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Clashes among protesters in Thailand's capital have led to the death of at least one person amid mass rallies by opponents of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra as well as by supporters of her government.

Reuters says the person was shot dead and that 10 others were wounded in the first bloodshed in a week of protests aimed at toppling Yingluck, whose government won overwhelmingly in 2011 elections.

In other violence, Reuters reports,

"Anti-government protesters attacked a bus they believed was full of government 'red shirt' supporters. They also smashed the windshield of a taxi carrying people wearing red shirts, a pro-government symbol, and beat two people, one unconscious, police and Reuters witnesses said.

"As darkness fell gunfire erupted outside a sports stadium in Bangkok's Ramkamhaeng area, where about 70,000 red-shirted supporters of Yingluck and her brother, ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had gathered for a rally.

"A gunman fired into Ramkamhaeng University, where hundreds of anti-government protesters had retreated after trying to block people from entering the stadium, witnesses said."

The online magazine Ozy covers people, places and trends on the horizon. Co-founder Carlos Watson joins All Things Considered regularly to tell us about the site's latest discoveries.

This week, Ozy deputy editor Eugene Robinson fills in for Carlos to tell NPR's Arun Rath about two dueling divas in Bangladeshi politics, the rising popularity of an obscure winter sport, and tattoos that you can wear to work.

"Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. They had this phone call, where there were these great hopes for rapprochement. There's a transcript that we have where they're arguing — about arguing — while they're arguing. So there's this vocal jockeying and they make reference to the red phone. 'I called your red phone,' Hasina says. And Zia says, 'My red phone has been dead for years. You run the government, you should know that!'

"So right at the outset you know that things aren't going to get much better in the short term for these two. It's petty bickering ... and what makes it kind of shocking is that they've been doing it for about 20 years."

Read "Battle Of The Begums" at Ozy.com

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This holiday season, the video game industry is looking to reignite sales as two game titans, Sony and Microsoft, launch the next generation of game consoles.

Their target demographic is the group of dedicated players known as hard-core gamers. Dive into the wide world of video game culture on YouTube and you'll hear that term being thrown about.

So what exactly is a hard-core gamer?

"Well, a hard-core video gamer would be somebody that is there at every single midnight release," said Kelly Kelley, known in competitive e-sports circles as MrsViolence. "Playing the game for at least five to six hours, beating it within maybe 48 hours of release. That would be a hard-core gamer right there."

Kelley qualifies. She makes a living as a gaming personality. You can find her online most nights, streaming matches of Call of Duty to her many fans.

That's right, gamers stay up at night and watch other people play video games, the way sports fans watch football. It's about the most hard-core thing a gamer can do.

In fact, more than 32 million people worldwide watched the world championships of the strategy game League of Legends this month, according to the makers of the game.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people playing cellphone games like Words With Friends.

"I have parents," said Kelley, "and they love those games, and they ask me all the time: Does this make me a gamer? Yes. Absolutely it makes them a casual gamer."

The Other Side

Casual gamers. That's the other big group that gets attention from game makers. Inside gaming culture, "hard core" and "casual" are tribal divisions.

For the hard core, gaming is the passion. Casual players enjoy games, yet they don't steep themselves in gamer culture rites like midnight openings. Still, as the gaming population grows, and gets older, exactly where those two tribes begin and end gets a little blurry.

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Saturday is the day the Obama administration promised it would have HealthCare.gov working smoothly for the majority of people who need to sign up for health insurance.

As the Obama administration scrambles to fix the glitch-plagued site, experts are beginning to worry about another problem that may further impair the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

Health insurance companies say they're seeing numerous errors in a form that plays a vital part in the enrollment process. The problems are manageable so far, but many worry about what will happen if enrollment surges in the weeks to come.

The 834

It's safe to say that the vast majority of consumers have never heard of an 834 EDI transmission form, despite its crucial role in the process of signing up for health insurance. It's a kind of digital resume that tells an insurance company's computer everything it needs to know about an applicant, explains Bob Laszewski, a health policy consultant.

"It contains all of the person's enrollment information, all the information that [an] insurance company needs to get this person entered as a policy holder," Laszewski says.

The 834 has been around for a long time. The architects of the Affordable Care Act intended for it to play a central role in the sign-up process, says Tim Jost, a professor of law at Washington and Lee University.

"The 834 information is information the insurers have to have to get people enrolled in coverage, which of course is the point of going through the marketplace," Jost says.

Multiple Mistakes Make Insurers' Jobs Harder

But health insurance companies say the 834s they are receiving from applicants on the federal and state exchanges have sometimes been riddled with errors, Laszewski says.

"Duplicate enrollments, people enrolling and unenrolling, inaccurate data about who's a child and who's a spouse, files just not being readable," he says.

Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of West Virginia has been steadily processing new customers ever since the launch of Obamacare this fall. But Highmark President Fred Earley says mistakes in the 834s are making the job harder.

"We've had some situations where the records don't track, or we've seen duplicates," Earley says. "We've had situations where we'll get a record to show that someone cancelled coverage, when we've never had a record to show they enrolled in the first place."

Earley says his firm has been dealing with the problems by calling up state and federal officials and correcting the mistakes. The exact cause of the problems is unclear. The Obama administration has been slowly making fixes and officials say they're making progress, but Laszewski says the fixes are not fast enough.

"The error rates have been falling," he says. "HealthCare.gov has been making progress, but we're not to the point yet where people can trust that high-volume enrollment can occur and we won't have serious customer service problems."

Laszewski says the test will come over the next few weeks. People who want coverage to begin on Jan. 1 have until just before Christmas to sign up, and there's likely to be a surge of new applicants in the weeks to come.

"What happens if we start getting hundreds of thousands or millions of people signing up by the December 23rd deadline, and the insurance industry is receiving hundreds or thousands of these a day?" he says. "That's what everyone's worried about."

The editors offer endless avenues of interpretation; the typed transcriptions of Dickinson's handwriting are superimposed atop the outlines of their corresponding envelopes, so the multidirectional layout of the text isn't lost. A series of esoteric indexes — by shape of the envelopes, by what direction they are turned, by whether or not they have "penciled divisions," for example — encourage the reader to speculate about the various relationships Dickinson may have conceived between paper and words.

It's a good season to chase after the ever-elusive Emily Dickinson. In addition to this book, there's a corresponding exhibit in Chicago, and all of the poet's online archives were recently organized into one accessible hub. This book is a rare gift for all poetry lovers. We are lucky to have more of Dickinson's ongoing "letter to the World / That never wrote to Me," an endlessly fascinating correspondence, addressed to any of us who find it — so long as we're willing to answer it with concentration and curiosity.

An invention to help with obstructed labor has turned some heads — and not just because the idea came from a party trick on YouTube.

The Odon Device, created by Argentine car mechanic Jorge Odon, guides a folded plastic sleeve around the baby's head. A little bit of air is then pumped between the two plastic layers, cushioning the baby's head and allowing it to be sucked out. This trick for removing a cork from an empty wine bottle works the same way.

The device has been embraced by the World Health Organization and is being developed by the global medical technology company BD. Once clinical trials are done, the WHO and individual countries will have to approve it before it's sold. BD hasn't said how much it will charge, but each one is expected to cost less than $50 to make.

A Curious Dilemma

Hominin brains have gotten bigger and female pelvises have narrowed since the advent of walking on two feet. This unfortunate geometric problem, termed the "obstetric dilemma," means that over time it has become harder for babies to fit through where they're supposed to come out. The cause is still under debate.

Many Chinese are pleased with the recent announcement that their government will further loosen the country's one-child policy. Some couples there are already allowed to have two children, while others say that even if they are permitted to have another kid, they can't afford it.

A young, professional couple surnamed Gao and Deng went to a government office in Shanghai earlier this month to apply for a marriage license.

Waiting on a metal bench, Gao, the 30-year-old groom-to-be, said he was glad more couples will be able to have a second child.

"I think for people like us who were born after 1980s, this is a very good policy change," Gao said. "Now, if families are financially capable and conditions allow, they should totally have two children."

Deng, the bride-to-be, who wore a long pink dress, said the couple hopes to have two children.

"They can help each other and grow up together," she said. "When we get older, they can take care of each other."

In fact, Deng and Gao are already permitted to have two children.

A Steady Policy Evolution

More than a decade ago, the government began allowing couples to have two kids if both parents were only-children. It's a reminder that China has been easing its one-child policy over the years.

Officials took a further step in that direction this month, announcing that if just one parent is an only child, a couple can have a second child as well.

That's an incremental change, but many see it as progress after years of lobbying.

Wang Feng, a leading demographer in China and a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine, has spent more than a decade urging Chinese officials to change the one-child policy. Until relatively recently, he said, the topic was too sensitive for public discussion.

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Children Of China's Wealthy Learn Expensive Lessons

Thanksgiving — like the universe — is expanding.

Traditionally a time for Americans to pause and give thanks to a Supreme Being — for health or harvest or happenstance, Thanksgiving is evolving before our very eyes into a holiday where we give thanks to each other as well.

Just this week we received Thanksgiving-themed thank-you notes from a doctor's office, a lawyers' association, a New Jersey congressman and others. Can Thanksgiving-themed gift cards be far behind?

It's not a bad idea. Saying thank you to more people.

So, in the widening spirit of the season: Thank you everyone for sending us reports of Thanksgiving 2013 celebrations in other countries. Thank you for sharing your photos and stories with us. Thank you for helping us get glimpses into what it's like to be an American where you are. Thank you for showing us your food. And your families. And your friends. And your surroundings.

Thank you to colleague, Melody Kramer, for juggling the social media aspects of the Xpat Project, which is scheduled to continue until Christmas.

Thank you to all other NPR colleagues, especially those working the long holiday weekend to continue to give the LURVers — Listeners, Users, Readers and Viewers — of NPR meaningful stories.

Thank you to our NPR bosses for letting us experiment with this idea — not knowing whether it would be a triumph or, well, a turkey.

And, year-round, thank you to you.

**

As part of The Xpat Project, NPR asked American expatriates to send stories and photos of their 2013 Thanksgiving observances in other countries. Now follows an edited sampling — updated now and then over the next few days:

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Unless Congress acts quickly, taking mass transit to work is about to get more expensive for some people.

For the past four years, public transportation users and people who drive their cars to work and pay for parking have been able set aside up to $245 a month in wages tax free if they're used for commuting costs or workplace parking.

The transit tax break expires at the end of the year. So starting Jan. 1, the benefit for riders will be cut nearly in half — to $130 a month. Drivers, on the other hand, will get a slightly bigger break as their parking benefit rises to $250.

"It doesn't make sense at all, the fact that you get a bigger tax break for driving your car than riding a train," says Dan Smith, who lobbies Congress on tax issues for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. He says many commuters don't realize that the parity for transit and parking tax breaks vanishes in the new year. But they soon will.

Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who rides his bike to work, is sounding the alarm.

"We've heard lots of talk about fiscal cliffs, a dairy cliff, but at the end of the year, we are facing a transit commuter cliff," he says.

Blumenauer has rounded up five House Republicans and 44 fellow Democrats to co-sponsor legislation that would keep the parking subsidy, which by law is automatically renewed, equal to the transit subsidy, which requires congressional approval every year:

"You might tilt it the other way and provide greater benefit for people who are having less impact on the planet," he says. "But the fact is, this is embedded, ingrained and accepted, so we want to at least just have transit parity for the full range of commuter options."

Indeed, eliminating or even reducing the parking subsidy is a bipartisan non-starter in Congress.

"My own view is there are some people — many people — who don't have the luxury of being able to take transit," says Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The California Democrat defends the tax break for people who drive to work:

"I don't agree that you should put one group against the other," she says. "I think we should encourage fuel-efficient cars, and if someone really needs their car for work, I don't have a problem with saying, you know what, there's enough expense here, we can make sure that this isn't exorbitant for you."

That's unfortunate, says Elyse Lowe. She's one of Boxer's constituents as well as the executive director of Move San Diego, a group advocating smart growth in that city. For Lowe, it makes sense to subsidize public transit users, not drivers:

"This is at the heart of getting people to change their travel behaviors through economic incentives," she says, "and typically people don't actually look at their own personal behavior until there's some sort of economic reason to do so."

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse agrees. He's skeptical, though, that Congress can act in time to keep the transit break on par with the parking subsidy.

"What certainly doesn't make sense is to favor that over using public transportation. But given the general level of blockade of anything and everything by our Republican friends around here, I can't promise that we'll get to that."

Making parity between transit and parking subsidies — one more casualty of congressional gridlock.

It's around dinner time at Honeygrow, a casual restaurant in central Philadelphia.

Erin Campbell was on her way here to meet a friend when she realized, with panic, that her cellphone battery was dying.

"I noticed I only had 14 percent [battery] left, and I actually texted her on my way in to see if she could bring a charger with her," Campbell says.

But Campbell's friend told her there was no need to bring a charger — just inside the door of Honeygrow is a kiosk where customers can charge their phones.

To use a kiosk at Honeygrow, a customer picks an empty pod from the kiosk and opens a tiny door with a key that's in the lock. Inside, there are power cords for iPhones 4 and 5, BlackBerries and Androids. Customers plug in their phones, lay the phone on the shelf and lock the door with the key.

Campbell charges her phone here during dinner. After eating, she stops to unlock the little door and unplug her phone. Success: The battery is up to 66 percent.

Charging The Lifeline

Philadelphia entrepreneur Doug Baldasare founded ChargeItSpot after his own brush with phone battery death a few years ago when he was out with friends.

"All of our phones were dead so we were saying, you know, 'How are we going to find each other?' " he says. "I pointed to a store — it happened to be an Urban Outfitters — and I said, 'Why can't I walk in there and charge my phone?' "

Now Baldasare's company has phone-charging kiosks in some Urban Outfitters locations, as well as Whole Foods, a ski resort in Colorado and other retailers and restaurants in a half-dozen states.

"We need our phones so much every day in our lives — we clutch them like it's part of us; it's a lifeline," he says. "When our phones run low, we're really anxious."

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Enrolling in HealthCare.gov is not easy, and it's been particularly difficult in Alaska. Just 53 people enrolled in the first month.

Anchorage hair stylist Lara Imler is one of the few who got through, as we previously reported. But Imler discovered problems with her application, and now she wants to cancel her enrollment.

"I don't even know how to feel about the whole thing anymore because I can't even get anyone who has an answer to help," she says. "It's just such a lost cause at this point."

A few things went wrong with Imler's HealthCare.gov application. First, according to the website, she successfully enrolled in a health plan. But her new insurance company, Moda Health, didn't have her application. When she called the HealthCare.gov hotline, no one could help her figure out what went wrong.

Then, she found out the website miscalculated her subsidy. She was supposed to receive a monthly subsidy of $366, but the website only let her use $315.

"The subsidy issue is weird," she says. "If you look at my profile on the website it shows my full subsidy, but it says I'm only using part of it. So they know I've got a screwed up subsidy but they don't know what to do with it. There's no one directly you can talk to, to say, 'Hey my subsidy is on there. How do I apply for all of it?'"

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Persistence Pays Off For Uninsured Alaskan

So, a uniformed Marine walks into a convenience store, and says to the clerk, "Pack of Marlboro Reds, in a box — and some matches."

The clerk gives the Marine the once over and says, "Sorry, son, but you look a bit young to be buying smokes. You 21?"

That potential scenario, in a nutshell, is the most common argument against a small but nascent movement to increase the minimum age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21.

You can fight in a war at age 18, and vote in elections, but you can't buy cigarettes until your 21st birthday?

In Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New York City and on Hawaii's Big Island, that's now the case. And Utah, one of four states that had already hiked the minimum sale age to 19, is also considering bumping it up to 21.

Three New York counties and three communities in Massachusetts have passed minimum sale ages of 19; and in 2005, Needham, Mass., became the first and — until New York passed its regulation last week — the only municipality to approve a "21 law."

Needham has reported that since 2005, it has seen a drop of more than 50 percent in its youth smoking rate.

The scattered push for 21 laws is being welcomed by anti-tobacco groups, which point to research that shows cigarette addiction typically takes hold during a person's late teens and early 20s.

But the embrace of such age hikes comes with a caveat: Don't let this new battlefront divert attention from proven anti-smoking efforts.

"While we're enthusiastic about the 21 laws, we don't want them to replace what we have in place already," says Danny McGoldrick, vice president for research at The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "It's not a substitute for things we know are effective — increasing cigarette prices by raising taxes, funding evidence-based tobacco cessation programs, and passing smoke-free laws."

Nonsmoking advocates like McGoldrick call the combination of those efforts the winning trifecta.

Big Tobacco argues that increasing the minimum age would drive buyers across state lines, leading to a loss in tax revenue.

Both sides of the smoking issue are also more focused on another, much bigger battle — pushing for federal regulation of the relatively new electronic cigarettes, battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution and create vapor that users inhale.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed regulating e-cigarettes as it does other tobacco products, which would subject them to the same age-based limits on sales and marketing as well as other restrictions that apply to traditional cigarettes.

Big Tobacco is arguing for a separate classification for the product, which is increasingly popular among young adults and seen as a growth industry for the diminished domestic tobacco sector. While that debate plays out (the White House is reviewing the FDA's proposal to regulate e-cigarettes), the 21 law effort, while limited, continues.

New Jersey state Sen. Richard Codey has been pushing for the increase in his state, and in Washington, D.C., city councilman Kenyan McDuffie has introduced legislation to raise the age to buy cigarettes in the nation's capital from 18 to 21.

"We have an obligation to stay on the leading edge of smoking prevention strategies here in the District," McDuffie said in a release. "By restricting tobacco sales to young people, we can prevent many of our youth from acquiring a terrible, deadly addiction. Research shows that delaying access to tobacco products is an effective means of long-term smoking prevention."

Officials in the Seattle suburb of SeaTac, Wash., say the town's voters have approved a $15 minimum wage for workers in and around its international airport, by a margin of just 77 votes, according to local government data.

Placed on the ballot by a citizen's initiative, Proposition 1 would raise Washington's minimum wage of $9.19 — already the highest in the nation. The measure still faces several challenges, including calls for a hand recount. If it stands, it would take effect on Jan. 1, 2014.

From Seattle, NPR's Martin Kaste reports for our Newscast desk:

"The election was three weeks ago, but the vote was so close that it's taken this long to call a winner. Opponents say they'll pay for a recount. Alaska Airlines is the airport's primary carrier; spokesman Paul McElroy says the company is concerned about wage inequality, but he says it has to stay competitive.

"'The number one factor that air travelers look at when buying a ticket is low airfares,' McElroy says. 'And as our costs go up, that does affect our ability to offer the best value and low-cost airfare to our customers.'"

"Alaska Airlines and some other affected businesses are suing to block the wage, arguing that it conflicts with state and federal laws."

NPR's Tell Me More is again using social media to reach out to a new community of leaders – this time, to recognize African-American innovators in technology who represent just 5% of America's scientists and engineers, according to a 2010 study by the National Science Foundation.

After receiving an overwhelming early response with #NPRBlacksinTech, Tell Me More is building on its engagement with these leaders by asking African-American entrepreneurs and techies to profile themselves for our upcoming "A Day in the Life" social media series.

Many of the questions they will answer are from young scholars at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science.

Crowdfunding is popular among musicians, filmmakers and artists looking for a way to finance their next project.

Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering rules that, for the first time, would allow small companies to solicit investments over the Internet and sell shares to the general public.

For some small firms, these new rules come as welcome news.

Shane Emmett, CEO of Health Warrior, which makes a line of nutrition bars made of chia seeds, says his company is looking to raise money and would consider doing so under the SEC rules.

Currently, private companies are only allowed to solicit funding from accredited investors — essentially wealthy people with a net worth of $1 million, excluding their homes. But the new rules would allow companies to raise as much as $1 million a year from lower net-worth people by selling shares. Regulations are needed because last year's Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act allows small investors to obtain equity stakes in startups and other small businesses.

"It's a really interesting opportunity, I think, not only for companies that are getting bigger, like Health Warrior, but for companies that are smaller and aren't fortunate enough to have ready access to capital from high net-worth individuals," Emmett says.

He says it's the smallest companies, like his, that take big risks and potentially return big rewards. But most startups fail. Emmett says he considers his business high risk.

And there's the rub: How do you disclose that risk to the general public?

All Tech Considered

When A Kickstarter Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get The Money Back?

Steven Strogatz knows that for some people, the subject of math brings back dreaded grade school memories of challenging word problems and formulas. As Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, Strogatz strives to apply mathematics to the curiosities of everyday life. He's explained head-scratching phenomena as a frequent guest on WNYC's Radiolab, like why a Slinky seems to defy the laws of gravity. And in his "The Elements of Math" series for The New York Times' Opinionator blog, he applied group theory to explain the optimal system to flip a mattress. The series sparked the creation of his latest book, The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, From One to Infinity.

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Solving For X: Live From The 2013 World Science Festival

"You know when you put something in the bin, and in your head, say to yourself 'that's a bad idea'? I really did have that," James Howells says. And boy, was his intuition right: Howells tossed a hard drive that held millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoins, the currency whose value has skyrocketed this year.

Howells' story is emerging on the same day Bitcoin rose above the $1,000 mark for the first time on the Mt. Gox exchange, as CNET reported. At that exchange rate, Howells' stash of 7,500 Bitcions would have been worth $7.5 million today. (Because there's no central exchange for Bitcoins, prices can vary.)

The Bitcoins were in a digital wallet in a hard drive that was sitting in a desk drawer in Newport, Wales. It contained the unique access key that would allow Howells to control the money. Howells, who reportedly works in IT, did not make a backup file.

As Howells tells The Guardian, it was months before he realized he had tossed the Bitcoins along with the drive, the survivor of a Dell laptop he had used to "mine" the currency in 2009.

"I don't have an exact date, the only time period I can give – and I've been racking my own brains – is between 20 June and 10 August," he tells the newspaper. "Probably mid-July."

His attempts to find the missing hard drive have been stymied by the epic size of the local landfill. Its operators told Howells that his hard drive was probably about four or five feet deep, in an area the size of a soccer field. And with no guarantee of finding the Bitcoins, he can't take on the expense of an excavation.

"I'm at the point where it's either laugh about it or cry about it," Howells says. "Why aren't I out there with a shovel now? I think I'm just resigned to never being able to find it."

At least Howells has company. As we reported this past spring, a man named Stefan Thomas told Der Spiegel that he lost 7,000 Bitcoins because of a hard-drive failure. Back then, the currency made headlines for hitting the $200 mark.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most prominent critics of the U.S. deal with Iran. While President Obama calls the agreement a breakthrough, Netanyahu calls it a "historic mistake." It's far from the first time the Israeli and American leaders have clashed.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu took charge of their countries within a few months of each other. They were hardly a matched pair.

Obama comes from the political left. Netanyahu comes from the right.

Obama was relatively new to politics. Netanyahu was a veteran.

Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and his absent father was Muslim. Netanyahu was born to Jewish parents in Tel Aviv.

Obama's first Middle East trip did nothing to dispel Netanyahu's fears. The president stopped in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but not Israel.

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Transcript: NPR Interview With Prime Minister Netanyahu

NPR's Tell Me More is again using social media to reach out to a new community of leaders – this time, to recognize African-American innovators in technology who represent just 5% of America's scientists and engineers, according to a 2010 study by the National Science Foundation.

After receiving an overwhelming early response with #NPRBlacksinTech, Tell Me More is building on its engagement with these leaders by asking African-American entrepreneurs and techies to profile themselves for our upcoming "A Day in the Life" social media series.

Many of the questions they will answer are from young scholars at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science.

A U.S. judge says American Airlines can exit bankruptcy and join forces with US Airways Group, all but ensuring that their merger can take place within weeks. Wednesday's bankruptcy court ruling was one of the final hurdles for a huge merger that's been in the works for more than a year.

The ruling by Judge Sean Lane comes months after he gave his preliminary approval to the plan. The two companies are now planning to finalize their merger on Dec. 9, when they would combine to create the world's largest airline.

After the ruling, a message was posted to the merger's website, newamericanarriving.com, was titled "The New American Airlines is Cleared for Takeoff."

The bankruptcy court ruling comes 15 days after the Justice Department said it would settle its lawsuit that had sought to block the airline merger. Part of that settlement required the two companies to give up space at terminals and gates at "seven key airports" in the U.S. to competitors that specialize in low-cost flights, such as JetBlue and Southwest.

The affected airports are Boston Logan International, Chicago O'Hare International, Dallas Love Field, Los Angeles International, Miami International, New York LaGuardia International and Ronald Reagan Washington National.

A private antitrust lawsuit against the merger is still pending. The plaintiffs in that case had requested that Lane issue a restraining order holding up the merger as their suit proceeds. That request was denied Wednesday.

And now new details are coming out about the merger. Citing a press release from American Airlines, The Dallas Morning News, which has been following the merger closely, says the new company will trade under the symbol "AAL."

These are politically segregated times.

Secession movements are active in several states, generally consisting of residents of rural red counties seeking to separate themselves from the more liberal and urban-centered policies of blue-state leaders.

And Democrats and Republicans are much less likely to live amongst each other than they were a generation ago.

Back in 1976 — the year of a close presidential election — just over a quarter of the population lived in "landslide counties," where the winning margin was greater than 20 percentage points, says journalist Bill Bishop, author of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.

Last year, more than half the country lived in landslide counties. And, while Barack Obama's margin of victory was less in 2012 than it was in 2008, the number of states decided by fewer than five points actually went down.

States themselves have become more polarized, with most legislatures and governorships controlled entirely by one party. As a result, not only are blue and red states tracking different courses on just about every issue, but some people are seeking to escape their states.

But if Americans are sorting themselves into like-minded communities, are they doing so on purpose? In other words, are people voting with their feet by consciously moving to states or counties that reflect their own partisan preferences?

Researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California suggest that, yes, they might.

Due to the recession and housing market declines of recent years, Americans are moving a lot less than they used to. When they do move, demographers say their main motivations remain traditional ones — housing and jobs.

People then tend to end up living among people who are more or less like them, in terms of economic status, shopping preferences and the like.

But the UVa and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.

Individuals have always sought to live among others they find congenial and similar to themselves, but, increasingly, that includes partisan leanings, Bishop says.

"It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at UVa.

What's the evidence? Motyl and his colleagues draw from several different sets of data. First, they looked at surveys filled out by more than a million people at Project Implicit, a project run by researchers at several universities that examines social attitudes.

Comparing which people had moved with the zip codes they were moving in and out of, they found strong indications that liberals and conservatives alike tended to move into more like-minded communities, based on local vote totals for Obama.

They also looked at another survey data set and conducted their own experiments with undergraduates to explore how uncomfortable people felt if their beliefs didn't gibe with their communities, and whether that discomfort might motivate them to move. Both liberals and conservatives, they found, show a tendency to want to migrate to communities where they would fit in better.

There's no evidence that people are moving in droves to live among their own partisan tribes, or that Democrats are selling houses at the first sign of a Republican moving into the neighborhood.

"The desire to live near people of the same ideological group," the study authors concede, may be less important than jobs, safety and clean air, but they conclude it's "relevant" nonetheless.

It remains to be found out how many people, if you asked them, would say that they had moved or wanted to move because of politics. Liberals threaten to move to Canada every four years if the Republican presidential candidate wins, but few actually make good on it.

But other political scientists have noticed that Americans are tending to move into jurisdictions that share their worldviews and can become uncomfortable when they don't fit in.

"The structure of a place cannot only shape political attitudes. It can also attract very different kinds of people," writes Torben Ltjen, a German political scientist who has been studying liberal and conservative enclaves in Wisconsin. "America has split into closed and radically separated enclaves that follow their own constructions of reality."

First, the good news:

There were 316,000 first-time claims filed for unemployment insurance last week, down 10,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration said Wednesday.

The pace of claims slowed in September to a rate not seen in six — before the economy slipped into its last recession. In October, as lawmakers argued in Washington and the federal government partially shut down, the pace picked back up. But at 316,000, claims are now down around that pre-recession rate once again.

Bloomberg News says the latest number is a sign "that the labor market is showing resilience."

But when it comes to reporting about the economy, there's always "the other hand."

So here is Wednesday's bad news:

Orders for durable goods declined 2 percent in October from September, the Census Bureau says. Durable goods are such things as equipment, appliances and other products designed to last three or more years.

The Associated Press says "businesses spent less on machinery, computers and most other items. The decline suggests companies may have been reluctant to invest during the 16-day partial government shutdown."

The capital city we visit with Grafton contributes to this general feeling of mystery. It has winding, twisting streets with no names, long distances between locations, little traffic, and a constant invasive police presence. At times mystery rises to the level of foreboding (as when Grafton, taking a boat across a large local lake, finds himself in the presence of a rather frightening man dressed all in black). Grafton himself, by the middle of the novel, stalks the streets armed with a gun, carrying a dead woman's somehow animate hand in his pocket — yes, give this man a hand! — and taking on the duties of a police investigator trolling for culprits.

Behind all this stands Grafton's undeterred desire to turn all of his adventures into that first-ever guidebook to this odd and sometimes deadly dangerous domain. He's constantly taking notes and, as he says, "I find that even when something happens to them later having written them down fixes them in my mind. So it is good to take notes, and when they get lost I have not lost the information, usually."

Neither does the reader. Does Grafton survive to turn his discoveries into his long-awaited guidebook? I think so. I hope so. After the intensity of reading his story I felt that I had taken the journey myself, to a place on our own planet in the here and now as bizarre and yet as familiar as anything in Gene Wolfe's galactic fiction. If you thought no one could improve on Kafka, try this one at home.

Read an excerpt of The Land Across

We've been reporting a lot lately on the troubled rollout of President Obama's signature health care law. But at the same time, there are rumblings of a major shift in the way companies offer private health insurance to workers.

It involves what are called "private health care exchanges." These are similar to — but completely separate from — the public exchanges you've heard so much about.

Some experts say this new approach soon could change how millions of Americans receive their health care.

Dean Carter is the chief human resources officer for Sears Holdings, which means he's shifted more than 50,000 employees onto this new kind of health care system. And he thinks this is the future. "In my 20 years of HR and working with benefits," Dean says, "this fundamentally changes the game."

The change Dean's talking about is kind of like what happened when most companies stopped offering pensions. Instead, many just contribute money to their workers' retirement accounts.

With health care now, some companies are saying: "Here's $300 to $400 a paycheck. Go use that toward buying insurance on a 'private exchange.' "

For years at big conferences that benefits managers attend, there has been talk about private health care exchanges with four, five or six different carriers competing on price to offer people insurance. But it seemed to be something maybe 10 years in the future. Then the Affordable Care Act passed. And that made exchanges seem more doable right away for the private sector, too.

"When we began to look at it, and it looked like it was a good idea for our associates and Sears holdings, we leaned-in fast," says Carter.

In the past, the whole company was essentially trapped in a health plan for several years with one insurance company, says Carter: "For two to three years the entire employee population would be locked in to using that carrier alone. ... If that carrier decided there would be cost increases year on year, you were basically loaded into those cost increases."

But in private health care exchanges, every year multiple insurance companies have to compete on the exchange. And individual employees shop for the various plans, and select an insurance company based on the price they offer for benefits.

"We believe the competitive nature enables us to save on costs and our employees to save on costs," says Carter.

Akshay Kapur is a principal with the consulting firm Booz & Co. He studies health care and private exchanges. And he says these exchanges reduce costs, both through competition, and by changing employee behavior. "Once you give a fixed amount of money to employees, they will make health care choices that are appropriate or optimal for themselves and their family," says Kapur.

Kapur says that will mean fewer healthy people going to the doctor too frequently. For example, some plans have premiums as low as $5 a paycheck but with a high $6,000 deductible. That might be a good option for someone who is healthy and doesn't expect to go to the doctor. Most plans, though, also offer some free checkups, to make sure people are going to the doctor enough to catch any health problems early on.

In theory, these new private exchanges might sound good. But, there are problems.

Christine Trapp, 42, has been battling advanced-stage breast cancer. And she also works for a major retailer that's switching to a private exchange, which she says has been having the same kind of problems as the public exchanges. The website wouldn't work, and she couldn't get help on the phone, Trapp says, calling it "very overwhelming and confusing."

And, she says, "contacting the company to get answers was very difficult — 20-, 30-, 40-minute wait times.

As it turned out, her employer is chipping in $417 per paycheck. And with that, she could have gotten a similar plan to the one she had before for a few dollars less per paycheck. But she couldn't figure that out. So she signed up for the most expensive platinum plan because she was scared about losing her doctors and fouling up her cancer treatment. That's going to mean a 25 percent cut in her take-home pay. She makes $37,000 a year, and has two kids in college. So for now, Trapp says she's going to try to save money however she can.

So some big questions remain: As more companies make this shift, will competition rein in rising health care costs for workers? Or will workers end up paying more anyway, because employers keep making them shoulder more of the health care burden?

Major stock indexes have shot to record highs in the U.S. this year, gaining more than 20 percent, and yet economic growth remains at disappointing levels. A lot of analysts believe the stimulus efforts by the Federal Reserve are behind the stock boom and a possible bubble.

Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of the giant bond fund, PIMCO, says the markets would not have done so well without that support from the Fed. He says the stock market has become dependent on the $85 billion a month the central bank is adding to the financial system in its third round of quantitative easing, or QE3. The Dow Industrials closed above 16,000 for the first time last week, and the S&P 500 crossed the 1,800 threshold on the way to new highs.

El-Erian says the evidence is clear: When Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in June that the Fed might begin dialing back the stimulus, or tapering, as early as September and then end it next July, stocks dropped sharply. The opposite happened when September came and the Fed decided not to reduce the stimulus.

"When the Fed decided to the surprise of everybody not to taper, the markets took off, so you can identify very clearly the comfort that investors have in riding this massive central bank liquidity wave," El-Erian says.

And why is the market so influenced by the Fed? It's because through its stimulus, El-Erian says, the Fed has "pushed" investors into the stock market. The Fed's policies have reduced interest rates to historically low levels. That means the return on money market funds is near zero and the return on Treasury bonds is extremely low, so investors are "pushed" into stocks to get higher returns.

But El-Erian says pushing someone into something is a tricky business.

"If you're pushed into a marriage, the likelihood of there being deep conviction is much lower than if you're pulled into marriage by love. Similarly, if you're pushed into an investment because it's better than something else, your conviction is not as high [as] if you are pulled in by the fundamental attractiveness of the investment," he says.

El-Erian says the Fed's policies did help the economy avoid a depression and grow faster. But, he says, the Fed has gotten no help from Congress. He says its policies and brinksmanship have hurt growth. That's forced the Fed to keep its stimulus in place too long, and there's now a risk the Fed's exit could tank the stock market.

"We are so deep in experimental mode. We are using untested tools. There [are] no analytical models or historical experience or game plan that can help us," El-Erian says.

Fed officials seem less worried than El-Erian. Janet Yellen, the Fed chief-in-waiting, said at her confirmation hearing that historical data suggest there's no bubble in stocks.

That was also the conclusion of a recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the of the big business consulting firm.

"Investors are clearly watching every move the Fed makes, but when you look for evidence that in the long-term equity prices are higher than would be justified by fundamentals, there's no evidence of that," says Susan Lund, a partner in the firm.

She says the market is up so much partly because it dropped so far during the Great Recession.

"Typically after stock market slumps you do see a rebound and that also the stock market gains reflect in the long term, just the rise in corporate earnings and the amount that corporations have today," Lund says.

And, she says, the fact that the ratio of stock prices to company earnings is about at the historical average suggests there is no bubble. Other economists who see a bubble developing counter that company profits today are largely the result of cost cutting, not growth in sales. But the no-bubble side points out that adjusted for inflation, the S&P 500 index is no higher now than it was 13 years ago.

The wild game supper has traditionally been a way for rural America to share the harvest before winter sets in. Food historians trace the ritual back to Colonial times, when families had to hunt in order to eat well, and some providers were better shots than others.

In fact, you could think of Thanksgiving in Plymouth as the first neighborhood potluck. There is no written record of the menu, but historians guess that Native Americans brought the deer, and the colonists supplied the fowl, including, possibly, duck, geese, and turkey.

Enlarge image i

If there's one Thanksgiving mistake Jack Bishop sees more than any other, it's people rushing to carve their birds. Bishop is editorial director of the public TV series America's Test Kitchen. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "Turkey needs to rest before you carve it ... and a lot fewer juices will end up on the carving board."

Bishop and Brigid Lancaster, also of America's Test Kitchen, share their tips for buying, seasoning and cooking a turkey, and describe some of their favorite side dishes.

[General Hunger Games/Catching Fire information below; no huge surprises revealed.]

This weekend, Catching Fire, the second chapter of the Hunger Games film adaptations, raked in enormous piles of dough — with over $160 million in one weekend, it's the biggest November opening ever. Ever. (Take that, Twilight sequels.) Much has been said, and rightly so, about Katniss Everdeen and the way she challenges a lot of traditional narratives about girls. She carries a bow, she fights, she kills, she survives, she's emotionally unavailable, she'd rather act than talk, and ... did we mention she kills?

But one of the most unusual things about Katniss isn't the way she defies typical gender roles for heroines, but the way Peeta, her arena partner and one of her two love interests, defies typical Hollywood versions of gender roles for boyfriends.

Consider the evidence: Peeta's family runs a bakery. He can literally bake a cherry pie, as the old song says.

He is physically tough, but markedly less so than she is. He's got a good firm spine, but he lacks her disconnected approach to killing. Over and over, she finds herself screaming "PEETA!", not calling for help but going to help, and then running, because he's gone and done some damn fool thing like gotten himself electrocuted.

Her larger mission — her war against the Capitol — often drifts out of focus behind her smaller, more immediate mission: saving Peeta. She lets others know that if it's down to the two of them, he should be saved because of his goodness. She is unsurprised when she's told she doesn't deserve him.

He encourages her to talk about her feelings. He encourages her to share herself with others. He promises her, falsely but selflessly, that her indifference doesn't hurt him and she owes him nothing. If she ever wants to come to her senses, come down from those fences, he'll be there.

He's better than she is, but softer. He's less knowing than she is. He's less cynical than she is. He's just as tough and as brave as he can possibly be with the skill set he has, and she's responsible for mopping up when that's not enough. To fail to protect him is to betray her, because that may well be the only job she gives you.

She kisses him sometimes, but she keeps him on a need-to-know basis, and she decides what he needs to know.

He loves her as she is, while knowing he'll never change her and parts of her will always be mysterious and out of reach.

Don't get me wrong: In real life, we all know couples of all gender alignments who operate in this way and in lots of other ways, whether they're male-female or two guys or two women or whatever; there's absolutely nothing about baking, physical strength, or emotional accessibility that is inherently gendered in real life for real humans with any consistency. But the movies, or at least the big movies, are different. Going by the traditional Hollywood rules, make no mistake: Peeta is a Movie Girlfriend.

Peeta is Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy, helping and helping and helping until the very end, when it's time for the stakes, and the stakes are: NEEDS RESCUE. Peeta is Annie in Speed, who drives that bus like a champ right up until she winds up handcuffed to a pole covered with explosives. Peeta is Holly in Die Hard, who holds down the fort against the terrorists until John McClane can come and find her (and she can give back her maiden name).

In fact, you could argue that Katniss' conflict between Peeta and Gale is effectively a choice between a traditional Movie Girlfriend and a traditional Movie Boyfriend. Gale, after all, is the one whose bed she winds up steadfastly sitting beside after she helps bind his wounds. Gale explains the revolution to her. She puts up a plan to run; Gale rebuffs it because he presumes himself to know better. Gale is jealous and brooding about his standing with her; Peeta is just sad and contemplative.

Gale works in the mines, not in a bakery. He's a hunter. He grabs her and kisses her because he simply must. He's taller. (Real talk: HE'S THOR'S BROTHER.)

There's more to the unusual gender dynamics in these stories, in other words — particularly, I think, in the films — than the idea of a girl who fights. There's also a rather delightful mishing and mashing of the ideas of what's expected from young men in movies where everybody is running around shooting and bleeding.

Around the world today, the powerful "feed upon the powerless" and too many people are treated as "consumer goods to be used and then discarded," Pope Francis writes in his first major paper since becoming leader of the Roman Catholic church last May.

Echoing his earlier denunciation of the "cult of money," the pope goes on at length in an "apostolic exhortation" released Tuesday about:

— The Idolatry Of Money. "The worship of the ancient golden calf ... has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."

— The Economy Of Exclusion. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality."

-- Inordinate Consumption. "Today's economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve."

The pope also writes, "I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!"

The Guardian says that "the 84-page document ... amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March."

Also on Tuesday, the pope met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters says they "discussed the Middle East and problems faced by Christians across the world, but did not touch on the strained relationship between the Vatican and the Orthodox Church."

While home prices rose in major cities across the nation during the third quarter, data suggest that the housing market is beginning to shift to a slower rate of growth, according to the economists who put together the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report.

Their statistics show prices rose 3.2 percent in the quarter and were up 11.2 percent from a year earlier.

But economist David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, says in Tuesday's release that "existing home sales weakened in the most recent report, home construction remains far below the boom levels of six or seven years ago and interest rates are expected to be higher a year from now." Those all point to a market that's cooling or soon will be, he says.

Another such sign: The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the number of building permits issued for single-family homes in October was up just 0.8 percent from the month before.

There's one more closely watched economic indicator due Tuesday morning. The private Conference Board is due to release its November consumer confidence index at 10 a.m. ET. We'll update with that news.

Some of the sanctions against Iran will be eased under an agreement reached between Iran and six world powers over the weekend. In return, Iran promises to temporarily curb part of its nuclear program.

There's widespread agreement that sanctions have worked, squeezing Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy is, by any measure, in terrible shape.

When Barbara Slavin visited Teheran in August, she was struck by the rapid deterioration of the economy. As an Iran analyst with the Atlantic Council, it was her ninth trip to the country.

"The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-class lifestyles that they used to," Slavin says.

Iran's official inflation rate is about 40 percent. By comparison, inflation in the U.S. is less than 2 percent, and many outsiders believe prices are rising even faster in Iran than the government says, especially for food.

"You see that people are not buying meat as much as they used to because it's expensive, so they're subsisting more on rice and vegetables," Slavin says. "Even vegetables and fruits are expensive in some parts of town."

Iran has struggled with inflation on and off for decades, but the massive plunge in the value of Iran's currency — the rial — over the past two years, has made inflation more pernicious. Because the rial is so weak, Iranians have to pay a lot more for imported goods. And oil, Iran's main export and the heart of its economy, is being sidelined by sanctions. Last year, the European Union joined the U.S. in an embargo on Iranian oil.

"That really had a devastating effect," says Danielle Pletka, who tracks the Middle East for the American Enterprise Institute. She says when it was just the U.S. refusing to buy, the Iranians could easily sell its oil elsewhere in the global market.

"[But] when the Europeans came on board and decided not to buy, it had a huge impact and it cut by more than half Iran's ability to sell," she says.

Those EU sanctions last year didn't just ban Iranian oil sales. They blocked Iran from the global clearing system used by banks to process financial transactions, and Danielle Pletka says that added to the pain.

"Iran is a part of the global trading environment and they live economically through the sale of natural resources," she says. "So when you go after their banks, systematically you destroy their ability to get money."

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Deal Reached To Limit Iran's Nuclear Program

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

Commerce has returned to the storm-savaged streets of Tacloban in the past week. People sell bananas along the roads, and a bustling market has sprung up across several blocks downtown.

Jimbo Tampol, who works for a local Coca-Cola distributor, drives across Tacloban selling ice-cold sodas from coolers. In a city where there is no electricity and little refrigeration, a cold soda is a big deal, a symbol of normalcy.

Children crowd around Tampol's flat-bed truck to pay their 50 cents, as if buying ice cream on a hot summer day. They run their hands along the cool, wet bottles.

"It's just now that they've been able to taste cold soft drinks since Typhoon Haiyan," says Tampol, 39, as he hauls bottles out of the water.

To cool the drinks, workers drove 16 hours round-trip to pick up the ice from a factory on the neighboring island of Samar. Because nearly all of the stores here are damaged, Tampol decided to sell the drinks himself and at only a small markup.

"You feel bad for the people," explains Tampol, who wears a Philippines national basketball team jersey. "Some of them, they're even just asking us for it when they don't have money. We just go ahead and give it to them."

Florentino Duero, 67, is a cobbler whose tools were washed away in the storm surge. He gazes at the bottles longingly with his rheumy eyes. A young aid worker hands him a 20 peso note to buy a Coke. But Duero, who wears flip-flops and a plaid shirt, decides to put the cash to something more essential.

"I'll buy rice," he says. "Before I drink, rice first."

That won't be easy; rice has been in short supply.

Enlarge image i

The historic nuclear deal with Iran marks the first time in three decades that the Persian nation has agreed to slow its work toward a nuclear weapon and allow international monitors in to verify.

It's a significant accomplishment, but the accord is about to become entangled in U.S. politics for months to come, complicating the pact's future on both sides of the Atlantic.

Here are five reasons why:

1. President Obama's Credibility

Obama's domestic political difficulties came into play practically as soon as the deal was announced. It takes public trust for a president to sell an agreement like the one with Iran. Such trust was once among Obama's main strengths. His credibility, however, was damaged by the botched Affordable Care Act rollout and his overselling of some aspects of the law.

Now, judging by recent polling, he faces more skeptical voters. His political opponents and those opposing the deal — frequently the same people — are already using this against him.

Take Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who on Sunday tweeted, "Amazing what the WH will do to distract attention from O-care," and retweeted musician Charlie Daniels: "If you like your nuclear [program], you can keep your nuclear program."

2. Election-Year Politics

While Obama doesn't face a 2014 re-election — or re-election ever again, for that matter — all of the House and a third of Senate seats are on the ballot next year. The timing of the six-month Iranian nuclear deal means it will coincide with party primaries. And a follow-up deal, if there is one, would coincide with the November midterm elections. That timing guarantees the agreement will become part of superheated congressional campaigns.

3. Israel

U.S. Middle East policy involving Israel almost always blurs the normal political battle lines, uniting some Republican and Democratic Israel hawks who seldom agree on anything else.

This deal is no different. The points of agreement are: Iran gets more than it's giving up; the agreement takes pressure off Iran; and Iran is simply playing for time and still intends to get nuclear weapons. Thus, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who seldom parts company with Obama, sounds a lot like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who seldom agrees with the president.

Meanwhile, opposition to the agreement could certainly fire up some voter segments, like Christian evangelicals in the GOP who tend to side with Israeli conservatives. And enforcing the anti-agreement line will be AIPAC, an influential pro-Israel lobby that puts little daylight between itself and the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

4. The Prospect Of Additional Sanctions

There's still interest in exploring additional sanctions against the Iranian regime, despite the Obama administration's request for congressional forbearance. Such additional sanctions, rooted in deep skepticism over Iran's intentions, could scuttle the deal.

5. The Legacy Agenda

The agreement is an example of the risks U.S. policymakers can take when they don't have to worry about facing voters again: Obama doesn't have a re-election to think about, and Secretary of State John Kerry's presidential ambitions are behind him. So, in purely political terms, the deal was easier for them to make than it would have been for, say, Hillary Clinton, who's widely thought to be considering another run for president.

The historic nuclear deal with Iran marks the first time in three decades that the Persian nation has agreed to slow its work toward a nuclear weapon and allow international monitors in to verify.

It's a significant accomplishment, but the accord is about to become entangled in U.S. politics for months to come, complicating the pact's future on both sides of the Atlantic.

Here are five reasons why:

1. President Obama's Credibility

Obama's domestic political difficulties came into play practically as soon as the deal was announced. It takes public trust for a president to sell an agreement like the one with Iran. Such trust was once among Obama's main strengths. His credibility, however, was damaged by the botched Affordable Care Act rollout and his overselling of some aspects of the law.

Now, judging by recent polling, he faces more skeptical voters. His political opponents and those opposing the deal — frequently the same people — are already using this against him.

Take Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who on Sunday tweeted, "Amazing what the WH will do to distract attention from O-care," and retweeted musician Charlie Daniels: "If you like your nuclear [program], you can keep your nuclear program."

2. Election-Year Politics

While Obama doesn't face a 2014 re-election — or re-election ever again, for that matter — all of the House and a third of Senate seats are on the ballot next year. The timing of the six-month Iranian nuclear deal means it will coincide with party primaries. And a follow-up deal, if there is one, would coincide with the November midterm elections. That timing guarantees the agreement will become part of superheated congressional campaigns.

3. Israel

U.S. Middle East policy involving Israel almost always blurs the normal political battle lines, uniting some Republican and Democratic Israel hawks who seldom agree on anything else.

This deal is no different. The points of agreement are: Iran gets more than it's giving up; the agreement takes pressure off Iran; and Iran is simply playing for time and still intends to get nuclear weapons. Thus, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who seldom parts company with Obama, sounds a lot like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who seldom agrees with the president.

Meanwhile, opposition to the agreement could certainly fire up some voter segments, like Christian evangelicals in the GOP who tend to side with Israeli conservatives. And enforcing the anti-agreement line will be AIPAC, an influential pro-Israel lobby that puts little daylight between itself and the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

4. The Prospect Of Additional Sanctions

There's still interest in exploring additional sanctions against the Iranian regime, despite the Obama administration's request for congressional forbearance. Such additional sanctions, rooted in deep skepticism over Iran's intentions, could scuttle the deal.

5. The Legacy Agenda

The agreement is an example of the risks U.S. policymakers can take when they don't have to worry about facing voters again: Obama doesn't have a re-election to think about, and Secretary of State John Kerry's presidential ambitions are behind him. So, in purely political terms, the deal was easier for them to make than it would have been for, say, Hillary Clinton, who's widely thought to be considering another run for president.

Once again raising expectations that a deal over Iran's nuclear program is at hand, Secretary of State John Kerry joined the foreign ministers of the U.K., Russia, China, France and Germany in Geneva to try to hammer out an agreement that would curb Iran's nuclear work in exchange for the loosening of some sanctions.

If you remember, Kerry was in a similar spot during the previous round of negotiations two weeks ago. Expectations were high, because talks were happening at such a high level, but the negotiations crumbled at the last minute.

This time around, NPR's Michelle Kelemen tells our Newscast unit, Kerry's spokesperson tried to play down some of the expectations.

Kerry wants to help narrow the differences, but no one should see this trip as a prediction of the outcome, Jen Psaki said.

The Guardian reports that other foreign ministers are trying tamp down expectations, too:

"A senior European diplomat told reporters that the foreign ministers would come to Geneva only if there was a deal to sign, Reuters reported.

"'We have made progress, including core issues,' the diplomat said.

"[France's Laurent] Fabius, who spoke out against a draft deal floated at the 7-9 November negotiating round, appeared guarded on arrival in Geneva, Reuters reported.

"'I hope we can reach a deal, but a solid deal. I am here to work on that,' he said.

"A French diplomatic source urged caution, saying: 'It's the home stretch, but previous negotiations have taught us to be prudent.'"

A new film about Nelson Mandela's public rise in South Africa also takes a close look at the personal side of his life with former wife, Winnie.

In Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, British actor Idris Elba portrays the young lawyer who devoted his life to the struggle against apartheid. The film, which took 16 years to make, and spans seven decades, also tries to tell the story of the man behind the icon

Fellow Brit, Naomie Harris, plays the iconic statesman's wife. She tells NPR's Michel Martin that "by delving into the human side of Mandela and of Winnie, and showing them warts and all, flaws and all, it actually makes it easier for the audience to connect."

Coming in to the role, Harris admits that she knew quite a bit about Nelson Mandela, but very little about his wife. "I really thought Winnie Mandela was just the woman who stood by his side, and I thought that's the kind of role I would be playing."

But Harris' research taught her about the "extraordinarily rough time" that Winnie went through. The film shows harrowing scenes of the 18 months she spent in solitary confinement, as well as the determination of the apartheid government to break her physically, morally and emotionally. It helped Harris to understand why Winnie later became such a polarizing and controversial figure in South Africa. For example, she was later investigated and tried for connections to political violence carried out by her supporters. "My job is not to justify Winnie," she says. "That was never my aim in taking on this role. But my aim is to really document and show her arc, her journey, the truth of that, as faithfully as I possibly can."

Interview Highlights

On meeting Winnie Mandela

What I really wanted to find out when I sat down with Winnie was, how do you want people to see you? How do you want to be portrayed? And I thought she'd have a long laundry list of suggestions about, she wants to be represented in this way, and she doesn't want this area dealt with, and so on. And in fact, she was incredibly open and she just said, 'look, you're the right person for this role, you've done your research, and all I ask is that you portray me honestly.' And that was so liberating for me.

Representatives from the Syrian opposition and from President Bashar Assad's regime will sit down at a negotiating table for the first time on Jan. 22, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office announced Monday.

The U.N. adds that:

"The secretary-general expects that the Syrian representatives will come to Geneva with ... a serious intention to end a war that has already left well over 100,000 dead, driven almost nine million from their homes, left countless missing and detained, sent tremors through the region and forced unacceptable burdens on Syria's neighbors."

The Ukrainian government last week stunned many of its own citizens and much of the European Union when it announced it was suspending association talks with the bloc. The decision led to mass protests that continued Monday in which demonstrators clashed with riot police outside the government building. One protester was injured.

The Associated Press reports:

"The scuffle follows a protest in the heart of Kiev Sunday that was the biggest since the 2004 Orange Revolution that helped bring a pro-Western government to power. Tens of thousands of people protested against President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to snub a potentially historic deal with the European Union and focus on ties with Moscow, after immense pressure from Russia.

"Yanukovych's government suddenly announced last week that it was halting its plans to sign the political association and trade deal with the 28-member EU in order to boost ties with Russia instead, after several years of preparations and firm promises from Yanukovych that he would sign it."

Seared Duck Breast with Fresh Figs and Black Currant Sauce

Duck makes a rich, juicy alternative to turkey.

4 servings

Equipment: A warmed platter; 4 warmed dinner plates.

16 fresh figs

2 fatted duck breasts (magret), each about 1 pound (500 g)

Fine sea salt

Coarse, freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup (125 ml) best-quality balsamic vinegar

1 cup (250 ml) crme de cassis (black currant liqueur) or black currant juice

Stand each fig, stem end up, on a cutting board. Trim off and discard the stem end of the fig. Make an X-shaped incision into each fig, cutting about one-third of the way down through the fruit.

Remove the duck from the refrigerator 10 minutes in advance before cooking. With a sharp knife, make about 10 diagonal incisions in the skin of each duck breast. Make about 10 additional diagonal incisions to create a crisscross pattern. The cuts should be deep but should not go all the way through to the flesh. (The scoring will help the fat melt while cooking and will stop the duck breast from shrinking up as it cooks.) Season the breasts all over with salt and pepper.

Heat a dry skillet over medium heat. When the pan is warm, place the breasts, skin side down, in the pan. Reduce the heat to low and cook gently until the skin is a uniform, deep golden brown, about 3 minutes. Carefully remove and discard the fat in the pan. Cook the breasts skin side up for 10 minutes more for medium-rare duck, or cook to desired doneness.

Remove the duck from the skillet and place the breasts side by side on the warmed platter. Season generously with salt and pepper. Tent loosely with foil and let the duck rest for at least 10 minutes, to allow the juices to retreat back into the meat.

In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar andcrme de cassis and warm over low heat.

In a saucepan that will hold the figs snugly, arrange them tightly in a single layer, cut end up. Pour the warm vinegar mixture over the figs and cook over low heat, basting the figs with the liquid, for about 3 minutes.

Cut the duck breasts on the diagonal into thick slices, and arrange on the warmed dinner plates. Spoon the sauce over the duck slices, and arrange the figs alongside. Serve.

Wine suggestion: Almost any good southern Rhne red would be perfect here. Cassis is an overriding flavor in the wines of the region; try the Ctes-du-Rhne-Villages Cairanne from the Domaine de l'Oratoire Saint Martin, the Rserve des Seigneurs, loaded with the spice of red and black currants as well as kirsch.

Variation: Substitute cherries for the figs and cherry eau-de-vie for the crme de cassis.

Smashed Potatoes

This cross between mashed potatoes and potato pancakes is particularly appropriate this year, as Thanksgiving coincides with the first day of Hanukkah.

4 servings

Equipment: A steamer.

1 pound (500 g) firm, yellow-fleshed potatoes, such Yukon Gold (each about 4 ounces; 125 g), scrubbed but not peeled, halved lengthwise

5 plump, moist garlic cloves, peeled, halved, and green germ removed

4 large fresh summer savory or thyme sprigs

2 fennel frond sprigs

2 tablespoons duck fat or unsalted butter

Fleur de sel

Coarse, freshly ground black pepper

Pour 1 quart (1 l) of water into the bottom of the steamer. Add the garlic, summer savory, and fennel sprigs and bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Place the potatoes, cut side down, on the steaming rack. Place the rack over the simmering water, cover, and steam just until the potatoes are fully cooked and can easily be pierced with the tip of a knife, 12 to 15 minutes.

Place a clean dish towel on a work surface, cover it with plastic wrap, and set the cooked potatoes on top of the plastic wrap. Spread another piece of plastic wrap over the potatoes. Smash each potato gently with the palm of your hand to burst it open. Each potato should still maintain its shape.

In a large skillet, heat the duck fat or butter over medium heat. Brown the potatoes until firm and golden, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Season with fleur de sel and pepper. Serve warm.

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Consider how many synonyms there are for tedium: boredom, monotony, uniformity, dreariness, ennui, listlessness, each with its own subtle nuances. Perhaps it says something about our society that we must differentiate between the boredom of the office cubicle and of the traffic jam.

None of the authors below set out to write a book about tedium, but hovering always just behind the scenes is that debilitating affliction, sluggish and repetitious, playing a central role in their lives.

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 archrival has already announced its own anti-land-grab initiative. Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced a new effort "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, the 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.

Some of the sanctions against Iran will be eased under an agreement reached between Iran and six world powers over the weekend. In return, Iran promises to temporarily curb part of its nuclear program.

There's widespread agreement that sanctions have worked, squeezing Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy is, by any measure, in terrible shape.

When Barbara Slavin visited Teheran in August, she was struck by the rapid deterioration of the economy. As an Iran analyst with the Atlantic Council, it was her ninth trip to the country.

"The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-class lifestyles that they used to," Slavin says.

Iran's official inflation rate is about 40 percent. By comparison, inflation in the U.S. is less than 2 percent, and many outsiders believe prices are rising even faster in Iran than the government says, especially for food.

"You see that people are not buying meat as much as they used to because it's expensive, so they're subsisting more on rice and vegetables," Slavin says. "Even vegetables and fruits are expensive in some parts of town."

Iran has struggled with inflation on and off for decades, but the massive plunge in the value of Iran's currency — the rial — over the past two years, has made inflation more pernicious. Because the rial is so weak, Iranians have to pay a lot more for imported goods. And oil, Iran's main export and the heart of its economy, is being sidelined by sanctions. Last year, the European Union joined the U.S. in an embargo on Iranian oil.

"That really had a devastating effect," says Danielle Pletka, who tracks the Middle East for the American Enterprise Institute. She says when it was just the U.S. refusing to buy, the Iranians could easily sell its oil elsewhere in the global market.

"[But] when the Europeans came on board and decided not to buy, it had a huge impact and it cut by more than half Iran's ability to sell," she says.

Those EU sanctions last year didn't just ban Iranian oil sales. They blocked Iran from the global clearing system used by banks to process financial transactions, and Danielle Pletka says that added to the pain.

"Iran is a part of the global trading environment and they live economically through the sale of natural resources," she says. "So when you go after their banks, systematically you destroy their ability to get money."

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Consider how many synonyms there are for tedium: boredom, monotony, uniformity, dreariness, ennui, listlessness, each with its own subtle nuances. Perhaps it says something about our society that we must differentiate between the boredom of the office cubicle and of the traffic jam.

None of the authors below set out to write a book about tedium, but hovering always just behind the scenes is that debilitating affliction, sluggish and repetitious, playing a central role in their lives.

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.

Enlarge image i

This holiday season, the video game industry is looking to reignite sales as two game titans, Sony and Microsoft, launch the next generation of game consoles.

Their target demographic is the group of dedicated players known as hard-core gamers. Dive into the wide world of video game culture on YouTube and you'll hear that term being thrown about.

So what exactly is a hard-core gamer?

"Well, a hard-core video gamer would be somebody that is there at every single midnight release," said Kelly Kelley, known in competitive e-sports circles as MrsViolence. "Playing the game for at least five to six hours, beating it within maybe 48 hours of release. That would be a hard-core gamer right there."

Kelley qualifies. She makes a living as a gaming personality. You can find her online most nights, streaming matches of Call of Duty to her many fans.

That's right, gamers stay up at night and watch other people play video games, the way sports fans watch football. It's about the most hard-core thing a gamer can do.

In fact, more than 32 million people worldwide watched the world championships of the strategy game League of Legends this month, according to the makers of the game.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people playing cellphone games like Words With Friends.

"I have parents," said Kelley, "and they love those games, and they ask me all the time: Does this make me a gamer? Yes. Absolutely it makes them a casual gamer."

The Other Side

Casual gamers. That's the other big group that gets attention from game makers. Inside gaming culture, "hard core" and "casual" are tribal divisions.

For the hard core, gaming is the passion. Casual players enjoy games, yet they don't steep themselves in gamer culture rites like midnight openings. Still, as the gaming population grows, and gets older, exactly where those two tribes begin and end gets a little blurry.

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In Nevada, there is no income tax. And if you've ever been to Las Vegas then you know why — they don't need one.

More than 30 million tourists a year stumble down the Las Vegas Strip, and many of those tourists come to gamble, leaving behind a ridiculous amount of money. For decades, business boomed.

But the financial collapse hit Las Vegas hard. Despite what people had been saying for years, the gaming industry is not recession-proof. According to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, casino revenues on the Vegas strip dropped for 22 straight months during the last recession, and the city became the unofficial foreclosure capital of the U.S.

The city is now taking steps to claw its way back. In doing so, it may emerge as more than a one-economy town.

The New Nightlife

To be clear, gambling is not going anywhere. It is still what drives Las Vegas. But 2008 was a wake-up call.

Rick Lax, a writer who lives and breathes Las Vegas, tells NPR's Arun Rath that the city discovered that it was, in fact, not immune from the economic downturn.

"It turns out, when people don't have money, in fact they do not have money to come out to Las Vegas and gamble," he says. "And it really sunk in once President Obama ... used as an example of fiscal irresponsibility coming to Vegas on a bender, and that's when we knew we were in bad shape."

Las Vegas has remade itself before, becoming a bit more family-friendly in the '90s. But a more recent trend is the trading in of billboards for penny slots and buffets in exchange for ones advertising the latest nightclubs — and there are a lot of them.

"The club scene has boomed in the past five years," Lax says. "We have just been opening up mega-club after mega-club. And now if you look at the list of the highest money-making clubs in the United States, if you look at that Top 10 list, seven of them are right here in Las Vegas."

One of the newest clubs is called Light, which opened at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in May. Its $25 million cost can be seen in the massive walls of LED screens that illuminate the room, lasers, strobes and fog cannons. And if that wasn't enough of a spectacle, Light is a partnership with Cirque du Soleil, a company that has taken Las Vegas by storm since its first show there in 1993.

In Light, the Cirque du Soleil acrobats and performers swing from the rafters above club-goers.

"So all this is happening while the club's going on," says Andy Masi, CEO of Las Vegas hospitality company The Light Group. "You're part of the experience."

Masi says party-goers pay anything from $30 to get in the door to $10,000 to get a prime table and hear the world-famous DJs these clubs attract, like Kaskade and Tiesto.

"It's part of the culture right now," Masi says. "This is a movement, and these DJs who are creating this music ... they're composers, they are creating music. And it's really something that has inspired a massive generation."

The clubs in Las Vegas are getting bigger and bigger, and making huge amounts of money that isn't gambling. Masi says that it is all part of the market shift in the city.

"Gen X and Gen Y are really more into entertainment and dining and seeing shows and staying in great hotels than they are into gaming," he says. "[But] gaming is still a big part of Las Vegas ... I don't think you can have one without the other."

Counting On Collision

A couple of miles away, one entrepreneur is trying to bring the spirit of a party to a corporation. Tony Hsieh, CEO of online retailer Zappos, wants to transform Las Vegas.

Zappos has its headquarters in downtown Vegas (away from the Strip), but Hsieh's goals are broader. In 2009, he sold the company to Amazon for $1.2 billion, and with some of that money he started the Downtown Project.

In one way, it's a venture capital firm, trying to attract new industries. But in other ways, it's much more ambitious. Hsieh wants to rethink city planning and imagines how a well-designed city can breed innovation.

The secret, he says, is forcing more collaboration. It's something he likes to call "collisions." One example, Hsieh says, is at Zappos' new headquarters housed in what used to be Las Vegas City Hall. The company shut down a skybridge in order to force employees out into the street and into the community when coming to work.

"Research has shown that most innovation actually comes from something outside your industry or outside your area of expertise being combined with your own," he says. "So on the city level, it's really important for people from all different backgrounds and industries to collide and talk to each other. That's where a lot of the great ideas come from."

Hsieh has already started forcing a few collisions by funding companies like CrowdHall — a site that hosts Q&A sessions where visitors vote on the best questions — and Fluencr, a site that rethinks the celebrity endorsement and gets companies to offer everyday people endorsements instead.

Hsieh's Downtown Project, which is separate from Zappos, divides its $350 million budget between investing in small business, tech companies, education, arts, music and real estate.

"In the past year, we've relocated about 60 companies from other states or even countries actually to downtown Vegas," he says.

Hsieh says there are a few different goals of the project. One is to have everything people need to live, work and play within walking distance; another is to make downtown Vegas the most community-focused large city in the world — in probably the place most people would least expect it.

A third goal is to make Las Vegas the co-working and co-learning capital of the world. Co-working is where small companies, especially tech startups, share the same physical space. The idea started with some startups in San Francisco.

"What they found was they would start overhearing each other's conversations, and that would result in these serendipitous interactions and they'd start collaborating," he says. "And it actually drove a lot of innovation and productivity."

Dollar Signs In The Sky

For other new sources of revenue, Las Vegas is looking to the skies. Next month, the Federal Aviation Administration will decide on a new test site for unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones. Nevada is vying for that honor.

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Christina Asima seems tired for a 13-year-old. I meet the shy mannered girl in the remote farming village of Chitera, in the southern African nation of Malawi. She wears a bright pink zip-up shirt and a blue print cloth wrapped up to her chest. Snuggled in that, hugging her side, is a chubby-cheeked baby boy.

My gut assumption is that the infant must be Christina's little brother. I know 8-month-old Praise is actually her son. Still, it's startling when, as we speak, she shifts him around front to nurse.

"I was 12 years old when I got married to my husband," she explains softly. "My mom had run away, so I was forced to get married to help my other siblings."

Despite decades of international and local efforts to curb child marriage, Christina is hardly alone. Across the developing world, it's estimated that one in three girls still marries before age 18; one in nine before age 15. And the numbers are even worse in Malawi.

"When they see a girl child, in our country, you don't think of anything else but marriage," says Faith Phiri, a Malawian trying to change such attitudes. Five years ago she created a non-profit, the Girls Empowerment Network, to challenge the complex mix of culture, economics and sexism that drives child marriage.

Some of the sanctions against Iran will be eased under an agreement reached between Iran and six world powers over the weekend. In return, Iran promises to temporarily curb part of its nuclear program.

There's widespread agreement that sanctions have worked, squeezing Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy is, by any measure, in terrible shape.

When Barbara Slavin visited Teheran in August, she was struck by the rapid deterioration of the economy. As an Iran analyst with the Atlantic Council, it was her ninth trip to the country.

"The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-class lifestyles that they used to," Slavin says.

Iran's official inflation rate is about 40 percent. By comparison, inflation in the U.S. is less than 2 percent, and many outsiders believe prices are rising even faster in Iran than the government says, especially for food.

"You see that people are not buying meat as much as they used to because it's expensive, so they're subsisting more on rice and vegetables," Slavin says. "Even vegetables and fruits are expensive in some parts of town."

Iran has struggled with inflation on and off for decades, but the massive plunge in the value of Iran's currency — the rial — over the past two years, has made inflation more pernicious. Because the rial is so weak, Iranians have to pay a lot more for imported goods. And oil, Iran's main export and the heart of its economy, is being sidelined by sanctions. Last year, the European Union joined the U.S. in an embargo on Iranian oil.

"That really had a devastating effect," says Danielle Pletka, who tracks the Middle East for the American Enterprise Institute. She says when it was just the U.S. refusing to buy, the Iranians could easily sell its oil elsewhere in the global market.

"[But] when the Europeans came on board and decided not to buy, it had a huge impact and it cut by more than half Iran's ability to sell," she says.

Those EU sanctions last year didn't just ban Iranian oil sales. They blocked Iran from the global clearing system used by banks to process financial transactions, and Danielle Pletka says that added to the pain.

"Iran is a part of the global trading environment and they live economically through the sale of natural resources," she says. "So when you go after their banks, systematically you destroy their ability to get money."

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

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