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Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps insisting that he doesn't want the case of a fugitive American intelligence contractor to harm relations between Russia and the United States.

But Edward Snowden remains an irritant, stuck in diplomatic limbo in the transit area of a Moscow airport.

A Putin spokesman said Friday that the issue is being discussed by the Russian federal security service — the FSB — and the FBI, but it may be that Snowden has become a problem that can only be solved at the top of the two governments.

For its part, the Obama administration seems to be trying to chip away at Russian objections to returning Snowden to the United States.

Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter to Russian officials this week in which he gave assurances that Snowden would not face the death penalty and would not be tortured if Russia sends him back. He said the former NSA contractor would have the full protection of the U.S. civilian court system.

Some Russia officials who favor giving asylum to Snowden have cited all those concerns as reasons why he should be given refuge. But some Russian commentators say those aren't the real barriers to giving Snowden up.

"It's quite clear that it's morally impossible for Russia to turn Snowden in to the United States because it would look like Russia is weak can be easily manipulated or pressured by the United States," says Dmitri Babich, political analyst for Voice of Russia Radio. "On the other hand, Snowden is clearly disliked by Putin, and he is seen as a liability."

Putin has said repeatedly that it would better for everyone if Snowden moved on to another destination as soon as possible.

Russian media reported on Wednesday that Snowden might receive a document that would allow him to officially enter Russia while officials consider his application for political asylum.

But that possibility was dashed by Snowden's Russian advisor, a spotlight-loving lawyer named Anatoly Kucherena. Kucherena emerged from a brief meeting with his client to say that the paperwork takes time, explaining that Russia's federal migration service has three months to consider Snowden's request.

In terms of U.S.-Russian relations, though, the timeline may be less leisurely. Russia will host a summit of leaders from the G-20 industrial nations in St. Petersburg in early September, and President Obama is expected to be there. Obama was also planning a side trip to Moscow for direct talks with Putin.

White House officials have said little about that trip, but some in Russia worry that it would be tempting for Obama to cancel that part of the visit as an expression of displeasure.

"It would be a huge embarrassment and a bad development if Obama doesn't come to Moscow because of Snowden." Babich says.

But Babich believes that the embarrassment would fall on Obama, not Putin, because Obama would be alienating part of his own liberal voter base in the United States.

In fact, many Russian analysts believe that Putin, for once, is on the right side of Western public opinion.

Mikhail Remizov, head of the Institute of National Strategy, a think tank in Moscow, told Radio Russia that providing Snowden with asylum would look good to people in Western Europe, where sympathy for Snowden is strong. That kind of sentiment could make it harder for Putin to give Snowden up.

On the other hand, U.S. officials seem determined to make it easy. Although Putin said he would never extradite Snowden, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said on his twitter account, that the United States doesn't ask Russia to extradite Snowden, but simply to return him.

In the latest in a string of insider trading cases, federal prosecutors this week indicted SAC Capital, one of the most prominent and profitable hedge funds in the world.

But when it comes to the 2008 financial crisis that sent the economy into a tailspin, criminal prosecutions have been few and far between.

"The folks responsible for this incredibly painful economic damage that struck our economy have gone free," says Neil Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor who also served as special inspector general overseeing the big Troubled Asset Relief Program bank bailout, signed into law by President Bush in 2008.

Insider trading prosecutions have resulted in more than 70 convictions so far.

"This sends a very, very powerful message to the entire industry," Barofsky says.

So why haven't any high-profile bankers gone to jail for selling all those trash mortgages and helping to wreck the economy?

"People ask me about it all the time and I try to give the best explanation I have as being inside of the system," says Barofsky, who notes that when the financial crisis hit, white-collar crime investigators already had their hands full with expanding insider trading investigations.

But the government should have thrown a lot more investigators at the financial crisis, he says.

William Black, a top lawyer for the Office of Thrift Supervision during the savings and loan debacle in the 1980s, agrees.

"I've been saying it for years," he says. "You have to make the effort."

He notes that during the savings and loan crisis, he was involved with a lot of criminal prosecutions. "At peak we had a thousand FBI agents working those cases."

By comparison, Black says, when the financial crisis hit there were only 120 FBI agents working on bank fraud.

And mortgage fraud cases against big financial firms are just tough cases to bring, Black says.

"Insider trading is a much more understandable case for a jury, typically," he says.

It's pretty simple: Somebody gets access to confidential information — say a drug trial was going badly. So they use that secret information to cheat and make a lot of money in the stock market.

The financial crisis was more complicated. It involved mortgage securitizations and sophisticated investment instruments.

"It would be much more difficult than the insider trading cases," says Black.

After the financial crisis, the government lost a case involving Bear Stearns, the global investment bank that failed in 2008 before being sold to JPMorgan Chase. Maybe that didn't help.

Also, back then the government wanted to save the banks. So maybe launching a full-scale prosecutorial assault didn't seem like the best idea.

Barofsky says narratives also tend to take hold in Washington. And for the 2008 financial crisis, it's this: A lot of people on Wall Street were wrong, they made mistakes, they were greedy, but they didn't commit actual crimes.

You could hear that when Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, spoke to CNBC host Jim Cramer last week.

Dimon: "I think if someone did something wrong, they should go to jail."

Cramer: "Well who did? Who went to jail?"

Dimon: "One of the great things about America is, failure is not illegal or wrong. ... You make investments. They don't always pay off. It doesn't mean you're a criminal."

When Detroit filed for federal bankruptcy protection last week, news accounts were filled with troubling stories of urban decay in the city: vast areas of vacant lots and abandoned houses, shuttered parks, nonworking streetlights and police response times close to an hour.

But Bruce Katz, vice president of the Brookings Institution, says that many American cities show promising signs of renewal. He's written a book with Brookings Fellow Jennifer Bradley called The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy. The book argues that metro areas — or, cities and suburbs together — are powerful economic engines with considerable political influence, and that local leaders are more likely to take on the nation's big challenges than politicians in Washington.

All good things must come to an end. NPR's Ken Rudin and Ron Elving, for the final time, weigh in on the political news of the week. New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner is enbroiled in another sexting saga, President Obama delivers his most expansive comments on race and Mitch McConnell now has a Tea Party challenger. The guys also make 2014 and 2016 predictions, plus read farewell comments from The Listener.

Hours before Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would seek new federal powers to protect minority voters in the state of Texas, the country's top law enforcement officer mingled at a Washington event about a topic that hit close to home.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and other notable civil rights anniversaries this year, a mix of Washington lawyers and luminaries sat down Wednesday night to screen the 1963 documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment. The cinema verite look at President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and the pivotal federal response to the integration at the University of Alabama featured another character who's not as well-known: Vivian Malone, the sister of Holder's wife, prominent D.C. obstetrician Sharon Malone.

"The timing of this particular film festival and what's going on in our country today is nothing short of providential," Sharon Malone told the audience at the National Museum for Women in the Arts.

Malone recalled that her older sister Vivian showed up at the school to register for classes in June 1963. The incident was seared into the nation's memory after Alabama Gov. George Wallace made a "stand in the schoolhouse door" to try to block her entry. A day later, civil rights pioneer Medgar Evers was gunned down in his driveway in Mississippi in front of his wife and children. Then, two weeks after school started that September, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed, and four little girls were killed.

"The question that comes to my mind is, exactly what were my parents thinking?" Malone said. "I have a daughter now who's exactly the same age as Vivian, and I tell you I just cannot imagine it."

For his part, Holder made no public remarks at the March on Washington Film Festival. But the office he now occupies on the fifth floor of the Justice Department, as its first black attorney general, looks very much the same as it did 50 years ago. He even keeps a portrait of Robert Kennedy hanging on the wall.

To his audience at the National Urban League's annual conference in Philadelphia Thursday, some of that history was not so far away. The league was founded in 1910 to help fight discrimination and segregation. And in recent years, it's expressed concern about voter disenfranchisement, especially after a Supreme Court ruling in June that effectively gutted one of the Justice Department's best tools to fight discrimination at the ballot box.

"For nearly five decades, this requirement called 'pre-clearance' served as a potent tool for addressing inequities in our election systems," Holder told the crowd. "Although pre-clearance originated during the civil rights movement and was informed by a history of discrimination, the conduct that it was intended to address continues to this day."

The attorney general said he would seek to yank the state of Texas back under federal oversight using a different part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that's still on the books.

"This is the department's first action to protect voting rights following the Shelby County decision, but it will not be our last," Holder said.

"We are small people. What can we really do about this?" asks Surendra Prasad, perched on the steps outside the Patna Medical College and Hospital in the state capital of Bihar in eastern India.

Inside, two of his young children are recovering in the intensive care unit. His wife has also been admitted, in shock after another child, their 10-year-old daughter, Mamta, died along with 22 other children who ate a free school midday meal in their village last Tuesday. Authorities say the food was tainted with high concentrations of toxic insecticide.

Mamta's grandmother breaks down describing how the little girl slipped away.

"She was saying to me, 'Don't worry — everything will be all right,' then suddenly she died," says the elderly woman, her face etched in grief.

The pain that has enveloped the village mourning the loss of its children is compounded by unrelenting poverty. These families, like hundreds of millions who inhabit rural India, live in the shadows of the spectacular economic rise that has lifted millions of other Indians out of poverty in the past decade.

This week, India's Planning Commission trumpeted a record drop in poverty, saying it has fallen from 37 percent of the population to 22 percent over the past seven years.

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"We are small people. What can we really do about this?" asks Surendra Prasad, perched on the steps outside the Patna Medical College and Hospital in the state capital of Bihar in eastern India.

Inside, two of his young children are recovering in the intensive care unit. His wife has also been admitted, in shock after another child, their 10-year-old daughter, Mamta, died along with 22 other children who ate a free school midday meal in their village last Tuesday. Authorities say the food was tainted with high concentrations of toxic insecticide.

Mamta's grandmother breaks down describing how the little girl slipped away.

"She was saying to me, 'Don't worry — everything will be all right,' then suddenly she died," says the elderly woman, her face etched in grief.

The pain that has enveloped the village mourning the loss of its children is compounded by unrelenting poverty. These families, like hundreds of millions who inhabit rural India, live in the shadows of the spectacular economic rise that has lifted millions of other Indians out of poverty in the past decade.

This week, India's Planning Commission trumpeted a record drop in poverty, saying it has fallen from 37 percent of the population to 22 percent over the past seven years.

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The French are famous for their insults, but traditionally they haven't taken it well when the target is the president of the republic.

A vote in parliament on Thursday has changed that. For the first time in 130 years, it's now legal to say how you really feel about the French leader.

So, if you think that French President Francois Hollande is "a ridiculous little fat man who dyes his hair", as Nicholas Sarkozy reportedly said (in private) of his successor, you're free to say so — in public.

It all started in 2008, when a French demonstrator held up a sign exhorting then-President Sarkozy to "Get lost, jerk". The man was fined $50 for "offending the head of state". The incident prompted the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to rule in March that France had violated the protester's right to freedom of expression.

As The Daily Mail writes:

"The ECHR acknowledged that the insult constituted 'criticism of a political nature' for which 'freedom of expression was of the highest importance.'

Now anyone who chooses to insult a serving French president will have to be pursued through the libel courts."

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

Amazon reported an unexpected second-quarter loss Thursday of about $7 million — though revenue rose 22 percent — as it continues to bet big on investments in digital content. The Bookseller summarized Amazon's strategy of "building new warehouses, growing services and ... [buying] a hoard of digital rights content for its film streaming service." It adds , "In the three months from April to June [Amazon] announced an expanded video licensing agreement with Viacom, as well as deals with NBC Universal Cable & New Media. The company also opened Kindle Worlds, which allows writers to write fan fiction around 'popular worlds.' " Amazon's stock took a hit on the earnings news. But Forbes points out that "a 3% loss in after-hours trading on a shorter-than-expected report on a single quarter doesn't mean that much to [CEO Jeff] Bezos, and it shouldn't mean that much to Amazon's investors, either." In other words, don't be thrown by the numbers: Amazon is thinking big.

Author Geoff Dyer writes about trying to teach himself how to smile, in spite of the fact that "the Dyer visage in repose, its default setting, is that of a man whose jam has regularly been stolen from his doughnut."

The literary website The Omnivore has started a dating service, to "fulfill your bodily needs as well as your intellectual ones." The Omnivore isn't the only place to look for a bookish love connection — The New York Review of Books is also famous for its cerebral personal ads.

The latest Barnes & Noble nostalgia piece comes from Michael Agger at The New Yorker: "Going to Barnes & Noble became a Saturday afternoon. It was as if a small liberal-arts college had been plunked down into a farm field." Remember when Barnes & Noble was the enemy?

Neil Gaiman made a video game called "Wayward Manor," which will come out this fall. Gaiman told Mashable that he's tried (and failed) to do it before: "Back in the late 1990s I spent a lot of time working with various gaming companies. What tended to happen is I put an incredible amount of work in these things and just as something was about to happen, the company was about to go bankrupt."

For The Telegraph, Horatia Harrod considers miniature books: "There is a certain madness to the world of miniature books. The smallest ones, which measure less than a quarter of an inch, cannot be opened; even if they could, their type could not be read without the aid of a microscope."

After what is rumored to be a multimillion-dollar naming deal, the iconic Cowboys Stadium will be called AT&T Stadium from now on.

In a press release, AT&T said part of its attraction to the deal was that Dallas is the company's home. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in a statement that the naming deal ties the team with "one of the world's strongest and most innovative companies."

NPR member station KERA reports that the Cowboys have sought corporate sponsors before, but because of a sluggish economy could not find one lucrative enough when the new stadium opened in 2009.

Clarence Hill, Cowboys' beat writer for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, had some harsh words for the move. He said on Twitter:

"i would have been okay with AT&T Cowboys Stadium. But taking Cowboys out the name entirely..Jerry sold out for the cash."

Federal officials in New York City have charged SAC Capital Advisors with insider trading, the culmination of a protracted investigation into the hedge fund founded by embattled billionaire Steven Cohen.

SAC is charged with one count of wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud in connection with alleged insider trading by "numerous employees" at "various times between in or about 1999 through at least in or about 2010," according to the indictment.

According to NPR's Yuki Noguchi, "The Department of Justice's 41-page indictment details a culture at SAC that it says encouraged trading based on inside information. At its peak, the firm controlled $15 billion in assets, and for more than a decade, prosecutors say, SAC employees solicited nonpublic information and used it to trade stock in publicly traded companies."

The charges come less than a week after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against Cohen, accusing him of failing to prevent insider trading at the firm.

The New York Times' Dealbook writes that the charges filed Thursday are underpinned by "the theory of corporate criminal liability, which allows the government to attribute certain criminal acts of employees to a company itself."

Going after SAC could devastate the Stamford, Conn.-based hedge fund "because the banks that trade with the hedge fund and finance its operations could abandon it," it says.

Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, writes: "Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) are among firms weighing the reputational and financial consequences of continuing to provide trading, lending and prime brokerage services to SAC, one of Wall Street's largest trading clients."

The fund, which employs about 1,000 people globally, issued a memo to employees on Wednesday after a grand jury voted to go ahead with the charges saying the firm "will operate normally and we have every expectation that will be the case going forward."

Dealbook describes the latest indictment as part of "an unrelenting crackdown against insider trading" by federal authorities, saying that while Cohen may escape being criminally charged, he is "inextricably tied" to SAC and: "Not only are his initials on the door, but Mr. Cohen also owns 100 percent of the firm he founded in 1992."

President Obama on Wednesday launched another effort to lay out his vision for how to strengthen the U.S. economy with a midday speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., in which he hit themes familiar to those who followed his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

While focusing on issues such as the need to continue overhauling the nation's health care system, to make education more affordable, to fix bridges and other infrastructure and to create solid, well-paying jobs, Obama also criticized those Republicans in Washington who he believes have been focused on "political posturing and phony scandals."

We followed along and posted updates. Late this afternoon, Obama is due to speak in Warrensburg, Mo., at the University of Central Missouri.

Update at 2:18 p.m. ET. At The End, Talk Of "Yesterday's Winds" And Courage.

As he finishes, Obama quotes poet Carl Sandburg, who was born in Galesburg:

"I speak of new cities and new people ... The past is a bucket of ashes ... yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west ... there is ... only an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows."

Drug War

Director: Johnnie To

Genre: Drama

Running Time: 107 minutes

Unrated; violence, drug use

With: Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, Yi Huang

(Recommended)

Pope Francis continued a whirlwind tour of Brazil today, delivering his first public mass in the town of Aparecida.

As Reuters reports, Francis was given another rapturous welcome during his first trip abroad on the occasion of World Youth Day. The wire service reports he warned young people of modern trappings and continued to preach humility and charity.

Reuters adds:

"Aparecida is the place where [in 2007] Francis, then known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, authored an influential statement during Benedict's visit that espoused many of the same values he has placed front and center during his five months as pope. The document called on the Church to return to the principles of humility and charity.

"From Aparecida, Francis is scheduled to fly back to Rio and tour a drug treatment ward at a hospital run by Franciscan monks. Later in the week, he will visit a Rio slum, preside over services on Copacabana beach and over the weekend give mass at a pasture outside the city.

"Francis is scheduled to leave Brazil on Sunday."

The National Geographic Channel is a little all over the place when it comes to their programming. There's some nature material, there's some fairly sensational reality stuff (Doomsday Preppers, for instance), and there are historical documentaries and, sometimes, historical scripted films. Their presentation at press tour thus covered a lot of ground and included both an upcoming Preppers spin-off called Doomsday Castle — about a man who is getting his kids to help build a bunker that will survive a power-failure apocalypse — and the film Killing Kennedy, a drama adapted from Bill O'Reilly's best-selling book about John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.

And so it falls, in this case, to Rob Lowe to do as many others (among them William Devane, Tim Matheson, and recently Greg Kinnear) have done before: play the role of JFK.

He gamely took a bunch of questions about it, in which he compared Kennedy to a character from Shakespeare, in the sense that it becomes a role that so many actors have played that it's all you can do to consider what you can bring to it that's new. "Actors play Hamlet all the time. Actors there could be 17 actors, you know, on 17 stages on any given day playing those characters. So a lot of people will play JFK in the future, and it's just one of our great American icons."

Sure, sure, I thought, but ... you know. What about the voice? How do you do a JFK voice that doesn't sound like the Massachusetts-y Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons? The suave way I decided to put this question to Rob Lowe was essentially ... "How do you do a JFK voice that doesn't sound like Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons?" I had a brief moment of fear that he wouldn't know what I was talking about, which could have been very embarrassing, but happily for me (and presumably for Mayor Quimby), he did, and he laughed. (Thank goodness.) After saying he actually thought Ginnifer Goodwin had a harder job playing Jackie, whose real voice at the time he described as "almost this weird Marilyn Monroe mixed with a helium sucker," he addressed his own task.

"Just technically, what I learned was he really had two voices. He had the voice that we all know — you know, [Mayor Quimby-ish Kennedy voice] 'Come to Berlin,' you know. He had that voice, which is the voice that everybody imitates, and then he had the way he spoke in private, which was very different. And there's actually a linguistic term called the 'Kennedy stutter step,' not to get too technical. And basically, what it is is his stammer. And that's what you don't see a lot of. And I tried to bring that, and I immersed myself in it. But then you forget about it. You do the voice, and you go to the things that are more important, which are honesty, authenticity, connection with the actors, you know, all of the stuff that actors do on a daily basis."

The city of Detroit may be on the skids financially, but one of its traditional "big three" automakers just scored a big win.

For the first time since it began making such comparisons between sedans in 1992, Consumer Reports magazine has given its top rating to a model made by a U.S. automaker — not one made by a European or Japanese company.

The 2014 Chevrolet Impala "rides like a luxury sedan, with a cushy and controlled demeanor, while delivering surprisingly agile handling, capable acceleration, and excellent braking," writes Consumer Reports. "Inside, the spacious cabin sets a new standard for Chevrolet fit and finish, with generally high-quality materials and trim."

According to Jake Fisher, director of the magazine's automotive testing, "the Impala's performance is one more indicator of an emerging domestic renaissance. We've seen a number of redesigned American models — including the Chrysler 300, Ford Escape and Fusion, and Jeep Grand Cherokee — deliver world-class performance in our tests."

The Impala outscored not only sedans that are comparable to its "mid-range" price, but much more expensive models as well — such as the Acura RLX and Jaguar XF.

It was just four years ago, as Pro Publica's timeline reminds us, that:

"GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As part of the restructuring, the U.S. government agreed to provide the company up to $30.1 billion [on top of earlier loans]. In exchange, the U.S. received a 60.8 percent stake in the company when it emerged from bankruptcy protection about a month later."

Marti Olesen's favorite summer recipe is plucked straight from the garden — and the faster it gets to your plate, the better. She calls it Diane's Dad's Summer Sandwich.

"I've been eating this sandwich for 27 years, and I am the epitome of health — and beauty," Olesen laughs.

Olesen is an elementary school librarian in Ponca, Ark. She first encountered the sandwich when a co-worker, Diane Dickey, told her about it decades ago.

"She was reminiscing about this wonderful sandwich that she ate every summer with her dad. I was a vegetarian at the time and I thought, 'I'm game. Tell me about it,' " Olesen says.

The ingredient list starts out pretty traditionally: Tomatoes, Vidalia or red sweet onion, and cucumbers, all fresh and sliced thinly. The veggies are placed between two slices of whole grain bread with white cheddar cheese. But the sandwich isn't complete until you slather on some crunchy peanut butter.

Olesen was skeptical as she headed to the farmers market to gather the ingredients for the first time. Once assembled she took a big bite and thought, "You know, it's OK, but I'm not loving it yet."

Realizing there might be a secret in the layering, she reordered the sandwich three of four different times but never loved the result.

"But I was very polite, and I did not say anything to Diane," she says.

A couple of weeks went by before Dickey asked about the sandwich. Olesen played it off, conceding Dickey's love of the sandwich was probably wrapped up in her childhood memories.

Vote For Your Favorite

This recipe is among three finalists in our Taste of Summer contest. Take a look at the two others below and vote for your favorite by sending a message to All Things Considered here. Make sure to put "Taste Of Summer Vote" in the subject line.

Many businesses that don't offer health insurance to all their employees breathed a sigh of relief earlier this month when they learned they'd have an extra year to comply with the new health care law or face stiff penalties.

President Obama delayed the requirement for businesses with 50 or more employees after complaints that the plan was too complicated to implement by the original deadline, January 2014. Now, the restaurant industry, which employs a lot of part-time employees, is weighing strategies for how to respond.

At a California Tortilla restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C., managers say they're still figuring out what strategy to use to comply with the new law's mandate to provide health insurance for all workers who put in at least 30 hours a week: whether they should trim hours, hire more part-timers or leave things unchanged.

But management at another fast-food chain has made a decision. White Castle decided it will not fire full-time employees or cut benefits as a result of the new health care law, says Vice President Jamie Richardson. These full-time employees, who make up roughly half of White Castle's 9,600-member workforce, are already covered by the company's health care plan.

"If you're full-time at White Castle, you're going to stay full-time at White Castle," Richardson says. But as White Castle looks into the future after the new law takes effect, Richardson says the company is considering hiring only part-time workers.

The reason is simply cost, he says.

"If we were to keep our health insurance program exactly like it is with no changes, every forecast we've looked at has indicated our costs will go up 24 percent," he says.

The profit per employee in restaurants is only $750 per year, says Richardson, much lower than in most other industries. So, he says, adding health insurance as a benefit for all employees over 30 hours, as the health care law requires, isn't feasible.

But for another restaurant owner, the calculation is very different. Jeff Benjamin has four restaurants in the Philadelphia area and is planning three more. This past spring he invited a dozen restaurateurs from other cities to meet in Chicago to brainstorm strategies to respond to Obamacare's employer mandate. Adding more part-time workers, less than 30 hours a week, was one idea, but Benjamin says it didn't get traction.

"I really only think one or two of the folks in the room suggested it," he says. "All of them kind of agreed that there are too many fixed costs to having an employee to make it worthwhile to go the part-time route."

Having two part-timers instead of one full-time employee doubles the cost of things like training, scheduling and uniforms, Benjamin says.

"I'm a big fan of [the idea that] full-time employees give you full-time work," he says. "And sometimes as you lower people's hours they may not be as committed. So, I love to be able to give someone a full-time job."

Shots - Health News

GOP Says, Why Not Delay That Health Care Law, Like, Forever?

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Both for the Republican Party, in general, and the GOP House leadership, in particular, Rep. Steve King's controversial comments about young immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally are a setback, to put it mildly.

King, as anyone knows who hasn't been single-mindedly focused in recent days on the birth of Prince George Alexander, caused a sizable ruckus with comments that are being called "hateful," "inexcusable" and "reprehensible" — even by some of his fellow House Republicans.

In a Newsmax interview last week, the Iowa Republican said of the DREAM Act argument that young people whose parents brought them into the U.S illegally shouldn't be penalized:

They will say to me and others who defend the rule of law, 'We have to do something about the 11 million. Some of them are valedictorians.' Well, my answer to that is ... it's true in some cases, but they weren't all valedictorians, they weren't all brought in by their parents. For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another hundred out there, they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.

Teams of workers are mobilizing in the Gulf of Mexico to try to stem a natural gas leak at an offshore drilling rig that exploded and caught fire Tuesday. The rig off the Louisiana coast has been partially destroyed by the out of control blaze, and firefighting boats are on the scene.

While that might call to mind images of the BP oil disaster in 2010, experts say the incidents are vastly different.

Chris Reddy, an oil spill expert and chemist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, was among the scientists who followed the fate of the BP spill, when the Deep Water Horizon oil rig blew up and leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Reddy says that while deep-sea gas reservoirs may sometimes contain oil, it's highly unlikely the accident at Well A-3 adjacent to a "Hercules 265 jack-up rig" would leak anything like the BP spill.

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On his privilege growing up

"I was always trying to hide it. ... Back then it was privilege with a much smaller 'P.' It wasn't what it is today, there was no status involved with it, people weren't ... status-hunting. [Investment banking] was more like the everyday kind of job. But I always was a little bit — or very — insecure about it. I remember saying, 'I live on the Upper East Side,' and someone would say, 'Oh, where do you live?' and I'd be like, '75th Street.' 'Well, where?' '75th and Park.' You'd have to drag it out of me. I felt like, '75th and Park Avenue, ugh, I don't want to be that guy.' So I always had a pretty difficult relationship with it. Yet also, it was incredibly fortunate as well."

On initially being drawn to stories about down-and-out characters

"The short stories I wrote in college and the early ones in my M.F.A. program were all about ... people who were more on the fringe and kind of living desperate lives. [I] was also a big Raymond Carver fan. Denis Johnson was a huge influence on all of us in M.F.A. programs everywhere in the early '90s. So we're all trying to ... ape that world, and that seemed so much more legitimate than my upbringing. So it took me a while to see that their story is everywhere, no matter ... where you were raised, that we're all basically living ... the same tale, and I just took fathers and sons as that tale."

On whether writing can be "soul crushing"

"On those bad days, for sure. On the bad days where instead of writing you're deleting what you've written for the past two weeks. And then you have those great days, where even if it's just one good turn of phrase, it will get you back at your desk the next morning. ... For me, the irony of it, I always thought of writing as, 'I can write anywhere, it's such a portable job. I could go to the beach, or I could go to Maine, or I could travel through Europe and just write in cafes.' But for me, I can only really write in my small little office, at my desk, on a computer, in a certain kind of setting, so there's no freedom to it. It's basically being chained to a desk 9 to 5. It's not nearly as romantic as I thought going into it."

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"Of course, when they arrived in places like Germany or Poland they saw that the damage was exponentially worse," says Lowe. "So Warsaw, for example, was 90 percent destroyed, and this was just one city out of hundreds, all across Europe which had been almost ... wiped off the face of the map," he says.

Lowe is also the author of the book Inferno, about the devastation of Hamburg during World War II.

Monkey See contributor/longtime nerd Glen Weldon recently attended San Diego Comic-Con. He kept a diary during one of the largest media events in the world.

8:28 p.m.: Jennifer and Matthew Holm are an adorable brother-sister team. They are standing at a podium less than 6 feet away from me and thanking their publisher, because their charming book, Babymouse for President, has just won the Eisner for Best Publication for Early Readers.

They are beaming, humbled, happy. I, too, am happy for them. I am also a terrible terrible person, a base, disgusting, self-obsessed churl, because even as I applaud their well-deserved success, my mind floods (DON'T SAY FLOODS) fills with images of dry and parched vistas, of deserts, of canyons, of dust-choked, sun-scorched mesas, because I have to pee like a racehorse. Like two racehorses. Like a team of Clydesdales.

Bladders don't explode, do they? That's not a thing that can happen, right? Do humans have, like, gaskets? Blowable gaskets?

What happens to a pee deferred? It doesn't dry up, I'll tell you that for free.

Okay, focus.

A shelf at the rear of the stage holds the remaining Eisners to be given out. The 25 remaining Eisners. Plus the six inductees into the Hall of Fame, and the In Memoriam (presented each year by the great and good Maggie Thompson), and the Bill Finger Writing Award, and the Retailer Award, and the Most Promising Newcomer Award, and the Humanitarian Award.

In that shelf I see the next two hours and 29 minutes stretching before me. It is a grim, dystopian future. Like The Road, but with lower abdominal pain. Okay, this is dumb. Yes, given that my seat's up at the very front, getting up and dashing to the restroom will be disruptive as hell, but there's nothing I can do. And anyway look — there's another latecomer sneaking over to his seat at the next table. It's a thing that happens. People will understand. I nod at the guy, a gesture of guilt-ridden kinship: We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Skulkers.

It's then I realize that the skulker in question is Neil Gaiman.

And he looks sheepish and apologetic — more than baseline, anyway — about arriving late. Neil Gaiman — who would be within his rights, given the room, to make an entrance like Gaga, riding in on a gryphon, tossing gold dubloons and Tori Amos albums into the crowd — looks guilty about interrupting the proceedings.

But there's nothing for it. I hold out as long as I can — 13 more awards — before physiological imperative trumps politesse, and I duck out. The fact that I am doubled over in pain as I go makes it easier for people to see over me. So, you know: Bonus.

Monkey See

A Comic-Con Diary, Day 2: Man Of Steel, Man Of Urgency

The U.S. economy has been growing for four straight years — each under the leadership of President Obama.

But the pace of improvement has been disappointing to many, especially the nearly 12 million people still looking for work.

Americans are divided about how to view the White House's economic record. A McClatchy-Marist poll released this week showed 54 percent of Americans think the country is still in an economic downturn. But that dreary assessment is actually a big improvement considering that as recently as March, 63 percent thought the country was in a recession.

Now Obama is launching an effort to renew focus on job creation for the middle class. The White House says he will make about a half-dozen speeches around the country, with the first Wednesday afternoon at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.

That's where he made a pivotal speech on the economy in 2005 — his first year as a U.S. senator. And on Monday, Obama told supporters that upon this return to Knox, he will deliver "a pretty good speech."

So as the White House gets ready for this new campaign to begin, let's take stock of five key indicators of economic health:

Jobs: Most economists say that nothing matters more than job growth. More jobs can quickly translate into more people buying cars, moving into new homes, taking vacations and otherwise stimulating growth.

But job creation has been slow throughout the recovery, with the unemployment rate staying stuck at 7.6 percent. This spring, the hiring pace picked up, to around 200,000 new jobs per month. In more normal times, that rate would give a president bragging rights, but at a time when 11.8 million remain out of work and another 8.3 million are stuck in part-time jobs, the economy is not adding enough paychecks.

Housing: After a tough — no, make that hideous — run of foreclosures and price plunges, the housing market finally is improving. The sector peaked in 2006, and then went into a nosedive that pushed prices down by roughly a third.

But the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show average home prices have popped back up by roughly 12 percent over the past year. And mortgage defaults have been easing. So the market appears to be healing, though many homeowners are still a long way from seeing their real estate's values return to 2006 levels.

Debt/deficit: The long-term national debt hovers at $16.75 trillion, roughly the same size as the entire U.S. economy. But thanks to this year's federal spending cuts and tax hikes, the annual budget deficit is shrinking fast.

The Congressional Budget Office says the fiscal 2013 deficit probably will decline to just 4 percent of GDP, down dramatically from 7 percent in 2012. By 2015, the deficit should be down to about 2 percent of GDP — a level that most economists would say is quite manageable. In light of such improvement, Moody's this month upgraded the U.S. credit rating outlook from negative to stable.

Interest rates: Whether they're buying a car or a home, most Americans are very concerned about interest rates. Over the last three months, mortgage rates have been heading higher, up from roughly 3.5 percent in early May to about 4.5 percent now for a 30-year-fixed mortgage. That remains a very low level by historical standards, and the upward trend has petered out, at least for now.

Economists generally say rates are still low enough to make cars and homes affordable for people with jobs. And for businesses, the prime lending rate is holding steady at 3.25 percent — a rate that makes it easy to borrow money for expansion.

Consumer sentiment: In general, consumer confidence has been rising over the past year, thanks to gains in jobs, stock prices and home values. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index showed the highest reading in May and June of any time since before the recession began in late 2007.

But a preliminary reading of the index for July suggests some of the spring's optimism has started to melt this summer as mortgage rates have ticked up. Sentiment also has declined as more workers have felt the effects of government spending cuts. In June, retail sales grew just 0.4 percent, a disappointing rate.

In the lead-up to the start of President Obama's series of speeches laying out his view of how to strengthen the economy, some of the Washington-based challenges facing that very economy were on full display.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently warned Congress, for instance, that the continued uncertainties it has created through its fiscal fights threaten the same economy it claims to want to boost.

But Bernanke should be getting used to being Washington's version of the mythical Cassandra. He is largely being ignored as partisan policymakers raised the specter of a government shutdown later this year as they staked out their positions for the fall's debt ceiling and budget battles.

When a reporter on Tuesday asked White House press secretary Jay Carney if the president was willing to abide a government shutdown if congressional Republicans insisted on lower spending levels for programs Obama considers priorities, Carney didn't exactly say no but sought to throw the matter back into the lap of Republicans.

"Look, I think that you would have to ask Republicans about what their plan is for investing in America's future," Carney said.

When Carney was asked if the president would agree to a deal to cut spending further in exchange for Congress agreeing to raise the debt ceiling, he said: "We will not negotiate over Congress' responsibility to pay the bills that Congress racked up. It is highly irresponsible to even flirt with that prospect ..."

The press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner, Brendan Buck, meanwhile, attempted to return the favor and lay any potential shutdown back at Obama's feet, suggesting the president's main goal was to impose further tax hikes even if it meant a government shutdown to accomplish it.

Writing of Carney, Buck said: "Twice asked. Twice refused to take the shutdown threat off the table. This scenario is a lose-lose for the American economy: either a tumultuous government shutdown or further job losses as a result of tax hikes. And it cuts away all credibility the White House has when it decries — as it regularly does — such political tactics."

That isn't the only shutdown threat floating about nowadays. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, among other Senate Republicans, is threatening to block any resolution to fund the government past the fall if it includes money for the Affordable Care Act.

The president's economic speeches in coming days are meant not only to restate his vision for the economy but to warn against the kind of high-stakes game of chicken that has become the standard way fiscal policy gets made in a Washington with divided control. The fact that come the fall we will be just a year away from the midterm elections promises to harden the stalemate even further.

So as Obama prepared to give his first in a series of economic speeches, at Knox College in Illinois on Wednesday, most signs pointed to a cranking up of the brinkmanship that led to the spending cuts of the government sequester that Bernanke has blamed for restraining the economy and general economic uncertainty.

One thing that seemed certain was that there was little Obama could say in his economic speeches that will change that dynamic.

Cigars aren't the only thing smuggled out of Cuba these days.

Cuban baseball players are also a hot commodity, and sports agents in the U.S. say the process is increasingly dominated by smugglers who track down players willing to defect and find surreptitious ways to deliver them to the United States.

"The whole business got pretty much taken over by smugglers," says former baseball agent Joe Kehoskie.

Kehoskie, who represented Cuban defectors from 1998 until 2008, calls the smuggling an "open secret" among agents, and claims smugglers attempt to "sell" players to agents.

He claims the standard procedure for smugglers is to bring the player out of Cuba and hold him in a safe house in Mexico or the Dominican Republic until an agent pays a "finder's fee" to represent them.

"Nobody is bringing Cuban baseball players off the island just out the goodness of their heart," he says. "It's a bare knuckles, capitalistic endeavor, from the time they're in Cuba to the time they're in a big league stadium in the United States."

Kehoskie said he did never dealt with smugglers, though he acknowledged that smugglers had been in contact with him and offered him players.

A number of Cuban players have been having outstanding seasons, including Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Yoenis Cspedes of the Oakland Athletics. Both were recent defectors.

Puig has repeatedly refused to say how he arrived in the United States. The Associated Press reported Monday that a Cuban man imprisoned for human trafficking in Cuba has sued Puig. The man, Miguel Angel Corbacho, says Puig and his mother lied to Cuban authorities and implicated him in a plan to smuggle Puig out of Cuba.

There have also been cases of agents and scouts being arrested and sometimes jailed for allegedly smuggling Cuban ballplayers.

Most notably, former California-based agent Gustavo "Gus" Dominguez was convicted in 2007 of paying to smuggle five Cuban baseball players to the U.S. Dominguez was released in 2011.

Juan Ignacio Herandez Nodar, a former baseball scout, spent 13 years in a Cuba prison for smuggling players until he was released in 2010.

Sports

At 100, Cuban All-Star To Get A Pension At Last

As we reported during Coffee Week in April, coffee aficionados pay top dollar for single-origin roasts.

The professional prospectors working for specialty coffee companies will travel far and wide, Marco Polo-style, to discover that next champion bean.

But to the farmers who hope to be that next great discovery, the emergence of this new coffee aristocracy is less Marco Polo, more Cinderella: How do you get your coffee bean to the ball?

Consider this tale of impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers whose beans once sold for rock bottom prices:

The yellowed highlands around the city of Jimma in Ethiopia are where coffee was discovered in the 8th century. But by the end of the 20th century, its reputation had become as shaky as a car ride on its mountain roads.

Carl Cervone, a coffee agronomist for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization TechnoServe, says most of the coffee here is labeled Jimma 5, because it has all five major defects that come from poor farming.

"The types of defects that you have include overripe beans, which are called foxies, and under-ripe beans, which are called quakers," says Cervone. There are also cracked beans, and beans chewed by insects.

"But the worst of them all, which is called a stinker, which means that you've basically left a bean fermenting for much longer than you should and it becomes rotten, and it's basically like putting a rotten egg in an omelet. It kind of ruins the entire cup," he says.

Jimma 5 was so bad it became the trade term for bad coffee in Ethiopia, according to Cervone.

And yet ask one of the farmers here, Haleuya Habagaro, and she'll tell you her coffee isn't just not bad — it's exquisite.

"When I roast the coffee, people come to ask where that strong fruity smell is coming from," says Habagaro. "It's like when you hold an orange."

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Three of the four major wireless companies are out with new plans for those who want the latest smartphone sooner. The plans, with names like Verizon Edge and AT&T Next, essentially let you rent a phone for six months or a year and then trade it in for a new one — but there's a catch.

"You're paying essentially twice," says Avi Greengart, who is research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis and does some consulting for the industry.

T-Mobile started this craze with its Jump plan that tacks on a monthly fee for the privilege of upgrading early. But T-Mobile, the underdog, charges less for service. That's not the case with Verizon and AT&T.

"You're also subscribing to a rate plan that historically had a subsidy built in," Greengart says.

A big-name smartphone like the Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy costs about $650. Most of us never pay that much upfront. Instead, we plop down $200 for the phone and sign a two-year contract. Baked into our monthly fees is about $20 a month that, over the life of the contract, recoups the full cost of the phone.

But in the new Verizon and AT&T plans, you're paying that $20, and you're paying the full cost of the phone in monthly installments. That's why in many cases, the carrier comes out ahead.

"It certainly looks like AT&T has developed its plan in such a way that it doesn't lose any money," Greengart says.

All Tech Considered

How Hackers Tapped Into My Cellphone For Less Than $300

When a young Indian-American woman walked into the funky L.A. jewelry boutique Tarina Tarantino, store manager Lauren Twisselman thought she was just like any other customer. She didn't realize the woman was actress and writer Mindy Kaling.

"I hadn't watched The Office," Twisselman says. Kaling both wrote and appeared in the NBC hit.

This lack of recognition is precisely what the VIP-identification technology designed by NEC IT Solutions is supposed to prevent.

The U.K.-based company already supplies similar software to security services to help identify terrorists and criminals. The ID technology works by analyzing footage of people's faces as they walk through a door, taking measurements to create a numerical code known as a "face template," and checking it against a database.

In the retail setting, the database of customers' faces is comprised of celebrities and valued customers, according to London's Sunday Times. If a face is a match, the program sends an alert to staff via computer, iPad or smartphone, providing details like dress size, favorite buys or shopping history.

The software works even when people are wearing sunglasses, hats and scarves. Recent tests have found that facial hair, aging, or changes in weight or hair color do not affect the accuracy of the system.

The technology is being tested in a dozen undisclosed top stores and hotels in the U.S., the U.K., and the Far East. NEC hasn't responded to NPR's requests for an interview, so it hasn't addressed why the stores that are testing the software are staying quiet about it.

Privacy Questions

Manolo Almagro, senior vice president of digital for retail agency TPN Inc., says the technology isn't new, it is just a more sophisticated version of Google Images, which allows users to find photos that are similar to other images. But, he says, facial recognition verges on dangerous territory — Google had to remove facial recognition software from Google Glass over privacy concerns.

All Tech Considered

In More Cities, A Camera On Every Corner, Park And Sidewalk

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is fighting for her bill to curb sexual assaults in the military. Her measure would give independent military prosecutors, rather than commanders, the power to decide which cases should be tried in military court.

Military leaders fiercely oppose moving that authority outside the chain of command, arguing that commanders are responsible for the health and welfare of their soldiers. Removing their authority would undermine their ability to lead, they say.

Gillibrand says commanders are not experts on serious assaults and are unable to prevent retaliation against victims who report crimes.

"Frankly, they've failed up until now to keep the command climate free of assault, rape and retaliation," she says.

It's All Politics

Unlikely Allies Shake Up Military Sex Assault Debate

Few Detroiters think the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history is great news.

But plenty see it as an opportunity. Many Detroit business owners hope the bankruptcy will mean more stability and certainty, in a city that has had little of either in recent years.

Sandy Baruah, head of the Detroit Regional Chamber, says the bankruptcy filing did not come as a surprise to him, nor should it surprise anybody else.

"Detroit is not unique," Baruah says. "Great American cities like New York, Pittsburgh have all gone through some form of bankruptcy/receivership. And all of those cities look back on the time as kind of the defining point that put their cities on a much more sustainable path. All three of those cities are now vibrant, urban centers."

The Two-Way

Michigan AG Appeals Court Order Blocking Detroit Bankruptcy

Two weeks after the horrific train derailment and explosions that devastated the Quebec town of Lac-Mgantic, "authorities have found 42 bodies at the site and are still looking for five more who are feared dead," The Canadian Press reports.

CBC News, which has posted 38 "faces of the Lac-Mgantic tragedy" as it continues to compile short bios of the victims, also reports that:

"The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has issued two urgent safety letters to Transport Canada as part of its continuing investigation into the deadly runaway train derailment and explosions in Lac-Mgantic, Que. The first advisory relates to the securing of equipment and trains left unattended. ... The TSB investigation has determined the braking force applied wasn't enough to hold the train on the 1.2 per cent descending slope where it had been parked for the night. ...

"The second advisory relates to securing trains carrying dangerous goods.

" 'Given the importance of the safe movement of dangerous goods and the risk associated with unattended equipment, we are asking Transport Canada to review all railway operating procedures to ensure that trains carrying dangerous goods are not left unattended on the main track,' TSB lead investigator Donald Ross said."

Long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who covered every president from Eisenhower to Obama, has died at age 92, according to The Gridiron Club & Foundation.

Thomas, who spent much of her career at United Press International before switching in her last decade in journalism to Hearst Newspapers as a columnist, died Saturday morning at her Washington apartment after a long illness, according to the Gridiron Club, where Thomas was the first female member and a former president.

Her longevity at the White House gave Thomas a coveted front row seat at briefings and allowed her, as the senior wire-service reporter, the first question at presidential news conferences. That ended when she left UPI in 2000.

NPR's David Folkenflik reports that the sometimes controversial journalist "broke barriers that prevented women from rising in the Washington press corps."

Thomas was born to Lebanese immigrants of little means and grew up in Michigan. She attended Wayne State University before heading to the nation's capital as a copygirl for the now-defunct Washington Daily News.

She covered women's issues, but held onto the White House beat for UPI, staying for decades.

The New York Times writes:

"Presidents grew to respect, even to like, Ms. Thomas for her forthrightness and stamina, which sustained her well after the age at which most people had settled into retirement. President Bill Clinton gave her a cake on Aug. 4, 1997, her 77th birthday. Twelve years later, President Obama gave her cupcakes for her 89th. At his first news conference in February 2009, Mr. Obama called on her, saying: "Helen, I'm excited. This is my inaugural moment."

Last fall, Hurricane Sandy damaged homes, buckled boardwalks and ruined much of the infrastructure of the small vacation spot of Fire Island, just off the coast of New York. The storm also destroyed many of the island's copper phone lines. But the island's only traditional phone company has no plans to replace them. Instead, Verizon is offering customers a little white box with an antenna it calls Voice Link.

"It has all the problems of a cellphone system, but none of the advantages," says Pat Briody, who has had a house on Fire Island for 40 years.

Essentially, Voice Link connects home phones to the Verizon Wireless network on the island. It has a traditional-sounding dial tone and 911 service, but that's about it. You can't use Voice Link to access the Internet. Some businesses can't process credit card transactions. Many alarm systems and health monitors won't work with Voice Link. "I don't think there's anyone who will tell you Voice Link is better than the copper wire," says Steve Kunreuther, the treasurer of the Saltaire Yacht Club.

But Fire Island and a few other communities hit hard by Sandy have no other choice, even if residents don't like it.

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The death toll is climbing after two earthquakes that struck western China early Monday.

More than 70 people are dead and at least 400 others are injured in Gansu province, the BBC says. According to The Associated Press, China's state media say the death toll stands at 75.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the first temblor registered a strong 5.9 magnitude. It struck around 7:45 a.m., local time (Monday evening in the eastern U.S.). The second quake, with a magnitude of 5.6, was felt about an hour later.

The BBC adds that "at least 5,600 houses in the province's Zhangxian county are seriously damaged and 380 have collapsed, while some areas suffered from power cuts or mobile communications being disrupted, the earthquake administration added." The area is about 770 miles west of Beijing.

China's Global Times writes that "days of downpours and a series of aftershocks have added difficulties to rescue efforts. ... Aftershocks and minor landslides with falling rocks were seen in the mountainous region following the quake."

Pope Francis arrives Monday evening in Rio de Janeiro for a weeklong visit celebrating World Youth Day. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics have made the pilgrimage to see the Argentine-born pontiff, and he is expected to receive a rapturous welcome.

Still, Pope Francis's visit comes at a delicate time for the church in Brazil. Catholicism — the nation's main religion — is facing a huge challenge from evangelicals.

In advance of the pope's visit, evangelical Christians held a rival gathering at Sao Paulo's convention center. It was massive event, with more than 200 stalls scattered around and thousands of visitors over the past few days.

Christianity in Brazil is big business — not only are major superstar pastors represented at the convention, but businesses like Sony Music have booths as well.

Brothers Lucas and Renault Loureno have been singing together since they were in their teens, and together they are the Brazilian evangelical version of the boy band. Now in their early 20s — sporting matching faux hawks and wearing jeans — they came to reach out to their established fans and sell records to new ones.

"This fair attracts many people, even people who are not evangelicals, which is essential because that way people will know the gospel and so every day there will be even more of us evangelicals," Renault says.

And, in fact, there are more every day. Recent polls show that evangelical Christianity is the fastest-growing sect in Brazil. According to the Pew Research Center, 22 percent of the Brazilian population identifies as evangelical Christian — up from 5 percent in 1970. Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, most of them switched from Roman Catholicism.

These days, only about 62 percent of people in Brazil say they are Catholic. In absolute numbers, however, this still makes Brazil the country with the most Catholics in the world.

Natalia Andrande says events like this attract new followers, and she says that's her message to Pope Francis.

"This is a way of showing we are strong, that we are also the church," 15-year-old Andrande says. "It's a way of changing people's minds."

Evangelical groups, and there are many, have also translated their numbers into a growing political clout. While the Catholic clergy are prohibited from being in government, President Dilma Rousseff has an evangelical bishop as a Cabinet minister.

Despite the pope's imminent visit, Rousseff prayed and reportedly sang with an evangelical group that recently came to lend her support.

That's the reason analysts say that evangelical churches have grown so big and so fast: They reach out to people on many levels and are visible in politics. But they also have, for example, drive-through prayer centers for busy commuters or rehab centers for the dispossessed.

One small center is called Cristolandia, and it's located right in the center of what is known as "Crack-landia" in Sao Paulo. The congregants are mostly drug addicts and prostitutes. They come to get a free meal and, if they want, eventually treatment for their addictions at evangelical rehab centers located in the countryside.

"I was a Catholic, but the church lost its sense of solidarity with the poor, with the drug addicts, with the prostitutes, the murderers and the thieves," says Cristolandia Pastor Humberto Machado. "The church closed its doors to these people."

And that's why he says Catholicism has been losing favor.

This week Pope Francis will be visiting a shanty town in Rio. He is already being touted as the "slum pope," in reference to his focus on social justice and poverty. But it will take a lot to gain back some of the ceded ground. While there is only one church in the community he will be visiting, there are four Pentecostal temples.

Two weeks after the horrific train derailment and explosions that devastated the Quebec town of Lac-Mgantic, "authorities have found 42 bodies at the site and are still looking for five more who are feared dead," The Canadian Press reports.

CBC News, which has posted 38 "faces of the Lac-Mgantic tragedy" as it continues to compile short bios of the victims, also reports that:

"The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has issued two urgent safety letters to Transport Canada as part of its continuing investigation into the deadly runaway train derailment and explosions in Lac-Mgantic, Que. The first advisory relates to the securing of equipment and trains left unattended. ... The TSB investigation has determined the braking force applied wasn't enough to hold the train on the 1.2 per cent descending slope where it had been parked for the night. ...

"The second advisory relates to securing trains carrying dangerous goods.

" 'Given the importance of the safe movement of dangerous goods and the risk associated with unattended equipment, we are asking Transport Canada to review all railway operating procedures to ensure that trains carrying dangerous goods are not left unattended on the main track,' TSB lead investigator Donald Ross said."

We've been looking at working conditions in Bangladesh where the collapse in April of a building that housed garment factories killed more than 1,000 people.

But Bangladesh isn't the only country where conditions in garment factories have come under criticism. The same industry has expanded dramatically in Cambodia in recent years, and a report from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization says compliance on key workplace issues need to be improved. That's a reversal for a country that was once lauded as a model in the developing world.

Here's more: "This report demonstrates that improvements are not being made in many areas including fire safety, child labor, and worker safety and health."

The report noted "impressive improvements" in the 10 years following the signing of the 1999 U.S.-Cambodian trade agreements, but reversals over the past few years.

The Better Factories Cambodia report was released last week, and it notes that "some of this deterioration may be attributed to the rapid growth of the industry."

The report follows the death in May of two workers at a shoe warehouse south of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Like Bangladesh, Cambodia's low labor costs make it an attractive destination for Western retailers. Here's more about the industry from the Wall Street Journal:

"Cambodia exploded onto the global garment scene in the 1990s. Development specialists saw the sector as a major growth opportunity for the country, which had only recently emerged from the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which according to some estimates left 1.7 million people dead during the late 1970s.

"Taking advantage of cheap labor, factories sprouted up in Phnom Penh residential areas as well as on farmland and rice paddies on the outskirts. There are 462 export factories now, said Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia. That is up from 185 exporting factories in 2001, he said, citing his earliest records.

"But the rapid growth was accompanied by complaints of sweatshop conditions. As activists called for a solution, U.S. officials negotiated a 1999 trade deal with Cambodia. Washington offered to expand access to the American market—which had quotas on garment imports—if Cambodian firms improved labor standards."

Hey, baggage fees — happy fifth birthday!

Even if passengers aren't eager to celebrate, airlines are. The fees, born in 2008, helped financially desperate carriers stay aloft as the U.S. economy was spiraling down.

"That was a watershed year that scared the bejeezus out of the airline industry," said Mark Gerchick, an aviation consultant who has just released a book, Full Upright and Locked Position. Even as ticket sales were sliding, jet fuel prices were shooting to historic highs.

"Suddenly, everyone's thinking changed in the industry," he said. Rather than try to provide a single price for comprehensive service, airlines started charging fees — typically $15 per bag — to boost revenues.

Today, fees are not only the norm; they are heading higher still. Checking a bag now costs $25 to $35 on most domestic flights, and roughly three times that amount on many overseas flights. And on any given flight, just about everything comes with a price tag — from 2 more inches of legroom to a can of Coke.

One carrier, Denver-based Frontier Airlines, has announced it soon will begin charging up to $100 for a single carry-on bag for any customer who fails to book through the company's own website.

Having people book directly online eliminates payments to travel agents and "is a big cost saver for us," Frontier spokeswoman Kate O'Malley said. And, of course, it also generates yet another stream of revenues.

Now United Airlines is trying a new approach, offering annual "subscription" fees to allow customers to prepay a year's worth of baggage fees, seat upgrades or airport club access. The plans start at $349 and allow you and your family to check up to two bags per flight.

Related NPR Stories

Author Interviews

Flying High And Low In 'Full Upright And Locked Position'

Three of the four major wireless companies are out with new plans for those who want the latest smartphone sooner. The plans, with names like Verizon Edge and AT&T Next, essentially let you rent a phone for six months or a year and then trade it in for a new one — but there's a catch.

"You're paying essentially twice," says Avi Greengart, who is research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis and does some consulting for the industry.

T-Mobile started this craze with its Jump plan that tacks on a monthly fee for the privilege of upgrading early. But T-Mobile, the underdog, charges less for service. That's not the case with Verizon and AT&T.

"You're also subscribing to a rate plan that historically had a subsidy built in," Greengart says.

A big-name smartphone like the Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy costs about $650. Most of us never pay that much upfront. Instead, we plop down $200 for the phone and sign a two-year contract. Baked into our monthly fees is about $20 a month that, over the life of the contract, recoups the full cost of the phone.

But in the new Verizon and AT&T plans, you're paying that $20, and you're paying the full cost of the phone in monthly installments. That's why in many cases, the carrier comes out ahead.

"It certainly looks like AT&T has developed its plan in such a way that it doesn't lose any money," Greengart says.

All Tech Considered

How Hackers Tapped Into My Cellphone For Less Than $300

Joe Kelso and John Winter probably waited too long. The couple has been together for a dozen years but only got serious recently about buying a house in San Francisco.

They saved enough to be able to afford anything under $500,000, but houses at such prices are now few and far between.

This spring, the median home price in San Francisco topped $1 million, up by a third from last year.

There are still houses listed for under $400,000, but that's just to get the bidding going. Those types of properties will sell for more than $500,000, while still requiring maybe $100,000 worth of work.

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So much fascinating tech and culture news, so little time. But we certainly think you should see the journalism that's catching our curiosity each week, so each Friday we'll round up the week that was — the work that appeared in this blog, and from our fellow technology writers and observers at other organizations.

ICYMI

In case you missed it ... here on All Tech, Steve Henn wrote about the clever ways that developers are hacking Google Glass to do what Google doesn't want them to do. Martin Kaste reported on the troves of data that law enforcement has captured, and in many cases, saved, about our license plates and our whereabouts. Our weekly innovation pick was Smart Bedding, which purports to keep your top sheet from bunching up while you sleep. We revisited a spring study about online ranters — it turns out that online outrage makes you feel worse in the long run.

On our airwaves, All Things Considered featured several pieces about the rush to digitize medical records and one of the companies behind electronic records.

The Big Conversations

The larger tech conversations this week focused on phone payment plans (more on that later) and the future of television viewing, with Netflix making history by garnering Emmy nods for its original programming and sparking questions about the end of consumer relationships with cable, aka, cord-cutting. "Google is freshly rumored to be pursuing the same kind of deals in order to 'stream traditional TV programming' across the Internet. Google, however, has sought these kinds of deals before and failed, so there's no guarantee the company will succeed this time," writes The New Yorker's Matt Buchanan, in a smart piece called "The Tyranny of Traditional TV."

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are now all offering installment plans for their mobile phone customers. The analyses on these new upgrade plans are almost all negative. Some sample headlines: "Smartphone Upgrade Plans Are A Bad Deal," "Make it stop: Verizon's Edge phone upgrade program is just as bad as AT&T's," and "Verizon and AT&T early upgrade plans are steaming hot piles of rip-off."

Wired compared the three plans Friday morning.

What's Catching Our Eye

In no particular order:

The New York Times: How Googling Unmasks Child Abuse

Fascinating research on how Google searches for certain terms that are a proxy cry for help.

The Atlantic: The Rise and Fall of a Racist Corner on Reddit

The popular online community is growing up and grappling with what to do about some darker subreddits that give hateful, misogynistic, racist sentiments a home.

Atlantic Wire: Tumblr's Gaping Security Hole

If you're a Tumblr user, you probably got the notice midweek: Tumblr asked all users of its iPhone and iPad app to change their password and download an update to fix a major security glitch. "It's such a huge and egregious error," Kevin O'Brien, an enterprise solutions architect for CloudLock, told the Atlantic Wire.

TechCrunch: Google Brings Street View to the Eiffel Tower

An elegant experience. I think I had more fun visiting the Eiffel Tower from my desk than when I actually visited the Paris icon. Those darn tourists everywhere ...

We've become familiar with the story of India's economic ascent and the creation of a large middle class. While that story is true, hundreds of millions of Indians have not been lifted out of extreme poverty.

India has sought to help its poorest children with its midday meal program, which was in the news this week when more than 20 schoolchildren died after eating tainted food.

As we noted, India trails other developing nations at the pace at which it is reducing death rates for children under 5. And as the map and graph below from the International Food Policy Research Institute show, India also lags behind in other key childhood indicators. (You may have to click on India on the map to see the data. You can also click on other countries.)

Belgium's Crown Prince Philippe has been sworn in as the country's seventh monarch, succeeding his father, Albert II, who abdicated on Sunday after a 20-year reign.

Albert, 79, resigned the throne on Sunday, citing ill health. He officially signed away his rights to the largely ceremonial post in the presence of Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, who holds the real political party in Belgium, a 183-year-old constitutional monarchy.

About two hours later, 53-year-old Philippe, who the BBC describes as "an Oxford and Stanford-educated, trained air force pilot," took the oath, promising to uphold the constitution.

In his final address as king on Belgium's National Day Sunday, Albert said his country must remain a "source of inspiration" to Europe. Speaking in French, he thanked an audience of some 250 dignitaries and political leaders "for all that you have achieved during my reign."

Albert also said he hoped his country — which is split between some 6 million Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north and about 4.5 million French speakers in the south — can remain united, despite sharp differences. The tensions between the two linguistic halves of the country have brought down several governments over the years.

Belgium's biggest opposition party, the N-VA New Flemish Alliance, which wants Flanders to break away and establish a republic, sent only a limited delegation to the royal ceremony.

The BBC quoted the party's parliamentary leader, Jan Jambon, as saying the occasion of the new monarch "leaves me cold." Another Flemish separatist party boycotted the ceremony altogether.

Phil Mickelson has won the British Open with a spectacular finish.

Mickelson shot a 5-under 66 Sunday to match the best round of the tournament and win his first claret jug. The celebration began while there were still four groups on the course. Lefty birdied four of the last six holes, capped by a 10-footer at the tough 18th to claim his fifth major title.

As soon as the ball dropped in the cup, Mickelson pumped his fists in triumph, knowing it would be hard for anyone to chase down his 3-under 281 total. He headed off to hug his wife and kids while his caddie broke down in tears.

Lee Westwood started the day with a two-stroke lead but his chances ended when he failed to make eagle at the 17th. Adam Scott briefly held the outright lead on the back side, but four straight bogeys ended his hopes of a second major title.

When Pope Francis arrives in Brazil on Monday, he'll begin a trip of firsts.

He's the first Latin American pope and it will be his first trip abroad as pontiff. And he'll be visiting a country with more Catholics than any other.

Francis, who is gaining a reputation for his simple ways, is expected, The Miami Herald writes, to:

" ... walk the streets of a shantytown, visit young prisoners and greet hundreds of thousands of pilgrims this week during World Youth Day celebrations in Brazil ..."

Belgium's crown prince Philippe has been sworn in as the country's seventh monarch, succeeding his father Albert II, who abdicated on Sunday after a 20-year reign.

Albert, 79, resigned the throne on Sunday, citing ill health. He officially signed away his rights to the largely ceremonial post in the presence of Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, who holds the real political party in Belgium, a 183-year-old constitutional monarchy.

About two hours later, Philippe, 53, which the BBC describes as "an Oxford and Stanford-educated, trained air force pilot" took the oath, promising to uphold the constitution.

In his final address as king on Belgium's National Day Sunday, Albert, speaking in French, said his country must remain a "source of inspiration" to Europe. He thanked an audience of some 250 dignitaries and political leaders "for all that you have achieved during my reign".

Albert also said he hoped his country, which is split between some 6 million Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north and about 4.5 million French speakers in the south – can remain united, despite sharp differences. The tensions between the two linguistic halves of the country have brought down several governments over the years.

Belgium's biggest opposition party, the N-VA New Flemish Alliance, which wants Flanders to break away and establish a republic, sent only a limited delegation to the royal ceremony.

The BBC quoted the party's parliamentary leader, Jan Jambon, as saying the occasion of the new monarch "leaves me cold." Another Flemish separatist party boycotted the ceremony altogether.

Few Detroiters think the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history is great news.

But plenty see it as an opportunity. Many Detroit business owners hope the bankruptcy will mean more stability and certainty, in a city that has had little of either in recent years.

Sandy Baruah, head of the Detroit Regional Chamber, says the bankruptcy filing did not come as a surprise to him, nor should it surprise anybody else.

"Detroit is not unique," Baruah says. "Great American cities like New York, Pittsburgh have all gone through some form of bankruptcy/receivership. And all of those cities look back on the time as kind of the defining point that put their cities on a much more sustainable path. All three of those cities are now vibrant, urban centers."

The Two-Way

Michigan AG Appeals Court Order Blocking Detroit Bankruptcy

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Few Detroiters think the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history is great news.

But plenty see it as an opportunity. Many Detroit business owners hope the bankruptcy will mean more stability and certainty, in a city that has had little of either in recent years.

Sandy Baruah, head of the Detroit Regional Chamber, says the bankruptcy filing did not come as a surprise to him, nor should it surprise anybody else.

"Detroit is not unique," Baruah says. "Great American cities like New York, Pittsburgh have all gone through some form of bankruptcy/receivership. And all of those cities look back on the time as kind of the defining point that put their cities on a much more sustainable path. All three of those cities are now vibrant, urban centers."

The Two-Way

Michigan AG Appeals Court Order Blocking Detroit Bankruptcy