Most Recent Posts: 2014-10-12

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Watching 'Dear White People' At Harvard

"It just felt like you were watching your life up on screen, it really did," said Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence, a junior at Harvard majoring in History, Literature and African-American Studies. "I really related to a lot of the characters, especially Sam White. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that's me, this mixed girl who is super militant with her own identity issues."

Simien says he was also Lionel his freshman year at Chapman University, a private college in Southern California. But he graduated as the militant Sam. In a Q and A with the students after the screening, he said he wanted to write characters and situations that were relatable to him. But in an earlier version of the script he took out the blackface party telling himself it was over the top. "I'm doing way too much, I need to pull back a bit," he told the audience. "But, a few months later that happened and I was like, 'Oh, okay. Got it, universe.'"

The universe brought Simien a string of real blackface parties at colleges across the country. Tiffany Loftin was an undergrad at UC Santa Cruz in 2010 and remembers them well. Loftin says it was affirming to see art imitate life at the screening, but she worries Simien might just be preaching to the choir.

"I would love to see a balanced body of white and black people in the theater," said Loftin. "If you have all white people, its problematic because they don't get it; if you have all black people, it's funny and we already get it." And she said, while provocative, the title Dear White People just might scare off folks who need to see it most.

In his question and answer session, Simien responded to that sentiment, saying that the title was provocative on purpose — to create buzz. And he told the Harvard audience they also need to do their part to get people to see it.

"If you are passionate about this and you want to see more complicated, interesting characters of color on the screen, if you want to see yourself represented and reflected in the culture, then you've got to drag your friends to see this movie," he said. "We don't get more of these unless we support it."

Vatican Bishops Scrap Opening To Gays, Divorced Members

A synod of Catholic bishops gathered at the Vatican has decided to eliminate a landmark opening to gays that had appeared in an interim summary of discussions made public earlier this week that had appeared to signal a possible shift in the tone of the church.

The move to scrap the message about gays, as well as one that would have signaled more acceptance of divorced church members, is seen as a sign of deep division in the ranks of the bishops.

The Associated Press reports:

"The bishops failed to approve even a watered-down section on ministering to gays that stripped away the welcoming tone contained in a draft document earlier in the week.

"Two other paragraphs concerning the other hot-button issue at the synod - whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive communion - also failed to pass."

As The National Catholic Reporter's Vatican correspondent Joshua McElwee told NPR when Tuesday's preliminary summary was released, the bishops had said they wanted "to reach out to modern society and walk with people as they apply church doctrine alongside mercy."

But by the time of the their final report today, the language on gays and divorced members was gone.

Meanwhile, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that the mayor of the Italian capital, Ignazio Marino, has defied the a law against gay marriage in the country by registering 16 same-sex marriages celebrated abroad.

"Marino said his decision ... is an important step in the fight for equal rights for all," Sylvia reports.

"The move came after the interior minister, Angelino Alfano, sent a notice to local prefects saying registrations of gay marriages would be voided," Sylvia says. "Registrations had already been under way in several Italian municipalities, including Milan and Bologna."

The Vatican

Pope Francis

Roman Catholic Church

Divorce

same-sex marriage

Drop In Unemployment Raises Debate On Optimal Rate

The U.S. unemployment rate has been falling steadily over the years. Down from the recession peak of 10 percent in 2009, it reached 5.9 percent in September.

That's getting close to what economists call the natural unemployment rate — the normal level of joblessness you'd expect in a healthy economy.

But a lot of economists are asking whether the old rules about full employment still apply.

It might seem counterintuitive, but there is always going to be some unemployment. People are always out there looking for work, says former Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner.

"Even in the best of times you're going to have some positive unemployment rate. There's always going to be some churning in the labor market and that's actually a sign of health," he says.

But how much unemployment is too much? It's not a question people asked much three or four years ago, when the unemployment rate was obviously, painfully too high.

But now that it's dropped so much the question is coming up again. For a long time it was conventional wisdom that unemployment should be around 5.5 percent. If it fell too far below that, economists said, trouble would occur.

"The problem is you can't sustain an unemployment rate that's superlow without some other bad things happening, principally a rise in inflation," former Fed Governor Alan Blinder says.

If the unemployment rate fell below 5.5 percent, economists feared there would be a scarcity of workers. Employers would have to raise wages, and prices would go up.

NPR/Bureau of Labor Statistics

Then in the 1990s something baffling happened: Unemployment actually dipped below 5.5 percent and then kept dipping — below 5 percent, even below 4 percent — with no significant uptick in inflation, Blinder says.

"First thing to say is it was a big surprise to most economists," he says.

How could unemployment fall so low without a significant surge in inflation? Economists have lots of theories. John Canally of LPL Financial says inflation isn't the threat it used to be. He says wage pressures have eased, in part because of globalization.

"In the mid-'70s if you went to your boss and said, 'Hey boss, I need a raise,' the boss would go, 'Yeah, there's probably not anyone else around here who can do your job, so OK I'll give you a raise.' Today if you go to your boss in a lot of jobs the boss goes, 'Eh, you know what? Someone in India can do it for half your price and do it twice as fast. OK, so you're fired,' " Canally says.

Whatever the explanation, economists were forced to reassess their notions of full employment. And today they disagree about just what the natural unemployment rate is. The disagreement extends to the Fed, Kroszner says.

"Some members of the Federal Open Market Committee [the central bank's policymaking body] have said we're very close to our goal, our long-run goal of the unemployment rate being close to the mid-5s and that would be roughly full employment," he says.

Even though inflation remains very low, these Fed members worry that it could resurface.

Economy

Turmoil Continues In Financial Markets As Dow Plunges

But the new Fed chair, Janet Yellen, has made clear she sees things differently. The 5.9 percent unemployment rate, she says, masks an unusual amount of hidden weakness in the economy. There are millions of people working part time who want to work full time. And there are the much-discussed discouraged workers, who have simply given up looking for work and aren't counted on the unemployment rolls.

"Janet Yellen's view, also my view and the view of many economists — but not all — is that for a variety of reasons, some understandable and some mysterious, the unemployment rate is kind of out of step relative to other indicators of the state of the labor market," Blinder says.

That's important because Fed officials will have to decide soon when to begin raising interest rates. And that will depend on how close the U.S. economy is to full employment. That means the officials will have to decide just how relevant the jobless rate is and whether old notions of full employment still apply.

employment

unemployment rate

Federal Reserve

At London's Tincan, Eating Canned Fish Is The Height Of Luxury

In the heart of London's Soho sits a gleaming new restaurant — Tincan. The premise is simple: No kitchen, very few staff, and the menu all comes out of a can. Specifically, canned fish.

To many people, canned food conjures up images of stocking up for winter, emergency rations, or — for Brits — the deprivations of World War II.

"The big challenge we had was how to change the perception of tinned food in the U.K.," says Max Arrocet, one of the directors of AL_A, the architecture firm behind Tincan. He and his team, he says, wanted to "elevate the tin to an object of desire."

Indeed, there's a strong element of buying with your eyes at Tincan. Rows of gourmet-quality tins, beautifully packaged in collectible-worthy cans, are displayed at eye level.

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Tincan sells gourmet canned fish from around the world, though many of the items come from Portugal and Spain, where tinned delicacies have long been appreciated as culinary luxuries. Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan hide caption

itoggle caption Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan

Tincan sells gourmet canned fish from around the world, though many of the items come from Portugal and Spain, where tinned delicacies have long been appreciated as culinary luxuries.

Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan

"This combines our two passions: design and food," Arrocet tells me when I meet him for lunch at Tincan.

The products are carefully chosen not just for taste, but for presentation. "If we have two products that are very close in terms of taste, we will definitely go for the tin that looks better," he says.

Most products on the menu come from Portugal and Spain, Arrocet's native country, where tinned delicacies have long been appreciated as culinary luxuries. On the day I visit, there are over 20 different varieties of tinned delicacies on display. The shelves in the shop behind the counter boast even more options.

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The writer's meal included anchovies and baby squid in their own ink, served with sides of bread and small bowls of salad greens, chopped onions and peppers. Rich Preston hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston

The writer's meal included anchovies and baby squid in their own ink, served with sides of bread and small bowls of salad greens, chopped onions and peppers.

Rich Preston

We order the baby squid served in its own ink, some anchovies and cod liver. The food arrives quickly, unsurprising given that no preparation is needed.

Arrocet recommends the cod with a drop of oil and some sea salt. The squid is my favorite, and goes well with the plate of bread that comes as a standard side dish at Tincan, along with a very small bowl of salad greens. The anchovies taste nothing like what I was expecting: Instead of sharp, salty, "pizza anchovies," these are fleshy, smooth-textured.

Sourcing is a big deal for Tincan, Arrocet says. "Family-run businesses make better products," he comments. His team, he says, scrutinizes the credentials of all of their suppliers. When they first opened Tincan, the owners faced criticism over one of their bluefin tuna products — so they stopped stocking it.

Arrocet thinks canned food is one of the greenest options around: Tinned fish has a long shelf life, there's no refrigeration required in the transportation phase, and even in the restaurant itself, the products don't need to be cooled. Only the anchovies are kept at a low temperature. "But in reality, you don't really need to — we're doing it because that's what they suggest you do," Max says. "So if you think about it in terms of energy efficiency, this is really energy efficient."

Some popular canned fish species, like sardines, can also be a relatively more sustainable option, as well as a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, which is why celebrity chefs like England's Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have been advocating their use in recent years. In Paris, Alain Ducasse has said he plans to use "humbler" fish in his newly reopened, three-Michelin-starred restaurant.

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Max Arrocet, one of the directors of AL_A, the architecture firm behind Tincan, says he and his team wanted to "elevate the tin to an object of desire." Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan hide caption

itoggle caption Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan

Max Arrocet, one of the directors of AL_A, the architecture firm behind Tincan, says he and his team wanted to "elevate the tin to an object of desire."

Paul Winch-Furness/Courtesy of Tincan

"I think there's been a revival in Spain and Portugal in the past few years," says Arrocet, holding up a cookbook dedicated to canned food. "[The Spanish] are getting well-known chefs to give them really simple recipes."

With prices anywhere between $10 and $30 a tin, a meal at Tincan doesn't come cheap. And while fish, bread and a few greens aren't unhealthful per se, critics have noted that they hardly constitute a balanced meal.

"We have a lot of people that just disagree with the whole point of not having a kitchen," Arrocet acknowledges. But, he argues, "most really good restaurants actually use a lot of products from tins. There's no difference with what we do here. There's a sense of honesty: We're saying, 'The product is so good, the chef for this one is behind the tin.' "

Tincan is a pop-up. It's in Soho for six months, and if all goes well, Arrocet says he and his team will consider their options. He'd like to take the concept to other cities — he mentioned visiting the Venice Biennale — and would be open to discussing possible ventures with high-market food halls, or perhaps even a more permanent restaurant.

london restaurants

pop-up dinners

canned food

Hurricane Gonzalo Hits Bermuda; Ana To Skirt Past Hawaii

Hurricane Ana is creeping up on Hawaii, just as Gonzalo is leaving Bermuda behind thousands of miles away in the Atlantic.

Gonzalo, a Category 3 storm when it smashed into the British island territory with winds of 110mph, knocked out power to half of the island's 70,000 residents. The storm has now been downgraded to Category 2 as it continues a northeasterly track through the Atlantic Ocean.

The BBC reported just a short time ago:

"Emergency services are waiting for daybreak to assess the full damage wreaked by the second powerful storm to strike the island in less than a week.

"Strong winds and heavy surf continued after the eye of the hurricane moved north into the Atlantic, and tidal surges are still possible."

Bermuda's The Royal Gazette says: "After a lull during the eye between about 9.30-10.30pm last night, strong winds again battered Bermuda as the Island faced the second half of Hurricane Gonzalo."

Meanwhile, in the Western Pacific, Hurricane Ana "was carving a path south of Hawaii early Saturday, producing high waves, strong winds and heavy rains that prompted a flood advisory," The Associated Press says.

The National Weather Service says that the center of Ana is about 170 miles southwest of the Big Island and about 225 miles from Honolulu.

It says there's little chance of hurricane conditions on the islands.

A third system, Tropical Storm Trudy, is making landfall on Mexico's southern Pacific coast, about 75 miles southeast of Acapulco.

Bermuda

Mexico

Hawaii

Hurricanes

American Soldier, Iraqi Interpreter: From Strangers To 'Brothers'

StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative records stories from members of the U.S. military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Paul Braun is a sergeant with the 34th Military Police Company in the Minnesota Army National Guard. In 2009, when he was serving near Basra, his company was assigned an Iraqi interpreter they called Philip.

Philip came to the U.S. in late 2013, with Sergeant Braun's help, and now they live together in Minnesota. But Philip's wife and children are still in Iraq. Earlier this week, he returned home, hoping to reach his family and bring them back to the U.S.

Shortly before leaving, Philip sat down with Sgt. Braun for a StoryCorps interview in Blaine, Minn. He recalled the first day they met.

"You scared me, dude," Philip says. "Your attitude in the beginning and with your Mohawk — "

"I scared everybody with that Mohawk," Braun says.

"You told me, 'If you try to mess with my soldiers, I will shoot you,' " Philip remembers.

"You smiled at me and said, 'Someday, we will be able to laugh about this conversation while we're drinking tea,' " Braun replies. "And that's when I knew, 'I think this guy will be OK.' We started to trust you, and since you fought with us and you bled with us and you lived with us, you became us. And my Iraqi interpreter became my American brother."

"And my American soldier became my Iraqi brother," Philip says. "I used to hate Americans. You are our enemy, and that's it. And you're the only one who changed my mind. With you, I was talking about the similarity between us as people. It's just about being human there or here."

"I remember sitting down one day thinking, I didn't want to leave you alone," Braun says. "I knew how dangerous it was for you because we saw all those people that were murdered for being interpreters, and I was so afraid that that was going to happen to you. And it took years to get the proper documents to get you over here."

Braun became Philip's sponsor, filing an application with the State Department for a translator's visa. Philip came to America, but left three daughters, a son and a wife back in Iraq.

He says he's scared about going back to his home country to get them, because the so-called Islamic State controls the roads. It will be a dangerous trip.

"I hate to ask you," Braun says: "What do you think your odds of being able to make it back alive are?"

"Let's make it 50-50, man," Philip says. "Like, really, 50-50."

"It's frustrating hearing you talk about the dangers that you're going to go through over there and not being able to go with you to help you," Braun says. "As you helped me, I wanted to be able to help you back."

"I appreciate you saying that, but really, you can't," Philip says. "Just pray for me, that's it."

Philip left for Iraq on Wednesday. If all goes well, he and his family will return to the U.S. in February 2015, and move in with Sgt. Braun.

Audio produced for Weekend Edition by Andres Caballero.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

U.S.

Iraqi interpreter

StoryCorps

Iraq

Predictions Of 'Peak Oil' Production Prove Slippery

The dustiest portion of my home library includes the 1980s books — about how Japan's economy would dominate the world.

And then there are the 1990s books — about how the Y2K computer glitch would end the modern era.

Go up one more shelf for the late 2000s books — about oil "peaking." The authors claimed global oil production was reaching a peak and would soon decline, causing economic chaos.

The titles include Peak Oil and the Second Great Depression, Peak Oil Survival and When Oil Peaked.

When those books were written, worldwide oil drillers were producing about 85 million barrels a day. Now they are pumping about 93 million barrels.

NPR/U.S. Energy Information Adminstration

Despite growing violence in the Middle East, oil supplies just keep rising.

At the same time, demand has been shrinking. This week, the International Energy Agency cut its forecast for oil-demand growth for this year and next.

Turns out, oil demand — not production — is what peaked.

Now prices are plunging, down around 25 percent since June.

What did the forecasters get so wrong? In large measure, their mistake was in failing to appreciate the impact of a relatively new technology, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Because of fracking, oil is being extracted from shale formations in Texas and North Dakota. Production has shot up so quickly in those areas that the United States is now the world's largest source of oil and natural gas liquids, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia.

This new competition has shocked OPEC. Members say they want to maintain their current market share, so they are keeping up production and even boosting it.

Bottom line: The peak of production is nowhere on the horizon.

So are the authors of "peaking" books now slapping themselves in the head and admitting they had it all wrong?

Some are, at least a bit.

Energy analyst Chris Nelder wrote a book in 2008 titled Profit from the Peak. The cover's inside flap said: "There is no doubt that oil production will peak, if it hasn't already, and that all other fossil fuels will peak soon after."

In a phone discussion about his prediction, Nelder said "my expectation has not materialized."

The surge in oil production in Texas and North Dakota "has really surprised everyone," he said. "If you had told me five years ago we'd be producing more oil today, I would have said, 'No way.' I did not believe at all that this would happen."

But while he acknowledges that oil has not peaked yet, he says it might soon because "oil is trapped on a narrow ledge" where it must stand on stable prices. Holding the price of a barrel steady around $110 for years allows energy companies to invest in fracking operations.

The Ebola Survivors Who Can't Go Home

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Meriatu Kamara, 35, lost her husband and two children to Ebola. But she and three of her children survived: (from left) Sallaymatu, Abubakar, Aminatu. They've lived in the survivors' ward for two months. They're from Makeni, a city 130 miles away and haven't yet been able to make their way home. Anders Kelto/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Anders Kelto/NPR

Anders Kelto/NPR

Jusoisatu Jusu, 24, lives in a room in an abandoned hospital ward with her six-year-old son. They've survived Ebola. And now they're stuck.

"It's terrible," she says. "We have a lot of things to do, so we want to get back."

But they can't. They live in a town called Makeni, about 130 miles away. Public transportation around the country is limited or canceled because of the outbreak. And Jusu doesn't have the money to pay for a private ride.

About 30 Ebola survivors live in this hospital ward in Kenema, a city in Sierra Leone. It was once a center for doctors who did research on Lassa fever, caused by a virus that was in Sierra Leone long before Ebola arrived. When Ebola hit, many staff members in the ward died, and the building was abandoned. Now, it's essentially a squatter camp.

Like other survivors, Jusu had to hand over her clothes to be destroyed when she arrived. She's been given one new outfit — a long, green skirt and pink tank top.

"I wash and I wear it the same thing, every day," she says.

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Kitibe, 26, has recovered from Ebola and was ready to go home. Then the hospital told him he might have TB. Anders Kelto/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Anders Kelto/NPR

Kitibe, 26, has recovered from Ebola and was ready to go home. Then the hospital told him he might have TB.

Anders Kelto/NPR

Some survivors are able to go home, but they're not always welcome. Many are told they can't get water from a shared tap or sell food at community markets, says Elizabeth Boakarie, a counselor at the hospital. Every night, she and her colleague, social worker Gladys Gassama, speak on radio shows, telling listeners to stop shunning survivors.

Another survivor at the hospital is a 26-year-old man named Kitibe. "I was tormented when I was in the Ebola ward," he says. "There was [so much] pain within my body."

Goats and Soda

3-Year-Old Ebola Survivor Proposes To Nurse

Kitibe has recovered and is ready to be discharged. Social worker Gladys Gassama takes a seat next to him for a counseling session about life after Ebola. She tells him that people in his community probably know that he had Ebola. She says when he goes home, he should try to educate people about the disease and should not act as if he's contagious because people might think he is.

Then Kitibe gets some bad news. A nurse named Donnell Tholley tells him he will not be able to leave the hospital today because he is suspected to have tuberculosis. If his test comes back positive, he'll have to spend a few weeks, possibly up to six months, in a tuberculosis unit at the hospital.

Only the TB ward is not able to accept him at the moment. So he wanders into the building where other Ebola survivors are hanging out. The room feels like a jail cell — brick walls, metal bars over the windows, a filthy bathroom off to one side. He sits on a wooden bench, next to a teenage boy, and watches the children play with a toy car.

And no one in the crowded room seems to know he likely has a contagious lung disease.

Ebola survivors

Sierra Leone

пятница

How The Florida Governor's Debate Became #Fangate

If there's one thing Charlie Crist is afraid of, it's sweating in public.

Understand that, and what happened on a Fort Lauderdale governor's debate stage this week before a live television audience might make a bit more sense.

Viewers who tuned in Wednesday night to watch Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Crist (once a Republican, now a Democrat) instead saw an empty stage, with moderators explaining about "an extremely peculiar situation." Within seconds Crist strode out and spent the next several minutes lamenting Scott's absence, and how it was ridiculous to argue over the fan at the base of Crist's podium when Florida faced so many important issues, before Scott finally joined him and the debate began.

But what TV viewers didn't know was that Scott's campaign was so agitated about the fan that it was demanding the event be canceled and that the TV station providing the live feed not proceed with the broadcast.

"Why? Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine," Wendy Walker, head of one of the debate's co-sponsors, Leadership Florida, told NPR Friday. "They had a bee in their bonnets about the fan.... I said, guys, do you want the story to be the fan?"

Which is pretty much what happened. Florida media covered actual issues raised in the debate, but nationally the story was the fan. On Twitter it was #Fangate and #Fantrum and #Fanghazi. Predictably, it even made The Daily Show.

Scott campaign spokesman Greg Blair said Scott never refused to participate in the debate, and said his delay was based on "confusion" caused by Crist's violating the no-fan rules. Scott was waiting to see the resolution when he saw the debate had started without him, Blair said.

Crist's reliance on fans is well known to followers of Florida politics. He hates the idea of sweating at a public event, and for years as education commissioner, attorney general and eventually governor insisted on having a portable fan at his feet as he would give a speech or participate in debates.

Crist's debate adviser, former state senator and federal prosecutor Dan Gelber, said the debate rules originally sent to the campaign on July 22 banned electronic devices but made no mention of fans. A later version sent out Oct. 6 did prohibit fans, and Gelber said he hand-wrote an addendum saying Crist could have a fan if "temperature issues" made one necessary. He submitted that to organizers and was told it was acceptable, he said.

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The original July 22 debate rules did not mention fans. The Oct. 6 version prohibited fans. Leadership Florida hide caption

itoggle caption Leadership Florida

The original July 22 debate rules did not mention fans. The Oct. 6 version prohibited fans.

Leadership Florida

And that was where things stood until the night of the debate. When Crist went out to test his microphone, he said he felt too warm under the TV lights and requested a fan, which the campaign then set out and plugged in.

It was not long before Brett O'Donnell, Scott's debate coach, noticed and raised objections. O'Donnell is a giant in the Republican campaign world – the one-time debate coach at Liberty University has tutored George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney as they prepared for presidential debates.

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The Florida Democratic Party has released an ad reminding voters of Wednesday's fan episode. Florida Democratic Party/YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption Florida Democratic Party/YouTube

The Florida Democratic Party has released an ad reminding voters of Wednesday's fan episode.

Florida Democratic Party/YouTube

On Wednesday night, Gelber said, just minutes before the scheduled start time, O'Donnell pointed at the fan tucked beneath Crist's podium and made a big sweeping arm gesture, like an umpire calling someone out, then turned and stomped off.

"The Scott folks went literally berserk. They were just running around screaming at everybody, the station, the people who were hosting the event, Leadership Florida, just going literally nuts, saying they were going to cancel the debate," Gelber said. "It was just the most bizarre thing we had ever seen."

Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association released a statement the day after the debate explaining that the rules banned fans, and the temperature on stage was cool enough not to require them. But Walker acknowledged that the interpretation of "temperature issues" was a subjective one, and that she personally was too busy dealing with a third-party candidate's legal challenge to worry about the possibility of a standoff over a fan.

"Honestly, at the time, it didn't seem like it was going to be a big deal," Walker said.

Scott campaign spokesman Blair said the governor is moving past the fan incident and will be talking about Florida's problems in the remaining days of the race.

The Crist camp, however, seems okay if people think about Wednesday night just a bit longer. The Florida Democratic Party on Friday released an ad featuring the fan.

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

Charlie Crist

World Bank Head On Ebola: Put The Fire Out Where It's Raging

To stop the raging Ebola epidemic in West Africa, "we need to pay attention to where the fire is burning."

That means there is no "magic solution," Jim Yong Kim, the head of the World Bank, told NPR's Steve Inskeep during an interview on Morning Edition. So appointing an Ebola czar to monitor the international response isn't going to suddenly stop the outbreak.

Neither will closing the borders between U.S. and the three hardest-hit countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

To Kim, that's not a long-term solution: "It's like you're in your room and the house is on fire, and your approach is to put wet towels under the door. That might work for a while, but unless you put the fire out, you're still in trouble."

"The way to stop this epidemic from coming at an even higher level in the United States is actually try to stop it in its tracks," he says of the many U.S. health workers who have volunteered to go overseas.

He says what's most important is not only getting protocols in place in the United States but in the three hardest hit countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That means quickly identifying cases and instituting a high level of infection control — not just standard precautions.

"We've got to have very high-quality protective equipment," he says. "When patients get sick we need to provide intensive care."

The good news, he says, is that leaders like President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron has stepped up in their aid. But the response has just been inadequate for an outbreak that dates back to December of last year. "We are only now getting comprehensive plans for how we are going to attack this epidemic," he says.

What's really missing are health workers, he says. "While we can move thing and build structures what we need are skilled health workers who can do all the complicated things you need to stop the epidemic."

Goats and Soda

A Glimmer Of Hope: Nigeria May Have Beaten Ebola

Kim pointed to Nigeria to illustrate the level of intervention needed to stop the current outbreak. With the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, Nigeria was able to contain the outbreak, with 19 confirmed cases and only seven related deaths.

Still, "it cost them $13 million and more than 200 physicians [and] 600 other health workers," he says. "They had to do 19,000 home visits taking temperatures in order to get it control."

He acknowledges that with nearly 9,000 cases so far, there's a lot of work to be done. Yet he's confident that the international community will be able to stop Ebola — although he stresses that "we've got to move much more quickly."

Jim Yong Kim

ebola

World Bank

World Bank Head On Ebola: Put The Fire Out Where It's Raging

To stop the raging Ebola epidemic in West Africa, "we need to pay attention to where the fire is burning."

Neither will closing the borders between U.S. and the three hardest-hit countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"We've got to have very high-quality protective equipment," he says. "When patients get sick we need to provide intensive care."

Goats and Soda

A Glimmer Of Hope: Nigeria May Have Beaten Ebola

Still, "it cost them $13 million and more than 200 physicians [and] 600 other health workers," he says. "They had to do 19,000 home visits taking temperatures in order to get it control."

Jim Yong Kim

ebola

World Bank

W.Va. Pottery Company Keeps Popular Fiesta Line Thriving

"I'm just a hand liner. I put lines on," says Kevin Manypenny. He's been working here for nearly 40 years.

He twirls a plate, dips a brush in brown glaze and paints three delicate lines on the plate's edge. Fiesta is about half of Homer Laughlin's business — the other half is dinnerware for hotels, and the sturdy plates and cups you find at chain restaurants. The plate he's working on is for a Boston restaurant.

Manypenny and seven of his eight siblings — and their parents — have worked at this factory. And there are dozens of families like theirs. Brothers founded the company: Homer and Shakespeare Laughlin — presumably a literary family — jumped on a new fashion for a whiter, more refined dinnerware.

"They were the young whippersnappers in the pottery world, and they were the ones who ended up successfully firing four kilns worth of whiteware before any of the other potteries could, and then they won a prize of $5,000 ... and that's what launched the Laughlin brothers into pottery production on a big scale," says Sarah Vodrey of the Museum of Ceramics across the river in East Liverpool, Ohio, where Homer Laughlin used to be based.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the factory changed hands. The new team built a plant on the West Virginia side of the river, and those long, low factory buildings are still in use today.

Then, in the 1930s, the company created Fiesta: inexpensive, colorful, cheerful dinnerware. It was a hit even in the Depression. In 1948, Homer Laughlin really stepped up the production of plates and bowls. The company designed and built its own machine inside the factory. Dave Conley, a longtime employee and unofficial company historian, calls it "the big, flat automatic."

Credit: The "big, flat automatic" machine allows Homer Laughlin to mass produce multiple types of items at once. (Ross Mantle for NPR)

"You've got three machines here, and each one has two heads on it, so theoretically we could be making six different items at a time," he says. Conley says that's 3,000 dozen pieces — or 36,000 pieces of pottery — every eight-hour shift. (People who make dishes talk in dozens.)

There have been improvements. Computers control the firing now. 3-D printers speed the design process. Ceramic engineers found a way to make glaze shiny without using lead — all in house.

"The people that owned our company have always put profits back into the plant to modernize, and we've always had state of the art equipment [like the big, flat automatic], and I call that state of the art even though that's as old as it is — it's almost 60 years old," Conley says.

Credit: Fiesta salt shakers are sent down the line to be glazed. (Ross Mantle for NPR)

Fiesta Revival

Inside the old buildings, with fog pouring off the Ohio River and drifting into the windows, the ware comes out of the fire, magically transformed — creamy orange, intense red, vivid turquoise. Bright pottery is stacked in bins and crates and piled all over the place.

"I remember the first time I actually went to the facility, and I'm looking around and I'm thinking, 'Boy, am I back in the 1940s or what?' I mean, even the office, it isn't all spruced up," says Bruce Smith, the head of the union representing the pottery workers. "It's the old look, and they're focused on making product and not being flashy." He says while nothing about Homer Laughlin is flashy, the workers do make decent money.

Calling All Fiesta Fans

Brighten your day: Photos of Fiesta dishes that NPR listeners submitted to Instagram. You can submit your own via Instagram; just tag them #NPRfiesta

"They're good jobs and they're making a living, being able to buy a home and raise a family and retire with some dignity," Smith says.

Both management and labor consider that an achievement.

"I'm very proud to have kept this business here in the Ohio Valley. That's very important to us," says Elizabeth Wells McIlvain, the first woman to lead Homer Laughlin, and the fourth generation of her family at the plant. Her immediate family now owns most of the business. Her daughter, Maggie, is an intern in the marketing department.

Homer Laughlin stopped producing Fiesta for a time beginning in 1973. A harvest gold color and an avocado green didn't sell. But in 1986, Bloomingdale's came calling, looking for a retro china for its stores, and Homer Laughlin made a typical, practical decision: restart an old line and revive Fiesta for retail sale along with its existing hotel and restaurant business.

"We have two sides of the business, and that's helped us tremendously because it seems when ... the retail side of the business is flourishing, the hotel side is ... having difficulties, and vice versa," McIlvain says.

Pallets of Fiesta pieces are lined up in preparation for an upcoming retail outlet tent sale at Homer Laughlin in Newell, W.Va. Ross Mantle for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ross Mantle for NPR

It helps that Fiesta has a big fan base. Collectors stand in line for hours to get into the factory tent sales. Fans meet, they swap, they critique the company's color choices. And they wait for the new Fiesta color unveiled each March. (The color for 2014 is poppy, a bold, saturated orange.)

"They always have suggestions. One year they all wanted fuchsia, and they all arrived to Homer Laughlin to go on their tours dressed in whatever fuchsia they had. That was their silent but very loud statement," McIlvain says.

But she offered no color clues for this coming March. "That's a very deep, dark secret," she says with a laugh.

fiesta

homer laughlin

Nigerian Truce With Boko Haram Raises Hopes For Schoolgirls' Release

Nigeria's army has reached a cease-fire deal with the extremist group Boko Haram that could lead to the release of more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted in April and whose release quickly became an international cause.

According to NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, Nigeria's official news agency is quoting the country's defense chief, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, as saying a truce has been reached. Badeh announced the truce and ordered his troops to immediately comply with the agreement, according to The Associated Press.

"I wish to inform this audience that a ceasefire agreement has been concluded," Badeh said in a statement after three days of talks with the militant group, Reuters says.

At a news conference in the capital, Abuja, Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said Boko Haram negotiators had assured the government "that the schoolgirls and all other people in their captivity are all alive and well."

"Already, the terrorists have announced a cease-fire in furtherance of their desire for peace. In this regard, the government of Nigeria has, in similar vein, declared a cease-fire," Omeri said.

According to AP, Omeri "confirmed there had been direct negotiations this week about the release of the abducted girls. Another official said the talks took place in neighboring Chad. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters."

By way of background, AP writes:

"Boko Haram - the group's nickname means "education is sinful" - attracted international condemnation with the April 15 kidnapping of 276 girls and young women writing final examinations at a boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok.

Dozens escaped on their own in the first couple of days, but 219 remain missing. Their plight drew protests around the world with demands that the military and government get them free."

Boko Haram

Nigeria

Hong Kong Police Launch Dawn Raid To Dismantle Protest Site

Police in Hong Kong moved aggressively to dismantle a pro-democracy protest site in the city's congested Mong Kok district, launching a dawn raid to remove metal and bamboo barricades at one of three areas where student activists have staged rallies calling for open elections in the former British colony.

The operation to clear the protest camp after weeks of pro-government demonstrations and sit-ins, "came while many protesters were asleep on the asphalt in dozens of tents or beneath giant, blue-striped tarpaulin sheets," Reuters says.

The news agency says police stormed into the intersection "with helmets, plastic riot shields and batons at the ready from four directions, the deployment of 800 officers caught the protesters by surprise. Many retreated without resisting."

Police gave a short warning on loud hailers before moving in although no direct force was used, witnesses said, according to Reuters.

It was the third such raid in recent days by police who have sought to take back the streets from protesters.

As recently as Thursday, the government renewed an offer of talks with student activists who have called for the resignation of the territory's Beijing-appointed chief executive, Leung Chun-ying and for open elections in 2017.

With the operation to clear the Mong Kok site coming hours later, Occupy Central, the leading student-led activist group organizing the protests, accused Leung's administration of insincerity.

The South China Morning Post, the territory's leading – and largely independent — English-language daily reports:

"The pro-democracy movement questioned the government's sincerity in engaging in dialogue following a dawn operation that returned traffic to the streets in one of the busiest areas of the city in a dawn operation.

"'Police removed barricades in Mong Kok 15 hours after [chief executive] Leung Chun-ying said engaging in dialogue didn't mean the government would not clear the protest sites. We think it amounts to an open insult to the intelligence of Hong Kong people,' Occupy Central said in a statement.

"'If [the government] continues to clear protest sites gradually under the disguise of removing barricades, it would only provoke more people to take to streets.'"

Hong Kong protests

China

Death Toll In Himalayan Avalanches Reaches 29

Updated: 1:55 a.m. ET Friday:

Helicopters on Friday renewed their search for missing trekkers after there were improvements in the weather. Officials in Nepal say at least 29 people are dead — dozens more are missing or are stranded. The government also announced that officials would evaluate rescue efforts after the government was criticized for not doing more to help.

Original Post:

The death toll from unseasonal snowstorms and avalanches in Nepal that trapped dozens of trekkers on the slopes of the Himalayas has risen to 27, with 70 more still missing, Nepalese authorities say.

At least a dozen people are dead on the Annapurna Circuit, and 10 others have been killed in surrounding areas. Many of the dead are foreign trekkers from Canada, Poland, France, Israel, Slovakia and India. At least eight Nepalese are also among the casualties, the BBC says.

The Associated Press quotes Ganga Sagar Pant of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal as saying that some 70 people are still missing along or near the popular Annapurna trail, where the death toll was expected to rise.

The Guardian reports:

"High winds and blizzards hit much of central Nepal this week as the tail end of a cyclone travelling west across northern India reached the Himalayan mountain chain. The head of the Trekking Agencies Association Nepal said there had never been a disaster like it.

"The trekking group is reported to be trapped close to the 5,400m (17,700ft) Thorong La, a pass on the famous three-week Annapurna circuit route. Clear weather has raised hopes that they will be reached before further deaths, though there are concerns that members may be suffering exposure, frostbite and severe dehydration."

The AP says:

"Government administrator Yama Bahadur Chokhyal said rescuers recovered 10 more bodies from the Thorong La pass area, where they had been caught in a sudden blizzard Tuesday.

"The bodies were not yet identified.

"Chokhyal said 64 more foreign trekkers were rescued from the area on Thursday. Two trekkers from Hong Kong and 12 Israelis were airlifted Wednesday to Katmandu, where they were being treated at a hospital."

Nepal

World Bank Head On Ebola: Put The Fire Out Where It's Raging

To stop the raging Ebola epidemic in West Africa, "we need to pay attention to where the fire is burning."

Neither will closing the borders between U.S. and the three hardest-hit countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"We've got to have very high-quality protective equipment," he says. "When patients get sick we need to provide intensive care."

Goats and Soda

A Glimmer Of Hope: Nigeria May Have Beaten Ebola

Still, "it cost them $13 million and more than 200 physicians [and] 600 other health workers," he says. "They had to do 19,000 home visits taking temperatures in order to get it control."

Jim Yong Kim

ebola

World Bank

Hong Kong's Renewed Offer Of Talks With Protesters Meets Skepticism

Hong Kong's leader has revived the prospect of talks with student pro-democracy activists, after his government reneged last week on an offer of dialogue with protest leaders.

"As long as students or other sectors in Hong Kong are prepared to focus on this issue, yes we are ready, we are prepared to start the dialogue," the territory's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told reporters, according to The Associated Press.

The pro-democracy activists have called for Leung's resignation and for Beijing to make good on a long-standing promise for an open election to find his replacement. Earlier this year, the Chinese government insisted it would hand pick the pool of candidates.

NPR's Frank Langfitt, reporting that while the government says it will discuss the 2017 vote, it emphasized that Beijing will never accept protesters' demands for an open election.

Ronnie Tam, who handles Hong Kong's relations with China, spoke at a news conference, saying both sides needed to be "realistic" about the outcome of such talks.

"There are many years ahead for our young students," he said. "If they can step a little bit and look beyond 2017, maybe many of their aspirations could be addressed in future years as well."

Leung said that undisclosed middlemen had been in touch with student protest leaders to convey the government's wishes, the AP reports.

There was no official response to the offer, but The South China Morning Post quotes Civic Party lawmaker Alan Leong Kah-kit as suggesting the proposed dialogue would likely prove one-sided:

"'What CY Leung has in mind is, obviously, to lecture the students, instead of having a genuine dialogue,' he says.

"'But I would hope that the Federation of Students would ... say yes to the dialogue [because] it is important for [Leung's] lack of genuineness to be exposed to both the Hong Kong public and the world by this so-called dialogue.'"

The renewed offer comes on the same day that seven Hong Kong police officers have been suspended for the alleged videotaped beating a protester.

As The New York Times reports:

"The video of the advocate, Ken Tsang, being kicked and beaten in a predawn melee, along with pictures of his bruised body, became an emotion-laden focus for critics of the government after a night of mayhem near the city's heart. They gave a face to accusations that pro-democracy demonstrators have been targeted by an overzealous police force.

"A video filmed by TVB, a usually pro-government television station, showed a bearded man in a black T-shirt being led away by officers in civilian clothes and black police vests, his hands behind him. The video then jumps to a scene in which a man lying on the ground is kicked and hit many times by several figures who appear to be police officers. TVB said the beating had lasted about four minutes."

The talks were first proposed amid heightened tensions as tens of thousands of student protesters were on the streets earlier this month, was first agreed to on Oct. 2, but activists called off the talks the next day after what they described as hired thugs attacked their protest camps.

Hong Kong protests

China

Amazon To Hire 80,000 Holiday Workers

An increase in customer demand is spurring Amazon.com to create 80,000 seasonal positions at its network of distribution centers across the U.S.

That's a 14 percent increase over the number of temporary workers it hired last year at this time.

"We're excited to be creating 80,000 seasonal jobs, thousands of which will lead to regular, full-time roles with benefits starting on day one," Mike Roth, Amazon's vice president of North America operations, said in a statement released Thursday.

The giant online retailer said it plans to convert more than 10,000 of its U.S. seasonal jobs into full-time positions.

Seattle-based Amazon now has more than 50 U.S. warehouses, which the company calls "fulfillment centers." By the end of the year, it will have 15 "sortation centers."

What's the difference? Describing a sortation center in Washington state, The Wall Street Journal writes: "Unlike traditional fulfillment centers where employees sort and prepare items for shipment, this warehouse is full of sealed packages that move along conveyor belts, where workers and computers sort them and prepare to ship them to individual post offices."

Amazon said the sortation centers are "fueling a range of innovations like Sunday delivery, later cut-off ordering times for customers and the ability to control packages deeper into the delivery process."

The Associated Press reports that Amazon is hoping to avoid problems that occurred last holiday season when shippers such as UPS were caught off guard by spiking online orders, particularly from Amazon.

Amazon employs 132,600 full and part-time workers globally, according to The Associated Press.

The National Retail Federation forecasts holiday sales will be 4.1 percent higher than last year, to $616.9 billion. If that happens, the group says, it would mark the first time since 2011 that holiday sales rose more than 4 percent.

Amazon.com

For More Millennials, It's Kids First, Marriage Maybe

Decades ago, an "oops" pregnancy might have meant a rush to the altar. But when Michelle Sheridan got pregnant three years ago, the topic of marriage never came up with her boyfriend, Phillip Underwood, whom she lives with in Frederick, Md.

If anything, it was the opposite.

"It changes the dynamic of the household," she says. "I had a friend who put off her marriage. Got pregnant, and she's like, 'Let's just wait, 'cause we don't know if we're going to be able to make it through this.' "

That attitude reflects a sea change in family life: For the generation under age 35, nearly half of all births are now outside marriage. This family structure, once common mainly among African-Americans and the poor, is spreading across races and into the middle class.

Factor in education, though, and the difference is stark, raising concerns of a new class divide. Among young women without a college degree — those like Michelle Sheridan — 55 percent of births are outside marriage, according to an analysis by the research group Child Trends. For those with at least a four-year degree, it's just 9 percent.

“ I don't want to be in my mid-30s having kids. But I can be in my mid-30s getting married, and it makes no real difference.

- Michelle Sheridan

Like half of all U.S. pregnancies, Sheridan's was not exactly planned.

"We think we mistimed something," she says. "But it wasn't really, like, a bad time, or, I don't know ... it just ... seemed like an OK thing to do?"

"I stared at the pregnancy test for 10 minutes, waiting for it to change," Underwood says.

"But then he got really happy — it was actually really cute," Sheridan says.

It wasn't Sheridan's first child. Her older son, Logan, is 8; his father left before he was born. Michelle spent four years as a single mom before meeting Underwood, and says she felt no stigma or fear about that.

And even though she's now 28 and Underwood is 32, she feels no urgency to tie the knot.

"I don't want to be in my mid-30s having kids," she says. "But I can be in my mid-30s getting married, and it makes no real difference. It's still somebody to spend the rest of your life with."

Like so many children of the 1980s and '90s — the decades when the nation hit its highest divorce rate — both Sheridan and Underwood are also wary about the institution of marriage.

Underwood says when he was a baby — or when his mom was still pregnant, he isn't sure — "my dad left for a loaf of bread and never came back."

Sheridan's parents stayed together but fought a lot.

i i

Diana and Dave Black, both 27, married last year. They're among a shrinking minority of millennials who feel financially secure enough to tie the knot. Jennifer Ludden/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Jennifer Ludden/NPR

Diana and Dave Black, both 27, married last year. They're among a shrinking minority of millennials who feel financially secure enough to tie the knot.

Jennifer Ludden/NPR

"That was hard to watch," she says. "I don't want to go through that, and I don't want my kids to see it."

Marriage And Money

Money is another factor in the couple's choice not to marry. Sheridan spent years as a restaurant server, then as a pizza delivery driver. She got pregnant just as she had managed to start college full-time, with federal aid. Underwood is a car technician, but he was going through a rough patch, workwise.

"It was so sporadic, and it would go from full-time one week to 20 hours the next," he says.

Their apartment is government-subsidized. Things were so tight at one point that they shared a cellphone.

But isn't marrying young and poor and then working your way up the time-honored way?

"That seems terrifying at this point," Sheridan says. "It's hard enough to work up just on your own."

Instead of marriage being a vehicle into adulthood and stability, young adults now see it as the cherry on top, the thing you do once you're established and financially secure. The problem is, that's become harder to do.

"Fifty years ago, when people graduated high school, they could go out and get a manufacturing job and have a pretty good wage, you know, some benefits," says Arielle Kuperberg, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

But those wages have been falling since the 1970s, she says, and the unemployment rate for high school graduates today is about double what it is for those with a college degree.

Kuperberg says it's not that lesser-educated couples don't want to wed. She studied the labor market in 20 cities, "and in cities that had better labor markets for people with less education, there was actually a smaller gap in marriage rates," she says.

The Pew Research Center also recently looked at how the labor market is affecting the marriage market in different cities, and found that never-married women overwhelmingly say it's "very important" that a potential spouse have a steady job. But Pew also found only 84 employed single men for every 100 single women among adults ages 25 to 34.

For Father And Son Locksmiths, The Key Is Hard Work

Phil Mortillaro and his son, Philip Jr., run Greenwich Locksmiths in Manhattan. The elder Mortillaro has been practicing the trade since he dropped out of school after eighth grade.

"I was one of those kids who would show up when school first started," Phil tells his son on a visit to StoryCorps in New York. "Then they would see me again around Christmas time. And then they would see me in June to tell me that I had to do the grade over again. So dropping out of school was — it was inevitable."

If eighth grade seems young to learn the trade, Philip, 27, started even younger. He says he's been doing it ever since he could walk, and his father says he's been around it since infancy.

"I've got pictures of you in the shop when you were in the bassinet," Phil says.

Philip remembers how fascinated he was by his father's job when he was kid. His dad was a fixture in the neighborhood.

"I was literally there since day one," Philip says. "I saw you do it, I was like, 'Ok, I can do this.' Then I kind of realized, man — everyone loves my dad. One half of that is 'cause he's a great guy, but the other half is, like — he's the guy who helps you when even other locksmiths can't help."

Phil says he's always had an inherent desire to solve problems. "I have a sense of usefulness," says Phil, 64. "And that's a big thing in my noodle; you always have to feel like I have some worth."

Phil is first-generation American and says his work ethic comes from growing up with immigrant parents.

"You can never work hard enough," Phil says. "Even when you're working seven days a week they say you're a little lazy. Think about it Philip: When am I ever late?"

"Never," Philip responds.

"When do I ever take vacations?"

"No, never," Philip replies.

"And when am I gonna retire?"

"One day before your funeral?" Philip asks.

"You know it," Phil laughs.

Phil's own father didn't like the locksmith business. He says his father always compared him to his cousin, who, in his eyes, chose a more practical profession.

"My father, he hated my business, man," Phil says. "You know, I had a cousin who became an accountant, and my father used to tell me about him all the time.

"But I think it was the founder of IBM [who] said, 'I'm no genius, but I'm bright in spots, and I stay around those spots.' I like that," Phil adds.

"You raised all of us, man," Philip says. "Five kids and every single one of them did not ever want for anything, man. That's hard to do for someone who just went up to the eighth grade."

"Well, you do your best kid," Phil says. "This is what you do. But honestly your best — not just a B.S. best. And even if you fail, it doesn't feel that bad."

"You're always my barometer," Philip responds. "You never let anyone down. That's what sets you apart."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Liyna Anwar.

W.Va. Pottery Company Keeps Popular Fiesta Line Thriving

"I'm just a hand liner. I put lines on," says Kevin Manypenny. He's been working here for nearly 40 years.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the factory changed hands. The new team built a plant on the West Virginia side of the river, and those long, low factory buildings are still in use today.

Credit: The "big, flat automatic" machine allows Homer Laughlin to mass produce multiple types of items at once. (Ross Mantle for NPR)

There have been improvements. Computers control the firing now. 3-D printers speed the design process. Ceramic engineers found a way to make glaze shiny without using lead — all in house.

Credit: Fiesta salt shakers are sent down the line to be glazed. (Ross Mantle for NPR)

Fiesta Revival

Calling All Fiesta Fans

Do you have a Fiesta collection or a favorite Fiesta dish? Take a picture, tag it #nprfiesta on Instagram, and we may feature it on NPR.org.

"They're good jobs and they're making a living, being able to buy a home and raise a family and retire with some dignity," Smith says.

Both management and labor consider that an achievement.

Pallets of Fiesta pieces are lined up in preparation for an upcoming retail outlet tent sale at Homer Laughlin in Newell, W.Va. Ross Mantle for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ross Mantle for NPR

But she offered no color clues for this coming March. "That's a very deep, dark secret," she says with a laugh.

fiesta

homer laughlin

Nurse Nina Pham To Be Transferred To NIH For Ebola Treatment

Updated at 7:53 p.m. ET

Nina Pham, the 26-year-old nurse who became infected with Ebola after treating a patient with the disease at a Dallas hospital, will be transferred to a high-level containment facility at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in testimony before a House committee that Pham will be admitted to the NIH tonight.

There she will will be given "state of the art care" in a high-level containment facility, he says.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where Pham is being treated and also where she contracted the disease, said transferring Pham was the "right decision."

Testimony from Texas Health Resources Regarding Ebola Response by KERANews

"With many of the medical professionals who would normally staff the intensive care unit sidelined for continuous monitoring, it is in the best interest of the hospital employees, nurses, physicians and the community to give the hospital an opportunity to prepare for whatever comes next," the hospital said in a statement.

Officials have said Pham's condition is good. Another nurse, Amber Vinson, who also cared for index patient Thomas Eric Duncan has also contracted the disease. Duncan died from the disease last week.

Dr. Daniel Varga, a top official from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Duncan was treated by both Pham and Vinson, acknowledged the facility's mishandling of the original diagnosis and subsequent handling of the situation.

"We made mistakes," Varga said in a video link with lawmakers.

Varga's testimony comes as President Obama, for a second day, canceled out-of-town trips to stay in Washington, D.C., and monitor the response to the outbreak. The president had planned to travel to Rhode Island and New York today.

By late afternoon, Obama announced he was meeting with his cabinet again and issued an order giving the Pentagon the power to call up reserve National guard troops if they were needed to help fight the outbreak in West Africa.

NPR's Scott Horsley said this did not indicate a mass mobilization, but was instead the authority to "call up people with very specific skills— e.g. engineering, communications and Chaplains."

Duncan first sought treatment at the hospital on Sept. 26 but was sent home with antibiotics despite a high fever and having told a nurse of his recent travel to Liberia, an Ebola hot spot. Two days later, he returned to the hospital, was placed in isolation and subsequently diagnosed with Ebola. That's when officials believe Pham and Vinson, 29, became infected.

In his testimony, Varga acknowledges that the hospital did not correctly diagnose the disease on Duncan's first visit. "We are deeply sorry," he says.

After treating Duncan but before she exhibited symptoms, Vinson traveled by commercial airliner to and from Cleveland. That has raised questions about why she was allowed to travel with the public and whether anyone in an official capacity cleared her to do so. Her reported temperature was below the threshold set by the agency, and she had no symptoms, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman David Daigle, who talked to The Associated Press. The CDC has said that the likelihood of her passing the virus to a fellow passenger is considered very low.

By Thursday afternoon, however, CDC officials in Ohio began to make contact with passengers on Frontier flight 1142, which Vinson took from Dallas-to-Cleveland.

According to NPR member station WKSU, Dr. Chris Braeden, the head of the CDC team in Ohio, said the widening investigation had to do with the CDC's evolving definition of symptoms.

In an interview with CNN, Dr. Marguerite Erme, the medical director for Summit County Public Health, explained that through interviews, the CDC found out that Vinson may not have been feeling well days before she tested positive for Ebola.

Vinson, Erme said, is believed to have presented with "non-specific symptoms" earlier than first thought, so the people on her flight to Cleveland and those who may have been in a bridal shop while she was there are now considered "contacts."

In a statement issued early Thursday from Texas Health Presbyterian, the hospital responded to allegations by National Nurses United that protocols and equipment were not up to the task of treating Duncan. The hospital says it followed CDC guidelines at the time.

Texas Health Presbyterian also said it would offer a special room "to any of our impacted employees who would like to stay here to avoid even the remote possibility of any potential exposure to family, friends and the broader public," according to a statement late Wednesday, adding, "We are doing this for our employees' peace of mind and comfort. This is not a medical recommendation."

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC, is also expected to testify before the House subcommittee. In prepared remarks, he calls the current epidemic "the biggest and most complex Ebola challenge the world has ever faced."

Frieden confirmed that after Vinson cared for Duncan and while she was being monitored for symptoms, she called the CDC and asked for guidance on whether she should take a flight from Dallas and Cleveland.

"I have not seen the transcript of the conversation. My understanding is that she reported no symptoms to us," he said.

Obama has made ramping up efforts to respond to Ebola a priority and wants to make sure what happened in Dallas doesn't happen elsewhere across the country. He said efforts are being taken very seriously at the highest levels of the government.

"As soon as somebody is diagnosed with Ebola, we want a rapid response team, a SWAT team, essentially, from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible — hopefully within 24 hours — so that they are taking the local hospital step by step through exactly what needs to be done and making sure that all the protocols are properly observed; that the use of protective equipment is done effectively; that disposal of that protective equipment is done properly," Obama said after Wednesday's Cabinet meeting.

ebola

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

President Barack Obama

Navajo Presidential Race Shaken By Language Gap

According to Navajo law, Navajo Nation presidents must speak the Navajo language to hold office. Chris Deschene is a strong contender for the position, but there's a problem: He's not fluent in the language.

The challenge to Deschene's candidacy has become a window into how the Navajo Nation views itself and its cultural future, as well as how Native people continue to define themselves in the face of cultural change.

In August, the Navajo Nation held primaries for candidates hoping to become the next Navajo president. The two men with the most votes were Dr. Joe Shirley Jr., a two-time former president; and Deschene, a military veteran and member of the Arizona State Legislature.

However, within weeks of clearing the nation's primaries with 19 percent of the vote, Deschene was challenged by another candidate who hoped to have him disqualified for lack of language competence.

Fifty years ago, almost 90 percent of Navajo first-graders spoke Navajo fluently. Now, just over 7,000 tribal citizens are monolingual Navajo speakers, and fewer than 30 percent of first-graders can claim some level of language fluency.

Today, the Navajo Nation, much like the rest of Indian Country, faces the prospect of language loss. While the Navajo language is still spoken widely across the Southwest, it's threatened, and Deschene has come to represent that fact for people on both sides of the language divide.

"It's a really personal issue to me," says Melvatha Chee, a Navajo language instructor at the University of New Mexico. "I would like to vote for [Deschene], but I feel like I'm voting against myself if I support him. If I support a nonspeaker, I feel like I'm voting against my own work."

Others feel that they can support their language and Deschene's candidacy.

"If Deschene is told that he can't be president because he's not Navajo enough because of language, that's like telling a lot of young Navajo people that they're not good enough either because they don't speak the language," says Meredith Moss, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University who has focused her studies on Navajo language and sociolinguistics.

At the heart of the matter for Deschene, according to Moss, is the need to use English in the context of being a representative to other nations and groups, but also being an authentic, trustworthy voice at home who can represent the positions of the Nation's elders. It is a struggle between an older generation that is genuinely Navajo and a new generation of tribal members who may see themselves more closely represented by Deschene than by his opponent.

"I think many feel that the youth are being told they're not good enough," said Moss. "They're not Navajo enough, and supporting Deschene is kind of like moving toward the new guard and saying, 'We really are Navajo; we can have that authenticity while moving forward together.' "

For many, language is the embodiment of culture, and tribal languages contain history, cosmology, traditional values and identity. Supporters of the language requirement argue that without tribal languages, Native Americans are lost, and distant from the ancestors who came before them.

But for much of history, this loss of language was not a choice. For centuries, the policy of churches, educators and government officials has been to stamp out tribal languages, through education, abuse, and any other way possible. As the saying went: Kill the Indian, save the man.

By federal government standards, there's no question that Deschene is Navajo, regardless of language. He is a citizen by blood quantum standards. He was born, raised and lives within the borders of the Navajo Nation. He is a participant in cultural events, from social dances to ceremony.

Deschene is also a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Marine Corps veteran. He has earned a law degree. Yet his lack of fluency in the Navajo language may disqualify him from becoming the next president of the largest Native nation within the United States. And people like Chee think that's fine.

"How do we approach teaching Navajo language to children so that we can actually produce speakers?" said Chee. "If I support a nonspeaker then I'm saying, 'You're invalid because Navajo language is not needed.' That there's no reason for it. It's not used."

Deschene himself has spoken out about efforts to disqualify him. "These decisions have sent a message to our young saying despite all your accolades, success and everything you've done to help our people, you're not welcome," he said. "It's separating, dividing and isolating ... and the people deserve better."

As of now, Deschene has been officially disqualified as a candidate by Navajo officials after a series of closed-door hearings. However, election officials have refused to remove his name from the ballot, and early voting is already in full swing in the Navajo Nation. A spokesperson for Deschene says it is unlikely the situation will be cleared up before Nov. 4 and that it's unclear what will happen should Deschene win the majority of votes for Navajo Nation president.

"The people get to decide what their standards are," said Deschene. "For me, as an individual, I know I'm a member of the Navajo Nation. I know I'm a member of our people."

Silicon Valley Companies Add New Benefit For Women: Egg Freezing

In the Silicon Valley arms race to lure the top talent with the best benefits, Facebook and Apple are adding egg freezing for female employees. The two companies may be the first to pay for the procedure for women who choose it to delay child bearing.

The addition of egg freezing to the benefits plan comes as tech companies face mounting pressure to hire more women. And it's a perk that some women may find attractive.

Brigitte Adams started a community forum called Eggsurance, where women can share information about the procedure. Adams paid for the procedure herself. "I froze my eggs at 39," she says, "and there was nothing out there that was specific to egg freezing."

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine only lifted the experimental label from egg freezing two years ago. Adams, a marketing executive at a tech start up, says the addition of coverage for the procedure definitely would give extra weight to a job offer.

Freezing Eggs To Make Babies Later Moves Toward Mainstream

No Longer Experimental, Egg Freezing May Appeal To More Women

"I would equate it to reimbursement for an MBA program," she says, "or adoption assistance, or, you know — it's not the be-all and end-all, but it's definitely a nice perk."

And an expensive one — the benefit covers $20,000 worth of procedures, typically two rounds of egg retrieval. Then again, rich Silicon Valley companies are notorious for high-end benefits that can include gourmet food, dry cleaning, and massages.

Cali Williams Yost, who consults with companies about work/life balance, says covering the cost egg freezing as an elective procedure could help keep some good women employees. (The benefit also is available to employees' spouses.)

"By offering to pay for women to freeze their eggs, I think Silicon Valley is responding to what some of the young, talented women in their workforce want," she says.

But, Williams Yost says enabling female employees in particular to delay having children isn't all that's needed: At some point those workers will have children, and also will need the right benefits then.

"They are going to need the direct supports, the flexibility, the care-giving" she says, "leaves and benefits that actually help them combine work and life. Egg-freezing is a great small piece of a much bigger puzzle."

Facebook told NPR that its offering this benefit because employees were asking for it. In a statement, Apple also said it wanted to make certain its women employees could "do the best work of their lives." Both companies have paid parental leave policies and on-site healthcare. Facebook also subsidizes day care costs.

But Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director at the Center for Genetics and Society, says that expanding benefits to cover egg freezing could put pressure on women to delay childbearing so that their employer can get more hours out of them. Darnovsky is an advocate for the responsible use of reproductive technologies.

"When you're in a situation of your employer offering you a choice," she says, "you really have to be careful that you're distinguishing between something that's an expanded option and something that's actually subtle or even explicit pressure to do what your employer wants you to do."

But, Darnovsky believes there is also a virtue in egg freezing because it does give women more choices and control over their lives.

Egg freezing is no guarantee of having a child, though. Studies indicate that women who have three rounds of egg retrieval at around $10,000 per round have a slightly more than 30 percent chance of giving birth if they are 25 or younger when the eggs are frozen. The closer women get to forty, the lower the likelihood of success. If women limit themselves to the two rounds of egg retrieval covered by the new benefits, that also will reduce the odds.

Eggsurance forum founder Briggitt Adams froze her eggs when she was 39. She says that she didn't do it for career reasons, but to give herself as many options as she could given the circumstances of her life, and that that's why many women she knows did the procedure.

"We're doing it maybe because our life didn't take the course we expected it to, she says, "and we're older and we want to have children and, hey, there's this new technology that may help us do that."

Adams is currently single and she says freezing her eggs has made it easier for her to look for the right partner without feeling as much pressure from her biological clock.

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women in tech

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Free Speech In Hong Kong, Then And Now

I've been traveling to Hong Kong since 1997, when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule. Reporting on the pro-democracy protests in recent weeks, I've been struck by a change in the people here. Many are no longer willing to give their full names when talking about politics and the current protests.

A couple of nights ago I was interviewing a real estate agent in a pinstripe suit on an elevated walkway as police battled and pepper-sprayed demonstrators in the distance.

The man, 27, wasn't a protester, but supported the pro-democracy movement and explained why. When I asked him for his name, he only offered his surname, Wu. I asked him why he didn't want to be identified.

"The speech freedom is just fading out," he said. "I was very confident in Hong Kong 10 years ago, but things change very quick. Everything is getting worse. I have to protect myself at this moment."

Then I asked if I had interviewed him 10 years ago about politics, would he have given me his full name then?

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe, yes."

In the protest tent camp below, I ran across a man named Abe, who was helping to build desks from scrap wood. The main camp stretches across Harcourt Road amid the glass-and-steel towers of Hong Kong's Admiralty district. Using the highway's concrete divider, protesters have built an open-air study hall so students can keep up with their homework.

"I have no experience in carpentry," said Abe, who is Hong Kong-Canadian. "A lot of this is just volunteerism. I see people picking up garbage and I just volunteer."

As Oil Prices Fall, Who Wins And Who Loses?

With oil around $85 a barrel and tumbling to its lowest levels in several years, here's the upside: Gasoline prices are down, the U.S. is feeling less dependent on foreign crude, and serious economic pressure is growing on oil producers such as Iran and Russia.

Here's the downside: The low demand for oil reflects a fragile global economy that's vulnerable to additional shocks, like falling stock markets around the world.

Oil is still a uniquely influential commodity. Whenever prices move sharply in either direction, they unleash ripples around the globe that are both economic and political.

"We've had a three-year period of very stable oil prices," Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations told NPR's All Things Considered. "Three years is a long time. People were starting to believe that this was permanent. And they were wrong. So the big news is that volatility is back, that big swings are what we should expect."

With the prices down around 25 percent since hitting $112 a barrel in June, here's a roundup of the impact worldwide:

Political Turmoil, Falling Prices: Something strange is happening. Three key oil producers (Iraq, Libya and Nigeria) are mired in domestic turbulence, and Iran's oil exports have been dramatically reduced by international sanctions.

In years past, trouble in these countries might have instigated panic in the oil market, driving up prices dramatically. But today, there's plenty of oil to go around for several reasons. Production in the United States is surging, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have continued to pump at high levels, and overall global demand is weak.

While these conditions may not last, they do reflect what's been the steady loss of clout among big oil producers, particularly those in the Middle East.

The U.S. is producing more of its own oil and is buying the remainder from a wide range of mostly stable countries. The leading foreign supplier is Canada. Middle Eastern nations account for just three of the top 10 exporters to the U.S., and they account for around 10 percent of U.S. oil needs.

Russia's Lukoil launched this oil field in western Siberia on Oct. 8. Russia is heavily dependent on its oil exports and is now facing financial problems as world oil prices drop sharply. The country is also facing Western economic sanctions. Olesya Astakhova /Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Olesya Astakhova /Reuters/Landov

Russia And Iran: From the U.S. perspective, one of the benefits of falling oil prices is the pressure they place on Russia and Iran. Both countries are heavily dependent on oil exports at high prices. They face the double whammy of Western sanctions that are also biting.

Russia needs an oil price of $100 a barrel and Iran needs around $130 a barrel to balance their budgets, according to The Economist.

The financial hurt these countries are facing could have political implications.

Russia is at odds with the West over its annexation of Crimea and its ongoing role in Ukraine's turmoil. Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently opted for confrontation, but the price for that position is getting steeper. Putin pushed back against a request for higher government spending this week, citing reduced government revenue from energy production.

"You know that energy prices have fallen as well as for some of our other traditional products," Putin said. "Due to that, would we not, on the contrary, reconsider the budget toward reducing some spending?"

Iran, meanwhile, is negotiating on its nuclear program with the international community and is also waging a proxy war with Saudi Arabia for power and influence throughout the Middle East.

This is one likely reason the Saudis have been willing to pump oil at high levels even though that's contributing to low prices. The Saudis publicly cite a business motive, saying they want to maintain their current share of the oil market. But the Saudis are also well aware that low prices mean less money for archrival Iran.

i i

Oil wells near McKittrick, Calif., one of the places where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the rise. The U.S. became the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia and pumping some 11 million barrels a day. David McNew/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption David McNew/Getty Images

David McNew/Getty Images

U.S. Production: Despite soft demand, U.S. oil production is rising again this year due primarily to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The U.S., which became the world's largest natural gas producer in 2010, is now the world's largest oil producer this year, surpassing Saudi Arabia this year and pumping around 11 million barrels a day.

The average U.S. gas price is $3.17 a gallon this week, down around 15 percent since June, according to GasBuddy.com. The lower price at the pump effectively serves as a stimulus for consumers that can encourage increased spending to stimulate the economy.

"It's quite possible that Christmas shopping will be much better this year because consumers will be spending less for gasoline," economist Philip Verleger told NPR's Morning Edition.

While lower energy prices benefit most of the country, they could deliver a blow to oil-producing states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota. If prices go down and stay down for an extended period, energy companies could cut back on production and investment.

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