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The United States spends nearly $7 billion a year to operate a network of federal prisons that house more than 200,000 inmates. About half of them are incarcerated for drug crimes, a legacy of 1980s laws that prosecutors use to target not only kingpins but also low-level couriers and girlfriends. Multiple convictions for small-time offenses under those laws mean thousands of people are locked up for decades, or even the rest of their lives.

This year, everyone from Attorney General Eric Holder to Tea Party Republicans in Congress has argued those stiff mandatory minimum prison sentences do more harm than good for thousands of drug offenders. Legislation to cut the tough-on-crime penalties has stalled on Capitol Hill, but it's likely to be reintroduced in 2015. Meanwhile, the White House and the Justice Department have taken the unprecedented step of asking for candidates who might win early release from prison through presidential pardons or commutations in the final years of the Obama presidency. That effort, known as Clemency Project 2014, is moving slowly.

Amid the backdrop of debate inside Washington and across the country, NPR decided to focus on the human toll of these mandatory prison sentences. We talked with judges who expressed tearful misgivings about sending people away for the rest of their lives for crimes that involved no violence. We found a newly-released inmate trying to reacquaint herself with her community in the Florida panhandle and rebuild ties with her grieving children after 17 years away from home. And we went inside a medium-security prison in New Jersey to find a lifer who says he deserves another chance. These people acknowledge they broke the law and accept the need for punishment. But they say their decades-long incarcerations cast a shadow that lingers over their families, damage that far outweighs the wrongs they did to put them in prison.

Kelly Brenner ushers in guests at the Adentro Dinner Club. This is a "puertas cerradas" restaurant – meaning behind closed doors. It's a culinary movement where people cook for paying guests in their homes. Adentro is the most well-reviewed in Buenos Aires.

Brenner who is originally from Boulder, Colo., acts as the host and her Argentine fianc Gabriel Aguallo does the cooking, focusing on grilled meat.

On a recent evening, visitors gasped with pleasure at the beautifully set dinner table before they were ushered up for cocktails on a roof terrace festooned with lights. Despite the success of the venture, the pair though say they have been struggling.

"Tourists would call and want to make a reservation for two months in advance but we couldn't take that reservation because we couldn't tell them how much it was gonna cost in two months," she says.

i i

An Argentine 100 pesos bank note (top), featuring an image of former first lady Eva Peron, is displayed next to a U.S. $100 note. At the official rate, US$1 is about 8 and a half pesos. But at the so-called blue-dollar rate – which is actually the black market rate — it's about 13 pesos to the dollar. Enrique Marcarian/Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Enrique Marcarian/Reuters/Landov

An Argentine 100 pesos bank note (top), featuring an image of former first lady Eva Peron, is displayed next to a U.S. $100 note. At the official rate, US$1 is about 8 and a half pesos. But at the so-called blue-dollar rate – which is actually the black market rate — it's about 13 pesos to the dollar.

Enrique Marcarian/Reuters/Landov

The problem is inflation.

It's been ravaging Argentina's economy. Government figures are considered highly suspect and many private economists estimates that inflation is running at around 40 percent this year.

Prices rise at a dizzying rate, Brenner says. Some restaurants in Argentina only have their menus on a chalkboard because it's too expensive to print new ones every month with the new, higher prices.

She says she just couldn't run her business relying on the local currency.

"We've just started at the beginning of this month charging in dollars instead of charging in pesos, the local currency, because it was too chaotic," she says.

A Long Affair With The Dollar

Argentina has had a long love affair with the U.S. dollar — mainly because its economy has historically been so bumpy.

"People go to the dollar basically to preserve the value of their purchasing power, to hedge against inflation," explains Alan Cibils the chair of the political economy department of the National University of General Sarmiento.

Because a peso will buy you less and less each day, people put their money in more stable dollars.

But getting those dollars has become increasingly difficult. Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2001 and chose to default again this past summer so has been locked out of international markets where it could pay on credit. It also needs dollars to pay for things. The way it's been getting them is preventing dollars from leaving the country, with tough currency controls.

The government there has even put currency sniffing dogs at border crossings to try and prevent capital flight.

Which leads to scenes like this: I'm buying a ferry ticket inside Argentina and I'm being told I can't pay in pesos, I have to pay in dollars, or with my U.S. credit card.

The ticket seller tells me the government issued a decree that all foreigners have to pay for their travel in "hard currency."

A Flourishing Black Market

Argentina now has a dual currency system. At the official rate, one dollar is about 8 and a half pesos.

And then you have the so-called blue-dollar rate – which is actually the black market rate of about 13 pesos to the dollar.

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Which brings us back to the sharing economy. Kelly Brenner can charge in dollars because most of her clients are tourists.

Airbnb, where people rent out their homes for cash, has become a huge hit in Argentina. It has the added benefit that the homeowner can charge and get paid in dollars.

According to Airbnb, there are now 8,500 active Argentine properties on the site. That's a 70 percent jump from last year. It's one of their fastest growing markets in Latin America, according to the company.

Back at the Adentro Dinner Club, Kelly Brenner says it really a tiny fraction of the population who has regular access to foreign currency, though some estimates say that Argentinians love to hoard dollars so much that they hold one of every 15 dollars in the world.

Brenner jokes the three national pastimes are "soccer and Malbec and looking for dollars."

Still, the vast majority of Argentinians are paid in pesos and have to deal with inflation. She says she's lucky and she wishes there was a strong national currency.

"But we don't want to raise the prices, we want to keep it somewhat stable," she says.

And that means ditching the peso and charging dollars.

Alaska's new governor won his election in one of the tightest races in the country, a race that was too close to call even a week after election night. Bill Walker, who ran as an independent (unaffiliated with the Republicans or Democrats), took office on Dec. 1, after campaigning on the promise that he would expand Medicaid as one of his first orders of business.

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To make good on that, he'll have to face a Republican-controlled legislature that hasn't been willing to even consider the idea.

But for Walker, it's a no-brainer: Around 40,000 low-income Alaskans would receive health benefits under Medicaid expansion; most of those affected would be childless adults. The federal government would pay 100 percent of the costs until the end of 2016, and after that the state's share would only slowly increase to 10 percent by 2020.

Plus, Walker points out, Alaskans already pay taxes that fund the expansion.

"I always will default back to what is best for Alaskans," he says, "and it's best for Alaskans to have the health care coverage we've already paid for."

The Alaska Chamber of Commerce, the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, all support the Medicaid expansion. So far 28 states have expanded their coverage, and most of those governors have had legislative support says Laura Snyder, a policy analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“ I always will default back to what is best for Alaskans, and it's best for Alaskans to have the health care coverage we've already paid for.

- Gov. Bill Walker, Alaska

"There have been a few states where the governor has acted on his own through executive authority," she says, "but most states have generally incorporated it into state budgets which usually require legislative signoff."

In the case of Alaska, Gov. Walker will probably need the legislature because the state has to pay some administrative costs that would add up to as much as $10 million per year. Those millions could be a tough sell for the Republican legislature. Republican Sen. Anna MacKinnon says Walker will have to make a strong case.

"It will be a lively debate," MacKinnon says, "but I look forward to working with him to the best of my abilities within the financial constraints that this state is currently facing."

To help his case, Walker has appointed Valerie Davidson as Health Commissioner. She's been a leader in the Alaska Native health care system and a determined advocate for Medicaid expansion since the health law passed. She says she'll rely on a cooperative work ethic as she negotiates with lawmakers over expansion. Davidson's confident Alaska can get it done.

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"It may not be something everyone's 100 percent happy with," she says, "but we may be able to find middle ground that we can all live with.

"I think that's what makes Alaska so great," Davidson adds. "We don't back down just because things get difficult. If it's 40 below we go about our day and get things done. That's just what we do. And we do that with policy issues as well."

Beyond any opposition by the legislature, Alaska faces big technical hurdles before Medicaid expansion can work. The state's payment and enrollment systems aren't functioning properly right now, and Davidson wants to address those issues before any expansion.

This story is part of NPR's reporting partnership with Alaska Public Media and Kaiser Health News.

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The popular ride hailing service Uber is valued at a staggering $40 billion — even though it's besieged by lawsuits, bad PR, and outright bans in some cities.

On Monday, Uber was roundly criticized for raising fares in Sydney during a hostage crisis. It's been banned in New Delhi, there's a restraining order on its services in Nevada, and France has nixed a low-cost Uber service over licensing rules.

Nonetheless, Uber and other ride hailing apps like Lyft and Sidecar continue to expand. Uber alone says it has hundreds of thousands of freelance drivers around the world and claims it will add a million more in 2015. These services offer a new independent career for some, a way to make extra money for the underemployed, or a way to stay afloat after a layoff.

That's the case for Karl Theobald. For a decade, he played saxophone for Teatro ZinZanni — a dinner circus along San Francisco's waterfront — until redevelopment plans shut it down.

So a year and a half ago Theobald signed up to be an Uber driver. He picked me up in his Volkswagen Passat one day at 5 p.m., right at the start of the afternoon rush hour.

Theobald shows me the app that he and other drivers use. One of its features is that it tells them where demand for rides is high, and so there is surge pricing.

"When a zone is in surge it lights up in red on our map, and you want to be in surge because that's where the prices are higher," Theobald says.

Theobald splits his day, so he can catch the surge pricing during the evening and morning rush. He says driving for Uber is a much bigger hustle than working for the circus.

"I was making about the same amount of money doing that, that I am doing Uber, but working four hours a day ... ," Theobald says.

He works 10 hours a day now, during which Theobald says he averages $25 to $30 an hour. He says he likes the work.

"I'd much rather play saxophone, but I enjoy this," he says. "It's fun driving around the city talking to people all day."

For some drivers working for Uber and other new car services is a career they want.

Isaac Alfandary used to be a salesman, and he's still got the outgoing energy of a self-starter. In 2011, he was laid off.

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"I was one of those guys in the Great Recession that lost my job," he says. "Right then and there I decided I don't want to go back and do what I was doing, which was selling stuff and having a sales manager over me."

At first Alfandary tried driving a regular taxicab.

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"I had to work a 12-hour shift six days a week in order to have the job," he says. "That's kind of indicative of a lot of the cab driving world. The bosses make you do things that really, most people wouldn't do."

Alfandary is still hustling. He started driving for Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. He says he is making more money than driving a taxi — though drivers in other cities such as New York say driving a cab can be more lucrative.

He invested money in a higher end car — a Ford Explorer SUV — and started a website called theblackcarguy.com where he gives advice and coaching for other drivers.

"I work for me," Alfandary says. "Uber's a client. Lyft is a client. My coaching students are clients. Because I'm out here to do an awesome job for myself and the companies that I work for and this allows me the freedom to do that."

But Uber also has the freedom to change its prices. That's exactly what has upset Theobald. Earlier this year, Uber began taking an extra dollar off the top of the fare as part of what the company calls a "driver safety fee."

"Which doesn't seem like a lot," Theobald says. "But when you're doing 150 fares per week that's $150 that's taken off the top."

Both he and Alfandary have been told by Uber they are among the company's top earning drivers in the Bay Area.

But other drivers say they don't do as well.

Claire Callahan Goodman worked part time as a software programmer when her daughter was young, but more recently she thought driving part time for Uber might bring in some extra money.

"In the beginning they give you these bonuses, like there's a signing bonus," she says. "They start paying you before you've even driven, and you think, 'Well this can't be all bad.' "

But eventually Callahan Goodman stopped driving. She was working in Berkeley and Oakland, which aren't as busy as San Francisco. She says with the upkeep of her car and Uber's fees it wasn't worth it. But ride companies like Uber expect turnover, and they will be continuing to recruit drivers aggressively over the next year.

Drivers like Theobald say they have mixed feelings about more people coming into the system because it has the potential to shift the market and drive prices down. That will make consumers happy, but it's going to make being a driver even more of a hustle.

Uber