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On China's cyberwarfare capabilities

The thing that China has going for it that we do not have is people. The number of people within the People's Liberation Army, within the sort of intelligence apparatus of China, which is a very opaque system in its own right, is believed to be thousands of people, who are basically hired hackers who spend much of their day aggressively trying to penetrate the computer networks of U.S. corporations especially. China is sort of gathering information that they can then pass on to Chinese businesses and corporations that give them a leg up in negotiations and in the global marketplace. They're trying to advance their economy very quickly and stealing information to do it.

Less clear is how sophisticated their sort of military offensive apparatus is compared to ours. For instance, if China ever went to war with us in the South China Sea, let's say, how sophisticated and how good would their hackers be trying to break into our naval systems and confuse our ships? We know less about that but I think the conclusion we have to reach is that because they're having so many more people doing this than we do — I mean, we have a few thousand — that China is a really formidable force. And that makes a lot of sense that they would put so many resources in this. China will never be able to, at least in the near future, challenge us in a conventional military way. They can't go head-to-head with us on land or on the sea. Cyber is a place where they can gain an extraordinary advantage and do a lot of damage.

On the U.S. government positioning itself as a victim

The United States government loves to come out and talk about how relentlessly we're being hacked and how our intellectual property is being stolen from our businesses. And that's true.

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But what that covers up is that we are also one of the most aggressive countries going out there breaking into other countries' systems and spying on them. And we are one of the few countries that we know of that has launched offensive operations in cyberspace. We have used computer viruses to break infrastructure, physical things that are connected to computer networks. Very few countries are known to have done that.

I think one of the reasons why U.S. officials have been keen on showing how we're victimized is because they believe that U.S. businesses have not done enough to secure their own computer networks. From the government's perspective, they can't go in and necessarily force those companies (at least not yet) to improve their defenses, so it's been sort of more of a strategic, rhetorical calculation on the part of the government to come out and say, "We're victimized, it's terrible, lots of information is being stolen, and the only way we can stop this is you corporations have to do better security and work with us and let us help you do that."

So there's a reason why the U.S. has tried to play that victim card so repeatedly: It's because they want to get results from private businesses.

Read an excerpt of @war

Suzan Shown Harjo

Suzan Shown Harjo, who is Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, has long been an advocate for Native American rights.

Before she petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the federal trademark registrations for the Washington Redskins, she had already successfully stopped other sports teams from using names and mascots demeaning to Native American cultures.

She worked with Native American activist groups to get the University of Oklahoma to retire its mascot "Little Red" in 1970. Soon after, and with pressure from Harjo and these groups, Dartmouth University retired the "Indian" as its unofficial mascot. In the mid-1990s, Harjo persuaded the Kentucky Department of Education and schools to change all the school names and mascots that were Native American stereotypes.

In the 1960s, Harjo co-produced Seeing Red, the United States' first Native American news program, at New York radio station WBAI. There, she met her husband, Frank Harjo, with whom she reported on New York's vibrant Native American community. Her involvement in the local art scene is what initially sparked her interest in work advocating for the repatriation of sacred Native cultural objects held by museums. In 1974, Harjo began working as a legislative liaison representing Native American rights in addition to serving as the news director of the American Indian Press Association.

Under President Jimmy Carter, Harjo served as a congressional liaison for Indian affairs and supported Native American positions in the formation of federal policy. In this role, she worked toward the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, which was intended to protect the traditional religious and cultural practices of Native Americans, Alaskans and Hawaiians.

She helped found the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and served as a founding trustee in the 1990s. Harjo was also the guest curator and general editor for a 2014 exhibition and book at the museum about treaties between the United States and Native American nations. Currently, Harjo serves as the president of the Morning Star Institute, a national Native American advocacy organization.

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Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, talks with reporters on Capitol Hill in 1997. Joe Marquette/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Joe Marquette/AP

Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, talks with reporters on Capitol Hill in 1997.

Joe Marquette/AP

Patsy Mink

Patsy Mink (nee Takemoto) was born in 1927 to Mitama Tateyama and Suematsu Takemoto, second-generation Japanese-Americans living in Maui, Hawaii. Her grandparents had immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century in search of opportunity and found work in Hawaii's sugar cane plantations. Her family's pursuit of the American dream butted up against intense xenophobia in the years following the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, and those experiences deeply affected her ideas of what it meant to be an American.

Maui's racially stratified plantation economy would come to inform Mink's own politics for the rest of her life. Early in her career, Mink aligned herself with Hawaii's Democratic minority in opposition to the historically Republican establishment.

Long before she became a lawmaker, Mink planned to practice medicine. According to the Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, she was rejected from the 20 medical schools that she applied to on the basis of her gender. Undeterred in her resolve to make a difference, Mink worked a number of menial jobs before an employer recommended that she apply to law school.

Mink believed that the University of Chicago Law School admitted her in 1948 because a clerical error misidentified her as a foreign student. After graduating with her J.D. in 1951, Mink still found virtually no career prospects open to her as a female, Japanese-American lawyer.

She moved back to Hawaii with her husband and daughter. With a loan from her father, Mink founded her own practice, where she specialized in criminal and family law. In addition to being the first Japanese-American female lawyer in the state and teaching at the University of Hawaii law school, Mink became involved in politics there.

Mink would eventually win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and she became a prominent Asian-American voice in the early days of the civil rights movement, joining the NAACP in the 1960s. In 1972 she threw her hat into the ring and became the first Asian-American to run for the United States presidency, campaigning on an anti-war platform.

Though Mink did not ultimately secure the Democratic Party's nomination, she cemented her legacy as a legislator that same year when she co-sponsored Title IX of of the United States Education Amendments. Title IX forever changed the way institutions of higher education welcomed women.

Two years later, she introduced the Women's Educational Equity Act, which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford and outlines federal protections against gender discrimination of women in schools. After Mink returned to Congress in 1990, she co-sponsored a bill intended to combat gender bias in grade school, and in 1995 she organized and led the Democratic Women's Caucus.

Mink served in the House until her death in September 2002.

Edward Roybal was known for his advocacy on the issue of creating services for the aging U.S. population as well as championing civil rights. The USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging hide caption

itoggle caption The USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging

Edward Roybal

Edward Roybal was a groundbreaking politician who became a role model for a generation of Latino elected officials. He served as the founding chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was one of first Hispanic lawmakers to hold national office in the 20th century. In the 1970s, Roybal also co-founded the National Association of Latino Elected Leaders and Appointed Officials to help more Latinos carry out successful bids for public office.

Roybal began his political career in 1949, serving on the Los Angeles City Council, an experience he recounted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. At his first meeting, Roybal balked when a colleague introduced him as "our new Mexican-speaking councilman, representing the Mexican people in his district." Discarding his prepared remarks, Roybal responded by explaining that he was not Mexican but Mexican-American and did not speak "Mexican" but Spanish.

During his time on the council, Roybal worked with local political organizations to launch voter registration drives and efforts to stop police brutality. Roybal left the council for the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962, where he would serve for the next 30 years. As a representative from Los Angeles, Roybal supported measures that restored cuts to senior citizens' health care programs, funded AIDS research in the early 1980s and created bilingual education programs.

Roybal's congressional career wasn't always smooth. In 1978, he was targeted by the House Ethics Committee for failing to report a political contribution. He received a reprimand after several House colleagues and Latino leaders from around the country came to his defense.

Roybal ended his career in Congress in 1993. Within California's political circles, he became known as "The Old Man," whose endorsement could play a decisive role for political victories. His daughter, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, began serving in Congress in 1993 and currently represents California's 40th District.

Roybal was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001 by then-President Clinton. He died in 2005, at age 89.

Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary. Jews call it the Temple Mount. On the contested hilltop that has been the focus of so much of the unrest in Jerusalem, Muslims who see themselves as "defenders" of the sanctuary raise their voices in a call to God whenever Jewish visitors enter.

These mourabitoun (men) and mourabiat (women) have gained attention during the recent weeks. Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they should be outlawed. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded a few days later with the proclamation "We are all mourabitoun." In the same speech, he accused Netanyahu of fanning the flames of a religious war.

During visiting hours for non-Muslims one day this week, all was quiet on the broad plaza for a while. Israeli police in riot gear lounged at the entrance. Boys played soccer in a grove of olive trees.

Muslim men and women sat in shady spots between the gilded Dome of the Rock shrine dominating the sanctuary and the more modest Al-Aqsa mosque at one end.

Then a man wearing a Jewish skullcap arrived. As soon as the Muslim groups spotted him, they called out Allahu Akbar – Arabic for "God is great."

During visiting hours for non-Muslims, Israeli police patrol the holy site, which sits on a Jerusalem hilltop. Emily Harris/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Emily Harris/NPR

Zaina Ahmer has gone there daily for more than a decade. She teaches classes about the sanctuary and acts as a guide.

"Our purpose is to educate," she says, "not to create chaos. But when we are provoked, we call attention to wrongdoing. The Jewish people who claim to come as tourists really want to take over. When we call out 'Allahu Akbar,' we are rejecting their presence here."

Things can quickly escalate from cries of "God is great." Police say they have been attacked with chairs, rocks and fireworks. Muslims say they have been hit by Israeli forces, injured by sound bombs, arrested and banned from entering. A video [http://youtu.be/VIqgJE6-zgc ] one woman "defender" posted on YouTube shows police chasing and surrounding her after she got up close to a Jewish visitor, calling out "Allahu Akbar."

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says the mourabitoun aim to disrupt.

"We're talking about groups that get organized, walk around the Temple Mount, and try and disrupt the visits by shouting or screaming," Rosenfeld says. "There have even been cases where women have thrown stones at individuals and VIPs who have been walking on the Temple Mount."

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Police have started to crack down. This week, Elham Ibrahim waited two hours with a group of women before police would let them in.

"I come as much as I could, you know. I send my son off to school, then I come here," Ibrahim says. "When I don't come here, I'm missing something. Something is really missing."

She takes religious classes at the mosque and adds to the Muslim presence during tourist hours. But she doesn't yell at visiting Jews, she says.

"They have video cameras, they're taking videos of whoever's saying 'Allahu Akbar.' I have a family, with kids, you know and I wouldn't want to be taken. I wouldn't want to be arrested."

Jews debate among themselves whether they should visit the site. Many believe it is too sacred to set foot on. Others say it's too sensitive politically. Israel bans Jewish prayer at the site, a policy that more than one-third of Jewish Israelis want lifted, according to a recent poll.

Muslim Akram Shurafa says Jews who want to pray there are intruders. He doesn't believe their motivations are solely spiritual.

"We do not consider this aggression religious," he says, referring to increased visits by Jewish believers to the site. "We see it as aggression from extreme Jews who want to claim the sanctuary and take it for their own.

"This is explosive," he says.

Both Israel and Jordan, the official custodian of the site, promised after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday to take concrete steps to calm tensions around the contested holy site. Israel is also considering measures like adding electronic security to the gates Muslims enter. That is unlikely to please at least some of those who consider themselves the mosque's "defenders."

Temple Mount

Palestinians

Arab-Israeli conflict

Jerusalem

Israel

What do you get when you mix big-deal comedians with real-life calamities? Sounds like a joke, but Steve Carell and Jon Stewart are answering that question this week in their movies Foxcatcher and Rosewater. And it turns out, seriousness suits them.

In fact, you'll likely do a double-take when you first see Carell's John Dupont in Foxcatcher. Maybe when you first hear him, too. He's the black sheep of the wealthy gunpowder-magnate family circa 1988, and he's all but unrecognizable behind a putty nose and a flat vocal affect that makes words and phrases emerge from him in what sound like burps.

Talking to an Olympic wrestler he's hoping to impress, Carell's Dupont is pasty, heavy, awkward, and when he flashes what he apparently intends as a pleasant smile, it's downright disquieting.

Mark Schultz, the gold medalist he's inviting to train at a facility he's built on his Pennsylvania estate, is played by Channing Tatum with a leaden affect and the wounded look of puppy who's been kicked too often. Mark is the younger of two Olympic medalists in his family. His brother Dave, played with more grace and verve by Mark Ruffalo, has prospered since his Olympic win. Mark, who won later, stalled out quicker, and now, to escape his brother's shadow, he signs on with Dupont, who showers him with money, sparring partners, cocaine, and inspirational speeches that sound increasingly unhinged.

"I am leading men," says Dupont. "I am giving them a dream and I am giving America hope."

A more astute man might realize his patron is ... well, maybe nuts, but Tatum's Mark isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and just gets himself, and later his brother, in deeper.

Director Bennett Miller is no stranger to sports or personal eccentricity in his films, having directed both Moneyball and the Truman Capote biopic Capote. In Foxcatcher, Miller uses three superb performances to take us deep into a privileged world where the choreographed struggle of wrestling mixes toxically with the psychological struggles of familial disappointment. The film does not — or maybe cannot — explain the inexplicable: the acts of a mentally ill man. But it can make the plight of those in that man's orbit profoundly anguishing.

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Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart. Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films hide caption

itoggle caption Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart.

Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

You might expect anguish from Rosewater, a film drawn by Jon Stewart from BBC journalist Maziar Bahari's book about surviving solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. But while the film can be unnerving as it details the dangers of reporting on opposition demonstrators after Iran's elections, it's also steeped in the sort of humor you'd expect from Stewart, who both wrote and directed the movie. In fact, Stewart's connection with the story was more than moderately intimate: A Daily Show interview done by the real Bahari was used against him in jail. Stewart has actor Gael Garcia Bernal re-enact it with Jason Jones.

Funny to American ears, the sketch, in which Jones claims to be a spy, becomes less funny when Bahari's thrown in prison four days after it airs, and has to defend himself to an interrogator as "just a journalist."

The interrogator — an excellent Kim Bodnia — calls up the interview on his computer.

"Can you tell me," he wonders, "why 'just-a-journalist' would meet up with an American spy?"

Bahari, laughing, tells him it's a comedy show, that Jones is a comedian pretending to be a spy, but that doesn't even blunt the line of questioning.

"So can you tell me why an American pretending to be a spy has chosen to interview you?"

Jon Stewart took several months off from Comedy Central to make this movie last year, and painful as that sabbatical may have been for fans, it turns out to have been worthwhile. Rosewater (the title references the cologne by which the usually blindfolded Bahari recognizes the interrogator) has an urgency that's all about the storytelling smarts of its first-time writer-director. It's also got first-rate acting, the nuance about media manipulation you'd expect from Stewart, and even cinematic grace notes, as when Bernal, in a burst of antic feeling after months of isolation, dances in his cell, remembering a Leonard Cohen song his sister played for him as a child.

Rosewater — and Foxcatcher, too — could doubtless have been anchored by other talents. Their stories needn't have reached us, tears-of-a-clown-style, through Jon Stewart and Steve Carell. But the involvement of those comics proves a remarkable blessing, at least partly because it connects us to their sense of discovery.

What could be more astonishing, after all, than being moved by those we look to for laughter.

With gas and oil prices plunging, among those benefiting are airlines. With fuel prices down, profits are up, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to find cheap airfares, especially over the holidays.

The airline industry is predicting more people will take to the skies over Thanksgiving than any year since the start of the recession.

The weather in Chicago is not quite frightful yet, but the snow and cold is coming; so warm weather destinations for the holidays sound appealing.

Those are the kinds of inquiries travel agent Giselle Sanchez of Mena Travel is fielding. After a few very slow years during the recession, Sanchez says business is really picking up.

"We are seeing a lot of families wanting to take trips and planning their trips, so we do see more people wanting to travel now," Sanchez says. "Is it back to where it was before? Not yet, but I think it's getting there."

But that means planes are packed tight, and because demand is rising, fares are up, especially over the two weeks when schools are out over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Thanksgiving weekend fares are higher than last year, too, especially if you want to fly on the Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving.

“ So far this year, airlines have earned more than $2 billion more than at this time last year — but that doesn't mean passengers can expect air fares to drop anytime soon.

The airline industry is expecting 24.6 million passengers on planes around Thanksgiving, up 1.5 percent over last year. And a whopping 2.6 million of those travelers will fly on that Sunday.

"Sunday is not only expected to be the busiest day of the period, but if last year's an indication, it should be the busiest day of the entire calendar year," said John Heimlich, chief economist for the industry group Airlines for America.

In a conference call with reporters this past week, Heimlich noted that dropping fuel prices are pushing up profits. So far this year, airlines have earned more than $2 billion more than at this time last year.

But he says that doesn't mean we can expect air fares to drop anytime soon.

"The first priority is to make sure you have strong financial health, can pay down your bills and invest in the future and weather the next recession," Heimlich said.

Back at Mena Travel in Chicago, Giselle Sanchez is looking to find a bargain around Christmas.

"See all these zeroes? When you see zeros in all inventory, that means it's a pretty full flight," she says.

Sanchez says she can still find some low fares, even around Thanksgiving — if you fly on certain days.

But with the convenient flights packed, to get the deals, you might need to take some extra days off.

Thanksgiving

Travel

Holidays

Valerie McMorris has served drinks at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., since it opened 24 years ago.

Casinos have sustained McMorris most of her life; both of her parents worked in casinos, she says. "It just allowed so many people a middle class status."

But McMorris says that's changing. Her pay and benefits have been cut. Her husband lost his job at the Revel, a gleaming $2.4 billion casino that went bust this year.

Four of the city's dozen casinos have closed so far in 2014, eliminating nearly one-tenth of Atlantic City's jobs. Unemployment now stands at nearly 11 percent. And with Trump Taj Mahal set to close next month, another 3,000 casino workers stand to lose their jobs — unless the casino's bankrupt parent company strikes a last-minute deal with its billionaire creditor, Carl Icahn.

McMorris says neighbors and friends are moving elsewhere. She'd like to apply for teaching jobs, "but even teaching jobs in this area, they're hard to find," she says. "Because a lot of people can't afford to live here anymore. So they're moving out of New Jersey."

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I'm interviewing McMorris at Burger, a restaurant in the Taj Mahal that now only opens when there are enough customers. These days, that's about once a week. As the city loses gaming clientele to neighboring states, state and local officials are scrambling to try to bring jobs back, by building retail and a new conference center, and repurposing casinos.

Oliver Cooke, an economist at Stockton College, says the city should focus more on growing companies outside hospitality.

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He says "the whole point is to somehow kind of move your city or your metropolitan economy, kind of up the value chain. What you hope, of course, to foster is kind of high-wage-led development, as opposed to traditionally low-wage growth."

John Palmieri, executive director of the state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, says the city is trying to do just that. "We are fully attuned to the fact that we need to replace the jobs lost with new jobs, but that won't happen overnight," he says.

Palmieri wants to attract higher-paying jobs — "meds and eds, as they say, people who work in hospitals and education. He says the aerospace research park near the city's airport could expand as a tech center.

But he acknowledges that the local workforce, with a low percentage of college graduates, isn't quite ready.

"We have certain distress factors that we deal with," he says. "It's a poorer population. Education's an issue."

So is urban blight. Layoffs and closures have left their mark around the city, with restaurants and businesses boarded up and dark.

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Layoffs and closures have left their mark across Atlantic City, with boarded up businesses and restaurants lining the streets. Rob Szypko/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rob Szypko/NPR

Layoffs and closures have left their mark across Atlantic City, with boarded up businesses and restaurants lining the streets.

Rob Szypko/NPR

As buildings fall into disrepair, the quality of jobs is also eroding, says Paul Smith, a veteran cook at the Taj Mahal. Smith, whose colleagues call him Smitty, is a single father who raised two boys in Atlantic City. Like many others, his main worry is losing health care coverage.

"I need another surgery," Smith says. "Without the benefits, I can't have it."

Last month, the bankruptcy judge approved cuts to work hours and health and pension benefits for Taj Mahal workers. The workers union, Unite Here! Local 54, is appealing the cuts.

Smith, other workers and their union president all say they're fighting to maintain a standard. They worry that any concessions on benefits in a down market like this one would become permanent and would be applied across what remains of the city's casino industry.

"If we do give up our benefits, I mean, I'm not willing to sacrifice the standard for the rest of Atlantic City to change," Smith says. "I would rather this building close."

Trump Entertainment, Taj Mahal's parent, says that if the union fights the cuts, the company will close the casino Dec. 12.

gambling

Atlantic City

New Jersey

Unemployment

casinos

In gambling, they say, the house always wins. But that hasn't been the case in Atlantic City this year. By year's end, the city that once had an East Coast monopoly on gaming may lose its fifth casino.

The city is reeling from the closures. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that the first order of business is to "stop the bleeding." So city and state officials are trying to reposition Atlantic City by literally building it up.

For a city with lots of closed shops and casinos, there's also a fair amount of new construction here. Across from the shuttered Trump Plaza, Mayor Don Guardian proudly shows off what will be a Bass Pro outdoor goods store occupying a whole city block.

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Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian stands in front of an outdoor goods store under construction. The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority contributed land and $12 million for the project. Rob Szypko/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rob Szypko/NPR

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian stands in front of an outdoor goods store under construction. The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority contributed land and $12 million for the project.

Rob Szypko/NPR

The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority chipped in land and $12 million for the project. It will employ 290 people, Guardian says, "so that's real good for the city as well."

In trying to recast itself, Atlantic City must partially wean itself from its biggest industry: gaming. It lifted the city out of disrepair four decades ago, but over the years, Guardian says, the city became too dependent on it.

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"The city was happy, because it provided decent jobs with benefits and it paid the taxes, but we lost everything else," Guardian says. "You lose your whole entrepreneurial spirit."

From Casino Hotspot To Conference Host

Guardian and redevelopers want to do what Las Vegas did two decades ago, on a smaller scale: branch out into more entertainment and conference and event hosting.

Nine million pounds of steel went into the structure that will become the Waterfront Conference Center in Atlantic City, says Rick Mazer, regional president of Caesars Entertainment. The center is being built with substantial backing from Caesars and the casino reinvestment authority.

Inside the adjacent casino and hotel, a food industry and teachers' convention are taking place. That's perfect, Mazer says, because meetings fill in weekdays and off-season months when the summer gaming season falls off.

"This is the business that I think will evolve and regrow Atlantic City," he says.

But some are skeptical about the potential payoff from new construction. Standing on the city's famous boardwalk in front of the darkened Trump Plaza, Oliver Cooke, an economist at nearby Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, says city officials have an uphill battle.

"You simply are not going to consume your way out of the morass that you're in," he says. "Doing things like building more retail, building more convention centers, has a very, very limited upside."

Early this year, the Atlantic Club and Showboat casinos closed. The $2.4 billion Revel opened and closed within 10 months. Then Trump Plaza. And next month, the Trump Taj Mahal could close as its parent company negotiates with creditors through bankruptcy.

The city's gaming revenue is now at half its $5 billion peak eight years ago. Competition is fierce. According to the American Gaming Association, there are now 984 casinos in the country — about 60 of them on the East Coast.

There is talk of reselling, reopening and repurposing some casinos. This week, Cooke's employer, Stockton College, announced its intention to buy the old Showboat property. The Revel's new owners are reportedly planning to reinvest and reopen.

'I Like The Challenge'

Meanwhile, the casinos that remain are doubling down. On a recent night, crooner Allen Edwards is the lounge act at Resorts Casino, singing Christmas tunes.

It feels old school. Indeed, Resorts is Atlantic City's first casino — and had its own brush with death four years ago.

"Everybody around would've bet this would've been the first place to close," says CEO Mark Giannantonio.

But it didn't. Instead, Giannantonio says, a new owner, backed again by the state development authority, invested in a Margaritaville restaurant-and-gaming wing — and now Resorts is turning a profit.

In addition to commercial projects, Mayor Don Guardian hopes state grants will attract new residents who want to invest and rebuild the city, one rundown home at a time.

"Then we've gotta work on our school system," he says. "But I gotta fix the city first, find jobs, get taxes, reduce cost of government, make the place pretty, and then we'll work on the schools. I like the challenge."

He's going to need that optimism; Atlantic City's challenge gets tougher with every casino closure.

Correction Nov. 14, 2014

In the audio of this story, as in a previous Web version, we cite a figure from the American Gaming Association that there are 1,400 casinos in the U.S., including 100 on the East Coast. Those figures included card rooms, which are not considered casino operations. The number of U.S. casinos is 984, including both commercial and tribal casinos, the association says, 60 of which are on the East Coast.

gaming

economic development

gambling

Atlantic City

New Jersey

casinos

During the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the late 1980s, Palestinians refused to work in Israeli companies. Many threw stones and firebombs at Israeli troops.

During the second intifada, which erupted in 2000, suicide bombers repeatedly blew up public places in Israel, such as cafes, night clubs and buses.

Israeli Charlotte Slopack-Goller didn't ride the bus for a few years then.

"Now I take the buses without thinking," she says.

But that was before Palestinian attackers began driving cars into Israeli civilians at bus stops, killing several and wounding dozens.

"I must admit that when I was trying to cross the street the other day and standing at a narrow bus stop, I was a little nervous, and I thought maybe I need to stand behind something to protect myself," she says.

She isn't sure a third Palestinian intifada is on the way. But Palestinian Latifa Abdel Latif hopes it is.

"I hope there's intifada because we had enough. We had enough," she says.

Although fatal car and knife attacks have prompted discussion of whether a sustained period of violence lies ahead, Abdel Latif says an intifada means finding even small ways to constantly oppose Israeli policies.

Any sustained Palestinian protest, Abdel Latif says, needs guidance from the top, meaning Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen.

"Like Abu Mazen, you know, our boss, he should agree about the intifada," she says. "Because everything now is happening is just individual. An intifada needs leaders."

Israel says that Abbas and leaders in the Islamist group Hamas are fanning the recent rise in fatal confrontations through speeches and social media.

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Palestinian members of Hamas' armed wing takes part in a rally Thursday in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The event was held in memory of Hamas military commanders killed during seven weeks of fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip this summer. Abed Rahim Khatib/APA/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Abed Rahim Khatib/APA/Landov

Palestinian members of Hamas' armed wing takes part in a rally Thursday in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The event was held in memory of Hamas military commanders killed during seven weeks of fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip this summer.

Abed Rahim Khatib/APA/Landov

But Mahdi Abdel Hadi, head of the Palestinian think tank PASSIA says Abbas will never lead an intifada.

"He said it many times: 'Not in my lifetime you'll have an intifada.' And people are telling him it's not an intifada. Because intifada means a program, a leadership, and a commitment to deliver. What we have is fragmentation and anger and frustration. You might lose control if people carry on this kind of frustration and confrontation," he says.

Ehud Ya'ari, an Israel-based analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the situation isn't out of control yet.

"It's certainly not an intifada," he says, adding that it's not as violent, as widespread, or as organized as past uprisings.

"This time we see groups of teenagers throwing stones, fireworks and quite a lot of incitement coming from the political parties. My hunch is going to see it dying down pretty soon," he adds.

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Circumstances have changed since the previous uprisings. In those instances, Palestinians, whether they were rock throwers or suicide bombers, were able to directly confront Israelis civilians and members of the security forces.

Israel's West Bank barrier has made it difficult for West Bank Palestinians to enter Israel. In the Gaza Strip, Israel removed all of its Jewish settlers in 2005. The Palestinians can shoot rockets into Israel, as they did during fighting this summer. But these battles have lasted for only a few weeks and are led by the militants, not the broad Palestinian population.

In recent weeks, there have been stone-throwing clashes in Jerusalem and around the West Bank, though they have not yet approached the levels of the past intifadas.

However, independent Palestinian politician Mustafa Barhgouti says this is an intifada — but a new type. It's carried out by individuals, he says, but reflects widespread anger.

"People get confused because they keep comparing the new intifada with the first and second one," he says. "But they shouldn't because each one has its own characteristics. We don't want this to be militarized like the second intifada because this would serve the Israeli army purpose."

Past intifadas have been triggered by specific incidents. Barghouti traces the the current unrest to the collapse in April of peace talks brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry made repeated trips to the region, and got both sides back to the negotiating table, but was unable to build momentum for a diplomatic breakthrough.

"The clear change in the political atmosphere was the total failure of Kerry's effort," Barghouti says. "I think that was the turning point when it became clear that Palestinians have to rely on themselves and struggle against this injustice."

Ya'akov Peri, a former head of Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet, says intifada or not – times are clearly tense.

"Nobody can really say when an intifada, an uprising is starting and when does it end," Peri says. "No doubt that the escalation is high and I think we should all call for calmness."

Palestinians

Israel

Sweden says it's now sure that a foreign submarine illegally entered its territorial waters last month, but it still can't say which country is responsible.

i i

A sonar image showing subsea tracks left behind by a minisubmarine, according to the Swedish military. Claudio Bresciani/EPA/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Claudio Bresciani/EPA/Landov

A sonar image showing subsea tracks left behind by a minisubmarine, according to the Swedish military.

Claudio Bresciani/EPA/Landov

As we reported last month, the Swedish government launched its largest submarine hunt since the Cold War, dispatching helicopters and stealth ships to hunt for whatever it was in a grainy photograph taken by a member of the public along the Baltic coast east of the capital.

"The military can confirm that a small U-boat breached Sweden's territorial waters," the head of Sweden's armed forces, Gen. Sverker Goransson, told a news conference. "We can exclude all alternative explanations."

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who attended the news conference with Goranson and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, warned of "enormous risks" to the trespasser and said that "all available means" would be employed to defend Sweden's territory.

"Let me say this, loud and clear, to those who are responsible: It is completely unacceptable," Lofven said.

Although Swedish authorities never said what nationality they believed the sub to be, military analysts suggested it is most likely Russian. Goranson acknowledged that it is "impossible" to confirm the nationality of the sub. "But we can confirm the fact that it has been there," he said.

i i

A photo shows an object traveling southward at a speed of 1 knot inside Swedish waters on Oct. 15. The white area around the object shows water escaping from valves at a pressure before the object disappeared below the surface, according to the Swedish military. TT News Agency/Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption TT News Agency/Reuters/Landov

A photo shows an object traveling southward at a speed of 1 knot inside Swedish waters on Oct. 15. The white area around the object shows water escaping from valves at a pressure before the object disappeared below the surface, according to the Swedish military.

TT News Agency/Reuters/Landov

Reuters reports:

"The submarine's presence was picked up by military sensors, Goransson said. Supporting evidence, he said, included a picture showing a bubble pattern typical of a diving submarine and a sonar image of tracks on the sea floor.

"Sweden has already said it will increase spending on its military, including up to 70 new fighter jets and new submarines, as it looks to reverse decades of underspending on its armed forces.

"The Nordic country has also drawn closer to NATO in the past few years although the current government has ruled out seeking membership of the U.S.-led alliance."

submarine

Russia

sweden

Jane Byrne, who stunned Chicago's powerful political machine in becoming the first and still only woman elected mayor of the nation's third-largest city, died today at the age of 81.

She is being remembered as a trailblazer for women in politics who cracked the glass ceiling in a city whose political oligarchy 'don't want nobody nobody sent.' *

A product of the machine herself and a protege of late mayor Richard J. Daley, Byrne bucked party leaders to topple their annointed candidate, incumbent mayor Michael Bilandic, in the Democratic primary in February of 1979.

"I've beaten the whole damned machine single-handedly," Byrne said on the night of her primary victory.

"The last time the Democratic organization in a mayoral primary had lost was 1911," says political scientist Paul Green, director of the Institute for Politics at Roosevelt University in Chicago. "So she broke a long string of organization victories ... a 68-year tradition of the Democratic machine winning its mayoral primary."

Byrne tapped into growing anti-machine sentiment in Chicago after the death of Richard J. Daley in 1976, when Bilandic took over the mayor's office. She also was aided in her campaign by Mother Nature, in the form of one of the Windy City's famous snowstorms.

i i

Pedestrians totter, cars crawl, and the snow falls as Chicago is hit by 19 inches of snow on Jan. 14, 1979. The city's poor response to the storm was one reason Jane Byrne won the Democratic mayoral primary later that year. Fred Jewell/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Fred Jewell/AP

Pedestrians totter, cars crawl, and the snow falls as Chicago is hit by 19 inches of snow on Jan. 14, 1979. The city's poor response to the storm was one reason Jane Byrne won the Democratic mayoral primary later that year.

Fred Jewell/AP

A blizzard Jan. 13-14 that winter dumped more than a foot and a half of snow on the city, and much of the city was paralyzed for weeks.

Bilandic was criticized sharply for the city's feeble plowing efforts and the failure to keep buses and trains running. When service did resume, Bilandic ordered his mass transit system to skip stops in black neighborhoods, further alienating minority voters and adding to growing anti-machine sentiment in the Chicago.

"She wasn't Michael Bilandic. She was the alternative," says Green. "The snow — and the unbelievable bad reaction by the mayor and his team to the snow — just added to the fact that if you didn't like Bilandic, you didn't like the trains bypassing you, you didn't like this, you didn't like that, (there was) only one way to show your opposition. And that was to vote for Jane Byrne."

But as anti-machine as Byrne was in her campaign, she reversed course early in her term in office, upsetting the liberals and minorities who helped elect her.

"Within six months, she flipped over, dumped reform, and for the next three and a half years ran the city pretty much the way the Machine ran the city," former Chicago Daily Southtown reporter Ray Hanania, who covered city hall during the Byrne administration, tells member station WBEZ.

Some of Byrne's early supporters in politics — and in the press — say they felt betrayed by her new political alliance with the very aldermen she campaign against as a "cabal of evil men."

"She was probably not prepared to be mayor, not that you go to school for it," said Don Rose, who managed her 1979 campaign but later became disillusioned and left the administration. Rose tells the Chicago Tribune that "although the stories were probably wilder than the actual actions, I think some of her eccentricities were due to the fact that she was just really overwhelmed."

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Turnover in her administration was high, and she battled the city's labor unions — including city firefighters, who have gone on strike only once in the history of the city, in 1980, during Byrne term as mayor. She also had a very contentious relationship with the media.

Decades later, Byrne would chalk up that last difficulty to what she said was one of her toughest challenges in office: sexism.

"I think the City Hall reporters felt they had always covered Mayor Macho, and now they've got somebody in a pink suit and high heels and it's not their cup of tea," Byrne told WBEZ in 2004.

Not that the different outfit meant a softer approach, says Roosevelt University's Paul Green.

"One never called Jane Byrne dainty. Jane Byrne was as tough as they come and a fighter," he says, crediting much of that toughness to her political upbringing inside the machine as the first woman in the first Mayor Daley's cabinet. "She got her reputation as being a Democratic party insider working for Richard J. Daley."

i i

Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne joins Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in acknowledging applause Nov. 7, 1979, at a Chicago hotel. Sen. Kennedy, who earlier in the day announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in Boston, addressed Chicago-area Democrats. Byrne endorsed Kennedy, but incumbent President would ultimately win Illinois and the nomination, though not a second term. John Duricka/AP hide caption

itoggle caption John Duricka/AP

Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne joins Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in acknowledging applause Nov. 7, 1979, at a Chicago hotel. Sen. Kennedy, who earlier in the day announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in Boston, addressed Chicago-area Democrats. Byrne endorsed Kennedy, but incumbent President would ultimately win Illinois and the nomination, though not a second term.

John Duricka/AP

In the midst of a tough economy, growing poverty, and rising violent crime, Byrne signed an ordinance effectively banning handguns from the city, and she and her husband moved into the notorious Cabrini-Green public housing complex amid an increase in shootings there.

Byrne is also credited with boosting the arts, music and tourism in the city. She started the city's famous Jazz Fest, as well as and Chicago Fest, which morphed into Taste of Chicago. She invested in downtown and the city's lakefront, extended the city's elevated transit line to O'Hare airport, and modernized the airport, too.

And after years of the city being off limits to Hollywood, she is credited with welcoming film crews and helping turn Chicago into a famous backdrop for many major motion pictures, the first of which was "The Blues Brothers." After initially balking at the crazy car chases and other antic the filmmakers planned, Byrne was won over by actors John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd themselves, both of whom got their start at the Second City in Chicago. The clincher apparently was when they described the car chase through Daley plaza and into the glass lobby of the Daley Center in downtown Chicago.

"They all hate me in the 11th Ward (the Daley family's power base) anyway, so go ahead," she reportedly told them.

But she lost her bid for re-election in 1983 when challenged by her political mentor's son, Richard M. Daley and the ultimate winner, Chicago's first and only black mayor, Harold Washington.

* This is what a cigar-chomping Chicago ward boss told a young Abner Mikva, who after serving in WWII went to his local Democratic ward office to offer to volunteer. As Mikva tells the story, the boss curtly asked him, "Who sent you?" "Nobody sent me," Mikva responded. "We don't want nobody nobody sent," the boss replied, showing Mikva out the door. The liberal Mikva fought the machine much of the way as he became a congressman, a federal judge and White House counsel under President Bill Clinton.

Richard J. Daley

women in politics

Chicago

Last week, you may have heard, the Democrats took a historic drubbing in the midterm elections for Congress. They lost their majority in the Senate and saw their numbers in the House fall to their lowest point in nearly seven decades.

Yet they could hardly wait to get back to Washington and reelect the party's leaders in both chambers — unopposed.

The 2014 election may have been mainly a referendum on the president, but two other names were mentioned almost as often in Republican ads: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Republican candidates everywhere ran against those two leaders more than they ran against their actual opponents.

Yet Reid already has been swept back into his party's top spot, and Pelosi will follow next week — and in neither case was there so much as a struggle.

To some degree, this reflects the attitude in the Democratic cloakroom that these two longtime symbols of the party have served the cause well, and are not to blame for the deluge on Election Day. To this way of thinking, ousting Reid or Pelosi would be scapegoating.

But surely there are other Democrats in both chambers who see these two names as being more useful as targets for the enemy than they are valuable as inspirational figures. They rouse the opposition far more effectively than they rally the faithful.

Yet not one member in either chamber has been willing to step forward as a challenger to either Democratic leader. And without such a challenge, the leader simply wins again — either party, either chamber, every time.

Congress has reached historic lows in approval, and despite the election results, that disapproval applies to Republicans, too.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who began 2014 with the lowest home-state approval ratings of any senator seeking re-election, has just become the new majority leader in the Senate for 2015. He is the toast of Washington.

That, in its way, is as curious as the re-election of Reid and Pelosi. If this is democracy at work, its works are strange indeed.

But then, it is not exactly democracy that is operating: It's the internal rules of the party conferences in Congress. Those rules make it all but impossible for an incumbent leader to be dislodged.

The difficulty of mounting a challenge — and of gaining the needed commitments from colleagues in secrecy — is matched only by the risk of doing so and failing. Ask the last person who challenged a Speaker or any other party leader.

Or perhaps you don't remember what became of Heath Schuler, former member of Congress.

And so, whatever the voters may say, the leaders march on.

There is an alternative to this that is readily available. The party caucuses could hold a vote of confidence (often called a vote of "no confidence") in the leader by secret ballot after each congressional election. Individuals could vote to remove the leader while remaining anonymous, and the question of succession would be taken up separately as required.

Would it be pretty? Perhaps not. But with such an arrangement you would gain at least the possibility that the party leader might yield to a fresher face with a cleaner slate. And if such a fate were more plausible than it is now, shaky leaders would be more likely to step aside voluntarily when circumstances dictated.

Alternatively, if the vote of confidence was positive, the party leader could begin anew in the next Congress knowing that he or she really had the bona fide support of his troops. That would be far better than the default endorsement that comes with winning a no-contest reelection.

There would, of course, be no guarantee a new leader would be better, but a new leader would be new. In an office of largely symbolic importance, mere newness can be a cardinal virtue.

The "no confidence" vote is a feature of parliamentary systems the world over, and it serves an obviously useful purpose. That purpose is not limited to the majority or the minority leader, nor would it require as devastating an election loss as the Democrats just had.

Doubtless there are those in both parties and chambers who agree such a mechanism would be useful — but the same old survival instincts and cost-benefit ratios still apply, and the math always looks pretty much the same. So we shouldn't expect to hear the idea of a "no confidence" vote being endorsed in any floor speeches next week, when Congress returns for its lame duck session.

House leadership

Harry Reid

Democratic Party

Congress

Nancy Pelosi

Last week, you may have heard, the Democrats took a historic drubbing in the midterm elections for Congress. They lost their majority in the Senate and saw their numbers in the House fall to their lowest point in nearly seven decades.

Yet they could hardly wait to get back to Washington and reelect the party's leaders in both chambers — unopposed.

The 2014 election may have been mainly a referendum on the president, but two other names were mentioned almost as often in Republican ads: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Republican candidates everywhere ran against those two leaders more than they ran against their actual opponents.

Yet Reid already has been swept back into his party's top spot, and Pelosi will follow next week — and in neither case was there so much as a struggle.

To some degree, this reflects the attitude in the Democratic cloakroom that these two longtime symbols of the party have served the cause well, and are not to blame for the deluge on Election Day. To this way of thinking, ousting Reid or Pelosi would be scapegoating.

But surely there are other Democrats in both chambers who see these two names as being more useful as targets for the enemy than they are valuable as inspirational figures. They rouse the opposition far more effectively than they rally the faithful.

Yet not one member in either chamber has been willing to step forward as a challenger to either Democratic leader. And without such a challenge, the leader simply wins again — either party, either chamber, every time.

Congress has reached historic lows in approval, and despite the election results, that disapproval applies to Republicans, too.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who began 2014 with the lowest home-state approval ratings of any senator seeking re-election, has just become the new majority leader in the Senate for 2015. He is the toast of Washington.

That, in its way, is as curious as the re-election of Reid and Pelosi. If this is democracy at work, its works are strange indeed.

But then, it is not exactly democracy that is operating: It's the internal rules of the party conferences in Congress. Those rules make it all but impossible for an incumbent leader to be dislodged.

The difficulty of mounting a challenge — and of gaining the needed commitments from colleagues in secrecy — is matched only by the risk of doing so and failing. Ask the last person who challenged a Speaker or any other party leader.

Or perhaps you don't remember what became of Heath Schuler, former member of Congress.

And so, whatever the voters may say, the leaders march on.

There is an alternative to this that is readily available. The party caucuses could hold a vote of confidence (often called a vote of "no confidence") in the leader by secret ballot after each congressional election. Individuals could vote to remove the leader while remaining anonymous, and the question of succession would be taken up separately as required.

Would it be pretty? Perhaps not. But with such an arrangement you would gain at least the possibility that the party leader might yield to a fresher face with a cleaner slate. And if such a fate were more plausible than it is now, shaky leaders would be more likely to step aside voluntarily when circumstances dictated.

Alternatively, if the vote of confidence was positive, the party leader could begin anew in the next Congress knowing that he or she really had the bona fide support of his troops. That would be far better than the default endorsement that comes with winning a no-contest reelection.

There would, of course, be no guarantee a new leader would be better, but a new leader would be new. In an office of largely symbolic importance, mere newness can be a cardinal virtue.

The "no confidence" vote is a feature of parliamentary systems the world over, and it serves an obviously useful purpose. That purpose is not limited to the majority or the minority leader, nor would it require as devastating an election loss as the Democrats just had.

Doubtless there are those in both parties and chambers who agree such a mechanism would be useful — but the same old survival instincts and cost-benefit ratios still apply, and the math always looks pretty much the same. So we shouldn't expect to hear the idea of a "no confidence" vote being endorsed in any floor speeches next week, when Congress returns for its lame duck session.

House leadership

Harry Reid

Democratic Party

Congress

Nancy Pelosi

Last week, you may have heard, the Democrats took a historic drubbing in the midterm elections for Congress. They lost their majority in the Senate and saw their numbers in the House fall to their lowest point in nearly seven decades.

Yet they could hardly wait to get back to Washington and reelect the party's leaders in both chambers — unopposed.

The 2014 election may have been mainly a referendum on the president, but two other names were mentioned almost as often in Republican ads: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Republican candidates everywhere ran against those two leaders more than they ran against their actual opponents.

Yet Reid already has been swept back into his party's top spot, and Pelosi will follow next week — and in neither case was there so much as a struggle.

To some degree, this reflects the attitude in the Democratic cloakroom that these two longtime symbols of the party have served the cause well, and are not to blame for the deluge on Election Day. To this way of thinking, ousting Reid or Pelosi would be scapegoating.

But surely there are other Democrats in both chambers who see these two names as being more useful as targets for the enemy than they are valuable as inspirational figures. They rouse the opposition far more effectively than they rally the faithful.

Yet not one member in either chamber has been willing to step forward as a challenger to either Democratic leader. And without such a challenge, the leader simply wins again — either party, either chamber, every time.

Congress has reached historic lows in approval, and despite the election results, that disapproval applies to Republicans, too.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who began 2014 with the lowest home-state approval ratings of any senator seeking re-election, has just become the new majority leader in the Senate for 2015. He is the toast of Washington.

That, in its way, is as curious as the re-election of Reid and Pelosi. If this is democracy at work, its works are strange indeed.

But then, it is not exactly democracy that is operating: It's the internal rules of the party conferences in Congress. Those rules make it all but impossible for an incumbent leader to be dislodged.

The difficulty of mounting a challenge — and of gaining the needed commitments from colleagues in secrecy — is matched only by the risk of doing so and failing. Ask the last person who challenged a Speaker or any other party leader.

Or perhaps you don't remember what became of Heath Schuler, former member of Congress.

And so, whatever the voters may say, the leaders march on.

There is an alternative to this that is readily available. The party caucuses could hold a vote of confidence (often called a vote of "no confidence") in the leader by secret ballot after each congressional election. Individuals could vote to remove the leader while remaining anonymous, and the question of succession would be taken up separately as required.

Would it be pretty? Perhaps not. But with such an arrangement you would gain at least the possibility that the party leader might yield to a fresher face with a cleaner slate. And if such a fate were more plausible than it is now, shaky leaders would be more likely to step aside voluntarily when circumstances dictated.

Alternatively, if the vote of confidence was positive, the party leader could begin anew in the next Congress knowing that he or she really had the bona fide support of his troops. That would be far better than the default endorsement that comes with winning a no-contest reelection.

There would, of course, be no guarantee a new leader would be better, but a new leader would be new. In an office of largely symbolic importance, mere newness can be a cardinal virtue.

The "no confidence" vote is a feature of parliamentary systems the world over, and it serves an obviously useful purpose. That purpose is not limited to the majority or the minority leader, nor would it require as devastating an election loss as the Democrats just had.

Doubtless there are those in both parties and chambers who agree such a mechanism would be useful — but the same old survival instincts and cost-benefit ratios still apply, and the math always looks pretty much the same. So we shouldn't expect to hear the idea of a "no confidence" vote being endorsed in any floor speeches next week, when Congress returns for its lame duck session.

House leadership

Harry Reid

Democratic Party

Congress

Nancy Pelosi

Americans grow up knowing their colors are red, white and blue. It's right there in the flag, right there in the World Series bunting and on those floats every fourth of July.

So when did we become a nation of red states and blue states? And what do they mean when they say a state is turning purple?

Painting whole states with a broad brush bothers a lot of people, and if you're one of them you may want to blame the media. We've been using these designations rather vigorously for the last half-dozen election cycles or so as a quick way to describe the vote in given state in a given election, or its partisan tendencies over a longer period.

It got started on TV, the original electronic visual, when NBC, the first all-color network, unveiled an illuminated map — snazzy for its time — in 1976. John Chancellor was the NBC election night anchor who explained how states were going to be blue if they voted for incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, red if they voted for Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

That arrangement was consistent with the habit of many texts and reference books, which tended to use blue for Republicans in part because blue was the color of the Union in the Civil War. Blue is also typically associated with the more conservative parties in Europe and elsewhere.

As the other TV operations went to full color, they too added vivid maps to their election night extravaganzas. But they didn't agree on a color scheme, so viewers switching between channels might see Ronald Reagan's landslide turning the landscape blue on NBC and CBS but red on ABC.

YouTube

The confusion persisted until 2000, when the coloring of states for one party of the other dragged on well past election night. As people were more interested in the red-blue maps than ever, the need for consistency across media outlets became paramount. And as the conversation about the disputed election continued, referring to states that voted for George W. Bush as "red states" rather than "Republican states" (and those voting for Democrat Al Gore as "blue states") seemed increasingly natural.

And it never went away. Instead, it became a staple of political discourse, not just in the media but in academic circles and popular conversation as well.

By the next presidential election, the red-blue language was so common as to be a metaphor for partisanship. That provided a convenient target for the most memorable speech of that election cycle, the 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, delivered by a young senatorial candidate from Illinois named Barack Obama.

"The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states," he said. "Red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too — we worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states."

Of course, that did not stop "the pundits" or anyone else from using these catchy labels. If anything, the practice has become more universal.

Not a few Americans see this as a symptom of a real disease in the body politic, an imbalance in favor of conflict that makes compromise more difficult.

Painting whole states with an ideologically broad brush is also offensive to many. No liberal in Idaho needs to be told that state leans conservative, just as conservatives in Minnesota are fully aware theirs was the only state not tinted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

But being on the minor-fraction side of the party balance does not make these citizens less Idahoan or less Minnesotan. On the contrary, they may be among the fiercest loyalists of either state.

#ColorFacts: A Weird Little Lesson In Rainbow Order hide caption

itoggle caption

No one thinks the red or blue designation makes a state politically single-minded. But the message sent by such media-driven characterizations is not without consequence.

Bill Bishop, the Texas-based writer who co-authored the influential book The Big Sort in 2004, says political affiliation is a powerful part of the allure certain communities have for Americans seeking a compatible home.

"All of this is a shorthand, right? So a 'blue community' is a shorthand not only for politics but for a way of life ..." says Bishop.

And for many people, that way of life includes a sorting out by political affinity.

"We thought at first that this was all lifestyle, but the more I talked to people, the more I talked to people who said it was a conscious decision to go to a Democratic area or a Republican area."

Which may mean the red and blue labels will be even harder for the media to resist using in the years ahead.

Last week, you may have heard, the Democrats took a historic drubbing in the midterm elections for Congress. They lost their majority in the Senate and saw their numbers in the House fall to their lowest point in nearly seven decades.

Yet they could hardly wait to get back to Washington and reelect the party's leaders in both chambers — unopposed.

The 2014 election may have been mainly a referendum on the president, but two other names were mentioned almost as often in Republican ads: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Republican candidates everywhere ran against those two leaders more than they ran against their actual opponents.

Yet Reid already has been swept back into his party's top spot, and Pelosi will follow next week — and in neither case was there so much as a struggle.

To some degree, this reflects the attitude in the Democratic cloakroom that these two longtime symbols of the party have served the cause well, and are not to blame for the deluge on Election Day. To this way of thinking, ousting Reid or Pelosi would be scapegoating.

But surely there are other Democrats in both chambers who see these two names as being more useful as targets for the enemy than they are valuable as inspirational figures. They rouse the opposition far more effectively than they rally the faithful.

Yet not one member in either chamber has been willing to step forward as a challenger to either Democratic leader. And without such a challenge, the leader simply wins again — either party, either chamber, every time.

Congress has reached historic lows in approval, and despite the election results, that disapproval applies to Republicans, too.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who began 2014 with the lowest home-state approval ratings of any senator seeking re-election, has just become the new majority leader in the Senate for 2015. He is the toast of Washington.

That, in its way, is as curious as the re-election of Reid and Pelosi. If this is democracy at work, its works are strange indeed.

But then, it is not exactly democracy that is operating: It's the internal rules of the party conferences in Congress. Those rules make it all but impossible for an incumbent leader to be dislodged.

The difficulty of mounting a challenge — and of gaining the needed commitments from colleagues in secrecy — is matched only by the risk of doing so and failing. Ask the last person who challenged a Speaker or any other party leader.

Or perhaps you don't remember what became of Heath Schuler, former member of Congress.

And so, whatever the voters may say, the leaders march on.

There is an alternative to this that is readily available. The party caucuses could hold a vote of confidence (often called a vote of "no confidence") in the leader by secret ballot after each congressional election. Individuals could vote to remove the leader while remaining anonymous, and the question of succession would be taken up separately as required.

Would it be pretty? Perhaps not. But with such an arrangement you would gain at least the possibility that the party leader might yield to a fresher face with a cleaner slate. And if such a fate were more plausible than it is now, shaky leaders would be more likely to step aside voluntarily when circumstances dictated.

Alternatively, if the vote of confidence was positive, the party leader could begin anew in the next Congress knowing that he or she really had the bona fide support of his troops. That would be far better than the default endorsement that comes with winning a no-contest reelection.

There would, of course, be no guarantee a new leader would be better, but a new leader would be new. In an office of largely symbolic importance, mere newness can be a cardinal virtue.

The "no confidence" vote is a feature of parliamentary systems the world over, and it serves an obviously useful purpose. That purpose is not limited to the majority or the minority leader, nor would it require as devastating an election loss as the Democrats just had.

Doubtless there are those in both parties and chambers who agree such a mechanism would be useful — but the same old survival instincts and cost-benefit ratios still apply, and the math always looks pretty much the same. So we shouldn't expect to hear the idea of a "no confidence" vote being endorsed in any floor speeches next week, when Congress returns for its lame duck session.

House leadership

Harry Reid

Democratic Party

Congress

Nancy Pelosi

Two bills that would authorize building the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will soon come to a vote in Congress, as their sponsors — Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La. — head toward a runoff election next month to decide who will win the Senate race.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports:

"On the Senate floor, Landrieu called for action on the Canada-to-Texas pipeline project, saying, 'I believe with a push we could actually get the votes that we need to pass the Keystone pipeline.'

"Soon after, Republican leaders in the House scheduled a vote Thursday on a Keystone bill sponsored by Landrieu's rival, Cassidy.

"The two face off in a Dec. 6 runoff. The pipeline is a key issue in Louisiana, where the oil and gas industry dominates."

Energy company TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Canada to Texas; it has been a polarizing issue, pitting those who say it would create thousands of jobs against environmentalists who say tar sands oil is too expensive and toxic to refine. Where one side says the plan would bolster the energy industry, the other says it would increase greenhouse gases.

Wary landowners along its path have also spoken out, complaining that the pipeline would disrupt their property and damage farms — particularly if it ever sprang a leak. As the Two-Way has reported, "In February, a Nebraska judge struck down a 2012 law that allowed part of the pipeline to run through the state."

The AP notes that the Obama administration isn't welcoming news of a vote on the matter:

"While the White House stopped short of directly threatening a veto, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama takes a 'dim view' of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review."

From NPR's StateImpact project comes this background:

"The Keystone Pipeline already exists. What doesn't exist fully yet is its proposed expansion, the Keystone XL Pipeline. The existing Keystone runs from oil sand fields in Alberta, Canada, into the U.S., ending in Cushing, Okla.

"The 1,700 new miles of pipeline would offer two sections of expansion. First, a southern leg would connect Cushing, where there is a current bottleneck of oil, with the Gulf Coast of Texas, where oil refineries abound."

midterms 2014

Rep. Bill Cassidy

Sen. Mary Landrieu

Keystone XL Pipeline

The election is over, right? Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate and padded their majority in the House.

So the big drama of the campaign may have subsided, but there is still a handful of congressional contests up in the air.

There are runoff elections scheduled. A couple of races that are still too close to call. And at least one official recount coming.

U.S. Senate Races

In Louisiana — a place where politics are always interesting — three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu finds herself in a runoff against Republican congressman Bill Cassidy, because both failed to get more than the 50 percent required to claim victory last Tuesday.

i i

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu. Melinda Deslatte/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Melinda Deslatte/AP

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Melinda Deslatte/AP

Even though control of the Senate doesn't hang on the outcome, their battle now goes into an extra month of overtime.

The TV attack ads are back too. The Landrieu campaign introduced a new one this week, as did the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of the challenger.

The other Senate seat that's been undecided is in Alaska, where incumbent Democrat Mark Begich faced Republican Dan Sullivan. The Associated Press has called the race for Sullivan. But Begich hasn't conceded.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell posed with 10 new GOP senators-elect. He's looking for the number of newcomers to increase. "We're excited to have a great bunch here and we hope they're going to be joined by Bill Cassidy and Dan Sullivan shortly," he said. Sullivan, having claimed victory, has since flown to D.C. to begin new-member orientation.

House Races

There are two races in Louisiana, Congressional Districts 5 and 6, where runoffs will decide the winner. The latter involves Democrat Edwin Edwards, 87, who has a resume that includes Congress, the governorship — and eight years in federal prison for corruption.

i i

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In Arizona, the battle for the 2nd District is heading for an automatic recount. It features incumbent Democrat Ron Barber, a former aide to Rep. Gabby Giffords who was shot and wounded along with Giffords by a gunman in January 2011. Barber trails Republican Martha McSally by just 133 votes. Nearly all of the votes have been tallied, and state law requires a recount if the margin is fewer than 200 votes.

Finally, there are two undeclared races in California: in the 7th District, near Sacramento, and the 16th, which includes parts of Fresno.

Both feature incumbent Democrats who currently hold very narrow leads.

So Election Day has come and gone.

We just don't know yet when it will all be officially ... and finally ... and mercifully over.

What do you get when you mix big-deal comedians with real-life calamities? Sounds like a joke, but Steve Carell and Jon Stewart are answering that question this week in their movies Foxcatcher and Rosewater. And it turns out, seriousness suits them.

In fact, you'll likely do a double-take when you first see Carell's John Dupont in Foxcatcher. Maybe when you first hear him, too. He's the black sheep of the wealthy gunpowder-magnate family circa 1988, and he's all but unrecognizable behind a putty nose and a flat vocal affect that makes words and phrases emerge from him in what sound like burps.

Talking to an Olympic wrestler he's hoping to impress, Carell's Dupont is pasty, heavy, awkward, and when he flashes what he apparently intends as a pleasant smile, it's downright disquieting.

Mark Schultz, the gold medalist he's inviting to train at a facility he's built on his Pennsylvania estate, is played by Channing Tatum with a leaden affect and the wounded look of puppy who's been kicked too often. Mark is the younger of two Olympic medalists in his family. His brother Dave, played with more grace and verve by Mark Ruffalo, has prospered since his Olympic win. Mark, who won later, stalled out quicker, and now, to escape his brother's shadow, he signs on with Dupont, who showers him with money, sparring partners, cocaine, and inspirational speeches that sound increasingly unhinged.

"I am leading men," says Dupont. "I am giving them a dream and I am giving America hope."

A more astute man might realize his patron is ... well, maybe nuts, but Tatum's Mark isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and just gets himself, and later his brother, in deeper.

Director Bennett Miller is no stranger to sports or personal eccentricity in his films, having directed both Moneyball and the Truman Capote biopic Capote. In Foxcatcher, Miller uses three superb performances to take us deep into a privileged world where the choreographed struggle of wrestling mixes toxically with the psychological struggles of familial disappointment. The film does not — or maybe cannot — explain the inexplicable: the acts of a mentally ill man. But it can make the plight of those in that man's orbit profoundly anguishing.

i i

Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart. Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films hide caption

itoggle caption Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart.

Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

You might expect anguish from Rosewater, a film drawn by Jon Stewart from BBC journalist Maziar Bahari's book about surviving solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. But while the film can be unnerving as it details the dangers of reporting on opposition demonstrators after Iran's elections, it's also steeped in the sort of humor you'd expect from Stewart, who both wrote and directed the movie. In fact, Stewart's connection with the story was more than moderately intimate: A Daily Show interview done by the real Bahari was used against him in jail. Stewart has actor Gael Garcia Bernal re-enact it with Jason Jones.

Funny to American ears, the sketch, in which Jones claims to be a spy, becomes less funny when Bahari's thrown in prison four days after it airs, and has to defend himself to an interrogator as "just a journalist."

The interrogator — an excellent Kim Bodnia — calls up the interview on his computer.

"Can you tell me," he wonders, "why 'just-a-journalist' would meet up with an American spy?"

Bahari, laughing, tells him it's a comedy show, that Jones is a comedian pretending to be a spy, but that doesn't even blunt the line of questioning.

"So can you tell me why an American pretending to be a spy has chosen to interview you?"

Jon Stewart took several months off from Comedy Central to make this movie last year, and painful as that sabbatical may have been for fans, it turns out to have been worthwhile. Rosewater (the title references the cologne by which the usually blindfolded Bahari recognizes the interrogator) has an urgency that's all about the storytelling smarts of its first-time writer-director. It's also got first-rate acting, the nuance about media manipulation you'd expect from Stewart, and even cinematic grace notes, as when Bernal, in a burst of antic feeling after months of isolation, dances in his cell, remembering a Leonard Cohen song his sister played for him as a child.

Rosewater — and Foxcatcher, too — could doubtless have been anchored by other talents. Their stories needn't have reached us, tears-of-a-clown-style, through Jon Stewart and Steve Carell. But the involvement of those comics proves a remarkable blessing, at least partly because it connects us to their sense of discovery.

What could be more astonishing, after all, than being moved by those we look to for laughter.

It's not a tiger, but they aren't sure what it is: That's what French police and armed forces have concluded after searching for two days for a mystery beast near Disneyland Paris, one of Europe's top tourist destinations.

The latest sighting of what is being described as a wild cat was this morning when truckers spotted it on a main road between Paris and eastern France. It was photographed several times Thursday in the town of Montevrain.

A statement from the Seine-et-Marne, the local administration, said the animal was an unknown feline, and urged residents to stay indoors.

The Associated Press reports: "One theory is that the mystery cat could be a lynx — the wild cat once common in France before being hunted out of existence. It was reintroduced in France in the 1970s, according to the wildlife group Ferus. But the nearest known lynx habitat, the Vosges Mountains, is 350 kilometers (215 miles) away from where the cat was first spotted Thursday."

The Guardian adds:

"The alarm was raised on Thursday when a woman spotted an animal near the local supermarket. A dozen fire trucks, a helicopter with heat-seeking equipment, 200 firefighters, gendarmes and police officers armed with stun guns, and a sniffer dog specially trained to track bears and large game spent most of the day searching for the animal, while schoolchildren got a police escort home and local residents were warned to stay indoors."

The search was resumed Friday by dozens of police, who were armed with tranquilizer guns, and soldiers from a nearby base.

tiger

France

A tariff system that adds as much as 25 percent to the cost of American high-tech products could be on the way out, thanks to negotiations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China. President Obama announced the new progress Tuesday.

The development could speed the adoption of a new agreement by the World Trade Organization. The current tariff system has been in place for nearly 18 years and now applies to more than $4 trillion in annual global trade, U.S. officials say.

From Beijing, NPR's Scott Horsley reports:

"Negotiators have been working for the last two years to update what's known as the Information Technology Agreement, or ITA, but for much of that period talks were stalled. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says a breakthrough came last night, here in Beijing on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific economic summit.

"President Obama told his fellow leaders today that the APEC summit has often been an 'incubator' for ambitious free trade agreements:

" 'So it's fitting that we're here with our APEC colleagues to share the news that the United States and China have reached an understanding on the ITA that we hope will contribute to a rapid conclusion of the broader negotiations in Geneva. We think that's good news.' "

The new approach would phase out tariffs on devices that were far from the public market when the current ITA was shaped. Its adoption would require the support of dozens of other countries in addition to China and the United States.

In a release about today's news, the White House says more than 200 tariffs would be eliminated, including those that cover medical equipment, GPS devices, video game consoles and computer software.

"We already export over $2 billion of high-tech, high-end semiconductors, even with 25 percent tariffs," Froman says. "Eliminating those tariffs will obviously expand that trade significantly. It's an area where we have a comparative advantage, and where we can support a lot of good, well-paying American jobs."

Tariffs

China

Investors in Shanghai's stock market will for the first time on Monday be able to invest directly across the border in Hong Kong's Hang Seng stock exchange and vice versa.

The new system, called the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, will give foreign investors direct access to Shanghai's so-called A shares, including many blue chip, state-owned companies.

China has strict currency controls, so it can manage both the value of its currency, the renminbi, as well as protect its economy. The government will cap total daily transactions between the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges to a little more than $2 billion in each direction.

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

In China, Dreaded Process Of Getting Visa To The U.S. May Get Easier

Jun Qian, who teaches at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, says the change is inevitable as China tries to build an efficient financial system and internationalize the renminbi.

"Money has to come in and out of China much more freely than now," says Qian. "It's going to come gradually and the Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect is a little pipe in that opening."

Parallels

Capitalism Is Making China Richer, But Not Democratic

One reason China wants to open a pipe is to help bring order to Shanghai's stock market, which, years ago, one Chinese economist described as being "worse than a casino."

The Shanghai market is driven by insider trading and speculation, says Oliver Rui, a finance professor at Shanghai's China Europe International Business School. Therefore, it doesn't serve a stock exchange's crucial function: channeling investment to the most promising and innovative companies that create value and help drive an economy.

Rui says the hope is foreign institutional investors will bring their expertise to Shanghai's market and help raise investing standards to international levels. Rui says people's future living standards here may depend on it.

"We are still facing the risk of falling into a middle income trap," Rui says, referring to the fear that China's growth will stall and the vast majority of the country will never become wealthy. "Without a well-functioning capital market, we may not be able to become a real, developed country."

By permitting Chinese to invest across the border in Hong Kong, China's government is permitting more renminbi to circulate globally. Over time, that will help China internationalize its currency and eventually help establish it as a reserve currency.

China's leaders want more global influence on everything from the pricing of commodities to a say in how the rules of world finance are written. To that, Qian says, other big economies respond this way: "China, sorry, but basically your financial system is closed. It's separated. You're not a real member of the global community."

China hopes as the renminbi spreads around the world, the country's financial power will more closely reflect the size of its economy.

Hong Kong

China

Investors in Shanghai's stock market will for the first time on Monday be able to invest directly across the border in Hong Kong's Hang Seng stock exchange and vice versa.

The new system, called the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, will give foreign investors direct access to Shanghai's so-called A shares, including many blue chip, state-owned companies.

China has strict currency controls, so it can manage both the value of its currency, the renminbi, as well as protect its economy. The government will cap total daily transactions between the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges to a little more than $2 billion in each direction.

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

In China, Dreaded Process Of Getting Visa To The U.S. May Get Easier

Jun Qian, who teaches at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, says the change is inevitable as China tries to build an efficient financial system and internationalize the renminbi.

"Money has to come in and out of China much more freely than now," says Qian. "It's going to come gradually and the Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect is a little pipe in that opening."

Parallels

Capitalism Is Making China Richer, But Not Democratic

One reason China wants to open a pipe is to help bring order to Shanghai's stock market, which, years ago, one Chinese economist described as being "worse than a casino."

The Shanghai market is driven by insider trading and speculation, says Oliver Rui, a finance professor at Shanghai's China Europe International Business School. Therefore, it doesn't serve a stock exchange's crucial function: channeling investment to the most promising and innovative companies that create value and help drive an economy.

Rui says the hope is foreign institutional investors will bring their expertise to Shanghai's market and help raise investing standards to international levels. Rui says people's future living standards here may depend on it.

"We are still facing the risk of falling into a middle income trap," Rui says, referring to the fear that China's growth will stall and the vast majority of the country will never become wealthy. "Without a well-functioning capital market, we may not be able to become a real, developed country."

By permitting Chinese to invest across the border in Hong Kong, China's government is permitting more renminbi to circulate globally. Over time, that will help China internationalize its currency and eventually help establish it as a reserve currency.

China's leaders want more global influence on everything from the pricing of commodities to a say in how the rules of world finance are written. To that, Qian says, other big economies respond this way: "China, sorry, but basically your financial system is closed. It's separated. You're not a real member of the global community."

China hopes as the renminbi spreads around the world, the country's financial power will more closely reflect the size of its economy.

Hong Kong

China

The global economy rolls along more smoothly when it's not riding a unicycle. It needs additional wheels for momentum and stability.

That is, in effect, what Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is telling leaders of other advanced nations.

In a get rolling speech Wednesday to the World Affairs Council, Lew said the U.S. economy is moving at a good pace these days but needs support from the flat economies of Japan and the European Union.

Other countries cannot "rely on the United States to grow fast enough to make up for weak growth in major world economies," he said.

When Europe and Japan get too weak, demand drops for made-in-America products and services, and the U.S. dollar gets too valuable, making life tougher for U.S. exporters.

"The world is stronger if we all take steps to bolster domestic demand," Lew said.

He spoke in Seattle, where he was doing a warm-up act ahead of the main event this weekend in Australia. In Brisbane, he will join President Obama and other world leaders for a G-20 summit, focused on spurring global growth.

Related NPR Stories

Treasury Secretary: Boosting World Economy Requires 'Tough Decisions'

Parallels

Why Deflation Is Such A Big Worry For Europe

Europe's Short-Term Economic Fixes Can't Solve Long-Term Problems

Lew says the United States has a huge stake in the success of its first-world trading partners.

"The United States exports more than $2 trillion of goods and services to the world," he said. "It is very much in our economic and national interest when the rest of the global economy is growing."

The Obama administration is in a strange position. Just last week, it suffered big political setbacks in domestic elections. But on the world stage, Obama leads the most impressive economy. In the most recent quarter, this country grew at 3.5 percent — a very robust pace for a mature economy.

In the United States, the stock market is booming, budget deficits are melting away, corporate profits are breaking records and the unemployment rate is falling, down to nearly half the level set five years ago.

U.S. success shows "the resilience and determination of the American people," Lew said. "It also reflects the ease of starting businesses, our highly competitive product markets, and the ability to reap rewards from entrepreneurship."

Meanwhile, Japan's economy is stuck, with its inflation-adjusted growth rate running at less than 1 percent over the past decade. Europe may be on the brink of its third recession in six years.

Lew says that to grow, countries need a "comprehensive policy approach" that involves not only better fiscal and monetary decisions, but "structural" changes. When he talks about "structure," he's referring to the policy frameworks that hold back growth.

So, for example, in Japan, structural reform would mean changing laws that prevent young immigrants from replacing retired workers; helping women with children stay in the workforce and allowing more competition among companies. In Europe, it would mean making the banking sector less secretive.

In addition to speaking in Seattle, Lew talked with NPR's Robert Siegel, host of All Things Considered. Lew said that while he is offering advice to other countries, he knows this country still has many of its own problems to solve.

For one thing, "wages are not growing," he said. To help fix that, Congress should raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, he said. For low-income families, "the minimum wage makes a big difference," he said.

In addition, Congress should start spending more on rebuilding infrastructure, which would boost construction jobs, and pass laws to reform the tax code and increase trade, he said. "We still have work to do," he said.

Two bills that would authorize building the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will soon come to a vote in Congress, as their sponsors — Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La. — head toward a runoff election next month to decide who will win the Senate race.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports:

"On the Senate floor, Landrieu called for action on the Canada-to-Texas pipeline project, saying, 'I believe with a push we could actually get the votes that we need to pass the Keystone pipeline.'

"Soon after, Republican leaders in the House scheduled a vote Thursday on a Keystone bill sponsored by Landrieu's rival, Cassidy.

"The two face off in a Dec. 6 runoff. The pipeline is a key issue in Louisiana, where the oil and gas industry dominates."

Energy company TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Canada to Texas; it has been a polarizing issue, pitting those who say it would create thousands of jobs against environmentalists who say tar sands oil is too expensive and toxic to refine. Where one side says the plan would bolster the energy industry, the other says it would increase greenhouse gases.

Wary landowners along its path have also spoken out, complaining that the pipeline would disrupt their property and damage farms — particularly if it ever sprang a leak. As the Two-Way has reported, "In February, a Nebraska judge struck down a 2012 law that allowed part of the pipeline to run through the state."

The AP notes that the Obama administration isn't welcoming news of a vote on the matter:

"While the White House stopped short of directly threatening a veto, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama takes a 'dim view' of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review."

From NPR's StateImpact project comes this background:

"The Keystone Pipeline already exists. What doesn't exist fully yet is its proposed expansion, the Keystone XL Pipeline. The existing Keystone runs from oil sand fields in Alberta, Canada, into the U.S., ending in Cushing, Okla.

"The 1,700 new miles of pipeline would offer two sections of expansion. First, a southern leg would connect Cushing, where there is a current bottleneck of oil, with the Gulf Coast of Texas, where oil refineries abound."

midterms 2014

Rep. Bill Cassidy

Sen. Mary Landrieu

Keystone XL Pipeline