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For decades, economists have tracked the "misery index," a simple formula that adds the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. The result equals how miserable — or not — you feel.

On Friday, the Labor Department released February's jobs report, and the good numbers will further drive down the misery index, already at its lowest level in more than a half-century, thanks to falling oil prices.

The White House cheered the 5.5 percent jobless rate, which was down two-tenths of a point. Employers added 295,000 paychecks, far more than most economists had forecast for the cold, snowy February.

"Job growth was robust and the national average workweek was steady," said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

And yet no matter what the plunging misery index may suggest, a lot of people don't feel happiness rising. In fact in February, Conference Board's consumer confidence index showed that Americans had a darkening view of the coming six months. Why so glum?

This may be the answer: February's average hourly earnings rose by a meager 3 cents to $24.78. Over the past year, earnings were up just 2 percent.

The Two-Way

Nearly 300K New Jobs In February; Unemployment Dips To 5.5 Percent

Economy

Higher Wages, Lower Prices Give Consumers A Break

And the number of long-term unemployed — people who have been without paychecks for 27 weeks or more — was "little changed" at 2.7 million in February.

In addition, many people remain too discouraged to apply for positions. The labor force participation rate — which measures both workers and job seekers — held at 62.8 percent. A few years ago, it was around 67 percent.

So if millions are not getting raises or finding jobs or even looking, is the misery index measuring the wrong stuff?

What The Misery Index Measures

To make your own judgment, let's step back. The misery measure was invented by Brookings scholar and economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s. He said that when jobs are plentiful and prices low, Americans feel better.

And historically, that's been true. During the "go-go" years of the mid-1960s, the index held around 6 as workers enjoyed a booming job market and low inflation.

But in the 1970s, misery started climbing. The index peaked at nearly 22 in 1980, when a recession and spiraling prices collided and helped end President Carter's re-election bid.

In the late 1990s, job growth and cheap oil pushed the index back down to a comfortable level — around 6 again.

But it didn't last. During the recent Great Recession, misery rode high on the back of double-digit unemployment.

Now the recession is over. Unemployment is way down. Plunging oil and commodity prices have sent the consumer price index down too — prices slid 0.1 percent in the 12-month period ending in January.

If a new CPI report, coming later this month, shows price pressures continued running at the same pace in February, then the result would be a super low misery index. Do the math: 5.5 (the current jobless rate) minus 0.1 (the annual deflation rate) would put the index at 5.4, a level that hasn't been seen since the mid-1950s.

And yet, retail and home sales have been disappointing. What gives?

What The Index Fails To Measure

The answer may be that the U.S. economy has gotten too complicated for such a simple formula. Back in the 1960s, factories could provide even low-skilled workers with decent paychecks. Today, workers with low or rusty skills must find opportunities in a high-tech economy, and compete with low-wage workers in other countries.

"The tepid pace of wage growth in February, 2 percent year over year, in a way nullifies the drop in the misery index," said John Canally, chief economic Strategist for LPL Financial.

Another factor: Americans are carrying debt loads that would have been unimaginable in earlier eras. For example, some 40 million carry student loans that total $1.2 trillion. Add up the student debt, credit card bills and mortgages, and it equals a glum consumer.

In fact, a lot of people would be better off if wages and prices increase. Here's why: Higher wages would make it easier to pay off bills, and rising home values would allow owners to sell at prices high enough to pay off old mortgages. Instead, they are stuck with meager raises and still-too-big mortgages.

"A hallmark of this recovery has been the tepid pace of wage growth," Canally said. Until workers find a way to make employers pay more, "the misery index may not be the best measure of consumer well-being," he said.

misery index

Consumer confidence

inflation

debt

Rabbi Michel Serfaty drives to his first appointment of the day, in a suburb south of Paris, just a couple miles from a notorious housing project where gunman Amedy Coulibaly grew up.

Coulibaly is the self-proclaimed Islamist radical who killed a police officer and later four people in a Kosher market in Paris terrorist attacks in January.

France has Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish communities. For the last decade Serfaty and his team have been working in bleak places like this, trying to promote understanding between the two populations.

Serfaty is still going to the same places since the attacks, but there's now a pair of undercover police officers who now accompany him everywhere. The rabbi says he's more determined than ever.

"These are difficult times for France and especially for French Jews," he says. "But if anything, we realize our work is more important than ever."

The rabbi makes his way into a community center where his French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association has a stand at a local job fair. Serfaty hopes to recruit several more young people to help with community outreach in the largely Muslim, immigrant communities where most people have never even met a Jewish person.

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A poster for the French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association, which works in many poor, immigrant neighborhoods. Eleanor Beardsley/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

A poster for the French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association, which works in many poor, immigrant neighborhoods.

Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

"They often have specific ideas about Jews," says Serfaty. "And if they're negative, we bring arguments and try to open people's eyes to prejudices and negative stereotypes. We try to show children, mothers and teenagers that being Muslim is great, but if they don't know any Jews, well this is how they are, and they're also respectable citizens."

Serfaty says people need to realize they must all work together to build France's future.

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Britain's Muslims Still Feel The Need To Explain Themselves

The rabbi takes advantage of funding from a government program that helps youths without work experience find their first job. Serfaty takes them on for a period of three years, giving them valuable training in mediation and community relations. Serfaty's recruits also study Judaism and Islam. And he takes them on a trip to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp.

Muslim Identity In Europe

In France, Young Muslims Often Straddle Two Worlds

Serfaty is looking to hire three or four new people. With his affable manner and easy laugh, the interviews are more a friendly conversation. He needs Muslim employees for his work, but French laws on secularism forbid him from asking applicants about their religion. So Serfaty draws out the candidates' views and beliefs in discussion — and through provocative questions.

"What if I say to you Jews are everywhere and run the media and all the banks?" He asks one young woman. "What would you think?"

She tells Serfaty she believes Jews have been largely misunderstood and have a lot to contribute to society.

Some rather frightening misconceptions pour from a withdrawn, young man who's a recent convert to Islam. He's never heard of the Holocaust. He also believes there are 20 million French Jews. In reality France has approximately 6 million Muslims and a half-million Jews.

Serfaty is soon joined at the table by his current assistants, Mohammed Amine and Aboudalaye Magassa, to discuss the candidates. The rabbi says the most important thing is to find young people like them, who harbor no anti-Semitic feelings.

Magassa, 24, says working with Serfaty has been a great discovery. He says it's hard to understand the kind of people who carried out January's attacks.

"These people have weak minds and they are easily manipulated by social networks," he says. "They also don't understand a thing about religion and how it should be practiced."

Amine and Magassa say they are proud to be French and Muslim. They drive me to the station so I can catch a train back to the city center. I ask if they don't sometimes feel their work with the rabbi is futile. Not at all, says Amine.

"We are waking up people's consciences," says Amine. "This is a job that counts and we could have a real impact if there were more of us."

Muslims

Jews

France

On this farewell tour really being a farewell tour

I'm not like a number of stars that I could mention who announce farewell tours, collect the money, and then come back a year later and expect to do it all over again. I consider that dishonest. It doesn't mean I'll disappear. I might do television things. ...

But, on this tour, I really find, not just strange hotels — even though I'm in the luxury penthouse so often — but airports, darling. I mean, going through that whole business. I think your listeners probably think that I just get swept straight through, but it's not the case. And I've never had a private plane, I don't believe in that kind of elitism. But I have to pretty well take all my clothes off. I have to subject myself to pretty ruthless searches — some of them an affront to my modesty, frankly.

On how she's kept her looks all these years

"I looked at my face about 10 years ago ... and I thought to myself, 'What have I done? A pact with the devil? Why am I looking so young and so unconventionally lovely? Why?'"

- Dame Edna Everage

It's so simple. Now, I looked at my face about 10 years ago ... and I thought to myself, "What have I done? A pact with the devil? Why am I looking so young and so unconventionally lovely? Why?"

And, I thought what I need to do is to age myself in some way. I have to look normal. People won't believe it! So I went to Brazil, and I saw the top man there, of course, a cosmetic surgeon. And I said, "Look, I need to look my age!"

He said, "Well Edna your hair is still a natural, very, very natural mauve." I was born, by the way, Scott, with this color. I was. It's very unusual. Very unusual. ... But, I said to the doctor, "Well what can you do?"

And he said, "Well Edna, you must have some little crow's feet! ... We'll give you some crow's feet."

And he said, "What you need – your neckline is perfect! You haven't got that horrible turkey neck." He said, "You need a little soft, double chin. A soft little pillow, a little cushion under your chin." ...

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Not My Job: Dame Edna Everage Gets Quizzed On Farewell Tours

And do you know what he did? I saw him delving in a sort of white box, a freezer. And he pulled out a little shrink-wrapped package. It looked like a chicken breast. And he said, "We'll stitch this on. And it will settle in. And it will give you a lovely double chin."

And I said, "What is that?" He said, "What? More like what was it, Edna ... That was Elizabeth Taylor's left love handle."

Elizabeth Taylor's love handle is now my soft, little chin. And if you look at it very closely, you can see some indentations where Richard Burton's fingers held. ... Isn't it beautiful? It's history in my face. History.

Updated at 2:54 p.m. ET

The Justice Department is planning to bring corruption charges against Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., alleging that he did political favors for a friend and donor, NPR's Carrie Johnson has confirmed.

A person familiar with case tells Carrie that a decision has been made to go forward with a prosecution.

"It is not clear how long it will take for actual criminal charges to emerge," Carrie tells us.

The case is being handled by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in Washington, she says.

News of the planned charges were first reported by CNN.

There was no immediate comment from Menendez or his friend, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen.

Menendez, who has emerged as a recent critic of the Obama administration policy on Iran and Cuba, came under scrutiny two years ago. As NPR's Peter Overby reported at the time, "Melgen ... has been a longtime and generous supporter. [In 2012], his medical practice gave $700,000 to a Democratic superPAC, which spent nearly $600,000 to help Menendez in the November election."

As Peter noted in his reporting, Menendez pressed two State Department officials during a hearing about an American company that was providing port security in the Dominican Republic. But, Menendez said during the hearing, local officials "don't want to live by that contract." And the senator said the U.S. needed to side with the company, ICSSI, not the Dominican government.

What he didn't say was that that ICSSI was partially owned by Melgen.

And, Peter reported, twice in 2009 "Menendez went to Medicare on Melgen's behalf after health care officials alleged the doctor had overbilled by nearly $9 million. ... Menendez has also admitted that he failed to disclose two trips on Melgen's private jet — flights to a Dominican Republic resort community where Melgen has a house."

Menendez later reimbursed Meglen for the flights.

Sen. Robert Menendez

Legally married spouses in same-sex couples soon will be able to take unpaid time off to care for a spouse or sick family members even if they live in a state that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.

The final rule issued by the Department of Labor takes effect March 27. It revises the definition of "spouse" in the Family and Medical Leave Act to recognize legally married same-sex couples regardless of where they live. Prior to that, only couples that lived in a state that recognized same-sex marriage could take advantage of the act's benefits.

Currently, 37 states plus the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriages.

"We're really excited about it," says Robin Maril, senior legislative counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, of the final rule. The old interpretation "wasn't fair for employees. It meant they had different federal benefits based on their zip code."

The new rule was prompted by President Barack Obama's instructions to federal agencies to review federal statutes following the 2013 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor. That decision struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act that said that a marriage must be between a man and a woman.

The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually to care for a spouse or family member for medical or family reasons without losing their jobs. It applies to private sector companies with 50 or more workers and public sector agencies and schools of any size.

In addition to legally married same- and opposite-sex couples, the final rule's revised definition of spouse applies to common law marriages and those that took place outside the United States if they would have met legal standards in at least one state.

"There are many good corporate policies, but companies look to the FMLA" as the mandated standards, says Maril.

family leave

Labor Department

same-sex marriage

At first the tiny country of Timor-Leste reminded Gena Barnabee of being in the U.S. It had movie theaters, malls and plenty of roads.

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Midwife Mana Justa checks her phone outside the maternity ward in the village Same. The Liga Inan service allows mothers and midwives to send short messages to each other when the mothers have questions. Courtesy of Gena Barnabee hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Gena Barnabee

Midwife Mana Justa checks her phone outside the maternity ward in the village Same. The Liga Inan service allows mothers and midwives to send short messages to each other when the mothers have questions.

Courtesy of Gena Barnabee

Then Barnabee left the capital city. And the scenery changed dramatically.

Mountains and hills stretch for miles and miles in the rural southern part of Timor-Lest. There are only a few villages sprinkled throughout. And there's only "a little bit of a road," recalls Barnabee, who spent three months there.

Barnabee, 31, is a public health student from the University of Washington in Seattle. In Timor-Leste, she was working with the nonprofit Health Alliance International to figure out how well a new mobile health program was working.

The service is called Liga Inan, which roughly translates to "connecting mothers" in the Tetum language. Liga Inan allows pregnant women and new moms to talk with midwives using cellphones. Then the women don't have to walk miles along unpaved dirt roads and over mountains when a problem arises.

Barnabee spent much of her time at a health center in the town of Same. Most of the midwives there liked the service, Barnabee says. They could better monitor the health of mothers and their babies, as well as gauge when a personal visit was necessary.

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Goats and Soda

Volunteer Recap: Megaphones, Machetes And Unexpected Tears

On her free time, Barnabee spent her days at nearby markets and talking about music with her translator. We asked her about the highlights of her stay. The interviewed has been edited for length and clarity.

With all the mountains and hills separating towns, how do people get around?

They don't have many buses from town to town, but they have trucks with open backs. I think the trucks mostly transport goods from the larger markets, but they also serve as a bus that can be stopped at any point. People would hop on [and sit in the back], and just tap when they wanted to get off. Then they paid.

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In the rural Manufahi district, health centers, like this one in the Turiscai village, are using a mobile health program to connect expectant mothers and their midwives. Courtesy of Gena Barnabee hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Gena Barnabee

In the rural Manufahi district, health centers, like this one in the Turiscai village, are using a mobile health program to connect expectant mothers and their midwives.

Courtesy of Gena Barnabee

One time my translator and I took one of those trucks from Same to Betano, a tiny village near the southern coast. Everyone was looking at me like I was very strange. One man was looking at me the whole time — not with any malice. But probably what was running through his head was something like, "What on Earth is this woman doing on this truck?" I don't think it's common to see Westerners on this kind of transportation.

Any memorable sights at the market?

Old men would walk up and down the street in their traditional clothes, and they would just be holding their roosters, like people in the U.S. carry around their small dogs. The roosters are prized for cock fighting. It's really big in Timor-Leste.

Who was your favorite friend on the trip?

My translator. He was studying English at the University in Dili, and we spent a lot of time together. He was a young guy, about 22. He loved talking to me about English and pop culture. He was kind of like a sponge, wanting to take up as much learning that he could.

He loved Justin Bieber. One time he said, "Gena, Justin Bieber was poisoned while he was on tour." I was like, "Really?" "Yes," he said. "Someone tried to poison his food." And I was like, "Oh, did you read that Justin Beiber got food poisoning?" I spent the next five minutes explaining the term "food poisoning" and ensuring him that Justin Bieber was, in fact, going to be OK.

Did you pick up any new habits?

When you walk down the street people shout, "Hello, good morning," and they'll say your name and ask you, "Where are you going?" It's not meant to pry. It's a greeting. So it's customary for you to say, "Hi I'm just taking a walk," or "I'm going to the market."

I had introduced myself as Gena to people living near me, and as I walked down the street, they would say "Gena! Gena Barnabee!" I was really confused because I didn't tell them my last name. About a week later, this happened again, and it struck me: They weren't saying "Gena Barnabee." They were saying, "Gena ba nebee," which means "where are you going?"

A takeaway from your trip?

In the U.S. you talk to people if you know them or if they're your friends. But I find that in many other countries people are much more likely to speak with strangers and greet anyone walking by. Almost anywhere in Timor Leste, I would get a simple greeting, like "Hello, how are you? I hope you have a great day."

Timor-leste

Southeast Asia

volunteer

maternal health

Asylum-seekers are flooding into Germany in record numbers, with more than 200,000 applying for that status last year, many from Muslim countries, according to the government.

This is fueling tensions on several fronts. Overwhelmed local officials often house the new arrivals in old schools and re-purposed shipping containers in neighborhoods where they aren't always welcome. The western German city of Schwerte even proposed placing 21 refugees in a barracks on the grounds of a Nazi-era concentration camp.

Berlin residents Mareike Geiling and her boyfriend, Jonas Kakoschke, have a different approach.

"We don't like the idea of putting these people into one place where many, many" people live, says Geiling, who is 28.

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Kakoschke, a 31-year-old graphic designer, adds: "Many asylum-seekers have to stay there for years ... doing nothing, because they are not allowed to do anything.

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Fleeing War At Home, Syrians Reach State Of Limbo In Greece

"They are not allowed to work, they are not allowed to have German classes sometimes and sometimes it's not a city, it's a village and there's nothing to do and so you get depressed after years and stuff like this," he adds.

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So the couple decided to launch Refugees Welcome, a website in English and German that matches asylum-seekers with people willing to share their homes with them. They have more than 400 applications in the works — in Germany as well as Austria.

Refugees "don't know each other, they are far from the city and so we like the idea that they are really living with us, like in our homes," Geiling explains.

READ: With Syria engulfed in civil war, here are four stories of families trying to stay together
More than 200,000 refugees have settled in Europe since the start of the Syrian conflict. Holly Pickett for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Holly Pickett for NPR

She and Kakoschke were the first Germans to open their doors. Geiling is away most of this year on a teaching job in Cairo, so last December the couple sublet her room in their fourth-floor, walk-up apartment in the diverse, working-class neighborhood of Wedding to a Muslim man from Mali.

The 39-year-old, who is afraid of giving his name for safety reasons, has applied for asylum and is awaiting a work permit. In the meantime, Kakoschke and Geiling (who happened to be back in Berlin when NPR visited to the apartment) say they rely on donations to cover the new roommate's $430 share of rent and utilities.

Just like in any apartment shared by multiple people, compromise is key, the roommates say. They cook meals jointly and split up housework. Kakoschke jokes that the apartment has never been cleaner.

The roommate says he still can't believe Germans would open their apartment to asylum-seekers.

"It surprised me a lot because ... the people here don't want to see people like us in their land," he says.

Before his current arrangement, the roommate says, he had more or less been living on the streets since arriving from Italy a year ago.

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Refugees walk along on a street near the Initial Reception Camp Marienfelde in Berlin, Germany, in January. Marienfelde camp has been a transitional home for refugees in Germany for more than 60 years. But the recent influx of asylum-seekers is straining the system. Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images

Refugees walk along on a street near the Initial Reception Camp Marienfelde in Berlin, Germany, in January. Marienfelde camp has been a transitional home for refugees in Germany for more than 60 years. But the recent influx of asylum-seekers is straining the system.

Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images

"Sometimes I'd take the bus from different sector to different sector at nighttime until, you know, 2:30" in the morning, he says. Then he'd "get out and sleep for 20 minutes and go back on the train again sometimes and go back in the mosque and pray there for 30 minutes and sleep there for one hour."

He says it was his German teacher who found out about the roommate program and put him in touch with the couple.

It's easy to see that he and the couple get along well, and they say they have learned a lot about each other's cultures.

"I think I just asked when we met the first time if it's OK for him that I drink alcohol," Kakoschke says with a laugh. "He said, 'Yes, of course, it's your life, do what you want with it.'"

asylum

refugees

Muslims

Germany

The U.S. economy added 295,000 jobs in the February, according to the Labor Department's monthly survey and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent. The latest strong data beat expectations and follows on the heels of a robust jump for the previous month — a sign that the economy is finally picking up steam.

Expectations among economists had been for the economy to add another 240,000 jobs from last month and for the unemployment rate to notch back down to 5.6 percent, where it stood for December. The slight increase in the rate last month was attributed to strong growth in the labor force.

The average workweek for nonfarm payrolls was 34.6 hours, a figure that has held steady for five months. The average hourly wage rose 3 cents to $24.78.

As NPR's John Ydstie reported this morning ahead of the release by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report for January "was stellar on almost every count. It revealed a monthly average for job growth of 336,000 over the previous 3 months, and it showed strong wage gains after years of disappointing growth."

The Labor Department more jobs were added in food services and drinking places, professional and business services, construction, health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

The latest report comes as the Federal Reserve has signaled that it is likely to raise interest rates, possibly as soon as June, based on the generally more robust economy and concerns about inflation pressures.

Today's reports shows 51,000 new jobs in February in professional and business services and 29,000 new jobs in construction. Transportation and warehousing were up 19,000 jobs and the retail sector gained 32,000. Over the past 12 months. Both construction and retail have gained about 320,000 jobs over the past year.

Reuters reports from London: "The dollar hit an 11-year high against major currencies on Friday as investors bet the monthly U.S. jobs report would increase the chances of rate hikes, even as the European Central Bank embarks on a 1 trillion euro bond-buying campaign."

jobs report

Unemployment

The U.S. economy added 295,000 jobs in the February, according to the Labor Department's monthly survey and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent. The latest strong data beat expectations and follows on the heels of a robust jump for the previous month — a sign that the economy is finally picking up steam.

Expectations among economists had been for the economy to add another 240,000 jobs from last month and for the unemployment rate to notch back down to 5.6 percent, where it stood for December. The slight increase in the rate last month was attributed to strong growth in the labor force.

The average workweek for nonfarm payrolls was 34.6 hours, a figure that has held steady for five months. The average hourly wage rose 3 cents to $24.78.

As NPR's John Ydstie reported this morning ahead of the release by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report for January "was stellar on almost every count. It revealed a monthly average for job growth of 336,000 over the previous 3 months, and it showed strong wage gains after years of disappointing growth."

The Labor Department more jobs were added in food services and drinking places, professional and business services, construction, health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

The latest report comes as the Federal Reserve has signaled that it is likely to raise interest rates, possibly as soon as June, based on the generally more robust economy and concerns about inflation pressures.

Today's reports shows 51,000 new jobs in February in professional and business services and 29,000 new jobs in construction. Transportation and warehousing were up 19,000 jobs and the retail sector gained 32,000. Over the past 12 months. Both construction and retail have gained about 320,000 jobs over the past year.

Reuters reports from London: "The dollar hit an 11-year high against major currencies on Friday as investors bet the monthly U.S. jobs report would increase the chances of rate hikes, even as the European Central Bank embarks on a 1 trillion euro bond-buying campaign."

jobs report

Unemployment

Ebola hasn't been in the news much lately.

That's because the number of new cases has plummeted since the height of the epidemic late last year. In fact, the turnaround has been so dramatic that Liberia, once the hardest-hit country, is now on the brink of declaring itself Ebola-free.

But two headlines from Sierra Leone this week caught our attention.

According to reports, a boat with sick fishermen sparked a new outbreak in the capital. Meanwhile, the vice-president of Sierra Leone was under quarantine after his bodyguard died of Ebola.

To get the full scoop, we spoke with Umaru Fofana, a reporter with Reuters who's based in the capital, Freetown.

What's the latest with the vice president, Samuel Sam-Sumana?

One of his bodyguards had become infected with [and died of] Ebola, so he imposed a 21-day quarantine on himself. It's the first time that a high-level government official has been in quarantine because of Ebola. But he really had no choice. It was public knowledge [that his bodyguard had Ebola], and I think he would have looked really bad if he hadn't followed the rules.

The president of Sierra Leone is out of the country [in Europe], so the vice president is in charge. He says he's working from home, that he's running the country online.

How exactly does one run a country from a laptop?

It's difficult because some of the work he has to do requires giving a signature. If he has documents that he needs to sign, how does he sign them? Even if someone were to slip a document under his door, no one can come in contact with the envelope, so I don't know how all that works.

What happened in this fishing community? How bad was the outbreak there?

The community is called Aberdeen. It's a slum in the capital [Freetown], by the beach, filled with lots of shanties. One area of the slum actually borders a boundary wall of the most expensive hotel in the city.

From what I understand, a man who was sick or dead with Ebola arrived there on a boat. A few residents were infected, and one of them traveled to the north, and ultimately several dozen people there became infected because of him. At first, there was a sense of panic over the new cases in this fishing slum, because of the set-up [many people packed close together]. But the WHO response was very fast, and the slum itself had very few cases. The area had been quarantined but now that quarantine is about to be lifted.

In late November, Sierra Leone was seeing over 500 new cases of Ebola each week. By late January, that number had plummeted to fewer than 100 hundred a week. Now things are stagnant: approximately 60 to 80 new cases a week for the past month. What's the mood on the ground?

I think complacency has crept in, to be honest. You don't see the kind of vigilance that used to exist, where there were buckets [of chlorinated water] all over the place [for hand-washing]. You don't see that these days, because the sense is that the virus has been defeated.

But in the more recent times there has been a resurgence and there is now some concern with the figures coming in, ebbing and flowing. People are a bit worried again, particularly when they compare themselves with neighboring Liberia [which saw no new cases this past week]. So the idea that Liberia is doing well while we are not has led to some frustration and some amount of hopelessness. But overall, people do feel like the worst is over.

Sierra Leone

ebola

Did you take a lunch break yesterday? Are you planning to take one today?

Chances are the answer is no. Fewer American workers are taking time for lunch. Research shows that only 1 in 5 five people step away for the midday meal. Most workers are simply eating at their desks.

But studies have also found that the longer you stay at work, the more important it is to get outside of the office, even if it's just for a few minutes, because creativity can take a hit when you don't change environments.

"We know that creativity and innovation happen when people change their environment, and especially when they expose themselves to a nature-like environment, to a natural environment," says Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, who studies workplace psychology.

"So staying inside, in the same location, is really detrimental to creative thinking. It's also detrimental to doing that rumination that's needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an 'aha' moment," Elsbach tells Jeremy Hobson, host of Here & Now.

And in a knowledge-based economy, where innovation is what your workers produce, that can also be detrimental to the bottom line.

To reap the benefits of a lunch break, "you don't actually need to go eat," Elsbach says, "you just need to get out. And it doesn't have to be between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to have a positive impact. It can be just going outside and taking a walk around the block. That in itself is really restorative."

Elsbach's own research has found that "mindless" work — which can include tasks like walking — can enhance creativity, she tells The Salt.

Interview Highlights:

On why the lunch hour is disappearing

"The work day runs now from much earlier in the morning to late at night, and it's also not a standard 9 to 5. So ... when you eat or when you take a break to get some sustenance is not going to be the same [as it used to be]. Also, there's just this demand to be forever available, so people are reluctant to leave their desk in case they miss something. And so people are eating at their desk — if they're eating at all — and are just there for longer periods of time."

On lunch breaks and labor laws

"People who are in more staff or line jobs that are unionized or regulated by labor rules, [those] are the people who are left taking lunch – because it's mandated. But for white-collar workers and managers it's not, and so they're the group who are least likely to take lunch."

On making sure you take a break by creating a lunch culture at work

"It's tough. One of the things I think helps is ... creating a community around it. So you can set up an online forum where you say, OK, these are the different activities we're doing. There's one group that's going to meet and eat sack lunch outside. There's another group that's going to go for a walk around the local environment. There's another group that's going to go to a favorite restaurant. And so you create community around it, and you're not doing it by yourself and being seen as the odd person out. ...

"You need to get the top managers to be part of this community of taking time off in the middle of the day to eat lunch, to go for a walk, to have a coffee break. They need to be included in the community and model that behavior for the rest of the workforce."

This story comes to us via Here & Now, a show produced by NPR and member station WBUR in Boston. You can listen to an audio version of this story on WBUR's website.

lunch break

creativity

workplace

Lunch

With yet another do-or-die test of Obamacare before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, the justices were sharply divided.

By the end of the argument, it was clear that the outcome will be determined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. The chief justice said almost nothing during the argument, and Kennedy sent mixed signals, seeming to give a slight edge to the administration's interpretation of the law.

Judging by the comments from the remaining justices, the challengers would need the votes of both Roberts and Kennedy to win.

It's All Politics

4 Reasons Both Parties Should Be Sweating Bullets Over King V. Burwell

Shots - Health News

Few Clues On Health Law's Future Emerge In Supreme Court Arguments

The challengers hinge their argument on six words in the 1,000-plus-page law. Those words stipulate that for people who cannot afford health insurance, subsidies are available through "an exchange established by the state." Only 16 states run their own exchanges. The federal government runs the exchanges for the remaining 34 states that opted out of running their own.

Representing the challengers was lawyer Michael Carvin, whose florid-faced passion prompted Justice Sonia Sotomayor to tell him gently at one point, "Take a breath!"

Carvin took incoming shots from all of the court's more liberal members.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the statute says that if a state does not itself set up an exchange, then the federal "Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall establish and operate such exchange."

"Context matters," added Justice Elena Kagan. And "if you look at the entire text, it's pretty clear that you oughtn't to treat those five words in the way you are."

Justice Sotomayor, looking at the law through a different lens, asked how the challengers' reading of the law would affect the federal-state relationship.

"The choice the state had was, establish your own exchange or let the federal government establish it for you," she said. "If we read it the way you're saying, then ... the states are going to be coerced into establishing their own exchanges."

With all eyes on Justice Kennedy, he seemed to agree with Sotomayor's point.

It does seem "that if your argument is accepted," he told Carvin, "the states are being told, 'Either create your own exchange, or we'll send your insurance market into a death spiral.' " By "death spiral," Kennedy was referring to the consequence of having no subsidies in 34 states, leading to a collapse of the individual insurance market.

That, Kennedy suggested, is a form of coercion. So "it seems to me ... there's a serious constitutional problem if we adopt your argument."

Justice Antonin Scalia, a leader of the court's conservative wing, jumped in to help Carvin.

"Do we have any case which says that when there is a clear provision, if it is unconstitutional, we can rewrite it?" Scalia asked.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, however, pointed to what she called the familiar patterns of federal aid, in which the federal government says to the states: Here's a grant; take it or leave it. Or, a pattern like the one at issue here, which says to a state, "you can have your program if you want it, and if you don't," the fallback is a federal program.

Law

Round 2: Health Care Law Faces The Supreme Court Again

Shots - Health News

5 Things To Know About The Latest Supreme Court Challenge To Health Law

But, said Ginsburg, "I have never seen anything" such as you are suggesting, where a state's failure to set up a program results in "these disastrous consequences."

If Carvin got a hostile reception from the court's liberals, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. got equal treatment from some of the court's conservatives.

"Is it not the case," asked Scalia, "that if the only reasonable interpretation of a particular provision produces disastrous consequences in the rest of the statute, it nonetheless means what it says? Is that true or not?"

Verrilli replied that it isn't just a question of onerous consequences, but that the states had no notice of disastrous consequences when they chose to let the federal government run the state exchanges.

"It's not too late for a state to establish an exchange if we adopt" the challengers' interpretation of the law, interjected Justice Samuel Alito. "So going forward, there would be no harm."

Verrilli replied that the tax credits would "be cut off immediately," and millions of people in many states would be unable to afford their insurance. Even if the court were to somehow delay the effect of its ruling for six months, it would be "completely unrealistic" to set up the exchanges by May of this year, as required by law, so that they could begin operating in 2016.

"You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all of these disastrous consequences ensue?" asked Scalia. How often have we come out with a problematic decision and "Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that takes care of the problem. It happens all the time. Why is that not going to happen here?"

Verrilli paused, eyebrows raised. "This Congress, your honor?" he asked, as laughter filled the courtroom.

Justice Kennedy once again raised the question of the federal government impinging on state sovereignty.

That's why our reading is far preferable, replied Verrilli. If a state doesn't want to participate, it can "decide not to participate without having any adverse consequences visited upon the citizens of the state."

Chief Justice Roberts, who remained quiet through most of the argument, finally had this question: If we decide the language of the law is ambiguous and we thus defer to the administration's interpretation, he asked, could the next administration "change that interpretation?"

Some court observers thought that comment set a way out for the chief. But by the end of the argument, nobody was making any predictions.

Obamacare

Affordable Care Act

U.S. Supreme Court

America's oil boom is going through some growing pains. But despite the recent dip in oil prices, some segments of the industry are focused on long-term growth.

In southwestern Washington state, oil companies want to build the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country at the Port of Vancouver, on the banks of the Columbia River.

Vancouver, a suburb of Portland, Ore., which lies just across the river, is the most direct rail route from the Bakken oil fields to the Pacific Ocean. But the proposal has raised tensions in this city between concerns over safety and the desire to create jobs.

'There's No Benefit To Us'

Linda Garcia has called a working class part of Vancouver home for almost 20 years. "My neighborhood is my family," she says.

But Garcia is concerned about how her neighborhood could change if the terminal is built. Many of the homes here, along with an elementary school, are less than a mile from where trains filled with crude oil would unload at the port.

Right now, about three oil trains pass through the region every day. If the oil terminal is built, that traffic would more than double.

i

Proponents of the terminal plan say it would bring economic development to the Vancouver area, just over Columbia River from Portland, Ore. Conrad Wilson/OPB News hide caption

itoggle caption Conrad Wilson/OPB News

Proponents of the terminal plan say it would bring economic development to the Vancouver area, just over Columbia River from Portland, Ore.

Conrad Wilson/OPB News

"If there were any type of incident, explosion, over-release of chemicals, spill, earthquake — anything that will cause a safety issue — we're not entirely convinced that our neighborhood will be safe from that," she says.

Garcia points to the 2013 oil train derailment in Quebec, Canada, which killed 47 people and destroyed part of a town.

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Not far from Garcia's neighborhood, Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, is showing off a video rendering of a different kind of project: the City of Vancouver's planned $1.5 billion mixed-use development, The Waterfront. Cain is the developer behind the swanky 32-acre project, right on the Columbia River.

"We've got a half-mile long park and we'll have great restaurants. It'll be just a beautiful environment," he says.

Cain hopes that environment does not include the nation's largest oil-by-rail terminal. "We're fighting it, because there's no benefit to us," he says.

'We Need It For Jobs'

But Jared Larrabee, general manager for the Vancouver Energy Project, says the proposed terminal will be "a great benefit to the area."

The project is a joint venture by the oil company Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, which specializes in supply chain management.

Larrabee says the terminal will create more than 300 construction jobs in the short term and about 200 additional jobs once it's up and running.

"This is a facility designed from the ground up, specifically to handle this and specifically for this type of operation," he says. "So what that means is we can design all of the state-of-the-art safety features in right from the get-go."

Just upriver, Chris Hickey lives on three acres with his wife, son and two massive dogs. "We get salmon and steelhead up here in the creek," he says. "It's one of the cool things about the house."

Hickey says he'd like to see the region's economy grow, so he's all for the proposed oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver — even if it means more oil trains.

"I worked in Portland for years. So many people work in Portland. And I would love to see more industry here in the Vancouver area. I mean, we need it for jobs," he says.

Hickey is certainly walking his talk. He doesn't mind that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway already runs trains carrying crude oil along the tracks that cut right across his driveway. "I don't worry about it," he says.

And neither does Burlington Northern. The rail company says it's not only up to the task of delivering more crude oil safely, but that it's also well aware of the risks.

The state is reviewing oil terminal proposal at the Port of Vancouver, and several other oil terminals are also being considered along the Washington coast.

trains

oil spills

energy

Jobs

oil

Fast food giant McDonald's announced Wednesday it will begin sourcing chickens raised without antibiotics.

Over the next two years, the chain says its U.S. restaurants — which number around 14,000 — will transition to the new antibiotics policy, which prohibits suppliers from using antibiotics critical to treating human illness.

Many scientists are concerned that the more an antibiotic is given to food animals, the more quickly bacteria could adapt and become resistant to it, a process that could eventually render the drug ineffective for humans. The extent to which antibiotic resistance in animal agriculture contributes to humans getting infected with resistant bacteria is not well-known. But the Food and Drug Administration has been pushing meat producers to reduce antibiotic use to minimize the risk.

Now, the iconic purveyor of McNuggets is not going completely antibiotic-free when it comes to the chicken it serves. Under the new policy, the company's suppliers will still be allowed to give birds ionophores, a type of antibiotic not used to treat people.

The Salt

Americans Want Antibiotic-Free Chicken, And The Industry Is Listening

Several of McDonald's competitors have made similar commitments.

Chick-fil-A signaled in 2014 that it was moving toward serving only antibiotic-free meat. And both Panera and Chipotle began their move into antibiotic-free meat more than a decade ago. (For Chipotle, the decision came after it realized its pork wasn't selling very well.) Poultry giant Purdue also announced in September it would stop injecting antibiotics into chicken eggs that are just about to hatch.

McDonald's announcement came just two days after Steve Easterbrook took over as the new CEO. Easterbrook comes from the company's United Kingdom division, where he spearheaded various health and environmental initiatives. McDonald's says it's aware that its customers' expectations are changing.

One sign of growing consumer demand in the U.S. is sales of antibiotic-free meat at grocery stores. As industry analyst Joe Kolano told The Salt in February 2014:

"While antibiotic-free chicken is still a relatively small fraction of the market — accounting for about 9 percent of the $9 billion to $10 billion spent on fresh chicken in 2013 — it's a 'fast-growing sector.'"

Jonathan Kaplan, director of the food and agriculture program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement that he's hopeful McDonald's will soon cut back on antibiotics in its supply chains for beef (think the Big Mac) and pork (think McRib), too.

Other advocacy groups say today's news is a reminder that the FDA has yet to mandate stricter rules on how meat producers use medically important antibiotics.

"It's past time for the FDA to force the meat industry to eliminate its use of harmful antibiotics though enforceable, non-voluntary regulation," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch in a statement.

Pharmed Food

antibiotic resistance

antibiotics

mcdonalds

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that could end Obamacare subsidies for policyholders in a majority of states, including Texas, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. If the court sides with the plaintiffs, it would mean millions of people could no longer afford health insurance.

The challenge to the Obamacare subsidies comes in the case King vs. Burwell. The plaintiffs point to a passage in Affordable Care Act that suggests that the federal government can only offer premium subsidies in Obamacare exchanges established by the states.

Only 16 states and the District of Columbia established their own systems. The rest are run by the federal government. In most cases, that's because Republican governors and legislatures refused to create a state system.

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If the court upholds the challenge to the subsidies, an estimated 8 million people, including Melissa Trudeau, her husband and four children could lose their insurance.

"We'd probably just have to maybe only insure the kids," she says. "There's no way we could afford to do all of us, insure all of the entire family."

Trudeau and her family live near Tyler, Texas, and pay about $500 a month for coverage in the federally run exchange there. Without subsidies the cost would be $1,100.

"I'm really worried about it because we pretty much live paycheck to paycheck and we have a little bit extra coming in here and there but nothing we can really count on," Trudeau says. "If they take away the subsidies, I really don't know what we're going to do then."

But Christine Eibner, an economist at the RAND Corporation, a think tank, says it's not just the people getting subsidies who will be hurt.

"It's important to keep in mind that this ruling could have implications beyond the number of people losing subsidies," she says.

"When younger and healthier people drop out of the market because they no longer have access to subsidies, that causes premiums to increase."

- Christine Eibner, an economist at the RAND Corporation

If the court rules that the subsidies are illegal, even people in the individual insurance market who do not get subsidies would see their premiums rise — including people who bought their insurance outside the federally run marketplaces.

"We see premiums increasing by about 47 percent," Eibner says.

She says that's because removing subsidies would cause the youngest and healthiest people in the federally run exchanges to drop their insurance. "And when younger and healthier people drop out of the market because they no longer have access to subsidies, that causes premiums to increase," Eibner says.

Because older and sicker people need more health care, they will do everything they can to hang on to their insurance. That raises costs for insurance companies and they raise their premiums in response.

"It would be a staggering blow," says Andy Carter, CEO of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. He says it would be a blow to those getting subsidies in the federally run Pennsylvania exchange and a blow to hospitals, which would lose revenue. Carter says 4 out of 5 Pennsylvanians in the ACA exchange there get subsidies.

"The subsidies themselves represent a keystone to the whole Affordable Care Act structure," he says. "You lose those subsidies, and the whole thing just collapses."

U.S. hospitals have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the subsidies. Carter says he's optimistic the Supreme Court will rule the subsidies are legal, but he is talking to Pennsylvania state officials about setting up a state-run exchange just in case. However, he says, opposition in the state legislature remains a hurdle.

Eibner, of the RAND Corporation, says states that didn't set up their own exchanges would take an economic hit by giving up the federal subsidies.

"The subsidies are bringing about [$400] million a month into the state of Florida and [$200] million a month into the state of Texas," she says. "Over the course of the year, this translates into billions of dollars."

The Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision in June. So far, the Obama administration says it has no plan and no executive-branch power to undo the effects of a negative ruling.

Obamacare

Affordable Care Act

Supreme Court

Chai used $160,000 of her own money and one year to make Under The Dome, the same title as a Stephen King novel.

Some scenes in the film are shocking, including a visit to a hospital operating room, where viewers see the damage China's polluted air can do to a patient's lungs.

Chai asks some tough questions about the politics and economics behind the smog, but often with a gentle, funny tone.

She talks to a local environmental official so powerless to enforce the country's laws that he admits, "I don't want to open my mouth because I'm afraid you'll see that I'm toothless."

Ten years ago, I asked what that smell in the air was, and I got no answer. Now I know. It's the smell of money.

- Chai Ling, journalist and documentary filmmaker

She confesses that, like many Chinese citizens, it was only recently that she learned the difference between fog and smog.

She interviews local officials who protect polluting industries because those industries create jobs and pay taxes.

Chai doesn't explicitly criticize China's model of economic development. Nor does she call for China's leaders to be held accountable for their policies.

She makes it clear, though, that pollution is a cost of rapid industrialization that China can no longer put off paying.

"Ten years ago, I asked what that smell in the air was, and I got no answer," she says. "Now I know. It's the smell of money."

In the film, Chai travels to Los Angeles and London to learn how those cities cleaned up their air. She concludes that China can follow their example, and that its citizens should get involved.

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"The strongest governments on earth cannot clean up pollution by themselves," she argues. "They must rely on each ordinary person, like you and me, on our choices, and on our will."

Ma Jun, the director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, agrees.

He calls Chai's documentary a wake-up call for China, comparable to An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 documentary about climate change, and Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's 1962 book about harmful pesticides.

Ma offers an explanation for why China's government has not silenced Chai, and China's new environment minister even called to thank her.

"One reason such a hard-hitting film, that touched on deeply rooted problems, was allowed to be widely disseminated," he says, "is its positive direction, which gives people hope and confidence."

Chai has declined interview requests except for one from the website of the official People's Daily newspaper.

That website aired the documentary, until Wednesday, when it disappeared without explanation. It's still viewable elsewhere in China.

Of course, China has been saying for more than a decade that it's time to clean up the pollution, and that it's willing to accept slower economic growth in order to do it. But last year only 8 of 74 Chinese cities met the air quality targets – five more than in 2013.

Environmentalists have welcomed other encouraging signs in recent months. Last November, for the first time, China has set a target of 2030 for its carbon emissions to peak, before declining.

And it has promised to allow environmental groups to file class action lawsuits against polluters.

air pollution

pollution

China

A partial jawbone found in Ethiopia is the oldest human-related fossil, scientists say.

NPR's Christopher Joyce, who is reporting on the story, tells our Newscast unit that the discovery fills in an important gap in human evolution. He says:

"The fossil consists of a partial jawbone and several teeth. It dates back to about 2.8 million years ago.

"The team says the fossil appears to belong to an individual from the beginning of the ancestral line that led to humans. That would make it the earliest known Homo — the human genus.

"Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say the jaw and teeth are different from more ancient human ancestors, known as Australopithecus. Those ape-like creatures had broad teeth for grinding and deep jaws.

"The new fossil has smaller teeth and a more rounded jaw. It's 400,000 years older than the previous record for human-related fossils. The scientists say it comes from the earliest period of human evolution."

The fossil was discovered two years ago at a location in Ethiopia close to where Lucy — the skeleton of the sort of half-ape, half-human that lived a couple million years before humans evolved — was discovered.

fossils

Hoagland's poem, in many ways, is the manifestation of white supremacy and class anxiety, and my response to it remains complicated. "The Change" is both "racially complex" (Hoagland's words) and racist. I don't know if that's an achievement — but I find it indicative of an aspect of the culture wars we're witnessing today.

I think about this as I consider Rankine's precise accounting of white discomfort in proximity to black anger. In Citizen, Rankine explores the intersection of Serena Williams's ascension as a great athlete with public critiques of her body, her demeanor, her confidence, her periodic expressions of outrage and joy against the gaze of her white audience.

"What does a victorious or defeated black woman's body in a historically white space look like?" she asks. "Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind Zora Neale Hurston's 'I feel most colored when I am thrown against a white sharp background.'" Rankine's close study of how the world receives Williams — and by extension black bodies — reveal what was so troubling about Hoagland's 2002 poem: Its racism is casual because it lives in the language.

Author Interviews

In 'Citizen,' Poet Strips Bare The Realities Of Everyday Racism

There's the persistent seduction of collective amnesia, our desperate wanting to embrace a mythology that we've evolved. We want to erase the nightmarish truth that at one time, we were the kind of people who would inflict unspeakable cruelties to another human being.

We're afraid to confront the racism that is embedded in the very marrow of our systems and institutions. We look everywhere to negate that fact. But Rankine's clear and direct accounting of mundane yet fraught interactions between races — what some categorize as microaggressions — accumulate and magnify, revealing the stultifying biases that inform structural racism.

"For so long you thought the ambition of racist language was to denigrate and erase you as a person," she writes. "Language that feels hurtful is intended to exploit all the ways that you are present. Your alertness, your openness, and your desire to engage actually demand your presence, your looking up, your talking back, and as insane as it is, saying please." Rankine, who recognized the quiet violence in Hoagland's words and others, makes this struggle visible throughout the book.

Rankine's Citizen demands that we not look away.

Syreeta McFadden is a columnist for Feministing, and a contributing opinion writer for The Guardian US

Poetry

In 2003, then 21-year-old Jin, a Chinese-American rapper, released a single called "Learn Chinese" that was widely circulated but not well-received:

"Y'all gon' learn Chinese, when the pumps come out, you're gon' speak Chinese...

You must be crazy, we don't speak English, we speak Chinese
And the only popo we know,
Is the pigs on the hook out by the window
Each time they harass me I wanna explode
We should ride the train for free, we built the railroads
I ain't your 50 cent, I ain't your Eminem, I ain't your Jigga Man, I'm a CHINA man"

Jin was riding high when "Learn Chinese" came out: he came up in the rap scene as a battle rapper, scoring seven wins in BET's 106 & Park freestyle competitions, and was the first Asian-American to release a solo album with the label Ruff Ryders.

Music News

Jin, 'The Chinese Kid Who Raps,' Grows Up

But the song and its music video drew mixed reactions, to say the least. "Learn Chinese" sampled cliched Orientalist tropes, calling on the snake-charmer tune and Yellowman's 1981 song "Mr. Chin." It also incorporated the nasally sounds of a Chinese zither. Critics charged Jin with peddling in Chinese-American stereotypes, invoking reductive imagery without pushing back on it.

As music critic Dorian Lynskey wrote for The Guardian in 2005, Jin was struggling to balance visibility with integrity: "However much Jin wants to avoid racial pigeonholing, these are his most original and exciting tracks."

Loren Kajikawa, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Oregon, says the producers of "Learn Chinese" were probably trying to play on Jin's "sonic otherness," making his apparent foreignness seem interesting while trying — but failing — to defy the same stereotypes he was calling on.

"As a whole, it starts off promising, because he's trying to push back on these stereotypes and subvert them," Kajikawa tells me, "But what he ends up giving you in place is this kind of Chinatown make-over of a gangster-rap video, which doesn't really challenge the kind of conventions or norms in hip hop, which is fine if you're not trying to do that, but I think he was."

Despite the notoriety of "Learn Chinese," or perhaps because of it, Jin faded from the spotlight soon after that album. Now, at 32, he's trying to stage a comeback. His new album is called XIC:LIX — 14:59 — which some have taken as a nod to what could be the end of his 15 minutes of fame. He reflected in an Arena interview last fall about what it was like being one of the lone Asian-Americans in his industry at a very young age — and what he sees as missed opportunities:

"With 'Learn Chinese' while I was in the studio with 'Clef and the whole Ruff Ryders environment, I think the intentions were there. The intentions were pure, but the execution may have been where there was a miscalculation, even if you talk about visually, the video, running around and doing karate kicks and sliding on the floor and all that extra stuff.

At the time, like I said in the verse, I'm in my early 20s, I'm just having a ball. I'm enjoying it. Whereas now I look back on it, I'm like, 'Wow, that was such a great opportunity to make a statement and this is the statement that you made Jin?' "

In a song on the new album called "Chinese New Year," Jin mixes Cantonese and English and raps about and what happened after the release of "Learn Chinese":

"While we on the topic, I got something to reveal,
Can I be real though,
I mean really real,
'Cause at one point,
I was losing sleep
Thinking about the first song that I ever released,
Looking back, it was a lesson in my eyes,
And if you never heard of it,
Hey that's just a blessin' in disguise.
Learned Chinese dropped,
Things never been the same,
Credibility gone, yo, charging into the game.

... I was barely 21, but that's not an excuse
I got on my own two feet and walked in that booth.
To make y'all proud, that's what I'm trying to do here,
Because for me, every day is Chinese New Year."

"It's like Jin made a 180," says Oliver Wang, a professor at California State University, in a recent profile by Jean Ho at Buzzfeed. "On 'Chinese New Year,' it's all about looking inward via introspection and he basically apologizes for his 21-year-old self on 'Learn Chinese,' which is striking since it's rare to see many rappers walking back their own earlier catalog."

As Jin tries to retake the stage — another potential brush with success, another segment of his career to reflect on — it seems clear that it was never fair to ask a 21-year-old, the only big-name Asian-American in the game at the time, to make everybody happy.

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in another case that threatens the survival of Obamacare. This one doesn't challenge the constitutionality of the law itself, it merely challenges the legality of one of the most important parts of the system — subsidies so that everyone can afford health care. If the court strikes down the subsidies for people who live in states that chose not to set up their own exchanges, and who get their health coverage from the federal marketplace — healthcare.gov — it would begin to unravel the entire Obamacare project. Here's why that could be politically damaging to both Democrats and Republicans:

1. The biggest political threat is to the president.

A ruling for the plaintiffs would be a mortal blow to the president's signature legislative achievement. Up to 8 million people could lose their subsidies in 34 states, leaving them unable to afford coverage. Premiums would spike, because presumably only the sickest people would be willing to pay the full cost of coverage. Insurers would leave the market. It would delegitimize the law. Democrats had been been touting its success — around 11 million people are now signed up — and enjoying a momentary lull in the intensity of the arguments over the law would have to scramble to preserve what they could. The political slugfest over the Affordable Care Act would begin again.

2. Republicans might not be the winners.

Democrats would go on the offensive, blaming Republicans for every case of a person who lost coverage just before giving birth, or having another round of chemo.

There would be a "good-riddance caucus" inside the GOP to be sure — Republicans who argue that the best strategy is to sit back and watch the whole edifice of Obamacare collapse in a heap.

These Republicans think that chaos in the marketplace would punish Obama, and that Americans would rise up even more than they have and demand an end of the law.

But that view is not universally shared inside the GOP.

Many Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell see an opening for Republicans to switch their tactics — finally — from repeal to replace if the court ruled against the government.

McConnell, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, called it an opportunity for a mulligan — a major do-over of the whole health care law. Something he believes is more achievable than total repeal.

3. It will be hard for Republicans to unify around a replacement for Obamacare.

The GOP has been trying for six years to come up with an alternative to Obamacare and they haven't been able to. But now a group of lawmakers led by Paul Ryan in the House and Orrin Hatch in the Senate have come up with what they call an "Offramp from Obamacare" — legislation that would temporarily restore the lost subsidies and then replace them with other forms of financial aid like tax credits. They'd also do away with the law's minimum coverage requirements and the individual mandate.

But why would a party that can't agree on how to fund the Department of Homeland Security agree on a strategy to take advantage of a win in King v. Burwell?

And would President Obama agree to the kind of changes in the health care law that Republicans would demand?

4. Republican governors will be under tremendous pressure.

Without a major fix by Congress, governors in states that chose not to set up exchanges would be under pressure to do so in order to prevent hundreds of thousands of their citizens from losing coverage.

Conservatives who are arguing for a legislative fix say these Republican governors, who held out against Obamacare, should not be left high and dry.

But fixing the damage to the ACA that the court might impose will require not just cooperation, but timely cooperation, something that is in very short supply in Washington these days.

A lot of parents start worrying about paying for college education soon after their child is born. After that, there's the stressful process of applying to colleges, and then, for those lucky enough to get admitted into a good college, there's college debt.

But author Kevin Carey argues that those problems might be overcome in the future with online higher education. Carey directs the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation. In his new book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, Carey envisions a future in which "the idea of 'admission' to college will become an anachronism, because the University of Everywhere will be open to everyone" and "educational resources that have been scarce and expensive for centuries will be abundant and free."

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As an example of how the University of Everywhere might work, Carey points to an online course he took through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "It [was] the basic intro to biology class. ... The course was taught by a man named Eric Lander, who was the leader of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s. ... The amazing thing ... is that it was essentially in all respects exactly the same class that MIT freshmen take — so all of the same lectures that they saw were actually taped live while MIT students were taking them and then broadcast over this class a couple of weeks later. Both myself and tens of thousands of people around the world from almost every country on Earth who were taking this class online did the same homework, read the same textbooks, took the same exams — both the midterm and the final — and were graded on the same scale. It was an amazing class. I learned a tremendous amount."

Interview Highlights

On why the majority of American college students decide to go to college

When you ask people why they're going to college, overwhelmingly the answer is, "So I can get a better job," because you really can't make it in today's economy without some kind of credential from a post-secondary institution. So partly this [is] being driven by the fact that people need to go to college in order to make their way in the world and get credentials for, frankly, not the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that colleges charge today.

On how college "replicates privilege"

"If only the rich can afford to go to the 'good colleges,' then we don't have a system of opportunity; we have a system of replicating privilege that already exists."

You just have to look at the numbers and you see that people who attend America's most elite universities are disproportionately wealthy, disproportionately well-off, in many cases disproportionately white; their parents both have college degrees, which is unusual. And because college is getting more and more expensive, it's less of a meritocracy, I would argue. If only the rich can afford to go to the "good colleges," then we don't have a system of opportunity; we have a system of replicating privilege that already exists. I think that — given the wider trend of growing inequality in the United States of America — is a huge, huge problem.

On what's wrong with college admissions

The problem with college admissions is that colleges don't really know that much about students. All they kind of have to go on is an SAT [or ACT] score, which is kind of a blunt instrument ... a high school transcript, which is sort of hard to figure out, [and] maybe a personal essay, who knows who wrote the personal essay. So they tend to fall back on, "Is this person a legacy? Did they go to a 'good high school?'" Well, everyone figures out where "good high schools" are and people pay a lot of money in tuition if it's a private high school, or in the real estate market to buy a house near the good high school. And so again the opportunities for students to go to particularly elite colleges that are often the stepping stone toward the best jobs in government or business are in many ways constricted to a narrow band of people.

"Colleges are expensive because they can be, because they want to be and because they were built to be that way."

On why college is so expensive

Colleges are expensive because they can be, because they want to be and because they were built to be that way. ... Colleges are expensive because they occupy a very privileged position in American society. The economy has changed so much, a lot of the blue-collar jobs have disappeared such that people can really only succeed and make a different kind of living if they have some kind of college credential. So if you're in a position where you're the only kind of organization that will sell those experiences and those credentials, then you have a lot of power over the market. Colleges are also driven to compete with one another for status and prestige. Most colleges are nonprofit: They're not trying to maximize their revenue, what they're trying to do is maximize how important they are so that people who work there seem important and like special people.

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Kevin Carey's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Amanda Gaines/Courtesy of Riverhead hide caption

itoggle caption Amanda Gaines/Courtesy of Riverhead

Kevin Carey's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Amanda Gaines/Courtesy of Riverhead

On the term "University of Everywhere"

The University of Everywhere is the university that I think my children and future generations will attend when they go to college. ... They will look very different in some ways, although not in other ways, from the colleges that I went to and that many of us have become familiar with. This will be driven by advances in information technology: So whereas historically you went to college in a specific place and only studied with the other people who could afford to go that place, in the future we're going to study with people all over the world, interconnected over global learning networks and in organizations that in some cases aren't colleges as we know them today, but rather 21st-century learning organizations that take advantage of all of the educational tools that are rapidly becoming available to offer great college experiences for much less money.

On the advantage of online education programs like edX, which he took his MIT class through

They will and should be much, much less expensive than the tens of thousands of dollars that people are now obligated to pay for college. The online class that I took from MIT — and again, this is exactly the same class that MIT teaches to its own students — cost me nothing. It was free. I signed up and I took the class. All of the classes offered, hundreds of the classes offered by edX from Harvard, MIT, some of the best universities in the world ... they're free. And the reason is because it doesn't cost them any more money to let one more person take the class. Once they've made the investment of building it and taping all the lectures, the marginal cost of letting an additional person take it is nothing. So this kind of marginal cost pricing — where people only pay the marginal cost of what it costs to provide them with the service — is going to drive a lot of the economics of higher education in the future.

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Second, people will have a far broader access to educational materials and to other students than they have in the past. ... The design of the university is a design that comes from scarcity, so if you wanted to learn, traditionally, until very recently, you had to go someplace where the other students were, where the smart professors were and where the books were. It was expensive to put all of those things together in one place. ... So there could only ever be a relatively small number of places like that and if you ran a place like that you could decide who comes in the gates and who doesn't, and charge people a lot of money.

We are now headed into a time of abundance when it comes to educational resources. All the books in the world are now available on your iPad or your phone or your computer, or will be soon. The same is true for all of the lectures of all of the smartest people in the world, and the course notes and the problem sets. ... Once they're built, the cost of providing them to the 10,000th student or the millionth student is almost nothing. One aspect of the University of Everywhere is it isn't going to cost nearly as much as $60,000 a year, which is what a private college would charge you today.

There is agreement on both the political left and right that a majority of college professors in the United States are liberal or left-of-center. But do liberals stifle free speech — particularly that of political and social conservatives — on college campuses?

Social conservatives often argue that campuses, as a whole, are generally hostile to views that don't conform to the social and political left. Conservatives and evangelicals are rarely asked to speak at colleges and universities, they argue. And they point to numerous incidents where, when schools have asked conservatives to speak, those invitations have been revoked after clamor from left-leaning students and faculty.

But there are many who disagree with the premise that liberals quash intellectual diversity on college campuses. They argue that criticism is not censorship, but that conservatives too often label it as such. And when speech has been curtailed at colleges, they say, it's far more often by administrators seeking to quell or ward off campus disruption than by left-leaning students and faculty.

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In the latest event from Intelligence Squared U.S., two teams faced off on in an Oxford-style debate on the motion, "Liberals Are Stifling Intellectual Diversity On Campus." In these events, the team that sways the most people by the end of the debate is declared the winner.

Before the debate at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., 33 percent of the audience voted in favor of the motion, 21 percent were opposed and 46 percent were undecided. After the debate, 59 percent agreed with the motion, while 32 percent disagreed, making the team arguing in favor of the motion the winner.

FOR THE MOTION

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate and Freedom from Speech. He has published articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Stanford Technology Law Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education and numerous other publications. He is also a blogger for Huffington Post and authored a chapter in the anthology New Threats to Freedom. Lukianoff is a frequent guest on local and national syndicated radio programs, has represented FIRE on national television and has testified before the U.S. Senate about free speech issues on America's campuses. He is a co-author of FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus.

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Angus Johnston (left), founder of StudentActivism.net, and Jeremy Mayer, a professor at George Mason University, argue against the motion, "Liberals Are Stifling Intellectual Diversity On Campus." Chris Zarconi/Intelligence Squared U.S. hide caption

itoggle caption Chris Zarconi/Intelligence Squared U.S.

Angus Johnston (left), founder of StudentActivism.net, and Jeremy Mayer, a professor at George Mason University, argue against the motion, "Liberals Are Stifling Intellectual Diversity On Campus."

Chris Zarconi/Intelligence Squared U.S.

Kirsten Powers is a columnist for USA Today and The Daily Beast, where she writes about politics, human rights and faith, and the author of the forthcoming The Silencing: How the Left Is Killing Free Speech. She joined the FOX News Channel in 2004 and currently serves as a rotating panelist on Outnumbered and as a network contributor, providing political analysis and commentary across FOX News's daytime and prime time programming, including Special Report with Bret Baier and FOX News Sunday. She previously served as a columnist for The New York Post, a communications consultant at Human Rights First and for the New York State Democratic Committee, and vice president for international communications at America Online, Inc. From 1993 to 1998, Powers worked as deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for public affairs in the Clinton administration. She began her career as a staff assistant at the Office of President Bill Clinton, on the Clinton/Gore Presidential Transition Team.

AGAINST THE MOTION

Angus Johnston is a historian of American student activism and of student life and culture. An advocate of student organizing, he is the founder of the website StudentActivism.net. He teaches history at the City University of New York, where he received his PhD in 2009 with the dissertation, "The United States National Student Association: Democracy, Activism, and the Idea of the Student, 1947-1978." Johnston is particularly interested in student activism beyond the 1960s, in the history of student government and in the role of students in the university. He regularly participates in scholarly and popular discussions on these topics, and his writing has appeared in several journals and anthologies. He has delivered lectures and workshops on the history of American student activism to undergraduate audiences at colleges across the country. Johnston received his BA in history from Binghamton University.

Jeremy Mayer is an associate professor in the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University. Most recently, he is the co-author of Closed Minds? Politics and Ideology in American Universities and co-editor of Media Power, Media Politics, 2nd Edition. He has written articles in several journals on topics such as presidential image management, Christian right politics, comparative political socialization and federalism and gay rights, and has offered political commentary to major networks and national newspapers. Previously, Mayer taught at Georgetown University and Kalamazoo College, where he won a campus-wide teaching award. He is a recipient of the Rowman & Littlefield Award in Innovative Teaching for the American Political Science Association, the only national teaching award in political science. He also has studied politics at Oxford, Michigan and Brown.

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Ash and lava spew from the volcano, as seen from Pucon, Chile. Reuters /Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Reuters /Landov

Ash and lava spew from the volcano, as seen from Pucon, Chile.

Reuters /Landov

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A general view of the volcano, which is Villarrica erupting near Villarrica, some 466 miles south of Santiago de Chile. Ariel Marinkovic/EPA /Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Ariel Marinkovic/EPA /Landov

A general view of the volcano, which is Villarrica erupting near Villarrica, some 466 miles south of Santiago de Chile.

Ariel Marinkovic/EPA /Landov

A view of the eruption. Ariel Marinkovic/EPA /Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Ariel Marinkovic/EPA /Landov

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a day after saying the U.S. and Israel agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons but "disagree on the best way" to prevent that from happening — will outline to Congress what he sees as the threats posed by the Islamic republic.

His comments today come after President Obama told Reuters that a long-term deal with Iran is the best way to ensure the Islamic republic doesn't obtain a nuclear weapon, and that Netanyahu's speech to Congress — which came about without White House input — "isn't permanently destructive" to the U.S-Israeli relationship. Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, said last night that the Israeli leader's planned remarks had "injected a degree of partisanship" that is "destructive to the fabric of the relationship."

Netanyahu's speech has been controversial from the moment it was announced last month by House Speaker John Boehner. The White House called the invitation to Netanyahu a departure from protocol. Obama, citing the proximity of Israel's March 17 election, said he won't meet with the Israeli premier; neither will Secretary of State John Kerry or Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom are traveling. Many Democrats say they will boycott the speech. (NPR's Scott Horsley, reporting on Morning Edition, details the history of Obama's often-frosty relationship with Netanyahu.)

Netanyahu says he wants to use the speech to highlight the threat posed by Iran — a position for which he has support in Congress where many lawmakers want to impose more sanctions on the Islamic republic. Netanyahu has criticized the talks with Iran, but Obama told Reuters the talks are the best way forward.

Obama added that when the U.S. and its allies signed an interim deal with Iran that would freeze its nuclear program, "Prime Minister Netanyahu made all sorts of claims: This as going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true." (You can see his full comments here.)

Rice and Samantha Power, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., were conciliatory in remarks Monday at the 2015 American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, where the Israeli leader also spoke. Both reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel and its security.

"There will never be a sunset on America's commitment to Israel's security," Power said. "Never."

Speaking later, Rice said: "We have Israel's back, come hell or high water."

But she also said talks with Iran is the best way from keeping it from obtaining nuclear weapons, and she said Congress "shouldn't play the spoiler" on the issue.

We will update this blog post with Netanyahu's comments to Congress.

U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Inayat Omarji vividly remembers the worried reaction when he first looked into renovating the abandoned church in his neighborhood: "There's a bearded young Muslim chap involved in a church! Whoops! He's gonna turn it into a mosque!"

Inayat Omarji led the efforts to turn All Souls Church into a community center a decade ago, when he led the Bolton Council of Mosques. Ari Shapiro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shapiro/NPR

At the time, Omarji was head of the local council of mosques, but there already were three or four in his neighborhood in Bolton, England.

"What it needed is a place where people could meet, people can come to, people can socialize," he says.

Omarji and other local Muslims decided to turn the church into a community center for everyone. That was ten years ago. Now, amid stories about religious friction and ethnic tensions, the transformation of All Souls Church provides a story of harmony and integration in one culturally diverse community.

A decade ago, All Souls was covered in graffiti. Thieves had stolen lead pipes and broken some windows. But even as a boarded-up shell, the church was the geographic center of this community, its bell tower looming above the surrounding streets.

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Beyond the entrance to All Souls Church in Bolton, England, are a small cafe, the original altar and pipe organ, gathering spaces for the community, and a touch-screen terminal that plays recorded recollections of the church's history. Ari Shaprio/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shaprio/NPR

Beyond the entrance to All Souls Church in Bolton, England, are a small cafe, the original altar and pipe organ, gathering spaces for the community, and a touch-screen terminal that plays recorded recollections of the church's history.

Ari Shaprio/NPR

Omarji says one of the first decisions his group had to make was what to name this new community center.

"A no-brainer, actually, because the name just said it all: All Souls," says Omarji. "If somebody says 'oh, is this, is it just for the Muslim community?' ... No, just think about the name: All Souls. For everybody."

The renovation cost 5 million pounds, or around $8 million. Some of the money came from national lottery funds, with matching donations from individuals and charitable foundations.

Now the interior has elements of an ornate 18th-century church, while it holds elegant floating pods with meeting spaces, activity rooms, and a cafe. Every piece of the new interior had to be brought in through the church's original small doorway. Today there are after-school activities for students, knitting and gardening groups, and a Lego club that constructed a scale model of the church using the plastic bricks.

The building's new management shows a clear respect for history. Touch-screens along one wall play videos where former church congregants tell their stories.

"My happiest childhood memory was being picked for Rose Queen, and what an excitement that was," a senior citizen named Jean recalls in one of the short films.

The Rev. Gerald Higham was vicar of All Souls in the 1970s. At that time the local cotton mills were closing, white Christian families were leaving, and Muslim families with South Asian roots were moving in.

Higham recently returned to the church for his first close look at what it has become.

"I think it's been brilliantly done," he said, as he and his wife sipped cappuccinos on one of the new couches. "It could so easily have just been gutted."

Higham peered around the hall at details that he recognized from almost 40 years ago — a memorial to war dead on the wall, the central altar that has been kept intact, and the pipe organ that may yet be restored to working order.

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This is still a consecrated church, and a local group will hold Christian services here once a month. In the context of ethnic tensions around the UK and Europe, this space feels like an anomaly — it appears to be a completely frictionless blending of cultures. But that's a bit of an illusion.

"Nothing is completely frictionless — people are human beings," says Mark Head, vice-chairman of the trust that oversees the building.

Head says the integration at All Souls is the result of difficult conversations. For example, the cuisine of Lancashire, England, includes a lot of pork, but the cafe is halal. That has not stopped people of all backgrounds from filling the restaurant nightly for the gourmet burger menu.

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The cafe added to All Souls Church in its transition to an interfaith community center serves only halal food, but its gourmet burger menu has been a big draw. Ari Shapiro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ari Shapiro/NPR

The cafe added to All Souls Church in its transition to an interfaith community center serves only halal food, but its gourmet burger menu has been a big draw.

Ari Shapiro/NPR

"We had to turn people away," says Asif Timol, owner of the caf, called Room Four Dessert. "The whole issue of cohesion and integration is very close to home — being British-Asian, I've got young children who I'm raising in this country, so it's very important to me."

The All Souls team struggled with how to handle guide dogs — they are allowed in the building, despite being considered unclean in Islam. Alcohol was another issue; observant Muslims do not drink.

"When people want alcohol for a particular event or a conference, that will be organized by a separate entity altogether," says Head.

There is a method of bell ringing called Grandsire Triples that only has been played at key moments in the history of All Soul's. It was played at the end of World War II, and at the building's centenary celebration. Plaques in the church mark each occasion the piece has been played.

When All Souls reopened Dec. 6, the bells rang for the first time in 25 years, playing Grandsire Triples. Another plaque will be installed, marking that moment, next to the other key occasions in the life of this historic building.

United Kingdom

Islam

Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who has served in the Senate and in Congress longer than any other woman, says she will not seek a sixth term in 2016.

Mikulski, 78, announced her decision Monday in Baltimore.

" 'Do I spend my time raising money, or do I spend my time raising hell?' " she said she asked herself, according to The Associated Press.

Mikulski was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1976 and has served in the Senate since 1987. She was the first woman to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee. Known as the "Dean" of women in the Senate, Mikulski had a reputation for taking female senators under her wing.

The Baltimore native was a social worker before she was a politician.

The Washington Post, which broke the news of Mikulski's retirement, notes that she is "a forceful presence on many pieces of legislation, passionately liberal on certain issues but also committed to working closely with Republicans."

She's considered to be one of the more liberal members of Congress. She has been a fierce champion of environmental issues and equal pay for women.

In 2012, when NASA discovered an exploding star, they named it "Supernova Mikulski" in her honor.

Her retirement will spark a heated Democratic primary. Potential candidates to replace her include U.S. Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards, and former Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is said to be considering a White House bid in 2016.

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