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The man once hailed as the "Salvador Dali of the kitchen" is getting his own art exhibit.

Ferran Adri might not be a household name, but for nearly three decades, as chef and mastermind of the acclaimed Catalan Spanish restaurant El Bulli, he moussed, foamed and otherwise re-imagined cuisine in modernist ways that have inspired many of the world's top chefs.

Hailed as the world's best restaurant, El Bulli closed in 2011. But a new exhibit that opened Friday at London's Somerset House offers food aficionados a chance to peek inside the mind of a man hailed for his culinary creativity.

"Probably no other chef has the name value, reputation or substance to sustain this kind of exhibit," Claire Catterall, director of exhibitions at Somerset House, tells The Salt. "Ferran is unique, because he's really changed cooking in a way no other chef has; and so many of the world's chefs have studied at El Bulli, so it is really where it all starts."

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This story is part of NPR's ongoing series about social entrepreneurs — people around the world who are dreaming up innovative ways to develop communities and solve social problems.

The social experiment at the Soria Moria hotel is the brainchild of the Norwegian couple who founded it in 2007. They came up with the idea partly as an antidote to the side effects of booming tourism in Siem Reap, as visitors from around the world began flocking to the ancient temples. Investors from Korea, Japan, China and other countries were building hundreds of hotels in a town that was a sleepy backwater only a decade ago, with dirt roads and houses made of palm fronds. Those hotels were providing urgently needed jobs, but they often required employees to work long hours for little pay or benefits.

"The thing is, I don't like to talk down other hotels. But I know there are cases where employees are being exploited," says Kristin Hansen, 33, the Soria Moria's co-founder. Hansen and her husband bought a long-term lease on an existing hotel after they fell in love with Cambodia. They changed the name to Soria Moria, which comes from a Norwegian fairy tale about the search for a castle and happiness. Hansen says they wanted their hotel to be a model of the right way to treat employees.

"Sometimes they don't even pay employees; they just bring in poor people from the countryside to basically work day and night for food and accommodation. No salary," Hansen says. "There are many, many horror stories like that here."

An executive from the Cambodia Hotel Association says he has heard similar stories. But, he says, most hotels treat employees fairly.

Hansen and her husband wanted to treat their employees better. So they began paying double time after eight-hour shifts; they provided almost four weeks' paid vacation, paid maternity and paternity leave and generous health insurance. They have also paid for staff to attend college and graduate school.

Then, a few years ago, Hansen and her husband started thinking about selling the hotel and moving back to Norway. They realized there would be no guarantee that a new owner would treat the Soria Moria's employees the same way.

"And this started in my mind to form an idea that by the time we leave, we must make sure we hand over this to our staff, to our employees," Hansen says. "Because they helped us build the business, they should have this. Not somebody else."

Majority Ownership Turns Over To Staff

So three years ago, Hansen called the staff to the dining room.

" 'Would you guys like to be partners in the business?' That's what I said. There was kind of no response, and like, I think they thought we were joking. And then they got most of all scared," Hansen recalls. "Most of them are from farmer families; they've grown up living under the poverty line, living on less than a dollar a day. So to suddenly become a business owner, it's a big step."

Hansen and her husband pushed the employees to take that step. They turned over majority ownership on May 1, 2011.

Here's how the ownership system works: Hansen and her husband formed a new company on behalf of the employees, the Soria Moria Educational Development Program. Then they essentially gave that company 51 percent ownership in the hotel. Employees earn shares in the new company based on a formula.

Full-time employees earn 1 ownership point for every dollar's worth of salary they make. They earn 2 ownership points for each month they work at the hotel. Managers also get bonus points.

That means a room cleaner who has worked at the Soria Moria for years could accumulate as many ownership points as a supervisor who has worked at the hotel for a shorter time. All the employees elect the board of directors, which in turn appoints the top managers.

Day to day, the Soria Moria runs pretty much like a normal hotel: The managers tell employees what to do.

But the staff is paid more than average for Cambodia — between $75 and $300 a month. And the employee owners get part of the profits. This past spring, each employee received between one and almost three months' extra salary from profit sharing.

Hotel guests eating dinner in the dining room say they don't know the details of the Soria Moria's ownership structure, but they love the hotel's spirit.

"You can see they are not exploited, and they are working for their own. And that makes lot of difference," says Joachim Pilzecker, from Germany.

A British guest loves the hotel so much, he wrote a song about it.

"There's a hotel you'll never forget," Mike Bishop croons. "They all work together for times you will treasure, Soria Maria forever."

A Transfer Of Power

Hansen and her husband have discovered that it's one thing to give people power on paper; it's another thing to help people who have grown up poor and powerless to start behaving like they have power.

Some employee-owners, for instance, talk about Hansen as if she were a benevolent monarch.

"Kristin treat us like a family. Kristin love us and trust us," says Phhov Tol, as she mops a guest room. "Kristin always told us that everyone is the owner of this hotel, it's not her, so everyone can make decision." Tol pauses. "I'm not quite sure I'm smart enough."

According to the hotel's ownership rules, the employee-owners vote on any decisions that involve spending more than $1,000 — such as buying a new refrigerator or building a swimming pool.

And sure enough, when the staff started voting on decisions a couple of years ago, they basically rubber-stamped whatever Hansen said.

"Cambodian people, they don't think they have the right to make decisions," says Ny Sandayvy, an interpreter who helped with this story. "Especially women. Because before, they never make their own decision. Most of the decision is making by their parent or husband," Sandayvy says.

Learning To Make Decisions

Hansen saw this problem, too, so she sent the staff to Possibilities World — a management training center in Siem Reap — to learn how to make decisions.

During a recent afternoon session, about a dozen of the hotel's employees gathered around a conference table. "Today's going to be really important," said trainer Noem Chhunny. "We're going to learn accountability, responsibility to the whole team, not just individual success."

Over the next few hours, Chunny led the group through a series of games, using props like ropes and hula hoops, designed to teach teamwork and trust.

One of the hotel's receptionists said she was learning not to get angry and defensive when guests complain, but to focus instead on solving their problems. A waiter in the hotel restaurant said he had learned that he should face conflicts instead of running from them.

"Last week I have a fight with a cook. Until now, I don't talk to him, and [he] doesn't talk to me," said Yuk Chhork, through an interpreter. "But now I realize that I have to change."

Later, Chhork followed up and talked things over with the cook.

But if there was one moment when the staff realized they do have control, it was probably their confrontation with Hansen over the staff vacation trip.

Every year since they bought the hotel, Hansen and her husband would close down the hotel for four days during slow season, and they would take the staff to a resort — all expenses and their salaries paid. But last year, Hansen was worried they couldn't afford it because the world economy was shaky, and the hotel's reservations were down.

So she called the entire staff to the dining room where she first asked if they would like to take over the hotel. And Hansen urged them to hold off on the trip.

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What do a reanimated deviant surgeon, a cannibalistic serial killer and a demon-plagued, vomit-spattered priest have in common? They're all characters in camp stage musicals inspired by horror films — and they're all played by the same classically trained opera singer.

His name is Jesse Merlin, and he looks a little like a young, untanned George Hamilton. But he has a bass-baritone voice that would be perfect for Gilbert and Sullivan.

Since that's not what Hollywood's looking for, Merlin had to scare up roles elsewhere.

"I've become Mr. Horror Musical lately, with Dr. Hill in Re-Animator: The Musical," he says. "And then I was Hannibal and a bunch of other roles in Silence! The Musical here in L.A."

Recently, he's played a comic version of a certain demon-plagued Catholic priest in a Hollywood Fringe production called Exorcistic: The Rock Musical Parody Experiment. The show took home the festival's Best Musical prize last weekend.

"I was a little scared by making my entrance as the priest with a hip-hop number," he admits.

This is a guy who began singing opera professionally at 22.

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Cairo's emblematic Tahrir Square and nearby approaches to the River Nile are largely empty and debris-strewn today and Egypt remains on edge after deadly clashes between supporters and opponents of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The two sides fought overnight street battles that left at least 30 dead across the increasingly divided country.

Ismalists are enraged at Morsi's overthrow by millions of protesters backed by the country's powerful military.

The chaotic scenes ended only after the army rushed in with armored vehicles to separate the warring groups.

The clashes had accelerated after the supreme leader of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood defiantly proclaimed his followers would not give up.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene reported one man was stabbed and thrown from the roof of a building by Morsi supporters.

Militants killed five policemen in shootings around the Sinai city of el-Arish, according to security officials.

The other day my 14-year-old asked me whether I would re-live my teen years for $1 million. The answer was a resounding "No!" Memories of searing humiliation still lurk in my (scarred) subconscious. The senior prom alone could keep me chatting with a psychiatrist for months. (Even though, from what I've heard, my date is happily out of the closet and a very successful interior decorator. All's well that ends well, right?) At this point, those memories should be a funny, rosy glow far in the distance. Ha.

The only plus side to my inability to forget is that I keenly enjoy novels in which characters have suffered similar trauma. These five novels are perfect for reading on a beach, surrounded by friends, far from the horrors of the past — because our worst memories make wonderful reading.

The plot of Five Star Billionaire, with its multiple protagonists, may seem deceptively familiar: a neglected boy claws his way from rags to riches; a country girl tries to make her way in the city; a city girl tries to prove her worth in a man's world of business; a rock star falls victim to the fame machine; and a rich man tumbles from grace. Yet Tash Aw's chosen setting of Shanghai, with the dynamic tumult of that nation's modernization and the sea of internal and external migrants seeking to claim a part of the new economy, delivers a book that goes beyond the bounds of the ordinary.

The story is interspersed with advice for aspirant billionaires — a self-help manual. "Choose the Right Moment to Launch Yourself"; "Always Rebound After Each Failure." This is a trope shared, coincidentally, by Mohsin Hamid in his How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, also published this year. It is not surprising that the zeitgeist would lead two such perceptive authors to take a similar route in their examination of a region whose Industrial Revolution embodies the opportunities and pitfalls of the market economy. Where Hamid's book was a short, sharp narrative of a single life in an unnamed country (presumably Pakistan), Aw takes on a broader, sweeping view of the scene and provides a richly drawn landscape of compelling characters, and a deep immersion in their lives.

The protagonists of Five Star Billionaire are brought to Shanghai by very different circumstances. Tying the multiple narrative strands together is the enigmatic Five Star Billionaire himself, a man whose identity is hidden for much of the book. His are the homilies, scattered throughout the book, as he explains the hard work and guile that have made him a success. One of these acolytes is Phoebe, a young woman who takes on a false identity to find employment and, hopefully, a rich boyfriend or husband. As she doggedly interprets the injunctions of the Five Star Billionaire — stealing another young woman's ID card in order to gain work clearance, living off instant noodles to save money for a high-quality "genuine" fake designer handbag to impress her Internet dates — Aw gently explores the human cost of modernization and consumer culture. In his nuanced characterization of Phoebe, we recognize the desperation of a quest that forms, in the end, a poignant indictment of a society devoid of sincerity, where relationships are built on appearance, artifice and pretense.

In the course of that quest, Phoebe develops an online relationship with Gary, a pop star whose meteoric rise to fame and fortune has crash-landed. As their friendship develops, the two become emotionally dependent on each other, typing out intense conversations deep into the night. But this is a false intimacy. Never meeting face to face, mediated by the computer screen, neither is ever telling the whole truth, and the reader is overwhelmed by a sense of opportunities squandered. Aw, with gentle compassion and a keen understanding of the human condition, deftly manipulates his characters as they succumb to the lure of this city where everything seems possible. Even as the reader is able to acknowledge the flaws of the purposefully shallow Phoebe and of Gary's pampered indolence, for example, we find ourselves compelled by their longings and willing them to a success that Aw is unequivocal in exposing as ultimately conflicted.

Five Star Billionaire is a fiercely contemporary tale of tradition, modernity and the cost of progress. Is fate really determined by sheer force of will alone? When all seems laid before you for the taking, what decisions will you make? The Five Star Billionaire, in the opening of the book, confides, "I was conscious of the price of life's treasures but not yet fully aware of their many limitations." As Aw brings the stories of these five characters to a disturbing but satisfying conclusion, perhaps the best answer is that it is within these very limitations, should we choose to accept them, that we find salvation.

Read an excerpt of Five Star Billionaire

The presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua have said they would be willing to give asylum to Edward Snowden, The Associated Press and other media report.

Snowden, who has leaked secret information about National Security Agency programs, is believed to be holed up in a Moscow airport.

Snowden has petitioned for asylum in several countries, and Friday the website WikiLeaks tweeted that he had applied to six more. It would not name which ones "due to attempted US interference."

According to Reuters, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had "decided to offer humanitarian asylum" to Snowden "so that in the fatherland of (Simon) Bolivar and (Hugo) Chavez, he can come and live away from the imperial North American persecution."

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua says he would give Snowden asylum "if circumstances permit it," the BBC reports.

The announcements follow an incident Tuesday in which Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane was forced to land in Austria, apparently on suspicion Snowden was onboard. Morales returned to support from fellow Latin American leaders, who denounced the disruption.

NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro told host Renee Montagne on Morning Edition the countries have "called it a violation of national sovereignty, an act of imperialism."

Pope John Paul II will be made a saint, the Vatican announced Friday, according to Reuters and other news outlets, including Italy's La Repubblica.

In addition, the wire service writes, "the Vatican said Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963 and called the Second Vatican Council — which enacted sweeping reforms to modernize the Church — would also be made a saint."

As we reported last month, "a committee of theologians [recently] approved a second miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II's posthumous intercession — a sine qua non for sainthood." That miracle involved a Costa Rican woman. It's believed she was cured of a severe brain injury after her family prayed to the memory of the late pope.

John Paul II was pope from 1978 to 2005.

We'll have more on the decisions by Pope Francis as the news develops.

Update at 10 a.m. ET. Vatican Radio's Coverage:

"Journalists in the Holy See Press Office busy getting to grips with Pope Francis' first encyclical the Light of Faith, were somewhat surprised Friday lunchtime when Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. called them back for a second announcement: Pope Francis had approved the cause for canonization of two of his venerable and much loved predecessors Blessed John XXIII and Blessed Pope John Paul II."

In the fight against drug trafficking, Central America has become a large recipient of U.S. aid, receiving nearly half a billion dollars over the past seven years. The money is being spent on strengthening police and military forces that are outgunned by the narcotics traffickers.

The goal is to repeat the kind of success that took place over time in places like Colombia.

But in Honduras, which has become a favorite haven for drug cartels, the security forces remain weak despite the inflow of money. And allegations of corruption, human rights abuses and murder are soaring.

The Deaths Of Two Sons

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The overwhelming and endless stream of electronic alerts and messages on our computers, phones and tablets is driving demand for a new kind of summer camp for adults. "Technology-free" camps that force their campers to surrender their gadgets, wallets and that nagging "fear of missing out" — FOMO — are booking up fast.

In June, Digital Detox held its first session of Camp Grounded, a three-day break from electronic devices in the Redwoods of Northern California. At a price tag of $350, the event sold out.

"You read articles about being present and being in the moment, and you kind of nod your head and you agree. But I don't think you know what that means until you put everything away and you're OK with where you are," says Anastasia Savvina, who attended the June camp.

Tech-free getaway options like this are growing. Hotels like the Lake Placid Lodge in New York and Hotel Monaco Chicago are offering digital detox or "black-out" services. The Check-In to Check-Out package at the Lake Placid Lodge invites guests to leave their electronic devices at the front desk and to immerse themselves in "the serenity of the Adirondacks."

Digital Detox co-founder Levi Felix attributes the high demand for tech-free retreats to a growing awareness of the pervasiveness of technology in our everyday lives. "People are feeling like something's not right here," he says.

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Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called for a wave of protests Friday, furious over the military's ouster of its president and arrest of its revered leader and other top figures, underlining the touchy issue of what role the fundamentalist Islamist movement might play in the new regime.

There are concerns of Islamist violence in retaliation for Mohammed Morsi's ouster, and some former militant extremists have vowed to fight.

Suspected Islamic militants opened fire at four sites in northern Sinai, targeting two military checkpoints, a police station and el-Arish airport, where military aircraft are stationed, security officials said. The military and security responded to the attacks, and one soldier was killed and three were wounded, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

The question of the role of the Brotherhood has long been at the heart of democracy efforts in Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak, ousted in 2011, and previous authoritarian regimes banned the group. After Mubarak's fall, the newly legalized group vaulted to power in elections, and its veteran member Morsi become the country's first freely elected president.

Now the group is reeling under a huge backlash from a public that says the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies abused their electoral mandate. The military forced Morsi out Wednesday after millions of Egyptians turned out in four days of protests.

Adly Mansour, the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, with which Morsi had repeated confrontations, was sworn in as interim president.

In his inaugural speech, broadcast nationwide, he said the anti-Morsi protests that began June 30 had "corrected the path of the glorious revolution of Jan. 25," referring to the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak.

The Brotherhood charged the military staged a coup against democracy and said it would not work with the new leadership. It and harder-line Islamist allies called for a wave of protests Friday, naming it the "Friday of Rage," vowing to escalate if the military does not back down.

Brotherhood officials urged their followers to keep their protests peaceful. Thousands of Morsi supporters remained massed in front of a Cairo mosque where they have camped for days, with line of military armored vehicles across the road keeping watch.

"We declare our complete rejection of the military coup staged against the elected president and the will of the nation," the Brotherhood said in a statement, read by senior cleric Abdel-Rahman el-Barr to the crowd outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo.

"We refuse to participate in any activities with the usurping authorities," the statement said, while urging Morsi supporters to remain peaceful. The Rabia al-Adawiya protesters planned to march Friday to the Ministry of Defense.

The Brotherhood denounced the crackdown, including the shutdown Wednesday night of its television channel, Misr25, its newspaper and three pro-Morsi Islamist TV stations. The military, it said, is returning Egypt to the practices of "the dark, repressive, dictatorial and corrupt ages."

A military statement late Thursday appeared to signal a wider wave of arrests was not in the offing. A spokesman, Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, said in a Facebook posting that that the army and security forces will not take "any exceptional or arbitrary measures" against any political group.

The military has a "strong will to ensure national reconciliation, constructive justice and tolerance," he wrote. He spoke against "gloating" and vengeance, saying only peaceful protests will be tolerated and urging Egyptians not to attack Brotherhood offices to avert an "endless cycle of revenge."

The constitution, which Islamists drafted and Morsi praised as the greatest in the world, has been suspended. Also, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, the Mubarak-era top prosecutor whom Morsi removed to much controversy, was reinstated to his post and immediately announced investigations against Brotherhood officials.

Many of the Brotherhood's opponents want them prosecuted for what they say were crimes committed during Morsi's rule, just as Mubarak was prosecuted for protester deaths during the 2011 uprising. In the past year, dozens were killed in clashes with Brotherhood supporters and with security forces.

The swift moves raise perceptions of a revenge campaign against the Brotherhood.

The National Salvation Front, the top opposition political group during Morsi's presidency and a key member of the coalition that worked with the military in his removal, criticized the moves, saying, "We totally reject excluding any party, particularly political Islamic groups."

The Front has proposed one of its top leaders, Mohammed ElBaradei, to become prime minister of the interim Cabinet, a post that will hold strong powers since Mansour's presidency post is considered symbolic. ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, is considered Egypt's top reform advocate.

"Reconciliation is the name of the game, including the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to be inclusive," Munir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, a leading member of the group, told The Associated Press. "The detentions are a mistake."

He said the arrests appeared to be prompted by security officials' fears over possible calls for violence by Brotherhood leaders. There may be complaints against certain individuals in the Brotherhood "but they don't justify the detention," he said, predicting they will be released in the coming days.

Morsi has been under detention in an unknown location since Wednesday night, and at least a dozen of his top aides and advisers have been under what is described as "house arrest," though their locations are also unknown.

Besides the Brotherhood's top leader, General Guide Mohammed Badie, security officials have also arrested his predecessor, Mahdi Akef, and one of his two deputies, Rashad Bayoumi, as well as Saad el-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and ultraconservative Salafi figure Hazem Abu Ismail, who has a considerable street following.

Authorities have also issued a wanted list for more than 200 Brotherhood members and leaders of other Islamist groups. Among them is Khairat el-Shater, another deputy of the general guide who is widely considered the most powerful figure in the Brotherhood.

The arrest of Badie was a dramatic step, since even Mubarak and his predecessors had been reluctant to move against the group's top leader. The ranks of Brotherhood members across the country swear a strict oath of unquestioning allegiance to the general guide, vowing to "hear and obey." It has been decades since a Brotherhood general guide was put in a prison.

Badie and el-Shater were widely believed by the opposition to be the real power in Egypt during Morsi's term. Badie was arrested late Wednesday from a villa where he had been staying in the Mediterranean coastal city of Marsa Matrouh and flown by helicopter to Cairo, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Mahmoud, the top prosecutor, said he was opening investigations into the killing of protesters during Morsi's rule. He ordered el-Katatni and Bayoumi questioned on allegations of instigating violence and killing and put travel bans on 36 others, a sign they, too, could face prosecution. He also took steps toward releasing an activist detained for insulting Morsi.

Say you're in Midtown Manhattan at rush hour. You need to go a mile uptown, and you can't find a cab. A pedicab, a taxi-bicycle hybrid (like the one in the picture) may not be a bad option.

Riding through the middle of Manhattan on the back of a bike, dodging buses and cabs, feels like the Wild West of transportation options. The pricing feels that way too: Unlike buses or cabs, pedicabs don't charge a set fee. It's whatever the rider and the driver agree to. And, like in the Wild West, innocents often get fleeced.

"Last August, somebody was charged $442 to go from Mary Poppins to a restaurant called Milos," says Laramie Flick, a pedicab driver and president of the pedicab owners association. That's a trip of less than a mile. It took about 15 minutes.

"Before the ride, [the driver] told them it was a dollar a block," Flick says. "After the ride, he told them it was a dollar a block, yes, but it was $100 minimum per person. Then he asked them for a tip."

Ibrahim Donmez who has been driving a pedicab for eight years, says: "The whole business is based on hustling."

But New York City does not want tourists to leave town feeling like they got hosed by a pedicab driver. So the city worked with Flick and the pedicab drivers to come up with new rules, which are set to take effect next week. The drivers can still choose their own rates. But those rates have to be posted clearly, and they have to apply to all customers.

Flick likes the new rules. Other drivers don't. Donmez, who has been a driver for eight years, says he should work be able to cut any deal he wants — and to charge more if the route is uphill, or if it's raining, or for whatever reason he wants. "It's a human-powered business," he says.

Why does anyone buy Bayer aspirin — or Tylenol, or Advil — when, almost always, there's a bottle of cheaper generic pills, with the same active ingredient, sitting right next to the brand-name pills?

Matthew Gentzkow, an economist at the University of Chicago's Booth school, recently tried to answer this question. Along with a few colleagues, Gentzkow set out to test a hypothesis: Maybe people buy the brand-name pills because they just don't know that the generic version is basically the same thing.

"We came up with what is probably the simplest idea you've ever heard of," Gentzkow says. "Let's just look and see if people who are well-informed about these things still pay extra to buy brands."

In other words, do doctors, nurses and pharmacists pay extra for Tylenol instead of acetaminophen, or buy Advil instead of ibuprofen?

Gentzkow and his colleagues looked at a huge dataset of over 66 million shopping trips and found that, "lo and behold, nurses, doctors and pharmacists are much less likely to buy brands than average consumers," Gentzkow says. (Their findings are written up here.)

Pharmacists, for example, bought generics 90 percent of the time, compared with about 70 percent of the time for the overall population. "In a world where everyone was as well-informed as pharmacist or nurse, the market share of the brands would be much, much smaller than it is today," Gentzkow says.

I asked several people who had a bottle of Bayer or Tylenol or Advil at home why they'd bought the brand name. One guy told me he didn't want his wife to think he was cheap. A woman told me Bayer reminded her of her grandmother. Another guy, a lawyer, said he just didn't want to spend the time to figure it out, and decided it was worth the extra couple bucks to buy the brand.

In general, we often buy brands when we lack information — when, like that lawyer, we decide it's easier to spend the extra money rather than try to figure out what's what.

Jesse Shapiro, one of the co-authors of the headache paper, told me he buys Heinz ketchup rather than the generic brand. He likes Heinz. He thinks it's better than the generic, but he's not sure. "I couldn't promise that, if you blindfolded me, I could tell them apart," he says.

Many people know how to buy things in cyberspace. But what about doing business in outer space? That's the question PayPal says it wants to answer. Citing the looming era of space tourism, the company is creating the PayPal Galactic project along with the SETI Institute, "to help make universal space payments a reality."

The two organizations are announcing their new joint effort Thursday, saying they hope to help solve the big questions that arise with commerce in space. The first hotel orbiting the Earth is slated to open in the next few years.

"Space tourism is opening up to all of us in the next decade or so, and we want to make sure that PayPal is the preferred way to pay from space and in space," PayPal President David Marcus says, in a video accompanying the announcement.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the questions the PayPal Galactic project will take on:

How will the banking systems have to adapt?

How will risk and fraud management systems evolve?

What regulations will we have to conform with?

"PayPal envisions exploring possibilities in space the way that we do, breaking boundaries to make real progress," says SETI astronomer Jill Tarter. "When the SETI Institute succeeds in its exploration of the universe, and as we find our place among the stars, PayPal will be there to facilitate commerce, so people can get what they need, and want, to live outside of our planet."

Among the possibilities are things as rudimentary as paying bills back on Earth while you're out in space, either working as an astronaut or traveling as a tourist. And because life can be quiet in the dark vacuum of space, PayPal expects people living there will need a way to buy things like music and e-books.

"Within five to 10 years the earliest types of 'space hotels' and orbital and lunar commerce will be operational and in need of a payment system," says John Spencer, founder and president of the Space Tourism Society, which is taking part in the research.

The PayPal Galactic project will also try to answer the question, "What will our standard currency look like in a truly cash-free interplanetary society?"

To explore that idea, the company sent out a release that lists currencies used in science fiction, from the Federation credits of Star Trek to the cubits of Battlestar Galactica ... and even the mice of V.

The exploration of how space travelers might pay for things in space is the latest look we've gotten at how people are preparing for space travel to become more common, and more prolonged.

Most notably, news emerged recently that NASA had awarded a contract to experiment with using a 3-D printer to create food for space travelers, possibly for an eventual trip to Mars.

The Galactic project coincides with the 15th anniversary of PayPal's founding; now a part of eBay, the company says it currently services more than 128 million active accounts in more than 190 markets worldwide.

"We wanted to bring the experience we've learned over the last 15 years to help the industry answer the difficult questions that an interplanetary commerce system brings," says PayPal's senior communications director, Anuj Nayar.

The project also includes a crowdfunding campaign to support SETI and its research — and, we assume, to help find new markets in space.

Supplies of oil have been surging this year, and U.S. drivers, who have been switching to more fuel-efficient cars, are using less gasoline.

That would seem to be the right economic combination to push down prices at the pump, but gasoline prices have remained stubbornly high this summer.

Even some people in the industry are wondering whether the law of supply and demand somehow has been repealed.

"I'm actually quite dumbfounded," says Azam Zakaria, vice president of Lone Star Petroleum, a family owned company that owns and operates 15 gas stations in the Houston area.

Zakaria, who has been in the business for nearly three decades, used to believe that more oil would mean lower prices, but he hasn't been seeing that lately.

The disconnect between supply and demand seemed to get even wider Wednesday, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration released its latest data, showing that U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 0.3 million barrels last week. Most experts had been expecting the oil inventory to decline by 0.6 million barrels.

That sort of surprise keeps happening as more and more domestic oil gets pumped. In fact last year, the United States saw the largest-ever yearly rise in oil production, according to a statistical review released last week by BP, the global oil giant.

At the same time, global oil reserves continue to grow, the BP report says.

The price of crude oil, however, continues to hover around $100 a barrel, and an average gallon of regular gasoline is still running above $3.62 nationwide. At the start of this year, the price was about $3.20 a gallon.

Zakaria worries that speculators are pushing up prices beyond what the usual balance of supply and demand would dictate. "Just to be blunt with you, I think that it's a commodity now that is being exchanged at Wall Street," he says.

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

Huge Boost In U.S. Oil Output Set To Transform Global Market

Whether it's a free upgrade on a hotel room or skipping ahead in the check-in line, many businesses give preferential treatment to some customers, hoping to make them more loyal. The practice often works — but a new study suggests that when we get perks we didn't earn, negative feelings can result. And they can make a surprise deal a little less sweet.

That's the gist of a study to be published later this year in the Journal of Consumer Research, with the forthright title "Consumer Reaction to Unearned Preferential Treatment."

"The current research demonstrates that, although receiving unearned preferential treatment does generate positive reactions, it is not always an entirely pleasurable experience," write the study's authors, Lan Jiang, Joandrea Hoegg, and Darren W. Dahl.

The displeasing aspects of a treat tend to peak, they write, when the perks are given in public, in front of other customers who are no different than the recipient of the business's generosity.

"We propose that receiving something that others have just as much right to receive can activate concerns about negative evaluations, reducing the satisfaction with the preferential treatment," write the researchers, who teach marketing at business schools at the University of Oregon and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

The study's authors found that "satisfaction with receiving preferential treatment can be restored if the observer who does not receive such treatment reacts positively to the recipient's good fortune or if the observer is of a higher status than the recipient."

That's right. The test subjects enjoyed "the positive experience of 'beating' a superior'" so much, the authors say, that it brought "increased overall satisfaction."

It also helps if nobody's looking. To test that theory, the researchers conducted experiments to test "feelings of social discomfort" and try to determine where they come from. They found that even in the most seemingly fair context — a random drawing — the winner felt best about it if they were alone.

All of the tests placed participants in situations in which one person received a surprise bonus. In one case, a booth that was dispensing free product samples suddenly gave one subject more than the others. That was welcomed — especially if no one else was around.

"It's like they wanted to get out of there," co-author JoAndrea Hoegg tells The Globe and Mail. "It's the fear of negative evaluation. If you're getting something you don't deserve, you're thrilled – as long as no one is watching you."

All of this isn't meant to imply that businesses should stop giving people free perks, the researchers say. The trick is to be sure all customers know the deal — and why they're not getting it. Other options include using scratch-off game tabs and loyalty emails, which can be kept private, to connect with customers.

Such steps, they say, "would minimize the potential for negative emotions."

The next couple of days will bring fireworks, hot dogs — and a new unemployment report.

At least the first two will be fun.

As for Friday's job-market assessment, the Labor Department report likely will show little or no change in the 7.6 percent unemployment rate. "There is still a general weakness in the labor market," says Daniel North, economist with Euler Hermes, a credit insurance company.

North estimates that employers added about 160,000 jobs in June, matching what most other economists are forecasting. Those forecasts may tick up a bit Wednesday because ADP, a company that tracks payroll data, said that in June, private companies hired 188,000 workers, somewhat more than expected.

But once private job gains are combined with government job cuts, the overall employment trajectory is in line with what economists have been seeing throughout the recovery: slow progress. Since late 2010, U.S. employers have been adding an average of 175,000 jobs per month.

"That's well below the 250,000-jobs-a-month pace that we need to really be growing," North said. "We're just running in place."

Unfortunately, North's dreary assessment could sum up the entire recovery, which began exactly four years ago. The economy, which had been in free fall in late 2008, hit bottom in June 2009. Then in July of that year, growth resumed.

The Two-Way

Good Signs: Jobless Claims Dip And Job Growth Picks Up

Why does anyone buy Bayer aspirin — or Tylenol, or Advil — when, almost always, there's a bottle of cheaper generic pills, with the same active ingredient, sitting right next to the brand-name pills?

Matthew Gentzkow, an economist at the University of Chicago's Booth school, recently tried to answer this question. Along with a few colleagues, Gentzkow set out to test a hypothesis: Maybe people buy the brand-name pills because they just don't know that the generic version is basically the same thing.

"We came up with what is probably the simplest idea you've ever heard of," Gentzkow says. "Let's just look and see if people who are well-informed about these things still pay extra to buy brands."

In other words, do doctors, nurses and pharmacists pay extra for Tylenol instead of acetaminophen, or buy Advil instead of ibuprofen?

Gentzkow and his colleagues looked at a huge dataset of over 66 million shopping trips and found that, "lo and behold, nurses, doctors and pharmacists are much less likely to buy brands than average consumers," Gentzkow says. (Their findings are written up here.)

Pharmacists, for example, bought generics 90 percent of the time, compared with about 70 percent of the time for the overall population. "In a world where everyone was as well-informed as pharmacist or nurse, the market share of the brands would be much, much smaller than it is today," Gentzkow says.

I asked several people who had a bottle of Bayer or Tylenol or Advil at home why they'd bought the brand name. One guy told me he didn't want his wife to think he was cheap. A woman told me Bayer reminded her of her grandmother. Another guy, a lawyer, said he just didn't want to spend the time to figure it out, and decided it was worth the extra couple bucks to buy the brand.

In general, we often buy brands when we lack information — when, like that lawyer, we decide it's easier to spend the extra money rather than try to figure out what's what.

Jesse Shapiro, one of the co-authors of the headache paper, told me he buys Heinz ketchup rather than the generic brand. He likes Heinz. He thinks it's better than the generic, but he's not sure. "I couldn't promise that, if you blindfolded me, I could tell them apart," he says.

Miguelo Rada doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd have extra cash. He just spent 32 years in prison, he lives in a halfway house in West Harlem, and his current income comes only from public assistance.

He uses food stamps for food, wears hand-me-down clothes and buys almost nothing. He is also an unofficial bank.

"If somebody asks me, 'Can I borrow $20?' If I have it I'll say, 'Here!' " he says.

This kind of borrowing is one way people do what economists call "consumption smoothing" – basically making spending more regular, even when income is not.

Some people use credit cards or banks to smooth consumption. Others use each other, says Jonathan Morduch, an NYU professor, who studies how ordinary people make ends meet.

"Sometimes we do see people who say, 'I'm getting my money on the 17th, you're getting your money on the 2nd,' and they actually split their checks," he says.

Rada says the people he's lending to often have bad credit, so they can't borrow from banks. His version of a credit check is asking people "What's the problem? Is there a way out?" His ledger, he keeps in his head. And he says he doesn't charge interest.

Rada also accepts deposits for people like his brother, who have a hard time managing their own money. "I say, 'You want me to hold something for you?' So he gave me a hundred, and I held his hundred."

A while later, when his brother came back for the money, "I asked him, 'What's going on? What do you need this for?' " Rada says. "He told me, 'I gotta take care of this bill,' and I went with him."

There are downsides to informal lending. Borrowers don't build up a credit history that allows them to get credit cards and formal loans. And borrowing from friends and family can be a downer.

"When you put family in, then they have the right to critique," says Tamara Bullock, a funeral director in Harlem.

Bullock is part of a bank-like savings club called a sou-sou. In the last one Bullock was in, 13 people promised to pitch in $100 each every two weeks. And every two weeks, one member of the group got $1,300.

Bullock says she loves sou-sous because they force her to save. "There's no 'ifs' and 'buts' because other people are depending on you," she says.

Bullock has been working her way out of deep debt. When she got her most recent $1,300 from the sou-sou, she used it to pay off a debt to a collection agency.

But it isn't always about getting out of debt; a while back, Bullock and her colleague Patricia Hamilton used some of their sou-sou money to go sky diving. Hamilton wants to celebrate her 62nd birthday by taking Bullock sky diving again with her next sou-sou payout. Bullock is trying to get out of it.

For more on Jonathan Morduch's work on how people make ends meet, see the U.S. Financial Diaries Project.

For at least a millennium, the heart of Britain's commercial and financial industries has been the City of London.

The City is not the large metropolis we know as London. It's much older and smaller. Many call it the Square Mile, though it's not square and a bit bigger than a mile. It's the home to big banks, medieval alleyways and St. Paul's Cathedral. And, for all those centuries, the area has had the same local government with an unusual name: The City of London Corporation.

This little government does more than just run schools and collect what the Brits call rubbish. It's a stealth power.

Architecture

Change Is On The Horizon For London's Famous Skyline

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In 2011, the state of California created a problem for the soda industry.

The caramel color that Coke and Pepsi used to give colas that distinctive brown hue contained a chemical, 4-methylimidazole — 4-MEI — that is listed as a carcinogen by the state.

And in accordance with California's Proposition 65 law, the levels of 4-MEI found in sodas would have warranted a cancer warning label on every can sold in the state.

So, as I reported last year, Coke and Pepsi both said they would switch to a reformulated caramel color, one that did not contain 4-MEI.

Now, it appears that both companies have managed to complete this transition for sodas sold in the state of California.

But a new analysis by the Center for Environmental Health found that 10 of 10 samples of Pepsi products purchased nationwide during the month of June (in locations outside California) contained levels of 4-MEI that were about four to eight times higher than the safety thresholds set by California. The testing was conducted by Eurofins Analytical laboratory in Metairie, La.

In contrast, nine of the 10 samples of Coke products purchased in locations outside California contained little or no trace of 4-MEI.

"We applaud Coke," wrote Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, in a release announcing the findings.

"Pepsi's delay is inexplicable," Green added. "We urge the company to take swift action."

A Pepsi spokesperson tells The Salt that sodas sold throughout the U.S. should complete the transition to the new caramel coloring by February 2014. The company says efforts are also underway to switch the color formulation for sodas distributed globally.

"The FDA and other regulatory agencies around the world, including the European Food Safety Authority and Health Canada, consider our caramel coloring safe for use in foods and beverages," Pepsi Co. wrote in an email to The Salt.

So, are the higher levels of 4-MEI found in sodas using the old formulation a threat to human health? Well, consider the dose.

The FDA issued a statement last year, before the formulation of caramel coloring was changed, stating that a consumer would have to drink more than 1,000 cans of soda a day to reach the doses that have been shown to lead to cancer in rodents.

And the American Beverage Association wrote in a statement last year that "the science simply does not show that 4-MEI in foods or beverages is a threat to human health."

The celebrations in Egypt continue following the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi by the nation's military, which has played a dominant role in the country since the 1952 coup.

With the overthrow of Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, still fresh in many people's minds, the question becomes what this coup, of a democratically elected president, means for Egypt's transition.

Artisanal food fever is raging, and the latest sign is the rise in sales of old-fashioned butter churns.

Purveyor Glenda Lehman Ervin of Lehman's sells old-timey kitchen gadgets online and at her family's store in Kidron, Ohio. She says the clientele is quite diverse. "There are lots of people interested," she says.

It's not just homesteaders, hipsters and do-it-yourself-minded foodies getting in on the hands-on pursuit.

This hobby has now spread to 40-something suburbanites, as I learned a few weeks back when I received an email invite to a butter-churning party.

Bring the kids, and bring your own cream (BYOC), the note said. The host, my friend Jerry Casagrande, promised ping-pong too, perhaps in anticipation that the churning might get old quick.

Now, if you listen to my story, you'll appreciate that the technical feat of turning cream into butter is not much of a feat — if you follow the directions.

One of the most important make-or-break steps is the 15 to 20 minutes of continuous, vigorous churning, which entails cranking a handle. This can be a real work out for the arms — if you actually stick with the task. "It gets tiring," Casagrande, the butter-churn owner said. "That's why it's good to have a butter-churning party."

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This story, which was originally posted on July 2, has been updated to reflect the events in Egypt today.

After days of growing protests across Egypt, the military has removed embattled President Mohammed Morsi and suspended the country's constitution, paving the way for an interim government ahead of early presidential elections.

Two years ago, during Egypt's 2011 revolution, the storyline was simple. A broad cross section of Egyptians took to the streets to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak, the president who had been in power for three decades.

The plot is much more complicated in the latest upheaval. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, is an Islamist who was democratically elected. The military, which was in conflict with the protesters two years ago, is now allied with the demonstrators, who have been calling for Morsi's ouster.

Here's a look at the major players — and where they stand — in the country's latest political crisis:

Mohammed Morsi: The U.S.-educated engineer became Egypt's first democratically elected president in June 2012, and was ousted from power a year later, on July 3. According to reports in the Egyptian state media, he and scores of other officials are now under a travel ban.

Morsi is using his official presidential Twitter feed to respond to his removal from power by Egypt's military, saying it represents "a full coup categorically rejected by all the free men of our nation." He also has urged his followers to "adhere to peacefulness and avoid shedding blood of fellow countrymen."

His next moves are unclear.

Morsi ran into trouble almost immediately after his election. His opponents accused him of authoritarianism and demanded that he step down. Morsi's supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood rallied strongly behind Morsi, and clashed in the streets with his opponents.

Through a spokesman, Morsi acknowledged mistakes during the standoff leading up to his ouster, but remained defiant until the end, insisting he would not step down.

The Military: The military's involvement in events this week thrust the armed forces back into the center of Egyptian politics. The military effectively ran Egypt for 16 months after Mubarak's ouster, but retreated after Morsi was elected.

Despite its role in engineering and announcing Morsi's overthrow and a plan for political transition, the military has said it is not looking to take power. And it is "still licking its wounds from the year and a half in which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces directed Egypt's transition to democracy," writes RAND Middle East analyst Jeffrey Martini in Foreign Affairs. But, he notes, "June 2013 is not January 2011 ... Having intervened once and gotten burned in the process, the generals are likely to be a lot more circumspect this time around."

Nonetheless, the military declared it will "sacrifice even our blood for Egypt and its people, to defend them against any terrorist, radical or fool." It remains to be seen how far it's prepared to go.

Protesters: United under the name Tamarod — Arabic for rebellion — the protesters began their campaign two months ago as a signature petition to demand Morsi's ouster. The group, which said it gathered 22 million signatures, rallied in Cairo and across the country last Sunday, the first anniversary of Morsi's ascension to the presidency. The ranks of protesters swelled, culminating in Morsi's overthrow Wednesday.

Members of the youth group that led the charge against Morsi were present at today's announcement.

Protesters were calling for new presidential elections — a demand that appears to be met by the transition plan laid out today. The New York Times has written that the five friends who began the signature campaign all "worked in opposition news media, but have distanced themselves from political parties. They were all Muslims and personally devout, but deeply distrustful of the political Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood."

U.S.: Morsi's ouster may present a prickly situation to the U.S. government, NPR's Michele Kelemen says. So far, the White House has not officially commented on today's events, although Kelemen notes that U.S. officials might hesitate to call the incident a coup.

The U.S. recently released more than $1 billion in military aid to the country that is dependent on the Egyptian government meeting certain democracy standards — and precludes aid to countries where the elected head of government is deposed by a military coup or decree.

Earlier, the White House had said publicly that it's committed to democracy in Egypt, and urged Morsi to ensure "that the voices of all Egyptians are heard and represented by their government." It's a message that was reiterated earlier today during a State Department news briefing — before the military announced Morsi's removal.

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

Directors: Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori

Genre: Documentary

Running Time: 111 minutes

Rated PG-13 for profanity, drug and alcohol abuse

(Recommended)

War is hell, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman is famously said to have uttered.* And the food, he might as well have added, was pretty lousy, too.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg — a turning point in the Civil War — it's worth remembering that the men who fought on that Pennsylvania field did so while surviving on food that would make most of us surrender in dismay.

Insects and other critters commonly made it into Union soldiers' meals in the form of hardtack — a stiff, flavorless cracker that could cost you a tooth if you bit it into it. (The biscuit was meant to be softened by dipping it in stew or coffee.) Along with salt pork or beef, hardtack — which the soldiers called "worm castles" or "teeth dullers" — was a staple of soldiers' rucksacks. Yum.

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Would you wear a coat made entirely of male chest hair?

As part of an advertising campaign to cast a new chocolate milk drink as a "manly" beverage, the British branch of an international dairy company commissioned the "Man-Fur Coat," created from chest hair donated by 300 male volunteers.

A common reaction seems to be disgust. The top comment to an article introducing the coat at The Grocer, a food industry news blog, begins, "First of all: gross." The second comment concurs ("I agree with Hans – this is gross!"). Over at BuzzFeed, the caption to a photo of a female model wearing the coat reads: "This model tried to suppress her nausea when she tried it on ... I'd say she wasn't so successful."

I'm reminded of another British novelty from 2011: ice cream made of human breast milk. While the expensive confection was in some ways a success, with the first batch of vanilla and lemon-flavored dessert selling within days, the product also generated some aversion. To quote one poetic comment from an NPR blog, "eeeuuuuuwwww! that's even bizarre for my open mind. gross out time."

Another news story referred to the ice cream as a "stomach-churning" product.

Why do many of us find the idea of wearing human hair or consuming human milk disgusting? And why don't many of us find the idea of cladding ourselves in non-human fur and downing milk from bovines equally disconcerting? What makes one repulsive and one routine? After all, the human products come from consenting animals that are just like us; the others do not.

I don't know the answers to these questions, but here are two ideas.

First, of course, is familiarity. Many people grow up dressing in non-human animal fur and eating non-human animal products. Even though our default reaction to contact with animal products is often disgust, cultural exposure can be enough to overcome this initial response. For example, Himalayan villagers sometimes drink warm blood from a yak's slit neck — a non-human animal product likely to be foreign and, potentially, disgusting to most Americans. But if we grew up wearing man-fur coats to keep us warm as we indulged in some breast milk ice cream with a cup of warm yak blood, these activities wouldn't elicit the same visceral reaction.

Second, and more speculatively, we typically think of humans as individuals. They have personalities. We like some of them. We dislike others. Show us a photo and we'll say, "that's Anton, Bernice and Charlie!", not "there are some people" or "some animals" or "some organisms." You might not like Charlie. You might not want to dress in his chest hair. You might like Charlie. You might worry about whether his chest hair was freely given or extracted under duress. Even when the chest hair comes from anonymous donors, you can't help but think of them as real live males, with the usual assortment of virtues, flaws and cooties.

When it comes to non-human animals, especially those that (who?) aren't pets, we're more likely to think of them en masse, a group of anonymous and equivalent individuals. One cow is like another; a certain amount of cow-stuff. We mentally standardize and sanitize them, strip them of unique characteristics and think of them as mere components of some final product, as things. And non-biological things rarely elicit disgust, even if we don't want to eat them (think internal robot parts — hardly appetizing but no reason to wrinkle your nose).

Of course, these reactions don't describe all people, or even some people in all situations. The way people conceptualize humans and non-humans is malleable, and part of what's so fascinating about the man-fur coat (and breast milk ice cream) is how it challenges our working assumptions about what is and isn't appropriate or appealing.

After all, why shouldn't we wear "fur" from our own species and eat our own secretions? And if we have any misgivings when it comes to humans, shouldn't we at least question the practice of wearing and eating other species?

Jim Kelly, who rose to fame in the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon and went on to star in several blaxploitation films, has died. He was 67.

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reported on Kelly's death for our Newscast unit. Here's what he said:

"Black Belt Jones, Three the Hard Way and Black Samurai — all starring Jim Kelly as an African-American martial arts master — busy looking good in a funky Afro.

"Kelly's break-out role was in the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon.

"It's a favorite of martial arts film fan Christopher Scott of Brooklyn, N.Y.: 'If it wasn't for him, there wouldn't be any other martial arts in different colors.'

"According to his ex-wife, Jim Kelly died of cancer on Saturday at home in San Diego."

The Obama administration's decision late Tuesday to postpone the requirement for employers with 50 or more workers to offer health coverage or risk fines has satisfied some key members of the coalition that supported the law.

But the one-year reprieve also raises new questions about the administration's ability to get the huge health law up and running in an orderly fashion. The deadline for the new health exchanges to begin enrolling individuals is Oct. 1.

The announcement that the employer provisions would be delayed came in a blog post on the Treasury Department's website.

"We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively," wrote Treasury Assistant Secretary Mark Mazur about long-delayed rules to guide employers in report voluminous amounts of information about the insurance they provide to their workers.

But in delaying the reporting requirements by a year, Mazur wrote, "we recognize this transition relief will make it impractical to determine which employers owe shared responsibility payments."

What does that mean? It's a reference to the part of the law that requires employers with 50 or more workers to pay fines if they fail to provide adequate insurance and some of their workers end up claiming federally subsidized coverage in the health exchanges.

The administration delayed that requirement — or at least won't enforce it — for a year as well.

Business groups hailed the decision as a pragmatic one.

"It is welcome relief that the Administration took this step, particularly in light of the numerous questions that remained in terms of how companies were supposed to comply with the employer mandate provisions that were originally set to take effect next year," said Gretchen Young of the ERISA Industry Committee. "We do appreciate the sensitivity of the Administration to our concerns and hope that it will carry forward into other difficult issues as well."

The change, however, doesn't affect the requirement that individuals have coverage starting Jan. 1, 2014. "We are full steam ahead for the Marketplaces opening on October 1," Valerie Jarrett wrote separately on the White House blog Tuesday night.

But critics aren't so sure.

"The ObamaCare Train Derails," crowed the headline on a news release from the Republican National Committee, which goes on to note that "the delay marks another 'significant setback' for Obama."

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum and a longtime critic of the health law, noted that delaying the employer requirements could have the effect of pushing more people into the health exchanges, and because many will qualify for federal help that will make the law more expensive for taxpayers.

"At a minimum, the federal revenue from the fines is gone," he wrote. "More realistically, the costs of already-bloated insurance subsidies will escalate and the red ink will rise."

Meanwhile, delaying the employer provisions through the 2014 election year could have one politically beneficial aspect for the administration, noted Jackson Hewitt Tax Service: "This one-year respite may make employers (e.g., restaurant and retail establishments) less likely to reduce employee hours below 30 hours per week."

Fines apply only for full-time workers, and full-time status is defined in the law as being 30 hours or more. The news has been full of stories of companies cutting workers hours back to stay below the 30-hour threshold as the deadline approaches.

All this week, NPR is taking a look at the demographic changes that could reshape the political landscape in Texas over the next decade — and what that could mean for the rest of the country.

For most of the 20th century, Texas was a stronghold for Democrats. But Republicans have dominated the state for decades now.

An organization created by veterans of President Obama's presidential campaigns wants to change that. The group says the state's shifting demographics — including a fast-growing Hispanic population — combined with an intense grass-roots effort can create an opportunity for Democrats.

A New Campaign

It's 4 p.m. on a weekday afternoon in downtown Houston, where about 200 volunteers have gathered in a union hall to hear from a 34-year-old political whiz and data cruncher.

Jeremy Bird's skill at identifying potential voters, getting them registered and turning them out was a key part of Obama's election — and re-election.

Bird asks the group, "Are you fired up?" and they respond: "Ready to go!"

Clearly old habits die hard for the 2012 Obama campaign's national field director.

But Bird is in Houston to talk about his new mission: Battleground Texas. He tells his audience it will be very hard work, but that it's OK to believe that Texas is a place where Democrats can win.

More 'Texas 2020'

It's All Politics

How To Turn A Red State Blue: California Edition

For many watching the abortion fight in Texas, it's deja vu all over again.

Abortion-rights protesters once again gathered Monday at the state capitol building to express their outrage at the Legislature's attempt to further restrict abortions in the state. The images from Austin looked a lot like the previous week's when state Sen. Wendy Davis famously filibustered to stop the legislation from passing.

But another reason the scene looks familiar is that Texas is the latest state in which protesters in the hundreds have descended on a Republican-controlled state capitol to try to stop legislative efforts to implement elements of a conservative agenda.

And just as the protesters in Texas appear to have the odds against them, so did protesters in Wisconsin and North Carolina who failed to stop the changes that spurred their activism.

In Wisconsin, protesters laid siege to the state capitol in 2011 as part of an attempt to turn back the effort by Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature to restrict the collective bargaining power of most public employee unions.

Not only did protesters fail to stop the legislation they despised but they also fell short in their goal to oust Walker or to gain partial control of the Legislature.

This spring, protesters in North Carolina, led by the NAACP, staged what they called Moral Mondays, rallies at the state capitol building in Raleigh to protest legislative efforts by the Republican governor and lawmakers that progressives found abhorrent.

Many demonstrators wound up getting arrested, placing further strains on an already strained county court system, according to one news report.

But they couldn't stop the conservative agenda put forward by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and GOP lawmakers. Among the laws pushed through: an end to long-term jobless benefits and a resumption of executions, a penalty that had been halted for several years owing to concerns about racial disparities in death sentences.

Measured by their success in stopping the legislative efforts that galvanized them, the protests in North Carolina and Wisconsin didn't accomplish much, at least to date. And in Texas, protesters are likely to share a similar outcome.

But these protests may end up advancing other goals. They've served as focal points for organizing, they've helped new leaders to surface and they've proved to be great tools for raising money.

The Texas protests, for example, have raised Davis' profile, sparking talk that she could use the publicity as a springboard to run for governor. Texas Democrats have also used the protests and the successful filibuster to raise money. That's a double-edged sword, however: Republicans have countered by telling their own supporters that their donations can help protect against "mob rule."

War is hell, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman is famously said to have uttered.* And the food, he might as well have added, was pretty lousy, too.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg — a turning point in the Civil War — it's worth remembering that the men who fought on that Pennsylvania field did so while surviving on food that would make most of us surrender in dismay.

Insects and other critters commonly made it into Union soldiers' meals in the form of hardtack — a stiff, flavorless cracker that could cost you a tooth if you bit it into it. (The biscuit was meant to be softened by dipping it in stew or coffee.) Along with salt pork or beef, hardtack — which the soldiers called "worm castles" or "teeth dullers" — was a staple of soldiers' rucksacks. Yum.

Enlarge image i

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

Directors: Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori

Genre: Documentary

Running Time: 111 minutes

Rated PG-13 for profanity, drug and alcohol abuse

(Recommended)

The next couple of days will bring fireworks, hot dogs — and a new unemployment report.

At least the first two will be fun.

As for Friday's job-market assessment, the Labor Department report likely will show little or no change in the 7.6 percent unemployment rate. "There is still a general weakness in the labor market," said Daniel North, economist with Euler Hermes, a credit insurance company.

North estimates that employers added about 160,000 jobs in June, matching what most other economists are forecasting. Those forecasts may tick up a bit Wednesday because ADP, a company that tracks payroll data, said that in June, private companies hired 188,000 workers, somewhat more than expected.

But once private job gains are combined with government job cuts, the overall employment trajectory is in line with what economists have been seeing throughout the recovery: slow progress. Since late 2010, U.S. employers have been adding an average of 175,000 jobs per month.

"That's well below the 250,000-jobs-a-month pace that we need to really be growing," North said. "We're just running in place."

Unfortunately, North's dreary assessment could sum up the entire recovery, which began exactly four years ago. The economy, which had been in free fall in late 2008, hit bottom in June 2009. Then in July of that year, growth resumed.

The Two-Way

Good Signs: Jobless Claims Dip And Job Growth Picks Up

Former South African President Nelson Mandela remains in stable but critical condition at a Pretoria hospital, where he's been since June 8 for treatment of a serious lung infection.

The anti-apartheid hero, who survived 27 years in jail and decades of oppression, is 15 days shy of his 95th birthday.

Meanwhile, members of his family are involved in what seems to be a nasty legal battle over where some of his kin have been buried. As The Associated Press writes:

"A family feud over the burial site of three of Nelson Mandela's children intensified Tuesday when criminal charges were filed against one of his grandsons."

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Google scored a victory this week when an appeals court ruled that the Authors Guild and other organizations couldn't collectively sue the tech giant over its digital library project. Writers groups alleged in a 2005 suit that Google violated copyright laws by scanning more than 20 million books for its online library without permission, but Google claims that it is fair use to display snippets of books in web searches. With the new ruling, authors may have to sue Google individually. Matt Kallman, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement, "We are delighted by the court's decision. The investment we have made in Google Books benefits readers and writers alike, helping unlock the great pool of knowledge contained in millions of books."

"Media strategist" Ryan Holiday says he promoted his book, appropriately titled Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, by using false tips and lies about the amount of his advance to trick media outlets such as Gawker into covering his book. He lays out his dastardly plan on The Observer's BetaBeat blog: "It went like this: I would grossly exaggerate the size of my book advance in a press release and let the gossip mill take this number and run with it. I would encourage bloggers and reporters to speculate that it was a celebrity tell-all about high-profile clients of mine like Dov Charney and Tucker Max. In effect, I'd be using the media's weakness for sensationalism to get them to expose their weakness for sensationalism."

Listen to actor Stephen Fry read Oscar Wilde's story "The Happy Prince" in deep, soothing, manly British tones.

For Bookforum, Sarah Leonard breaks down the contradiction embodied by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute exhibit PUNK: Chaos to Couture: "Punks created these looks out of cheap materials and trash while living in cold-water flats and burned-out buildings, but the couturiers bring such skill and resources to bear on their ideas that, despite the obvious stupidity of calling an expensive chiffon gown punk, one can't help but admire the spectacle. In those of us with a tribal loyalty to the culture, this produces a giddy feeling: thrilling to the looks of a $6,000 jacket, while simultaneously despising its existence."

Victoria Barnsley, the longtime CEO of HarperCollins UK is stepping down, and will be replaced, delightfully enough, by Charlie Redmayne, CEO of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter website Pottermore (where, if you are so inclined, you can brew your own potions and practice the "Jelly-Legs Jinx"). He had worked for HarperCollins until 2008 as Chief Digital Officer.

For The Paris Review, Ted Scheinman infiltrates Jane Austen summer camp. From his diary: "E-mails from the braintrust inform me that I am to play Mr. Darcy at the Meryton Assembly on Saturday night, to which end I must shave my beard and attend two sessions of Regency dance instruction, all while perfecting my scowl."

The textbook company Cengage Learning said Tuesday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. CEO Michael Hansen had warned last month that bankruptcy might be a necessary step, as Cengage was struggling with more than $5 billion in long-term debt as of March.

The convenience stores will tell you this battle is all about, well, convenience for consumers.

Right now, if residents want to kick back with a cold beer on Sundays, they have to plan ahead. That's no good for customers — and no good for convenience stores, either, says Dave Bridgers, vice president of Thorntons, a convenience store chain.

"Not having the ability to sell what our customers want impacts our bottom line," Bridgers says.

Even though Thorntons was founded in Indiana, it hasn't opened a new store in the state since 2006 — and the state's antiquated liquor laws are the reason why, Bridgers says.

"We will continue to invest in other states," he adds, "where laws are more business friendly to our company, and where it makes the most economic sense."

Thorntons has been expanding in bordering Kentucky and Ohio instead. But, along with other retailers, it has also spent the last five years lobbying Indiana's general assembly to change the state's alcohol laws. After legislation failed to gain traction again this year, these retailers filed a federal lawsuit seeking to sell cold beer.

"You don't have choice. You don't have competition," says Scott Imus, who heads the convenience store owners' trade association. "We've done extensive price surveys at liquor stores and find that they add either $1 to $2 on a case of beer, on cold or warm. I mean, Subway doesn't charge more to heat my sandwich."

You might think that liquor stores would have the most to gain from Sunday sales. So why are they fighting to keep Indiana's blue laws intact?

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The Two-Way

Will Blue Laws Make For A Melancholy Super Bowl Sunday?

The convenience stores will tell you this battle is all about, well, convenience for consumers.

Right now, if residents want to kick back with a cold beer on Sundays, they have to plan ahead. That's no good for customers — and no good for convenience stores, either, says Dave Bridgers, vice president of Thorntons, a convenience store chain.

"Not having the ability to sell what our customers want impacts our bottom line," Bridgers says.

Even though Thorntons was founded in Indiana, it hasn't opened a new store in the state since 2006 — and the state's antiquated liquor laws are the reason why, Bridgers says.

"We will continue to invest in other states," he adds, "where laws are more business friendly to our company, and where it makes the most economic sense."

Thorntons has been expanding in bordering Kentucky and Ohio instead. But, along with other retailers, it has also spent the last five years lobbying Indiana's general assembly to change the state's alcohol laws. After legislation failed to gain traction again this year, these retailers filed a federal lawsuit seeking to sell cold beer.

"You don't have choice. You don't have competition," says Scott Imus, who heads the convenience store owners' trade association. "We've done extensive price surveys at liquor stores and find that they add either $1 to $2 on a case of beer, on cold or warm. I mean, Subway doesn't charge more to heat my sandwich."

You might think that liquor stores would have the most to gain from Sunday sales. So why are they fighting to keep Indiana's blue laws intact?

More From NPR

The Two-Way

Will Blue Laws Make For A Melancholy Super Bowl Sunday?

Peter grew up in St. Paul and was used to Swedish and Norwegian dinner conversation. My mom and her sister had been raised in Oklahoma and had moved to New York. My aunt's husband's family had been lucky on the oil fields. My aunt had an oil fortune. My mom had my dad, an importer of men's hats, not a growing business in the 1970s. The two of them, because of their different situations, had developed very different political opinions, and on the night Peter came to dinner, my mother and aunt were discussing the oil pipeline in Alaska, though if you hadn't been to dinner with them before, you wouldn't know this. Because here's how the conversation began.

Caribou Vs. Toast

My aunt looked across the table at my mother, and said, with no apparent prompting, as if she was resuming an old refrain, "All I want, Mickey (my mom was called Mickey) is a piece of toast. Surely, that is not too much to ask."

Peter looked puzzled.

"And all I want — ALL I WANT — ", said my mother, "is to save thousands of innocent animals who will die for your toast."

There was a question forming in Peter's eyes.

" ... And no piece of toast, NO PIECE OF TOAST," my mom went on, "is worth that kind of suffering. When you think of all those animals ... I mean, really, how selfish ... "

"Selfish!" said my aunt, waving an invisible piece of bread in the air, "I'm not asking for a fur coat here, I am asking a single piece of bread, and I think, I really think that at this point, we, all of us, are entitled at least to that ... "

Peter looked at me. So I leaned over, and I translated. "My aunt," I explained, thinks we should have an oil pipe line from Alaska to the lower 48. If we don't, she believes America will be so energy depleted, so oil poor, that there won't be enough electricity for her to make toast. Not even one piece."

"Really?" Peter asked.

"Yes," I said.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Zone Improvement Plan, the network of ZIP codes we use for everything from mail delivery to credit card security.

The U.S. Postal Service began using the five-digit codes on July 1, 1963, hoping they would improve the efficiency and speed of mail sorting. Since then, the codes have assumed a role in the identities of many Americans, helping to define where they live or work.

In recognition of the anniversary (and because we are geeky), we've examined the list of more than 40,000 ZIP codes. Here are nine worth noting, based on data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and Esri, a leading geographic software company:

The One With The Most Businesses: 10001 (map)

This New York City ZIP code includes the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan and, according to the Census Bureau, contains more businesses than any other in the U.S.: 7,227. Those businesses employ more than 136,000 people. The national average number of businesses in a ZIP code, by contrast, is 188.

The Coolest — In The 1990s: 90210 (map)

This ZIP code covers posh Beverly Hills, Calif., and was also the title of a popular teen TV drama series in the 1990s. Brenda and Brandon Walsh moving to "Beverly Hills, 90209" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

The Most Spacious: 89049 (map)

This rural area in Tonopah, Nev., has the largest ZIP code in the lower 48 states. At 10,000 square miles, it's a little larger than the state of Maryland. The area experienced a boom in the early part of the 20th century after silver was discovered there. It sits about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.

The Most Populous: 79936 (map)

The population in this El Paso ZIP code exceeds 114,000, according to the Census Bureau's "zip code tabulation area" database, which contains population and demographic statistics. That's more than any other ZIP code. In many cities, ZIP codes cover small areas. But El Paso's includes large, residential neighborhoods on the city's east side. Next on the most-populous list is 60629 in Chicago.

The Tiniest: 11109 (map)

A two-block area across the East River from Manhattan, this ZIP code in Long Island City is among the smallest in the country — at a tenth of one square mile. It boasts 1,400 people in that area, though, pushing its residents-per-square mile rate to the top of the list, according to Esri.

Among The Most Diverse: 95834 (map)

This North Sacramento, Calif., ZIP code is among the most diverse in the country, Business Insider reported last year. Race and ethnic groups are more evenly distributed here than in most places, meaning residents are more likely to encounter people who are different. The population broke down along these lines: Asian, 20.4 percent; black, 15.8 percent; Hispanic, 27.4 percent; white, 29.2 percent; and multiracial, 5.2 percent. See other diverse counties here.

Among The Least Diverse: 38639 (map) & 02562 (map)

The population in 38639 (Jonestown, Miss.) is 99 percent black. The reverse is true in 02562 (Sagamore Beach, Mass.), where 99 percent of the population is white.

The One With The Big Spenders: 89109 (map)

Residents and political action committees in this Las Vegas ZIP code spent more money in the latest election cycle than they did anywhere else — $96 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group. The 89109 ZIP includes many of the city's marquee casinos, and it's likely that much of the campaign funds came from one source: Casino executive Sheldon Adelson. Perhaps the biggest donor in American politics, he vowed last year to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Obama.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of interesting ZIP codes. Tell us about yours in the comments. You can also download some of the data used in this post here.

Matt Stiles is data editor on NPR News Applications team. Follow him on Twitter at @stiles.

It's no secret: Texas is big. And it's getting bigger.

The Lone Star State has added about 5 million people since the turn of the century, and its population is expected to swell by another 5 million by 2020.

This week, NPR examines the dramatic demographic shifts underway in the Lone Star State in our series Texas 2020. We'll look ahead to how the second-biggest state could change in the next decade — and what that could mean for the rest of America.

In the first decade of this century, the population of Texas grew more than twice as fast as the rest of the country.

Former state demographer Steve Murdock says that's nothing new.

"Texas has always been a rapidly growing state," says Murdock, now a professor at Rice University in Houston. "In fact, in every decade since Texas became part of the U.S., it has grown more rapidly than the country."

What is new, Murdock says, is how Texas is growing: Two-thirds of the increase comes from Hispanics, while the population of non-Hispanic whites — the group Texans call "Anglos" — is barely growing at all. Anglos are no longer the majority in Texas, and Hispanics are expected to outnumber Anglos within about a decade.

"The face of Texas is changing from one where non-Hispanic whites were dominant in numbers to one where we're an increasingly diverse population, a multiracial and ethnic population, with lots of dimensions of that," Murdock says.

“ The face of Texas is changing from one where non-Hispanic whites were dominant in numbers to one where we're an increasingly diverse population, a multiracial and ethnic population, with lots of dimensions of that.

All this week, NPR is taking a look at the demographic changes that could reshape the political landscape in Texas over the next decade — and what that could mean for the rest of the country.

With the two parties in Washington gridlocked on immigration, the budget and other issues, it's easy to forget that when it comes to winning presidential elections, one party has a distinct advantage.

"The Democrats have a significant advantage on the electoral map that gives them the inside track going into 2016," says independent political analyst Rhodes Cook.

Cook's latest red and blue charts show that what used to be a Republican advantage has — over the past generation — flipped. There are now 18 states plus the District of Columbia that voted Democratic in every one of the last six presidential elections. That gives the Democrats a comfortable base of 242 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to win the presidency. On the other hand, only 13 states with 102 electoral votes have gone Republican each of the last six elections.

That is the painful reality for Republicans like strategist Alex Lundry.

"We're starting out really behind the curve here," he says. "We have to expand the map because the map right now is really disadvantaged distinctly for Republicans."

More 'Texas 2020'

It's All Politics

How To Turn A Red State Blue: California Edition

Gay rights activists celebrated two big victories this week before the U.S. Supreme Court, as justices overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and cleared the way for same-sex marriages in California.

Now gay marriage opponents and supporters are turning their attention to individual states, like New Jersey, where polls show most residents support same-sex marriage. So far, one person, Gov. Chris Christie, has stood in the way.

"I believe that the institution of marriage for 2,000 years has been between a man and a woman, and I believe that it should continue to be," Christie said on a radio call-in show in Trenton last week.

Heading into a re-election campaign, Christie remains popular, even though most voters in the state disagree with him on this issue. He says advocates should put the issue before voters with a referendum this November.

"The proponents have said all along that the majority of people in New Jersey want it," he told radio listeners. "Well then, put it on the ballot and then it'll pass and then it's the end of the discussion."

Privately some gay marriage supporters say they want to avoid an expensive campaign. But more important, they say a referendum is not how they want to win.

Sheila Oliver, speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly, says guaranteeing civil rights should be the role of courts and lawmakers. Last year New Jersey's Legislature approved a gay marriage bill, but Christie vetoed it.

"Many of our legislative leaders believe that civil rights should not be litigated in a public referendum," Oliver said. "I think the next tactic you will see, in the next coming weeks in New Jersey, are efforts to get a veto override."

Hayley Gorenberg, an attorney with Lambda Legal, said at a rally Thursday that there's a clear legal argument now to establish same-sex marriages in the Garden State. New Jersey already has civil unions, but gay rights groups want full marriage.

"Based on the Supreme Court decision, we will file a motion for summary judgment for an immediate ruling that same-sex couples be allowed to marry," Gorenberg told supporters.

In neighboring Pennsylvania, several Democratic lawmakers are introducing same-sex marriage legislation. But those bills will likely have an uphill battle in the Republican-dominated Legislature.

The Two-Way

Prop. 8 Plaintiffs Marry In California, After Stay Is Lifted

Stephen Klineberg polishes off a spicy lamb mint burger, mops his brow and recalls the Houston he moved to as a young professor in the 1970s.

"It was a deeply racist, deeply segregated Southern city," he says; an oil boomtown of black and white Americans.

There were no restaurants like Pondicheri, where Houston chef Anita Jaisinghani's hip take on Indian street food — and the air conditioning's battle with 100-degree heat — conspire to make the Rice University professor sweat.

Houston back then was about steakhouses and Tex-Mex, smog and concrete. It was where bilingual meant English and Spanish, and staggeringly wealthy white oil men had the run of the place.

Sound familiar?

That image of this city of more than 2 million remains amber-fixed in the minds of most outsiders. It was true back then; now, it's almost all wrong, though energy remains king.

Vibrancy In Diversity

Boomtown Houston circa 2013 is a fast-growing mash-up of color, culture and ethnicity. The metro area of 4 million-plus people has been transformed into one of the nation's most diverse, seeding down-the-road political implications for deep-red Texas.

And nowhere, with the exception of city schools that count more than 80 native languages among their students, is the metamorphosis more visible than in Houston's dynamic, nationally recognized food scene.

Enlarge image i

In America, summer grilling generally means heading to the backyard and throwing some hot dogs, burgers and maybe vegetable skewers on the fire. But in India and Pakistan, where summers last for seven months, grilling takes on a whole new level of sophistication.

For starters, forget the gas versus charcoal grill debate. Many cooks in the Indian subcontinent grill using tandoor ovens that they adopted from the Middle East, says chef and writer Madhur Jaffrey, an authority on flavors and techniques from the region.

Food

Gathering Around The 'Global Grill'

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Zone Improvement Plan, the network of "ZIP" codes we use for everything from mail delivery to credit card security.

The U.S. Postal Service began using the five-digit codes on July 1, 1963, hoping they would improve the efficiency and speed of mail sorting. Since then, the codes have assumed a role in the identities of many Americans, helping define where they live or work.

In recognition of the anniversary (and because we are geeky), we've examined the list of more than 40,000 ZIP codes. Here are nine worth noting, based on data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and Esri, a leading geographic software company:

The One With The Most Businesses: 10001 (map)

This New York City ZIP code includes the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan and, according to the Census Bureau, contains more businesses than any other in the U.S.: 7,227. Those businesses employ more than 136,000 people. The national average number of businesses in a ZIP code, by contrast, is 188.

The Coolest — In The 1990s: 90210 (map)

This ZIP code covers posh Beverly Hills, Calif., and was also the title of a popular teen TV drama series in the 1990s. Brenda and Brandon Walsh moving to "Beverly Hills, 90209" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

The Most Spacious: 89049 (map)

This rural area in Tonopah, Nev., has the largest ZIP code in the lower 48 states. At 10,000 square miles, it's a little larger than the state of Maryland. The area experienced a boom in the early part of the 20th century after silver was discovered there. It sits about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.

The Most Populous: 79936 (map)

The population in this El Paso ZIP code exceeds 114,000, according to the census bureau's "zip code tabulation area" database, which contains population and demographic statistics. That's more than any other ZIP code. In many cities, ZIP codes cover small areas. But El Paso's includes large, residential neighborhoods on the city's east side. Next on the most-populous list is 60629 in Chicago.

The Tiniest: 11109 (map)

A two-block area across the East River from Manhattan, this ZIP code in Long Island City is among the smallest in the country — at a tenth of one square mile. It boasts 1,400 people in that area, though, pushing its residents-per-square mile rate to the top of the list, according to Esri.

Among The Most Diverse: 95834 (map)

This North Sacramento, Calif., ZIP code is among the most diverse in the country, Business Insider reported last year. Race and ethnic groups are more evenly distributed here than in most places, meaning residents are more likely to encounter people who are different. The population broke down along these lines: Asian: 20.4 percent; black: 15.8 percent; Hispanic: 27.4 percent; white: 29.2 percent; and multi-racial: 5.2 percent. See other diverse counties here.

Among The Least Diverse: 38639 (map) & 02562 (map)

Not all ZIP codes are diverse, however. The population in 38639 (Jonestown, Miss.) is 99 percent black. The reverse is true in 02562 (Sagamore Beach, Maine), where 99 percent of the population is white.

The One With The Big Spender: 89109 (map)

Residents and political action committees in this Las Vegas ZIP code spent more money in the latest election cycle than they did anywhere else — $96 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group. The 89109 ZIP includes many of the city's marquee casinos, and it's likely that much of the campaign funds came from one source: Casino executive Sheldon Adelson. Perhaps the biggest donor in American politics, he vowed last year to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Obama.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of interesting ZIP codes. Tell us about yours in the comments. You can also download some of the data used in this post here.

Matt Stiles in data editor on NPR News Applications team. Follow him on Twitter at @stiles.

Every week, it seems, a new scandal unearthed by the upstart, online newspaper Mediapart. The most recent bomb was that President Francois Hollande's budget minister was evading taxes when he was supposed to be cracking down on tax cheats. After vehemently denying the allegations, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Jerome Cahuzac was forced to resign.

Hollande issued an embarrassing national apology while Mediapart kept racking up new subscribers. In its five-year existence, the site has unveiled stories about tax evasion, illegal campaign financing and shady business dealings between government officials and French tycoons.

The cases are now under investigation, including allegations that former President Nicolas Sarkozy took illegal campaign contributions from France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Lillane Bettencourt, and Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Edwy Plenel, head of Mediapart, says much of the newspaper's success is due to what he calls the absence of a strong democratic culture in France.

"We have a very big opacity, very secret culture of all the powers, political powers, financial powers," he says. "Mediapart, during the last five years, revealed all the big stories against this culture of secret."

Plenel says the French, unlike the Americans, don't have laws such as the Freedom of Information Act which forces the government to release documents.

Plenel, who once presided over the newspaper Le Monde, founded Mediapart with 5 million euros and a commitment to pay 30 journalists a living salary for three years. He says no one thought the site would survive.

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Europe

War Of Words: France Debates Teaching Courses In English