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In Chile, a large fire that burned forest land and consumed houses has reportedly killed at least 11 people and destroyed 500 homes. Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate areas near the port city of Valparaiso.

The BBC says the death toll had been 16, but it was dropped to 11 after authorities realized a family had been counted twice.

President Michelle Bachelet has declared a state of emergency and put the military in charge of maintaining order. The fire started Saturday afternoon, officials say, and raged overnight.

Reporter John Otis filed this update for our Newscast unit Sunday:

"Firefighters battled the flames that ripped through Valparaiso, located 75 miles northwest of the Chilean capital of Santiago. But their efforts were hampered by strong winds that blew hot ashes onto many wooden homes.

"President Bachelet traveled to Valparaiso to oversee the emergency response. Authorities have evacuated residents of the surrounding areas, including 200 female inmates from a prison. But the historic section of the city, which is home to the country's Congress, was undamaged."

As part of a series called "My Big Break," All Things Considered is collecting stories of triumph, big and small. These are the moments when everything seems to click, and people leap forward into their careers.

Ever since Autumn Erhard was a kid, she spent her evenings on the couch solving word puzzles on Wheel of Fortune.

"I was always told growing up, 'You should try out,' " Erhard says. "For some reason, I just decided, 'I'm going to do it.' "

Erhard, a sales representative in Orange County, Calif., couldn't have timed it better. Last year, the show was celebrating its 30th anniversary — around the same time she turned 30. Erhard says that's why they chose her to be a contestant.

Solving puzzles on the show, it turned out, was a lot different than playing on her couch. With the audience, lights and cameras, she says she was shaking and sweating.

"You just try to do your best and get in the zone and pretend like you're playing at home," she says.

Erhard made it all the way to the bonus round and took one final spin. The wheel stopped, host Pat Sajak took the sealed envelope, and Erhard looked at the board for her next word puzzle.

"My category was a 'thing,' " she says.

It was a two-word phrase, with 12 letters. She picked her letters, but only two T's, an R and one G appeared on the board.

The puzzle seemed impossible to solve, but Erhard had an idea.

"With the T and the G in the first word, I pretty much figured out it was 'tough.' And me being the workout-junky that I am, somehow 'workout' popped in my head," she says.

The timer started, and Erhard immediately called out her answer: "tough workout."

"All of a sudden, streamers come down and [Pat Sajak] opened the envelope," she says.

It was the $1 million prize.

"I was just completely shocked," Erhard says. "I couldn't even speak anymore, I could barely breathe. I thought I would cry but I think I had so many emotions going on that I was almost frozen."

She became the show's second million-dollar winner.

"Not in a million years would I have thought that I would've been on the show," she says. "Let alone win a million."

President Obama says his administration is fighting to close the gender wage gap, the gulf between what working men and women earn for the same job.

Last week, Obama moved to circumvent a divided Congress on the issue. He announced two executive actions promoting the idea of "equal pay for equal work," both directed at creating more transparency in the workplace.

For one, the president directed the Department of Labor to collect more information on what federal contractors pay their employees, "so pay discrimination can be spotted more easily."

Obama also signed an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who talk about their salaries or other compensation information.

"Pay secrecy fosters discrimination and we should not tolerate it," the president said, "not in federal contracting or anywhere else."

The intention is that if women find out their male co-workers are earning more, they can do something about it.

But here's the thing: Under a nearly 80-year-old federal labor law, employees already can talk about their salaries at work, and employers are generally prohibited from imposing "pay secrecy" policies, whether or not they do business with the federal government.

So why is the president signing an executive order? It's a matter of visibility for labor law and this particular right, says Cynthia Estlund, a law professor at New York University. The law, she says, "is not really well understood." And many don't even know this right exists.

To better understand this complicated topic, here is a breakdown of the basics:

What Is 'Pay Secrecy'?

Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. In some cases, those policies are implied, and managers simply urge employees not to talk about their salaries.

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Site administrators were sent scrambling this week when researchers disclosed the potentially catastrophic Heartbleed bug, a coding error that left much of the Internet vulnerable to data theft since March 2012. Here's our look back at Heartbleed coverage — and more.

ICYMI

So Long, XP Support: Even though Microsoft has rolled out newer versions of its Windows operating system since XP first came out 12 years ago, an estimated quarter of PCs are still running the outdated OS. But it's really time to upgrade now. As warned, Microsoft stopped support for the software this week.

Tech Bubble 2.0?: Are we in a bubble? It's the most common cocktail party topic you'll hear among tech observers these days, because 1999 wasn't that long ago. As Steve Henn reports, in the first quarter of this year, Google and Facebook, alone, announced deals worth more than $24 billion to acquire companies that have almost no revenue. New York Magazine offers a comprehensive list of who thinks it's a bubble, who doesn't, and why each side is so certain.

The Big Conversation

Bleeding Data, 64KB At A Time: The possibly devastating Heartbleed bug is patched now, and major sites have secured their encryption of the data you transfer with them, but who knows what went down while OpenSSL, the system that protected your online transactions was vulnerable? It's really hard for any particular user or website to know whether a bad actor has used the vulnerability against them. We recommend practicing good Internet hygiene, no matter what cybersecurity threat is in the news.

The bug, or coding error, was introduced into open-source software. That opened up some questions about the merits of building code out in the open, without many financial or human resources. The Washington Post dived into it.

And the National Security Agency denied a report that it knew about the vulnerability before the public did.

Curiosities

Washington Post: Tweeting This Story Could Lead To Your Divorce

Blame Twitter for your break-up? Researchers at the University of Missouri show a link between heavy Twitter use and more tension in real-life relationships.

The Verge: Facebook's latest government report reveals which countries censor its News Feed

For the first time, the social network released data on how often countries have restricted or removed content from Facebook "on the grounds that it violates local law."

Slate: How to Save Yourself From Infuriating Reply-All Email Chains

The next time you feel your inbox buried by an avalanche of reply-all messages, use this trick.

Washington Post: Serious Reading Takes A Hit From Online Scanning And Skimming

There is a reason you feel like you can't concentrate as well when you open a good old-fashioned book.