Most Recent Posts

The on-again, off-again trip home for 52 people rescued from a ship stuck in the Antarctic is on again.

Those scientists and paying passengers, who on Thursday were ferried by helicopter from the stranded MV Akademik Shokalskiy to an Australian icebreaker nearby, were told on Friday that their voyage to Australia had to be delayed.

The hitch: The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, which had assisted in the passengers' rescue, was itself stuck in ice.

So the Aurora Australis — the ship to which the passengers had been flown — was asked to stay in the area in case its assistance was needed.

But there's word via Twitter on Saturday from expedition leader Chris Turney that "the Xue Long no longer in distress. Great news!"

The Xue Long (also known as the Snow Dragon) is not, however, free. According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the ship tried and failed to break out of the ice on Saturday.

But, the authority says:

"The Master of Xue Long has confirmed to AMSA that the ship is safe, it is not in distress and does not require assistance at this time. There is no immediate danger to personnel on board the Xue Long. The Xue Long has advised AMSA it has food supplies for several weeks."

What's in store for us in 2014? Season 3 of Girls and Homeland sans Brody. The dawning of the smart watch. Smoother sailing for healthcare.gov? Growing tensions in Russia and Syria. It's enough to make one giddy and terrified all at once — thankfully, we have poetry to express all our powerful and conflicted feelings.

In the next 12 months, look out for books about religious faith (by Jericho Brown and Spencer Reece, among others), a book or two pushing the boundaries of what can be considered poetry (Matthea Harvey), and a few books literally too cool (or hot) for school: don't expect to read new poems by Mark Bibbins or Rachel Zucker in your 10th grade English class. Here's an idea for a great New Year's resolution: read more poetry! This handful of collections, which deserve a place on your permanent poetry shelf, should help you keep it.

If you think you can imagine how miserable it must've been to be a mild-mannered British chap, dressed in reindeer skins that were frozen solid, 10,000 miles from home, eating little besides stale biscuits, and trying to be first to reach the South Pole, well, actually you can't. At least not without reading Apsley Cherry-Garrard's masterpiece, The Worst Journey in the World.

"Cherry" was one of the lucky who survived Scott's expedition, and his story about their journey is heart-stopping. With every page, you think their situation can't possibly get any worse; and then it does. That cracking sound you hear? Oh, just the sea ice breaking apart and floating away with your supplies and horses. The sudden strange cold on your face at night? One hundred mph winds just carried off your only tent. Blinded by endless blizzards? Right, compasses don't work this close to the magnetic pole; good luck finding your way.

After a brutal many-month struggle to be first to reach the South Pole, the British team arrives only to discover that the Norwegians beat them by a handful of weeks. As if that weren't demoralizing enough, they still faced a two-month journey back through minus 80 degree weather; their attempt to make it to base camp alive is riveting, even if you know from history books that the primary team is doomed to die of cold and starvation.

Cherry had been forced to turn back early in part because his glasses were always fogging up — leave it to the British to bring a near-sighted historian to the icy wilderness — and he waits for his friends to return in vain. What makes Cherry's story much more endearing than the usual ego-driven adventure narrative is that instead of breathless bragging, we get understated British humor: early on he tells us "The minus thirties and forties are not very cold, as we were to understand cold afterwards, but quite cold enough to start with."

And as he beautifully says later, even after the death of his closest friends, "There is many a worse and more elaborate life."

Nagle has spent a lot of time studying Hefner. She's one of the directors of a Baltimore-based group called FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. The group is interested in promoting consent — communicating clearly with your partner about if, when and how to have sex. FORCE argues that the way Playboy talks about consent is problematic — including the magazine's annual list of top party schools.

"The way they describe women on the list [makes them sound] like campus perks," Nagle says. "Sort of alongside things like good bars and a good football stadium."

FORCE wanted to change the message, so last September the group created a fake Playboy website. But instead of listing party schools, the site highlighted colleges working to promote consent. Nagle says it's not hard to imagine Hugh Hefner getting behind that.

"If you're somebody who's all about sexual pleasure," she says, "it makes total sense that you're somebody who's all about consent."

The website looks like it could have been created by Playboy; there's the bunny logo and language with just the right amount of smugness. FORCE also created fake reports on the fake list from several online outfits, including the Huffington Post and BroBible.com.

Playboy hasn't responded publicly to the prank — but BroBible, a site aimed primarily at college-age men, did. Associate Editor Andy Moore agreed with FORCE's message that consent and party-school lists can co-exist.

"They didn't say 'Don't have a good time,' " Moore says. "I think there's a way to rank these schools and talk about this while keeping in mind that any sort of terrible behavior is not allowed."

That's something the organizers are hoping more people will think about — and not just those who read Playboy or BroBible. They've used other brands — notably Victoria's Secret — to get that message across.

i i

When members of Congress return to work next week, at the top of the "to-do" list is whether to renew emergency unemployment benefits. An extension of the benefits expired at the end of the 2013, which means 1.3 million out-of-work Americans are no longer getting unemployment checks.

But whether or not benefits are extended, conservative and liberal economists alike want to see the government improve the underlying program: They're proposing changes that might help more people find jobs more quickly.

Twenty-five states and Washington, D.C., have work-sharing options:

Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington

Find out more about how the programs work here.

Researchers in Tokyo have put a new twist on the use of sound to suspend objects in air. They've used ultrasonic standing waves to trap pieces of wood, metal, and water – and even move them around.

Researchers have used sound to levitate objects in previous experiments, dating back decades. But that work has largely relied on speakers that were set up in a line to bounce sound waves off a hard surface.

The new experiment uses four speakers to surround an open square area that's about 21 inches wide. Four phased arrays use standing waves to create an ultrasonic focal point in that space, as the researchers explain in a video about their work.

That means that they generate a suspending force — which can then trap particles and objects in mid-air. The objects can be moved around by manipulating the waves.

This is an immediately inviting puzzle, and Lopez-Gallego continues dropping pieces on the table: Why is it that the only person who seems to have retained her memory, Josie Ho's "Brown Eyes," happens to be mute and unable to communicate in writing? Why is the house stocked like a survivalist's encampment, with a pantry packed with nonperishables and an impressive arsenal of weapons and ammunition? And what is it out in the woods making those terrible screams?

Despite having lost their memories, the members of the group still retain specialized skills and knowledge that they had previously. So Michael (Max Wrottesley) quickly discovers he has advanced proficiency with all the firearms lying around the house. After perusing the extensive library of non-English anatomy texts in the house, Nathan (Joseph Morgan) realizes he speaks a number of foreign languages. Sharon (Erin Richards) seems to have some medical knowledge.

As for John, he's less possessed of specialized skills than he is of crippling flashbacks, often to do with committing violent acts. He wonders if maybe that open pit out back is his — and the suspicious looks from the rest of the group aren't helping.

That probably all sounds great in a pitch meeting, and it works just as well as a hook on-screen. Lopez-Gallego obviously knows exactly where he wants all these threads to come together in the end as well. The problem is in getting the audience there.

Apart from John and Brown Eyes, the script, by brothers Eddie and Chris Borey, doesn't give the rest of the group much more depth than the malevolent beings out in the woods; mostly, it restricts them to distrustful glowering or all-out panic. Copley is fine if unremarkable in the lead; he keeps things restrained, which is a better place for the actor than the hammy gesturing of his two 2013 clunkers, Elysium and Oldboy. But the movie might sink entirely without Ho's wordless performance as her Brown Eyes desperately tries to improvise communication.

The biggest problem is that Lopez-Gallego and the Boreys are so fixated on throwing out more and more clues — whether in the timeline of the movie or in the hackneyed, heavily filtered flashbacks that John keeps experiencing — that tying them all together becomes an afterthought. The film's aura of mystery only works in the first 20 minutes or so, when it seems effortless; after that it feels like it's working very hard to keep the truth obscured, and in so doing just becomes a colorless slog.

When things are finally explained at the end, you'll wonder whether it's because Lopez-Gallego was worried his storytelling wasn't clear enough or he was concerned your attention may have wandered. I'm going with both.

"Today, I hope!" he says with a nervous smile.

The birth of a new baby is a joyous occasion. But in Portugal, it's an increasingly rare one. Since the economic crisis hit, the country's birthrate has dropped 14 percent, to less than 1.3 babies per woman — one of the lowest in the world.

Rising unemployment and poverty mean people are putting off having kids, or moving abroad. Portuguese schools and maternity hospitals are closing. They just don't get enough business anymore.

Carvalho says he's able to have a rare second child thanks only to his relatively secure public sector job, as a Lisbon bus driver. But his wages have been cut, and he worries about the future.

"I have a lot of friends going to England, to France — because they don't have a job in Portugal," Carvalho says. "It's difficult, very difficult."

More than 100,000 Portuguese of child-bearing age move abroad each year. That's one person emigrating every five minutes, in a country of just 10 million. Many of those who stay home in Portugal put off having families indefinitely. They can't afford it.

Lowest Level In 60 Years

Dr. Ana Campos is the head obstetrician at the hospital where Carvalho's daughter is being born, Maternidade Doutor Alfredo da Costa. She first started delivering babies there 32 years ago.

"The rooms were filled. We had more than 40 deliveries a day," Campos recalls. "And now we have 10 deliveries in one day — one-quarter."

i i

There's a drive-thru ATM in Charlotte, N.C., that looks pretty standard, but it has an extra function: a button that says "speak with teller."

The face of a woman wearing a headset sitting in front of a plain blue background flashes onto the ATM screen. "Good afternoon," she says. "Welcome to Bank of America. My name is Carolina. How are you today?"

The divide between Republicans and Democrats on their views of the scientific theory of evolution is widening, according to a new poll released by Pew's Religion & Public Life Project.

The overall percentage of Americans who say "humans and other living things evolved over time" (60 percent) versus those who believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" (33 percent) is about the same as it was in a similar poll four years ago. But the political gap has widened substantially.

In 2009, 54 percent of Republicans said they accepted the theory of evolution as true, compared with 64 percent of Democrats. But in the intervening years, opinions appear to have evolved: In the latest poll, nearly half of Republicans (48 percent) believed in a static view of human and animal origins, while just 30 percent of Democrats expressed that point of view. Independents tracked closely with the breakdown for Democrats.

"The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time," says Cary Funk, a Pew senior researcher who conducted the analysis, according to Reuters.

Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those surveyed by Pew said they believed that a "supreme being guided evolution for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today."

According to Pew:

"A majority of white evangelical Protestants (64%) and half of black Protestants (50%) say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But in other large religious groups, a minority holds this view. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten white mainline Protestants (78%) say that humans and other living things have evolved over time. Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) and 68% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say the same. About half of Hispanic Catholics (53%) believe that humans have evolved over time, while 31% reject that idea."

A year after losing the popular vote for the fifth time in the past six presidential elections, the Republican Party has crafted a series of rules tweaks designed to regain control of — and dramatically shorten — its presidential nominating process.

The subcommittee charged with looking for fixes has approved five proposed changes for review by the Republican National Committee's rules committee at its January meeting. The full RNC would then need to pass the changes by a three-quarters supermajority.

"I think this strikes a good balance," said John Ryder, the RNC's general counsel.

February 2016 would be set aside for the traditional early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The other states could start as soon as March 1, but could not hold winner-take-all contests before March 15. Larger states that violate either of those rules would lose all but nine of their delegates to the summer nominating convention, not counting their three RNC members who are automatic delegates. Smaller states would lose two-thirds of their delegates, not including the three RNC members.

At the back end of the calendar, state parties would have to submit their slates of convention delegates 45 days prior to the convention, rather than 35 days. With RNC leaders hoping to schedule the convention in late June, rather than late August, this would mean the last primaries and caucuses would have to be set for mid-May — thereby cutting what was a six-month-long process in 2012 down to 3 1/2 months.

The balancing act, Ryder said, was to compress the calendar without giving an insurmountable advantage to a candidate who has "$200 million on day one."

The weeks and months leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular, would still be the time for low-budget candidates to make their case directly to the voters. Success in those contests could be parlayed into stronger fundraising heading into the first half of March, when the proportional-only mandate would mean that second- and third-place finishers could continue to win significant numbers of delegates.

"It gives a six-week period for a retail candidacy to take hold, if it's going to take hold," Ryder said.

If this thinking sounds familiar, it should. The RNC tried to accomplish similar goals heading into 2012. The four early states were given the month of February. Other states could start holding contests on March 1 if they allocated delegates proportionally, and on April 1 if they awarded all the delegates to the top vote-getter. A state that violated either rule faced a 50-percent loss of delegates.

That plan, though, was thwarted by Florida — which also violated the rules in 2008 — prompting the official early states to move even earlier. (Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3 in both 2008 and 2012.)

In 2012, the new rules were silent on how to deal with states like Florida that violated both calendar and proportionality rules. Only the single, 50 percent penalty ended up being levied, and 100 percent of the remaining delegates went to Mitt Romney, letting him get back on track after losing South Carolina to Newt Gingrich.

The new, harsher penalty appears to have solved the Florida-going-early problem. But whether it maintains a lane for a little-known, low-budget candidate remains to be seen.

After the "all-but-nine" delegate penalty was first imposed at the Tampa convention last year, the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature passed a law setting the presidential primary on the first Tuesday permitted by party rules that didn't involve a penalty.

In 2016, that Tuesday would be March 1 — the same date that Texas is planning to hold its presidential primary. Which means the first allowable day for contests in the non-"carve-out" states will feature primaries in two of the four largest states. Both have lots of big media markets and are extremely expensive to run in; the two states will, between them, award nearly a quarter of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

In other words, it would be just the sort of day best suited for a candidate with, say, $200 million.

S.V. Dte edits politics and campaign finance coverage for NPR's Washington Desk.

There's a drive-thru ATM in Charlotte, N.C., that looks pretty standard, but it has an extra function: a button that says "speak with teller."

The face of a woman wearing a headset sitting in front of a plain blue background flashes onto the ATM screen. "Good afternoon," she says. "Welcome to Bank of America. My name is Carolina. How are you today?"

Chris Guerre is an example. To get to his land, you drive down a long lane, past million-dollar homes on multiacre wooded lots, in the wealthy community of Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington, D.C.

Then, unexpectedly, you come to an old barn, a couple of chicken coops, and 2 1/2 acres of vegetables. During the winter, the vegetables are covered by a kind of blanket, to keep them from freezing, that still lets water and sun through.

"We're one of the few farms left in the county, let alone one that grows and picks every week of the year," Guerre says. "Every week, even in winter, I'm growing and picking crops.

Guerre didn't grow up on this farm, or on any farm.

About five years ago, before he arrived at this spot, he ditched what he calls his "career job" to grow and sell food. He and his wife expanded their garden; they started selling vegetables at a farmers market and opened their own store selling food grown on other local farms. One day, at the farmers market, a woman came up to them.

"She approached my wife, and wondered if we might be interested in living on her family's farm. There was room to grow vegetables, or have animals. And we said, 'Yeah!' " recalls Guerre.

It turned out to be this farm. Guerre and his wife moved into the house. They're renting the land, and there's no guarantee that the family that owns it won't someday decide to sell it to a developer.

But Guerre doesn't seem worried. "They've been just very kind to us, and very encouraging, and helped us get to where we are," he says.

Guerre has built a new chicken coop; fixed roofs and plumbing; turned an old milk room into a washroom for vegetables.

He says, even if they did have to move someday, and leave all this behind, it wouldn't be the end of the world. He's pretty sure he could find land somewhere else. "If you walk a couple of miles in any direction, there's hundreds of acres."

In fact, he says, "Acquiring land is honestly probably the easiest part of doing all this. It's the commitment, the stamina, learning how to do it and doing it every single day: That's the hard part."

If you're ready to do all that, he says, you really can make a living. As for finding land, start hanging out with farmers, ask questions, and chances are you'll eventually hear about places where you can grow some food and start your own farming business.

Millions of people are turning their thoughts to self-improvement and New Year's resolutions this week. And one of the most common resolutions, after promises to lose weight or get in better shape, is to be better about money.

A handful of entrepreneurs in the Bay Area have taken note — and they believe the time has come for you to try a different way of managing your money.

Mike Sha's dream is that one day, you will turn your investments over to a robot. "A smart robot," stresses Sha, who's behind the San Francisco-based startup SigFig.

“ If you could replace that human with a machine ... you really can build a better, more scalable, lower-cost solution.

As the new year begins, most economists' annual forecasts are brimming with good cheer.

"The economic news remains broadly encouraging," the Goldman Sachs forecasters write in their 2014 outlook.

And the brighter prospects are not limited to this country. "The global economy is likely to emerge in 2014 with modest growth of 3.3 percent compared with 2.5 percent this year," according to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, the forecasting firm.

Most stock analysts also see more gains coming on Wall Street. JPMorgan chief U.S. equity strategist Tom Lee, who accurately predicted stock advances for 2013, says Americans are now in the midst of "a classic bull market," driven by good earnings.

So, why all the upbeat forecasts? What has changed? These are among the most commonly cited factors:

Congress may be less of an economic nuisance. In October, Congress' failure to pass a budget led to a partial government shutdown, creating uncertainty for federal workers and contractors. But a budget compromise approved in December has reduced chances for another disruption. "The drag from fiscal policy will be less, allowing underlying strengths in the economy ... to become more visible," Behravesh says.

Energy is becoming more abundant. As domestic companies produce more oil and gas, Americans are becoming less dependent on foreign suppliers. That's lowering energy prices and leaving more money in consumers' wallets. "Energy prices are now tilted to the downside, which implies a potential boost to real income growth," the Goldman Sachs assessment says.

Consumers are spending again. "The consumer picture is improving, judging from the latest auto sales and consumer sentiment figures," Goldman Sachs says.

Stock prices keep heading higher. JPMorgan's stock strategy team predicts investors will see more gains as pent-up demand drives home and auto sales. Also, corporations will continue to have strong balance sheets, and central banks around the world will keep interest rates low in the new year. All of that will bolster profits. "The fundamental cornerstone of a bull market is continued profit growth," the team writes.

Jobs are coming back. In the U.S., the unemployment rate is forecast to decline from an average of 7.4 percent in 2013 to an average of 6.6 percent in 2014, "as much from weakness in labor-force growth as from genuine employment growth," Behravesh says.

Inflation isn't pinching consumers. Federal Reserve policymakers forecast that inflation will rise between 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent in 2014.

Interest rates are still low. The Federal Reserve will take steps to nudge rates a bit higher, but the change will be gradual. "We believe that a more normalized environment, where rates move toward 5 percent, may be several years away," according to Vanguard's 2014 outlook.

Because of those positive factors, the gross domestic product, a broad measure of growth, is widely expected to rise. The Fed set its growth prediction for 2.8 percent to 3.2 percent next year. Such a pace would feel good, given that the economy mostly has been chugging along at a much slower 2 percent throughout the recovery.

Of course, not all economists are as enthusiastic about 2014's prospects. Lindsey Piegza, chief economist for Sterne Agee, writes that growth likely will slow a bit in 2014 "because the consumer remains under pressure from a lack of quality job creation and minimal wage growth."

But most forecasters are more in line with the optimists, including Jerry Jasinowski, an economist and former president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He says that while the economy does face risks, the good indicators are growing.

Recent job gains, stock price hikes and factory output advances are making a compelling case for growth, he says.

"You don't need to be a Pollyanna to see sunshine in those numbers," he writes in his outlook. Despite lingering problems, "the New Year looks promising."

As the new year begins, most economists' annual forecasts are brimming with good cheer.

"The economic news remains broadly encouraging," the Goldman Sachs forecasters write in their 2014 outlook.

And the brighter prospects are not limited to this country. "The global economy is likely to emerge in 2014 with modest growth of 3.3 percent compared with 2.5 percent this year," according to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, the forecasting firm.

Most stock analysts also see more gains coming on Wall Street. JPMorgan chief U.S. equity strategist Tom Lee, who accurately predicted stock advances for 2013, says Americans are now in the midst of "a classic bull market," driven by good earnings.

So, why all the upbeat forecasts? What has changed? These are among the most commonly cited factors:

Congress may be less of an economic nuisance. In October, Congress' failure to pass a budget led to a partial government shutdown, creating uncertainty for federal workers and contractors. But a budget compromise approved in December has reduced chances for another disruption. "The drag from fiscal policy will be less, allowing underlying strengths in the economy ... to become more visible," Behravesh says.

Energy is becoming more abundant. As domestic companies produce more oil and gas, Americans are becoming less dependent on foreign suppliers. That's lowering energy prices and leaving more money in consumers' wallets. "Energy prices are now tilted to the downside, which implies a potential boost to real income growth," the Goldman Sachs assessment says.

Consumers are spending again. "The consumer picture is improving, judging from the latest auto sales and consumer sentiment figures," Goldman Sachs says.

Stock prices keep heading higher. JPMorgan's stock strategy team predicts investors will see more gains as pent-up demand drives home and auto sales. Also, corporations will continue to have strong balance sheets, and central banks around the world will keep interest rates low in the new year. All of that will bolster profits. "The fundamental cornerstone of a bull market is continued profit growth," the team writes.

Jobs are coming back. In the U.S., the unemployment rate is forecast to decline from an average of 7.4 percent in 2013 to an average of 6.6 percent in 2014, "as much from weakness in labor-force growth as from genuine employment growth," Behravesh says.

Inflation isn't pinching consumers. Federal Reserve policymakers forecast that inflation will rise between 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent in 2014.

Interest rates are still low. The Federal Reserve will take steps to nudge rates a bit higher, but the change will be gradual. "We believe that a more normalized environment, where rates move toward 5 percent, may be several years away," according to Vanguard's 2014 outlook.

Because of those positive factors, the gross domestic product, a broad measure of growth, is widely expected to rise. The Fed set its growth prediction for 2.8 percent to 3.2 percent next year. Such a pace would feel good, given that the economy mostly has been chugging along at a much slower 2 percent throughout the recovery.

Of course, not all economists are as enthusiastic about 2014's prospects. Lindsey Piegza, chief economist for Sterne Agee, writes that growth likely will slow a bit in 2014 "because the consumer remains under pressure from a lack of quality job creation and minimal wage growth."

But most forecasters are more in line with the optimists, including Jerry Jasinowski, an economist and former president of the National Association of Manufacturers. He says that while the economy does face risks, the good indicators are growing.

Recent job gains, stock price hikes and factory output advances are making a compelling case for growth, he says.

"You don't need to be a Pollyanna to see sunshine in those numbers," he writes in his outlook. Despite lingering problems, "the New Year looks promising."

Every year on New Year's Eve, at least one TV channel in Russia will show The Irony of Fate, a three-hour movie that was made for TV in 1975.

"It has this slight nostalgia for the Soviet times, when life seems to be easier and simpler," says Olga Fedina, the author of What Every Russian Knows (And You Don't). "There were fewer decisions to be made — all the decisions were kind of made for you."

Those decisions included where you could live, and for city people that meant a flat in one of many identical apartment buildings.

The film begins with an animated sequence, in which an architect is shown finishing his design for a creative and beautiful building. As he takes it to various bureaucrats for approval, it's gradually stripped of every feature that makes it interesting, and reduced to the same rectangular block as every other building.

On the very first Monday of 2013, Boeing got some bad news: There was a catastrophic battery fire on a 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport. Less than two weeks later, a second battery meltdown on another Dreamliner prompted an emergency landing in Japan.

Government regulators responded quickly. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the entire fleet of 787s grounded indefinitely.

The planes sat on the ground for more than three months while investigators and engineers figured out how to fix their overheating lithium ion batteries. Deliveries of new 787s were halted, too.

But Boeing's stock never really faltered. In fact, the airplane manufacturer's stock price grew 80 percent over 2013, one of the market's best performers.

As Carter Leake, an investment banker at BB&T Capital Markets and a longtime industry observer, puts it, Wall Street "shrugged off" the 787 battery problem "because they made the correct bet that Boeing would be able to get through this."

But beyond that, Leake says, investors were focused on the company's large and growing backlog of orders for its other airplanes.

"The smart money saw that the 737, the 777 — the aircraft that had the highest margins and the highest cash flow — were on track. Demand was at all-time high and production rates were likely to go even higher, which they did," he says.

Keep in mind that Boeing has just one real competitor for large commercial jets: Europe's Airbus.

Boeing launched its newest line of planes, the 777X, at the Dubai air show in November. The redesigned version of the existing 777 model won a record number of orders, totaling $95 billion at list prices.

The Two-Way

Boeing Will Restructure Marketing, Commercial Plane Strategy

On the very first Monday of 2013, Boeing got some bad news: There was a catastrophic battery fire on a 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport. Less than two weeks later, a second battery meltdown on another Dreamliner prompted an emergency landing in Japan.

Government regulators responded quickly. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the entire fleet of 787s grounded indefinitely.

The planes sat on the ground for more than three months while investigators and engineers figured out how to fix their overheating lithium ion batteries. Deliveries of new 787s were halted, too.

But Boeing's stock never really faltered. In fact, the airplane manufacturer's stock price grew 80 percent over 2013, one of the market's best performers.

As Carter Leake, an investment banker at BB&T Capital Markets and a longtime industry observer, puts it, Wall Street "shrugged off" the 787 battery problem "because they made the correct bet that Boeing would be able to get through this."

But beyond that, Leake says, investors were focused on the company's large and growing backlog of orders for its other airplanes.

"The smart money saw that the 737, the 777 — the aircraft that had the highest margins and the highest cash flow — were on track. Demand was at all-time high and production rates were likely to go even higher, which they did," he says.

Keep in mind that Boeing has just one real competitor for large commercial jets: Europe's Airbus.

Boeing launched its newest line of planes, the 777X, at the Dubai air show in November. The redesigned version of the existing 777 model won a record number of orders, totaling $95 billion at list prices.

The Two-Way

Boeing Will Restructure Marketing, Commercial Plane Strategy

A year after losing the popular vote for the fifth time in the past six presidential elections, the Republican Party has crafted a series of rules tweaks designed to regain control of — and dramatically shorten — its presidential nominating process.

The subcommittee charged with looking for fixes has approved five proposed changes for review by the Republican National Committee's rules committee at its January meeting. The full RNC would then need to pass the changes by a three-quarters supermajority.

"I think this strikes a good balance," said John Ryder, the RNC's general counsel.

February 2016 would be set aside for the traditional early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The other states could start as soon as March 1, but could not hold winner-take-all contests before March 15. Larger states that violate either of those rules would lose all but nine of their delegates to the summer nominating convention, not counting their three RNC members who are automatic delegates. Smaller states would lose two-thirds of their delegates, not including the three RNC members.

At the back end of the calendar, state parties would have to submit their slates of convention delegates 45 days prior to the convention, rather than 35 days. With RNC leaders hoping to schedule the convention in late June, rather than late August, this would mean the last primaries and caucuses would have to be set for mid-May — thereby cutting what was a six-month-long process in 2012 down to 3 1/2 months.

The balancing act, Ryder said, was to compress the calendar without giving an insurmountable advantage to a candidate who has "$200 million on day one."

The weeks and months leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular, would still be the time for low-budget candidates to make their case directly to the voters. Success in those contests could be parlayed into stronger fundraising heading into the first half of March, when the proportional-only mandate would mean that second- and third-place finishers could continue to win significant numbers of delegates.

"It gives a six-week period for a retail candidacy to take hold, if it's going to take hold," Ryder said.

If this thinking sounds familiar, it should. The RNC tried to accomplish similar goals heading into 2012. The four early states were given the month of February. Other states could start holding contests on March 1 if they allocated delegates proportionally, and on April 1 if they awarded all the delegates to the top vote-getter. A state that violated either rule faced a 50-percent loss of delegates.

That plan, though, was thwarted by Florida — which also violated the rules in 2008 — prompting the official early states to move even earlier. (Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3 in both 2008 and 2012.)

In 2012, the new rules were silent on how to deal with states like Florida that violated both calendar and proportionality rules. Only the single, 50 percent penalty ended up being levied, and 100 percent of the remaining delegates went to Mitt Romney, letting him get back on track after losing South Carolina to Newt Gingrich.

The new, harsher penalty appears to have solved the Florida-going-early problem. But whether it maintains a lane for a little-known, low-budget candidate remains to be seen.

After the "all-but-nine" delegate penalty was first imposed at the Tampa convention last year, the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature passed a law setting the presidential primary on the first Tuesday permitted by party rules that didn't involve a penalty.

In 2016, that Tuesday would be March 1 — the same date that Texas is planning to hold its presidential primary. Which means the first allowable day for contests in the non-"carve-out" states will feature primaries in two of the four largest states. Both have lots of big media markets and are extremely expensive to run in; the two states will, between them, award nearly a quarter of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

In other words, it would be just the sort of day best suited for a candidate with, say, $200 million.

S.V. Dte edits politics and campaign finance coverage for NPR's Washington Desk.

South Sudan's government and forces loyal to the former vice president agreed Tuesday to a cease-fire ahead of talks intended to prevent civil war in the world's newest country.

"President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Dr. Riek Machar agree on a cessation of hostilities and appoint negotiators to develop a monitored and implemented ceasefire," said a statement from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc. The development was reported by Reuters, but there's no word yet on when a cease-fire might take effect.

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton tells our Newscast unit that both sides have agreed to send delegations to talks in Ethiopia, a decision that came after Uganda's president warned Machar that he could face regional military action if he rejected the cease-fire offer. Ofeibea reports:

"That threat adds to growing pressure on Machar, who had said all his political allies should be released from detention before negotiations. President Salva Kiir has ruled out sharing power with his erstwhile deputy, saying a rebellion deserves no rewards."

Here's why picking a Top 10 list of best TV shows has become such treacherous work for critics this year: Quite simply, 2013 was the year quality exploded in the television industry.

Thanks to the simultaneous maturing of Netflix, AMC, FX, HBO, Showtime, Amazon, BBC America, Sundance Channel, iTunes and many more media platforms, fans of great television had more options than ever to find high-quality product whenever and wherever they liked.

This is the stuff I dreamed of as a young media nerd in the mid-'90s, when I predicted technology would eventually allow viewers to download an episode of TV whenever they liked.

As we near the end of 2013, NPR is taking a look at the numbers that tell the story of this year — numbers that, if you really understand them, give insight into the world we're living in, right now. You'll hear the stories behind numbers ranging from zero to 1 trillion.

When it comes to race and film, the number of the year is 11.

I started the count recently at a movie theater just outside of Washington, D.C., where I met Kahlila Liverpool. We were there for a movie and a meal with the D.C. Black Film and Media Club, a local Meetup group that attends group screenings of films featuring black actors and by black directors.

i i

This is the fifth day of Ask Me Another's 12 Days of Xmas series.

Please enjoy this yearbook photo of the 1993 Whiffenpoofs—the premier collegiate a cappella group of Ask Me Another house musician Jonathan Coulton. Sorry, Coultron. Can you spot him?

Have you spent much of the holiday season debating whether Justin Bieber really intends to retire?

No? Well, what about the question of whether Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson was rightly suspended for making bigoted remarks, or was in fact suppressed for giving voice to traditional values?

Stories like this have flared up throughout 2013, a mix of celebrity and mini-scandals. They may not have had much to do with war or peace or anyone's ability to find work, but for a day or two Americans found diversion in making fun of Bieber for writing a fan letter to himself in the guestbook at Anne Frank's house, or the way Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio seemed to struggle to drink water during his response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

Or, of course, Miley Cyrus twerking.

There's nothing new about silly stories getting a lot of attention, but the Internet has upended old news values that demanded you put war and the economy on the front page and relegate fluff to Page 18.

"There was a structural way newspapers kept all that stuff separated," says Robert Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University. "The Internet totally annihilates that kind of structure."

If all stories are created equal, in the sense of each having its own space on a Web page, then the ones that get linked to and clicked on the most might be those that are more amusing or titillating than informative.

Even aficionados of hard news may be more likely to share via social media a funny video of a beauty pageant contestant flubbing an answer than the latest developments in the Syrian civil war.

News has always presented a mixture of information and entertainment, says Daniel Hallin, a professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego. Important events such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the deaths of Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher rank high on lists of this year's most-shared stories.

But in an age when the digital readership of every story can be measured, the balance has shifted more toward the fun stuff.

"News in general is just much more market-oriented than it once was," Hallin says. "Now, when click-through rates and 'most tweeted' become important criteria, the assumption is much more that you give people what they want to see."

The CNN news ticker at the corner of Sunset & Cahuenga is a real-time chronicle of the death of American journalism.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) June 21, 2013

And it resonated with me. As the youngest of four boys, I often found it hard to come to terms with the expectations of masculinity around me: the performance of it, so to speak. Afikpo, when I was growing up, was caught in that moment between a centuries-old way of being and a more modern one. There were expectations of how one proved one's masculinity, but I wasn't interested in those. I had a fraught relationship with my father, and a sweet and gentle one with my mother.

And yet, not being gay myself, there is a level of confusion, of hurt, that I couldn't ever access. It always eluded me, made me feel like there was something more behind this story, something that was as tantalizing faint as the scent of Earl Grey Tea, but that would always remain closed to me.

And then again, perhaps not. Perhaps this is not the feeling of a straight man looking into the life of a gay man, unable to completely relate, but rather that of a self gazing deeply into another self and never ever being able to see it. Maybe it's the existential melancholy we all carry, that of knowing there is more to us, and wrestling with the frustration that it will always be out of reach, darting into our peripheral vision when we are lucky.

Whatever it is, I know that James Baldwin made me want to be a writer. More profoundly, he is largely responsible for the kind of writer that I have become. One, who like Jimmy, believes that all love is light and the only true aberration in the world is the absence of it — love, that is.

Chris Abani's new novel, The Secret History of Las Vegas, will be published by Penguin in January.

Read an excerpt of Giovanni's Room