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One day after his two years in limbo ended and he was confirmed by the Senate as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray told NPR that though political bickering held up his nomination he now believes he has bipartisan support for the bureau's work.

"It was a bipartisan vote to confirm me as director — 66 to 34 — and I like to think that reflects the fact that people recognize the work we're doing benefits constituents in every state," Cordray told All Things Considered host Audie Cornish.

Before Cordray could get confirmed, of course, there had to be a "showdown" over filibuster rules that had held up his nomination and those of some others — capped by an extraordinary behind-closed-doors meeting of nearly all 100 senators. And a deal had to be struck that saw President Obama withdraw two nominees for posts on the National Labor Relations Board in order to get Republicans to agree to votes on the nominations of Cordray and a few others.

With all that now behind, Cordray said his bureau is going to focus on exposing "deceptive and misleading marketing" schemes, "debt traps" that such consumers in over their heads financially and on educating consumers so that they aren't "just lambs to slaughter" when it comes to dealing with those looking to manage their investments.

"We're here to stay," he said of the bureau, which was created over the opposition of many Republicans.

We'll add the as-aired interview with Cordray to the top of this post later.

The morning's major economic news:

— Inflation. Wholesale prices rose 0.8 percent in June from May, fueled by a 2.9 percent surge in the price of energy products, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. As drivers can confirm, a 7.2 percent jump in the cost of gasoline was responsible for most of that boost.

Reuters says the overall increase in wholesale prices was "more than expected" and may be a sign that the economy is picking up speed — which in turn could mean that the Federal Reserve will soon feel it can stop trying to give the economy a boost.

— The Fed. Bloomberg News reports that "former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers is indicating to President Barack Obama's Wall Street supporters that he wants to become Federal Reserve chairman, according to people familiar with the matter, as he keeps in touch with senators who would vote on the nomination."

Summers was Treasury secretary in the later years of the Clinton administration, and was a top economic adviser to President Obama during his first term in office.

Bernanke's second term as chairman expires Jan. 31, 2014. It's thought he does not want to stay on and that President Obama will be looking for a new person to lead the central bank.

This is a big year for mayor's races. And it was supposed to be "the year of the woman" for mayoral candidates.

When 2013 began, there was a fair amount of hope that women could make up for their relatively measly representation in local offices nationwide by capturing the mayoralty in three of the nation's five largest cities.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker still looks like a good bet for re-election, but New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has slipped in polls behind former Rep. Anthony Weiner in the race to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Quinn still has a chance, but out in Los Angeles, onetime front-runner Wendy Greuel lost the mayor's race in May.

"Progress has been slow," says Nichole Bauer, who is writing a dissertation on women and politics at Indiana University.

In all the U.S. cities with populations above 30,000, only 17 percent have women serving as mayor. EMILY's List, the political action committee that seeks to elect women who are pro-abortion rights, hopes to change that.

The PAC, which has declared 2013 to be the "year of the woman mayor," has provided support to eight mayoral candidates thus far.

"It's about building the pipeline, getting women to run for local offices because we know they'll run for higher office," says Marcy Stech, the group's press secretary.

So far, though, it's been tough getting anywhere near proportional representation for women in city halls.

Women are already serving as mayor in Baltimore, Fresno, Las Vegas and Fort Worth — but, along with Houston, those are the only ones with populations above 500,000.

"It's encouraging that there are so many women running for mayor around the country, but there's still not equality there," says Mary Ann Lutz, the mayor of Monrovia, Calif.

Betsy Hodges, a member of the City Council, remains in contention in Minneapolis, but beyond that the races where women are favored or have a strong chance are taking place in relatively smaller cities such as Dayton, Ohio; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Tacoma, Wash.

The low number of female mayors nationwide roughly tracks with the percentage of women holding other offices. Women make up 18 percent of the House and 20 percent of the Senate — despite record gains in 2012. They've made up 20 to 24 percent of state legislators for the past two decades.

Lutz says that voters still expect women to concentrate on education and health care — "quote, unquote, women's issues," she says. As a result, many female candidates will consciously adopt a strategy of talking more about matters such as crime and financial matters.

"Sometimes women get painted unfairly with the brush of unfettered compassion over concern with law and order," says Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Female mayors and their champions such as Stech say that women are less likely to engage in partisan gamesmanship than men and more willing to compromise. That's presented as a plus, but it may not come across as such to voters, says Bauer, who says that voters often picture women as not being as "decisive and aggressive" as they want leaders to be.

Political science research has also shown that successful women in careers such as the law are much less likely than men to consider careers in politics in the first place.

"Men over the years have developed better networking, going back to the expression 'good ol' boys,'" says Lori Moseley, the mayor of Miramar, Fla.

But she says the increasing number of women running for local office provides a way of changing all that.

"We're going to continue to be a force to be reckoned with," she says. "You have to know we're not going to accept anything else."

Quinoa lovers have been put on a bit of a guilt trip with stories suggesting that the increased demand in the U.S. has put the superfood out of reach for those living closest to where it's grown.

How can poor Bolivians in La Paz afford to pay three times more for quinoa than they would pay for rice, critics have asked?

So some quinoa farmers in Bolivia and distributors are talking back. And what they want us to know is that their incomes are rising. As the price of quinoa has tripled since 2006, and farmers plant more of the crop, they're typically making more money.

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