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Interview Highlights

On his infant son as the "first enlightened person" he's met

I'm a very stressed person and I'm always living both in the past and future in the sense that I'm kind of feeling guilty for many things that I've done and I feel great anxiety for all the stuff that's gonna come. And suddenly when you have a baby or a child and you see how they can be 100 percent in the present. You know, they don't really care about what happened before. They could have cried for an hour but in one second you give them ice cream and they're there, they're enjoying the ice cream. Whatever happened is behind them.

So this ability to be in the present was something that I kind of discovered through my son. And I actively try to imitate it but I'm afraid I'm not very good at it.

On teaching his son about how to hide during rocket attacks in Israel

The moment that you hear the alarm, if you're in the middle of the street then you have 30 seconds, you know, to find a hiding or if you don't have a hiding to lie on the ground. And I was with my wife and son when the alarm went off and it was like the first time in his life that he was in a missile attack and we asked him to lie on the ground.

Book Reviews

'Suddenly': Surreal Stories From A Modern Master

And he said, "If it's too dirty to eat from it when something falls on it, then it's too dirty to lie on it." And you find yourself that you have kind of 25 seconds to convince your son to lie down. And you don't want to be stressful, you don't want to shout at him.

So I suggested to him a game called "Pastrami Sandwich," in which my wife lies on the ground and he lies on her and I lie on him and together we form this pastrami sandwich and he kind of liked it because it was warm and cozy. And after the missile attack, he asked me if I can promise him that there would be more missile attacks so we can play the game again.

On how his father, a Holocaust survivor, responded to his terminal cancer diagnosis

He really, really wanted to continue living, but at the same time, he felt that life had given him a fair deal. He died when he was 84. He survived the Holocaust, losing his sister and losing many people who were close to him. So I think my father, in many ways, he was kind of like a Yoda for me — giving me all kinds of lessons that were not always clear, but I always kept with me.

On the publication of the book and why it's not out in Israel or in Hebrew

I feel that there are many intimate details in the book that it's easier for me to share overseas.

Etgar Keret

When you publish a work of fiction, people can tell you that your book is boring or you books suck, but when you write about your family people can tell you that your family is boring or your family sucks. And for me, never publishing nonfiction before, this is something that is very, very stressful. And I feel that there are many intimate details in the book that it's easier for me to share overseas.

It's kind of like those stories that you feel comfortable to tell somebody in a bar or on a train, but you wouldn't tell your next door neighbor. So, I don't know, maybe one day I'll publish it in Israel, but right now it feels a little bit too scary and too personal.

Interview Highlights

On his infant son as the "first enlightened person" he's met

I'm a very stressed person and I'm always living both in the past and future in the sense that I'm kind of feeling guilty for many things that I've done and I feel great anxiety for all the stuff that's gonna come. And suddenly when you have a baby or a child and you see how they can be 100 percent in the present. You know, they don't really care about what happened before. They could have cried for an hour but in one second you give them ice cream and they're there, they're enjoying the ice cream. Whatever happened is behind them.

So this ability to be in the present was something that I kind of discovered through my son. And I actively try to imitate it but I'm afraid I'm not very good at it.

On teaching his son about how to hide during rocket attacks in Israel

The moment that you hear the alarm, if you're in the middle of the street then you have 30 seconds, you know, to find a hiding or if you don't have a hiding to lie on the ground. And I was with my wife and son when the alarm went off and it was like the first time in his life that he was in a missile attack and we asked him to lie on the ground.

Book Reviews

'Suddenly': Surreal Stories From A Modern Master

And he said, "If it's too dirty to eat from it when something falls on it, then it's too dirty to lie on it." And you find yourself that you have kind of 25 seconds to convince your son to lie down. And you don't want to be stressful, you don't want to shout at him.

So I suggested to him a game called "Pastrami Sandwich," in which my wife lies on the ground and he lies on her and I lie on him and together we form this pastrami sandwich and he kind of liked it because it was warm and cozy. And after the missile attack, he asked me if I can promise him that there would be more missile attacks so we can play the game again.

On how his father, a Holocaust survivor, responded to his terminal cancer diagnosis

He really, really wanted to continue living, but at the same time, he felt that life had given him a fair deal. He died when he was 84. He survived the Holocaust, losing his sister and losing many people who were close to him. So I think my father, in many ways, he was kind of like a Yoda for me — giving me all kinds of lessons that were not always clear, but I always kept with me.

On the publication of the book and why it's not out in Israel or in Hebrew

I feel that there are many intimate details in the book that it's easier for me to share overseas.

Etgar Keret

When you publish a work of fiction, people can tell you that your book is boring or you books suck, but when you write about your family people can tell you that your family is boring or your family sucks. And for me, never publishing nonfiction before, this is something that is very, very stressful. And I feel that there are many intimate details in the book that it's easier for me to share overseas.

It's kind of like those stories that you feel comfortable to tell somebody in a bar or on a train, but you wouldn't tell your next door neighbor. So, I don't know, maybe one day I'll publish it in Israel, but right now it feels a little bit too scary and too personal.

In his Tucson, Ariz., backyard, 10-year-old Linken Kay throws a ball for his dog, Harley.

The dog speaks only English. But Linken was raised speaking another language.

"Li atas salti en la naejo por preni la pilkon," Linken says.

What's that, now?

"I said, um, he was going to jump in to get the ball," Linken explains. "And he likes to jump in and get the ball."

Linken is a rarity: He's a native speaker of Esperanto.

More than hundred years ago, a Polish physician and inventor had an ambitious idea: Create a language that anyone could learn easily. The hope was to promote world peace through a universal tongue.

It took several decades, but eventually L.L. Zamenhof designed Esperanto.

Although the language hasn't become as popular as Zamenhof hoped — or brought world peace — it's estimated that anywhere between 200,000 and 2 million people speak the language worldwide. Devotees say Esperantists exist all over the globe, with especially large pockets in Europe, as well as China, Japan and Brazil.

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In their Tuscon home, Linken and Greg Kay have shelves full of books in Esperanto, including these picture books. Stina Sieg/KJZZ hide caption

itoggle caption Stina Sieg/KJZZ

In their Tuscon home, Linken and Greg Kay have shelves full of books in Esperanto, including these picture books.

Stina Sieg/KJZZ

The popular language-learning platform Duolingo is even about to issue an Esperanto app.

But there are only about 1,000 native speakers, like Linken. Esperanto was his first language — and still the main one he uses with his dad, Greg Kay.

Greg fell for Esperanto when he was his late 20s and going to school in Japan.

"Having lived abroad, I realize that the language barrier is a significant barrier, and can create many misunderstandings," Greg explains.

He used Esperanto while traveling when he was younger, bicycling between Esperanto-speaking homes in Korea. He used a free hospitality network, called Pasporta Servo, which lists Esperanto speakers willing to open their homes to fellow Esperantists. Pasporta Servo still exists today.

"Thanks to Esperanto, I've met many people that I would have just passed by otherwise — many fascinating people," Greg says.

Marking The Centennial Of Esperanto Creator's Visit May 25, 2010

Esperanto creates a kind of "level playing field," because it's a second language for almost everyone who speaks it, says Humphrey Tonkin, an English professor at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. He taught himself Esperanto at age 14, and then used it to travel across Eastern Europe and beyond.

"The result is that you're kind of lifted out of your own cultural limitations," Tonkin says. "And you're really in an authentically international environment."

That was the hope of Esperanto's founder, Zamenhof. He wanted to bridge differences between people, especially religious differences, Tonkin says. Zamenhof was Jewish, and many of Esperanto's earliest adopters were also Jewish. They connected with this new language that emphasized equality, Tonkin says.

So many years later, the language has grown far beyond Europe's Jewish community, but hasn't taken off as Zamenhof envisioned. When Zamenhof died in 1917, Tonkin says he was "deeply disillusioned."

It's hard to know what it is about Esperanto that has kept it from blossoming, but Tonkin calls it a language of "low prestige," one that's still a bit hard to explain to those who've never learned it.

"When I say that I speak Esperanto, they say, 'What do you do that for?' since I appear to be a perfectly normal person in every other respect," he says. "Or they say, 'I heard about that once. That died, didn't it?' "

Not only has it not died, but Tonkin thinks it might actually be growing, though he says it's hard to gauge an accurate number of speakers.

Even if Esperanto's reach is static, the language has survived against some steep odds. The rise of English could have easily killed it off, Tonkin says. Or it could have faded away during both world wars, when its speakers were persecuted. But Esperanto kept going, and Tokin thinks idealism probably had a good part in it.

At this point, learning it is kind of, "dare I use the word — a utopian thing?" Tonkin says — especially since the world is full of problems.

"That's all the more reason for hanging on to those things that will make the world a better place," he says. "We just need to get together better, and maybe Esperanto is one of the ways we can do it."

Esperanto

Language

Hillary Clinton, in the first campaign speech for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, sounded a message of support for working families, calling for "a new era of prosperity" and pledging to support a constitutional amendment to overhaul campaign finance rules.

At a rally on New York's Roosevelt Island, she invoked the memory of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, saying FDR brought "a wider and constantly rising standard of living" to all Americans, a promise, Clinton said, "that still sounds good to me."

The former First Lady, senator and secretary of state attacked the "trickle-down economics" that began with President Ronald Reagan and remains a mainstay of the Republican philosophy, calling it a failed policy.

"Democracy can't be just for billionaires and corporations," she said. "Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too. You brought our country back. Now it's time, your time, to secure the gains and move ahead. And you know what? America can't succeed unless you succeed."

With former President Bill Clinton looking on, she promised to push for a rewrite of the tax code so that it rewards hard work, not quick equity trades or money stashed overseas.

She joked that: "There may be some new voices in the Republican presidential choir, but they are all singing the same thing — a song called 'Yesterday.' "

"These Republicans trip over themselves promising lower taxes and less regulations for wealthy corporations without any regard for what that will do to income inequality," she said.

Clinton called for gender equality and equality for sexual orientation.

She reminded her audience that she had been "in the situation room on the day we got bin Laden" and promised that "when our brave men and women come home from war, I'll see to it that they get not just the thanks of a grateful nation, but the care and benefits they deserve."

She also pledged to create a national infrastructure bank financed by bonds —nd idea that has been pushed by her former boss, President Obama.

On the issue of climate change, "one of the defining threats of our time ... Republicans will say 'I'm not a scientist.' Well, why don't they listen to those who are?" she asked rhetorically to loud applause.

Clinton was expected to fly next to Iowa.

Hillary Clinton

Every once in a while we have someone on the show who we can't believe agreed to be on the show. Case in point: Kim Kardashian is a producer, entrepreneur, designer, model, mom, tabloid magazine life support system — and now a star of public radio.

Kardashian is the most famous Kim in pretty much every country in the world ... except North Korea. And if the movie The Interview has taught us anything, it's that making fun of North Korea results in good things for your parent organization. So we'll ask Kardashian three questions about her celebrity rival, Kim Jong Un, who dominates TMZ on the other side of the DMZ.

A movie about high school students dealing with mortality — haven't we been dipping into that well a lot lately? So the surprise was the laughs when Me and Earl and The Dying Girl became the surprise smash at this year's Sundance Film Festival, taking both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. Here was a film that managed to be at once earnest and flip, capturing teen angst without wallowing in teen drama.

The opening shots introduce us to Greg (Thomas Mann), a dweeby high school senior who's perfected the wisecrack as a substitute for social interaction. A member of no clique, he's on friendly terms with everyone from jocks to goths to geeks because he only half-engages, zooming down a hall, hearing a snatch of conversation like, say, "your test was today?" and offering a bit of snark — "ugh, tests, been there" — without breaking stride.

His one close buddy, Earl (RJ Cyler), he's known forever. They bonded as kids while watching Greg's dad's film collection, and then coming up with punny titles for movie parodies — A Sockwork Orange, Senior-Citizen Kane — they make with household detritus and toys.

But being jokey and making videos does not prepare Greg for news his mother gives him about a classmate with leukemia — Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who'd been talking tests in that school hallway. Greg cringes when he realizes what tests she meant.

Worse, his mom insists that he go and spend time with Rachel, though he barely knows her — and social grace is, let's say, not his strong suit. Rachel lets him hang out, and soon they're bonding, somewhat. The moviemaker in Greg senses that that's cool even as the highschooler in him senses that it's emotionally treacherous.

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Earl (RJ Cyler) is brought into the picture partly to protect Greg from too much pain if Rachel's (Olivia Cooke) illness progresses. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Earl (RJ Cyler) is brought into the picture partly to protect Greg from too much pain if Rachel's (Olivia Cooke) illness progresses.

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Partly to protect himself from too much closeness, and too much pain if Rachel's illness progresses, he brings Earl into their world, and ends up opening himself up more than he intended when Earl mentions their movies, outing him, as it were, as a creative soul in high school.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon — working from a screenplay Jesse Andrews based on his own novel, which was in turn, somewhat autobiographical — has a sure sense of the sort of kid who would use a camera lens as a shield. He also has an engaging way of using camera tricks — weird angles, voice-overs, animation — to get at the hormone-addled inanity that is teenagerdom.

Nowhere more so, perhaps, than when the boys are working on their movies — making their Apocalypse Now parody, say: A Box-of-Tulips, Wow with toy soldiers parachuting into a vacant-lot jungle to rescue a box of origami tulips. In their no-budget-goofball way, these minifilma are genius. Sheer genius. This kid, you figure, is gonna grow up to be quite a storyteller. And in a sense, he did.

President Obama made a rare visit to the U.S. Capitol today to lobby in favor of a bill that would give him the ability to fast-track a trade deal with Pacific-Rim nations.

The visit tells you just how important the bill is to the president's agenda and it also tells you just how contentious the issue is on Capitol Hill. Of course, the big concern from many critics is that the trade deal could send American jobs overseas.

The House is set to vote on whether pass a Trade Promotion Authority (TPP) bill, which the president has said will give him the ability to closeout a deal for a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The issue is that both Republicans and Democrats are divided on their support and its still unclear whether Obama has the votes he needs in Congress. In fact, the unplanned visit to the Hill was intended to shake a few votes out of his own caucus.

According to the White House pool reporter, as Obama left the meeting with Democrats, he was asked if he had nailed down the support he needed.

"I don't think you ever nail something down around here," Obama said. "It's always moving."

The House is expected to begin voting at around 12:45 p.m. ET. NPR's Marilyn Geewax will be live-tweeting the action. We've embedded her tweets below:

Tweets by @geewaxnpr

A once-important political event, that has seen its influence diminished by pay-to-play allegations, breathed its last breath Friday morning.

State Republicans voted to kill the Iowa Straw Poll in a unanimous vote, reversing themselves from a unanimous vote in January to continue it. But, amid defections by key 2016 presidential candidates and despite pledged reforms, it was no longer able to survive.

"I've said since December that we would only hold a straw poll if the candidates wanted one, and this year that is just not the case," state party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement.

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In this August 13, 2011 file photo, voters line up outside the Hilton Coliseum to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll at Iowa State University. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In this August 13, 2011 file photo, voters line up outside the Hilton Coliseum to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll at Iowa State University.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Kaufmann, who called the decision "distasteful" to those who "love" the event — it was a major million-dollar fundraiser for the party — hinted that the straw poll's reputation was having a negative influence on Iowa's position as the first presidential nominating contest.

He said the decision was "necessary to strengthen our First in the Nation status and ensure our future nominee has the best chance possible to take back the White House in 2016."

The 36-year old event, which was once an important barometer of support for any presidential hopeful ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, has seen its credibility and influence diminish after disastrous results in 2011 and grumbling long before that about the money campaigns have had to spend on it. Though it was supposed to be an indicator of indicator of grassroots support, it was hardly that. Candidates paid tens of thousands of dollars for the best placement and spent thousands more on giveaways.

This year, candidates decided they had had enough. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and even 2008 caucus winner Mike Huckabee all said they would not attend. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who leads in the polls in the early state, hadn't yet committed as many in the state party hoped he would to give it renewed relevance.

"History will repeat itself if we don't learn from the past," Huckabee wrote in a Des Moines Register op-ed. "It's clear that pitting conservative candidates with limited resources against each other in a non-binding and expensive summer straw poll battle, while allowing billionaire-backed establishment candidates to sit out, will only wound and weaken the conservative candidates who best represent conservative and hard-working Iowans."

An event that once had meaning and came unraveled

For nearly 40 years, the straw poll had proved an important part of the GOP process and had often predicted the winner, or at least influenced the results. In the first straw poll in 1979, George H.W. Bush won the inaugural event and the Iowa caucuses. He would lose the nomination to Ronald Reagan, but gained enough momentum to get the No. 2 slot on the ticket.

"I think the straw poll was important to the caucus process early on," said David Yepsen, a former longtime reporter and columnist with the Des Moines Register. Widely recognized as the dean of Iowa politics, he now directs the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. "I think it played a healthy organizational role. Campaigns had to get up to speed to compete, and that was organizing that paid off on caucus night."

But, Yepsen warned, "It was a victim of its own success. It got too big and really started to wield too much influence."

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Then-Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll in August 2011 but placed last in the caucuses the next January. Charles Dharapak/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Then-Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll in August 2011 but placed last in the caucuses the next January.

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

That's exactly what happened four years ago, when Iowa native and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann rode a Tea Party wave to a narrow first place victory in the August straw poll. The Republican's campaign spared no expense (or famous Machine Shed cinnamon rolls) in order to win the symbolic gathering.

Her sweet taste of victory would be short-lived, though. She would finish a disappointing fifth in the caucuses next January, dropping out soon after. It was former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished fourth in the straw poll, who would narrowly defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in January. Romney didn't even compete in the event.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had essentially staked his entire political future on the Straw Poll. Badly needing a boost, his campaign had run out of cash and needed to at least come in second to the surging Bachmann. Instead, he finished a distant third, behind Texas Rep. Ron Paul. He ended his campaign the next day.

After the November 2012 elections, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad called for an end to the August event. "I think the straw poll has outlived its usefulness," told the Wall Street Journal. "It has been a great fundraiser for the party but I think its days are over.

But, as Yepsen noted, the straw poll didn't always have such ignominious results. Four years earlier, Romney spent big to win the straw poll, but it was former Huckabee's surprise second-place finish that established him as the insurgent to watch. That January, he would upset Romney to win the caucuses.

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In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson upset the incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush in the straw poll, showing the increased influence of Christian conservatives in the state and in the national GOP. Jeff Davis/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Jeff Davis/Associated Press

In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson upset the incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush in the straw poll, showing the increased influence of Christian conservatives in the state and in the national GOP.

Jeff Davis/Associated Press

In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush, then the incumbent vice president, at the event. He finished second in Iowa that year, behind then-Kansas Sen. Bob Dole. Robertson's campaign never made it past Iowa, but it established, for the first time, the strength of Christian-conservative voters in Iowa and the national GOP.

In 1995, Dole tied with Texas Sen. Phil Gramm in the straw poll, but he used it as a springboard to win the caucuses again and eventually earn the nomination. He would lose to President Bill Clinton, though, in the general election.

In 2000, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush overcame a strong challenge from publishing executive Steve Forbes, solidifying his place atop the GOP field.

A fix that came too late

The Iowa Republican Party had tried to salvage the event by trying to decrease the "pay to play" stigma it had earned. A random lottery was to be used to determine prime real estate, instead of going to candidates who could shell out the most. And the the state party would provide state fair-style food instead of letting candidates woo voters with scrumptious treats.

Former Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn, who oversaw the infamous 2012 straw poll, defended the event as a useful way to show candidate strength early on this cycle, especially in a GOP field that could top 20 hopefuls.

"In many ways, given all of the national hand wringing over what to do with a field of this size when it comes to the debate stage, one argument would be that it cries out for an August straw poll that winnows the field a bit," he argued before the decision.

Strawn said that while it's an important, but costly moneymaker for the state party every year — bringing in over seven figures normally — it also has a longstanding tradition in a state that's immensely proud of its status on the presidential nominating calendar.

"It's like a political family reunion Iowans look forward to every four or eight years," he said.

In fact, last month GOP leaders from across the state pleaded in a letter to the Des Moines Register to save the "beloved and revered" event.

"The Straw Poll is a political tradition stretching back to 1979," they wrote. "Many of us remember attending as children, or bringing our own children along while we participated in this grassroots event."

A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg survey in May, too, showed more than half of caucusgoers said it was important for a presidential candidate to attend.

As for last cycle, Strawn said the swift fall of Bachmann after the straw poll had more to do with her own campaign's problems.

"I lay a fair amount of blame at the feet of the candidate, who was unable to use her straw poll momentum," he said.

But, with the fate of the storied event now sealed, Yepsen argued that putting it out of its mercy could actually help the state's influence come next year.

"I'm a believer that the purpose of the nomination process is for a party to elect a president," Yepsen said. "The end game is to win a presidential election, not a straw poll. Ending it now strengthens Iowa's position in February, because it's now the main event. The focus ought to be on the caucuses."

2016 Presidential Race

Iowa

Republicans

In Zimbabwe, even the trillionaires are struggling to make ends meet.

But that is about to end as the government begins a phasing out of the massively hyperinflated Zimbabwean dollar in favor of a multi-currency regime involving mainly a mix of U.S. dollars and South African rand that, in any case, has been the de facto norm since 2009.

In a bid to stabilize an off-the-rails economy, starting on Monday Zimbabwe's central bank will offer $5 U.S. for every 175 quadrillion (175,000 trillion) Zimbabwean dollars, according to an email send by the bank's governor, John Mangudya. The move, he wrote, has been "pending and long outstanding."

"We cannot have two legal currency systems. We need therefore to safeguard the integrity of the multiple-currency system or dollarization in Zimbabwe," Mangudya said.

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Alex Mupondi, hangs one dollar notes on a drying line after washing them in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2010, shortly after Zimbabweans began trading in the American currency after the Zimbabwean dollar went into a hyperinflationary spiral. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Alex Mupondi, hangs one dollar notes on a drying line after washing them in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2010, shortly after Zimbabweans began trading in the American currency after the Zimbabwean dollar went into a hyperinflationary spiral.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The classic definition of inflation is "too much money chasing too few goods." With hyperinflation, the process gets locked in a death spiral. That's what happened in Zimbabwe when the government of President Robert Mugabe "started a campaign in 2000 of violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms to distribute to black subsistence growers, slashing exports of tobacco and other crops," according to Bloomberg.

The country plunged into a brutal and prolonged recession as its gross domestic product plummeted and inflation hit 500 billion percent.

According to the BBC: "The last bank note printed by Zimbabwe was for 100 billion Zimbabwean dollars, still not enough for a bus ticket."

In a situation reminiscent to what happened in Germany in the early 1920s, the BBC says "Hyper-inflation saw prices in shops change several times a day, severe shortages of basic goods and Zimbabweans taking their money to market in wheelbarrows."

Reuters columnist Edward Hadas adds: "Zimbabwe's mirage-quadrillionaires are witnesses to its monetary disaster. Harare is the new Weimar. Just as Germany created money to pay for reparations after World War One, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe used newly created cash to spend well beyond the government's means."

The process of "demonetizing" will begin June 15 and be complete by September 30. The Financial Times writes: "Within that window, the notes can be exchanged for US dollars. After that they'll be worthless — which isn't so different from their value now."

The BBC notes that the exchanges is likely to affect only those Zimbabweans with bank accounts, as presumably they are the only ones with enough of the old currency to make such an exchange practical.

inflation

Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe

William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was born in Ireland 150 years ago this week, and across the country, the Irish are celebrating with public readings and festivals.

But his presence has never left rural County Galway, in far western Ireland, where Yeats spent many years, far from the big cities. And in turn, its landscape and spirit infuses so much of his poetry.

So it may not be surprising that a passionate nun in Galway has turned an old one-room schoolhouse on a country road into a small museum to Yeats.

Lilacs and farmers' fields surround the squat stone building. Inside, Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy serves as the guardian of the local history.

Surrounded by books and photographs, Fahy looks like a historian or a teacher as much as a nun. In fact, she is all of these things.

The first time she walked into this building was 1942. She was 5 years old.

"My first introduction to Yeats' poetry was here in this room, where the only Yeats poem we learned was 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' which he wrote in his younger days, and which is beautiful," she says.

Even now, Fahy can recite the poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Fahy helped transform this one-room schoolhouse into the Kiltartan Gregory Museum, named for Lady Gregory, one of Yeats' patrons.

Local history is Fahy's passion, and that's one reason she is so devoted to Yeats. Many of his poems capture the paths and the people of this exact place.

"One of Yeats' most famous poems is 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.' Two of the best-known lines in that poem are, My country is Kiltartan Cross, / My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,'" Fahey says. "You are now standing at Kiltartan Cross."

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Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats.

Rich Preston/NPR

Fahy was too young to know Yeats personally. Her father and her uncle farmed nearby land in the early 1900s. Sometimes they'd give the poet rides into town on their horse-drawn cart.

Fahy says Yeats rarely thanked them, or even said hello.

"He was kind of in another world ... composing," she says. "That was one side of Yeats. I'm giving Yeats, warts and all."

Maybe if he were an ordinary person, she says, his poems would not have been so extraordinary.

"Yeats regarded poetry as a form of music. And so it is," she says.

Even now, after so many years and reading the poem so many times, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" still moves Fahy.

"I felt he was talking about my own people," she says.

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A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years.

Rich Preston/NPR

Nearby, there's a 15th-century stone tower called Thoor Ballylee, where Yeats lived for many years. It appears in many of his poems, such as "Coole Park and Ballylee" from 1931:

Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face

For 35 years, Brendan Flynn, a 72-year-old retired school principal, has been bringing students here to walk in Yeats' footsteps.

Different poems by Yeats have been meaningful to Flynn at different times — and they become more meaningful as the years go by, he says.

"It's like a great whiskey. They ripen with years, and they blossom and they bloom," Flynn says. "Take a poem like 'Sailing to Byzantium,' where he talks about aging: An aged man is but a paltry thing, /A tattered coat upon a stick, unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing. As you age, instead of complaining, celebrate every day."

i

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public.

Rich Preston/NPR

Inside Thoor Ballylee, Colm Farrell guides us up a narrow stone spiral staircase to Yeats' bedroom. Farrell is raising money to restore the stone structure and reopen it to the public. His ties are deep: He was born close to the tower, and his father and his grandfather worked there.

Farrell's grandfather knew Yeats personally. And echoing the words of Sister Fahy, Farrell says that around town, Yeats was seen as an eccentric.

"The children used to hide, and when they'd see him on the road they'd jump over the wall, and as he passed they could hear him mumbling," he says. "And obviously he was mumbling words of poetry and putting poetry together in his head."

Back in the stairwell, we climb up to the roof of the tower. There, with the Irish flag flapping above our heads and the river below, we can see 360 degrees — a landscape of rolling, green hills and farms.

It seems like the appropriate time for a bit of Yeats, so Farrell recites "To Be Carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee":

I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

Indeed, 150 years after the birth of William Butler Yeats, the characters — and his legacy — remain.

Poetry

Ireland

William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, was born in Ireland 150 years ago this week, and across the country, the Irish are celebrating with public readings and festivals.

But his presence has never left rural County Galway, in far western Ireland, where Yeats spent many years, far from the big cities. And in turn, its landscape and spirit infuses so much of his poetry.

So it may not be surprising that a passionate nun in Galway has turned an old one-room schoolhouse on a country road into a small museum to Yeats.

Lilacs and farmers' fields surround the squat stone building. Inside, Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy serves as the guardian of the local history.

Surrounded by books and photographs, Fahy looks like a historian or a teacher as much as a nun. In fact, she is all of these things.

The first time she walked into this building was 1942. She was 5 years old.

"My first introduction to Yeats' poetry was here in this room, where the only Yeats poem we learned was 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' which he wrote in his younger days, and which is beautiful," she says.

Even now, Fahy can recite the poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Fahy helped transform this one-room schoolhouse into the Kiltartan Gregory Museum, named for Lady Gregory, one of Yeats' patrons.

Local history is Fahy's passion, and that's one reason she is so devoted to Yeats. Many of his poems capture the paths and the people of this exact place.

"One of Yeats' most famous poems is 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.' Two of the best-known lines in that poem are, My country is Kiltartan Cross, / My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,'" Fahey says. "You are now standing at Kiltartan Cross."

i

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Sister Mary de Lourdes Fahy transformed a one-room schoolhouse into the the Kiltartan Gregory Museum dedicated Yeats.

Rich Preston/NPR

Fahy was too young to know Yeats personally. Her father and her uncle farmed nearby land in the early 1900s. Sometimes they'd give the poet rides into town on their horse-drawn cart.

Fahy says Yeats rarely thanked them, or even said hello.

"He was kind of in another world ... composing," she says. "That was one side of Yeats. I'm giving Yeats, warts and all."

Maybe if he were an ordinary person, she says, his poems would not have been so extraordinary.

"Yeats regarded poetry as a form of music. And so it is," she says.

Even now, after so many years and reading the poem so many times, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" still moves Fahy.

"I felt he was talking about my own people," she says.

i

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

A school group gathers outside Thoor Ballylee, a 15th-century stone tower where Yeats lived for many years.

Rich Preston/NPR

Nearby, there's a 15th-century stone tower called Thoor Ballylee, where Yeats lived for many years. It appears in many of his poems, such as "Coole Park and Ballylee" from 1931:

Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face

For 35 years, Brendan Flynn, a 72-year-old retired school principal, has been bringing students here to walk in Yeats' footsteps.

Different poems by Yeats have been meaningful to Flynn at different times — and they become more meaningful as the years go by, he says.

"It's like a great whiskey. They ripen with years, and they blossom and they bloom," Flynn says. "Take a poem like 'Sailing to Byzantium,' where he talks about aging: An aged man is but a paltry thing, /A tattered coat upon a stick, unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing. As you age, instead of complaining, celebrate every day."

i

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public. Rich Preston/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rich Preston/NPR

Colm Farrell, whose grandfather knew Yeats, stands atop Thoor Ballylee. Farrell is helping raise money to restore the tower and reopen it to the public.

Rich Preston/NPR

Inside Thoor Ballylee, Colm Farrell guides us up a narrow stone spiral staircase to Yeats' bedroom. Farrell is raising money to restore the stone structure and reopen it to the public. His ties are deep: He was born close to the tower, and his father and his grandfather worked there.

Farrell's grandfather knew Yeats personally. And echoing the words of Sister Fahy, Farrell says that around town, Yeats was seen as an eccentric.

"The children used to hide, and when they'd see him on the road they'd jump over the wall, and as he passed they could hear him mumbling," he says. "And obviously he was mumbling words of poetry and putting poetry together in his head."

Back in the stairwell, we climb up to the roof of the tower. There, with the Irish flag flapping above our heads and the river below, we can see 360 degrees — a landscape of rolling, green hills and farms.

It seems like the appropriate time for a bit of Yeats, so Farrell recites "To Be Carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee":

I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

Indeed, 150 years after the birth of William Butler Yeats, the characters — and his legacy — remain.

Poetry

Ireland

Republicans are often seen as the party of business. So it's a little ironic that some of the most vocal opposition to the Export-Import Bank comes from conservative Republicans, such as Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.

"If we're ever going to get rid of all the corporate connectedness, all the corporate welfare, you've got to start with the most egregious one and the most obvious one and that's the Export-Import Bank," he says.

The Ex-Im Bank, as it's called, does several things. It was created during the Depression to help U.S. companies that wanted to sell more products overseas. It provides insurance to these companies to make sure they get paid when they sell products overseas.

Today, it also underwrites many billions of dollars in loans to U.S. and foreign companies.

But some members of Congress see the Ex-Im Bank as a bastion of corporate welfare, and they want to see it expire later this month.

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Richard Beranek is president of Miner Elastomer Products Corp., which makes manufacturing parts. He says without the Ex-Im Bank, the Illinois company wouldn't be able to export as much as it does.

"Would it put me out of business? It would not. Would it slow my business down? I think it would," he says.

But John Murphy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that, in many cases, U.S. companies have to have the backing of a big credit agency such as the Ex-Im Bank or they can't get foreign contracts.

"For instance, foreign infrastructure projects. If you want to bid most of the time you need to have Ex-Im support," Murphy says. "If it's a nuclear power plant project abroad, Ex-Im support is required and without it you can't even bid."

But the biggest thing the Ex-Im Bank does is guarantee loans to foreign companies so they can buy U.S.-made products.

For instance, foreign airlines that want to buy Boeing jets often do so with loans underwritten by the Ex-Im Bank. Murphy says a lot of countries now offer similar loan guarantees to help their businesses export more.

"So if the United States and our exporters don't have something similar, that's one knock against us," he says.

But to a lot of free-market conservatives, what the Ex-Im Bank does amounts to crony capitalism and they want Congress to let the bank's charter expire June 30.

Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University says the Ex-Im Bank distorts the economy. For example, she says loan guarantees for foreign airlines may be great for Boeing, but they're bad for U.S. airlines.

"Domestic airlines can't have access to subsidies to buy airplanes, but they have to compete with foreign companies like [Emirates and] Air India," she says.

And those airlines are getting a subsidy, thanks to the Ex-Im Bank.

De Rugy says supporters of the bank are vastly exaggerating its importance. She says some companies reap benefits from it, but she says most U.S. companies will do just fine without it.

"All of the companies that export, a vast majority do it without any help from the government and yet there are those selected few who got cheaper financing," she says.

Critics acknowledge that the Ex-Im Bank has a lot of support in Washington, and that it may well survive if Congress ever gets to vote on it.

But if Republicans who control Congress succeed in keeping it from a vote, its charter will expire at the end of the month.

That means it would be unable to guarantee any more loans, and its role in the economy would diminish over time.

Ex-Im Bank

Export-Import Bank

international trade

"How much trouble can one poet be?" That's literature professor John Malcolm Brinnin's rhetorical response to his buttoned-way-down colleagues' fears about a writer's proposed visit to New York in 1950. Today, the query can't be heard as anything other than an inside joke. For the poet is Dylan Thomas, who was trouble for most of his 39 years.

Set Fire to the Stars takes its title from a line written by Thomas, who's played by Celyn Jones, the movie's co-writer. But the story is just as much about Brinnin, impersonated by Elijah Wood, the film's most marketable performer and its co-producer. The script was fictionalized from a section of Dylan Thomas in America, a 1955 memoir by Brinnin, who facilitated several tours by the poet — including the 1953 one on which he died.

As portrayed here, Thomas and Brinnin shared two enthusiasms: poetry and cigarettes. While the visiting Welshman drinks heavily, womanizes compulsively and offends promiscuously, the bow-tied, slick-haired Brinnin channels all his frustration into chain smoking.

Filmed by Chris Seager in satiny black and white, Set Fire to the Stars is a marvel of low-budget scene-setting. Director Andy Goddard, a Downton Abbey veteran who co-wrote, crisply stages such inherently theatrical set pieces as one where the poet reads to a group of leery Yale scholars. They're seated as if they're members of a jury.

In another memorable scene, Brinnin takes Thomas to a diner so large it must represent the visitor's fantasy of American bounty. Thomas is beguiled by the poetry of the waitress' slang and frequently supplements his consumption of beer and whiskey with milkshakes, candy bars, and comic books. This appetite for '50s Americana may also be something of private joke, since the film was shot entirely in Wales, with Swansea standing in for New York and Wrexham for Connecticut.

The only principal characters are Thomas, Brinnin, and a faculty handler (Steven Mackintosh) who's there to save the young prof from embarrassment — and smugly tell him off when he fails to sidestep it. There are several memorable cameos, however, notably from Shirley Henderson and Kelly Reilly.

Henderson plays the Connecticut next-door neighbor who turns out to be "The Lottery" author Shirley Jackson. In the most harrowing sequence, Thomas asks her for a ghost story. Then Brinnin tops it with a different sort of blood-curdling tale, one from his own life.

Reilly plays Thomas's wife, Caitlin, who eventually materializes from a letter the poet keeps neglecting to open. She may be just a wraith, but she's a more powerful presence than Sienna Miller was in The Edge of Love, the 2008 melodrama about Dylan and Caitlin's mutually assured destruction.

The film's dialogue can be excessively literary, and is jarred by the occasional anachronism. (No one said "big ask" in 1950.) The transitions from slightly stagey naturalism to full-blown fabulism — as when all the members of the cast hand off lines from Thomas' "Love in the Asylum" — also can be discordant.

Such missteps aside, Set Fire to the Stars is stylistically assured and tastefully appointed. The costumers and designers did fine work, as did composer Gruff Rhys, whose urbane jazz and chamber-music score is a long way from his work with eclectic Welsh rockers Super Furry Animals.

The high level of craft doesn't quite banish disappointment, though. Having decided not to depict the poet's fatal final tour, the filmmakers are left with a story that, rather than conclude, merely ends. Thomas, who was a playwright and screenwriter as well as a poet, would penned a more decisive sendoff.

Detroit has tens of thousands of abandoned homes. The city is experimenting with new ways to repopulate them — including auctioning them online for as little as $1,000. There are deals to be had. But the costs of repairs often exceed the value of the homes.

The city's worst homes end up with the Detroit Land Bank Authority, a quasi-governmental agency. Craig Fahle, the agency's director of public affairs, shows me around a 1,300-square-foot Tudor-style home on Detroit's far east side.

"Properties come to us, only after nobody else wants them anymore. They've gone through foreclosures and they come to us when in they're in this kind of condition," Fahle says.

Outside, the place is charming. Inside, it's a mess.

The radiator is gone. Windows are missing, now boarded up. Many of the kitchen cupboards are gone, as is the boiler. But the floors and the moldings look salvageable.

It's one of Fahle's better properties. He's hoping to get $25,000 for the place. But he'll take whatever he can to get it off the rolls.

"We have to cut the grass on the properties," he says. "We can't do it every week or anything. We'll do it a couple of times a summer because we own 88,000 parcels of land in the city, as a land bank. We own one-quarter of all the property in the city of Detroit."

Three-quarters of the land bank's parcels are vacant. Those sell for $100. Neighbors are snatching them up to double their land.

i

A house that needs to be demolished in Detroit's MorningSide neighborhood. Jason Margolis/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Jason Margolis/NPR

A house that needs to be demolished in Detroit's MorningSide neighborhood.

Jason Margolis/NPR

The land bank is auctioning off three houses a day online, eBay style. It has closed on just over 300 in a year since the auction site got going. That leaves more than 21,000 to go.

Mayor Mike Duggan says that's just not fast enough.

"Three months ago, we kicked off a program where city employees and their families, if they bid on a house on the land bank could get a 50 percent discount," Duggan said at a City Hall news conference last week.

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That discount puts bidders who don't work for the city at a deep disadvantage. But city officials say there's so much inventory, they have to do something to build up demand. Besides, only 44 city employees have won those auctions with the half-off discount.

Duggan says the main problem is, whether you work for the city or not, it's hard to get a loan on a dilapidated property.

"A typical house on the auction that you'll buy it for $10,000, you have to put $20,000 in to fix it up. It's almost impossible to get a mortgage in that circumstance," he says.

But now, the city has a partner: Flagstar Bank is offering mortgages to city employees, loans for up to 300 percent the value of the homes — that will cover the purchase price and many necessary improvements.

Flagstar is also offering $15,000 grants, paid out over five years.

City contractor Carolyn Abney was lured back to Detroit from the suburbs. In the home she's leaving, she says, "I have one bathroom, and I have to fight over [it]."

Her new home in Detroit has 2,200 square feet. "There are three bathrooms. There's a circular staircase. It's just cute," Abney says.

She bid $56,000. She could end up getting it for less than a quarter of that, after discounts and loans. And, she can get a loan to fix the place up.

Still, Fahle, the land bank official, wants people to know what they're getting into when they bid for a home online. In another home about to go up for auction, the gutters were missing, the garage door was detached from the hinges, and the neighbor parked his car on the back lawn.

Despite its flaws, it was an attractive colonial brick house. But if nobody fixes it up, neighbors' property values will likely keep declining.

"It's just a matter of time before somebody says 'enough' and they just do what a lot of other people have done and they leave," Fahle says.

And the spiral will continue.

Fahle says he's thrilled when he gets $1,000 for the worst houses. If he can't get that, it costs $15,000 to tear them down.

vacant lots

abandoned homes

Detroit

The same day that Apple did a splashy, star-studded introduction to its new Apple Music subscription streaming service, New York's attorney general posted a letter from attorneys for Universal Music Group indicating that prosecutors are looking at the streaming music business and that Apple is one of the companies being investigated.

The letter, from a law firm representing Universal, was addressed to the antitrust bureau of the attorney general's office. It stated that Universal currently has no deals with Apple or companies such as Sony Music that would "impede the availability of free or ad-supported music streaming services, or ... limit, restrict, or prevent UMG from licensing its recorded music repertoire to any music streaming service."

The letter did not specifically say Apple was among the targets of the investigation. But Universal's attorneys did say the company was not colluding with Apple or its two major rival labels, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.

A spokesperson for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had this response:

"This letter is part of an ongoing investigation of the music streaming business, an industry in which competition has recently led to new and different ways for consumers to listen to music. To preserve these benefits, it's important to ensure that the market continues to develop free from collusion and other anti-competitive practices."

The investigation centers on whether Apple may have urged the labels to drop support for free, ad-supported streaming services such as Spotify and Google's YouTube. Such a move could be seen as anti-competitive.

Albert Foer, the founder of the American Antitrust Institute, says the current investigation may have been sparked in part by Apple's history. The company was found guilty last year of conspiring with book publishers to raise the price of e-books when it launched its online book store. Among those who brought the charges were 33 state attorneys general, including Schneiderman.

There are some parallels between the music industry and the publishing business. At the time Apple entered into the e-book market, publishers were upset by the prices Amazon was forcing on them. Apple had a business model that let publishers set the prices higher. In the case of music, the labels have been unhappy with the money paid out by free, ad-supported services. Most famously, Taylor Swift withheld her latest music from Spotify over the issue.

"The suspicion would be of the corporate culture and how they operate," Foer says about why the attorney general would investigate Apple Music. "It's just that investigators will have suspicions in some cases because of what happened in the past." But he says the investigation could also have been triggered by complaints from someone inside the music industry.

Chris Castle, a music industry attorney, finds it hard to believe that Apple would follow the same road that made it the target of an investigation that resulted in a $450 million settlement, along with supervision by an antitrust monitor. "The idea that these guys would blindly walk into this is crazy," says Castle. "It just doesn't seem plausible."

In fact, Connecticut State Attorney General George Jepsen, who is also focused on music streaming, told Reuters that his office was satisfied that Universal did not have anti-competitive agreements to withhold music titles from free services. However, Jepsen did not say he'd stopped investigating Apple. And European Union officials are also investigating Apple Music.

But Castle says he will be surprised if this goes anywhere. Apple, he notes, has a lot of competition in the streaming music space: Spotify, YouTube, GooglePlay, Amazon. "There are inquiries all the time" he says. "They ask a few questions. You send a response and that's it."

Music

Apple

streaming

European regulators have launched a formal investigation into Amazon's practices in the e-book market.

In a statement released Thursday, the European Commission announced that its antitrust investigation will focus on Amazon's contracts with publishers — and whether the Internet retailer is abusing its dominant position as the largest e-book distributor in Europe.

The commission, the 28-member executive arm of the European Union, is especially concerned with a few key parts of those contracts.

In particular, NPR's Lynn Neary reports, "The commission is concerned about specific clauses that require publishers to inform Amazon about more favorable or alternative terms offered by its competitors."

Margrethe Vestager, the commission's chief of competition policy, stressed that the case won't be casting a broad net. She made a point in the statement of mentioning that the investigation will not call into question Amazon's "successful business that offers consumers a comprehensive service, including for e-books.

"However," she continued, "it is my duty to make sure that Amazon's arrangements with publishers are not harmful to consumers, by preventing other e-book distributors from innovating and competing effectively with Amazon."

Amazon, for its part, said it would cooperate fully with the investigation, and that it was "confident" its deals with publishers "are legal and in the best interests of readers," according to The Wall Street Journal.

As The New York Times points out, this is not the first time this year that Amazon has come underneath the microscope of the EU's antitrust office. In January, the commission found that arrangements made more than a decade ago between Amazon and the government of Luxembourg, which the retailer calls home in Europe, amounted to an unfair advantage for Amazon.

Amazon also isn't the first U.S. tech giant to face such scrutiny. In April, the EU lobbed antitrust charges at Google, accusing the company of tilting search results in favor of its own shopping service. And, as the commission was quick to mention, Apple and five major publishing houses were subject to similar allegations of collusion in the European e-book market just a few years ago. Those allegations were settled when the companies "offered a number of commitments" that assuaged the commission's concerns.

publishing

e-books

European Union

Amazon

Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old Australian-born media baron, says he will step down as head of the global media empire 21st Century Fox, ceding the reins to his son James.

A source has confirmed to NPR's David Folkenflik that James Murdoch would become head of the company. The elder Murdoch will become co-executive chairman with another son, Lachlan.

NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports that the company has not confirmed its transition plan, which was first reported by CNBC, but said in a statement that the issue of succession is coming up at a board meeting.

The Murdoch media dynasty includes not only Fox's film and cable business, but also News Corporation and The Wall Street Journal. Sources say Murdoch will still continue to be a force at both Fox and News Corp.

The Guardian adds:

"This restructuring will not necessarily clarify which of Murdoch's sons eventually takes over the running of the global media business.

"A spokeswoman for 21st Century Fox said: "The matter of succession is on the agenda at our upcoming, regularly scheduled board meeting."

"The news was leaked ahead of this board meeting due to take place in New York next week."

The elder Murdoch set the succession plan in motion last year by naming James co-chief operating officer at 21st Century Fox and Lachlan to the post at News Corp.

Reuters notes: "In interviews, some top investors who know James, and other people familiar with the company, describe him as curious and a risk taker like his father. But they also cite two big differences that they like: James is less sentimental about certain assets than his father and he is more enthusiastic about courting shareholders."

News Corporation

Rupert Murdoch

Fox News

A day after news emerged that soccer's world body paid Ireland not to protest a blatant handball by France's Thierry Henry in 2009, the Football Association of Ireland is releasing more details about the arrangement — including a copy of a signed deal.

FIFA paid the FAI more than 5 million euros — equal to around $7 million at the time of the transaction in January 2010 — so that the Irish would quit their plans for a legal appeal.

"We felt we had a legal case against FIFA because of how the World Cup play-off hadn't worked out for us with the Henry handball," FAI CEO John Delaney tells Irish broadcaster RTE.

It's the latest report of millions of dollars changing hands over FIFA and the World Cup. While earlier news has alleged hefty bribes over the awarding of the tournament, this case centers on a pivotal play in a World Cup playoff game that played in a key role in Ireland staying home for the 2010 Cup.

The play in November of 2009 was immediately controversial — particularly after Henry admitted that he used his hand to guide the ball shortly before a crucial goal. Ireland was eliminated on aggregate goals, 2-1.

Ireland loudly protested and demanded to play France again. But FIFA offered a different accommodation: a confidential payment to the country's soccer association that was initially called an interest-free loan. Last summer, the loan was forgiven, in a note that cited Ireland's failure to qualify for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups.

FIFA acknowledged the arrangement Thursday. And today, saying that the rules of confidentiality no longer were in play, the FAI published an agreement signed by FIFA Secretary General Jerome Volcke, his deputy Markus Kattner, and FAI's CEO, John Delaney.

The first page provides some details:

i

The first page of a four-page agreement between FIFA and Ireland's soccer association outlines the terms of a 5 million euro payment. FAI hide caption

itoggle caption FAI

The first page of a four-page agreement between FIFA and Ireland's soccer association outlines the terms of a 5 million euro payment.

FAI

The FAI says it used the FIFA payment for a new stadium, and that its leaders kept the organizations board informed about the FIFA money, which was kept in its central account.

The Irish group also released several bank records, including one showing a transfer of 5 million euros from FIFA. The group included a letter from Kattner to Delaney written in 2014 which concludes, "the credit position vis a vis the FAI stands at nil."

"All of the information above is contained in our audited accounts," the FAI says.

The organization says its board "acted at all times in the best interests of Irish football, and in full compliance with Irish company law."

FIFA

Soccer

Ireland

As of Friday, the number of Republican presidential candidates stands at 10 and counting. It's a number that's certain to grow in the coming weeks with the expected official entrances of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and, yes, even Donald Trump.

At this point, the better question might be who isn't going to run. Ohio Gov. John Kasich sure sounded like a likely candidate in an interview with NPR's Don Gonyea this week in Iowa. And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is all-but-in.

That leaves Chris Christie as the only question mark on the GOP side. The New Jersey governor probably wishes he had a time machine to go back to 2012, when he was atop the polls and seen as the biggest threat to eventual nominee Mitt Romney. But Christie passed, casting an eye toward 2016 instead. Now, four years later, his poll numbers have sunk, and he's embroiled in scandal. Christie is still making noise with town halls this week in New Hampshire and Iowa – the format where he excels most – but he he's nowhere near the top tier anymore.

i

The Wall Street Journal calculated that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and his wife earned between $8.9 million and $27 million in the 16 months since he began dipping his toe in the presidential waters — from speeches, books and corporate boards. Mary Schwalm/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Mary Schwalm/Associated Press

The Wall Street Journal calculated that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and his wife earned between $8.9 million and $27 million in the 16 months since he began dipping his toe in the presidential waters — from speeches, books and corporate boards.

Mary Schwalm/Associated Press

The importance of being a presidential candidate. There was one reason this week why the field might be so crowded – running for president can improve candidates' personal financial stock. The Wall Street Journal calculated that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and his wife earned between $8.9 million and $27 million in the 16 months since he began dipping his toe in the presidential waters — from speeches, books and corporate boards. Given the buzz he's generated recently, Carson can expect much more even if he's unsuccessful, as long as he doesn't flame out in controversy. In 2008, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee parlayed his second-place finish into a lucrative Fox News contract, as did many other former rivals. If you're wondering why people like former New York Gov. George Pataki are running – yes, they have policy and ideas they want to push, but it also makes them relevant again. One cautionary tale, however. The 2012 presidential campaign didn't help former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. His Gingrich Group LLC, where the majority of his wealth was tied up, filed for bankruptcy in April 2012.

Rick Perry's promise. Another candidate who is hoping for another shot at relevance is former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Perhaps no candidate has more to prove than Perry in 2016. The Texas governor entered the 2012 presidential race with great fanfare – then quickly flamed out. His infamous "oops" summed up his floundering campaign, but in reality his fate in the race had been sealed long before that. As we wrote last week in Iowa, Perry appears to be a changed man on the campaign trail – he's full of energy and sports a new look (though his wife, Anita, insists the glasses were necessary). And he just got a big get in Iowa with the endorsement of influential Iowa conservative radio host and activist Sam Clovis. Clovis backed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012, who went on to narrowly win Iowa that year. It is a notable loss, however, for Santorum in this more crowded field. State observers say to watch Perry over the next few weeks – he's building a good team in Iowa. And though his poll numbers don't reflect momentum yet, he has the potential to make a big surprise.

i

Chafee's mangled announcement – ranging from his wife asking on Facebook if any of his staff knew his password to his push to implement the metric system – overshadowed the real message he's been trying to push for months. Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

Chafee's mangled announcement – ranging from his wife asking on Facebook if any of his staff knew his password to his push to implement the metric system – overshadowed the real message he's been trying to push for months.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

The (possible) impact of Lincoln Chafee. One candidate who didn't have a great rollout this week was Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Lincoln Chafee, who officially entered the Democratic race for president Wednesday. Chafee's mangled announcement – ranging from his wife asking on Facebook if any of his staff knew his password to his push to implement the metric system – overshadowed the real message he's been trying to push for months. As an original Iraq War opponent, he has promised to needle Hillary Clinton on her initial vote to authorize the invasion in 2002 – a sticking point for many Democratic voters in her failed first try for president in 2008. It's an issue Chafee is passionate about, and he devoted more than half of his announcement it — albeit, to a room with a lot of empty seats at George Mason University. Like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), who reminds voters of Clinton's weaknesses with the left on domestic issues, Chafee does so on foreign policy.

StoryCorps' OutLoud initiative records stories from the LGBTQ community.

Michelle Kreifels knows she's different from her siblings. The 51-year-old is the fifth of seven children, and was born with an intellectual disability.

"You're different, too," Michelle tells her younger brother Patrick, 48, during their StoryCorps interview in Omaha, Neb. Patrick and their sister Marlene are Michelle's legal guardians.

"And how am I different?" Patrick asks.

"Gay," Michelle says.

Patrick asks her how she felt when she found out he was gay, and Michelle says she didn't want it to be true. "I just think ... wife and husband should be together," she says.

But, she tells her brother, she came to accept it.

"Just thought about it," she says. "And I thought, 'He can do whatever he wants,' " she says with a laugh.

"What made you decide that you were going to be gay?" Michelle asks her brother.

"It wasn't something that I decided. I was just kind of born that way," Patrick tells her. "And I tried to not be that way for a while and I wasn't happy. So I just accepted who I was. I'm glad I did too. I'm a happier person."

"Yes, you are," Michelle says. "Fun to be around."

"I've learned a lot from you over the years, that's for sure," her brother says. "I remember in the summer before I went to college, I did the same job that you did, at the plant, and you had to train me. "

"Yep. And you had a hard time," she says.

"I did have a hard time. Took me a while to get the hang of it — but you were a good teacher to me," he says. "You're patient and you're really good for me and I appreciate you accepting me and all my differences too. It means a lot."

"Thanks. I love you," she says.

"I love you too," Patrick says.

"Yeah."

Produced for Weekend Edition by Allison Davis.

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

StoryCorps

On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the economy added 280,000 jobs in May — a strong figure, and a much faster rate than economists expected.

Now imagine that in your state, job creation was nearly four times that fast.

That's what GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry can claim for Texas during his tenure as governor. Among all of the governors running for president, he can boast the best job creation numbers.

That's what NPR's analysis of state employment data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve finds (I did the same kind of analysis earlier this year, at Vox). Retooling the numbers today (and adding in the candidates who weren't around back in January), it's clear that only three candidates can claim job growth faster than the national rate, and that Perry still by far leads the pack.

First, let's look at the basics: Perry's Texas added more than 2.2 million jobs during his 14 years in office — that means that during his time in office, Texas jobs grew by more than 23 percent. By comparison, U.S. employment grew by just over 6 percent. So job growth in Perry's Texas was around 3.8 times as fast as the US as a whole.

If that doesn't astound you, consider a line from Perry's speech on Thursday, announcing his run for president:

"During my 14 years as governor, Texas companies created almost one-third of all new American jobs," he said in his speech (to be more exact, the figure is nearly 28 percent).

That puts a few governors well ahead of the rest of the pack: though Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal both outstripped the national rate respectably, Perry comes out with job creation nearly four times the national rate.

But then there's the question of whether that job growth is those governors' doing. And the answer is that it's really hard to draw a direct line between governors and the job growth in their states.

Economist Jared Bernstein has written that in recessions, the president and Congress are the most important engines of job creation (think the recovery package passed in the wake of the financial crisis). In expansions, it's more complicated, but he believes that governors and mayors don't create jobs; they attract them:

"Do governors and mayors have more to do with job creation when the economy is growing? Not so much here either, but that doesn't mean these electeds are irrelevant to job growth," he writes. "While the aggregate quantity of job growth in a nation is largely driven by macro and global trends, there's a lot sub-national officials can do to try to encourage the jobs that are created to locate in their states and cities. They affect less the number of jobs than where those jobs end up."

So if you hear governors on the campaign trail say they "created" jobs, that's not quite the case.

And it's true that improving infrastructure and lowering taxes, for example, can help attract businesses into a state. As Bernstein writes, creating research hubs centered around universities can also attract businesses.

But those effects can easily be overshadowed by bigger forces that can affect job creation.

Texas, for example, has a massive oil industry that can drive job creation independently of whoever is in charge. Indeed, now that oil prices are down and the industry is hurting, Texas' unemployment claims have also started to climb. Not only that, but the state has enjoyed fantastically fast population growth (which could function both as a cause and effect of new jobs): the state population grew by nearly 29 percent between 2000 and 2014, compared to just 13 percent in the US as a whole.

Consider also that Texas had fast growth when Perry was in office, but it also did before he was in office. According to a 2011 analysis form Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, Perry's policies were responsible for only 0.1 percent of the state's job growth at the time, once Glaeser controlled for how quickly Texas had been adding jobs without him.

Moreover, national trends can override positive local developments — Huckabee and Bush, for example, both left office just before the financial crisis hit, tanking the national economy. Had they remained in office just a year longer, their numbers could have been much worse, meaning fewer statistics to tout on the campaign trail.

Saudi Arabia shot down a Scud missile fired by Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen that was targeted at one of the kingdom's largest air bases.

NPR's Deborah Amos, reporting from Riyadh, said the Cold War-era Scud was taken down by the U.S.-supplied Patriot missile defense system.

The thwarted rebel attack comes after three Saudi soldiers and a border guard were killed in an earlier border skirmish, she says.

Deborah says: "Saudi Arabia's punishing war in Yemen has moved to the Saudi border with anti-government Houthi rebels launching border attacks and for the first time, firing a Scud missile early Saturday morning. The target was a southwest border city, home to the largest air force base in the Kingdom."

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition of Arab states that have conducted airstrikes against Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since March. The foiled Scud attack marks the first time the missile has been used by the rebels against Saudi Arabia, however the Russian-built surface-to-surface rocket was used by factions in Yemen's civil war in the 1990s.

The official Saudi Press Agency says the Scud was aimed at the King Khalid Air Base, the largest air base in that part of the country. The Associated Press says Saudis on social media reported hearing air raid sirens go off around the city during the attack.

houthis

missile defense

Yemen

Saudi Arabia

Interview Highlights

On showing experiences both in the military and at home

One of the things I'm most interested in, not only is that specificity of a singular life and following that with the long view — I'm [also] really interested in the proximity of violence as much in the side streets and living rooms of America as in the war zone.

On what Rath calls 'the way we fetishize war suffering'

It's the 30-second clip that you're going to get that's going to get your heart rate rising. And you won't change the channel. And so what I hope what the novel does a little bit here is hold the mirror up not only in the conflict sphere but in that domestic sphere.

On choosing to write about sexual assault

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I think as a writer approaching material I want to do justice to the characters. But at the same time, there's no doubt that there were certain topics that were really important to me, and in the writing of this book, tackling the issue of sexual assault in general, and specifically in the military, was absolutely important to me. We know sexual assault is an issue in our society at large and in the military specifically.

On the civilian/military divide

There's a lot of talk about the civilian/military divide. I think veterans and active-duty service members, we want to feel connection. We want to feel like our sacrifices and our service to the country, you know, is appreciated, and I think to a large extent it is.

The problem becomes, and it's a very complex problem, but one angle of it is from the military side those who have seen combat — it's such a difficult thing ... to work through and process.

But I think at the core of it, we just want a conversation about what our country asks of us. And not just what our country asks of our service members, but what it asks of their families, of their friends and of their communities.

Read an excerpt of I'd Walk With My Friends If I Could Find Them

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Veterans

Air Force

Barring a last-minute legal decision, as of July 1, the nation's for-profit colleges are going to be subject to a new Education Department rule known as gainful employment. That is: Do students end up earning enough to pay off their loans?

A trade group of career colleges is suing to stop the rule, but this is far from the only monkey on the sector's back. As recently as 2010, these schools enrolled one in nine college students. Today, some are shutting down, cutting back, tanking in the stock market, even going bankrupt. The bellwether was the giant Corinthian Colleges a year ago, but many others are in trouble as well. Even the University of Phoenix, which five years ago had 460,000 students, has seen that number fall by half.

Part of this is thanks to government crackdowns. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is the new watchdog in town. And it has taken a particular interest in for-profits that market student loans directly to their own students, sometimes in misleading and aggressive ways.

Officials at the bureau sued Corinthian Colleges, alleging predatory lending and illegal debt collection tactics, and in the wake of the Corinthian shutdown they arranged for $480 million in private student loans to be forgiven.

Student activists have also been vocal in criticizing the industry and demanding relief from their loans.

But government enforcement and political debate is not the only reason that these colleges are having problems. Market forces should be considered too.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, if you were a working adult who needed flexibility, in most parts of the country, your best — or maybe your only option — for finishing your degree was probably an online program from a for-profit college. It was hard to ride public transit or turn on a TV during the day without seeing an ad for one of the schools, and they were sophisticated in online advertising as well.

Today, public institutions like Arizona State University and nonprofits like Southern New Hampshire University and Western Governors University have gotten into the game. They are trying to meet the needs of this same student population by offering online, go-at-your-own-pace programs.

They are enrolling tens of thousands of students. And they are partnering with employers, such as Starbucks with ASU, to defray tuition costs. Their tuition tends to be lower in any case than what the for-profits charge.

"I think the market's been educated," says Paul LeBlanc, the president of Southern New Hampshire. "People used to not be aware of the difference between for-profits and nonprofits."

Seven years ago he began the process of building a large online program at his regionally accredited private college. Today it enrolls 22,500 students and has partnerships with 78 employers. Recently Anthem, the health insurer, agreed to offer SNHU's College for America bachelor's program to employees for free.

About half of the company's 55,000 workers — call center employees, administrative assistants, and the like — may be eligible.

So what is the upshot for students and prospective students here?

There are still hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of current and former for-profit college students from over the last two decades who are saddled with high loan debt and degrees of potentially dubious value.

The Education Department says it's working to develop a process for providing debt relief to defrauded borrowers, including many at Corinthian. But critics say that these processes are too onerous and too slow.

At the same time, with the gainful employment rule, observers say the Department of Education is opening a can of worms. Right now, the rule applies only to for-profits. But there are a lot of public and nonprofit privates out there too that may be graduating too few students and leaving them with loans that are too high.

For example, across the country the graduation rate at public community colleges is still just one in five. Nor have the new big online institutions furnished hard evidence about the life experiences or employment prospects of their graduates.

Sitting in an air-conditioned Ola cab on Saturday evening in Bangalore's notorious traffic, I was heading to a friend's party when an older gentleman in a long white kurta and a white cap approached.

Clutching his long walking stick, he looked close to my grandmother's age — she's in her early 90s. His feeble back seemed about to give out. His hands and shoulders shook as he extended his hand to the cab window. He motioned between his mouth and my window, clearly asking for something to eat.

Goats and Soda

Education Plan: Sell Goat, Ride Bus 300 Miles, Sneak Into Prez's House

My mind raced and so did my heart. I debated: to give or not to give?

My heart said yes, YES!

But my mind ran through phrases I have heard: "You give him a handout or a hand up. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Does he really need food, or will he use the money for alcohol or drugs?"

Before I could decide what to do, the traffic cleared and the cab sped away. I glanced back at the man, now struggling to cross the busy highway, tightly clutching his walking stick, taking one step at a time.

I have had many sleepless nights lately not just about him but about everyone I see in poverty around me. I hail from Uganda but am living in Bangalore, India now. Both countries have about the same economic and social challenges. I thought I had figured this begging thing out. I do what I can to help. For children I either buy them food or buy the pens, pencils and other paraphernalia they are selling. For the elderly, the differently abled, the hungry barefoot man on the street, I try to share a meal the way I would with my friends — to the bemusement of onlookers and the confusion of the restaurant owner.

But on Saturday night, I faltered when I faced the elderly man.

My cab fare was 350 Indian rupees. That's about $6. I keep thinking how I surely could have spared a meal for this man. I could hardly hold my tears back thinking about him. What if this were his last day and all he needed was a decent meal? What if he were truly hungry and begging was his only option? What if? What if?

Where is my humanity? What has happened to me?

Many of us struggle with these questions. For me, I feel a personal tie to the people I see begging and selling trinkets. I have been in a similar position.

While my paternal grandfather had wealth in the form of cattle and land from serving as a royal guardsman for the King of Ankole, my dad and his siblings lost it all during political turmoil in the late 1970s. They were forced to squat on other people's lands. My mother had cattle and land, but both of my parents and four of my siblings died by the time I was 10 years old. My uncle kept all but four cattle from me. I had almost nothing.

Fortunately, I had my grandmother, whom I went to live with.

But what if I had not?

What if when I went to sell eggs and milk to earn money for school fees, passersby looked the other way?

What if I was afraid to travel 300 miles alone to ask the president of Uganda for a high school scholarship?

What if I never met American sponsors who afforded me a college education?

So much of life is chance, and sometimes you can be the chance for someone else. You can help make their life better.

For this reason, I give to people I see on the streets. And I don't just give pennies. For a grown man or woman, I give enough for a meal. For a child selling merchandise, I buy enough so the child can afford that book or uniform so he or she won't be kept out of school.

I don't presume to be building a different social order by offering alms to the poor. I know that to eliminate poverty, many issues must be addressed. But I hope that by opening my heart, I let others know I am unhappy about the injustice in the world and I am doing my part.

Some people may think I am gullible. Perhaps I am, in some cases. But that is the choice I make to show solidarity with all human beings.

The next time I see someone like the man at my cab, I will not hesitate but will listen to my heart and give. What will you do?

James Kassaga Arinaitwe is an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow and a Global Fellow at Acumen. He is currently working with LabourNet, a nongovernmental organization in Bangalore, India, that seeks to improve the lives of workers.

beggars

charity

What if there were an app where a user could have all of the news he was interested in, from the outlets he trusted, all in one place?

That's the goal of Apple's new iOS 9 feature, called, simply, News. It will be a permanent fixture on the iPhone and iPad home screen, just like Calendar, Maps and Weather.

All Tech Considered

Facebook Courts News Giants Into A Deal To Share Viewers, And Revenues

If that app sounded familiar before it was unveiled Monday, that's because other apps are already doing the same thing — Facebook, Flipboard, Twitter, Yahoo News and NYT Now are trying to become the gateway between news consumers and information.

Apple, which announced the app during its debut of iOS 9, is just the latest company to throw its hat into the ring, and it has a distinct advantage over the competition: The News app will automatically be an undeletable part of any Apple mobile device running iOS 9 starting in the fall.

News will be on the radar of millions of Apple users, making it one of the most salient apps on the market. As the Washington Post points out, News could quickly become a contender.

"If the algorithm is good and expansive enough, this could eat market share from Flipboard, Twitter and even, theoretically, those daily newsletters people send around. Not to mention from those outside the ecosystem."

The Two-Way

Apple Announces Music Streaming Service

News won't necessarily be a big success. Its predecessor, Newsstand, turned out to be unpopular with publishers.

Instead of making a home for news apps, as Newsstand did, Apple is partnering with publishers including BuzzFeed, CNN, Conde Nast, The New York Times, Time Inc. and more, displaying their content within the News app in a customizable wrapper. (NPR is among the media organizations that intend to make news available for the News app.)

In an article for NiemanLab, Joshua Benton explained this new relationship between Apple and publishers:

"Individual news apps and individual news brands aren't the primary point of contact with news any more. They're raw material, feeding into broader platforms. The loss of power for publishers in that exchange is obvious; the potential benefits remain mostly undiscovered."

Publishers are trying to keep up as these platforms explore new ways to distribute information to consumers, but the future of News (the app, and the content) has yet to be determined.

Paige Pfleger is an intern with NPR Digital News.

Apple Inc.

news industry

applications

Poetry readers, prepare yourselves for a passing of the laurels. The Library of Congress announced in the wee hours Wednesday that the next U.S. poet laureate will be California writer Juan Felipe Herrera.

"This is a mega-honor for me," Herrera said in the announcement, "for my family and my parents who came up north before and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910 — the honor is bigger than me."

A poet of Chicano descent, the 66-year-old Herrera has spent just about his whole life on the West Coast. Born to a family of migrant farm workers, he bounced from tent to trailer for much of his youth in Southern California, eventually going on to study at UCLA and Stanford. Years later, he stepped out of the state to attend the Iowa Writers' Workshop, before — you guessed it — returning home to California.

Along the way, Herrera has been prolific — so prolific, in fact, that few seem to agree about just how many books the man has written. (Some say 30, others 29, and the Library of Congress says 28; we'll just put the number at "dozens.") Those works include poetry collections, novels in verse and plenty of children's books. Across this body of work, the shadow of California, and his cultural heritage, has loomed large.

"I've worked throughout California as a poet; in colleges, universities, worker camps, migrant education offices, continuation high schools, juvenile halls, prisons, and gifted classrooms," Herrera told the campus newspaper at the University of California, Riverside, where he teaches creative writing. "I would say [I've been] from San Diego all the way to Arcata and throughout the valleys ... for the last 40 years."

The role of poet-in-chief isn't entirely new to Herrera. Beyond his teaching duties at the University of California, Riverside, he has been serving as California's poet laureate since 2012. He's the first Latino poet to assume that role in the state's history.

i

Juan Felipe Herrera speaks at the California Unity Poem Fiesta, a 2014 gathering thrown in celebration of his two years (at that point) as the state's poet laureate. Courtesy of University of California, Riverside hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of University of California, Riverside

Juan Felipe Herrera speaks at the California Unity Poem Fiesta, a 2014 gathering thrown in celebration of his two years (at that point) as the state's poet laureate.

Courtesy of University of California, Riverside

The poet laureate's one-year term doesn't carry a lot of prescribed responsibilities — "the Library keeps to a minimum [its] specific duties," according to the announcement — but past laureates have often embarked on projects to advocate on behalf of the form, and to widen its audience. And if there's anything to be gleaned from Herrera's past, it's that Herrera likely will be active in the new position, too.

In a conversation with the journal Zyzzyva, Herrera set out a mini-manifesto of sorts for the role of the writer as teacher.

"These days I think it is good to be in society — to wake yourself up in the throng and mix of people on sidewalks, subways and cafeterias — so teaching writing keeps me at the root of things: new voices, new experiences and new ways of meditating on life and the planet," Herrera said. "Both are extremely essential."

"Poetry," he said, in an interview two years earlier with The Los Angeles Times, "can tell us about what's going on in our lives, not only our personal but our social and political lives."

Herrera is expected to step into the position this fall with the National Book Festival in September. He will succeed Charles Wright, the current U.S. poet laureate. No word yet on when they plan to exchange their poetic licenses.

But, if you're new to Herrera's work, don't just trust me with your first impression. Below, you'll find Herrera himself, in a poem excerpted from his 2008 collection, Half of the World in Light:

Let Me Tell You What a Poem Brings

for Charles Fishman

Before you go further,
let me tell you what a poem brings,
first, you must know the secret, there is no poem
to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries,
yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this,
instead of going day by day against the razors, well,
the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket
sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from
the outside you think you are being entertained,
when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise,
your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold
standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course,
is always open for business too, except, as you can see,
it isn't exactly business that pulls your spirit into
the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play,
you can even join in on the gossip—the mist, that is,
the mist becomes central to your existence.

Excerpted from Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems by Juan Felipe Herrera. Copyright 2008 Juan Felipe Herrera. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Arizona Press. This material is protected from unauthorized downloading and distribution.

poet laureate