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Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, appeared together at a ceremony anointing 19 new cardinals in what The Associated Press described as "an unprecedented blending of papacies past, present and future."

In the solemn event, known as a consistory, Francis on Saturday bestowed red hats on his first batch of cardinals.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, reporting from Rome, says at the start of the event in St. Peter's Basilica, Francis warmly embraced Benedict, seated close to the new princes of the church.

AP says:

"Benedict discreetly entered St. Peter's Basilica from a side entrance surrounded by a small entourage and was greeted with applause and tears from the stunned people in the pews. He smiled, waved and seemed genuinely happy to be there, taking his seat in the front row, off to the side, alongside the red-draped cardinals."

"It was the first time Benedict and Francis have appeared together at a public liturgical ceremony since Benedict retired a year ago and became the first pope to step down in more than 600 years."

"Benedict's presence marked a new phase of reintegrating him back into the public life of the church after a period of being hidden away that began almost exactly a year ago with his Feb. 28, 2013 resignation."

Events in the Winter Olympics can be highly technical, with arcane rules and specialized equipment that can defy easy explanation. On the question-and-answer site Quora, several interesting topics have come up in recent days, from why athletes use tape on their sleds to how a human can surpass 80 mph on skis.

We've been sifting through the questions people ask about the Sochi Games on Quora. As you might expect, one of the longest and most detailed exchanges (too long and detailed to fit in this post, in fact) centers on the controversial win by Russia's Adelina Sotnikova in women's figure skating.

Here are some of our favorite questions, with answers:

How many employees will NBC have in Sochi?

Answered by Jim Bell, Executive Producer, NBC Olympics:

About 2500.

Curling: What does the "sweeping" do in curling?

Answered by Liz Lewis, Curling since 2006 at the Mayfield Curling Club, Cleveland, OH, USA:

To expand on what was already said, curling ice isn't smooth like skating ice. It's covered in little bumps, which is referred to as the pebble of the ice. So, sweeping melts the pebble down a bit to maintain speed or the trajectory of the rock.

The pebble is what makes the rocks curl. Without that pebble, you really can't control the path of the rock. I hope that helps!

Skeleton: What's up with the duct tape looking stuff on the skeleton sliders' sleds?

Answered by Brad Stewart, Athlete US Skeleton Team, Sundance Developer, Real Estate, Web Duder:

A skeleton sled has a soft-ish(think yoga mat) covering over the sled that makes it a flat surface and covers all the internal components. A special type of gaffer type is used to hold the covering to the sled.

The best tape is made by a company in Europe called Tesa. Each roll is around $60 and we hoard it since it's difficult to come by. The reasons we seek this brand out are because:

It maintains its hold and flexibility when wet and cold.

We often need to get into the sleds daily for modifications and inspections and it doesn't leave any sort of residue like your typical duct tape leaves.

It had more grip than duct tape so you maintain contact with your sled.

How do downhill skiers go as fast as 81 mph if terminal velocity is 120 mph?

"I was just watching Bode Miller's final training run, and at the bottom of the course, he got up to over 81 mph. Whoosh! How is that possible if terminal velocity - falling at a 90 degree angle to the earth with only wind resistance - is 120 mph?"

Answered by Mark Eichenlaub, PhD student in Physics:

The numbers you cited actually work out exactly like you'd naively expect.

The force of wind drag is proportional to velocity squared. 120 mph (falling) is 1.5 times as fast at 80 mph (skiing). That gives a force 1.5^2 =2.25 times as great. In other words, when you're skiing downhill at 80mph, you experience a bit less than half as much wind resistance as at 120 mph.

At a 30-degree slope, the force pushing you down the hill is exactly half your weight. So compared to a sky-diver, our skier has about half as much force pushing him down the hill and a bit less than half as much wind drag. So this speed is entirely reasonable.

To try to get more accuracy, you'd have a lot of things to consider:

The friction between the skis and snow. This friction force is not very large; the course is designed to be very slick and fast; they're essentially skiing down ice. However, friction varies throughout the run as the skiers turn, accelerate, etc. Friction is, after all, how the skiers control themselves. Additionally, as Kari pointed out, the skiers may actually push off at some points of the run to get the frictional force to point down the hill, not up it.

The position of the skier. 120mph is not a hard-and-fast limit to how fast a person can fall through the atmosphere. Terminal velocity will depend on the aerodynamics of your position. Skiers crouch down, and this affects the wind drag on them. Additionally, aerodynamics around the ground are not identical to aerodynamics through free atmosphere.

The altitude. The course is at about 2000m of elevation. Air is about 20% thinner there than at sea level.

Slope. The course seems to have an average slope of 18 degrees, according to Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort, but is as steep as 40 degrees near the top. Skiers don't follow an exact gradient down the hill, so the path they take also matters.

Especially because we don't know the frictional forces, it's hard to get a highly-accurate estimate of how fast skiers should be expected to go. Indeed, by controlling the friction, gradient, and air drag, skiers can traverse the same course at a wide range of speeds. However, 80 mph is not at all unreasonable.

Winter Olympics: Is Nordic ski jumping scoring about more than distance? How does the scoring work?

Answered by Andy Warwick, Wrote and edited some Sochi 2014 educational materials:

Ski jumpers are judged on two elements: distance and style. Let's start with the latter, since this is the crux of the question.

Style: There are a maximum of 60 points awarded for style and competitors are judged on the technique not only of the flight itself, but also the timing of their take-off, the landing and movement down the hill after landing, called the outrun. During the jump judges are looking for aerodynamic efficiency, ski position (the 'V'), the position of the arms and legs and fluidity of movement between take-off, flight and landing positions. Jumpers thus receive style points in three areas: flight, landing and outrun.

The perfect flight:

begins with a "bold and aggressive take-off"

includes rapid, smooth transitions between flight positions

is symmetrical

is stable

is with legs fully stretched

Judges can deduct 5 points at their discretion.

The perfect landing sees the jumper:

raise their head

lift their arms forward, up and to the side

move from the 'V' position to one with parallel skis

split their legs

bend their knees

place one foot slight ahead of the other (called the 'telemark' position)

Judges can deduct 5 points for landing; 2 points must be deducted for failure to adopt a true 'telemark' position.

The perfect outrun sees the jumper:

hold the 'telemark' position for 10-15m

pass the 'fall line' in a stable and relaxed posture

Judges can deduct 7 points for the outrun; jumpers receive the maximum deduction for falling before the 'fall line'. Points are deducted generally for losing balance or touching the snow with anything but the skis.

There are five judges. The three middle scores are added together while the highest and lowest are discarded.

Mark Warner says that he got off to a good start, making it to Harvard Law School, but then promptly failed at everything he tried. No wonder, then, that he had to settle for a career in the U.S. Senate, where he's currently a democratic senator from Virginia.

We've invited Warner to play a game called "Danger! Get Away! Ahhhhh!" Three questions about warnings.

Wal-Mart on Thursday reported that its annual profits failed to grow. And failed by a lot.

Full-year net income tumbled to $16 billion, down by nearly $1 billion from the previous year.

That tells you a great deal about how hard the economy has been on the lower-income shoppers who make up Wal-Mart's core customer base, according to Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect.

"This clearly reflects the economic constraints on people who shop at Wal-Mart" Fishman said.

The holiday season was especially disappointing. For the three-month period that ended Jan. 31, U.S. same-store sales fell 0.4 percent. Wal-Mart had been predicting flat sales — not a decline. Overall, net profit for the final quarter fell to $4.43 billion, down from $5.61 billion in the same period a year ago.

Wal-Mart same-store sales continued to slide during the first half February, amid harsh winter weather.

The company says its customers are being hurt by cuts in government benefits, higher taxes, tighter credit and rising health-care costs.

The disappointing sales may help explain why Wal-Mart is not fighting Democrats' push to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 by 2016.

"We have not taken a position," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said in a phone interview. "We remain neutral."

Business

Demographic Shifts Contribute To The Changing Face Of Retail

There's another big breaking story from Ukraine, where earlier today an agreement was reached to hopefully end what in recent days had been a deadly series of clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces:

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been in jail since 2011 on what her supporters say were trumped-up charges aimed at silencing one of President Viktor Yanukovych critics, may soon be free again.

"Ukraine's parliament on Friday voted for amendments in the criminal code which could pave the way" for her release, Reuters writes.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "in a snap vote in parliament Friday to decriminalize the article of the criminal code that she was jailed under, 310 lawmakers voted in favor in the 450-seat chamber."

If Yanukovych refuses to sign the law, "the vote count Friday indicates there is enough support to override a veto, which requires 300 votes," the Journal says. "A court would then order her release once the law is printed in the official government newspaper."

As we've reported before, in 2011 the now-53-year-old Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison. A judge ruled she had overstepped her powers as prime minister in 2009 when she approved a gas deal with Russia.

The year before her conviction, Tymoshenko had narrowly lost a bid for the presidency in an election won by Yanukovych.

Time magazine reminds readers that Tymoshenko was a hero of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution who "helped expose Yanukovych's fraudulent victory in the presidential elections that year. She was elected prime minister in 2007 and gained fame throughout the West."

"In December 2010," Time continues, "Ukraine's General Prosecutor's Office charged Tymoshenko with misusing state funds while serving as prime minister. She denied the allegations and argued she was being targeted for standing up to Yanukovych, saying 'The terror against the opposition continues.' After a trial that she called a 'political lynching,' Tymoshenko was convicted in October 2011 of abuse of power, banned from seeking office and sentenced to seven years in prison."

The Journal adds that "Tymoshenko is unlikely to make an immediate return to politics. She has for months requested treatment in Germany for a back complaint. Serhiy Vlasenko, a close ally and lawyer, said she can barely walk and will need at least a couple of months to recover."

Her image has been among those carried by protesters in Kiev in recent weeks as they pressed for Yanukovych to step aside.

China is stepping up war games in preparation for a possible conflict with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, a tiny island chain in the East China Sea claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo, a senior U.S. Navy official says.

Captain James Fanell, deputy chief of staff intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, made the remark at a conference put on by the U.S. Naval Institute in San Diego last week.

Fanell said that after witnessing China's Mission Action 2013, a "massive amphibious and cross military" exercise that included ground and naval forces of the People's Liberation Army, U.S. analysts had concluded that "the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected [as] a seizure of the Senkakus or even southern Ryukyu [islands]."

Beginning in the second half of last year, China's military training shifted toward what appears to preparation for "realistic maritime combat," he said.

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The crew of a United Parcel Service Airbus A300 freighter that crashed during an early morning landing at Birmingham, Ala. were forced to make a "non-precision approach" when a computerized landing system became overloaded, investigators told the NTSB on Thursday.

The plane crashed short of Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Ala., killing both the pilot and co-pilot.

The New York Times says:

"[Strong] parallels emerged to the crash of an Asiana passenger plane at San Francisco International Airport five weeks earlier: heavy pilot reliance on automation, possible failure to anticipate the limits of it, not enough experience landing without a full instrument system and failure to keep track of key parameters. In the Asiana crash, which killed three people and destroyed a Boeing 777, the issue was airspeed; in the Birmingham crash, of an Airbus A300, it was altitude. The safety board is also looking into fatigue in the Birmingham crash, which came shortly before 5 a.m. and killed both people on board."

Feeli the Finnish reindeer,

Had some very shiny horns ...

OK, we'll stop there.

Here's the news:

"Herders in Lapland are spraying their reindeer with reflective paint to help drivers see them in the dark," the BBC writes.

It's an experiment to see if glow-in-the-dark antlers might help herders reduce the number of their reindeer killed each year on highways. According to Helsingen Sanomat, the largest circulation newspaper in Scandinavia, on average 4,000 reindeer die in Finland each year when they're hit by vehicles.

So, Finland's Reindeer Herders' Association is testing florescent spray — on the animals' fur as well as their antlers.

The Two-Way

What's Up With That, Doc? Researchers Make Bunnies Glow

Three journalists working for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera English who are on trial in Egypt for their alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood have pleaded not guilty on Thursday. Their trial was adjourned until March 5.

Australian Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed, wearing white prison outfits, appeared in metal cages, according to Reuters, which says six others identified as al-Jazeera journalists are being tried in absentia.

Al-Jazeera reports that the three who appeared in court on Thursday are accused of "joining, or aiding and abetting a terrorist organization."

The cause of the three journalists has been a subject on social media, including a Facebook page Free Peter Greste.

The three were detained in Cairo on December 29 and have remained in custody ever since. According to Reuters:

"All three deny the charges and Al Jazeera has said the accusations are absurd. Egyptian officials have said the case is not linked to freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation."

Three journalists working for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera English who are on trial in Egypt for their alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood have pleaded not guilty on Thursday. Their trial was adjourned until March 5.

Australian Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed, wearing white prison outfits, appeared in metal cages, according to Reuters, which says six others identified as al-Jazeera journalists are being tried in absentia.

Al-Jazeera reports that the three who appeared in court on Thursday are accused of "joining, or aiding and abetting a terrorist organization."

The cause of the three journalists has been a subject on social media, including a Facebook page Free Peter Greste.

The three were detained in Cairo on December 29 and have remained in custody ever since. According to Reuters:

"All three deny the charges and Al Jazeera has said the accusations are absurd. Egyptian officials have said the case is not linked to freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation."

As the U.S. Postal Service continues to lose money each year, a new report suggests a way to add to its bottom line: offer banklike services, such as a check cashing card that would allow holders to make purchases and pay bills online or even take out small loans. The idea is to provide services that are now unavailable in many communities.

More than a quarter of all Americans, some 68 million, are now underserved by banks — "underbanked," as the white paper from the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service calls them. They live in places where there are no bank branches, or just one. Many have to rely on check cashing outlets and payday loans, which often charge exorbitant fees.

Betsy Cavendish, president of Appleseed Network, says being able to go to the post office for simple financial transactions would be "win-win. Many people are spending $2,500 a year or so in extra fees."

"They have a lack of options for small-dollar loans and too few savings vehicles. Meanwhile, the Postal Service is in every zip code in the country and could potentially offer needed financial services," she says.

The so-called underbanked are mostly low income, and many live in cities, but plenty are in rural areas. Banks have been closing branches — more than 2,000 were shuttered in 2012. But of the nation's 35,000 post offices, more than half are in zip codes with one or no banks.

Saying "I'm going to the post office to cash a check" may sound strange to our ears, but for our grandparents or great-grandparents, it wasn't at all unusual.

Post office banking was even a campaign issue in 1908 and might have helped Republican William Howard Taft win the White House. Taft said allowing people to bank in post offices "will be a great incentive for thrift in the many small places in the country having now no savings bank facilities which are reached by the post office."

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There were only 3,000 fewer first-time claims filed for jobless benefits last week, but the slight decline is being seen as another sign that the nation's labor market will gain some strength once Spring arrives.

The Employment and Training Administration said Thursday that 336,000 applications were submitted last week, vs. 339,000 the week before.

That means the pace of claims is still running about where it's been since late 2011.

But here's how the latest news is being interpreted:

— It's "a sign employers [were] holding the line on firings even as cold weather slowed industries from manufacturing to housing," Bloomberg News says. What's more, "a slowdown in dismissals could lay the groundwork for a pickup in hiring, and more jobs could translate to a boost in consumer spending," which in turn could help give an even further lift to employment.

— The dip points to "steadily improving labor market conditions, despite two straight months of weak hiring," writes Reuters.

— The news signals "steady improvement in the job market," adds The Wall Street Journal.

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

Just hours after a truce was declared, clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces have broken out again in Ukraine's capital.

By early afternoon Thursday in Kiev, at least 21 civilians had been killed, Reuters reports. Those deaths followed the 25 or so fatalities earlier in the week.

After reading Christopher Leonard's The Meat Racket, a broadside against the contract-farming system, I decided to take a closer look at it.

I drove to North Carolina and ended up in the kind of place that supplies practically all of our chickens: A metal-sided, 500-foot-long structure near the town of Fairmont.

In the dim light, I see 30,000 little chicks scuttling around on the floor. "They're 12 days old," explains Craig Watts, who's growing these birds for Perdue Farms.

Perdue owns the chickens. It also supplies the feed that they eat. About a month from now, when the birds have grown to about 4.5 pounds, the company will send a truck to carry them away, and Watts will get paid. But he never knows how big his check will be.

"It's like that test you took in school — you kind of want to know how you did, but you really don't? It's that kind of feeling," he says.

The uncertainty is part of a peculiar payment system that the chicken industry uses. It's often called a tournament. Critics say it's more like a lottery.

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A few times a year, the Treasury Department publishes a long list of names announcing all the Americans who have lately abandoned their U.S. citizenship.

According to a legal website International Tax Blog, the number hovered around 500 a decade ago. Last year, it hit a record high of nearly 3,000.

This was not a gradual change. It was a sudden spike. It's a story of dominoes falling, one after another, leading to an unexpected outcome.

The first domino fell in 2008, when federal prosecutors accused the Swiss bank UBS of helping wealthy Americans hide their money tax-free in overseas accounts. It was a big case, leading to indictments, fines and prison time.

The U.S. Congress wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. During the economic recession, lawmakers saw a chance to bring in massive sums of money and stop tax cheats at the same time.

"They just found UBS in a terrible scheme to encourage tax evasion," Barney Frank, the former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, told NPR in 2009. "I think there are clearly tens of billions that can be recovered there."

The next year, in 2010, Congress passed the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act. The law affects every foreign bank that does business with the U.S. And not just banks; it also applies to retirement accounts, mutual funds, and more.

Renouncing citizenship is not as easy as throwing a passport onto the fire. It's a lengthy process, involving interviews, paperwork, and and legal procedures. So people who do it generally have a compelling motivation. And while individual reasons for renouncing may vary from person to person, experts in the field say the recent dramatic spike has more to do with the 2010 tax law than any other factor.

Wisconsin financial adviser David Kuenzi works with Americans overseas who are affected by the law.

"[Congress] said to all of these institutions, you need to follow this set of criteria to determine all of the Americans who are your clients," says Kuenzi, "and you need to report directly to us on their holdings."

Shut Out Of Foreign Banks

Foreign banks looked at the new law and decided that the regulations would be a huge hassle. Many of them decided to wash their hands of American account-holders.

"They cancelled the accounts of just about every American in Europe," says retiree John Mainwaring, "including me."

Seventy-year-old Mainwaring grew up in Ohio, served in the U.S. Army, and has lived in Munich, Germany, for about 40 years.

After his old German banks kicked him out, he tried to find new ones that would take him in.

"I went everywhere," he says, "to every bank in Germany. The problem is, the ones here don't deal with Americans."

Congress wanted to catch tax cheats. But the net also snagged Americans whose foreign bank accounts let them pay their bills in the countries they now call home.

U.S. Taxes Americans, No Matter Where They Live

The United States is very unusual in this respect. Most countries in the world don't tax their citizens living abroad. So, for example, a Spaniard living in Canada won't pay Spanish taxes. Instead, he'll pay Canadian taxes. But the U.S. taxes American citizens wherever they are in the world.

"If I can compare it to romance, I say the U.S. is like Fatal Attraction," says Suzanne Reisman, a lawyer in London who advises Americans abroad. "Once they've got you, they never let you go. You have to renounce your citizenship, or you have to die."

So today, Americans who don't like the Fatal Attraction relationship are giving up their U.S. citizenship in record numbers.

In Switzerland, so many people want to renounce their citizenship that the U.S. Embassy actually has a waiting list.

"I want to be clear, it's not about a dollar value of taxes that I don't want to pay," says Brian Dublin, a businessman who lives near Zurich. "It's about the headache associated with the regulations, filing in the U.S., and then having financial institutions in the rest of the world turn me away."

Dublin says he is ready to renounce, despite the ties he feels to the country of his birth. "I grew up in America. I love my country. But I just feel that the current regulations are onerous."

Officials from the Treasury Department, the State Department, the IRS and Congress spoke on background for this story. None would talk on tape.

They all generally agree on the facts of the situation. Even so, there is very little pressure to change it. As one Senate staffer pointed out, nobody in Congress represents overseas Americans. And government officials think this law is succeeding at catching the tax cheats. That may be worth the side effect of losing a few thousand American citizens every year.

In an age when consumers want transparency in how their food is produced, meat producers are under the microscope.

And the meat industry is responding: Antibiotic free chicken is showing up everywhere you look.

Industry leviathans Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods have both come out with their own antibiotic-free brands of chicken – something that might have seemed practically unthinkable several years back. In fact, this week Perdue is launching its first consumer advertising campaign for the Harvestland product line – which the company claims is the nation's leading antibiotic-free brand of chicken. The ads urge shoppers to "eat like our ancestors."

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The Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, yet genuine democracy is still a stranger in most of the 15 former republics. Ukraine, where at least 25 people were killed on Tuesday, is just the latest bloody example.

From President Vladimir Putin's hardline rule in Russia to the 20-year reign of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus to the assorted strongmen of Central Asia, many post-Soviet rulers consistently display a fondness for the old days when opposition was something to be squashed, not tolerated.

There are exceptions, but they're rare. The three tiny Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia stand out as countries that regularly hold fair elections, change leaders at the ballot box and have developed strong democratic institutions. They also belong to NATO.

Post-Soviet Leaders

Russia: Vladimir Putin has been president or prime minister since 1999. His current term runs through 2018.

Belarus: Alexander Lukashenko, president since 1994, is often called 'the last dictator in Europe.'

Kazakhstan: Nursultan Nazarbayev became the Kazakh president in 1990, the year before the Soviet breakup. Won the most recent election with 96 percent of the vote.

Azerbaijan: Ilham Aliyev, president since 2003, succeeded his father who ruled from 1993-2003.

Uzbekistan: Islam Karimov, president since 1990, won his most recent election with 91 percent of the vote.

Every year, students come into my office and say, "I don't know what I want to do with my life." Of course, plenty of people in the world don't have the luxury of such cluelessness, but my students don't look like they're enjoying their privilege; they look scared and depressed, as though they've already failed some big test of character. They might find some comfort in Michael Sims' new biography of the young Henry David Thoreau called, simply, The Adventures of Henry Thoreau.

Thoreau's parents, who ran a boarding house and a pencil-making business, managed to scrape up the tuition to send him to Harvard University. When the 19-year-old Thoreau graduated in 1837, he landed a competitive teaching job in his hometown of Concord, Mass.; he quit that job after two weeks because he resented classroom interference by his principal. Throughout his 20s, this Harvard grad helped out in the family business and worked spasmodically as a tutor, caretaker and manure shoveler. He mostly lived at home — with the exception of that two-year stretch at Walden Pond — and he was known round Concord as "quirky."

"How shall I help myself?" The yearning 22-year-old Thoreau scrawled in his journal one night. His answer wasn't practical, but it was profound. "By withdrawing into the garret," Thoreau went on to write, "and associating with spiders and mice, determining to meet myself face to face sooner or later."

Thoreau's youth seemed aimless to himself and others because there were no available roadmaps for what he was drawn to be: A hands-in-the-dirt intellectual who's now hailed as the father of "environmentalism"; a philosopher of non-violent resistance whose writing shaped Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. If Thoreau had committed to a professional career right after Harvard, his parents might have rested easier, but the world would have been poorer.

Many people fervently consider alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden a whistleblower who did a great service by revealing information about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs. His release of highly classified national security documents, they argue, has sparked an important public debate that could ultimately force a needed overhaul of the NSA's surveillance programs.

Others feel just as strongly that Snowden is a traitor who has revealed highly sensitive information to unfriendly countries and put national security at risk. He undermined the NSA's ability to track important developments within al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and in countries like Iran and Russia, his critics argue, and deserves to be prosecuted.

Two teams recently faced off on the motion "Snowden was justified" in an Oxford-style debate for Intelligence Squared U.S. In these events, the team that sways the most people by the end of the debate is declared the winner.

New York City firefighters Sophy Medina and Thomas Olsen don't work together very often, but their first Valentine's Day as a couple was an exception. They worked the same fire that night — and then ended up at the same hospital with minor injuries.

"There really wasn't much romantic about the night it was," Tommy tells Sophy, now his fiancee, on a visit to StoryCorps. "I kept coming over. I sat in your bed and was talking to you."

"We were wearing big, stinky, heavy gear," Sophy recalls. "We're all, like, sweaty, and everyone smells like a foot. ... The only thing that was romantic was the idea that it was Valentine's Day, and that we still managed to spend it together somehow," Sophy says.

The couple are now parents of a baby boy, Luca, who was born in December. "I worry about you when you go to work," Sophy tells Tommy. "When I was pregnant I would think about it a lot, like if something happened to you."

"Yeah, just never know. Blindfold yourself and put yourself in an oven — that's pretty much it," Tommy says. "If you asked me when I first got on the job, 'Oh, you're gonna have kids and marry a firefighter?' I'd be like, 'Never.' But if [a fire] happened on our block, we could take it out."

"You're such a nerd," Sophy replies.

"We'd take it down. You could be my backup."

"I would," Sophy laughs.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher with Emily Kwong.

When Kwagne Elian came down with a high fever, the young woman in Cameroon did what many of us would do in the United States: She went to a private health clinic in her neighborhood.

But unlike the clinic at the local CVS here in the U.S., the one Elian goes to is illegal. And it's the target of a crackdown by the government.

The countries who send large contingents to the Olympics love to watch the "medal count" tally. But at the Sochi Winter Games, the countries with the most medals don't have the most gold medals. That's why by some counts, Germany and Norway are leading the way, while the Netherlands, U.S. and Russia all trail.

In keeping with a trend that began early in Sochi, the U.S. has collected more bronze medals than any other country at the Winter Games. The U.S. is currently tied with the Netherlands for most medals, with 20 apiece. The Americans' 10 bronze medals represent half the team's total.

We don't mean to suggest that an Olympic medal of any type is anything less than extraordinary. One of the most striking stories to emerge from these games was the U.S. skeleton silver medal that thrilled Noelle Pikus-Pace – and the bronze that painfully eluded Colorado's Katie Uhlaender in the same event.

But interesting patterns in the distribution of medals have taken shape as the Sochi Games enter their final days. The U.S. athletes have proven to be adept at either finishing third – or winning it all. In addition to the 10 bronze medals mentioned above, Americans have collected six gold medals in Sochi; they've finished second only four times.

With 435 seats up for grabs every two years, House candidates typically raise more money overall than those running for the Senate, where only about one-third of the chamber's 100 seats are contested every two years.

But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the fundraising gap is especially wide this year: Data show that House candidates have raised more than twice as much as Senate hopefuls at this point in the election cycle. The last time the discrepancy was this pronounced was in 2008, and before that, in 2002.

So far in the 2013-14 cycle, the 866 candidates for the U.S. House have raised $404 million in individual and political action committee donations. The 145 Senate candidates have raised $204 million.

Why the wider-than-usual disparity? It's still early in the campaign year, so there's no single answer. But there are lots of clues.

Here are a few possible explanations:

There were six special elections in 2013 for House seats and two Senate special elections. The House races included a high-profile matchup in South Carolina won by former GOP Gov. Mark Sanford, whose Democratic opponent was Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, the sister of popular comedian Stephen Colbert. In the Senate, Democrat Cory Booker cruised to victory in New Jersey, and Democrat Ed Markey won in Massachusetts.

So far, the election cycle hasn't seen huge-money, self-funded Senate candidates — like Connecticut Republican Linda McMahon, who spent about $100 million of her own money for losing Senate efforts in 2010 and 2012. Republicans David Perdue in Georgia and Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, for example, have each put about $1.6 million of their own money into their current Senate campaigns. But those numbers pale in comparison to the McMahon-level self-financing.

The Senate race map may also be playing a role. In 2010, more than $50 million was raised in three separate Senate races alone — California among them. But this time around, in the four most populous states — New York, California, Texas, and Florida (all home to lots of expensive media markets) — only one of the eight Senate seats is being contested: Republican John Cornyn is running for re-election in Texas.

Sarah Bryner, CRP's research director, notes that while House fundraising is far outpacing that for the Senate, the overall money flowing to individual campaigns continues to shrink as a result of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United campaign finance decision.

That ruling prohibited restrictions on political spending by corporations, associations and labor unions.

"There's now three times as much in independent expenditures than there were at this point in 2010," Bryner says. "Since Citizens United, a lot of money that would have previously gone to the party and to candidates is going to outside spending groups."

Secretary of State John Kerry is continuing a push to move climate change to the top of the global agenda, telling an audience in the archipelago nation of Indonesia that rising global temperatures and sea levels could threaten their "entire way of life."

"When I think about the array of global climate, of the global threats, think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Kerry said in a speech to students in the capital, Jakarta. "All challenges that know no borders. The reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them."

He stressed that 97 percent of scientist agree that climate change is "unequivocal" and that those people who deny the facts "are simply burying their heads in the sand."

"Because of climate change, it's no secret that today Indonesia is ... one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth," Kerry said.

"It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk," he added.

Reuters says:

"Kerry derided skeptics of the view that human activity causes global warming as 'shoddy scientists' and 'extreme ideologues' and he said big companies and special interests should not be allowed to 'hijack' the climate debate.

"Kerry, who faces a politically tricky decision at home on whether to allow Canada's TransCanada Corp to build the Keystone XL pipeline despite the opposition of environmental groups, had little patience for such skeptics in his speech."

Whatever you already believed about raising the federal minimum wage, you now have more ammo for your argument, thanks to a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, titled "The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income."

Yes, you're right: raising the wage in steps to $10.10 an hour by 2016 would push employers to cut jobs - about 500,000 of them, says the CBO, the non-partisan research arm of Congress.

And yes, you're right: the proposed raise would lift nearly a million Americans out of poverty and put billions into the wallets of workers who are eager to spend, the CBO says.

And yes, liberals and conservatives are scrambling to spotlight passages of the report that support their respective political positions.

The White House jumped on the CBO's conclusion that if Congress were to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10, then 16.5 million low-wage workers would get bigger paychecks and could help stimulate slack consumer demand.

"It raises incomes and reduces poverty," Jason Furman, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said on a phone call with journalists.

But while Furman was highlighting the positives, Republicans were pointing to the CBO's conclusion that a $10.10 wage would cause business owners to eliminate about 500,000 jobs to save on labor costs.

"With unemployment Americans' top concern, our focus should be creating — not destroying — jobs for those who need them most," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

Democrats are calling a wage hike one of their top priorities. And polls consistently show the great majority of Americans support that position. Already, 21 states and many cities have imposed higher minimum wages – even as Congress holds the federal wage at the level last increased in July 2009.

But Republican members of Congress say a higher minimum wage would hurt small businesses and eliminate jobs for those who need them most, namely the lowest-skilled workers.

Here are some of the pluses and minuses of a wage hike, as the CBO sees it:

Positive Impacts of a Higher Wage

- 16.5 million people earning less than $10.10 would get a raise. And those already getting $10.10 probably would get raises, too, from a ripple effect.

- After taking into account jobs cut and raises paid out, real income would rise overall by $2 billion.

- The wage boost would allow millions of workers to spend more, boosting demand for goods and services and stimulating growth.

- About 900,000 people would be lifted out of poverty.

Negative Impacts of a Higher Wage

- Roughly 500,000 people would lose their jobs as employers cut payrolls to cope with higher labor costs.

- The federal budget would feel a pinch as the government raises wages for hourly employees. And the government may have to pay more for goods and services as suppliers charge higher prices to adjust to higher wages.

- Consumers could face rising prices as employers pass along some of their increased labor costs.

Whatever you already believed about raising the federal minimum wage, you now have more ammo for your argument, thanks to a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, titled "The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income."

Yes, you're right: Raising the wage in steps to $10.10 an hour by 2016 would push employers to cut jobs — about 500,000 of them, says the CBO, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.

And yes, you're right: The proposed raise would lift nearly 1 million Americans out of poverty and put billions into the wallets of workers who are eager to spend, the CBO says.

And yes, liberals and conservatives are scrambling to spotlight passages of the report that support their respective political positions.

The White House jumped on the CBO's conclusion that if Congress were to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10, then 16.5 million low-wage workers would get bigger paychecks and could help stimulate slack consumer demand.

"It raises incomes and reduces poverty," Jason Furman, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said on a phone call with journalists.

But while Furman was highlighting the positives, Republicans were pointing to the CBO's conclusion that a $10.10 wage would cause business owners to eliminate about 500,000 jobs to save on labor costs.

"With unemployment Americans' top concern, our focus should be creating — not destroying — jobs for those who need them most," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

Democrats are calling a wage hike one of their top priorities. And polls consistently show the great majority of Americans support that position. Already, 21 states and many cities have imposed higher minimum wages – even as Congress holds the federal wage at the level last increased in July 2009.

But Republican members of Congress say a higher minimum wage would hurt small businesses and eliminate jobs for those who need them most, namely the lowest-skilled workers.

Here are some of the pluses and minuses of a wage hike, as the CBO sees it:

Positive Impacts of a Higher Wage

- 16.5 million people earning less than $10.10 would get a raise. And those already getting $10.10 probably would get raises, too, from a ripple effect.

- After taking into account jobs cut and raises paid out, real income would rise overall by $2 billion.

- The wage boost would allow millions of workers to spend more, boosting demand for goods and services and stimulating growth.

- About 900,000 people would be lifted out of poverty.

Negative Impacts of a Higher Wage

- Roughly 500,000 people would lose their jobs as employers cut payrolls to cope with higher labor costs.

- The federal budget would feel a pinch as the government raises wages for hourly employees. And the government may have to pay more for goods and services as suppliers charge higher prices to adjust to higher wages.

- Consumers could face rising prices as employers pass along some of their increased labor costs.

Passage of a bill to increase the Turkish government's control over the country's judicial system on Saturday came down to a real fight in Parliament, literally.

Two members of Parliament were injured — one with a broken nose — during debate over the controversial measure to give the Justice Ministry greater control over the selection of judges. The measure ultimately passed, but not before some minor bloodshed.

The Associated Press reports:

"Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government proposed the bill as it fights a corruption scandal that implicated people close to him.

"Erdogan claims the corruption charges are a conspiracy orchestrated by followers of an Islamic movement which he insists has infiltrated the police and judiciary. The opposition says the bill, which still needs the president's approval, limits the judiciary's independence.

"Media reports said one legislator was hospitalized with a broken nose. Another broke a finger."

The Salt

Have Bitcoin To Burn? Next Stop Could Be The Farm

We've been telling you about the unrest in Ukraine where anti-government protests that began last November have shut down the capital, Kiev. Today [Tuesday], those protests turned deadly.

At least nine people were killed and dozens injured in violent battles between the demonstrators and riot police. Kiev police said the dead included two police officers. News reports said seven protesters were killed.

At issue is Ukraine's future direction. Late last year, President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow, leading to protests against his government.

The New York Times reports on Tuesday's unrest:

"The violence began early on Tuesday when antigovernment activists moved out of their barricaded zone around Independence Square and advanced into a government-controlled district, battling riot police officers with stones and Molotov cocktails in the worst clashes in nearly a month. A group of young militants occupied and set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Party of Regions. ...

"Much of the violence early Tuesday took place along Instyuts'ka Street near Ukraine's Parliament building and the main offices of the government. Protesters hurled stones at police officers sheltering behind a barricade of blazing vehicles while ambulances, sirens wailing, rushed to help people injured in the clashes."

We're heading into the home stretch to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act this year. The open enrollment period ends March 31 for most people.

But there are exceptions. And they are the subject of many of our questions this month.

For example, Diane Jennings of Hickory, N.C., has a question about her young adult daughter, who's currently covered on her father's health insurance. "When she ages out of the program this year at 26, in October," Jennings asks, "she'll have to get her own insurance through the exchange. But as she [will have] missed the deadline of March 2014, will she have to pay a penalty?"

There shouldn't be any penalty. Turning 26 is one of those life changes that allows you to buy insurance from the health exchange outside the normal open enrollment period. In this case, since the daughter knows when this will happen, she can make the switch in advance; you can sign up as many as 60 days before you'll need coverage.

This is a function the federal government just recently added to the Healthcare.gov website. When you log into your account there's a new button that's marked 'report a life change.' You click on that button and it should guide you through the process.

Kaitlyn Grana of Los Angeles is also a young adult on a parent's plan – her mother's. She and her husband are expecting a baby in June. Her husband has insurance through his employer. But, she says, "He doesn't really love his insurance, so we're thinking about covering baby through Covered California," the state-run exchange. "My question is, how soon do we need to do this, and what options are available to us?"

We have several questions from young women on their parents' plans who are pregnant. And it's important to know is that while the health law requires that employer health plans cover their workers' young-adult children, that requirement does not extend to their children's children (although a few state laws require it). So Kaitlyn won't be able to get her new baby covered through her mother's plan.

“ While the health law requires that employer health plans cover their workers' young-adult children up to age 26, that requirement does not extend to their children's children.