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Around this time every year, retailers gird their loins and prepare to slash prices for the holiday shopping season. For many stores, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are opportunities to clear old stock (at a mild loss) and trigger a surge of spending that carries on well into December. Deals on toys, televisions and tablets are meant to pull you into stores, where you're likely to splurge on other things like towels ... or perhaps a new cellphone.

Depending on when and where you look this week you'll be able to snag a new flagship class phone for as little as a penny if you're willing to sign a 2-year contract. There are a few contract-free devices being discounted this weekend, but the bulk of them aren't exactly the amazing "doorbusters" they're being advertised as. They're throwaway phones meant for short-term use. That's not a knock against the cheap phone market, however. In fact, some of the most interesting developments in cellphone tech are focused on the so-called "low end."

Once upon a time when you walked into a store looking to buy a new cell phone, you were presented with three options. High-end devices like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line were cutting edge, but expensive. Mid-range phones like HTC's Desire series were cheaper, but not nearly as powerful. Low-end phones were the most affordable, but also the most technologically limited of the bunch. Their processors were slower, their screens were less crisp, and their build quality often left much to be, well, desired.

Looking at the market today, many things are the same. High-end phones are still pricey and aspirational while the midrange is still middling. Cheap smartphones, however, are in a state of disruption. Bargain-basement gadgets are giving way to bigger, better devices that are just as affordable. Manufacturers like Microsoft, Motorola and OnePlus are redefining what an affordable cellphone can do, and demanding that we put the term "low end" to rest.

Microsoft/Nokia

The New Low End

Before it was officially acquired by Microsoft, Nokia released the Lumia 520, 521 and 525 handsets that quickly became the most popular Windows phones in the world. A sub-$100 price point and fairly smooth everyday use made the series ideal for first-time smartphone users. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out more cheap models that feature significant hardware upgrades, while maintaining ridiculously low price points. Entry-level Lumias demonstrated what companies could accomplish by building software meant to run on simpler, cheaper hardware.

For the most part, the low-end smartphone market is dominated by Android. With Windows Phone 8, however, Microsoft targeted one of Android's biggest weaknesses — performance. As powerful and customizable as Android is, it has a track record of poor performance on phones with lower specs. Windows Phone may not be as popular as Android, but it's a relatively standardized platform — meaning that using one Windows Phone feels like using nearly every Windows phone.

Rather than treating the low end as an afterthought, Microsoft began the trend of treating it as an opportunity to provide all consumers with a compelling experience.

All Tech Considered

Why 4.4 Billion People Still Don't Have Internet Access

All Tech Considered

Is Amazon's Failed Phone A Cautionary Tale?

Not long after Microsoft's foray into the new "low end," Motorola followed suit with the Moto G, a $180 off-contract phone meant to perform like a flagship. Similar to the Lumias, the Moto G became a record success for Motorola and challenged what low-cost Android phones could be.

The rising quality of smartphones priced under $200 is making them more attractive to the average consumer, but the low end is being redefined from above as well.

Redefining The Flagship

There's nothing technically low-end about the OnePlus One except for its price. At $299 off contract, OnePlus's "flagship killer" is more expensive than most of Microsoft's Lumias or the Moto G. Compared to the iPhone 6 ($649), the LG G3 ($699), and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 ($949), however, the OnePlus One is ludicrously priced. The OnePlus One features the same high-end components as its competitors, but has opted for a different kind of business model, which OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei likens to that of a startup.

"In building our company, we wanted to challenge the status quo," Pei explained in an interview. "By selling directly to consumers and utilizing social media and our online community to create interest, we were able to put a lot more value back into the device itself."

OnePlus's One phone manages to provide a high-end experience at a relatively low price point. OnePlus hide caption

itoggle caption OnePlus

Unlike most other phones, the OnePlus One can only be bought online after receiving an invitation from the company or a friend who's purchased the phone. The system does the double duty of generating buzz around the device and allowing OnePlus to maintain a careful, cost-effective balance between supply and demand. Pei says OnePlus' focus isn't necessarily on its competition. It's on how people are purchasing their phones.

"Increasingly, people are starting to understand the true cost of signing a contract, and we want to make it easier to purchase a high-end device without having to give a large portion of money to a middleman," Pei said. "We're here to show everyone what's possible once you step outside of the traditional rules of the smartphone market."

The traditional rules of the smartphone market are what burned Amazon's ill-fated Kindle Fire Phone earlier this year and drove the company to discount the phone to a more reasonable $199 off-contract price. Today more Americans are buying smartphones under $200, and the market is responding.

ARM, the company that designs most of the world's cellphone processors, projects that by 2018 1 billion low-end smartphones will ship compared to 250 million high-end devices. What those devices will look like exactly is unclear, but it's obvious that the low-end market that we knew is evolving into something bigger, stronger and cheaper than ever.

Charles Pulliam-Moore is an intern at NPR's Code Switch who has a not-so-secret passion for mobile gadgetry. He tweets about tech, culture and the occasional pocket monster @CharlesPulliam.

smartphones

There are more twins in the "millennial generation" than any other generation, thanks partly to a twin boom in the '90s. The main reason was a new technology called in vitro fertilization, which in its early days frequently produced twins, triplets and other multiple births.

The result? A million "extra" twins born between 1981 and 2012.

And all of them might be hurting the economy.

"Basically we'd prefer people not being twins to being twins," says economist Mark Rosenzweig.

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Rosenzweig's career is built on studying twins. But if he's being honest, he thinks twins are bad economic news.

First, there are the health care costs. Twins are more likely to be born prematurely, which can lead to all sorts of expensive medical problems.

Birth weight matters, too: Rosenzweig did a study based on hundreds of female twins in Minnesota that looked at the effect of birth weight on lifetime earnings.

"The birth weights of twins are on average about 28 ounces lower," he says. "So the earnings result was 16 percent lower, related to the fact that they had lower birth weight."

That's right: on average female twins make 16 percent less money over their lifetimes than non-twins — just because they're born less chubby. And lest you think it's only the girls who are in trouble, multiple studies have also found low birth weight in boys correlates with less educational success, which also means earning less money.

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And then there's the family stress of bringing home two babies.

"The birth of twins, it's usually greeted with a great deal of shock: a two-person stroller, two cribs, two of everything, basically," says twin researcher Nancy Segal, who runs the Twin Studies Center at Cal State Fullerton.

It also means a doubling of other costs, like college tuition. Raising all the extra millennial twins has been hard on many family budgets. And then, if the twins were conceived through in vitro fertilization, there's the cost of having them in the first place; the procedure is expensive.

But despite the cost, Segal doesn't buy the idea that twins are a bad thing for society. She points out twins tend to support each other emotionally, and tend to live closer to each other and to family than regular siblings, which can make them more available to care for aging parents.

And being twins might just help them economically too.

Matt and Mike Gradnani are identical twins and they're really close. They went to college together, they played football and rugby together and they go to bars together. At 25 years old, they live together in an apartment they own together, which they could afford because there are two of them.

"I mean we both kinda felt that it would be smarter in the long run to put money in our own investment, instead of someone else's pocket," says Matt. "And ultimately the two of us could afford a lot more together than we could individually."

And Mike and Matt even co-own a successful business selling real estate. How's that for hurting the economy?

But they're just two of the one million extra millennial twins entering the workforce, and starting families of their own, in the coming years. The ultimate economic impact of all those twins is yet to be known.

twins

If you looked at Earth from far off in the solar system, would it look like it's run by humans — or chickens? There are about three times as many chickens as people on this planet. And while horses and dogs are often celebrated as humankind's partner in spreading civilization, a new book argues it's really the chicken.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization

by Andrew Lawler

Hardcover, 324 pages | purchase

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Read an excerpt

Andrew Lawler, author of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, tells NPR's Scott Simon about the chicken's malleability, its religious symbolism and the most disturbing thing he learned while researching his book.

Interview Highlights

On why he calls the chicken nature's Mr. Potato Head

You can turn the chicken into almost anything. You can have a tiny little bantam, or you can have a giant Rhode Island red. The chicken is incredibly malleable, which is probably a good reason why we decided to domesticate it and use it for so many purposes. ... Some archaeologists believe that the chicken was domesticated for ... cockfighting and for religious purposes. And it's only later — really, in the past century — that the chicken has been used to eat on a regular basis.

On the chicken as a religious symbol

I can't think of a creature that has more religious significance than the chicken. ... If you look at most Christian churches, they have a chicken on top — that is, a rooster — as a weather vane. Actually, there's a pope, about 1,500 years ago, who declared that the chicken should be placed on top of every steeple in Christendom. And even on the top of Old St. Peter's [Basilica], there was a rooster that crowed people into church to awake them spiritually. But this is actually an old idea that goes back to the Zoroastrians in ancient Persia.

On how African-Americans became so central in the poultry industry

This is one thing that I think surprised me more than anything else I discovered about the chicken industry. And that is that, in the Colonial South, chickens were just about the only thing that American slaves were allowed to raise, because livestock like cows or sheep or pigs were considered too important, and those were reserved for the masters, or slaves took care of them. And so, over time, over a century and a half, African-Americans became kind of the general chicken merchants in the South. And in part [that was] because they knew the chicken well: They came largely from West Africa, where the chicken was an essential part of daily life ... for food as well as for religious ritual.

More Chicken Stories

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Hipsters Off The Hook: The Truth Behind Abandoned Backyard Chickens

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Why The U.S. Chills Its Eggs And Most Of The World Doesn't

On the Chicken of Tomorrow project

It's sort of like the Manhattan Project for poultry. So, after World War II, the people who [raised] chickens got together. And they were really afraid that at the end of the war, people were going to go back to eating beef and pork, which had been largely reserved for the troops during the war. So they decided that they needed to draw on the latest science and engineering in order to make the chicken more profitable. And they had a vast national contest, and at the end of this contest, in 1951, they chose one chicken that seemed to fit the bill. And that was a chicken that could grow really fast with a minimal amount of feed, and would have a large breast that Americans like to eat. And ultimately it proved incredibly successful.

On the most unsettling thing he learned about the poultry industry

It was particularly disturbing to discover that under U.S. law, chickens are not even considered animals if they're grown for food. So, in other words, there are no regulations that say how chickens should be treated. Now, this is very different, say, from pigs or from cattle, where there are some very strict guidelines that people have to follow. But the chicken is almost considered not even alive, which, after spending time talking to people about chickens around the world — I discovered that's crazy.

Read an excerpt of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

chickens

livestock

The monsters of repression are what terrorize a single mom and her little boy in The Babadook. The small, independent, Australian, feminist horror movie was one of the buzziest films coming out of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As of this writing, The Babadook enjoys an impressive 97 percent positive score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film centers on 6-year-old Samuel, one of those kids you dread having to spend time with in real life. He's aggressive, demanding and prone to meltdowns. He's obsessed with magic tricks and is convinced an imaginary monster is hiding under the bed.

"He's obviously suffering a high level of anxiety," observes the therapist he's taken to after getting kicked out of school. "Very committed to the monster theory."

The monster Samuel fears is, of course, the Babadook. That's a sinister, smudgy figure with a top hat, menacing feathery black fingers and a hungry, toothy mouth. He shows up first in a children's book that seems to have come from nowhere and later in a grainy silent movie on late night TV that's influenced by the "magic" films of Georges Mlis.

"I wanted it to look more low-fi and more handmade," says director Jennifer Kent. "And I think it's more savage that way."

The Babadook is Kent's first feature film. (Here you can see a short that's an early version of The Babadook). Georgetown University professor Caetlin Benson-Allott studies horror movies. She says The Babadook brings something fresh and unexpected to the genre: "To acknowledge that being a mother is hard," she says. "That sometimes you hate your child and don't know how to cope. That was something I don't think we've seen in horror before."

Of course we've seen other mothers in horror movies, but few facing this kind of emotional verisimilitude. Samuel's mom has been depressed since the child's father died. Because Samuel is so difficult to be around, the two are despised by their relatives. But for all his neediness and lack of self-control, Samuel is also a plucky and forthright little kid, deeply protective of his fragile mother. Their next-door neighbor recognizes and admires the strength hiding in this little family.

"For me, this story was a myth in a domestic setting," says the director, who completely invented the Babadook. (He's not — as some have wondered — based on an actual Australian folktale.) She wants viewers to be uncertain if they're seeing a supernatural monster or one that's erupted from repressed feelings.

"This is a film about making your own monsters," agrees Benson-Allott. "And the damage we do to our families, and within our families."

It's a theme that makes The Babadook not only one of the most talked about horror movies of the year, but perhaps perversely, one for the holidays.

Every year, Hollywood tries to go out with a bang — the question this year is, which bang will be biggest? For sheer moviemaking grandeur, you'd think it would be hard to top the subduing of the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies. But Peter Jackson's only got Gandalf and armies. In Exodus: Gods And Kings, Ridley Scott's got Moses, 400,000 slaves, and an effects budget Pharaoh would envy, not to mention the parting of the Red Sea.

Shall we call that a draw?

Actually, the action this holiday season, as in most holiday seasons, is in based-on-a-true-story stories, because Oscar voters are as fond of biopics as they are short of memory. Among the notable ones this season:

Mr. Turner — Mike Leigh's painterly portrait of British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, in which Tim Spall courts an Oscar nomination by grunting and snorting as he paints his masterpieces

The Imitation Game — Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, the gay British math genius who cracked Germany's Enigma Code in World War II

American Sniper — Clint Eastwood's look at an Iraq war veteran (Bradley Cooper) who was the deadliest sharpshooter in U.S. history

Unbroken — Based on the non-fiction book about a former Olympic track star who got shot down over the Pacific in World War II. The American spent 47 days clinging to a raft, only to be plucked from it by the Japanese, who tried to use him for propaganda.

Unbroken was directed by Angelina Jolie, and unlike previous years when it was startling to see even one woman director leading a prestige project during awards season, this year there are two. The other is Ava DuVernay's measured, majestic Selma, which chronicles Martin Luther King's 1965 campaign for voting rights, and the opposition of Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

And while women directed those stories of struggle and resistance, they're also out in front of the camera in other potential award contenders: Julianne Moore suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's in Still Alice; Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, trekking more than a thousand miles to put her life in order in Wild; and Amy Adams, playing 1950s artist Margaret Keane as she struggles against a husband who claims credit for her hugely popular paintings in Big Eyes.

Art-house audiences will have a wealth of foreign films to choose from, including Two Days One Night, the Dardenne brothers' wrenching (and timely) story of workplace downsizing, and Leviathan, which looks at a vodka-soaked landscape of Russian corruption.

Chris Rock wrote, directed and stars in Top Five, about a comedian who's frustrated that he can't get the entertainment industry to take him seriously, while Seth Rogen co-wrote, co-directed and co-stars in The Interview, a less-serious look at someone anxious to be taken seriously. Rogen plays James Franco's producer on a tabloid-TV show that scores a face-to-face sitdown with Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a fact that attracts attention from the CIA.

And all of that's before you even get to the musicals Annie and Into The Woods, the latter a comparatively dark look at what happens after "happily ever after," the former a show for those convinced the sun'll come out, um, you know when (if I type it, I won't be able to get it out of my head).

Good luck resisting if you're a parent ... or even if you're not.

Movies

cinema

Iraq war movies

Around this time every year, retailers gird their loins and prepare to slash prices for the holiday shopping season. For many stores, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are opportunities to clear old stock (at a mild loss) and trigger a surge of spending that carries on well into December. Deals on toys, televisions and tablets are meant to pull you into stores, where you're likely to splurge on other things like towels ... or perhaps a new cellphone.

Depending on when and where you look this week you'll be able to snag a new flagship class phone for as little as a penny if you're willing to sign a 2-year contract. There are a few contract-free devices being discounted this weekend, but the bulk of them aren't exactly the amazing "doorbusters" they're being advertised as. They're throwaway phones meant for short-term use. That's not a knock against the cheap phone market, however. In fact, some of the most interesting developments in cellphone tech are focused on the so-called "low end."

Once upon a time when you walked into a store looking to buy a new cell phone, you were presented with three options. High-end devices like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line were cutting edge, but expensive. Mid-range phones like HTC's Desire series were cheaper, but not nearly as powerful. Low-end phones were the most affordable, but also the most technologically limited of the bunch. Their processors were slower, their screens were less crisp, and their build quality often left much to be, well, desired.

Looking at the market today, many things are the same. High-end phones are still pricey and aspirational while the midrange is still middling. Cheap smartphones, however, are in a state of disruption. Bargain-basement gadgets are giving way to bigger, better devices that are just as affordable. Manufacturers like Microsoft, Motorola and OnePlus are redefining what an affordable cellphone can do, and demanding that we put the term "low end" to rest.

Microsoft/Nokia

The New Low End

Before it was officially acquired by Microsoft, Nokia released the Lumia 520, 521 and 525 handsets that quickly became the most popular Windows phones in the world. A sub-$100 price point and fairly smooth everyday use made the series ideal for first-time smartphone users. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out more cheap models that feature significant hardware upgrades, while maintaining ridiculously low price points. Entry-level Lumias demonstrated what companies could accomplish by building software meant to run on simpler, cheaper hardware.

For the most part, the low-end smartphone market is dominated by Android. With Windows Phone 8, however, Microsoft targeted one of Android's biggest weaknesses — performance. As powerful and customizable as Android is, it has a track record of poor performance on phones with lower specs. Windows Phone may not be as popular as Android, but it's a relatively standardized platform — meaning that using one Windows Phone feels like using nearly every Windows phone.

Rather than treating the low end as an afterthought, Microsoft began the trend of treating it as an opportunity to provide all consumers with a compelling experience.

All Tech Considered

Why 4.4 Billion People Still Don't Have Internet Access

All Tech Considered

Is Amazon's Failed Phone A Cautionary Tale?

Not long after Microsoft's foray into the new "low end," Motorola followed suit with the Moto G, a $180 off-contract phone meant to perform like a flagship. Similar to the Lumias, the Moto G became a record success for Motorola and challenged what low-cost Android phones could be.

The rising quality of smartphones priced under $200 is making them more attractive to the average consumer, but the low end is being redefined from above as well.

Redefining The Flagship

There's nothing technically low-end about the OnePlus One except for its price. At $299 off contract, OnePlus's "flagship killer" is more expensive than most of Microsoft's Lumias or the Moto G. Compared to the iPhone 6 ($649), the LG G3 ($699), and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 ($949), however, the OnePlus One is ludicrously priced. The OnePlus One features the same high-end components as its competitors, but has opted for a different kind of business model, which OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei likens to that of a startup.

"In building our company, we wanted to challenge the status quo," Pei explained in an interview. "By selling directly to consumers and utilizing social media and our online community to create interest, we were able to put a lot more value back into the device itself."

OnePlus's One phone manages to provide a high-end experience at a relatively low price point. OnePlus hide caption

itoggle caption OnePlus

Unlike most other phones, the OnePlus One can only be bought online after receiving an invitation from the company or a friend who's purchased the phone. The system does the double duty of generating buzz around the device and allowing OnePlus to maintain a careful, cost-effective balance between supply and demand. Pei says OnePlus' focus isn't necessarily on its competition. It's on how people are purchasing their phones.

"Increasingly, people are starting to understand the true cost of signing a contract, and we want to make it easier to purchase a high-end device without having to give a large portion of money to a middleman," Pei said. "We're here to show everyone what's possible once you step outside of the traditional rules of the smartphone market."

The traditional rules of the smartphone market are what burned Amazon's ill-fated Kindle Fire Phone earlier this year and drove the company to discount the phone to a more reasonable $199 off-contract price. Today more Americans are buying smartphones under $200, and the market is responding.

ARM, the company that designs most of the world's cellphone processors, projects that by 2018 1 billion low-end smartphones will ship compared to 250 million high-end devices. What those devices will look like exactly is unclear, but it's obvious that the low-end market that we knew is evolving into something bigger, stronger and cheaper than ever.

Charles Pulliam-Moore is an intern at NPR's Code Switch who has a not-so-secret passion for mobile gadgetry. He tweets about tech, culture and the occasional pocket monster @CharlesPulliam.

smartphones

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Bargain hunters heading to Walmart, in addition to looking for holiday deals, may find workers participating in Black Friday Strikes.

Since 2012, Our Walmart, which is an employee labor group, has been staging strikes on the day after Thanksgiving.

Employees at stores in six states and Washington, D.C., plan to participate and more locations are expected to join in.

Our Walmart says it is standing up for better jobs. Members of the group would like to see more full-time work and an hourly wage of $15.

Its website BlackFridayprotests.org is trying to gather momentum for the movement. It also encourages people to participate in the strikes and has information where they can find a protest near them.

The AFL-CIO Tweeted: "Skip shopping and join a #BlackFriday protest in solidarity w/ #WalmartStrikers.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "The entire labor movement will proudly stand with the brave workers at Walmart as they lead the largest mobilization to date for better wages and schedules."

Walmart employs 1.3 million people in the United States. A statement on its website reads: "About 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates, and they earn between $50,000 and $170,000 a year — similar to what firefighters, accountants, and even doctors make. Last year, Walmart promoted about 170,000 people to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay."

our walmart

walmart

As many as 13,000 people in the U.K. are victims of modern slavery, including sex trafficking, those "imprisoned" as domestic helpers, factory workers and on fishing boats, according to a new analysis release by Britain's Home Office.

According to the BBC, the Home Office says victims, including women and girls forced into prostitution or manual labor on farms, in factories and on fishing boats for little or no pay, include people from more than 100 countries, with Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam and Romania, heading the list, although British-born adults and children were also included.

"The first step to eradicating the scourge of modern slavery is acknowledging and confronting its existence," Home Secretary Theresa May was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. "The estimated scale of the problem in modern Britain is shocking and these new figures starkly reinforce the case for urgent action."

The BBC reports:

"Data from the National Crime Agency's Human Trafficking Centre last year put the number of slavery victims in the UK at 2,744.

"The assessment was collated from sources including police, the UK Border Force, charities and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

"The Home Office said it used established statistical methodology and models from other public policy contexts to estimate a 'dark figure' that may not have come to the NCA's attention."

Rape Crisis London says that "hundreds of women and children are trafficked into the UK every year."

In a 2012 report, Russia Today quoted Paul Donahoe, press officer at the British charity Anti-Slavery International as saying that teenagers from rural Vietnam, many orphans, are often lured to the U.K. with false promises of jobs in restaurants only to be forced to work in illegal Cannabis farms.

"He continued that women from Nigeria, many of whom have sworn to their traffickers not to run away or go to the authorities, arrive in the UK and are forced to work in prostitution.

"'They never pay off their debt and are forced to keep working until they are no longer useful,' he explained."

forced labor

U.K.

Vietnam

Albania

prostitution

slavery

Retired U.S. Air Force Col. David Roeder spent more than a year as one of 52 American hostages held by Iranian revolutionaries who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

"I spent 14 months of my life and getting beaten around and tortured and threats against my family and all those sorts of things," he says.

For many, he adds, the ordeal never ended.

"Quite frankly, I was one of the lucky ones," he says. "I think I'm ok. But there's an awful lot ... who are really hurting. Everything from post traumatic disorder-type depression, to age, of course."

A battle for compensation has dragged on for years. And many of those former hostages are keeping close watch on the ongoing negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

The U.S. and other world powers missed a self-imposed deadline this past week to reach a deal, though they've set a new one for next June 30. While the talks carry on, Iran receives about $700 million a month in frozen funds in exchange for some temporary limits on its nuclear program.

And that is raising eyebrows among some of the former hostages.

One problem in obtaining compensation for the former hostages is that the deal that President Jimmy Carter signed to help obtain their release granted Iran immunity from legal claims.

The State Department says it is bound by that, which frustrates another former hostage, John Limbert, who spent his career in the Foreign Service.

"The painful thing for me is that it's been our colleagues in the State Department who have defended" the agreement, he says. "They might not like to hear this, but they have tacitly put themselves in an alliance with the Iranians."

State Department officials say they are working with members of Congress now to explore options to provide former hostages with compensation. They say the $700 million a month Iran currently is receiving in sanctions relief under the temporary nuclear deal is a separate issue.

While skeptical, Limbert says his career in diplomacy taught him to remain hopeful.

"Of the original 52, there are now 39 of us left alive and none of us are getting any younger," he says.

Now a professor at the Naval Academy, Limbert says he's glad to see Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif engaged in negotiations.

"When Kerry and Zarif sit down to talk – there's a lot of history in the room," says Limbert.

He adds that he was struck by a recent news report that quoted an Iranian official involved in the talks as saying it is time to address the issue of the American hostages.

Limbert says he's not sure if those comments will amount to anything, but he says it is a big change coming from an Iranian official.

National security

Iran

Australian cricket player Phillip Hughes died this week in Sydney after he was struck on the back of the neck by a bounced pitch that's an ordinary and routine part of cricket.

Mr. Hughes was 25, an accomplished and admired player. There's been an outpouring of grief in Australia and around the world over his death. Cricket fans from India and Pakistan to New Zealand have observed a minute of silence before a match, and worn black armbands. Cricket fans have put out cricket bats in tribute. Rory McIlroy, the great Irish golfer, played with a black ribbon in his cap.

Few Americans follow cricket. The game often has a faintly dainty image here, with players in white sweaters who stop for tea over a six-hour match. But the cricket ball is hard. Bowlers, as they're called, can pitch a ball at over 90 miles an hour, which can, after hitting the wicket, bounce towards a batsman's head or body. Hit it, or get out of the way.

Phillip Hughes wore a helmet. It's required of professional cricket players and children alike in many situations these days. But the ball bounced into the back of his neck, which is not covered by the helmet, and apparently set off bleeding that flooded his brain.

i i

Cricketer Phillip Hughes celebrates a score in 2011. Hughes was wearing a helmet this week when a ball struck him on the neck and killed him. Eranga Jayawardena/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Cricketer Phillip Hughes celebrates a score in 2011. Hughes was wearing a helmet this week when a ball struck him on the neck and killed him.

Eranga Jayawardena/AP

The injury that felled Phillip Hughes might seem freakish, but cricket fans know that there's been a string of injuries in the sport in recent months, when fast balls have struck players, even on their helmets. Darryn Randall, a South African player, was struck on the head and died in October of 2013. Mr. Hughes is the second cricketer in two years to die because of an injury suffered in a game.

By contrast, a major league U.S. baseball player has not died of an injury on the field since Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a pitch in 1920.

But The Economist, the British weekly, raised a question this week that not only applies to cricket, but to U.S. sports, and some aspects of life, too. It's what economists call "the moral hazard" question: Do people take more risks when they think they are protected from the consequences of something that might go wrong?

Do cricket players try to hit a ball that should make them duck because they expect a helmet to protect their heads? Do the sturdier helmets that have been developed just encourage U.S. football players to absorb more hits and crashes, and thereby shake up their brains and spines? Does new headgear encourage hockey players to skate faster and hit the boards more recklessly?

Do the technological advances we tell ourselves will protect us risk just winding up as new examples of good intentions that go wrong?

phillip hughes

cricket

We so regularly excuse the chicanery of sport. We fans suspect that our team is just as guilty as whatever ooze bubbles to the surface elsewhere, so let it go lest we be the next one caught. For us privileged to actually be down in the rabbit hole, the sins have been so present for so long, they simply become accepted as a benign part of the landscape. Hey, it's all just fun and games, so go along, be a — well, be a good sport.

Only, every now and then ...

Every now and then the evils are just so gross that you have to blink open the blind eye. Sorry. Such was the past week.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on the issue.

Since Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill in 1997, more than 700 people have taken their lives with prescribed medication — including Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with an incurable brain tumor, who ended her life earlier this month.

Advocates of assisted-suicide laws believe that mentally competent people who are suffering and have no chance of long-term survival, should have the right to die if and when they choose. If people are have the right to refuse life-saving treatments, they argue, they should also have the freedom to choose to end their own lives.

Opponents say that such laws devalue human life. Medical prognoses are often inaccurate, they note — meaning people who have been told they will soon die sometimes live for many months or even years longer. They also argue that seriously ill people often suffer from undiagnosed depression or other mental illnesses that can impair their ability to make an informed decision.

At the latest event from Intelligence Squared U.S., two teams addressed these questions while debating the motion, "Legalize Assisted Suicide."

Before the debate, the audience at the Kaufman Music Center in New York was 65 percent in favor of the motion and 10 percent against, with 25 percent undecided. After the debate, 67 percent favored the motion, with 22 percent against, making the team arguing against the motion the winner of this debate.

Those debating:

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FOR THE MOTION

Peter Singer is a philosopher and author, best known for his work in ethics. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, a position that he now combines with the part-time position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Some of his more recent books include The Point of View of the Universe and The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. In 2014 the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him third on its list of Global Thought Leaders, and Time has ranked him among the world's 100 most influential people. An Australian, in 2012 he was made a Companion to the Order of Australia, his country's highest civilian honor.

Andrew Solomon is a writer, lecturer and a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University. Solomon's newest book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, won the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction and was chosen as one of the New York Times "Ten Best Books" of 2012. Solomon's previous book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the National Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is a director of the University of Michigan Depression Center and Columbia Psychiatry; a member of the board of visitors of Columbia University Medical Center; serves on the national advisory board of the Depression Center at the University of Michigan, and on the advisory board of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. In 2011, he was appointed special advisor on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Mental Health at the Yale School of Psychiatry.

i i

Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, with debate partner Ilora Finlay, argues that policies legalizing physician-assisted suicide are unethical. Samuel LaHoz/Intelligence Squared U.S. hide caption

itoggle caption Samuel LaHoz/Intelligence Squared U.S.

Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, with debate partner Ilora Finlay, argues that policies legalizing physician-assisted suicide are unethical.

Samuel LaHoz/Intelligence Squared U.S.

AGAINST THE MOTION

Baroness Ilora Finlay, a leading palliative care physician, is president of the British Medical Association, president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, and is a past president of the Royal Society of Medicine. She has led the Palliative Care Strategy Implementation Board in Wales since 2008, and chaired the Welsh Medical and Dental Academic Advisory Board since 2012. Finlay was a general practitioner in inner-city Glasgow before returning to Cardiff to work full-time in care of the terminally ill. She works at the Velindre Cancer Centre, covering South East Wales when clinically on call. Finlay started the Marie Curie Hospice in Wales and since 2008 has responsibility on behalf of Welsh Government for strategic oversight of all hospice and palliative care services in Wales. Since 2001, Finlay has been an Independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords.

Dr. Daniel Sulmasy is the Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School at the University of Chicago, where he serves as associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics and as director of the Program on Medicine and Religion. Sulmasy was appointed to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues by President Obama in 2010. His research interests encompass both theoretical and empirical investigations of the ethics of end-of-life decision-making, ethics education and spirituality in medicine. He is the author or editor of six books, including Safe Passage: A Global Spiritual Sourcebook for Care at the End of Life. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the journal, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics.

physician-assisted suicide

suicide

Roberto Gmez Bolaos, a popular Mexican comedic actor and screenwriter known by the nickname "Chespirito," has died at age 85 after a long illness, Latin Times reports.

The newspaper says Bolaos died of heart failure in Cancun.

The Associated Press notes: "His morning show was a staple for preschoolers, much like Captain Kangaroo in the United States.

"He warmed the hearts of millions with a clean comedy style far removed from the sexual innuendo and obscenity-laced jokes popular today. In a career that started in the 1950s, he wrote hundreds of television episodes, 20 films and theater productions that drew record-breaking audiences," the AP says.

Hoy se fue una gran persona que siempre supo como sacarle una sonrisa a todos. D.E.P Roberto Gmez Bolaos! CH pic.twitter.com/j6mxE3nAfR

— Ral Jimnez (@Raul_Jimenez9) November 28, 2014

Latin Times says of him: "The actor is famous for his characters on El Chavo del 8, El Chapuln Colorado, and other shows. Born in Mexico City in 1929, Gomez Bolaos was writing scripts and screenplays in his early twenties, despite studying for being an engineer. The all-rounded artist also composed songs and scripts for radio shows. It was in the 1960's, when the two most popular Mexican television shows on air were written by Gomez Bolaos, that he earned the nickname Chespirito from director Agustn P. Delgado. The nickname, which he would later be recognized by around the world, translates to 'Shakespearito' or 'Little Shakespeare.'"

Among other things, Simpsons creator Matt Groening has said that seeing Bolaos' antics on Mexican television inspired the character Bumblebee Man that has been a recurring character on the long-running American animated cartoon.

"The Hispanic market has never had such a beloved celebrity like Roberto Gomez Bolanos and perhaps there will never be one like him," said Maca Rotter, executive director of Televisa Consumer Product, was quoted by Latin Times as saying. "He has been a Mexican icon for past and future generations, considering that his heritage is more alive than ever."

Television

Dave Arnold can work some serious magic with a cocktail shaker. But he's no alchemist — Arnold, who runs the Manhattan bar Booker and Dax, takes a very scientific approach to his craft.

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Arnold, author of Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, has some advanced tricks will help you up your game in time for holiday cocktail parties. And while some of them — like his liquid nitrogen techniques — aren't for the faint of heart, one of his favorite secrets is a simple, low-tech ingredient: salt.

"That's what I tell everyone," he tells NPR's Ari Shapiro. "Next time you make cocktails, make a drink, don't add any salt [and] taste it. Then just put a pinch in afterwards, stir it and taste the difference."

As for that liquid nitrogen, it's the key to the Thai Basil Daiquiri, one of Arnold's signature drinks. The basil's anise flavor notes make it a fantastic herb for drinks, he says.

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How to muddle your cocktail with herbs: Left: Pick your herbs. Center: After muddling, it should look like this. Right: Add liquor, let thaw, then add syrups and shake with ice. Strain drink through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass. Travis Huggett/W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. hide caption

itoggle caption Travis Huggett/W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

How to muddle your cocktail with herbs: Left: Pick your herbs. Center: After muddling, it should look like this. Right: Add liquor, let thaw, then add syrups and shake with ice. Strain drink through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass.

Travis Huggett/W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

(A note of caution: Liquid nitrogen is extremely cold – Arnold works with it at minus 196 degrees Celsius. Read the warning label before attempting to use it.)

In traditional muddling, grinding releases an herb's flavors and oils into a cocktail. "The problem is, [a muddled leaf] starts turning black almost immediately," when enzymes in the herb react with oxygen, Arnold explains.

But when the leaves are frozen with liquid nitrogen, Arnold says, they become so cold and brittle that they can be easily powered and used to create fine infusions. And because those enzymes are deactivated by high-proof ethanol – booze – combining the powder with liquor retains the herb's bright color, Arnold explains.

Eater/YouTube

Watch Dave Arnold explain how to make his Thai Basil Daiquiri using liquid nitrogen.

Arnold also has a pretty spectacular party trick that uses a much older technology: a sabre, used to knock the top off a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine. Luckily, almost any kitchen knife, like a chef's knife, will do.

The Salt

Can Hand-Cut, Artisanal Ice Make Your Cocktail That Much Better?

The Salt

Rum Renaissance Revives The Spirit's Rough Reputation

And don't worry — if you do it properly, Arnold says, you needn't worry about ending up drinking shards of glass. "I've done high-speed photography of it, and looked at it, and the force and the pressure are such that the glass shards always travel away from the beverage."

If you listen to the conversation in the audio player above, Arnold will walk you through his sabering technique. Just take care where you try this technique, he notes. "I have broken a window in my bathroom" doing this, he says, so try it out "in a place that you're not worried."

dave arnold

cocktails

herbs

liquid nitrogen

bartender drinks

food science

alcohol

Students in the University of California system staged walkouts on campuses throughout the state Monday, in response to proposed tuition hikes at their schools. Last week, the UC Board of Regents voted for hikes of up to 5 percent a year, for the next five years, unless state funding is increased. California Gov. Jerry Brown has come out against the tuition increases, and as a UC regent himself, he also voted against the measure. But the regents approved the hike in a 14-7 vote.

Students at UC Berkeley, the system's flagship campus, have taken the lead in protesting the hikes. They've organized a group called "The Open UC." The group's website lays out their beliefs:

"Education is a universal human right. These tuition hikes, as well as concerted efforts by the UC's to privatize their schools, have attempted to transform education from a right into a privilege. That is what is at stake here. Financial burden from public education, which should be free, is perpetually placed on students instead of the state. This must end."

Hannah Berkman, a Berkeley sophomore speaking on behalf of the group, told NPR that their message is simple. "We do not accept this," said Berkman. "These tuition hikes really put into question our right to accessible, affordable public education." Berkman says students at UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and UCLA are taking part in Monday's walkout.

Protesting students at Berkeley began occupying a university building, Wheeler Hall, last Wednesday. The first few nights of that occupation, more than 200 people camped out in the space, which is home to the university's English Department. Berkman says those numbers have dwindled, but the university administration is allowing students to stay overnight in the space.

One Berkeley student has been arrested so far in protests. But he was on the campus of UCSF Mission Bay, not Berkeley.

In a statement, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks says low-income students will actually see their tuition decrease over the coming year, and "the vast majority of California students from families earning less than $150,000 a year will see no increase." In an email to NPR, a Berkeley spokeswoman said about 40 percent of undergrads there don't pay any tuition at all.

But Berkman says the university's statement isn't definitive enough. "It's not even clear; that's the problem," says Berkman. "It hasn't even been made clear what that means. It just says the majority."

Berkman also says it's wrong to raise tuition in the midst of salary hikes for high-level university administrators. "A 20 percent salary increase for higher-level administrators seems really, really unnecessary and hypocritical if you're increasing tuition by this much," says Berkman. She is alluding to UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman, whose salary was increased to $485,000 earlier this year.

Student protesters have been tweeting from their walkouts. One tweet showed a sign Berkeley marchers carried throughout campus: "Remove Janet Napolitano As UC President." They've also called for increased minority enrollment in the UC system, and "full citizenship for undocumented immigrants." Another tweet had an image of a handwritten sign on a student's back that read, "You are not a loan!"

ENORMOUS march and rally happening now at UC Berkeley to protest tuition hikes. #OpenUC #OpenUniversity #FightTheHike pic.twitter.com/gtarL24UEg

— Not Frantz Fanon (@violentfanon) November 24, 2014

In Washington, D.C., a city with one of the highest costs of living in the nation, low-income residents are having trouble buying affordable housing — not because of a lack of it, but because of all the red tape.

Nearly 1 in 5 D.C. residents lives at or below the poverty line.

D.C. real estate developer Buwa Binitie offers affordable housing units as well as market-rate condos and says his rental properties can get snapped up quickly but the for-sale properties take a whole lot longer.

"The affordable units we're selling for $171,000, and the market-rate units we're selling for $230,000. All the market-rate units sold in two months, but it's taken me 11 months to dispose of 11 affordable dwelling units," he says.

Binitie blames the holdup on the hoops prospective buyers must jump through.

The first trick, says National Low Income Housing Coalition President Sheila Crowley, is proving your income is low enough to qualify for affordable housing yet high enough to get a mortgage. In D.C., you must make below 80 percent of the area median income of $107,000 for a family of four.

"Part of it is this square-peg-into-a-round-hole thing that we try to do in housing, and that's a conundrum," Crowley says.

She says this conundrum exists nationwide, and in D.C., it's compounded by more requirements: Prospective buyers of affordable housing must also attend homebuying training, and if they want to get a loan, they must navigate the labyrinth of city government.

Marilyn Phillips just bought her very first condo. An affordable housing organization called Manna walked her through the process.

“ The D.C. government and the federal government want to make sure that the subsidies that they're providing are going to people that actually need them.

- Sarah Scruggs of Manna, an affordable housing organization

"People can get frustrated with all the hoops you have to jump through," Phillips says. "All of the information they want to gather from you, it can make you feel like, 'Why do you need all this information?' "

The 58-year-old has been fighting breast cancer for years, and now she can finally save money.

"I pay most of my Social Security disability check to my landlord now. I pay $900 a month. My mortgage at this new place is only $224 a month," she says.

Sarah Scruggs works for Manna and says the bureaucracy surrounding affordable homeownership is well-intentioned.

"The D.C. government and the federal government want to make sure that the subsidies that they're providing are going to people that actually need them," Scruggs says.

But what happens is many low-income individuals decide to just keep renting or scrape their pennies together for a market-rate unit "because they don't have to deal with the paperwork required to buy an affordable dwelling unit," Scruggs says, "and they don't have to deal with the restrictions."

U.S.

Lack Of Affordable Housing Puts The Squeeze On Poor Families

Social Entrepreneurs: Taking On World Problems

Nonprofits Pull In Investors To Tackle Housing Affordability

For example, there's a restriction in D.C. that limits maximum resale price and makes homeowners wait anywhere from five to 20 years before they sell.

Michael Kelly, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, says he understands how unwieldy the process can be. "Unfortunately, with all government programs, there are bureaucracies and provisions that go with that," he says. "We're doing everything we can to streamline that effort."

The current mayor has vowed to build 10,000 affordable units for sale and lease by the year 2020; he hopes his successor will continue toward that goal. But under the current system, it could be a while before every unit has an owner to call it home.

affordable housing

real estate

OPEC's decision not to cut production continues to reverberate through global oil markets, with the price of Europe's benchmark Brent crude falling to a four-year low today – bad news for petroleum exporters in the Middle East and Russia, but good news for nearly everyone else.

Brent crude oil steadied at about $73 a barrel on Friday after reaching a low of $71.12, its lowest level since July 2010, according to Reuters.

Igor Sechin, the head of Russia's Rosneft, says he thinks oil prices averaging $70-$75 per barrel through 2015. That prediction was in line with what Bill Hubard, chief economist at Markets.com, told Reuters:

"I think $70 a barrel will be the new norm. We could see oil go considerably lower," he said.

According to Bloomberg, the Russian oil giant has lost 38 percent of its market share.

The New York Times reported after the conclusion of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday:

"A more than 30 percent decline in prices in recent months has shaken the 12-member group. For three years, OPEC had little trouble keeping prices in the $100-a-barrel range that many of its members consider satisfactory.

"But markets have spun out of OPEC's control of late. Prices have come under pressure as global output of crude oil outstripped demand this year. Analysts forecast excess supplies of crude to continue to build in 2015.

"The main new source of supply is oil extracted from shale in the United States, which is expected to add about one million barrels a day of oil production this year and an additional one million barrels a day in 2015."

OPEC

oil prices

OPEC's decision not to cut production continues to reverberate through global oil markets, with the price of Europe's benchmark Brent crude falling to a four-year low today – bad news for petroleum exporters in the Middle East and Russia, but good news for nearly everyone else.

Brent crude oil steadied at about $73 a barrel on Friday after reaching a low of $71.12, its lowest level since July 2010, according to Reuters.

Igor Sechin, the head of Russia's Rosneft, says he thinks oil prices averaging $70-$75 per barrel through 2015. That prediction was in line with what Bill Hubard, chief economist at Markets.com, told Reuters:

"I think $70 a barrel will be the new norm. We could see oil go considerably lower," he said.

According to Bloomberg, the Russian oil giant has lost 38 percent of its market share.

The New York Times reported after the conclusion of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday:

"A more than 30 percent decline in prices in recent months has shaken the 12-member group. For three years, OPEC had little trouble keeping prices in the $100-a-barrel range that many of its members consider satisfactory.

"But markets have spun out of OPEC's control of late. Prices have come under pressure as global output of crude oil outstripped demand this year. Analysts forecast excess supplies of crude to continue to build in 2015.

"The main new source of supply is oil extracted from shale in the United States, which is expected to add about one million barrels a day of oil production this year and an additional one million barrels a day in 2015."

OPEC

oil prices

You don't get a pass this year on big health insurance decisions because you're not shopping in an Affordable Care Act marketplace. Employer medical plans — where most working-age folks get coverage — are changing too.

Rising costs, a looming tax on rich benefits packages and the idea that people should buy medical treatment the way they shop for cellphones have increased odds that workplace plans will be very different in 2015.

"If there's any year employees should pay attention to their annual enrollment material, this is probably the year," said Brian Marcotte, CEO of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers.

In other words, don't blow off the human resources seminars. Ask these questions.

1) Is my doctor still in the network?

Some employers are shifting to plans that look like the HMOs of the 1990s, with limited networks of physicians and hospitals. Provider affiliations change even when companies don't adopt a "narrow network."

Insurers publish directories, but the surest way to see if docs or hospitals take your plan is to call and ask.

Shots - Health News

Debate Grows Over Employer Health Plans Without Hospital Benefits

Shots - Health News

Health Premiums And Costs Set To Rise For Workers Covered At Work

2) Is my employer changing where I get labs and medications?

For expensive treatments — for diseases such as cancer or multiple sclerosis — some companies are hiring preferred vendors. Getting infusions or prescriptions outside this network could cost thousands extra, just as with doctors and hospitals.

3) How will my out-of-pocket costs go up?

It's probably not a question of if. Shifting medical expenses to workers benefits employers because it means they absorb less of a plan's overall cost increases. By lowering the value of the insurance, it also shields companies from the so-called Cadillac tax on high-end coverage that begins in 2018.

Having consumers pay more is also supposed to nudge them to buy thoughtfully — to consider whether procedures are necessary and to find good prices.

"It gets them more engaged in making decisions," said Dave Osterndorf, a benefits consultant with Towers Watson.

How well this will control total costs is very unclear.

Your company is probably raising deductibles — the amount you pay for care before your insurance kicks in. The average deductible for a single worker rose to $1,217 this year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. One large employer in three surveyed by Marcotte's group planned to offer only high-deductible plans (at least $2,600 for families) in 2015.

Shots - Health News

More Insurers Put Spending Limits On Medical Treatments

Employers are also scrapping copayments — fixed charges collected during an office or pharmacy visit.

Once you might have made a $20 copay for a $100 prescription, with the insurance company picking up the other $80. Now you might pay the full $100, with the cost applied against your deductible, Marcotte said.

4) How do I compare medical prices and quality?

Companies concede that they can't push workers to shop around without giving information on prices and quality.

Tools to comparison shop are often primitive. But you should take advantage of whatever resources, usually an online app from the insurance company, are available.

5) Can I use tax-free money for out-of-pocket payments?

Workers are familiar with flexible spending accounts (which aren't that flexible). You contribute pretax dollars and then have to spend them on medical costs before a certain time.

Employers increasingly offer health savings accounts, which have more options. Contribution limits for HSAs are higher. Employers often chip in. There is no deadline to spend the money, and you keep it if you quit the company. So you can let it build up if you stay healthy.

Don't necessarily think of HSAs as money down the drain, says Osterndorf. Think of them as a different kind of retirement savings plan.

6) How is my prescription plan set up?

Drugs are one of the fastest-rising medical costs. To try to control them, employers are splitting pharma benefits into more layers than ever before. Cost-sharing is lowest for drugs listed in formulary's bottom tiers — usually cheap generics — and highest for specialty drugs and biologics.

If you're on a long-term prescription, check how it's covered so you know how much to put in the savings account to pay for it. Also, see if a less-expensive drug will deliver the same benefit.

Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Affordable Care Act

Health Insurance

If you've shopped for meat recently, you no doubt have noticed that beef prices are up. Some grades are even at the highest levels ever recorded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Though the inflated prices may be hard on consumers, they're helping Texas cattle ranchers recover from a fierce drought.

On a sprawling ranch called 44 Farms in Cameron, Texas, about two hours' drive northwest of Houston, cattlemen raise Black Angus, the most common breed of beef cattle in the U.S. The ranch recently held its fall auction, but none of the animals were headed for the dinner table anytime soon. Instead, they will be giving birth to a new generation of cattle.

Until recently, most Texas ranchers were reducing the size of their herds as they struggled with years of drought. A relentless sun withered the grasses and grains that cattle eat. During the worst of it, feed costs soared for ranchers.

"Our grasses were dying just from the lack of moisture. We were feeding just corn stalks and anything else we could find to maintain the cattle through that tough time," McClaren says.

Finally, ranchers had to respond by reducing herds to cut costs.

"The drought was so severe for so long, and the feed prices were so high, that you just couldn't do that forever," says David Anderson, a livestock economist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. "We do have producers who were forced to sell off all their herds. A lot of those beef cows did go to slaughter."

The Salt

High Prices Aren't Scaring Consumers Away From The Meat Counter

The Salt

Record Beef Prices May Lead Grillers To Cheaper Cuts Of Meat

Such moves pushed the U.S. cattle inventory to its lowest level since 1951.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has been improving, so more Americans want to grill beef again. Now the demand for beef is rising, just as packing plants are running out of excess supplies. The result is predictable: Beef and cattle prices are going through the roof.

Consumers may hate it, but those higher prices are making it possible for ranchers to purchase expensive feed in those areas — like the Texas Panhandle and north-central Plains — where land remains badly parched. In other parts of Texas, the drought has eased, allowing ranchers to start rebuilding herds. That means McClaren is seeing strong demand for his cattle.

"We have had calf prices at auction pushing $3 a pound," Anderson says. "That is twice as much as what we would have thought in the past being tremendously high prices."

The fall auction at 44 Farms drew hundreds of bidders. The ranch made roughly $3 million in just a few hours, more than double the take from last year's fall sale. McClaren is already gearing up for his next auction in February.

food prices

beef

cattle

One of my favorite arguments — and one I've had in just about every even numbered year since the seventies — is about when to stop talking about politics. A surprising number of people think that since elections are on Tuesday, by Saturday all that can be said has been said, and nothing more should be said.

As a person who's covered politics for decades, I don't believe that. Saturday after the election and the Saturday after that are good days to talk politics. And we need to talk.

We've just done it again — played another round in our biennial ping pong match in which we deliver a stinging rebuke to people in power, vote lots of the other guys into office, and then two or sometimes four years later, we send another strong message — "you weren't listening" — deliver a serious blow to the new guys, and vote the others back. And, as discouraged citizens repeatedly tell reporters, nothing changes.

In fact, the debate does change, the issues and the emphasis do change. The stories covered in the news change as the new leaders put their party's gloss on events and how to respond. As we know, there are major differences on big issues: immigration, taxes, trade, and health insurance.

But those policy debates, while important, seem to be removed from the daily lives of American citizens.

Something that's very big in those daily lives has not changed for a very long time, and that is income. Wages have been stagnant for years, decades. So when politicians and analysts tell us that unemployment is down, jobs are up and the stock market is going up and down but mostly up — when we hear numbers that say the economy is improving, too many Americans still say, "not my economy."

Common sense would seem to dictate that if there are ways to restore prosperity, good jobs and bigger paychecks to all these good hard working people, our leaders should talk. They should confer and consult and maybe even compromise — maybe deliver at least some of what voters want.

We've heard from leaders that they plan to talk and look for common ground. Now, we wait for a couple of years and see if this time they really mean it.

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

In 2007, Franklin Gilliard and his wife, a teacher's aide named Sherry, started their own business: a driving school. Shortly after, they were hit by the recession.

The couple worked hard to stay afloat, but despite their efforts, they found themselves drowning in past-due bills and late notices and became homeless in 2013.

"We had the car repossessors there. We had the bank knocking on the door. You just feel like you're a prisoner in your own home," says Franklin, 46.

"You would never think that that would be your routine — looking out the peephole before you walk outside every day. Now, since that has happened, I can't even hear a knock without my heart jumping," says Sherry, 42.

The couple called the bank to say they needed help with their loan because they started getting behind on the mortgage, but they could not dig themselves out of debt.

"Before you knew it, we were homeless," Sherry says. "I remember going to REI and looking at tents that would hold a family of five. And then I remember at the homeless shelter, when they escorted us to our room, I remember laying on a bottom bunk and looking up at the springs that you look at on a bunk bed. And I remember saying to myself, 'How did I get here?' "

She says living at the homeless shelter caused her some embarrassment, and she would try not to be recognized while they were staying there. For example, when her coworkers would talk about volunteering to feed families at the shelter, she would tell Franklin they couldn't stay for the meal.

"I would tell my husband, 'We cannot be here for Sunday dinner because the colleagues from my job are going to be serving food,' " she says.

Franklin and Sherry now have transitional housing and are working to find a permanent home. Franklin is training to be a certified nursing assistant.

"Now we have at the dinner table the circle of thanks and each one of us go around and we say what we're thankful for. Our boys, they're at the stage in which they're thankful for their Pokemon cards," Sherry says. "But we are thankful that we can come together with our food, with the lights on, with the heat on and knowing that we are there to be blessed to wake up another day."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Allison Davis and Eve Claxton.

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

StoryCorps

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Bargain hunters heading to Walmart, in addition to looking for holiday deals, may find workers participating in Black Friday Strikes.

Since 2012, Our Walmart, which is an employee labor group, has been staging strikes on the day after Thanksgiving.

Employees at stores in six states and Washington, D.C., plan to participate and more locations are expected to join in.

Our Walmart says it is standing up for better jobs. Members of the group would like to see more full-time work and an hourly wage of $15.

Its website BlackFridayprotests.org is trying to gather momentum for the movement. It also encourages people to participate in the strikes and has information where they can find a protest near them.

The AFL-CIO Tweeted: "Skip shopping and join a #BlackFriday protest in solidarity w/ #WalmartStrikers.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "The entire labor movement will proudly stand with the brave workers at Walmart as they lead the largest mobilization to date for better wages and schedules."

Walmart employs 1.3 million people in the United States. A statement on its website reads: "About 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates, and they earn between $50,000 and $170,000 a year — similar to what firefighters, accountants, and even doctors make. Last year, Walmart promoted about 170,000 people to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay."

our walmart

walmart

OPEC oil ministers have agreed to keep production levels steady, virtually ensuring continued low prices at the gas pump and lower costs for jet fuel that could translate into cheaper air-ticket prices.

After the decision was announced, crude prices quickly tumbled on the global market. Brent crude droped more than $6 to $71.25 a barrel.

According to The Wall Street Journal, during a meeting in Austria, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries "agreed to stick to the oil-producer group's existing output target of 30 million barrels of oil a day, a decision that implies it will cut production from recent levels but stops some way short of the action likely required to boost sagging global oil prices.

"Sticking to its current production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day would involve an OPEC supply cut of around 300,000 barrels a day based on the cartel's output in October.

"Oil prices plunged on the news, with Brent crude down 3.2% to $75.26 a barrel."

Crude prices have dropped significantly as stepped-up production in the U.S. and Canada and more fuel-efficient cars have caused output to outstrip demand. China has also taken advantage of low prices to increase its strategic petroleum reserve as a cushion against future oil shocks.

The inability of OPEC to agree to cut production in an effort to stabilize prices was widely expected.

According to Reuters: "Some analysts have said that oil prices could slide to $60 per barrel if OPEC does not agree to a significant output cut. Benchmark Brent futures dropped over $1 on Thursday to $76.28 a barrel, the lowest level since September 2010. U.S. crude also dropped over $1 to a session low of $72.61."

The Russian rouble weakened against the U.S. dollar on the news. Although Russia, a major petroleum exporter, is not a member of OPEC, the organization's decisions have a broad impact on the global industry.

OPEC

gas prices

oil

British mystery and crime novelist P.D. James, whose best-known works featured poet and Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh as a protagonist, has died at age 94, her publisher says.

Phyllis Dorothy James, a baroness and award-winning writer of such books as Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower and The Murder Room, was born in Oxford began writing in her late 30s and published her first novel, Cover Her Face, in 1962.

A statement from publisher Knopf quoted Charles Elliott, her longtime editor, as saying: "Phyllis broke the bounds of the mystery genre. Her books were in a class of their own, consistently entertaining yet as well-written and serious as any fiction of our time. She was, moreover, a delight to be around and work with, beloved by readers and her publishers around the world. We will all miss her."

Biography.com says James took up writing as a means to support her family after her husband, a World War II veteran, was incapacitated by mental illness. Cover Her Face was written in the evenings and during her commute to a job in Britain's National Health Service, the website says.

According to Biography.com:

"Dubbed the 'Queen of Crime,' James went on to write 13 more Dalgliesh murder mysteries. Many of them were set in enclosed communities, illuminating the tensions and violence that can erupt amongst tightly knit groups of people. Shroud for a Nightingale, published in 1971, is set at a nursing school, and Original Sin (1994) at a small publishing house in London; Death in Holy Orders (2001) probes the motives behind a killing at a theological college, and the final Dalgliesh mystery, The Private Patient (published in 2008), unfolds at a private plastic surgery clinic in an English manor house."

In 2011, James was interviewed by NPR's Linda Wertheimer for the release of what became her final novel, Death Comes to Pemberley.

"I had this idea at the back of my mind that I'd like to combine my two great enthusiasms," James told Wertheimer. "One is for the novels of Jane Austen and the second is for writing detective fiction."

On the definition of a mystery novel, she said:

"What we have is a central mysterious crime, which is usually murder. We have a closed circle of suspects, with means, motive and opportunity for the crime. We have a detective who can be amateur or professional who comes in rather like an avenging deity to solve it. And by the end, we do get a solution."

British novelists

Mystery novel

This is the story of the murder of two aid workers in Mexico. The men fed Central American migrants traveling north through Mexico on a freight train that stopped near their home.

They were critical of both corrupt police, who abused and extorted the migrants, as well as the organized crime gangs that kidnapped and robbed them.

It wasn't hard to find the two men — they were never far from the train tracks — but there were no witnesses to their deaths, and police won't comment about the case. The double homicide didn't even get a mention in the local press.

I met the men on several occasions this summer while reporting on the surge of Central Americans, especially unaccompanied minors, who were making the long journey to the United States.

'We Are All Human Beings'

Last June, I walked the rock-filled tracks with Adrian Rodriguez Garcia. It was quite a hike from his house to where migrants would gather and wait for his meals.

Everyone called him "La Polla." He was the "mother hen" to thousands of migrants, mostly from Central America, who knew that when they got off the train near the central Mexican town of Huehuetoca, La Polla would be there with hot coffee and sweet bread in the morning, or a hot meal in the afternoon — rain or shine.

"I like helping people," he said.

Parallels

Riding 'The Beast' Across Mexico To The U.S. Border

Parallels

A Flood Of Kids, On Their Own, Hope To Hop A Train To A New Life

As Flow Of Migrants Into Mexico Grows, So Do Claims Of Abuse

4 min 38 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

Latin America

The Surge In Single Women With Children At The U.S.-Mexico Border

Garcia said he started feeding the migrants near the town, about 35 miles north of Mexico City, about 10 years ago.

"I see how they suffer, how destroyed their feet are from walking such long distances, how they are always targeted by corrupt cops of crime gangs," he said.

He just wanted to make this small leg of their journey a little lighter.

After all, Garcia said, "We are all human beings, the only thing different about us is that we come from different countries."

Garcia dyed his long hair a light red color and pulled it back with a bright head band. He liked to paint his nails and wear sparkling rings. He told me he was a transvestite, and maybe that's why he related so much to the cast-aside migrants; he, too, felt he was an outsider.

Two years ago, a Honduran named Wilson Castro jumped off the train at Huehuetoca and decided to stay.

"I'm also a migrant," said Castro. "I know how much they suffer along the trip north — some die falling off the train or lose limbs, I've seen it all."

Castro was the quieter side to Garcia's flamboyance, but equally committed.

Handouts And Hard Work

The two didn't have a lot to hand out. One day when I was out at the tracks with them, Garcia lined up a group of about 20 migrants and passed out hot tortillas, beans, a slice of cheese and a few jokes.

He had an easy, loud laugh, but clearly there was a serious side to the work.

For one story I was working on about abuse in Mexico's migrant detention facilities, Castro told me about being held for two months in an overcrowded cell, where gang members robbed and extorted the migrants.

Earlier this year, both men thwarted an attempt to kidnap migrants at the train tracks. Castro held one of the suspected kidnappers while Garcia called the police.

Both gave statements to the authorities, and both received death threats, but according to human rights workers Garcia and Castro had been promised police protection.

None was provided, says Jorge Andrade, a human rights worker.

Last Sunday, after they handed out the evening meal, Andrade says the pair drove back to their house. They still were sitting in the car outside, talking, when members of Garcia's family who were in the house heard the shots.

Garcia died instantly from a shot to the head and heart. Castro, shot in the heart and lungs, died a day later. Police are not commenting.

At a press conference Wednesday, aid worker Andrea Gonzalez said authorities long had been aware of the criminal gangs operating in the region and the threats to the men, yet did nothing.

"We can no longer permit this type of violence and impunity to permeate our society," she said.

Castro's body is being sent home to his family in Honduras. Garcia was buried Tuesday in the small cemetery in town not far from his house — not far from the train tracks.

This is the story of the murder of two aid workers in Mexico. The men fed Central American migrants traveling north through Mexico on a freight train that stopped near their home.

They were critical of both corrupt police, who abused and extorted the migrants, as well as the organized crime gangs that kidnapped and robbed them.

It wasn't hard to find the two men — they were never far from the train tracks — but there were no witnesses to their deaths, and police won't comment about the case. The double homicide didn't even get a mention in the local press.

I met the men on several occasions this summer while reporting on the surge of Central Americans, especially unaccompanied minors, who were making the long journey to the United States.

'We Are All Human Beings'

Last June, I walked the rock-filled tracks with Adrian Rodriguez Garcia. It was quite a hike from his house to where migrants would gather and wait for his meals.

Everyone called him "La Polla." He was the "mother hen" to thousands of migrants, mostly from Central America, who knew that when they got off the train near the central Mexican town of Huehuetoca, La Polla would be there with hot coffee and sweet bread in the morning, or a hot meal in the afternoon — rain or shine.

"I like helping people," he said.

Parallels

Riding 'The Beast' Across Mexico To The U.S. Border

Parallels

A Flood Of Kids, On Their Own, Hope To Hop A Train To A New Life

As Flow Of Migrants Into Mexico Grows, So Do Claims Of Abuse

4 min 38 sec

Add to Playlist

Download

Latin America

The Surge In Single Women With Children At The U.S.-Mexico Border

Garcia said he started feeding the migrants near the town, about 35 miles north of Mexico City, about 10 years ago.

"I see how they suffer, how destroyed their feet are from walking such long distances, how they are always targeted by corrupt cops of crime gangs," he said.

He just wanted to make this small leg of their journey a little lighter.

After all, Garcia said, "We are all human beings, the only thing different about us is that we come from different countries."

Garcia dyed his long hair a light red color and pulled it back with a bright head band. He liked to paint his nails and wear sparkling rings. He told me he was a transvestite, and maybe that's why he related so much to the cast-aside migrants; he, too, felt he was an outsider.

Two years ago, a Honduran named Wilson Castro jumped off the train at Huehuetoca and decided to stay.

"I'm also a migrant," said Castro. "I know how much they suffer along the trip north — some die falling off the train or lose limbs, I've seen it all."

Castro was the quieter side to Garcia's flamboyance, but equally committed.

Handouts And Hard Work

The two didn't have a lot to hand out. One day when I was out at the tracks with them, Garcia lined up a group of about 20 migrants and passed out hot tortillas, beans, a slice of cheese and a few jokes.

He had an easy, loud laugh, but clearly there was a serious side to the work.

For one story I was working on about abuse in Mexico's migrant detention facilities, Castro told me about being held for two months in an overcrowded cell, where gang members robbed and extorted the migrants.

Earlier this year, both men thwarted an attempt to kidnap migrants at the train tracks. Castro held one of the suspected kidnappers while Garcia called the police.

Both gave statements to the authorities, and both received death threats, but according to human rights workers Garcia and Castro had been promised police protection.

None was provided, says Jorge Andrade, a human rights worker.

Last Sunday, after they handed out the evening meal, Andrade says the pair drove back to their house. They still were sitting in the car outside, talking, when members of Garcia's family who were in the house heard the shots.

Garcia died instantly from a shot to the head and heart. Castro, shot in the heart and lungs, died a day later. Police are not commenting.

At a press conference Wednesday, aid worker Andrea Gonzalez said authorities long had been aware of the criminal gangs operating in the region and the threats to the men, yet did nothing.

"We can no longer permit this type of violence and impunity to permeate our society," she said.

Castro's body is being sent home to his family in Honduras. Garcia was buried Tuesday in the small cemetery in town not far from his house — not far from the train tracks.

In 2011, drought hit Somalia hard, triggering a famine that ultimately killed some 260,000 people. Now, after a poor rainy season, the Food and Agriculture Organization is warning that the country could be on the brink of another famine.

To find out more about the current situation in East Africa, we spoke with Degan Ali, the Somali-American executive director of Adeso (African Development Solutions), a Nairobi-based humanitarian and development organization focusing on aid, education — particularly among nomadic populations — and community-based economic growth. Formerly known as Horn Relief, the organization was founded in the early 1990s by Ali's mother, Fatima Jibrell, in response to their homeland's devastating civil war.

Adeso does work in Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan. Ali spoke with Goats and Soda earlier this month.

Let's talk about your homeland, Somalia. It's been three years since the devastating famine that struck in 2011. How are things now?

Somalia is just getting out of its second famine in recent years, the first one being in the early '90s. We still have a situation where there are millions of people in south Somalia and parts of the north who are food-insecure. There are still more than a million internally displaced people. So the message to the international community would be that yes, things did improve and we left famine conditions in 2013, but we still have an unacceptable number of people who are hungry and food-insecure. We need to start addressing some of the root causes of these problems.

i i

Children from southern Somalia lined up for cooked food at a distribution center in Mogadishu in 2011. Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

Children from southern Somalia lined up for cooked food at a distribution center in Mogadishu in 2011.

Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

What are some of those root causes?

In the north, it's cycles of drought and hunger that are linked to environmental degradation. Poor rangeland management and poor natural resource planning — because there was no government for 20 years — as well as larger issues like climate change are expanding the deserts in Africa and all over the world.

It was [my mother's] idea to start putting in these very low-tech physical structures — basically, strategically placed rocks — to harvest rainwater and move it in a way that it spreads out and regenerates the grasslands. We've had so much success with these rock dams since 2001 that the European Commission came to us a few years ago and said they wanted to work with us to scale it up. So now we're implementing a 14 million-euro program on that kind of physical rehabilitation of the rangeland.

What lessons do you think the international community could learn from Somalia's 2011 famine?

In Somalia, 260,000 people died in the famine, over a billion dollars was spent trying to save them, and now we still have more than 300,000 people living in refugee camps in Dadaab that we are spending money on every single day. If we had only spent half of that money on predictable cash transfers, a safety net program could have supported the same households, in their homes and villages, in the breadbasket of Somalia. That kind of social protection — predictable cash transfers — is very simple, but it requires a new way of thinking.

You think aid organizations should simply give people cash?

Yes, we believe that if the bottom 5 to 10 percent of society in Somalia had more predictable resources, they could make longer-term decisions that would rebuild their asset base and make them more resilient.

For example, say you're a Somali woman, a farmer, experiencing the drought of 2011. And you know that you can get $30 a month for two years for staying in your home. Or you could trek hundreds of miles, risking your children's lives, to try to reach a refugee camp that you think might exist somewhere out there. What would you do? Of course you would hunker down and try to get through the drought, surviving on your predictable $30-a-month transfer.

Planet Money

What Happens When You Just Give Money To Poor People?

Goats and Soda

Dust Bowls Aren't Just An 'Interstellar' Thing

But right now, aid interventions are very unpredictable, so people are not making good decisions. So what we're saying is, let's move from the unpredictable transfers and make them more regular, to build resilience in vulnerable populations.

What's wrong with just sending food to hungry people?

In many cases, it's not an issue of food availability. It's an issue of purchasing power and keeping the local economy going. And it's an issue of empowerment. That word gets used a lot by people who still want to maintain control and tell aid recipients what they need. But what it should ultimately mean is that the person who receives the aid is given as much dignity and control as possible.

But many of us face this dilemma when we see a needy person on the street. If we give them money, how do we know they'll really use it for food?

If you were in the same situation, wouldn't you want people to feel that you are a responsible person? And all the evidence suggests that most of the recipients of these cash transfers make very responsible decisions. All the monitoring and evaluation data indicates that people use the money to purchase not only needed goods and services, but also to pay off debts — which is really interesting. That means they value their social capital and are thinking about the long term, not just their immediate needs. The debt is for meeting immediate needs, which is the normal cycle for pastoralists: They purchase goods during the dry season for food and water on credit, but then they need to pay it back during the rainy season.

I noticed on your Twitter profile that you describe yourself as a "social justice activist, Muslima." How are those connected?

I think my religion heavily informs both my values and the work that I do. In Islam, there is a core principle of mandatory charitable giving called zakat. I think in English you call it tithing. Every single Muslim has to give 2.5 percent of his or her wealth — if they're not using it — to support orphans, hungry and needy people.

Wow, 2.5 percent. If all of us did that ...

Exactly. There would be no hunger.

development

Africa

The Ebola outbreak started in rural areas, but by June it had reached Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

By August, the number of people contracting the Ebola virus in the country was doubling every week. The Liberian government and aid workers begged for help.

Enter the U.S. military, who along with other U.S. agencies had a clear plan in mid-September to build more Ebola treatment units, or ETUs. At least one would be built in the major town of each of Liberia's 15 counties. That way, sick patients in those counties wouldn't bring more Ebola to the capital.

Goats and Soda

U.S. Military Response To Ebola Gains Momentum In Liberia

Goats and Soda

Can The U.S. Military Turn The Tide In The Ebola Outbreak?

But it's taken a long time to build these ETUs; most won't be done until the end of the year. And now the spread of Ebola changing — clusters are popping up in remote rural areas. So building a huge treatment center in each county's main town may no longer make sense.

Two hours outside the capital, the Army's 36th Engineer Brigade just finished erecting an ETU last week. Lt. Abraham Richardson shows me around, first giving me a tour of the triage building where all patients will arrive. Then he leads me to four giant white tents inside what health workers call the "hot zone."

"That's where all the confirmed cases will be," Richardson says. Each tent will house about 25 patients.

This is what the military is good at: landing in a place they've never been and building stuff. But some say the size of the ETUs is a problem.

Because it's taken so long to build the centers, their relatively large size is no longer useful, says Dr. Darin Portnoy, who's with Doctors Without Borders. He's just finished caring for two sick children at one of the organization's original ETUs back in Monrovia.

"ETUs are not needed right now at the same level," he says. "Right now the construction should be scaled down — fewer beds."

"Take the amazing capacity that has been brought to bear and direct [it] elsewhere," he adds.

By elsewhere, Portnoy means remote rural areas, where, sometimes, the only way to reach people is by walking for hours or taking a canoe. He says big international donors should support so-called rapid response teams that go out, find those hard-to-reach people and set up small treatment centers where they actually live.

"Just because you have a plan ... doesn't mean you have to continue on that plan," he says.

The U.S. has started to scale down its plan, building only 15 ETUs instead of the 17 originally planned. Some ETUs will now have 50 beds instead of 100. And instead of sending 4,000 troops to West Africa to build facilities and train health workers, the military says that number will now be closer to 3,000.

i i

Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, who commands U.S. forces in Liberia, wants to be sure the military has an exit plan. Kelly McEvers/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Kelly McEvers/NPR

Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, who commands U.S. forces in Liberia, wants to be sure the military has an exit plan.

Kelly McEvers/NPR

The military is also helping to locate Ebola cases in remote areas. Just last week, says Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, who commands the U.S. forces in Liberia, the military gave a team of epidemiologists a ride in a helicopter to a remote village north of the capital to find Ebola victims.

But Volesky says he wants to know the military has an exit plan, and that someone else will take over the jobs that the U.S. troops have been doing.

A few hours north of the capital, at one of the busiest ETUs in Liberia, custodian John Jameson shows us the burial ground full of fresh mounds of dirt. "Three, four, five burials a day," he says.

The ones buried here were those who could make it to the ETU. Health officials say many more people are getting sick and dying in remote rural areas, which means Ebola will keep spreading.

ebola

U.S. military

Liberia