultry notes:

"It is thought ... that the government would eventually expand the rules, so that chickens and turkeys bred in China could end up in the American market. Experts suggest that this could be the first step towards allowing China to export its own domestic chickens to the U.S."

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TED Radio Hour

The Next Greatest Generation?

Saturday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the International Olympic Committee will announce the host of the 2020 Summer Games. The committee is choosing from among Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo. The contenders all have strong selling points but each also has serious issues clouding its bid.

Violent Crackdown Hangs Over Turkey's Bid

Predicting an IOC vote is a tricky affair, but earlier this year Turkish officials were fairly aglow with the sense that this city linking Europe and Asia had the inside track to become the first Muslim country to host the games. Even today, judging by the noise of heavy machinery, one would think the games were practically a sure thing.

In the Besiktas neighborhood near Taksim Square, the old soccer stadium is coming down to make way for a new arena. In addition to a massive new airport, a tunnel beneath the Bosphorus is nearly finished and a third bridge spanning the strait is in the works.

But violent crackdowns on street protests thrust Istanbul into the headlines this summer, and a doping scandal has rocked the country's sporting federation.

Tugba Guvenc, 19, an 800-meter specialist training for the 2020 games, says she hopes the bad publicity won't ruin Istanbul's chances.

"These negative events have hurt us, but our advantages are still strong," she says. "The Olympics is about bringing people together and we bring two continents together."

Environmentalists and urban planners hope the games don't come here, saying the last thing Istanbul needs now is another rush of mega-projects. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is taking a personal interest in the bid, traveling directly from the G-20 summit to Buenos Aires for a last minute push.

Will Third Time Be A Charm For Madrid?

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It's a typical day — which means it's a very dangerous one — at the Karaj al-Hajez crossing point that separates the eastern part of Aleppo that's held by the rebels and the western part that's held by President Bashar Assad's army.

Despite the risks, street vendors still shout about their merchandise on offer and residents carry on with their daily shopping. An old man urges his wife to hurry so that they can cross back to the other side before trouble erupts, which it does with regularity.

Suddenly, a sniper begins to fire and people start running and hiding behind walls or dashing onto side streets. The shooting gets heavier and machine guns join the noisy exchange of fire.

People wait patiently until the shooting stops and the crossing point opens again, allowing residents to home in the areas controlled by the government forces.

This used to be a main road connecting two neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial capital. But heavy fighting broke out in Aleppo more than a year ago. With the battle now largely a stalemate, Aleppo has been cleaved in two.

And for more than two months now, this crossing on Karaj al-Hajaz street — which residents call the Death Crossing — has been the only point that links the two parts of the city.

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The nation's jobless rate dipped to 7.3 percent in August from 7.4 percent in July as 169,000 jobs were added to public and private payrolls, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated Friday morning.

The figures were roughly in line with what economists had been expecting to hear.

But buried within the report was a troubling revision: Instead of the 162,000 jobs that BLS thought had been added to payrolls in July, it now estimates that employment grew by just 104,000 jobs that month.

We'll post more highlights from the report, as well as reactions to it and analyses about how policymakers at the Federal Reserve may react, in the coming hour. Be sure to hit your "refresh" button to see our latest updates.

Update at 9:10 a.m. ET. Fed Could Go Either Way?

The report "'is a mixed bag that can be used to support an immediate tapering of the Fed's monthly asset purchases or delaying that move until later this year," Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, tells The Associated Press.

Update at 9:05 a.m. ET. "Participation Rate" Lowest In 25 Years:

In what could be a disturbing sign that many Americans are still finding it hard to get work, the report says the labor force "participation rate" last month was 63.2 percent — the lowest it's been since August 1978.

Update at 9 a.m. ET. Will The Fed Hold Off On Dialing Back?

Bloomberg News writes that:

"Fed policy makers have been weighing data to determine whether the economy is strong enough for it to scale back the pace of its $85 billion in monthly bond buying. The Fed said Sept. 4 that the economy maintained a modest to moderate pace of growth.

"Fed Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans, a voter on policy this year, said today the central bank shouldn't taper its $85 billion in monthly bond buying until inflation and economic growth pick up. He has consistently supported record stimulus."

This won't be a standard party-line vote. Big factions within both parties remain skeptical about President Obama's plans to launch punitive airstrikes against Syria.

If the vote were held today, it might not pass. Obama and his allies — including top House leaders of both parties — have a big selling job yet to do to persuade a majority of members to authorize military action.

Not to mention the public. A flurry of polls has shown that few Americans support a new bombing campaign in the Middle East.

What makes this particularly difficult is the need to get the authorization language just right — tough enough to preserve support among those who favor an aggressive stance against Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, without making it sound too bellicose to drive away those nervous about bombing leading to a broader U.S. engagement.

Here are some of the various congressional factions that Obama will have to contend with:

War-Weary Democrats

Democratic House members such as Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Rick Nolan of Minnesota have publicly described themselves as "war weary." After more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, they want to avoid casualties and prefer to spend U.S. funds at home.

In a letter to Obama, Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida warned than an overt military strike "is likely to exacerbate violence in the Middle East."

Those opposed to the use of force could make up a sizable percentage of the Democratic House caucus. Two years ago, 70 Democrats voted against authorizing force in Libya. In July, 111 voted for an amendment that would have blocked the National Security Agency from freely collecting phone data on Americans.

"There's maybe a third of the Democratic caucus who, even when the administration has been supportive of the use of force, have been skeptical," says an aide to one House Democrat.

Tea Party Isolationists

Some Republicans reject the "isolationist" label when it comes to this vote, saying they don't see the value of taking sides in another country's civil war. Senators such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah have said there's no vital interest at stake for the U.S. in Syria.

Many have also questioned Obama's handling of national security issues in general.

"I don't think the president has met the burden with members of Congress or the American people in terms of laying out what exactly a limited strike would achieve and what the way forward is," says GOP Rep. Tim Griffin of Arkansas. "I'm not convinced it's in our national interest."

Griffin promises to keep an open mind during the coming days of debate, but he says his constituents are almost unanimously opposed to such an operation. "I've heard most of the arguments, I think, and I'm not convinced," he says.

At least in the House, Republican doubters might make up a majority of the caucus.

"Even if you give a limited OK, is there the potential for that to be drawn out into something bigger?" asks Doug Sachtleben, spokesman for GOP Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana, who is against authorizing the use of force.

International Norm Upholders

No matter their queasiness about getting the U.S. involved in another war, numerous members of Congress are also troubled by Syrian use of chemical weapons. They can be persuaded to support punitive strikes — as long as such action is strictly limited.

Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island, for instance, says he's worried that letting the Aug. 21 gas attack go unanswered will "give the green light" to other nations and terrorist groups.

But he's wary of war. Langevin will only support strikes that are "very targeted, with limited scope and duration," says his press secretary, Meg Fraser. "He's been very strong on that — he does not want to see boots on the ground."

This is Obama's most potentially fertile territory, with lots of Democrats and Republicans alike ready to punish Assad over chemical weapons but not wanting to get drawn deeply into the conflict.

Interventionists

Almost since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, some members of Congress, mostly on the Republican side, have urged that the U.S. play an active military role.

GOP Reps. Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas — both veterans — say that Obama should have acted earlier against Assad.

"Inaction will tell Assad, Kim Jong Un [of North Korea] and others that it's open season for the use of chemical weapons," they wrote in The Washington Post. "If we won't act against a use of weapons of mass destruction, Iran will surely believe that we will not act against its nuclear program."

At this juncture, some members of Congress — notably GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona — want Obama to do more than punish Assad. The U.S. must also "degrade" the Syrian regime's killing capabilities and help the rebels overthrow him.

One way to characterize it: If you're going to go in, go in big. On Wednesday, McCain successfully amended the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's draft resolution to state that it would be U.S. policy "to change the momentum on the battlefield in Syria."

"I'm trying to reconcile why, if we're going to go in there militarily, if we're going to strike, why wouldn't we try to do some kind of knockout punch?" Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said at Tuesday's Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Johnson voted against the resolution approved by the committee on Wednesday. Other Republican members have questioned the value of "pinprick strikes" that wouldn't destroy Syria's chemical weapons stocks or tip the balance of power.

But pleasing them by taking on a more expansive mission could cost Obama more votes among congressional skeptics than he'd be likely to gain.

There is something new and different for home mortgages: Jumbo loans are being made at lower interest rates than traditional home loans. That's kind of like a first class airplane ticket being cheaper than riding in coach.

At first this seems crazy. For as long as anybody can remember, homeowners have had to pay a premium to get jumbo loans. That's because they're not guaranteed by the federal government. If they're not guaranteed, they're riskier, so they cost more in interest payments.

"That's the old math," says Scott Simon, who for many years was one of the biggest mortgage traders in the world. "In the new world, that doesn't have to be true."

Simon, who worked for investment firm Pimco, says right now banks are making most of those jumbo loans only to the very best customers — wealthy people with perfect credit, who can put a lot of money down.

So cutting them a good deal isn't crazy.

"These are incredible borrowers and the banks want to do business with these people because they can do so much other business with them," Simon says.

Meanwhile, big banks have more cash on hand to loan out to these very best customers.

And also, the government controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been ratcheting up fees they charge to guarantee those traditional loans for the rest of America. That pushes up interest rates for average people who take out those smaller traditional loans.

"I'm not sure it's a good thing or a bad thing," Simon says. "What it's gonna do is make Fannie and Freddie incredibly profitable."

That profit will flow back to the U.S. Treasury, which controls Fannie and Freddie. So Simon says it won't be long before Fannie and Freddie have handed over more money to the government than it cost taxpayers to bail them out.

Touchy Feely

Director: Lynn Shelton

Genre: Drama

Running Time: 89 minutes

Rated R for language, some drug use and brief sexuality

With: Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page, Josh Pais, Scoot McNairy

Adore

Director: Anne Fontaine

Genre: Drama

Running Time: 100 minutes

Rated R for risibility. (We kid, we kid. It's for sexual content and language. And risibility.)

With: Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville

A quick scan of Craigslist reveals a curious market for not just smartphones and computers, but the empty packaging of smartphones and computers. On my local Craigslist, a MacBook Pro box — "box only," as the sales pitches read — goes for $19. A MacBook Air box will cost you $15. And a Samsung Galaxy S4 box sells for $10.

This box market seems limited to the smartphone, tablet and computer packaging, and not boxes for, say, televisions or jewelry. Sure, a lot of computer packaging can be impressive in its engineering to fit all components snugly. But $19 for a box? What's going on here? We're hoping you can tell us.

Scotland is the de facto king of whisky. But now an unlikely challenger — Japan — is making a name for its whisky far beyond its borders. Unfortunately for Americans, this highly coveted Japanese whisky is very hard to come by.

"I stock everything that's currently available," says Eddie Kim, beverage director at the Japanese izakaya Daikaya in Washington, D.C. "I'd take more [Japanese whisky] if it was out there." Currently, he has on hand two Nikka and four Suntory whiskies — two big Japanese producers and the only ones that export to the U.S.

Japanese distillers have tried to emulate Scotch whisky production, so the flavors are similar. But you'll find that the whiskies from Japan are smoother and a tad sweeter than what you'll get from Scotland.

So why won't Japanese producers just send us more of their delightful spirit? For one, they aren't all that confident that Americans will drink their whiskey the "right" way. "Japanese whisky distillers are very protective of their product," says Kim. "It's a made for Japanese palates, so it needs context."

In Japan, that means it has to be served with particular foods. "It could be bar nuts, something raw, or pickles," says Suntory brand ambassador Neyah White. "It doesn't have to be a full meal."

How the spirit is diluted is equally important. "There is reverence for water," says White. "It is not a casually added element. It's special ice or water, sometimes temple water that's never been in pipes."

Protecting this refined experience for Japanese consumers is a paramount concern for Suntory. "Every bottle that's sold here is a bottle that isn't sold in Japan," says White. "They need to take care of their customers who have been drinking Suntory for generations and make sure they have an uninterrupted supply."

Most Japanese whiskies aren't intended for export, "unlike the Scotch industry, which was selling to England, the rest of the British Empire, and Europe almost since it began," says Chris Bunting, author of Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan's Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments. "Exports are a tiny, tiny part of what [the Japanese producers] do."

While they did attempt to break into the U.S. market back in the 1960s, it didn't go well. Then, in 2003, Suntory's 30-year-old Hibiki whisky took home the top award at the International Spirits Challenge — the first time a whisky produced outside of Scotland won. This unexpected triumph was Japanese whisky's big coming out party on the global spirits stage.

After the ISC win, Suntory tried to reconnect with American tipplers. This time they exported their Yamazaki 12-year whisky, a top shelf single malt, which was received well at Japanese restaurants and elsewhere.

Since then, Suntory have added three more whiskies to their American offerings. Despite this growing presence and growing sales figures, the company says it's moving fewer than 15,000 cases a year in the U.S.

The company will launch two more vintages later this year – Yamazaki 25 and Hakushu Heavily Peated. It's slow progress for the growing group of Americans who enjoy Japanese whiskies.

Tiffany Soto, beverage manager for Pabu in Baltimore, Md., stocks ten Japanese whiskies that took her over a year to source. She says she sees a growing interest in the spirits. "Japanese whisky sales account for more than 35 percent of our total cocktail sales with demand increasing each month," she says.

For consumers who simply cannot wait, it possible to bring in Japanese bottles by buying them online, through mail order or in a suitcase. But the regulations and the legality of these options vary widely around the U.S. In the meantime, it will be a while before Japanese whisky is as ubiquitous as ramen.

Martell is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

It sounded a bit far fetched, and perhaps it was.

Iran's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and threatened to wipe Israel off the map. But his successor, President Hassan Rouhani, considered a relative moderate by contrast, has taken a somewhat softer tone. So, when Rouhani allegedly tweeted the following, it was quickly became news:

As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/tmaf84x7UR

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 4, 2013

Just a few hours after this headline:

"Egyptians Hail Military Order as Calm Returns to Streets." (The Wall Street Journal)

No one has ever doubted Mois Yussuroum's patriotism. As part of the Greek resistance during World War II, he fought Benito Mussolini's fascist army and then the Nazis.

"The other resistance fighters didn't know I was Jewish," he says, since he used the name "Yiorgos Gazis" in case he was captured. "But my superiors did know, and they gave me many responsibilities, including making me a garrison commander."

Now, more than 70 years after Yussuroum and other Greeks fought the German Nazis, Greece confronts the rise of the Golden Dawn Party, which espouses a far-right ideology. Its members use Nazi symbolism and slogans and blame "Jewish bankers" for the country's debt crisis. They say they're patriots, not fascists, a claim that makes Yussuroum, a retired dentist who's now 94, cringe.

"Their minds are sick," he says. "They say the Holocaust is a lie, and they don't believe the Germans killed Jews."

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Your produce and frozen foods could soon arrive at grocery stores in trucks that release fewer emissions. Researchers are developing a clean technology to keep your food cool while it travels.

Engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working to replace refrigerated trucks' diesel-burning cooling system with fuel cells. These fuel cells mix hydrogen and air to create energy; the byproduct is water. Researcher Kriston Brooks says that means fewer greenhouse gas and particulate emissions than diesel engines.

"From the big picture of how much carbon dioxide we produce and other emissions, it's pretty small. But it's a start," Brooks says.

Brooks says hydrogen fuel cells are twice as efficient as the diesel engines used to cool refrigerated trucks, but they can be expensive. He and his colleagues are working to make them cheaper for companies to use. The cooling system they are currently working on — which includes a fuel cell and cooling container, — costs about $40,000. By comparison, a diesel engine-based cooling system typically runs $20,000-$30,000. But, Brooks says, the price of fuel cells is quickly dropping.

He says people also get a little nervous when they hear the words hydrogen and fuel in the same sentence.

"We are working very hard on this project to include the hydrogen safety panel that [the Department of Energy] has set up to make sure that we're incorporating suggestions that they have so that it can be a safe technology," Brooks says.

Researchers will spend the next year testing the equipment in the lab. Field tests will take place in the summer of 2015, when trucks powered by the fuel cells will be used to transport groceries in California, Texas, and New York. The goal over the 400 hours of logged run time is to assess the fuel cell's durability as it rumbles down the road.

"We wanted to verify that it would work in various climates in different times of year. Certainly it's a lot more rigorous on a fuel cell and a [transport refrigeration unit] during the summertime," Brooks says.

Several grocery facilities participating in the research already power their forklifts with hydrogen fuel cells. Experiments are also being run in buses and cars, and on grid reliability projects. Researchers are also working on powering luggage transportation carts at airports with fuel cells.

The fuel cells, which are about the size of a breadbox, will save about 10 gallons of fuel per day per truck, the researchers say. That may not sound like much, but the hope is that if fuel cells can replace the diesel engines currently used to cool some 300,000 refrigerated trucks on the road in the U.S., the energy savings will soon add up.

This post originally appeared on Earthfix, a joint reporting project between Oregon Public Broadcasting, member station KUOW, KCTS 9 Public Television, Idaho Public Television, Northwest Public Radio and Southern Oregon Public Television.

One of the surprise movie hits this past weekend was almost entirely in Spanish. Instructions Not Included made an enormous amount of money per screen, more than $22,000, playing in fewer than 350 theaters. The boys in One Direction had the number one film, but they pulled in less than $6000 per screen. That's a huge victory for star Eugenio Derbez, a household name in Mexico, and for Pantelion films, which has been trying to find a Spanish-language hit in the U.S. film market for a few years now.

Instructions Not Included has a familiar story, no matter what language you tell it in: An American woman and a Mexican playboy have a fling in Acapulco. Months later, she shows up at his doorstep, hands him a baby she says is his, and takes off, leaving the bachelor to clean up his act and raise the adorable little girl by himself.

The film was made specifically for the Mexican and U.S. Latino audience. The studio — a joint venture of Lionsgate and the Mexican company that owns Univision — put its all into promoting the film and its star.

"We did a five city tour with Eugenio," says Pantelion CEO Paul Pressburger. "Eugenio was on Univision non-stop the last week in terms of morning and evening shows."

All of that promotion convinced Catherine Rosales to buy a ticket for Instructions Not Included this week in Washington, D.C.

"It has one of the funniest Hispanic actors," she said on her way into the theater. She'd seen the trailer and heard friends talking about it, too.

Research indicates that many Latinos in the U.S. are movie lovers. Last year, a quarter of all movie tickets sold were bought by Latinos, according to Nielsen. That's not a surprise to Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

"We're a very family-oriented culture," he points out. "When we go to the movies we don't go two at a time. We go all of us at the same time."

But Latinos in the U.S. won't see just any movie says Nogales. Pantelion's been releasing Spanish-language films for a few years but none of them have done very well at the box office. Only one topped the $5 million mark: A comedy starring Will Ferrell, called Casa de mi Padre. It got terrible reviews.

With Instructions Not Included, Alex Nogales thinks Pantelion found the right movie at the right time.

"You have distributors, you have stars, you have population. So when you have all these stars aligning you're going to get these results," Nogales says.

Pantelion is hoping those stars say in alignment. This weekend Instructions Not Included will open in 153 more theaters in the U.S... and in Mexico later this month.

Although he says he did not ask Congress to authorize the use of force against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime "as a symbolic gesture," President Obama reiterated Wednesday that "I always reserve the right and responsibility to act on behalf of America's national security."

The president's comment came during a joint news conference in Stockholm with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Obama had been asked what he will do if Congress rejects his request to use military force as a way to respond to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. While the president did not say he would go ahead with his plan even without the OK of Congress, he did not rule that out.

Obama is on the first day of a short visit to Europe, during which he will press other international leaders to agree that the world must act in response to the attack near Damascus two weeks ago in which, the U.S. says, about 1,400 people were killed and even more were injured.

"If we don't" respond forcefully, Obama said of taking military action against Assad, "we are effectively saying that even though we may condemn it [the use of chemical weapons] ... somebody who is not shamed by resolutions can continue to act with impunity."

Echoing a comment made Tuesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Obama also said that "I didn't set a red line" by saying Assad would be crossing such a mark if he used chemical weapons. "The world set a red line," Obama said, "when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons [is] abhorrent."

And Congress, he added, "set a red line when it ratified that treaty" after World War I.

Nations cannot just "shake our heads and go about our business" after attacks such as what happened in Syria, Obama said.

Prime Minister Reinfeldt said of Sweden's position that "this small country will always say 'let's put our hope in the United Nations' " and that he's hoping any decision on the use of force will be put off until U.N. inspectors report about what they found at the site of the attack in Syria. But, Reinfeldt added, "I understand the problem of not having a reaction to the use of chemical weapons and what kind of signal that sends to the rest of the world."

No one has ever doubted Mois Yussuroum's patriotism. As part of the Greek resistance during World War II, he fought Benito Mussolini's fascist army and then the Nazis.

"The other resistance fighters didn't know I was Jewish," he says, since he used the name "Yiorgos Gazis" in case he was captured. "But my superiors did know, and they gave me many responsibilities, including making me a garrison commander."

Now, more than 70 years after Yussuroum and other Greeks fought the German Nazis, Greece confronts the rise of the Golden Dawn Party, which espouses a far-right ideology. Its members use Nazi symbolism and slogans and blame "Jewish bankers" for the country's debt crisis. They say they're patriots, not fascists, a claim that makes Yussuroum, a retired dentist who's now 94, cringe.

"Their minds are sick," he says. "They say the Holocaust is a lie, and they don't believe the Germans killed Jews."

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On the windswept plateau where Madrid is perched, it's too dry to raise cattle and most crops. So pork has long been a mainstay, from jamn ibrico and charcuterie tapas to stews of pigs' ears and entrails.

But when locals want a really special treat, they go for an entire piglet roasted whole — head, hooves and all — on an oak wood fire.

Cochinillo asado, or roast suckling pig, is part of a tradition of farm-to-table eating that's appeared in literature, from Cervantes to Hemingway, for centuries. The pigs have typically been raised on family farms in the Spanish provinces within about 100 miles from Madrid.

They're fed only their mothers' milk and slaughtered at 4 to 5 weeks before being transported to restaurants in the capital. In olden days, that was at least a day's ride on horseback. Now it takes a couple hours by truck.

"A baby piglet is very delicate. Any bacteria or parasite could hurt them," says Victor Manuel, whose family runs Carnicas Tejedor, a cochinillo distribution company outside of Madrid. "The newborns ... haven't built up any natural defenses, and drink only their mothers' milk — we don't give them any vitamins or artificial hormones."

The piglets are slaughtered when they still weigh less than 10 pounds. One cochinillo usually feeds four people.

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"We are not asking America to go to war," Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee early Wednesday afternoon, as he and other top administration officials continued to push Congress to support President Obama's call for military strikes aimed at the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Parallels

Damascus: Anxiety, School Shopping And Soldiers Everywhere

In perhaps the largest nationwide fast-food strike in history, the employees who make your 99-cent burgers and tacos were planning strikes in 50 U.S. cities Thursday. Workers are calling for a $15 minimum wage and hoping to raise attention to the fast-food industry's low pay and limited prospects. The current federal minimum wage standard is $7.25 per hour.

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President Obama landed in Sweden on Wednesday — the start of a European trip that will take him to Russia for a summit of world leaders at which he'll try to build support for his plan to strike targets inside Syria.

As The Washington Post says, it's a "high-stakes trip ... that could show whether the United States has broad international backing for action."

The most prominent skeptic about taking military action in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons is the G20 Summit's host, Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Wednesday, Agence France Presse writes, Putin "suggested Russia could approve military strikes against the Syrian regime if the West presented watertight evidence of chemical weapons crimes but warned the use of force without U.N. approval would be an 'aggression.' "

The two-day G20 Summit is set to start Thursday in St. Petersburg.

While Obama is in Europe, debate continues in Washington, D.C., over his request that Congress authorize military action against Syria. On Tuesday, as we reported, the leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "came to a bipartisan agreement that would allow President Obama to use force against Syria, but would also give him a time limit."

Wednesday morning, the committee is expected to vote on that resolution.

Over on the House side of the Capitol, the Foreign Affairs Committee meets at noon ET to hear from the same administration officials who testified before the Senate panel on Tuesday: Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

We posted Tuesday about the "4 exchanges you should listen to" from the officials' Senate testimony. They're expected to get a more skeptical reception from the House members Wednesday.

Related headlines:

— "Senators Rand Paul And John McCain Differ On Syria Strikes." (Morning Edition)

— "How Concerns For Israel's Security Enters Into Sryria Plan." (Morning Edition)

— "Syria Crisis: Vladimir Putin Under Growing Pressure." (The Guardian)

— "Standing Firm, Assad Wages War Shielded With A Smile." (The New York Times)

— "Middle East Strains Under The Weight Of Syria's 2 Million Refugees." (The Wall Street Journal)

A majority of Congress remains undecided, at least publicly, about President Obama's plan to launch a military strike against Syria.

Not Minnesota Rep. Rick Nolan. The 69-year-old Democrat is a firm "no" vote.

He's characterized the administration's evidence of a chemical attack as "sketchy and confusing at best." He remains unconvinced that it was Syrian President Bashar Assad, and not the al-Qaida-linked rebels, who ordered the use of chemical weapons that killed 1,429 Syrians, including 426 children. During a Monday briefing on the situation, he got into a vigorous exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry.

"A careful examination of the evidence in this case shows a profound neglect in exploring the other possibilities," Nolan said Tuesday. "We do know is that this whole thing will likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and we'll kill a lot of people as well."

Nolan, who was first elected to Congress in the 1970s on an anti-Vietnam War platform, is emblematic of the resistance in the Democratic Party's liberal wing.

One of an estimated 50-plus left-leaning Democratic House members expected to vote against Obama's plan to strike Syria, Nolan is dead set against the use of force, arguing that the role of the U.S. is "not the policeman of the world."

"I've had the good fortune to vote to end several wars that we ought not to have gotten into," says Nolan, who declined to run for re-election in 1980 but was sent back to the House last fall after a 32-year hiatus. "I'd like to be on the front end of stopping one before it got started."

Nolan says he can't get into the specifics of the contretemps with Kerry because it occurred during a classified meeting. He summed it up this way: "He obviously hasn't read the same documents that I have — but he has invited me to meet with him in his office to go over the ones he has." The meeting is being planned.

Strange Bedfellows

The liberal Democratic congressman finds himself in the unusual position of being aligned with fellow Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, the conservative founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, who also adamantly opposes military action.

Some characterize the opposition to intervention in Syria as libertarian, ultraconservative or ultraliberal. Nolan explained it this way during a Tuesday radio interview in his home state: "I think it's just good common sense."

Yet for all the chatter about liberal anti-interventionists like Nolan teaming up with libertarian or conservative anti-interventionists like Bachmann, history — and especially recent history — is not on their side.

The closest such a coalition came to victory recently was a vote on a bipartisan House amendment that would have restricted the NSA's power to collect domestic phone records. The amendment, sponsored by libertarian GOP Rep. Justin Amash and liberal Democratic Rep. John Conyers, both from Michigan, attracted votes from both parties but failed 205-217. Bachmann voted against the amendment; Nolan voted for it.

Could the unlikely coalition against military action in Syria produce a different result?

"I would love to be proven wrong because President Obama promised us no stupid wars," says Michael Heaney, a former House committee staffer under Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "But you don't see any coordination across these groups, and you would need to see that to build a winning coalition."

"Given the polarization in Washington, I don't see it being built — to build a majority, you really need coordinated opposition across both parties," says Heaney, who has written extensively about what he calls the "demobilization" of the anti-war movement since Obama won the White House.

"My prediction is that there will be opposition from both political extremes, people who are fairly marginal in American politics, but most in the middle will support the president," he says.

There is at least one wild card, however: House leaders of both parties have designated the Syria vote one of individual conscience, meaning members will not be pressured by the leadership team to vote a certain way.

"When you have a free vote, or a conscience vote, members have to make up their own minds," says Keith Poole, a political scientist who tracks U.S. politics and polarization at the University of Georgia. "This vote will separate the serious from the unserious, and that's why it's so important."

It's a situation where it will be difficult to predict votes based on previous positions, says John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World, a progressive organization that advocates for the control of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

"This is a new situation for everyone," Isaacs says. "Congress is like the dog that chases the car — now they've caught the car, what do they do?"

Slim Prospects For No Vote?

On Tuesday, the chances of the no-on-Syria movement appeared to dim as House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued strong statements of support for the president's plan to launch a military strike.

And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who along with Obama, opposed the Iraq War in 2002, has continued to stand by the president.

In a letter Tuesday to Nolan and his fellow House Democrats, Pelosi said that a military response to the use of chemical weapons is "in the national interest," and evidence of the use of chemical weapons is "clear, convincing and devastating."

The rallying that's occurring around the president's plan points to the difficulty that unlikely coalitions face when trying to put together a win.

Nolan concedes the uphill nature of his fight. Even he'd bet on the "power of the presidency and the military-industrial influence on Congress" to ultimately extract a yes vote for Obama's plan.

One reason is that the fervor of those opposing war during the Bush administration was all but extinguished by Obama's election, says Heaney, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, where he and a colleague have tracked the modern anti-war movement.

"It's not easy," Nolan says of his anti-war efforts. "The president has a very formidable PR machine."

He also tweaked major media outlets, suggesting that they have failed to balance the voices of advocates for the strike against Syria with contrarians.

"These wars of choice," Nolan said Tuesday in Minnesota, "are bankrupting the country."

He wants Assad's fate to be placed in the hands of the International Criminal Court — despite the fact that it's an alternative that many see as toothless on its own, especially in the face of Syria-like situations. (It took U.S.-led bombings and NATO intervention to bring Bosnian war criminals to trial, for example.)

Still, Nolan argues that courts and the rule of law should be allowed to play their roles despite their flaws.

"It's not easy, but in the progress of humanity, killing begets more killing begets more killing," he said. "I think, in this instance we don't have any friend in this conflict, on either side."

No one has ever doubted Mois Yussuroum's patriotism. As part of the Greek resistance during World War II, he fought Benito Mussolini's fascist army and then the Nazis.

"The other resistance fighters didn't know I was Jewish," he says, since he used the name "Yiorgos Gazis" in case he was captured. "But my superiors did know, and they gave me many responsibilities, including making me a garrison commander."

Now, more than 70 years after Yussuroum and other Greeks fought the German Nazis, Greece confronts the rise of the Golden Dawn party, which espouses a far-right ideology. Its members use Nazi symbolism and slogans and blame "Jewish bankers" for the country's debt crisis. They say they're patriots, not fascists, a claim that makes Yussuroum, a retired dentist who's now 94, cringe.

"Their minds are sick," he says. "They say the Holocaust is a lie, and they don't believe the Germans killed Jews."

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U.S. competitiveness among global economies suffered after the 2008 global economic crisis. Four years after the crisis, the U.S. slipped in the World Economic Forum's annual competitiveness ranking. This year it's back up a bit: The U.S. rose to fifth position overall from seventh last year, in the forum's latest survey, which was released Wednesday.

Here's what the survey says about the U.S., the world's largest economy:

"Overall, many structural features continue to make the US economy extremely productive. U.S. companies are highly sophisticated and innovative, supported by an excellent university system that collaborates admirably with the business sector in R&D. Combined with flexible labor markets and the scale opportunities afforded by the sheer size of its domestic economy — the largest in the world by far — these qualities continue to make the United States very competitive.

"On the other hand, some weaknesses in particular areas remain. Although the assessment of institutions improves this year, the business community continues to be rather critical, with trust in politicians still somewhat weak (50th), concerns about the government's ability to maintain arms-length relationships with the private sector (54th), and a general perception that the government spends its resources relatively wastefully (76th). The macroeconomic environment continues to be the country's greatest area of weakness (117th), although the deficit is narrowing for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis."

Your produce and frozen foods could soon arrive at grocery stores in trucks that release fewer emissions. Researchers are developing a clean technology to keep your food cool while it travels.

Engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working to replace refrigerated trucks' diesel-burning cooling system with fuel cells. These fuel cells mix hydrogen and air to create energy; the byproduct is water. Researcher Kriston Brooks says that means fewer greenhouse gas and particulate emissions than diesel engines.

"From the big picture of how much carbon dioxide we produce and other emissions, it's pretty small. But it's a start," Brooks says.

Brooks says hydrogen fuel cells are twice as efficient as the diesel engines used to cool refrigerated trucks, but they can be expensive. He and his colleagues are working to make them cheaper for companies to use. The cooling system they are currently working on — which includes a fuel cell and cooling container, — costs about $40,000. By comparison, a diesel engine-based cooling system typically runs $20,000-$30,000. But, Brooks says, the price of fuel cells is quickly dropping.

He says people also get a little nervous when they hear the words hydrogen and fuel in the same sentence.

"We are working very hard on this project to include the hydrogen safety panel that [the Department of Energy] has set up to make sure that we're incorporating suggestions that they have so that it can be a safe technology," Brooks says.

Researchers will spend the next year testing the equipment in the lab. Field tests will take place in the summer of 2015, when trucks powered by the fuel cells will be used to transport groceries in California, Texas, and New York. The goal over the 400 hours of logged run time is to assess the fuel cell's durability as it rumbles down the road.

"We wanted to verify that it would work in various climates in different times of year. Certainly it's a lot more rigorous on a fuel cell and a [transport refrigeration unit] during the summertime," Brooks says.

Several grocery facilities participating in the research already power their forklifts with hydrogen fuel cells. Experiments are also being run in buses and cars, and on grid reliability projects. Researchers are also working on powering luggage transportation carts at airports with fuel cells.

The fuel cells, which are about the size of a breadbox, will save about 10 gallons of fuel per day per truck, the researchers say. That may not sound like much, but the hope is that if fuel cells can replace the diesel engines currently used to cool some 300,000 refrigerated trucks on the road in the U.S., the energy savings will soon add up.

This post originally appeared on Earthfix, a joint reporting project between Oregon Public Broadcasting, member station KUOW, KCTS 9 Public Television, Idaho Public Television, Northwest Public Radio and Southern Oregon Public Television.

If you've ever wondered just how much marketing companies know about you, whether it's your education or income or purchase preferences, today you can see for yourself.

With the beta launch of AboutTheData.com, marketing technology company Acxiom is giving you a glimpse of the online profile your shopping habits have created for you — the one digital marketers use to sell things to you. As The New York Times reported:

"The company collects, stores, analyzes and sells consumer data with the aim of helping its clients — including well-known banks, credit card issuers, insurance companies, department stores and carmakers — tailor marketing to their most valuable current customers or identify new customers.

Back in January, the Food and Drug Administration issued two proposed food safety rules to prevent tainted food from entering the food supply.

According to these 1,600 pages of rules, farmers who don't qualify for exemptions must monitor and document water quality, freezer temperatures, encroaching wildlife and any other possible sources of contamination. But some small farmers are worried their businesses will be killed by paperwork and expensive monitoring systems required by the law.

At the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, Caroline Smith DeWaal says small farmers are overreacting.

"These are common-sense safety measures they need to be taking anyway," DeWaal says."

DeWaal, who is food safety director for CSPI, has been fighting for produce safety reform for more than 15 years. But, she says, Congress didn't get on board with a new law until the food industry decided to back it. She says that happened after a big E. coli-tainted spinach outbreak in 2006.

"The outbreak actually resulted in people not buying or eating spinach not only the fall that it happened, but for many years afterward," she says."

DeWaal says commercial growers and grocers see real revenue loss after big outbreaks. That's why they've been fighting for these new food safety rules.
But small farmers — especially in New England — tell a different story.

At his farm just outside Montpelier, Vt., Joe Buley says he's terrified. He grows cucumbers that he turns into gazpacho and chilled cucumber dill soup.

Buley says the cost of complying with the FDA's new rules would stifle his ability to grow, and could put younger farmers out of the business altogether.

"There's gonna be an enormous amount of documentation, which is going to require an enormous amount of administrative time, or fairly expensive software and monitoring equipment," says Buley.

Mike Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, says most farmers who sell less than $500,000 of product each year are at least partially exempt.

"Together, those exemptions exempt from these new produce safety rules 110,000 of the 190,000 produce operations in this country — that's almost 60 percent," Taylor says.

The problem is all the exceptions to the exemptions, especially for small farmers who don't just farm, but say, turn a cucumber or tomato harvest into soups and sauces. Buley says it's doing things like storing or processing produce that can disqualify farmers from those exemptions.

"You've gotta dig a little deeper into the fine print," he says. "You're going to find you're exempt, except. And the except is gonna nail you. You're gonna get it."

But for all the anxiety the new rules have stirred up among small farmers, the FDA still lacks funding from Congress to enforce them. Without that funding, farmers like Buley, who want to sell to mainstream supermarkets, may find it's grocery stores anxious about lost revenue — not the feds — who are demanding they comply.

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court holds oral arguments in a case that will determine whether Sergio Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, can become a licensed attorney.

The case has drawn attention from legal groups across the country and comes amid the larger national fight over immigration reform.

On the side of Garcia are the State Bar of California and the California attorney general. Opposing his admission to the bar is the Justice Department, among others.

'This Is The Country I Know'

Garcia was born in Mexico. His parents brought him to the U.S. when he was 17 months old. He moved back and forth between the two countries until he came to California permanently when he was 17. At that time, immigration officials approved Garcia for a green card. That was possible because his dad had a green card. Garcia himself would have to wait to get his own green card until one became available.

He's been waiting for nearly 19 years.

In the meantime, he worked his way through college, law school, and passed the State Bar exam.

"I am 36 years old," he says. "This is the home I know. This is the country I know. And this is the country I want to work for and fight for."

But because he's undocumented, the U.S. Justice Department says he's not eligible to receive a law license.

"To have somebody tell you cannot fulfill your American dream after you have done everything that was required of you and complied with every rule that's out there. It's a very difficult time and it's been a trying time," Garcia says.

'He's Here Illegally'

Larry DeSha, a former prosecutor with the State Bar of California, disagrees with that group's position that Garcia should be granted a law license.

"He can't say he is going to fulfill his duties as attorney when one of those duties is to uphold all federal laws, when he's here illegally," DeSha says. "And no one can administer the oath to him knowing he's going to be illegal the minute he puts his hand down. And the other thing is clients can't pay him money. And any client who finds out that he is illegal has to fire him under federal law. "

Although the Justice Department opposes Garcia's admission to the bar, it has declined to make anyone available for an interview.

State Money Or Annual Dues?

California law actually allows anyone with some form of legal status — including people with a student visa — to get a law license.

But a federal law passed in 1996 prohibits entities funded with state money from granting undocumented immigrants professional licenses. Because the California Supreme Court is funded with state money, the U.S. Justice Department says it is prevented from admitting Garcia into the bar.

Law

Florida Court To Rule: Can A Lawyer Be Undocumented?

South Florida-based Spirit Airlines is known for being cheap. It boasts "ultralow" base fares and then charges for items such as carry-on luggage or printing out your boarding pass at the airport.

That thrift carries over to Spirit's advertising. Even compared with other low-cost airlines, Spirit spends almost nothing on ads. And yet the company makes a surprising splash with its campaigns. A visit to Spirit headquarters reveals the secrets of its marketing.

Spirit Airlines' corporate conference room is about what you'd expect: A drop ceiling, people in button-down shirts sitting around a dark-wood table, listening to a jargony presentation.

"We've been successful at promoting our ultralow fares in a way that keeps costs down," says Bobby Schroeter, vice president of consumer marketing, while presenting a PowerPoint of successful Spirit campaigns.

One of the ads shows a series of islands and four bright-yellow letters.

"We have our very famous, 'M.I.L.F.' ad — Many Islands Low Fares," Schroeter says. The slogan continues with, "hotter and cheaper than ever."

Not coincidentally, "MILF" is also a crass reference to good-looking moms. It's not the kind of thing you're used to hearing from a publicly traded company. But this ad in particular is a good way to look at how Spirit "shock marketing" works.

The process starts with customers like Yessica Diaz and her boyfriend, Edwin Irizarry. They were flying Spirit out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

"Yeah, because it's cheap," Diaz says.

Diaz is now one of 6 million people on Spirit's email list.

Instead of buying TV commercials, Spirit blasts out email ads like "M.I.L.F." and, unsurprisingly, it gets reactions.

"It's kind of, like, funny and insulting, I guess," Irizarry says.

"That's pretty bad," Diaz says of the ad.

Entertained or aghast, people like Diaz might forward or tweet or blog the ad. Enough of that and the big leagues take note.

Sometimes shows like Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor try to take Spirit reps to task. Discussing the M.I.L.F. ad, Bill O'Reilly said, "A gross expression taken from the movie American Pie was adopted by Spirit Airlines."

Spirit Airlines President Ben Baldanza, who appeared on the show, is very good at turning a scolding into a value proposition. "Our consumer feedback has been positive, and the only thing we think is obscene is the fares that most of our competitors charge," he said.

Just like that, a free advertisement is born.

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If you eat fish on a regular basis, chances are some of it is coming from Thailand. The Asian country is the world's No. 3 exporter of seafood (after China and Norway), and the U.S. is its top destination.

The Thai fishing industry has grown dramatically, and it is now coming under increased scrutiny. A new report details "deceptive and coercive labor practices, and even forced labor and human trafficking within" the Thai fishing sector.

The allegations are not new. An NPR story from June 2012 cited the example of one Cambodian who spent three years confined to a Thai fishing boat. A Global Post series from last year chronicled what it called "seafood slavery." And in May, the Environmental Justice Foundation said Thailand is doing little to prevent the abuses.

Thailand's fishing industry relies heavily on migrant workers from Cambodia and Burma — many of them undocumented. The new report, jointly released Monday by the International Labor Organization and the Asian Research Center for Migration at Chulalongkorn University, is the largest-ever conducted on the subject, surveying about 600 people who work on Thai boats in national and international waters.

Asia

Confined To A Thai Fishing Boat, For Three Years

Twenty-four hours after President Obama announced on Saturday that he'll wait for congressional authorization before launching strikes on Syria; members of Congress attended a classified briefing at the Capitol.

For days, most of the discontent among members of Congress has been about not being included in the deliberations on Syria, about not getting the chance to vote. Now that they've gotten their way, each member of Congress will have to go on the record.

"Right now, I would say, if the vote were today, it would probably be a no vote," Republican Rep. Peter King of New York told Fox News Sunday.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on NBC's Meet the Press, "Listen, I think Congress passes the authorization."

And, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky also weighed in on NBC, "I think it's at least 50-50 whether the House will vote for involvement in the Syrian war."

A number of their colleagues came back Washington, D.C., on Sunday — the same day as the first classified briefing on Syria. It was open to any lawmaker, and members who attended estimate more than 100 showed up.

And there were reminders it was still summer recess. Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan strolled in wearing jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Darth Vader.

But lawmakers kept touching on the gravity of the question before them.

"It's a vote of conscience, and I think this is the supreme vote that any member of Congress can take," says Xavier Becerra, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "So this is not going to be a matter of trying to enforce party discipline, or to vote for or against the president. This has got to be something you believe in."

Becerra says he believes in limited, brief strikes on Syria. But if you ask other lawmakers what the president should do, the most frequent response — from both Democrats and Republicans — was a version of, "I don't know yet."

"I'm not there yet," says Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.). "I feel terrible about the chemical weapons that have been used. However, we know that chemical weapons have been used in other instances, and we did not take military action."

Lawmakers were holed up in the briefing room for almost three hours.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said there was a barrage of skeptical questions for White House officials. The specter of Iraq hung over the discussion.

"In that room today, there were a lot of memories over another time when a president came and said — or at least the president's people came and said — that this is slam-dunk intelligence, and of course, that was not I think an episode that most members would ever want to repeat," Himes says.

Many members are struggling with the question of how attacking Syria because of chemical weapons would actually protect U.S. national security. Others are wrestling with the goal of the mission. Is it to punish the use of chemical weapons, or should the United States go further, and try to overthrow the regime? And still others are fearful the U.S. is treading into an open-ended conflict, despite the president's assurances the strikes would last just a few days.

"Well, this is a partial blank check the way it's currently drafted," says Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). He says explicit limits are missing from the language in the resolution the president wants Congress to pass.

Van Hollen wants to see an express provision forbidding boots on the ground, and a time limit on the attack.

Caution like that was perceptible from nearly every lawmaker emerging from Sunday's briefing.

Mike Burgess (R-Texas) says he's probably voting no.

"I just think back to what General Eisenhower said in 1954. That was a pretty rough year for him. He said you shouldn't go to war for emotional reasons. And right now, I think it would be in response — it would be an emotional response. And that probably is not a good enough reason," Burgess says.

One day after the president's announcement, it's clear the debate on Syria will be intense and divisive. And somehow Congress will have to fit that conversation into an already jam-packed schedule. After the summer recess, they'll have just a matter of weeks to figure out the country's debt and deficit problems too.

President Obama cleared one of the most important hurdles Tuesday in his effort to win support in Congress for taking action against Syria: Both of the top Republican House leaders — Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia — said they would support such a resolution.

But just what the resolution will say, in terms of how much leeway Congress is willing to give the president, remains unclear. There's no guarantee of success regardless. Any version's chances for passage are highly uncertain at this point. No votes are expected until next week, when the House and Senate return from their summer recess.

What is certain, however, is that the president won't get the exact authorization language he initially proposed.

Senate To Act First

Most presidents in recent years have acted first, then asked Congress for retroactive approval. By calling on Congress to okay action in Syria in advance, Obama has opened up a scenario in which the two chambers will "work their will" — meaning any resolution will be subject to amendment and, potentially, a filibuster in the Senate.

It appears that the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, will act first. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he expects draft language will be ready today or possibly Wednesday, NPR's Ailsa Chang reports.

Corker said it would be good for senators to have a chance to examine the language before returning to the Capitol next week.

House aides said they also expect the Senate to vote first, with House action not coming until later next week.

"When they come back, they're going to want to have several days to mull it," says James Phillips, a senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

Lines Of Opposition

It could be a tough sell. Far more members are publicly undecided than openly supportive of military action at this point.

A number of Democrats have issued statements saying that they are skeptical about the use of force and fear another foreign entanglement following Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Republicans have also been critical, arguing that Obama has not outlined a clear strategy.

For all these reasons, the final resolution is likely to be fairly limited in its scope.

"Some are looking for language that is much more targeted, so as not to authorize something that could lead to a broader war," says former Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who is now at the Center for American Progress and favors intervention.

On The Agenda

In the meantime, the relevant committees are holding rounds of hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Martin Dempsey, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are all appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The committee will hold a closed hearing regarding Syria on Wednesday, as will the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will meet privately with Hagel and Dempsey.

On Wednesday afternoon, Kerry and Hagel will both testify publicly before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Obama, who has held multiple meetings with members of Congress over the past few days, will be flying to Sweden Tuesday night before attending the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

If you're eating fish on a regular basis, chances are some of it is coming from Thailand. The Asian country is the world's No. 3 exporter of seafood (after China and Norway) – and the U.S. is its top destination.

The Thai fishing industry has grown dramatically, and it is now coming under increased scrutiny. A new report details "deceptive and coercive labor practices, and even forced labor and human trafficking within" the Thai fishing sector.

The allegations are not new. An NPR story from June 2012 cited the example of one Cambodian who spent three years confined to a Thai fishing boat. A Global Post series from last year chronicled what it called "seafood slavery." And in May, the Environmental Justice Foundation said Thailand is doing little to prevent the abuses.

Thailand's fishing industry relies heavily on migrant workers from Cambodia and Burma – many of them undocumented. The new report, jointly released Monday by the International Labor Organization and the Asian Research Center for Migration at Chulalongkorn University, is the largest-ever conducted on the subject, surveying about 600 people who work on Thai boats in national and international waters.

Asia

Confined To A Thai Fishing Boat, For Three Years

When the Cold War ended two decades ago there was a widespread belief that the greatest threat to U.S. troops would be boredom. It seemed they faced a future with little to do besides polishing their boots and staging the occasional military exercise.

Yet U.S. presidents are calling on the military more often than ever, with U.S. forces carrying out more than a dozen separate operations since the first Gulf War in Iraq in 1991.

President Obama now says he's ready to take action against Syria, but he faces a Congress and a public skeptical about another military adventure in the Middle East, even if it's being billed as a limited operation.

"I know well that we are weary of war," Obama said on Saturday, stressing that any action would not include sending in U.S. ground troops.

Given this backdrop, why is the U.S. military being ordered into action so frequently, often for missions like Syria that are considered optional?

Analysts offer up a host of reasons:

A Messy World: During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union often managed to impose order by propping up authoritarian leaders. No one saw this system as ideal, but it often prevented conflicts from erupting or spreading.

Syria offers a good example. As a superpower, the Soviets staunchly backed the late Syrian president, Hafez Assad, for many years. A much weaker Russia still supports his son, Bashar Assad, but this hasn't kept Syria or other Arab states from sliding into chaos.

U.S. military intervention in Syria would have been highly improbable during the Cold War because it could have provoked a major confrontation with the Soviets. Now the U.S. sees itself as the lone guarantor of world order and does not have to worry about a superpower rivalry.

"The Cold War acted as a governing force. The U.S. and the Soviets were often cautious because they were always concerned about an escalation to a nuclear war," said Jim Dubik, a retired Army lieutenant general now with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

More On Syria

Parallels

Limited U.S. Strikes ... Followed By Major Attacks On U.S.

When goods arrive in Houston, they may come in containers stacked high on huge ships or strung out on long lines of rail cars. But to get to the customer, those goods need to be put on trucks and driven to their final destinations.

And now with the oil and gas sectors booming, the demand for truckers is soaring. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says oil delivered to refineries by trucks shot up 38 percent between 2011 and 2012.

But while the need for truckers is growing, the ranks of well-trained drivers are shrinking as baby boomers hit retirement age.

"The driver pool is aging, and there are not enough young drivers coming out of truck-driving school to replace those drivers, at the same time that the demand for freight is increasing," said Brian Fielkow, president of Jetco Delivery, a Houston-based trucking company.

The American Trucking Association says about 3 million truckers are on the nation's roads today, but companies need about 30,000 more. And that shortage may balloon in coming years as the boomer-retirement wave slams into the energy-sector surge.

The trade association's latest figures show competition for drivers has become ferocious, causing truckers to flip from one employer to another. The most recent report shows the annual turnover rate among truckers is 97 percent.

With competition intense, earnings have been improving for truckers. James Stone, who has spent the past decade servicing firefighting equipment, wants to get into the field. He is studying for his commercial truck driver's license at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas.

Economy

A Labor Mismatch Means Trucking Jobs Go Unfilled

For the past year and a half, Mike Hallatt has been driving across the U.S.-Canada border and back, bringing loads of groceries back to Vancouver. There's no food shortage in Canada — but there's an absolute lack of Trader Joe's grocery stores, and that created an opening for an entrepreneur who doesn't mind making a long drive.

Originally called Pirate Joe's, Hallatt's store serves a niche market: Canadians who wish Trader Joe's was in their country and who will pay a bit extra for triple ginger snaps and fanciful trail mixes.

Trader Joe's is not pleased. It filed a lawsuit this summer, complaining that Pirate Joe's harms the grocer's brand by selling its products outside its control and confusing customers. In response, Hallatt changed the store's name to _irate Joe's.

"I bought the stuff at full retail. I own it," Hallatt says. "I get to do with it whatever I want to, including reselling it to Canadians. My right to do this is unassailable."

And, he says, "There is no confusion in the marketplace. Pirate Joe's, now _irate Joe's, is blatant and unambiguous."

But Hallatt adds that he doesn't see the big chain, which is owned by the same German family that owns the Aldi supermarkets, as an enemy. And he says the company is damaging its own brand by pursuing him in court. Hallatt has spoken to numerous news outlets about the case, including NPR member stations in Southern California and New Hampshire.

"I would prefer Trader Joe's accept my long-standing offer to follow guidance on how they would like me to operate," Hallatt says in an email.

As for reselling Trader Joe's products, he says he's far from alone.

"I discovered there are many people running resale businesses on eBay and Amazon," Hallatt says. "The amount online resellers manage to mark up the prices is the stuff of legend among TJ's employees."

More intriguingly, he adds, "There are three grocery stores reselling Trader Joe's products in the U.S. that I know of."

The Vancouver store's motto carved into its threshold reads, "Better than nothing" — with a trademark symbol identifying it as a protected slogan. It seems that the Canadians who crave Trader Joe's treats would agree.

As Hallatt says, "Business is brisk!"

The unique business model led us to get in touch with Hallatt. Below is a lightly edited version of his answers to our questions. Trader Joe's has not been speaking publicly about the active lawsuit.

NPR: Will there be a hearing on Trader Joe's lawsuit soon?

Hallatt: "We filed a motion to dismiss a few weeks ago, they responded [last] Monday and we [responded] to that. The court will take a look at it soon I hope. Parallel to that we are in the early stages of discovery ahead of a jury trial to resolve their complaint — if it comes to that."

I assume people get really attached to some products. What are your biggest sellers?

"We have people come in and say things like, "My babies," as they pull items off the shelf. I'm amazed how many specific and emphatic requests we have received in the past year and a half. There are at least a few people attached to every product we carry, and if I don't have it sitting on the shelf I hear about it.

"I'm reluctant to open on a day we are out of stock on Ridge Cut Salt & Pepper Potato Chips, for example.

"Once a week we get a call from a guy who asks only, 'Is it safe?' This is code for Low Calorie Lemonade. There are maybe 25 people in Vancouver who know about that stuff. It's fantastic."

Have you been told to leave Trader Joe's stores?

"Not formally from corporate. When the first squeeze came around the time of the cease and desist letter last year, it was the manager of the Bellingham [Wash.] store who apologetically asked me not to shop there anymore.

"I'm still OK if I'm shopping for myself or my family, although my cart gets looked over.

"I tell people who are 'helping' me shop not to clear out shelves but to shop like a typical shopper in there, stocking up. Get one or two of a set of items, bag them yourself and get out of there."

Do you have to portion supplies out to several vehicles?

"For too long it was just my Honda Element. The record was 98 bags of groceries. A few were on my lap. I've since up/downgraded to a '93 E-250 extended van. [It has a] straight six, so I need earplugs over 50 mph. Ninety-eight bags barely dents capacity.

"We call our product acquisition program 'Plan C' and we have a sign in the store that reads, 'Don't ask because we can't tell you.' "

What are the export laws for bringing groceries over the border?

"Pretty much anything I can buy in the U.S., I can legally import into Canada. There are permits required for meat, seafood and dairy. We stick to vegetarian packaged nonperishable items.

"Packaging compliance is also required and we are working closely with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure we are fully compliant."

Do you have any plans to expand?

"_irate Joe's is a unique response to the market Trader Joe's created in Vancouver when it opened a store just over the border in Bellingham. I feel they should either open a store up here or leave the free market to sort itself out. Requiring a 160-mile round trip across an international border to get their products is anything but neighborly."

Each Friday we round up the big conversations in tech and culture during the week that was. We also revisit the work that appeared on this blog and highlight what we're reading from our fellow technology writers and observers across the Internet.

ICYMI

The Syrian Electronic Army returned to the public consciousness after it was suspected of hacking the domain server of The New York Times, Huffington Post and Twitter. The Times was taken out for some users for upwards of 18 hours. We offered a primer on the group and what its motivations are (read: political). As fast-food workers protested across the country, it reminded us of automated fast-food restaurants in places like Amsterdam. Our weekly innovation pick was the cuddle mattress. The design lets your arm fall in between slats so it doesn't go numb while cuddling your partner.

On the air, Steve Henn explained the #NSAPickupLines that are all the rage in the twitterverse, Laura Sydell explored whether streaming music can make real money, and I reported on bossless offices — a move in the tech industry toward flatter hierarchies and team-based management to facilitate faster innovation. It's especially timely now, as the reports about Microsoft's unappealing workplace culture seem the complete opposite of emerging tech companies, like Medium.

The Big Conversation(s)

The week led off with news that the digital divide persists. The annual Pew Research Center study on broadband penetration reveals that 30 percent of American adults still aren't connected to high-speed broadband, either because of choice — those above age 70 are least likely to be connected — or because of socioeconomic status. But smartphones are making inroads. Ten percent of Americans say they don't have broadband at home but access the Intenet via smartphone. Midweek, news that Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife were splitting, reportedly because of his relationship with a Google Glass marketing officer, led to personality-based intrigue that spilled into larger business questions. That's because, as Quartz's Christopher Mims details, a top Google employee's "defection" to work for the "Apple of China" is entangled with Brin's love life.

What's Catching Our Eye

The Columbus Dispatch: DeWine Backs Use of Facial Recognition Software

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is having to review law enforcement's use of facial recognition software. The program matches suspects' photos with those in the Ohio driver's license photo database; civil liberties groups and some Ohioans are crying foul.

Salon: Will robots make us sexist?

Salon makes a case for how robots are confirming gender norms rather than challenging them.

CNNMoney: Facebook friends could change your credit score

Some lenders see social connections as a good indicator of a person's creditworthiness, but a credit expert says FICO scores are a better predictor of lending risk.

The prospect of a military strike against Syria in the next few days has private U.S. firms bracing for retaliation — in cyberspace.

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army has already gone after some U.S. targets, including The New York Times, whose website was taken down for an extended period this week. The group supports the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and has vowed to help defend the country against its enemies, including the United States.

The Syrian Electronic Army could soon have that opportunity, most likely with the blessing of the Syrian government. Cyberretaliation against civilian targets might be seen by the Syrian leadership as less risky than counterstrikes against U.S. or allied military assets.

"I think the Syrians have all the interest in the world in disrupting as many websites as possible and making commercial operations as difficult as possible inside the United States and elsewhere to communicate a message that it can respond," says Chris Bronk, who specializes in cybergeopolitics at Rice University.

Cyberattacks are silent. They can be invisible until it's too late to defend against them. And they are hard to trace. Given their dependence on computer network operations, U.S. firms are taking notice of the risk they may face from Syrian hackers.

"A lot of companies are coming and asking us to do assessments on the Syrian Electronic Army and other actors in the broader region and how they may suffer attacks in the coming weeks from them," says Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, which provides companies with cybersecurity advice and assistance.

"My phone has been buzzing off the hook over the last few days because of this," he says.

So far, the Syrian hackers have generally carried out relatively unsophisticated "denial of service" attacks, directing so much computer traffic at a website that it is overloaded and shuts down. The group has targeted the news media in particular, taking credit for attacks against The Washington Post and NPR, among other organizations.

This week's attack on The New York Times, however, was somewhat more sophisticated, involving a penetration of the Domain Name System, the directory that translates domain names into numerical Internet addresses. The attack raised the possibility that the Syrian Electronic Army could go after other targets and cause more damage.

"It has potentially both the capabilities of a grass-roots movement and an intelligence service," says Bronk. "It's a new type of organization."

Should Syria's leaders decide to retaliate in cyberspace for a U.S. missile strike against them, they might also call for help from their ally Iran, which is developing an increasingly serious cyberwarfare capability of its own.

U.S. cybersecurity experts worry most about an attack on critical infrastructure in the United States, including the power grid or the transportation system. Such an attack would probably result in an escalation of any military conflict with the United States.

"I think there will be a judgment call on behalf of the Syrian government to see if they want to provoke the U.S. into further escalation and trip over another red line, or whether they just want to endure the strike and move on," says Alperovitch.

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, hasn't issued any special alerts for U.S. companies to be on the lookout for cyberattacks in the next few days, largely because there's been no official U.S. decision yet on whether to strike Syria.

"DHS is closely following the situation and actively collaborates and shares information with public and private sector partners every day in the face of constantly evolving threats," says Peter Boogaard, a Homeland Security spokesman.

The government of Ecuador has abandoned a plan that would have kept part of the Amazonian rainforest off limits to oil drilling. The initiative was an unusual one: Ecuador was promising to keep the oil in the ground, but it wanted to be paid for doing so.

The oil sits under the Yasuni national park, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth — orchids, jaguars, monkeys, birds. To get the corner of the park that holds the oil, you have to take a plane, then a motorboat, then paddle a canoe. "Even the sound of the motor will destroy the fragility of this place," Ivonne A-Baki, who works for the Ecuadorian government, told me this year.

In 2007, the country's president, Rafael Correa, told the world that Ecuador would leave the oil in the ground. But the country wanted to be paid half of what the oil was valued at, at the time. Ecuador wanted $3.6 billion.

When I talked with Ivonne A-Baki, earlier this year, she was traveling the world asking for contributions. This was delicate, because the pitch, viewed a certain way, could sound a bit like blackmail. Pay us or we'll shoot the trees.

Ecuador set up a fund through the United Nations. Some countries, companies and individuals pledged money, but it was far short of the goal. By the end of 2012, the fund only had $6.5 million in it.

President Correa said scrapping the program was one of the hardest decisions of his presidency. "The real dilemma is this," he said in a televised address last week. "Do we protect 100 percent of the Yasun and have no resources to meet the urgent needs of our people, or do we save 99 percent of it and have $18 billion to fight poverty?"

Since Correa's announcement, environmental groups in Ecuador have said they will fight the decision; they're hoping to get signatures to force a national referendum that would protect the park.

But the original plan for the Yasuni initiative seems to be dead. The initiative was an attempt to solve a problem that comes up all the time: Who should pay to protect the rainforest? Who should pay to protect the environment that, arguably, we all benefit from?

Clearly the world is still working on an answer.

When goods arrive in Houston, they may come in containers stacked high on huge ships or strung out on long lines of rail cars. But to get to the customer, those goods need to be put on trucks and driven to their final destinations.

And now with the oil and gas sectors booming, the demand for truckers is soaring. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says oil delivered to refineries by trucks shot up 38 percent between 2011 and 2012.

But while the need for truckers is growing, the ranks of well-trained drivers are shrinking as baby boomers hit retirement age.

"The driver pool is aging, and there are not enough young drivers coming out of truck-driving school to replace those drivers, at the same time that the demand for freight is increasing," said Brian Fielkow, president of Jetco Delivery, a Houston-based trucking company.

The American Trucking Association says about 3 million truckers are on the nation's roads today, but companies need about 30,000 more. And that shortage may balloon in coming years as the boomer-retirement wave slams into the energy-sector surge.

The trade association's latest figures show competition for drivers has become ferocious, causing truckers to flip from one employer to another. The most recent report shows the annual turnover rate among truckers is 97 percent.

With competition intense, earnings have been improving for truckers. James Stone, who has spent the past decade servicing firefighting equipment, wants to get into the field. He is studying for his commercial truck driver's license at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas.

Economy

A Labor Mismatch Means Trucking Jobs Go Unfilled

Egypt's top prosecutor has referred ousted President Mohammed Morsi to trial on charges of inciting deadly violence against his opponents.

State television said Sunday that Morsi, senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian, former presidential aides and advisors Assad Sheikha and Ahmed Abdel-Ati were among those charged in connection with clashes Dec. 5, 2012 at the presidential palace.

In all, 14 individuals have been referred to a Cairo criminal court, according to Sky News.

Morsi, who was ousted in a July coup and has been in custody without charge until now, is accused of inciting allies to commit premeditated murder, use of force, use of firearms and knives and illegal attacks on demonstrations, the prosecutor says. Morsi is alleged to have asked his then-Minister of Interior and chief of the Republican Guard to violently disperse sit-ins.

Since Morsi was forced from power, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi's military-backed government has conducted a widespread crackdown on Morsi supporters and his Muslim Brotherhood.

Syrian state media on Sunday reacted to President Obama's decision to ask Congress for authorization to strike the Damascus regime, calling the move the start of a U.S. retreat.

"Whether the Congress gives the red or green light for an aggression, and whether the prospects of war have been enhanced or faded, President Obama has announced yesterday, by prevaricating or hinting, the start of the historic American retreat," Al-Thawra said.

The newspaper, seen as an official mouthpiece, also said the U.S. president's decision to go to Congress was due to a "sense of implicit defeat and the disappearance of his allies."

Apparently weary of the long British involvement in Iraq, the House of Commons issued Prime Minister David Cameron a stinging defeat last week when it voted not to sign on with Washington in a military strike on Syria.

Meanwhile, Syria's opposition coalition called on U.S. lawmakers to approve military action against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to punish him for his use of chemical weapons against the rebels, including the more than 1,400 people the White House says were killed in an Aug. 21 nerve agent attack on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

"The Syrian Coalition believes any possible military action should be carried out in conjunction with an effort to arm the Free Syrian Army. This will be vital in restraining Assad and ending the killing," the coalition said in a statement.