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By a 44-5 vote, Chicago's City Council set a minimum-wage target of $13 an hour, to be reached by the middle of 2019. The move comes after Illinois passed a nonbinding advisory last month that calls for the state to raise its minimum pay level to $10 by the start of next year.

The current minimum wage in Chicago and the rest of Illinois is $8.25. Under the ordinance, the city's minimum wage will rise to $10 by next July and go up in increments each summer thereafter.

The legislation includes several findings of a focus panel that examined the wage issue in Chicago earlier this year.

The bill states that "rising inflation has outpaced the growth in the minimum wage, leaving the true value of lllinois' current minimum wage of $8.25 per hour 32 percent below the 1968 level of $10.71 per hour (in 2013 dollars)."

It also says nearly a third of Chicago's workers, or some 410,000 people, currently make $13 an hour or less.

The timing of the vote reflects a political reality, as Emanuel and other Chicago leaders are maneuvering ahead of the next election cycle.

"Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to pre-empt state action on local minimum wages," Northern Public Radio reports, adding that among those who approve the pay hikes, "Officials are worried business groups will push for Springfield legislation that prohibits municipalities raising their minimum wage higher than the state's."

As NPR's Marilyn Geewax reported after the midterm elections, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota approved binding referendums that raise their states' wage floor above the federal minimum.

Chicago

minimum wage

Four Scandinavian nations and New Zealand are the world's least corrupt countries while North Korea and Somalia are the most corrupt, according to the Corruption Perception Index released today by Transparency International.

Denmark (92 points), which topped the list, has occupied the No. 1 position since 2012. New Zealand (91 points), which was No. 1 both last year and in 2012, was No. 2 this year. Finland (89), No. 3 in the index, was unchanged from last year. Sweden (87) fell one place to No. 4. Norway (86) was unchanged at No. 5.

At the other end of the list are North Korea and Somalia (both 8 points), both ranked 174. Sudan (11), Afghanistan (12) and South Sudan (15) rounded off the bottom five.

The index ranked 175 countries on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be highly clean). More than two-thirds of the countries scored less than 50.

The United States (74 points) was ranked 17 on the list. It was ranked 19 last year.

You can click on the map below to see how other countries fared in Transparency International's rankings:

The group says the index is based on "expert opinions of public sector corruption. Countries' scores can be helped by open government where the public can hold leaders to account, while a poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don't respond to citizens' needs."

Other takeaways from the index:

— Turkey, Angola, China, Malawi and Rwanda saw the greatest falls in the index. Each fell four points.

— Egypt, Ivory Coast and St. Vincent and the Grenadines saw the biggest improvements: 5 points each.

— Corruption and money laundering remained a problem in the BRIC nations: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"Grand corruption in big economies not only blocks basic human rights for the poorest but also creates governance problems and instability," Jose Ugaz, chair of Transparency International, said in a statement. "Fast-growing economies whose governments refuse to be transparent and tolerate corruption, create a culture of impunity in which corruption thrives."

The group also called on rich countries to do more to prevent money laundering and to prevent secret companies from hiding corruption. It urged the nations at the top of the index to create public registers that would make clear who owns every company. Denmark already has such a measure, and Ukraine and the U.K. are in the process of creating one.

The index isn't without its critics. As Alex Cobham wrote in Foreign Policy last year, "The problem with the Index, however, can be found in the name. Perceptions are not facts, and in this case they may be an unhelpfully distorted reflection of the truth." And, as we noted while covering the organization's report in 2013, the index has been accused of an "elite bias."

But Transparency International says the index "is limited in scope, capturing perceptions of the extent of corruption in the public sector, from the perspective of business people and country experts."

transparency international

corruption

There's a clearing in the jungle in central Liberia that now serves as an Ebola burial ground. Every day, a woman who works as a nurse in the nearby Ebola treatment unit, or ETU, changes from her scrubs into traditional dress, walks into that clearing and sings a song of mourning.

The song is meant to prepare the space for the dead. There is a burial every day. So far, nearly 100 people have been buried in this clearing. Sixteen are from one village about 45 minutes away, a place called Taylortown, or Taylata in the local dialect.

To understand how Ebola came to the village, how it spread in the village and how it eventually ended in the village is to understand how the epidemic might end in Liberia, and what will be left behind.

Taylata is a collection of mud brick houses with thatched roofs built on either side of a single gravel road. The trouble came a little more than a month ago. A man in the village named Stanley had a 16-year-old son who was living in Liberia's capital, a few hours away.

Africa

In Liberia, Ebola Shifts From Cities To Villages

The son was staying with relatives. Three of them died in a row. People said one died in childbirth, another from grief. They didn't say it was Ebola.

Stanley went to get his son and bring him back to the village. The two went to work in the sugar cane fields. On the third day, the son was achy and tired. Then he started getting really sick.

The thing is, Stanley had been trained by the county to recognize Ebola and notify authorities. But when his own son got sick, he tried to treat the boy himself.

"He had information," says village youth leader Peter Gasho. But "he hid that information."

So other people in the village called the county health team to come meet with Stanley and his wife.

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Wooden benches sit at the spot where Stanley's son died after his battle with Ebola. Rebecca Hersher/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rebecca Hersher/NPR

Wooden benches sit at the spot where Stanley's son died after his battle with Ebola.

Rebecca Hersher/NPR

When the meeting began, the parents told the team their son had what villagers call a "leopard problem." What they meant was that someone had turned into a leopard and tried to kill their son, and that's why he was sick. Our interpreter, Siatta Scott Johnson, tells us it's a common belief in Liberia, that witchcraft can make you sick.

But in the time of Ebola, this belief can be dangerous.

We walk down that main gravel road in the village to Stanley's house. The front door is closed. Outside are abandoned wooden benches in a circle. This is where Stanley's son died.

Peter Gasho says Stanley's son died on a blanket as villagers surrounded him, sitting on the benches. He says everyone was touching the boy, practicing "country medicine" by rubbing herbs all over his body, giving sympathy.

That sympathy would eventually take a tragic toll. A person who is dying of Ebola is very contagious.

The first to get sick were the boy's siblings. Finally, the father, Stanley, admitted it was Ebola.

And finally, county health officials went into action. They took the sick siblings to the ETU. They documented everyone who'd been in contact with the family. They quarantined the village. Then they came back to check every day.

The next people to get sick and die were the women who'd tried to help Stanley's son.

We keep walking through the village and meet an 11-year-old girl, sitting alone next to the cook-fire. Her grandmother cared for the sick boy and later died of Ebola.

Now, people in the village are afraid of the girl and her 10-year-old brother. When we ask who stays with the children at night, she answers with one word.

"Nobody."

After the caregivers like the girl's grandmother got sick, the people in their houses got sick.

One strong young guy got Ebola from his mother. He was visiting from his final year at the University of Liberia. Peter the youth leader says he was the hope of the village, "the most important person in the town."

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Stanley would not admit that his son had Ebola. Villagers were angry at him for hiding the truth and looted his home. Rebecca Hersher/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rebecca Hersher/NPR

Stanley would not admit that his son had Ebola. Villagers were angry at him for hiding the truth and looted his home.

Rebecca Hersher/NPR

After this student died, people in Taylata started looking for someone to blame. They started pointing fingers at Stanley.

Stanley got Ebola, too. But he survived. His wife and four of his children died. Stanley was released from the ETU last week. But he hasn't come back to the village. People have already looted his house and threatened to burn it down.

Stanley calls people in the village sometimes. Nobody knows exactly where he is.

We tried to reach Stanley. We called and sent messages. Then he switched off his phone.

From this one case, this one boy, 30 people got Ebola in Taylata.

Twelve survived. One of those survivors is a teenager named Romeo.

After his release, people in the village crowded around him to welcome him back.

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A teenager named Romeo returned home after being declared Ebola-free. Kelly McEvers/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Kelly McEvers/NPR

A teenager named Romeo returned home after being declared Ebola-free.

Kelly McEvers/NPR

A county health official presented Romeo to the village, with a document saying he's Ebola free. Villagers clapped.

Romeo still has red eyes, bloodshot from Ebola. He's lost so much weight his pants are falling down. He listened to his iPod for most of the health official's presentation.

Afterward, people ambled back to their houses or to the main road to gossip.

Ebola is gone from the village. But the market's still closed, people still rely on international aid organizations for food. It'll be a while before things get back to normal. In the coming days the village will have a memorial for the people who died.

As of today, there are only two people from Taylata left in the county Ebola treatment unit.

There, the Liberian doctors and nurses who work with these patients will do what they do every day, before they start their shift.

They will stand in a circle and sing a prayer.

ebola

Liberia

Black Friday shopping at brick-and-mortar stores in the United States was down about 7 percent from a year ago, according to ShopperTrak, but more purchases on Thanksgiving Day nearly made up the difference. Meanwhile, online retailers recorded double-digit year-on-year increases in sales.

ShopperTrak says Friday store sales hit $9.1 billion, but that shoppers spent $3.2 billion on Thanksgiving — a 24 percent increase for sales on that day from over last year. Overall, it represented a 0.5 percent drop from last year.

The New York Times says: "ShopperTrak, a consumer analytics firm based in Chicago, warned that its estimates were preliminary, and that shifting spending patterns meant that holiday sales were now dispersed over a longer period. Retailers have been offering deep discounts well before their sales on Friday, and many stores moved the start of those offers to Thursday evening."

A separate survey by IBM showed a 9.5 percent jump on Black Friday and a 14.3 percent increase on Thanksgiving Day for online sales over the same period last year.

Amazon.com saw a 24 percent increase in sales over the two days and it predicts that its Cyber Monday sales will show an even bigger increase.

The National Retail Federation is predicting that this will be the strongest holiday shopping season in the last three years.

online shopping

Thanksgiving

Black Friday