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Attorney General Eric Holder has for the first time directed Justice Department employees to give same-sex married couples "full and equal recognition, to the greatest extent under the law," a move with far-ranging consequences for how such couples are treated in federal courtrooms and proceedings.

The directive specifies that such couples can decline to give testimony in U.S. cases that might incriminate a spouse, known in the law as marital privilege. The guidance says the Justice Department won't object to that even if the state where the couple lives doesn't formally recognize the marriage.

It also means U.S. trustees will take the position that same-sex married couples should be able to file jointly for bankruptcy "and that domestic support obligations should include debts, such as alimony, owed to a former same-sex spouse."

And in federal prisons, same-sex married inmates will have visitation privileges, escorted trips to attend a spouse's funeral and compassionate release policies if their spouse suffers severe illness.

Holder is preparing to make the new policy public Saturday evening at a gala event for the Human Rights Campaign in New York.

"Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation's struggle for LGBT equality couldn't be higher," Holder will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "As attorney general, I will not let this department be simply a bystander during this important moment in history."

The new policy follows similar moves by the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS after the U.S. Supreme Court last year invalidated a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act which had defined the institution of marriage for federal purposes as limited to heterosexual couples.

Holder has previously spoken with NPR about his department's role in addressing the repercussions of the Supreme Court ruling.

Jamaican superstar Bob Marley once sang about "Reggae on Broadway" — and now, more than four decades after the release of that song, some of Marley's greatest hits have been incorporated into an off-Broadway musical for children called Three Little Birds. The musical, based on a children's book by Marley's daughter Cedella Marley, opens today at Manhattan's New Victory Theater.

NPR's Audie Cornish spoke with Cedella Marley, who is also CEO of her father's record label, Tuff Gong International, about the show, plus what the song means to her and what it was like growing up in the home of a counterculture icon.

Friday's unemployment report confirmed what many workers already had suspected: Five years after the job market plunged off a cliff, the climb back remains a tough slog.

In January, employers created 113,000 additional jobs, well below most economists' estimates of roughly 185,000. And a second look at December's data brought an upward revision of only 1,000 new jobs, to a meager 75,000.

"Employment growth clearly has downshifted over the past two months," says Doug Handler, an economist with IHS Global Insight. "The January performance was a huge disappointment since we can no longer dismiss December's poor numbers as an aberration."

For all of 2013, the economy added jobs at an average of 194,000 a month, about twice the December-January average.

The National Retail Federation pointed to unusually cold weather as a "major factor" in slowing some store sales and hiring. But most economists say winter weather had an insignificant impact overall.

Jobless Rate Falls

Despite the recent sluggish pace, job growth was good enough to nudge down the unemployment rate by a tenth of a point to 6.6 percent. That was the best reading since October 2008, when the Great Recession started shredding jobs at a frantic pace. In January 2009, the economy lost more than 800,000 jobs.

Responding to this latest report, the White House noted that the economy has now generated a net job gain for 47 straight months.

"The unemployment rate has fallen 1.3 percentage point in the last 12 months," Jason Furman, head of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, said in a blog post. He said businesses have added 8.5 million jobs in less than four years.

In January, the labor-force participation rate edged up two-tenths of a percentage point to 63 percent. That's well below the 66 percent rate that prevailed from 1989 to 2009. Still, January's uptick was a "silver lining," says Stuart Hoffman, an economist with PNC Bank.

Harbinger Of Harder Times

A few other data points also offered something to cheer in January. For example, construction added 48,000 jobs, and manufacturing tacked on another 21,000. Mining was strong with a gain of 7,000 jobs. And the leisure and hospitality industries continued to grow, adding 24,000 jobs.

Those job openings disproportionately helped men. For women, it was a much tougher month, according to an analysis done by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. That report concluded that women lost 51,000 net jobs because of cuts in government, business services, education and health services.

Adding it all up, the negatives outweighed any positives, leaving economists to see January as a disappointment. Even worse, the poor performance may be a harbinger of harder times for the gross domestic product.

"There's enough negative evidence in this report to help validate a softening of GDP growth from the fourth quarter's 3.2 percent to 1.9 percent in the first quarter," IHS Global Insight's Handler said.

And the report offered little reason for those people with jobs to think they'll get big raises anytime soon. The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours, and hourly wages were up a nickel to $24.21. Over the past year, wages have risen only 1.9 percent, or 46 cents.

Gains In Productivity

The wage gains stand in contrast to recent jumps in worker productivity. A separate Labor Department report this week showed workers' productivity increased at a strong 3.2 percent annual rate. That was well above the long-term trend rate of about 2 percent.

In fact, the last six months of 2013 represented the strongest period for productivity growth in four years. Rising productivity, a measure of output, generally reflects improvements in workers' skills and equipment.

While output growth has soared, labor costs have stalled. The government report showed that for businesses, labor costs fell in three of the past four quarters.

The stock market initially reacted badly to the disappointing jobs report, but then recovered to head higher. Many analysts say that was because investors now think that with a weaker-than-expected economy, the Federal Reserve policymakers will go slower on making policy changes that could lead to higher interest rates. Low rates on Treasury bonds can make stocks a more attractive place to put your money.

Friday's unemployment report confirmed what many workers already had suspected: Five years after the job market plunged off a cliff, the climb back remains a tough slog.

In January, employers created 113,000 additional jobs, well below most economists' estimates of roughly 185,000. And a second look at December's data brought an upward revision of only 1,000 new jobs, to a meager 75,000.

"Employment growth clearly has downshifted over the past two months," says Doug Handler, an economist with IHS Global Insight. "The January performance was a huge disappointment since we can no longer dismiss December's poor numbers as an aberration."

For all of 2013, the economy added jobs at an average of 194,000 a month, about twice the December-January average.

The National Retail Federation pointed to unusually cold weather as a "major factor" in slowing some store sales and hiring. But most economists say winter weather had an insignificant impact overall.

Jobless Rate Falls

Despite the recent sluggish pace, job growth was good enough to nudge down the unemployment rate by a tenth of a point to 6.6 percent. That was the best reading since October 2008, when the Great Recession started shredding jobs at a frantic pace. In January 2009, the economy lost more than 800,000 jobs.

Responding to this latest report, the White House noted that the economy has now generated a net job gain for 47 straight months.

"The unemployment rate has fallen 1.3 percentage point in the last 12 months," Jason Furman, head of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, said in a blog post. He said businesses have added 8.5 million jobs in less than four years.

In January, the labor-force participation rate edged up two-tenths of a percentage point to 63 percent. That's well below the 66 percent rate that prevailed from 1989 to 2009. Still, January's uptick was a "silver lining," says Stuart Hoffman, an economist with PNC Bank.

Harbinger Of Harder Times

A few other data points also offered something to cheer in January. For example, construction added 48,000 jobs, and manufacturing tacked on another 21,000. Mining was strong with a gain of 7,000 jobs. And the leisure and hospitality industries continued to grow, adding 24,000 jobs.

Those job openings disproportionately helped men. For women, it was a much tougher month, according to an analysis done by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. That report concluded that women lost 51,000 net jobs because of cuts in government, business services, education and health services.

Adding it all up, the negatives outweighed any positives, leaving economists to see January as a disappointment. Even worse, the poor performance may be a harbinger of harder times for the gross domestic product.

"There's enough negative evidence in this report to help validate a softening of GDP growth from the fourth quarter's 3.2 percent to 1.9 percent in the first quarter," IHS Global Insight's Handler said.

And the report offered little reason for those people with jobs to think they'll get big raises anytime soon. The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours, and hourly wages were up a nickel to $24.21. Over the past year, wages have risen only 1.9 percent, or 46 cents.

Gains In Productivity

The wage gains stand in contrast to recent jumps in worker productivity. A separate Labor Department report this week showed workers' productivity increased at a strong 3.2 percent annual rate. That was well above the long-term trend rate of about 2 percent.

In fact, the last six months of 2013 represented the strongest period for productivity growth in four years. Rising productivity, a measure of output, generally reflects improvements in workers' skills and equipment.

While output growth has soared, labor costs have stalled. The government report showed that for businesses, labor costs fell in three of the past four quarters.

The stock market initially reacted badly to the disappointing jobs report, but then recovered to head higher. Many analysts say that was because investors now think that with a weaker-than-expected economy, the Federal Reserve policymakers will go slower on making policy changes that could lead to higher interest rates. Low rates on Treasury bonds can make stocks a more attractive place to put your money.

Listen up, students of Virginia, this question could be on your next geography quiz: What is the name of the major body of water is located between Japan and the Korean peninsula?

If you said Sea of Japan, you're only half right. It's also called the East Sea.

That's according to a new bill passed by lawmakers that hands South Korea a minor victory in a long-running battle over the naming of the stretch of water. After intense lobbying from both sides, the state's House of Delegates approved the measure by an 81-15 vote to include "East Sea" along with "Sea of Japan" in the state's textbooks.

The two-line bill states simply that, "all textbooks approved by the Board of Education ... when referring to the Sea of Japan, shall note that it is also called the East Sea."

As The Washington Post reports:

"The issue has drawn intense interest from, among others, Japanese diplomats, Korean Americans in Northern Virginia, and [newly elected Gov. Terry] McAuliffe, who promised to support the measure during his campaign but has been squeezed between that pledge and warnings that Japanese businesses in Virginia could react poorly to the move."

The content of the leaked phone conversation that we told you about yesterday (Thursday) continues to have diplomatic repercussions.

The story began when the recording of a call between Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, and Geoff Pyatt, the U.S. envoy to Kiev, appeared to show them discussing the merits of Ukraine's various opposition figures. In it, Nuland can also be heard using a crude phrase while describing the European Union.

Talking about the EU's position in Ukraine, she says, "F- - - the EU."

A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in Friday, calling Nuland's comments "absolutely unacceptable." Christiane Wirtz, the spokeswoman, added that Merkel supported the EU's efforts in Ukraine and believes Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, "is doing a marvelous job."

Nuland herself refused to comment on the controversy, saying in Kiev that she didn't think it would hurt U.S.-Russian relations. But she did call the tape's recording and leaking "pretty impressive tradecraft."

As we reported, both the White House and the State Department accused Russia of orchestrating the leak of the conversation, but Russian officials strongly denied that claim.

The Associated Press quoted Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin as saying on Twitlonger:

"While the Westerners weave little intrigues and get into scandals, Russia is helping the regions of Ukraine restore lost connections with our industries. Maybe then there will be fewer unemployed and embittered people to organize riots in their own cities with foreign money."

The Lego Movie

Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Genre: Animation, action, comedy

Running time: 100 minutes

Rated PG

With Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Berry

(Recommended)

What might have been a routine update on the state of the federal budget Tuesday instead became the newest front in the ongoing political war over President Obama's signature health care law.

At issue: a revised estimate about how many people would voluntarily leave the workforce because they can get health care without necessarily holding down a job.

The Congressional Budget Office originally predicted that the availability of subsidies for low-income Americans to buy health insurance would result in about 800,000 people leaving full-time work by 2023. The revised estimate increases that number to about 2.5 million.

Republicans pounced, pointing at the nonpartisan office's estimate as proof of the Affordable Care Act's damaging effects on the economy. In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said: "The middle class is getting squeezed in this economy, and this CBO report confirms that Obamacare is making it worse."

Texas Republican John Cornyn took to the Senate floor with the same message. "The president's own health care policy ... is killing full-time work, and putting people in part-time work," he said.

Obama's White House wasted little time responding, sending Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman to the daily press briefing. There, Furman turned Cornyn's charge on its head, arguing that if some people are able to work part time and spend more time with their children, or if others can leave a job to start a business of their own without fear of losing health insurance, then these are good things happening because of the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, Explained

Ten years ago Dennis Sorensen was setting off fireworks to celebrate New Year's Eve with his family in Denmark when something terrible happened.

"Unfortunately one of the rockets we had this evening was not good and when we light it then it just blew up and, yeah, my hand was, was not that good anymore," says Sorensen.

Doctors had to amputate what remained of his left hand. Since then Sorensen has been getting by with a standard prosthetic hand, which simply opens and closes so he can do basic things.

Aston Martin, James Bond's conveyance of choice, has recalled more than 5,000 vehicles because of problems with fake plastics from China.

In a letter last month to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Aston Martin said it had received reports that throttle pedal arms broke during installation, and discovered that "initial tests on the failed pedal arm have shown that the Tier Three Supplier used counterfeit material."

Here's more from Bloomberg Businessweek, which first reported the story:

"The luxury sports cars' throttle pedals are assembled in Swindon, England, by a company known as Precision Varionic International, which in turn gets its parts from Fast Forward Tooling in Hong Kong. In this case, Fast Forward Tooling subcontracted the molding of pedal arms to Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co., which bought its allegedly 'counterfeit material' from Synthetic Plastic Raw Material Co. in the Chinese factory town of Dongguan."

The Salt

Was Your Chicken Nugget Made In China? It'll Soon Be Hard To Know

Anyone who invests in the stock market knows share prices can go up — and down. That's why they call it a market.

Still, this year, price movements have been fast and furious — shocking investors and prompting many to fear "volatility."

The Chicago Board of Options Exchange tracks the speed of price movements using its Volatility Index (VIX). The new year has sent the VIX soaring, in contrast to last year's unusually smooth performance.

"People talk about the VIX as the 'Worry Index,' " said Jonathan Lewis, chief investment officer at Samson Capital Advisors. "Volatility rises when people get surprised" and decide they suddenly must change their investment decisions, he said.

"Volatility is the market's way of expressing concern that the data and policy pronouncements aren't coming in the way everyone had been expecting," Lewis said.

Anyone who invests in the stock market knows share prices can go up — and down. That's why they call it a market.

Still, this year, price movements have been fast and furious — shocking investors and prompting many to fear "volatility."

The Chicago Board of Options Exchange tracks the speed of price movements using its Volatility Index (VIX). The new year has sent the VIX soaring, in contrast to last year's unusually smooth performance.

"People talk about the VIX as the 'Worry Index,' " said Jonathan Lewis, chief investment officer at Samson Capital Advisors. "Volatility rises when people get surprised" and decide they suddenly must change their investment decisions, he said.

"Volatility is the market's way of expressing concern that the data and policy pronouncements aren't coming in the way everyone had been expecting," Lewis said.

Anyone who invests in the stock market knows share prices can go up — and down. That's why they call it a market.

Still, this year, price movements have been fast and furious — shocking investors and prompting many to fear "volatility."

The Chicago Board of Options Exchange tracks the speed of price movements using its Volatility Index (VIX). The new year has sent the VIX soaring, in contrast to last year's unusually smooth performance.

"People talk about the VIX as the 'Worry Index,' " said Jonathan Lewis, chief investment officer at Samson Capital Advisors. "Volatility rises when people get surprised" and decide they suddenly must change their investment decisions, he said.

"Volatility is the market's way of expressing concern that the data and policy pronouncements aren't coming in the way everyone had been expecting," Lewis said.

As time passes, each individual must choose his own fate. To fight or to simply back off, to cease from continuing his research or remain an enemy of ignorance — for which the repercussions can be extremely dangerous. One by one, they decide their path. Malianov, insufferable and lovable all at once, is torn. He finds himself being pulled in different directions, all the while considering how his actions might affect his family. The brothers Strugatsky, in this deeply layered novel, weave a disturbing tale, not an overtly political one, but with hushed anti-Soviet undertones at the core. You'll laugh, you'll look around suspiciously, you'll throw the text across the room. You'll pick it back up and go on, gladly welcoming the distraction. Knowledge is a dangerous game.

Juan Vidal is a writer and cultural critic from Miami. He tweets at @itsjuanlove.

Read an excerpt of Definitely Maybe

I've spent most of my life being fascinated by politics, but Washington has grown so stridently dysfunctional, I can barely stand to watch the news. And though I enjoy shows like Veep and House of Cards, they're so devoutly cynical they almost feel like part of the problem.

As an antidote to this, I highly recommend Borgen, the crest of the current wave of Danish TV that's given us The Killing and The Bridge. Taking its name from the Copenhagen castle that's the seat of government, Borgen plays like a more astringent version of The West Wing, a show it clearly borrows from and improves on. Its third and final season is just out on DVD, but you'll want to start at the very beginning, which instantly sucks you into the world of Danish politics, with its idealists and ideologues, sleazy tabloids and state-run TV networks, bullying billionaires and fussy bureaucrats with minds of their own.

Borgen's heroine is Birgitte Nyborg, superbly played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, the principled, low-key leader of the Moderate party. As the series begins, this happily married mother of two rides a freakish turn of events to become Denmark's first female prime minister. But taking office is one thing, knowing how to govern is another. Starting each episode with an aphorism from the likes of Machiavelli, Churchill, or Chairman Mao, Borgen shows us Birgitte learning to run the machinery of power — how to slap down a foe and fire an ally, when to go on TV and when to rise above the fray, when to compromise and when to be steely.

Of course, Birgitte doesn't live in the world alone. Part of what makes Borgen so enjoyable is that it surrounds her with maybe 20 vividly drawn regulars, from the smug opposition leader Hesselboe to the alcoholic old reporter Hannah Holm. Chief among them are Birgitte's spin doctor Kasper Juul, a Don Draper-ish sort who learned how to spin as a way of camouflaging his dark past, and the woman he loves, Katrine Fonsmark. She's a sexy but idealistic reporter who has a poster of All the President's Men on the door of her apartment. Like Birgitte, both are trying to figure out how to be honest in a world where press secretaries must weasel and reporters must answer to corrupt editors or TV execs who curry the government's favor.

“ I'm not sure I've ever seen a show that's better at capturing the personal cost of political life.

If beer is the new wine, robots are the new beer snobs. Well, sort of.

Researchers in Barcelona have developed an electronic tongue that really knows the difference between a pilsner, a lager and a bock.

For now, it looks less like a slick, futuristic robot and more like a big of clump sensors. It's still a prototype, but its creators say it could one day replace human taste-testers.

And in a study published in the journal Food Chemistry, the researchers found that the robo-taste-tester can distinguish among different types of beer with 82 percent accuracy.

Manel del Valle, one of the study's authors and a roboticist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, says that food and beverage manufacturers could use the technology for quality control.

"The food industry needs to test lots of their products — and this is usually done by an expert," del Valle tells The Salt. "But if you transfer this expertise to a robot, you can produce at night, you can produce on the weekends." And manufacturers wouldn't have to worry about having a taste-tester on hand at all times.

i i

If beer is the new wine, robots are the new beer snobs. Well, sort of.

Researchers in Barcelona have developed an electronic tongue that really knows the difference between a pilsner, a lager and a bock.

For now, it looks less like a slick, futuristic robot and more like a big of clump sensors. It's still a prototype, but its creators say it could one day replace human taste-testers.

And in a study published in the journal Food Chemistry, the researchers found that the robo-taste-tester can distinguish among different types of beer with 82 percent accuracy.

Manel del Valle, one of the study's authors and a roboticist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, says that food and beverage manufacturers could use the technology for quality control.

"The food industry needs to test lots of their products — and this is usually done by an expert," del Valle tells The Salt. "But if you transfer this expertise to a robot, you can produce at night, you can produce on the weekends." And manufacturers wouldn't have to worry about having a taste-tester on hand at all times.

i i

What might have been a routine update on the state of the federal budget Tuesday instead became the newest front in the ongoing political war over President Obama's signature health care law.

At issue: a revised estimate about how many people would voluntarily leave the workforce because they can get health care without necessarily holding down a job.

The Congressional Budget Office originally predicted that the availability of subsidies for low-income Americans to buy health insurance would result in about 800,000 people leaving full-time work by 2023. The revised estimate increases that number to about 2.5 million.

Republicans pounced, pointing at the nonpartisan office's estimate as proof of the Affordable Care Act's damaging effects on the economy. In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said: "The middle class is getting squeezed in this economy, and this CBO report confirms that Obamacare is making it worse."

Texas Republican John Cornyn took to the Senate floor with the same message. "The president's own health care policy ... is killing full-time work, and putting people in part-time work," he said.

Obama's White House wasted little time responding, sending Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman to the daily press briefing. There, Furman turned Cornyn's charge on its head, arguing that if some people are able to work part time and spend more time with their children, or if others can leave a job to start a business of their own without fear of losing health insurance, then these are good things happening because of the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, Explained

Saying it is "the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," the CEO of CVS Caremark announced Wednesday that the company's 7,600 pharmacies will stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products by Oct. 1.

Larry Merlo also said CVS will try to help those who want to quit smoking with a "robust national smoking cessation program" at its locations.

CVS says the decision will trim about $2 billion in annual revenue — out of what Forbes reports is $125 billion in sales each year. But as Forbes adds, Merlo believes that "continuing to sell cigarettes, which the Surgeon General blames for 480,000 deaths every year from heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke, was anathema to CVS' long-term plan to become a central player in the U.S. health care system."

The news has already won praise from President Obama. Shortly after the announcement from CVS (which had been expected), the White House released a statement from the president which says, in part:

"As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today's decision will help advance my administration's efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs — ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come."

Do you approve of CVS Caremark's decision to stop selling tobacco products?

The nation's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., will pay $614 million and improve mortgage lending practices under a deal announced Tuesday to settle claims it approved thousands of unqualified home mortgage loans for government insurance and refinancing since 2002, costing the government millions of dollars when the loans defaulted.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan approved the deal, which calls for JPMorgan to pay the money within a month and install an improved quality control program to review loans it underwrites using a federally maintained software application that determines if a loan qualifies for government insurance.

JPMorgan said in a statement that its deal with federal prosecutors, the Federal Housing Administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs "represents another significant step in the firm's efforts to put historical mortgage-related issues behind it."

The New York-based company said it had already reserved the money for the settlement and any financial impact from exposure to future claims wasn't expected to be significant.

In a release, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the company had for years participated in federally subsidized programs meant to make homes more affordable for millions of Americans.

"Yet, for more than a decade, it abused that privilege," he said. "JPMorgan Chase put profits ahead of responsibility by recklessly churning out thousands of defective mortgage loans, failing to inform the government of known problems with those loans and leaving the government to cover the losses when the loans defaulted."

The prosecutor acknowledged, however, that the company had accepted responsibility and promised to reform the flawed practices.

The government said the bank approved thousands of loans for government insurance or refinancing that didn't meet the requirements of federal programs and failed to self-report hundreds of loans it identified as having been affected by fraud or other deficiencies. It also regularly submitted loan data that lacked integrity because it was not based on documents or other information it possessed when employees submitted the data, the government said.

Associate Attorney General Tony West said the deal "recovers wrongfully claimed funds for vital government programs that give millions of Americans the opportunity to own a home and sends a clear message that we will take appropriately aggressive action against financial institutions that knowingly engage in improper mortgage lending practices."

In November, JPMorgan agreed to pay $13 billion to settle a civil inquiry into its sales of low-quality mortgage-backed securities that collapsed in value in the 2008 financial crisis. It also announced it had reached a $4.5 billion settlement with 21 major institutional investors over mortgage-backed securities issued by it and Bear Stearns between 2005 and 2008.

Last month, it agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion for ignoring obvious warning signs of Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence after admitting the fraud, squandered nearly $20 billion from thousands of investors over several decades.

JPMorgan set aside $23 billion last year to cover the settlements and other costs related to its legal troubles.

The good news, Stewart says, is that the lessons learned in the West — especially about early screening and prevention — could help to stem the expansion of cancer in other parts of the world.

i i

The next round of Iranian nuclear talks with world powers is fast approaching, and there's still a lot of skepticism in the air over the prospects for a comprehensive deal.

Iran will sit down with the U.S. and five other major powers in Vienna on Feb. 18 as they try to hammer out a long-term agreement on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. By most every estimate, it won't be easy to build on the success of a temporary deal drawn up last November given the lingering, visceral mistrust between the United States and Iran.

Those feelings were on display at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, where officials from both countries lobbed accusations at one another.

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who spoke to the conference about the future of the Middle East, accused the Iranians of repeatedly lying and cheating when it comes to their nuclear program.

"Our beloved Ronald Reagan used to say: 'Trust, but verify,'" McCain said. "Well in the case of Iran, don't trust and verify.

He said this is why he expects Congress to impose more sanctions if the talks with Iran drag on for more than six months. But he suggested waiting that long may be a mistake.

"There are three components to nuclear weapons – warhead, delivery system and the material itself," McCain said. "They are achieving the first two without any restraints whatsoever."

More On Iran

Middle East

Nuclear Inspectors Enter Iran, With Eyes Peeled For Cheating

Quite possibly, you've noticed some new food labels out there, like "Not made with genetically modified ingredients" or "GMO-free." You might have seen them on boxes of Cheerios, or on chicken meat. If you've shopped at Whole Foods, that retailer says it now sells more than 3,000 products that have been certified as "non-GMO."

But where does non-GMO food come from? After all, 90 percent of America's corn and soybeans are genetically modified, and producers of eggs, milk and meat rely on those crops to feed their animals. Soy oil and corn starch are used throughout the industry. Can big food companies really avoid GMOs?

Looking for the answer, I ended up at one of the first links in the non-GMO supply chain: a corn processing facility just north of the small town of Cerro Gordo, in west-central Illinois.

If your New Year's Resolution was, "I am going to prepare for retirement by moving my savings into stocks," then you must be very sad now.

Broncos-fan-level sad.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged another 326 points, down about 2 percent to 15,373. That was the seventh triple-digit drop so far this year. Back on Dec. 31, the Dow was at 16,577.

And the day was even worse for the S&P 500, which lopped off another 2.3 percent to slump to 1742. As recently as Jan. 15, that stock index was at 1848.38.

In other words, your stock portfolio has been getting killed so far this year. Experts have been tossing out lots of explanations. Among the ones cited often are:

Fund managers' decisions to sell shares to lock in profits after last year's big gains.

Worries about slowing growth in emerging market.

Possible changes in the Federal Reserve's plans for interest rates.

Weakening U.S. corporate profits.

Slowing auto sales.

Weaker-than-expected growth in manufacturing.

So where do we go from here? Predictions are all over the place.

Some analysts think this is just a short-term pull back. They say the market is headed for a fairly typical "correction," a period when the market may drop 10 percent before investors start plowing money back into the market.

This slump could be seen as a "healthy" pullback, coming early in the year and allowing mutual funds to lock in profits from 2013's huge gains. Once stock prices are back down to lower, more attractive levels, the investors will come back, so the argument goes.

Optimists point out that both December and January were unusually cold, so that might have slowed auto sales, construction and retail sales. When the weather warms, the economy and the stock market will snap back, they believe.

But pessimists are worried. They fear interest rates will be heading higher, China will keep slowing and conditions will not be as favorable to corporate profits. Currency problems will keep hurting emerging markets and Europe will slow again, they argue.

For years, makers of kids' cereals have been upping the ante to get kids interested: hiding a toy surprise inside, adding multicolored marshmallows, setting bear traps in the cereal aisle. Now Post, makers of the classic Flintstones-themed Fruity Pebbles, have created "Poppin' Pebbles," an explosive Pop Rocks-Cereal mashup.

Miles: This is the only cereal on the market that fizzes and foams in your mouth. Well, this and Cinnamon Rabies Crunch.

Ian: The Flintstones weren't entirely unhealthy people. When you think about it, their car was basically like an early treadmill desk.

i i

Just as Janet L. Yellen was sworn in as the first woman to head the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke announced his next move on Monday.

The former fed chief, who saw the country through a recovery from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, will join Brookings' Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy.

The Washington-based think tank says in a press release:

"In the past few years, Mr. Bernanke has been presiding over an historic experiment in monetary policy — more than five years of zero interest rates (so far) and trillions of dollars in bond-buying, a controversial approach aimed at restoring growth to the American economy.

"Ben Bernanke won't have to sit through any more meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee or deliver the Fed's semi-annual testimony to an occasionally hostile Congress or listen to complaints from emerging-market central bankers when central bankers gather in Basel, Switzerland. He won't have to check the computer screen to see what's been happening in Asian markets when he gets up every morning.

"He will, instead, have time to reflect on what just happened. ' I was kind of like if you're in a car wreck. You're mostly involved in trying to avoid going off the bridge. And then later on you say, "Oh, my God," ' he said here recently."

If you are buying health coverage in the Colorado ski resort towns, the Connecticut suburbs of New York City or a bunch of otherwise low-cost rural regions of Georgia, Mississippi and Nevada, you have the misfortune of living in the most expensive insurance marketplaces under the new health law.

The 10 most expensive regions also include all of Alaska and Vermont and large parts of Wisconsin and Wyoming. The ranking is based on the lowest price "silver" plan, which is the mid-level plan that the majority of consumers are choosing.

These regions, created as part of the health law, range in size from a state to a single county. While many people in these places will receive government subsidies to help pay for premiums, the portion that they pay will still be higher than they would have to foot in many other places.

The cause of the stratospheric premiums varies from region to region, although a recurring theme is that in some areas the limited number of hospitals and specialists allows them to demand high prices from insurers.

In southwestern Georgia, one hospital system dominates the area and beat back an effort by federal antitrust regulators to loosen its grip on the market. High individual insurance rates also reflect the extra costs that come when locals tend to be in poor health and where large numbers of people lack employer-sponsored insurance, leaving providers with more charity cases and lower-reimbursed Medicare patients.

A sicker population doesn't explain the most expensive region in the country: four mountain counties around Aspen and Vail. People here are generally healthy, but medical prices and the use of medical services are both high.

Shots - Health News

High Insurance Rates Anger Some Ski-Country Coloradans

In parts of the Middle East, people drink camel milk for its nutritional value. It boasts more vitamin C and iron than cow's milk and it's lower in fat.

But in Missouri, some people are starting to rub it on their skin: A Jordanian woman is bringing camel milk to the Midwest in the form of a skin care line.

The milk comes from a farm in Jordan, where seven camels produce about five liters a day. The farmer sends the milk to a biotech company in Amman called MONOJO. The scientists there analyze it, looking for three special antibodies.

Antibodies are proteins that help fight off infections, latching on to foreign pathogens and telling the body's immune system, "Intruder alert." Typically, these antibodies degrade in higher temperatures and acidic environments. But antibodies in camel milk are stronger.

"We found that those proteins are very, very stable against temperature, high temperature and against high acidity," says MONOJO founder Penelope Shihab, the woman behind the startup in Missouri.

"Maybe the reason [is] because the camel can tolerate high temperature in the desert," she says. "Some of the scientists say that, but we couldn't confirm any of those suggestions."

Shihab's research team tested these camel milk antibodies on acne. Immunologist Khaled Al-Qaoud, Shihab's research and development manager, says camel antibodies succeed where others fail because they remain intact longer at the site of inflammation, ultimately helping the body's immune system continue to fight the acne.

Al-Qaoud says the results of the study impressed them so much so that they concocted a camel milk treatment for the skin condition.

"We use skin formulas, like for example, gel or cream or serum — any type of formulation — and we put the whey of the camel that contains the antibodies in this formula," says Al-Qaoud.

The creams look similar to the ones you find at the drug store; milky white and floral scented. Shihab says she's commercializing this formula in the U.S. first because Middle Eastern consumers trust American brands.

A colleague directed her to Missouri, a small market where she could learn the ropes of the U.S. biotech industry.

i i

NPR correspondents Ari Shapiro, in London, and Joanna Kakissis, in Athens, teamed up for this joint look at Olympics economics.

The Winter Olympics in Sochi are just a few days away. Russia has spent $50 billion on everything from construction to security, making these the most expensive games in history.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, President Obama stepped up to a podium before Congress and the country and declared that the state of our union was strong.

"Here are the results of your efforts: The lowest unemployment rate in over five years; a rebounding housing market; a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s," the president said.

“ A lot of the gains of the recovery that we've seen have gone to the people at the very top, particularly the top 1 percent.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's political team is going on the offensive against charges that he knew more than he admits about a plan to use lane closures on the George Washington Bridge as part of a political vendetta.

In an email to donors and journalists headlined "5 Things You Should Know about the Bombshell That's Not a Bombshell," on Saturday, political aides to the governor pushed back on accusations by David Wildstein, a former Port Authority official who oversaw the lane closures.

In a letter from the attorney for Wildstein, who resigned as the scandal broke, the former official claimed that evidence exists to show that Christie knew more. In the email sent Saturday, the governor's aides suggested that Wildstein was grasping at straws: "David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein."

The Associated Press says:

"Christie's team denies that Christie knew about the traffic jam or its political motive until after it was over and bashes Wildstein, a former mayor who later became an anonymous political blogger."

"Much of the letter quoted previous newspaper articles that took critical looks at Wildstein, including a 2012 article in The Record of Bergen County [that] says Wildstein 'was a very contentious person.'"

"But the email does not mention other comments about Wildstein in that same story, including from Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak: 'He is there in that job because he is well suited to the task of playing a role in reforming the Port Authority in accordance with the governor's goals,' Drewniak said. 'If he's not liked for that role, and if he's accused of being zealous in that regard, then we plead guilty.'"

But, of course, what I didn't understand at 13 — or, to be more precise, I understood in the wrong way — was the pain Edie was in, the emotional instability from which she suffered: bouts of anorexia, two brothers lost to suicide, shock treatments. And her dark addictions — those famous racooned eyes pinned from amphetamines, then cocaine. Eventually, she found heroin. As Vogue editor Diana Vreeland said, "Edie was after life, and sometimes life doesn't come fast enough."

And death came: In 1971, at age 28, Edie died from "acute barbiturate intoxication."

"Everything I did was really underneath, I guess, motivated by psychological disturbances," Edie confided in audiotapes recorded for her movie Ciao! Manhattan not long before her death. She describes how her trademark look was her way of making "a mask out of my face. I practically destroyed it." She cut off her hair, stripped it silver, doing anything she could to change herself.

Edie herself was pained by the very aspects of her I found so glorious — but that fact was lost on me. Her self-awareness was part of her glamour; her madness felt exciting. Her descent felt dramatic, the stuff of grand tragedy. Now, as an adult, it seems unbearably sad.

At 16, I first visited New York City. Wearing my Edie t-shirt and my long earrings, I sought out the site of Warhol's famous Factory. Standing in front of the building, I had a moment of feeling like I was a part of it, that world. Her world.

Somehow it seems fitting that I would realize, a decade later, after New York became my permanent home, that I'd stood in front of the wrong building. It hadn't been right at all.

Megan Abbott's next novel, Fever, will be released in June. Her latest novel, Dare Me, is now out in paperback.