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Authorities are set to slap banking giant JPMorgan Chase with a massive fine over the bank's huge trading losses in London last year, confirms NPR's Jim Zarroli.

Though details of the deal are still pending, several reports put the amount at more than $700 million. It comes on the heels of the bank's having recently paid $410 million to settle charges that it manipulated energy markets.

The current settlement revolves around an investigation from across the federal government and the globe over trading losses, first announced in May, that have ballooned to more than $6 billion. Regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency allege that JPMorgan had inadequate risk controls in place when traders made complex derivative bets that ultimately led to the losses.

Last month, two traders were charged with covering up the losses. The U.K. trader who placed the bad bets, Bruno Iksil, became known as the "London Whale" because of the large size of the trades he made for the company's London office. Iksil is now cooperating with authorities and is likely to avoid prosecution.

The settlement will include fines from the SEC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, but the Financial Conduct Authority, the British financial regulator, will impose its own fine. And even then, JPMorgan most likely won't see closure on this issue. The New York Times has more:

"The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a regulator that oversees the market in which the losses occurred, has balked at joining the broader settlement announcement, the people briefed on the matter said. The agency has focused on whether JPMorgan, by amassing an outsize trading position so large that it distorted the market for financial contracts known as derivatives, 'manipulated' that market.

"By potentially striking out on its own, the C.F.T.C. has frustrated JPMorgan's efforts to move beyond the trading losses, the people briefed on the matter said. Those efforts to settle were born out of a recent federal crackdown on the bank."

Sometimes presidents have to make things up as they go along.

President Obama's decisions have had an improvisational air these past three weeks. His course on Syria kept shifting, at times seemingly guided by offhand remarks.

But the results are what count.

"If it works out in the end, the president's allowed to be uncertain," says Tim Naftali, a former director of the Nixon presidential library. "Oftentimes, the judgment you get during the crisis is not the judgment you get at the end."

There's still plenty of opportunity for problems to emerge when it comes to implementing the deal to rid Syria of chemical weapons, announced Saturday by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

No one has tried to dispose of weapons of mass destruction on such an accelerated timetable — and certainly not in the middle of an ongoing civil war. Obama's critics note that this deal does nothing to drive Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called the deal "an act of provocative weakness on America's part." In a statement, they wrote, "It requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley."

“ If you get under the skin of most crises, they'd have this kind of ad hockery.

A line of men in black rain boots push trash carts through the alleys of Lahore, Pakistan. They stop at an open sewer along a neighborhood street and start to pull up shoes, bricks, plates and any other trash that might block the flow of wastewater.

Standing water is a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. And the local government in Lahore is on a focused mission: Stop the spread of dengue fever by mosquitoes.

Two years ago, an estimated 20,000 people in and around the city of Lahore contracted the deadly tropical disease. This year, the region has recorded just a few dozen cases of dengue fever, which usually involves a high fever, horrible headache, and severe bone and joint pain.

What triggered the sharp decline in dengue cases? Fortuitous weather patterns may have helped to keep the mosquito population low. But many leaders also credit a mobile phone app — and the public health campaign that uses it.

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Brazil has one of the largest black African populations in the world, second only to Nigeria. More than half of Brazilians define themselves as black or mixed-race. But these numbers have not translated into power — be it social, economic, political or religious.

Now, though, a recent religious poll has shown a sharp uptick in people self-identifying as followers of Afro-Brazilian religions like Candombl.

Followers believe in one all-powerful god who is served by lesser deities. Individual initiates have their personal guiding deity, who acts as an inspiration and protector. There is no concept of good or evil, only individual destiny.

Pai (or "Father") Nelson is the priest of the house of worship where the ceremony is taking place. He says today's ritual is one of purification. People ask for health, and the deities grant it from one of the four elements of the earth.

"Candombl was once very hidden, very isolated," he says. "Candombl wasn't accepted here. People always had a preconception about it because it was African — black people aren't accepted in society here. We do animal sacrifice. Our religion is very different than any other. People didn't understand it."

But there has been a recent push to change that. Sitting among the faithful here is Marcilio Costa, who is the commercial officer at a foreign consulate in Sao Paulo. He became an initiate a year and a half ago, and he says he's open about it.

"Among Brazilians, yes. People understand better now. ... All my friends know my religion, every single one of them," Costa says. "I don't hide from no one."

Becoming More Open

In her office at the University of Rio's Afro-Brazilian Studies Department, Ana Paula Alvez Ribeiro listens to the group Meta Meta, which uses the rhythms and language of Candombl in its music.

She explains that for some time now, the many Afro-Brazilian religions here have influenced Brazilian musicians and artists. But it's only in the past few years that adherents of Candombl have made a push to be more widely recognized in other forums.

"In the census of 2010, there was a big movement within Canmbl called, 'He who is, say that he is' — meaning those who practice Candombl should give that as their religion in the census," Alvez says.

Candombl — like its cousin Santeria practiced in Cuba — is a synchretic religion, meaning that many of the orixas are also represented by Catholic saints and it has absorbed many Catholic practices.

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