This week, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department over the sale of faulty mortgage securities that led to the financial crisis. It's the largest settlement with a single company in U.S. history.
From that settlement, $4 billion must go to help the millions of families who saw the values of their homes plummet and who still struggle to keep up with mortgage payments.
Your Money
When You Hear $13 Billion, Don't See Dollar Signs
Public transit vehicles may be the key to China's success in the U.S. auto market. Chinese company BYD, based in Shenzhen, is manufacturing electric buses. It's an appealing option for a place like California, where emission standards are strict.
At BYD's North American headquarters in Los Angeles, one of the 40-foot electric K9 buses sits on display. BYD Fleet Sales Manager James Holtz sits in the driver's seat and pushes the power button on the dashboard.
Unlike a grumbling diesel engine, this electric bus is quiet. Holtz walks out to the rear of the vehicle and opens the back hatch to reveal its electric components.
"Because it's non-internal combustion, you don't have the moving parts," says Holtz. "You don't have the belts, you don't have the soot, you don't have all the oil. It's a lot cleaner."
This bus can run up to 155 miles on a single charge. It's equipped with huge battery packs located inside the bus columns, behind the rear wheels and mounted on top of the bus.
"It takes about five hours to fully charge our bus from zero state of charge to 100 percent," says Holtz.
BYD already has buses running at Denver International Airport and Disneyworld in Orlando. Fla. Just last month, Los Angeles Metro purchased five buses and nearby Long Beach Transit bought 10.
"It offers opportunities to implement and evaluate a new technology," says Richard Hunt, general manager of Metro's Transit Capital Programs. "They call this the cutting edge or the bleeding edge and we want to be cutting, we don't want to be bleeding. So we're going to evaluate these vehicles very carefully."
Those buses LA bought will be manufactured up the road in Lancaster, Calif., next year. Micheal Austin, vice president of BYD America, says it's a huge step for China's auto industry.
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The anti-poverty group Oxfam is asking Pepsi's shareholders to approve a resolution that, if passed, would force the company to disclose its sugar suppliers and investigate whether those suppliers are implicated in "land grabs" that unfairly take land from the poor.
Pepsi's arch-rival has already announced its own anti-land grab initiative. Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced a new initiative "to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities." The company revealed its top three sugar suppliers and promised to launch an independent review of its operations in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa.
It's a major success for a campaign that Oxfam launched earlier this year called "Behind the Brands." The campaign attempts to embarrass, cajole and threaten the world's biggest food companies into protecting the environment and treating workers or local communities more fairly.
Oxfam has taken particular aim at the sugar industry, with a report on land disputes involving large-scale sugar producers in Brazil and Cambodia. In these cases, impoverished local communities blame large sugar producers for forcing them from their traditional lands.
There have been many reports of such "land grabs" in recent years, as rising food prices have increased investor interest in land around the world. The problem is especially acute in places where people don't have clear legal rights to the land that they depend on for their livelihoods, including many countries in Africa.
According to Oxfam, the three agricultural crops most often implicated in land grabs are sugar, soybeans and palm oil. Of the three, sugar production accounts for the most land — 75 million acres, an area the size of Italy.
In the U.S., Pepsi and Coke don't rely heavily on sugar, since corn-derived sweeteners are cheaper. But in the rest of the world, sugar remains the sweetener of choice.
The anti-poverty group Oxfam is asking Pepsi's shareholders to approve a resolution that, if passed, would force the company to disclose its sugar suppliers and investigate whether those suppliers are implicated in "land grabs" that unfairly take land from the poor.
Pepsi's arch-rival has already announced its own anti-land grab initiative. Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced a new initiative "to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities." The company revealed its top three sugar suppliers and promised to launch an independent review of its operations in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa.
It's a major success for a campaign that Oxfam launched earlier this year called "Behind the Brands." The campaign attempts to embarrass, cajole and threaten the world's biggest food companies into protecting the environment and treating workers or local communities more fairly.
Oxfam has taken particular aim at the sugar industry, with a report on land disputes involving large-scale sugar producers in Brazil and Cambodia. In these cases, impoverished local communities blame large sugar producers for forcing them from their traditional lands.
There have been many reports of such "land grabs" in recent years, as rising food prices have increased investor interest in land around the world. The problem is especially acute in places where people don't have clear legal rights to the land that they depend on for their livelihoods, including many countries in Africa.
According to Oxfam, the three agricultural crops most often implicated in land grabs are sugar, soybeans and palm oil. Of the three, sugar production accounts for the most land — 75 million acres, an area the size of Italy.
In the U.S., Pepsi and Coke don't rely heavily on sugar, since corn-derived sweeteners are cheaper. But in the rest of the world, sugar remains the sweetener of choice.
When two young Mormon missionaries knock on performer Julia Sweeney's door one day, it touches off a quest to completely rethink her own beliefs.
About Julia Sweeney
Julia Sweeney is an actor and writer best known for her four-year run on Saturday Night Live and her solo shows. Her recent piece, Letting Go of God, traces a spiritual journey that takes an unexpected turn toward science and ends with atheism.
Her book If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother, is on parenting and being parented. She performs regularly with Jill Sobule, telling stories alongside Jill's songs, in their "Jill & Julia Show."
When two young Mormon missionaries knock on performer Julia Sweeney's door one day, it touches off a quest to completely rethink her own beliefs.
About Julia Sweeney
Julia Sweeney is an actor and writer best known for her four-year run on Saturday Night Live and her solo shows. Her recent piece, Letting Go of God, traces a spiritual journey that takes an unexpected turn toward science and ends with atheism.
Her book If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother, is on parenting and being parented. She performs regularly with Jill Sobule, telling stories alongside Jill's songs, in their "Jill & Julia Show."
As feared, the number of confirmed deaths in the Philippines from Typhoon Haiyan continues to rise as authorities search through destroyed buildings and as they reach remote areas that were devastated when the storm blew through on Nov. 8.
The Philippine government's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported Friday evening (local time) that 5,209 deaths have been recorded so far.
According to The Philippine Star, most of the deaths occurred in "Tacloban City, Tanauan and Palo towns in Leyte province. ... Earlier, Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas announced that the death toll was 4,919. The data, however, was only for Eastern Visayas. Other parts of the Visayas and some parts of Luzon, including Palawan and Mindoro, were also struck by the super typhoon."
United Nations officials estimate that 13.3 million people in the Philippines were affected by the storm, with 4.3 million of them forced from their homes.
NPR's Frank Langfitt this week visited one village that was hit hard by Haiyan. He says the people there aren't sure how to go forward. Many made their livings by harvesting coconuts for making wine. "But there are thousands of coconut trees here and they've all been knocked down," Frank reports. "They say it will take another seven years to replant and begin harvesting again. ... So one of the questions is where does a village like this go economically?"
Related headlines:
— "Pneumonia Is New Threat to Storm-Battered Philippines." (The New York Times)
— "Rural Philippines Feels Lack of Aid." (The Wall Street Journal)
— "Typhoon Haiyan: Charity helps heal emotional scars." (BBC News)
Goodyear runs the tables on the freak end of the food spectrum here, going deep into the muck and worldviews of bug dealers, blood-drinkers, pet-eaters, the historic food importers who first shaped the American palate, rogue chefs, coup-counting foodies who get their kicks eating whales and ant pupae, law-breaking devotees of the raw food movement and outlaw chefs doing secret dinners for those who style themselves as true devotees of cuisine because they will eat, well, anything. It's a buffet of gastronomic weirdness, of weed dinners and police stakeouts and back-alley deals where ants and lion meat are traded for fat stacks of cash in the way that duffel bags full of cocaine once were.
If food is the new sex and food is the new drugs and the eating of anything and everything is the new social rebellion of this still young-and-dripping new century, then Goodyear is a fair guide to the underbelly. She looks, she tastes, she hangs out and she reports on the street-level emergence of what she believes is a new food culture and a new way of thinking about what, exactly, food is.
To her credit, she doesn't judge. She seems to move through this world in a slick bubble of anti-bias, putting those who cook tarantulas competitively on the same footing as a guy like Craig Thornton who runs Wolvesmouth in L.A. — a private, invite-only (from an email list that runs in the thousands) recurring dinner party in his apartment — while flaunting all rules and laws about who gets to cook what for whom. She shows us the out-and-out insanity of those who will eat raw chicken meat of dubious provenance, gotten from questionable sources, but never points her finger, jumps up and down and shouts, "Holy crap, look at these nutjobs over here!"
And while that might appear noble, it's also the book's major weakness. There are moments which, to me, seem to not just require, but demand some jumping and finger-pointing — for an educated, embedded voice to step back a moment from the wash of blood and guts and semen and say, simply, that this, then, is too much. That some people, in their quest for the new, the rare, the strange and the slimy, take their obsession too far.
But Goodyear does not. She goes in with her eyes wide and her mouth open and leaves it to us to decide what, on this extreme edge of cooking and eating, is food and what is not.
Jason Sheehan is an ex-chef, a former restaurant critic and the current food editor of Philadelphia magazine. But when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about spaceships, aliens, giant robots and ray guns. A Private Little War is his newest book.
Read an excerpt of Anything That Moves
It's that time of year again. Time for Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish. Every year since 1972, around Thankgiving, I've shared my mother-in-law's famous cranberry relish recipe on the radio. It's appallingly pink, like Pepto Bismol — but it tastes terrific.
This year, I bring my relish recipe to Thanksgivukkah. Next week, Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah fall on the same day. It's a rare convergence.
How unusual is it? Well, the last time Thanksgiving and Hanukkah shared a start date was 125 years ago. And it won't happen again for another 76,000 or so years. The overlap involves the calendar that says this is 2013, and the Jewish] calendar based on the solar and lunar cycle.
I asked Keith Devlin — Weekend Edition's math guy — to explain.
"Thanksgiving is the easy one," Devlin says. "You know, it's the fourth Thursday every November. So anybody can do that. That was a nice, simple, American-style celebration that doesn't change from year to year."
"But then you've got this thing called the Jewish calendar, which is, as is appropriate with the history of the Jews .. [it's] got a lot of complications."
Complications like changing every year, a month here, a month there.
"The simplest way to look at it is that the Jewish calendar is slowly moving forward," Devlin says. "Roughly it moves forward about four days every thousand years. So this is pretty slow. And that's why it would take maybe 70 or 80 thousand years before this thing cycles all the way around again and hits Thanksgiving again."
So let's eat! Turkey, of course. Can't have Thanksgiving without it. But instead of the usual sweet potatoes, how about latkes — Jewish potato pancakes — made with schmaltz?
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President Obama and all future presidents have a freer hand today to make both executive and judicial appointments.
The Senate's historic vote on Tuesday eliminates a rule that until modern times had been used infrequently, and not always fairly. That unfairness, said Democrats, increased to an intolerable level during the Obama administration. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., observed, since the Senate created the filibuster rule in 1917, there have been 168 filibusters of executive and judicial nominees — and half of them have taken place during the Obama years.
Getting rid of all but Supreme Court nomination filibusters will immediately benefit President Obama.
The benefits for filling executive positions are obvious. The president will be able to fill the positions needed to run the executive branch as he wants.
A more long-term benefit will come in the federal courts, where Obama has been stymied more than any other modern president.
Neither party has been pure when it comes to filibusters of judicial nominations, with qualified and decent people blocked by both Democrats and Republicans. But everything is a matter of degree.
At the moment, for instance, Obama has 51 judicial nominees pending. In comparison, at this point in the George W. Bush administration, there were 19 pending judicial nominations.
At a similar point in the one term of President George H.W. Bush, there were 26 federal court nominees pending. And in the Reagan administration, 20 pending nominees.
The only modern president who even came close to Obama's numbers was another Democrat, President Clinton. But in short, Obama has between two and three times as many pending judicial nominees right now as the modern Republican presidents.
What's more, the average number of days to win confirmation has also increased exponentially. Uncontroversial federal trial court nominees in the Reagan administration, for example, took an average of 69 days to win confirmation. A similar District Court nominee has taken on average 204 days in the Obama administration. Indeed, even Obama judicial nominees who are eventually confirmed by huge majorities, or even unanimous votes, have consistently faced a slow-walk that can last a year or two.
In the last three weeks alone, Republicans blocked three nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. And in no case were there claims that the nominees were unqualified or even too liberal. Instead Republicans claimed that the D.C. Circuit does not have a caseload that justifies filling these slots, a claim that was contradicted by Chief Justice John Roberts, who served on the court, and nonpartisan experts within the federal judiciary who track caseloads and case complexity.
Democrats know they will someday be in the Senate minority, and they will undoubtedly come to rue the day they diminished minority rights. But as one Democrat put it: "The threat we always faced was that Republicans said if we did this, the place would grind to a halt. Well, it's already at a halt. ... This is like threatening to shoot the hostages when they are already dead."
That may be something of an overstatement, but Democrats said they had run out of options.
Privately Republicans acknowledged that with one or two exceptions, Obama's judicial nominations have been centrist liberals — often former prosecutors, lower court judges and corporate lawyers. But they said they feared that without the threat of a filibuster, future nominees will tilt hard left.
As Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., put it, "The political nature of who you pick changes because you're not going to have to accommodate anybody on the other side. So, I think you'll see over time the flavor of the judiciary change."
Obama aides said they would be surprised to see the tone of the president's picks change. As one put it, "it's not in his nature." Still, just as Republicans face pressure from the right on judicial nominations, Democrats face pressure from the left.
The president will also have more bargaining power now when dealing with Republicans senators. No longer will Republicans in a given state be able to simply block a judicial nomination at will. That means there will be greater opportunities for the president to cut the kind of deals that used to take place: If there are three judicial openings, for instance, Republicans get to pick one, and the president two.
Republicans will not be powerless. There are ways to slow-walk the confirmation process in committee for months at a time. So making deals may serve everyone's purpose. Or not. Much depends on the leadership in both parties.
Republicans almost certainly will try to pick off red state Democrats in some floor votes. And if they fail, they plan to use that against incumbent Democrats seeking re-election in conservative states. Already some conservative groups are airing ads criticizing red state Democrats for having voted in favor of the nominations of Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
But the huge upside still is for the president. He now has the ability to fill judicial vacancies when they occur, assuming that he actually makes nominations — something Obama has been slower than most presidents to do.
A final benefit is that he will be able to start filling the judicial pipeline with judges who he might pick if he gets another Supreme Court vacancy. While Republican presidents have been successful at planting their most brilliant judicial seeds on the bench, Obama has been repeatedly blocked. Now he has his chance.
Calling the current ban on the use of cellphones during airline flights "outdated and restrictive," the new head of the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a change that would allow travelers to make phone calls as they fly on jetliners in the U.S.
Here's a statement from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that was released Thursday:
"Today, we circulated a proposal to expand consumer access and choice for in-flight mobile broadband. Modern technologies can deliver mobile services in the air safely and reliably, and the time is right to review our outdated and restrictive rules. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues, the FAA, and the airline industry on this review of new mobile opportunities for consumers."
The Dow Jones industrial average tacked on 109 points Thursday for a gain of less than 1 percent. But the small rise brought a big milestone, as the industrial index closed above 16,000 for the first time in its history. The index had touched the mark earlier this week, but it fell short by the day's end.
Today, the Dow closed at 16,009.99.
The historic moment for the benchmark index that tracks 30 leading U.S. companies came on a day that began with positive economic news.
Jobless claims fell by 21,000 last week and wholesale prices fell by 0.2 percent, as Mark reported for The Two-Way earlier today.
The Treasury also said it would sell millions of shares in GM, propelling the carmaker's stock to a 1.1 percent gain, according to Bloomberg.
Investors may also have been further reassured by the Senate Banking Committee's vote to approve the nomination of Janet Yellen to be the next chief of the Federal Reserve.
Seven EU countries say they want to join forces and start making their own military drones by 2020 rather than relying on the Americans.
The EU Observer website reported that the proposed "Medium Altitude Long Endurance (Male) craft ... can be used to strike military targets or for surveillance of migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea."
European nations currently use U.S.-made drones for military operations. Britain used U.S.-made Reapers in Afghanistan and France used the Reaper in Mali.
It's hard to predict what the political atmosphere will be like if and when a European drone takes to the skies.
Drones have emerged over the past decade as an important part of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. They have been used to kill militant leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. But they have also caused civilian casualties as well as raised questions of sovereignty.
Military drones are also an important source of revenue for the countries that make them.
A report by the Teal Group estimates that spending on unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, will more than double over the next decade to $11.6 billion annually, totaling nearly $90 billion over the next 10 years.
Israel and the U.S. dominate the global military drone market. UAV Roundup, a report published by Aerospace America, notes:
"The U.S. will remain the largest producer and operator of UAVs throughout this decade, accounting for about 45 percent of the global market. Israel is the world's second largest UAV producer – and the largest exporter, selling systems to some 49 countries, with fewer use restrictions than the U.S. places on its customers."
By a 14-8 vote that saw 3 Republicans join 11 Democrats in saying "aye," the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday morning approved the nomination of Janet Yellen to be the next head of the Federal Reserve.
The full Senate, where Democrats control 55 of the 100 votes, is expected to take up her nomination in December. A handful of Republicans have already said they will vote yes, so confirmation is expected. The term of current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke expires on Jan. 31.
Yellen is currently the Fed's vice chairman. The post-hearing analyses of her recent testimony before the Banking Committee concluded that Fed policy likely wouldn't change much, if at all, should she replace Bernanke. The central bank is expected to continue its efforts to boost the economy at least into early 2014.
Roll Call's Tamar Hallerman reports that Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the lone Democrat on the committee to vote against Yellen's nomination.
While it's always important to keep in mind that neither one week nor one month make for a trend, there is good economic news to pass along:
— There were 323,000 first-time claims filed for jobless benefits last week, down by 21,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says. It was the fewest for any week since late September. Reuters says the news suggests "some strengthening of labor market conditions."
— Wholesale prices fell 0.2 percent in October from September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's the second month in a row that those costs dipped. The decline was led by a 1.5 percent drop in wholesale energy prices. The data reinforce the sense that inflation is well under control.
The day's other major economic story looks to be the vote Thursday morning by the Senate Banking Committee on the nomination of Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen to become the central bank's chairman.
Yellen, who if confirmed by the full Senate would be the first woman to lead the Fed, is expected to easily win the committee's OK. President Obama's fellow Democrats hold 12 of the panel's 22 seats and at least one of the committee's Republicans — Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee — has said he supports the nomination.
Ben Bernanke's term as Fed chairman officially ends in January.
Bitcoin, the virtual currency that exists as alphanumeric strings online, is on the verge of getting into politics.
The Federal Election Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to allow bitcoin contributions to political action committees — even as skeptics say that bitcoins could undermine the disclosure standards of federal law.
The FEC is acting as other federal agencies are also exploring the uses, and dangers, of digital currency. At a Senate hearing on Monday, federal law enforcement officials cited Silk Road, an online illegal marketplace that used bitcoins before it was shut down.
Edward Lowery III, chief of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division, told the panel: "While digital currencies may provide potential benefits, they present real risks through their use by the criminal and terrorist organizations trying to conceal their illicit activity."
Still, no one at the Senate hearing wanted to stifle virtual currency, and neither does the FEC. The commission was brought into the issue by the Conservative Action Fund, a political action committee that is seeking approval to accept bitcoins as contributions.
"Our interest here is we know this is happening; we're getting requests to make this happen. We really want to understand: How do we do this right?" said Dan Backer, the PAC's lawyer, at an FEC meeting on Nov. 14.
But the six commissioners weren't sure about nongovernmental currency, as commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, acknowledged.
Planet Money
Adam Davidson Talks Bitcoin With Stephen Colbert
This is the first in a three-part report on Philadelphia schools in crisis.
Sharron Snyder and Othella Stanback, both seniors at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High, will be the first in their families to graduate from high school. This, their final year, was supposed to be memorable. Instead, these teenagers say they feel cheated.
"We're fed up with the budget cuts and everything. Like, this year, my school is like really overcrowded. We don't even have lockers because it's, like, too many students," Sharron says.
Franklin High doubled in size because it absorbed hundreds of kids from two high schools the district could not afford to keep open this fall.
But "we didn't gain an extra counselor, we didn't gain extra teachers," Othella says.
Timeline: The Quest To Fix Philadelphia Public Schools
1998 — Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and David Hornbeck, school district superintendent, sue Pennsylvania, accusing the state of not adequately funding the city's public schools. The suit goes nowhere.
2001 — Pennsylvania moves to take over the school district, citing a total breakdown in administration as well as scandalously low test scores and graduation rates. Hornbeck and the city's elected school board are ousted. The state creates a five-member School Reform Commission (SRC).
2002-2011 — The SRC oversees a massive expansion of charter schools and takeover of struggling schools by private third-party operators. Dozens of private foundations pour millions of dollars into Philadelphia, mostly to subsidize charter schools.
2011 — Philadelphia loses almost $200 million due to federal aid budget cuts.
Feb. 2012 — The SRC hires a global business consulting group to help the district devise a cost-cutting plan. The group's $2.7 million fee is paid with private donations, reportedly from powerful pro-charter, pro-voucher advocates. The group wants to expand privately run, publicly funded charter schools, shut down 60 traditional public schools over five years and reorganize all other schools.
June 2012 — In the face of a $304 million budget deficit, the SRC eliminates athletics, art, music and most extracurricular activities. Layoff notices go out to 3,800 district employees, including teachers, counselors, administrators, aides and clerical staff.
Fall 2013 — Still broke, the district announces it will have to permanently close more than 20 schools. The mayor borrows money to open the remaining schools with bare-bones budgets. Many parents are asked to buy paper, books and basic supplies for schools to operate.
Oct. 2013 — The SRC restores music, art and athletics programs and rehires some guidance counselors and support staff after Gov. Tom Corbett releases $45 million he had been withholding pending discussions with Philadelphia's teachers union. Superintendent William Hite warns that without union concessions on pay and health benefits, the district next year will be back to where it was: broke and unable to operate.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay $4 billion to consumers who were hurt by faulty mortgage underwriting, part of a larger $13 billion deal to settle the bank's liability in the collapse of toxic securities during the housing crisis.
The deal is expected to be announced this week.
NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that "a source familiar with the settlement says that as much as $1.7 billion will go to homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Portions of the money will also go to restructure mortgages. And in an unusual agreement the bank will use part of the money to fight blight in distressed neighborhoods by doing things such as tearing down rundown buildings."
Last month, we reported that JPMorgan had reached a tentative deal with the Justice Department to pay $13 billion to settle civil charges related to wrongdoing by some of its units during the housing crisis. The sum represents the largest-ever such settlement.
And last week, the bank agreed to pay $4.5 billion to large institutional investors who bought mortgage-backed securities whose risk they said JPMorgan misrepresented. Many of those securities were loaded down with subprime mortgages and quickly tanked when the housing bubble burst.
Reuters reports:
"The agreement is to require JPMorgan to spend the money by the end of 2016 under the watch of an independent monitor, [a person familiar with the deal] said. ...
"The total deal is also to include a $2 billion penalty and at least $4 billion for federal housing finance agencies under a previously announced agreement. The fact that the $13 billion deal would include $4 billion for some form of 'consumer relief' has been known for weeks. The details of how the $4 billion would be spent were reported earlier on Monday by The Wall Street Journal."
We told you this morning about changes announced in China regarding the country's one-child policy, as well as an announcement that it was ending its system of labor camps. But those aren't the only policy shifts by the Communist Party.
China also said Friday that it would loosen restrictions on foreign investment in e-commerce and other businesses, and allow private competition in state-dominated sectors.
The Associated Press says the changes "could be China's biggest economic overhaul in two decades." Here's more:
"Chinese leaders are under pressure to replace a growth model based on exports and investment that delivered three decades of rapid growth but has run out of steam. Reform advocates say Beijing must curb the privileges and dominant role of state companies they say are inefficient and a drag on growth."
Bitcoin, the virtual currency that exists as alphanumeric strings online, is on the verge of getting into politics.
The Federal Election Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to allow bitcoin contributions to political action committees — even as skeptics say that bitcoins could undermine the disclosure standards of federal law.
The FEC is acting as other federal agencies are also exploring the uses, and dangers, of digital currency. At a Senate hearing on Monday, federal law enforcement officials cited Silk Road, an online illegal marketplace that used bitcoins before it was shut down.
Edward Lowery III, chief of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division, told the panel: "While digital currencies may provide potential benefits, they present real risks through their use by the criminal and terrorist organizations trying to conceal their illicit activity."
Still, no one at the Senate hearing wanted to stifle virtual currency, and neither does the FEC. The commission was brought into the issue by the Conservative Action Fund, a political action committee that is seeking approval to accept bitcoins as contributions.
"Our interest here is we know this is happening; we're getting requests to make this happen. We really want to understand: How do we do this right?" said Dan Backer, the PAC's lawyer, at an FEC meeting on Nov. 14.
But the six commissioners weren't sure about nongovernmental currency, as commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, acknowledged.
Planet Money
Adam Davidson Talks Bitcoin With Stephen Colbert
Many organic farmers are hopping mad right now at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and their reason involves perhaps the most under-appreciated part of agriculture: plant food, aka fertilizer. Specifically, the FDA, as part of its overhaul of food safety regulations, wants to limit the use of animal manure.
"We think of it as the best thing in the world," says organic farmer Jim Crawford, "and they think of it as toxic and nasty and disgusting."
Every highly productive farmer depends on fertilizer. But organic farmers are practically obsessive about it, because they've renounced industrial sources of nutrients.
So on this crisp fall morning, Crawford is practically rhapsodic as he watches his field manager, Pearl Wetherall, spread manure across a field where cabbage grew last summer.
"All that green material — that cover crop and the cabbage — all mixed up with that nice black manure that's just rich and full of good microrganisms, and we're going to get a wonderful fertility situation for next spring here," he says.
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This is the first in a three-part report on Philadelphia schools in crisis.
Sharron Snyder and Othella Stanback, both seniors at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High, will be the first in their families to graduate from high school. This, their final year, was supposed to be memorable. Instead, these teenagers say they feel cheated.
"We're fed up with the budget cuts and everything. Like, this year, my school is like really overcrowded. We don't even have lockers because it's, like, too many students," Sharron says.
Franklin High doubled in size because it absorbed hundreds of kids from two high schools the district could not afford to keep open this fall.
But "we didn't gain an extra counselor, we didn't gain extra teachers," Othella says.
Timeline: The Quest To Fix Philadelphia Public Schools
1998 — Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and David Hornbeck, school district superintendent, sue Pennsylvania, accusing the state of not adequately funding the city's public schools. The suit goes nowhere.
2001 — Pennsylvania moves to take over the school district, citing a total breakdown in administration as well as scandalously low test scores and graduation rates. Hornbeck and the city's elected school board are ousted. The state creates a five-member School Reform Commission (SRC).
2002-2011 — The SRC oversees a massive expansion of charter schools and takeover of struggling schools by private third-party operators. Dozens of private foundations pour millions of dollars into Philadelphia, mostly to subsidize charter schools.
2011 — Philadelphia loses almost $200 million due to federal aid budget cuts.
Feb. 2012 — The SRC hires a global business consulting group to help the district devise a cost-cutting plan. The group's $2.7 million fee is paid with private donations, reportedly from powerful pro-charter, pro-voucher advocates. The group wants to expand privately run, publicly funded charter schools, shut down 60 traditional public schools over five years and reorganize all other schools.
June 2012 — In the face of a $304 million budget deficit, the SRC eliminates athletics, art, music and most extracurricular activities. Layoff notices go out to 3,800 district employees, including teachers, counselors, administrators, aides and clerical staff.
Fall 2013 — Still broke, the district announces it will have to permanently close more than 20 schools. The mayor borrows money to open the remaining schools with bare-bones budgets. Many parents are asked to buy paper, books and basic supplies for schools to operate.
Oct. 2013 — The SRC restores music, art and athletics programs and rehires some guidance counselors and support staff after Gov. Tom Corbett releases $45 million he had been withholding pending discussions with Philadelphia's teachers union. Superintendent William Hite warns that without union concessions on pay and health benefits, the district next year will be back to where it was: broke and unable to operate.
Thirteen billion dollars is a lot of money, but it's not going to add up to a huge windfall for many consumers.
Thousands of homeowners will receive significant financial relief under the terms of a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. that was announced Tuesday by the Justice Department. But the bulk of the funds will be going either to investors or government coffers.
Following the money is tricky after any type of mega-settlement. More dollars do flow to consumers in cases that are brought by governments, compared with those filed by private attorneys.
"In all the cases I've ever been involved with, the vast, vast majority of the money goes to consumers," says Patrick Madigan, an assistant attorney general in Iowa.
But even a huge amount of money can be spread pretty thin. And in cases filed by individuals, as much as 40 percent of the funds might be devoted to legal fees.
"A lot of times, the dollars don't really trickle down to the individuals who were harmed," says Linda Sherry, head of the Washington office of Consumer Action, an advocacy group.
Your Check Is In The Mail
Many Americans have received notices in the mail that they may be eligible to claim a share of settlement dollars if, for instance, they downloaded a song or purchased organic hair care from a company that was found to have acted improperly.
Often the amounts of money are negligible — a buck or two, or even less.
" 'Check this box and get a couple of bucks' — that sort of thing sometimes unfortunately does happen with private class actions," Madigan says.
But those mailers only arrive if the attorneys have some means of figuring out the names and whereabouts of people who bought the songs and the shampoo. Oftentimes, people don't even know they might be eligible to receive payment.
"There's no real system to get this information to consumers," Sherry says.
For that reason, Consumer Action maintains a Web listing of class action settlements from which consumers may be able to claim payment. But Sherry concedes, it's "hit and miss," whether consumers would even know to look for such a thing.
Beyond Monetary Value
When funds go unclaimed, often they are distributed after a certain length of time to nonprofit groups, which can use the money for education programs or other purposes.
"If JPMorgan fails to live up to its agreement by Dec. 31, 2017, it must pay liquidated damages in the amount of the shortfall to NeighborWorks America, a non-profit organization and leader in providing affordable housing and facilitating community development," according to the settlement agreement announced Tuesday.
Even if all the money from a settlement doesn't end up reaching those consumers who were harmed, Sherry says, some good still comes out of such deals.
The company may not admit to wrongdoing — which is often the case — but big-dollar legal settlements do show that harm was done to consumers.
And, while companies may not be forced to promise they won't engage in similar behavior again, they've certainly been put on notice that it can get them into trouble.
Help For Homeowners
Cases brought by the feds and states attorney general tend to do better in getting cash to consumers.
For instance, a $325 million multistate settlement with Ameriquest Mortgage Co. in 2006 resulted in some $300 million being distributed directly to private individuals.
Thousands of homeowners are likely to be helped directly by the new JPMorgan settlement, which addresses improper behavior by the bank in the mortgage market.
Of the $13 billion, $2 billion will be directed to reductions in principal, or the amount owed on loans, on first and second home mortgages. An additional $2 billion will be devoted to other kinds of homeowner relief, such as refinancing or forgiving payments in arrears. The rest of the money includes fines and compensation for investors in mortgage-backed securities.
The way the payments are structured will be better for the bank, says Kirsten Keefe, a senior attorney with Empire Justice Center, a public interest law firm with offices in New York State.
JPMorgan doesn't have to write checks for $4 billion. Instead, the company will get credit for forgoing payments that it's contractually owed.
Still, sometimes wiping debts off the books can end up costing banks more money in the long run.
The settlement deal reached last year between state attorneys general and five major lenders was described as being worth $25 billion. But already more than $50 billion of relief has been offered to borrowers, according to Madigan.
Here's why the total relief package ended up being worth so much more: Lenders may have gotten a full dollar's worth of credit under the terms of the settlement for every dollar of reduced principal on first mortgages, but for other changes, such as the amounts paid to borrowers following short sales of foreclosed properties, the lenders received much less.
It all ends up being complicated in a hurry. But in an instance like the JPMorgan settlement, where the bank will forgive money owed by customers, those customers are likely to see some real relief — much more than people who get a card in the mail promising them a buck or two if they were ripped off by some company in the past.
"It's fair to say that thousands of homeowners will receive a true benefit," Keefe says.
After pleading guilty Wednesday to cocaine possession, Florida Rep. Henry "Trey" Radel's political future is unclear.
The freshman Republican, who said his struggle with alcoholism "led to an extremely irresponsible choice," is facing calls from Democrats to resign. But following his apology and decision to seek treatment Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner said in a prepared statement the issue is between Radel, his family and his constituents.
Radel isn't the only politician who's been waylaid by substance abuse — indeed, the circumstances of his situation appear to pale next to the drama unfolding in Toronto, where the City Council voted to strip Mayor Rob Ford of his power Monday after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine and driving drunk.
While Radel's fortunes are undoubtedly damaged, other members of Congress have been able to win re-election after public struggles with alcohol and drug problems.
Here's a list of some of them:
Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla. (2009)
Sullivan, a member of Congress for seven years at the time, took a leave of absence in May 2009 to check himself in to the Betty Ford Center in California for alcohol addiction treatment. He returned in July and sailed to re-election in 2010, but lost in the 2012 Republican primary in the Tulsa-based 1st congressional district.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. (2006)
The son of the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs after crashing his vehicle into a U.S. Capitol barricade in May 2006. Kennedy, who had been open about his problems with drugs and alcohol and prior to the incident, entered rehabilitation shortly after. He checked into rehab again in 2009. Kennedy announced he would not seek re-election in 2010.
Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio (2006)
Ney resigned from Congress near the end of his sixth term in November 2006 due to his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. He blamed his addiction to alcohol and checked into a rehab clinic before serving 17 months in prison for corruption charges.
Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. (2006)
After sending sexually explicit online messages to male congressional pages under the age of 18, Foley resigned from Congress in September 2006. Days later, he entered rehab in Arizona to treat his alcoholism and other behavioral issues.
Rep. Karen McCarthy, D-Mo. (2003)
McCarthy sought treatment for alcoholism following a March 2003 incident in which she cut her forehead after slipping on an escalator in a House office building. She initially said she would not resign, but in December of that year McCarthy announced she would not run for a fifth term.
Rep. Phil Crane, R-Ill. (2000)
Crane, then the most senior Republican in the House, checked into a Maryland rehabilitation center in 2000 following an intervention from family, friends and fellow lawmakers regarding his drinking problem. While the episode may have cost him the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee that year, he remained in office until losing his 2004 re-election bid.
Rep. Frederick Richmond, D-N.Y. (1982)
Richmond, a Brooklyn-based Democrat, resigned from Congress in August 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and marijuana possession. The four-term congressman admitted to possessing several marijuana cigarettes obtained from members of his congressional staff.
Shiite Muslims gathered in Kabul last week to celebrate Ashura, one of the holiest days on their religious calendar. Hundreds of shirtless men chanted and flogged themselves with chains tipped with knife-like shards of metal.
In the past, these public Shiite commemorations have become targets of the Taliban and other Islamist extremists. In 2011, a suicide bomber killed 56 Shiites marking Ashura. But this year, security was particularly tight.
Shopkeeper Noor Aga said the celebration was magnificent, and he felt safe.
"Security is better compared to previous years in Afghanistan, but we cannot say our country is fully secure," he said through a translator. "There are provinces and cities that are very insecure."
Wardak province, just southwest of Kabul, is one. Zalmai, a civil servant who uses only one name, said there's no security there.
"I cannot go to my province because the roads are not safe," he said in Dari.
Zalmai, like many Afghans, said he doesn't think Afghan forces are ready to provide security without NATO support. And that support has been the subject of negotiations between U.S. and Afghan officials, who reached a compromise Tuesday on a security agreement that would allow some U.S. troops to stay in the country after 2014.
A special assembly of Afghan tribal and religious leaders convenes later this week to debate the agreement. If they reject it, it is likely that all U.S. and NATO troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Afghan Forces
This year has been a test case for Afghan forces. NATO handed over security duties last spring just as the annual Taliban offensive began. It was a campaign intended to demoralize Afghan forces and undermine public confidence in the military and the government.
U.S. Maj. Gen. James McConville assumed command of NATO forces in the east just as that spring offensive began.
"What I was concerned about as we came in, at least I was watching for, is as we brought our soldiers down, could the Afghans hold?" McConville said.
He says Afghan forces did hold their ground this year — but there's plenty of room for improvement.
"They're not winning by enough that the enemy is willing to stop fighting yet," he said.
Maj. Gen. Afzal Aman, head of operations in Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, says Taliban fighters did not achieve their goals during this year's fighting season.
But, he says, Afghan forces still need help with logistics and air power, as well as continued training. That training will end next year unless there is a security agreement with the U.S.
More On Afghanistan
Parallels
Are Afghanistan's Schools Doing As Well As Touted?
The email landed in my inbox at 7:01 Tuesday morning.
The subject line read, "NBC News Poll: Christie Trails Clinton In Hypothetical 2016 Match-Up, Faces Divided GOP."
My reaction when I got this breaking news with my first cup of coffee? A big, nonverbal, heavy sigh.
The headline correctly states that this is a "hypothetical" matchup. Oh, and if you are fan of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — not to worry. A different poll came out this week as well. That one has him leading Hillary Clinton 43-42. Within the margin of error, of course.
But neither is a candidate yet. The first contest — if nothing changes — will be the Iowa caucuses, likely in January. Not January of next year or the year after, but the year after that.
And the 2016 general election is more than 1,000 days away.
As for the accuracy of polls taken at such a very early stage? Just ask President Rudy Giuliani. In 2007 he still had high poll numbers due to his time as the take-charge mayor of New York on 9/11. Except he faded quickly once the GOP primaries got underway.
Or you might ask President Colin Powell, or President Mario Cuomo, both of whom decided in the end not to run. Or go ask President Gary Hart, or President Edmund Muskie, or President — well, I could go on.
Now, don't get me wrong. I cover politics full time. I'm fascinated by politics. I love elections, talking to voters, examining strategies. At some point, such polls will be meaningful, and we will study them closely. But I'm a very long way from walking into a diner or a community center in Iowa or New Hampshire and asking, "Who do you like for president, Christie or Clinton?" Or Biden, or Cruz, or Warren, or Santorum, or Paul, or Ryan, or Rubio, or — well, you get the picture.
I'm happy to take a breather for a while. I mean, there's no shortage of other issues to talk about, right?
College basketball seems to get started sooner every year, like puberty in American children. Why does everything have to begin so early now, before you have time to get ready for it?
Things move so fast in college basketball that there are three players this year who are being called "the next LeBron James. " In the NBA, most of the talk is already about where the superstars will be next season.
Because basketball involves so few players, the hot shots are more valuable, so it's like the Kardashians — not whom they're married to now, but whom they'll be married to next.
Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in a case this week involving the death penalty in Alabama was not aimed at public opinion, but it could be exhibit A for why the nation's judiciary is falling in the public's estimation.
Sotomayor wrote a 12-page dissent when her colleagues refused to review the state's law that allows judges to overrule jury decisions on whether a defendant should be executed. She called it "an outlier" that might contradict the Constitution.
The Alabama case was concerned with Mario Dion Woodward, who was convicted of murder in 2008. The prosecution asked for the death penalty, but the jury voted 8-to-4 against it — finding that the state-asserted aggravating circumstances did not warrant capital punishment.
In almost every other state, the jury's decision would have been final — but not in Alabama. In Woodward's case, the trial judge overruled the jury and imposed the death penalty anyway, as the law permits.
As Sotomayor went on to point out, since Alabama adopted its current statute in the early 1980s, judges have overridden the jury's decision and imposed the death penalty in 95 cases, while decreasing the sentence to life imprisonment without parole in just 9 cases.
What is more, Alabama is the only state whose judges have used a judicial-override sentencing statute in this way in the past decade. Florida and Delaware have similar statutes. In the early 2000s only one Delaware judge imposed a death sentence. That decision was appealed and reduced to a life sentence.
The worst part - according to Sotomayor - is the reason this only happens in Alabama. "The only answer that is supported by empirical evidence," she wrote, is that "Alabama judges, who are elected in partisan proceedings, appear to have succumbed to electoral pressures."
Those "electoral pressures," she wrote, will lead to "curious and potentially arbitrary outcomes." And the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, the Court has held, offends the Eighth Amendment.
Sotomayor is not the only one who might harbor concerns about elected judges. Thirty-eight states elect their Supreme Court judges, and in a national poll released last month by Justice at Stake and the Brennan Center, 70 percent of respondents felt that it was a very serious problem when an elected judge has received a contribution from an "individual, attorney, business, or interest group" presenting a case before them. In fact, 92 percent of respondents felt that judges should step aside in such cases.
Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has consistently spoken out against judicial elections. Speaking at Fordham Law School in 2008, she said that "you're not going to get fair and impartial judges" if they are elected, and noted that "no other nation in the world" holds judicial elections. In the Justice at Stake poll, respondents ranked impartiality and fairness as the second and fourth most important qualities in judges ("ethical" was first and "nonpartisan" third).
Alabama judges' record on the death penalty may well undermine belief in their impartiality and fairness, showing that they are yielding to electoral pressure rather than simply applying the law.
And, according to Sotomayor, their decisions and comments show that they are using the death penalty as an electoral tool, rather than as "an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct." Only Justice Stephen Breyer joined portions of Sotomayor's dissent.
Florida Rep. Henry "Trey" Radel is being charged with cocaine possession and faces arraignment on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Authorities say the freshman Republican was found in possession of cocaine on Oct. 29, a misdemeanor offense, but provided no other details.
NPR's Tamara Keith says the charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of 180 days of imprisonment and/or a fine of $1,000.
Radel, 37, represents Florida's 19th District, which covers parts of the Gulf Coast, Fort Myers and Naples.
He issued the following statement:
"I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida. I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them."
"In facing this charge, I realize the disappointment my family, friends and constituents must feel. Believe me, I am disappointed in myself, and I stand ready to face the consequences of my actions."
"However, this unfortunate event does have a positive side. It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling. I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease."
"Please keep my family in your prayers."
Daily Beast editor Tina Brown joins NPR's Steve Inskeep from time to time as part of an ongoing conversation Morning Edition calls Word of Mouth. This month she's talking about stories of survival — from a dangerous Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan to a terrorist attack in Mumbai. And then there's survival of a different sort: sticking out a very long career in Hollywood.
Making It Through A War Zone
Her first pick is Lone Survivor, an upcoming movie from director Peter Berg —"a fantastic new war film," Brown says, "probably the best war film, I think, since Saving Private Ryan."
It's based on the memoir by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who was the only survivor among a group of four dropped deep into Afghanistan's Hindu Kush region in 2005. They were on a reconnaissance mission, called Operation Red Wing, that went horribly wrong.
"The heart of the film is when the SEALs on the mountainside run into a small group of Afghan goatherds," Brown says. "And they realize suddenly that these goatherds are going to go back and alert the Taliban."
In the movie, and in Luttrell's memoir, the SEALs argue about whether or not to let the goatherds go.
"Because of course killing civilians goes right against every kind of code of the SEALs," Brown says. "I actually talked to [Luttrell] after a screener in an interview, and I asked him, you know, how does he feel today about that decision to let the goat herds go, which I said at the time, was probably the right moral decision to do. And he exploded. He said he really resented that it was 'the right thing to do.' He said, 'How do you know what was the right thing to do? Nobody but us who was on that mountainside, in that conflict, in that war zone, knows what was the right thing to do.' "
"Which I totally understand — because of course, you know, he's haunted by it to this very day. Absolutely haunted. The decision to let the goat herds go, of course, meant that all his beloved buddies, that he was so close to, you know, were murdered."
A Night In Mumbai
Brown's second pick is a book she calls "an investigative masterpiece."
"It's so vivid it ought to be a movie," she says.
The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel, is a nonfiction account of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India by Pakistani terrorists, from the perspectives of the people inside the hotel that was the focus of the mayhem. It's written by two accomplished British investigative journalists, Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy.
"The Taj Hotel was the centerpiece of it all," Brown says. "And what they do is, they describe every one of the [people] who'd checked into that hotel: tycoons and the Korean trade delegation and a famous food writer, and a young rich couple who'd gone there for their wedding celebration. And at the same time they also cover the wonderful 'downstairs' family life of the staff, if you like, with the chefs and the under-chef, the kitchen brigade as they were called. And they were so incredibly brave."
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Janet Yellen cleared a key hurdle Thursday, as her confirmation hearing to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve went smoothly. There were only a few snags in roughly two hours of questions and discussions between Yellen and members of the Senate banking committee.
Many of the senators lauded Yellen's extensive experience, as well as her adherence to views they heard her discuss in private meetings on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.
Yellen is currently the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Previously, she served as the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She also chaired President Clinton's White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Thursday's hearing (which is archived at C-SPAN) did not include a vote; such proceedings often spark follow-up questions that are asked separately of the nominee. If the panel approves Yellen, the full Senate would vote on her confirmation.
Noting that Yellen "will eventually need five Republican votes for confirmation, because the reality of the modern Senate is that everything takes 60 votes," The New York Times says that Republicans' questions today suggests "those votes may not be so hard to round up."
Much of the hearing centered on the Fed's efforts to help the U.S. economy recover from the recent mortgage crisis. Republicans on the panel asked Yellen about the ongoing stimulus effort and whether it has helped the wealthy more than anyone else.
That view was put forth by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who said that, "in many ways, easy money is an elitist policy."
In her response, Yellen acknowledged that the policies have helped investors in the stock market. But she also said that low interest rates had aided a recovery in the U.S. housing market, calling it "broadly beneficial to all those Americans who own homes."
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said the stimulus policy, in which the U.S. government buys $85 billion in bonds and securities each month, has hurt savers by keeping interest rates near rock-bottom lows.
"Low interest rates harm savers, it's absolutely true," Yellen told him, noting that people on a fixed income often rely on financial instruments such as certificates of deposit that generate safe — but currently very low — rates of return.
But, she added, "We can't have normal rates unless the economy is normal. At the moment, we have a lot of saving, and not very much investment."
Some of the strongest views came from a Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. We've saved a video clip of that exchange on C-SPAN's website.
"The truth is, if the regulators had done their jobs and reined in the banks, we wouldn't need to be talking about quantitative easing," Warren said, "because we could have avoided the 2008 crisis altogether."
Warren went on to say she sees an imbalance in how the Fed handles its monetary and regulatory roles, with the former getting top priority at the expense of the latter.
She finished by asking Yellen, "Do you think that the Fed's lack of attention to regulatory and supervisory responsibilities helped lead to the crash of 2008?"
For a few seconds, the only sound in the chamber was the clicking of cameras. Then Yellen began her response, in which she stumbled a bit at first.
"You know, I think in the aftermath of the crisis, we've gone back and tried to look carefully at what we ... what should have been done differently," she said. "And there have been important lessons learned."
Yellen noted that the Fed had revamped its supervisory practices, particularly in dealing with large banks.
"One of our top priorities now is ramping up our monitoring of the financial system as a whole, to detect financial stability risks," she said. "I think that's something that we weren't doing in an adequate basis before the crisis. And so we missed some of the important linkages whereby problems in mortgages would rebound through the financial system."
Warren closed her remarks by saying she hopes "very much" that Yellen is confirmed and that she would "help keep our financial system safe."
President Obama nominated Yellen in October to fill the post that current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will vacate at the end of January.
Bernanke's role at the Fed will not end when he steps down as chairman, though. He will remain on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System until his term expires in 2020.
If confirmed by the Senate, Yellen will become the first woman to head the Fed. She would begin a four-year term as chairman; her term on the Board of Governors would run for 14 years.
The New York Times, which live-blogged today's hearing, clarifies the claim of distinction that Yellen could make if she is elevated to the chairmanship. Noting tweets that have called Yellen the world's first female head of a central bank, the newspaper says that's not so.
"Ms. Yellen would certainly be the United States' first female central banker, and one of the most powerful women to serve in American government," The Times says. "But East Germany had a female central banker more than 50 years ago. And there are more than a dozen female central bankers currently serving, including Elvira Nabiullina of Russia, Zeti Akhtar Aziz of Malaysia and Linah Mohohlo of Botswana."
J.J. Abrams already had the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises under his belt when he was offered Star Wars. He says taking on the beloved work of science fiction in addition to the others was a big decision: "It's too much power for one man!"
"I was insanely flattered, but felt like it was too much," he tells NPR's Arun Rath. "I was already involved in a couple series that pre-existed me and I wanted to get back to doing original stories. [But] it was such a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something completely thrilling and wildly challenging."
Abrams has has managed to work get those original stories into the world. The man behind hit TV shows like Alias and Lost, is also the executive producer of the new Fox show Almost Human.
Code Switch
Fox Says Diversity Leads To Good Ratings And Better Business
"There was one issue that was a giant box with a head painted on it, so when you put it on your shelf, it looks like you have a disembodied head on your shelf," says Eggers. "I think we wanted the journal to work on all those different levels — to surprise and delight on an object level and a design level, but also when you get into the stories, you get phenomenal new writing."
Big names like David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon have filled the pages alongside all manner of emerging voices, and the new anthology reflects that history. It begins with McSweeney's' mock letters section, easily its goofiest offering. Typical to the section is a letter from one Tom O'Donnell:
Dear McSweeney's,
I have a common name. According to some estimates, nearly 40 percent of men are named "Tom O'Donnell." ... In the time it took me to write this sentence, chances are you named at least one of your children "Tom O'Donnell."
This would all be fine if it were still Bible times, but today it's a problem. Why? Because it's basically impossible to Google myself.
"There was one issue that was a giant box with a head painted on it, so when you put it on your shelf, it looks like you have a disembodied head on your shelf," says Eggers. "I think we wanted the journal to work on all those different levels — to surprise and delight on an object level and a design level, but also when you get into the stories, you get phenomenal new writing."
Big names like David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon have filled the pages alongside all manner of emerging voices, and the new anthology reflects that history. It begins with McSweeney's' mock letters section, easily its goofiest offering. Typical to the section is a letter from one Tom O'Donnell:
Dear McSweeney's,
I have a common name. According to some estimates, nearly 40 percent of men are named "Tom O'Donnell." ... In the time it took me to write this sentence, chances are you named at least one of your children "Tom O'Donnell."
This would all be fine if it were still Bible times, but today it's a problem. Why? Because it's basically impossible to Google myself.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, countless skirmishes and engaged in a decades-long standoff over Kashmir. But a new Google ad has warmed the cockles of subcontinental hearts, leading to an outpouring of goodwill on social media and newspaper websites.
The ad centers on two friends separated by Partition. That's the period in 1947 that led British India to be divided into two countries: Pakistan, a homeland for Muslims, and India, which is predominantly Hindu but officially secular.
Partition occupies a central place in the collective memory of the two nations. Millions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were killed, and millions were uprooted from their homes. The legacy of that era clouds much of the relations between the two countries even today.
Enter Google.
In the ad, an old Indian man tells his granddaughter about his childhood friend Yusuf and their adventures in Lahore, which was then in British India. She then — well, watch the ad for yourself. It's a little over three minutes long — and not short on schmaltz (in a good way, of course).