What's new

The online magazine Ozy covers people, places and trends on the horizon. Co-founder Carlos Watson joins All Things Considered regularly to tell us about the site's latest discoveries.

This week, he tells NPR's Arun Rath about a bullied teen who makes it big, the unlikely popularity of an American motorcycle brand in Ho Chi Minh City and the most informative cartoons imaginable.

"You and I and a ton of other people love infographics. The idea that the best way to explain something sometimes is clever graphics. This blog was started by two tutors — these guys were academic tutors, Tim Urban and Andrew Finn — who decided to get together to explain some of life's more important and offbeat points.

"Even though they only started in July, [they] already have more than a quarter of a million subscribers and [a] really interesting ability to use graphs and charts to bring things alive."

Read "Wait But Why: Making Nerdiness Viral" at Ozy.com

Last month, I got hit by a drone. No, it was not a giant surveillance robot, or a sinister armed device. It was a cute little quadcopter about the size of a coconut, operated by a professor who built it for fun.

What is a drone?

A flying device capable of autonomous flight, often equipped with a camera. Scientific American has explored the topic in detail. Synonyms: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aerial System (UAS).

Actor John Lithgow has won awards for performances ranging from the goofy alien patriarch in 3rd Rock from the Sun to a demonic serial killer on Dexter to dramatic and musical roles on Broadway. (And if that weren't enough, he's written best-selling children's books, too.)

Since he's so successful onstage, we're going to ask him three questions about failures. He'll take a quiz about terrible new products, from Daily Finance's Top 25 Biggest Product Flops Of All Time.

Imagine buying a genuine Pablo Picasso painting valued at $1 million — and paying only $135.

That's the prize if you win the "1 Picasso For 100 Euros" raffle Sotheby's is currently putting on. It's the first time a Picasso has been offered as a raffle prize, and while 100 euros (about $135) isn't cheap for a raffle ticket, at one in about 50,000, your chances of winning are a lot better than the mega lotteries a lot of people enter.

Peri Cochin, a journalist and television producer in Paris, explains that the idea for an online raffle came about when she was faced with attending yet another gala charity dinner. She and her mother, who is Lebanese, plan fundraising events for the International Association to Save Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in Lebanon. Tyre's monuments have suffered from Lebanon's civil wars, and the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been damaged by urban blight. When Cochin's mother suggested the charity gala, Cochin thought: Not again.

"All those gala dinners," she says, "You go there, you sit and you are really bored very quickly, and you look to your watch and hope that 11 o'clock will arrive quickly and you can go home and be quiet and forget about that dinner."

Cochin wanted to try something new. They came up with the idea for an online raffle that would intrigue people from all over the world, not just the usual suspects at a charity dinner. Cochin knows Olivier Picasso, grandson of Pablo Picasso, who is also a television producer in Paris. Together, they looked for a Picasso drawing, and found Man with Opera Hat. Olivier Picasso, who is writing a biography of his grandfather, says the painting is from 1914, "the peak of the cubism period of my grandfather. It's the second part of the cubism history, when Pablo was more studying how to symbolize things than just to draw them. "

Fine Art

For Museum, Long-Lost Picasso Is Too Costly To Keep

San Francisco's Mission District is a cultural crossroads for food, where Mexican bodegas and burrito shops meet gourmet bakeries and cutting-edge California cuisine. It's also home to a kitchen where some of the most promising food startups in the region are getting a boost.

When 52-year-old Alicia Villanueva migrated to San Francisco from Mexico in 2001, she began preparing tamales at home to make a living. She found clientele for her authentic, quality food easily, but says that she struggled to grow the business.

"I'd buy a little and then cook, save a little, buy more ingredients, and on and on," she says. "But that money went to support my family and pay the utility bills."

What she needed to expand was access to an industrial kitchen.

At the recent International Collectibles and Antiques Show in Charlotte, N.C., dealers spread out items in different booths. The warehouse looks like an old-school flea market, except for Joy Shivar's booth.

She's on her laptop, demonstrating JustAJoy.com. Enter a name in a database, and see if something hits.

The website bills itself as a family heirloom exchange for sellers and buyers. That's not unusual — there is eBay, after all.

But unlike eBay, JustAJoy doesn't take a cut of transactions. Instead, it sells memberships for $20 a year. It's more like a matching service.

"We do just provide a platform where these kinds of connections can happen," says Shivar.

Once registered, members are notified by email whenever something else is listed for sale that includes one of the surnames they listed.

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A subcontractor that built a portion of the HealthCare.gov website that's now working relatively well is being promoted to oversee a thorough revamping of the glitch-prone portal, which will be done by the end of next month, the White House says.

QSSI will apparently replace Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the lead role. It's charged with identifying problems and prioritizing fixes, Jeffrey Zients, who is in charge of fixing the website, said in a briefing on Friday.

"By the end of November, the vast majority of consumers will be able to successfully and smoothly enroll through healthcare.gov," he said.

Healthcare.gov – the online entry point for uninsured Americans to get coverage under the Affordable Care Act - has turned into an obstacle for people trying to purchase coverage.

Zients told reporters that currently about 90 percent of the website's users are able to set up an account but "as few as 3 in 10 are getting through the process."

He said that a team of "leading managers and programmers" drawn from government and the private sector assessed the problem with the portal and determined "it is fixable."

Reuters says QSSI "produced the federal data hub and a software tool for creating online consumer accounts, which was at the center of early logjam problems."

European leaders released a statement on Friday saying they were concerned about alleged U.S. spying on them and expressing concern that the practice could damage relations with Washington.

In the statement, which follows a report in The Guardian newspaper that the U.S. National Security Agency monitored the calls of 35 world leaders, the EU sought to underline "the close relationship between Europe and the USA and the value of that partnership."

It stressed that intelligence-gathering "is a vital element in the fight against terrorism."

However, it said, "A lack of trust could prejudice the necessary cooperation in the field of intelligence-gathering."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose cellphone may have been tapped according to the U.K. newspaper, said the alleged spying had sown "the seeds of mistrust."

"[It] doesn't facilitate our co-operation... it makes it more difficult," she said.

The revelations stems from documents sourced to U.S. whistleblower and former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The Guardian also reports that the NSA has collected 70 million phone records in France.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post late Thursday suggests there might be yet another shoe to drop: It says that U.S. officials are warning some foreign intelligence services that Snowden had in his possession "sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China."

The Post, quoting unnamed officials, writes:

"The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.

...

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.

'If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn't be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,' the official said."

The fight over abortion in Texas is being played out in federal court, where abortion rights activists are challenging a new state law.

The measure bans abortions at 20 weeks, adds building requirements for clinics and places more rules on doctors who perform abortions. Some clinics have shut down, saying they can't comply with the law set to go into effect Oct. 29.

Abortion rights activists call the new law a dramatic change that will affect all clinics across the state, including a huge Planned Parenthood facility in Fort Worth that opened in June.

It's a $6.5 million center with three surgical suites and 19,000 square feet of space, built specifically to meet the building standards that activists saw coming.

"You know, we did not think the laws would come as quickly as they did," says Ken Lambrecht, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.

He says three nurses are required to be in the clinic when abortions are performed. The law also mandates the size of operating rooms, the type of ventilation systems and the width of the hallways.

"You could fit at least two gurneys in this hallway, and it's the size of many hospital corridors," he says. "And it's certainly not necessary for the procedure."

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The Square

Director: Jehane Noujaim

Genre: Documentary

Running Time: 104 minutes

Not rated; bloody violence and its effects

In Arabic and English

Under the Affordable Care Act, nearly everyone will be required to have health insurance. If they don't, they'll have to pay the federal government a tax penalty.

But it turns out this is a case where there are deadlines, and then there are hard deadlines.

And with the federally run health insurance exchange at HealthCare.gov so mired in technology problems, figuring out the what counts as a real deadline has become a very hot topic.

On Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged that there's a disconnect between the dates when people are allowed to enroll in an insurance plan and when the penalties for not doing so kick in. "And those are going to be addressed," he said. In a media briefing Thursday, Health and Human Services spokeswoman Julie Bataille said of the March 31 deadline confusion, "We are working on it and will have something soon."

Here's a cheat sheet for sorting through the deadlines — and what the White House may need to do to clarify things.

It's been widely reported that Jan. 1, 2014, is when you need to have health insurance. What's that deadline all about?

That is the date when the so-called individual mandate to have health insurance becomes law. If you don't already get insurance through your job (including COBRA or a retirement plan), or public programs such as Medicare, Medicaid or the VA, you're supposed to buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges. To be insured by Jan. 1, you'd have to do that by Dec. 15.

That seems straightforward. What's the confusion all about?

The confusion comes from federal rules written by the IRS that spell out some of the nitty-gritty details about how the Affordable Care Act is to be implemented. One of those IRS rules says that people don't have to pay the tax penalty if they have a "short gap" in their coverage. The IRS defined a short gap as lasting less than three months.

So here's the rub: What if you start your short gap on Jan. 1? Reading the IRS rules, you might conclude that you could drag it out for "less than three months" and wait until March 31 to get insured.

So is March 31 the real deadline then?

Well, no. Remember how you needed to sign up by Dec. 15 to be covered by Jan. 1? There's always this lag. If you signed up for insurance on March 31, it wouldn't take effect until May 1. You'd have to pay the tax penalty for the month of April (it's prorated).

So is March 15 the real deadline then? That would have me covered by April 1, right?

Nope. This is where it gets really technical.

If your coverage doesn't start until April 1, then the IRS would consider your coverage gap to be more than three months. You'd still have to pay the tax penalty for the month of April.

Really?

Yes. See why this is confusing?

OK, so tell me, what is the real deadline?

The way the rules are currently written, the final deadline — if you don't want to pay any tax penalty at all — is Feb. 15. That would have you insured as of March 1.

That represents a six-week grace period from the Jan. 1 deadline we've been hearing about. So if you dread the idea of buying insurance on the exchange — but dread the idea of paying a tax penalty even more — you've got a little time to drag your heels.

But six weeks also represents a much shorter grace period than the roughly 90-day time frame that seems to have been the spirit of what the IRS intended in its rules.

So what can the White House do about this?

On Wednesday, the White House released a statement that said, "If you sign up for insurance by the end of March, you will not face a penalty." So it's possible that the ultimate deadline will move again. But the IRS will have to revise its rules to make that happen.

Five years ago, a landmark report excoriated the animal agriculture industry's practices and laid out a roadmap for how it could do better. But in the years since, the problems are just as bad — and maybe even worse.

That's the conclusion of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. This week, the center scolded the industry again with a review of how it has fared in the years since the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released its original report.

The Salt

Are Antibiotics On The Farm Risky Business?

While it is been "one of the more poorly kept national security secrets in Washington and Islamabad" that Pakistani leaders privately endorse U.S. drone strikes aimed at terrorists in their country, The Washington Post says that:

"Top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos" it has obtained show that "top officials in Pakistan's government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts."

Germany, Deutsche Welle

We begin with the fallout from the leaks over the National Security's Agency surveillance operations.

Germany has summoned the U.S. ambassador over allegations the NSA spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel called President Obama on Wednesday to demand an explanation over the allegations, which were revealed by Der Spiegel. Obama denied the German chancellor was targeted.

The German news report is the latest embarrassment for the U.S., which earlier this week found itself trying to explain a report in the French newspaper Le Monde that the NSA had monitored millions of French phone records during a 30-day period.

Merkel had previously defended cooperation with the NSA.

The revelations follow the leak of classified information by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Kenya, Daily Nation

It's an apparent case of shooting the messenger.

Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo says journalists will be arrested and prosecuted for reporting on the apparent looting by Kenya Defence Forces personnel at Nairobi's Westgate Mall during the siege there last month.

The newspaper reported that Kimaiyo accused journalists of "provoking propaganda" and inciting citizens against authorities with their reporting. The newspaper says:

"The Inspector-General's announcement is the latest in a sustained assault on press freedom in Kenya in recent months, which has seen the tabling in Parliament of bills giving government control over media operations."

The military says soldiers weren't looting, but were, in fact, carrying water in shopping bags.

But The Associated Press reports that security camera footage its reporters saw appeared to show armed forces looting a store during the four-day siege that began Sept. 21. At least 67 people were killed in the attack by Islamists militants.

Canada, Globe and Mail

Canada mostly was unharmed during the global economic crisis, but a gloomier outlook prompted the country's central bank to put on hold a planned increase of a key interest rate. And that decision is upsetting pension funds, insurers and banks.

"For anybody who is in the business of saving money, this is not good news," Jim Leech, CEO of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, told the newspaper. "It will be tougher and tougher for people to save money to meet their retirement needs. And it doesn't matter if you're in a defined benefit [pension plan] or defined contribution pension plan or your own RRSP, your savings rates are going to be low."

Long-term interest rates in Canada began rising this year, boosting the country's pension funds. Those funds have struggled over the past decade because of low interest rates. The newspaper cited data as saying the average Canadian pension plan was 88 percent funded as of Sept. 30; it was at 69 percent at the start of the year.

The newspaper reported that insurers expressed relative confidence with the Bank of Canada's decision while commercial banks also saw a silver lining: low mortgage rates.

Singapore, Straits Times

Finally, police in Singapore are investigating an incident at a bus stop on Tuesday in which a man spat at two women following a dispute over cutting in line.

A video of the incident was posted on Facebook where it went viral, the newspaper reported.

Singapore's public transport operator SMRT reminded passengers that "that inappropriate behaviour is not tolerated and will be reported."

Re-election trouble is brewing for longtime Republican senators in deep-red states, from South Carolina to Wyoming. And the trouble is from within.

The GOP's restive Tea Party and libertarian wings, energized by their titular leader, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and funded in part by starve-government groups like the Club for Growth, are waging 2014 Senate primary challenges in six states — and counting.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is under attack, as are Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. All were rated among the most conservative in the U.S. Senate last year by the American Conservative Union.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, may join the list of the challenged, but so far he has no viable primary opponent.

As the fallout from the recent government shutdown and default crisis settles, here's our look at the state of play in Senate races that a Republican is likely to win. But just which Republican is the question.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell, 71, a five-term incumbent, won praise from establishment Republicans for forging a deal with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that ended the partial government shutdown and avoided a national debt default. He has collected endorsements from the National Right to Life Committee and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. And he has amassed a campaign war chest of about $10 million. But his approval ratings at home are anemic, and he's fighting off a primary challenge from conservative businessman Matt Bevin, endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund. The fund describes itself as "a political action committee dedicated to electing true conservatives to the United States Senate."

McConnell could emerge from the primary weakened as he goes into what is shaping up to be a tough challenge from Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. Surveys show a potentially close general election race, with Lundergan Grimes, the secretary of state, polling particularly strongly among women.

When we first heard from Laura Greenberg and her daughter, Rebecca, in 2011, Laura recounted what it was like to grow up in a family that was, as she explained it, "not normal."

"We're yelling and we're pinching and we're hugging and we're cursing and we peed with the door open," she said about her childhood in Queens, N.Y., in the 1950s. "I didn't know this was not normal behavior. I didn't know people had secrets, you didn't tell your mother everything."

Laura recalled how her father would conduct an imaginary orchestra in front of the stereo in his boxer shorts, and when she met Carl, Rebecca's father.

"He was cute, but very, very quiet and I scared the crap out of him. The first time he kissed me he had a nosebleed all over his face he was so nervous. It was terrible," she laughed — before adding that, 35 years later, they were still married.

Now, Laura and Rebecca are back in a StoryCorps booth in Atlanta. But this time, they're not alone — now it's Carl's turn to share his side of the family story.

"So your first kiss, we heard about how you bled all over Mom," Rebecca asks him. "Do you have any different take on that story?

"That's how it happened," Carl says. "But I do have some Laura stories. We were having people over. She was going to make spaghetti, didn't have enough. So she broke the package of spaghetti in half, so she figured she had twice as much."

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"Please Release Him."

That was the simple but startling front-page headline on Wednesday in New Express, a cutting-edge newspaper based in China's southern city of Guangzhou. "Him" is Chen Yongzhou, one of the paper's investigative journalists who New Express says was taken away by police after reporting "problems with the accounts" at Zoomlion Heavy Industries."

Bloomberg reports that Chen's May 27 story on construction-equipment maker Zoomlion "accused the company of improperly accounting for sales, forcing Zoomlion to halt trading of its shares in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The company has denied it falsified sales."

Zoomlion filed a complaint against Chen with local police last week, and he was detained on Oct. 18 for "damage to business reputation," media reports said.

The arrest of Chen comes as China has sought to crackdown on what it has described as online rumors and false news.

Radio Free Asia calls the move by New Express "unprecedented" and notes:

"While all Chinese newspapers are tightly controlled by the propaganda department of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, some continue to push the limits set down for them, in particular through investigative reporting of alleged corruption."

"Please Release Him."

That was the simple but startling front-page headline on Wednesday in New Express, a cutting-edge newspaper based in China's southern city of Guangzhou. "Him" is Chen Yongzhou, one of the paper's investigative journalists who New Express says was taken away by police after reporting "problems with the accounts" at Zoomlion Heavy Industries."

Bloomberg reports that Chen's May 27 story on construction-equipment maker Zoomlion "accused the company of improperly accounting for sales, forcing Zoomlion to halt trading of its shares in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The company has denied it falsified sales."

Zoomlion filed a complaint against Chen with local police last week, and he was detained for "damage to business reputation," on Oct. 18, media reports said.

The arrest of Chen comes as China has sought to crackdown on what it has described as online rumors and false news.

Radio Free Asia calls the move by New Express "unprecedented" and notes:

"While all Chinese newspapers are tightly controlled by the propaganda department of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, some continue to push the limits set down for them, in particular through investigative reporting of alleged corruption."

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The "bishop of bling" has been suspended by Pope Francis while the Roman Catholic Church investigates allegations of overspending on renovations at the German cleric's residence and offices.

Bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has been removed from his position "for the time being," writes Germany's Deutsche Welle. From Rome, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that a statement from the Vatican says that "at this time [the bishop] cannot exercise his episcopal ministry."

Rocco Palmo, who writes the respected Whispers in the Loggia blog, says it's a "big deal" that the pope has taken the unusual step of suspending Tebartz-van Elst even before getting the results of an investigation into the bishop's spending.

Tebartz-van Elst earned his unflattering nickname after reports surfaced that close to $40 million has been spent on work at his home and offices — about eight times what had been expected. He also, as National Catholic Reporter writes, allegedly made false statements in court about that work.

According to Deutsche Welle, "the scandal over the possible misuse of church funds has drawn criticism in Germany, where parish funds comes not only from donations, but also from a special 'church tax' paid by registered parishioners to their respective denominations."

Sylvia adds that "the bishop has defended the renovation of his residence, saying it involved 10 different projects and that there were additional costs because of regulations on buildings under historical protection."

She also notes that Tebartz-van Elst "has come under harsh criticism in Germany at a time when the pope is stressing the importance of humility and serving the poor."

On Sunday, the pope preached that:

"When a person is attached to money, he destroys himself, he destroys the family. Money destroys! It does, doesn't it? It binds you. Money serves to bring about many good things, so many works for human development, but when your heart is attached in this way, it destroys you."

A South Asian strain of cholera that was introduced into Haiti three years ago this month has now spread to this continent's mainland.

Mexico is the fourth Western Hemisphere country to experience the cholera outbreak. It's a disease that's very hard to stamp out once it gets into an area with poor water and sanitation.

Mexican health officials first picked up on the problem Sept. 9, through routine surveillance of hospital cases of severe diarrhea. Since then there've been 171 reported cases in Mexico City and states to the north and east. One victim has died.

Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, says it was all but inevitable that cholera would spread beyond the Caribbean. "It was always a major concern that it would be exported to other countries, as has recently happened in Mexico," he tells Shots.

Since it was introduced into Haiti — very likely by United Nations peacekeeping troops from Nepal who were billeted at a camp with poor sanitary facilities — cholera has sickened 715,000 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic (which share the island of Hispaniola) and Cuba. Nearly 9,000 have died.

Andrus fully expects it will spread further. "We are advocating throughout the region for countries to be on their guard," he says.

Cholera is thought to have invaded Cuba via infected health personnel who work in Haiti and travel back and forth. Cuba has reported nearly 700 cholera cases and three deaths, although many are skeptical that that nation is fully reporting the extent of its outbreak.

Andrus says vacationers visiting Cuba — who probably got cholera from contaminated food — have exported the disease to Chile, Venezuela, Italy, Germany and Holland. So far those cases haven't touched off outbreaks. But as the Mexican epidemic shows, it can easily happen if an imported case contaminates water or food in an area with poor sanitation.

"You have those situations throughout Latin America," he notes. "We are the region of the greatest disparities."

The last time the Americas saw a major cholera epidemic was 22 years ago. It was allegedly brought by a ship that discharged its bilgewater in a Peruvian port. The disease spread all the way up the continent, sickening more than a million people and killing 10,000 or so, until it hit the U.S.-Mexican border. There it was stopped by modern water- and sewage-treatment facilities in the United States.

Andrus says PAHO is very worried this latest epidemic will have a similar impact.

"It's really, for us, a defining moment," he says. "To what extent are we concerned about spread? Well, it's really a regional threat and now a global threat to health."

It took Mexico more than 10 years to bring its last cholera epidemic under control. This time sanitary conditions are better, so it might not take that long. But Andrus says it won't be easy to stamp out.

"It won't be 10 years, (but) it won't be days or weeks," he says.

Dr. Maureen Birmingham, PAHO's representative in Mexico, writes in an email to NPR that authorities there are monitoring the population for spread of cholera and focusing on prompt treatment of affected people, along with providing clean water and sanitary facilities to vulnerable communities.

Shots - Health News

Activists Sue U.N. Over Cholera That Killed Thousands In Haiti

A record number of Americans are in favor of legalizing marijuana, according to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday.

The poll, which was conducted Oct. 3-6, reports that 58 percent of the public support the legalization of marijuana, while 39 percent oppose it.

The tide of public opinion appears to be rapidly turning in favor of legalization. In November 2012, Gallup found that 48 percent of Americans favored marijuana legalization compared to 50 percent who did not. Just over a decade earlier, in 2001, only 31 percent supported legalization while 64 percent opposed it.

The first time Gallup recorded a majority of Americans in favor of legalization came in 2011, when 50 percent said they supported it and 46 percent said they opposed it.

The issue remains a fairly partisan one: 65 percent of Democrats support legalizing marijuana, compared to 35 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 62 percent of independents say they are pro-legalization, up from 50 percent last year.

Every age group Gallup tested was in favor of marijuana legalization except for those 65 and older. Fifty-three percent of respondents in that group said they were against legalization, while 45 percent were in support.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are still the most likely to back legalizing marijuana. Of that age group, two-thirds — 67 percent — favor legalization while 31 percent would like to see the drug remain illegal.

The results follow some major victories for pro-legalization forces. Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana last year, and the Justice Department announced in August it would not challenge the laws.

Advocates are also moving forward with efforts to put a marijuana legalization referendum on the ballot in 10 other states over the next four years.

A new trend is brewing in the coffee world: Coffee prepared by a robot, able to be pre-ordered via cell phone and picked up at an unmanned kiosk, perfectly adjusted to your taste and ready to go.

To some, this might seem lamentable: the beginning of the end of coffee shops as we know them. No more huddling around warm cups of coffee with friends or sipping a refreshing iced latte while reading.

But to others, this might be just what they've waited for: no lines when you're in a rush, and coffee prepared by a machine that is programmed to make it perfectly time and time again.

The latest company to present such a coffee kiosk is Austin-based Briggo. As Quartz recently reported, Briggo opened its first kiosk on University of Texas' Austin campus in July of this year. The kiosk — dubbed "The Coffee Haus" — takes up about 50 square feet of space, has a nice exterior wood design, and accepts orders either on-site or across campus via a website, informing the customer precisely when the drink will be ready.

Customers are able to control every detail to their liking, including the flavor, the type of sweetener and milk, and the amount of each ingredient. A variety of choices are offered, from espressos and lattes to ice coffees and hot chocolate. If customers create an account online, the system will remember their favorite order (of course, your friendly neighborhood barista probably does the same thing.)

While the convenience of such a machine is probably its biggest selling point, consumers who've sampled Briggo's brew tell The Salt that the quality of the coffee is nothing to sniff out, either.

Unlike a barista-in-training, who needs to figure out the tricks of the trade, their robotic counterparts have been programmed to control every aspect of the process, with the goal of creating a consistently tasty product.

"The coffee tastes good and it always tastes the same," Yamit Lavi, a student at UT Austin, tells us. "I would say the consistency of the taste makes it better than a standard coffee shop."

The machine, after all, can measure humidity, temperature, water pressure, timing and other such factors to a tee. And while institutions host the coffee kiosks, Briggo retains ownership of the machines so it can closely manage the entire process, from origin of its direct-trade beans to cup in hand.

Briggo isn't the only company to pursue a robotic coffee venture. There's also the Marley Coffee Machine, which croons Bob Marley tunes while the robot within the box prepares coffee from freshly ground beans. And Starbucks' satellite brand, Seattle's Best, is pairing with the company that owns Redbox to set up one-dollar coffee kiosks in hundreds of supermarkets across the country.

And yet, although students at UT Austin enjoy the Briggo "Coffee Haus," many of them still hold on to the value of a real coffee shop experience.

"At coffee shops you can build relationships with the people making your drink and have a more personal interaction," says Mina Ghobrial, another student at UT. "I believe that's very important in today's society, especially since electronics have taken over face-to-face interactions."

The coffee kiosks don't have to eliminate coffee shops altogether. Instead, they can be a nice addition: something there when we need it — and not bad-tasting to boot.

When it finally came out Tuesday, the September jobs report — delayed for 18 days by the government shutdown — showed a labor market moving forward. But the pace was slow enough to prompt many economists to view it as a letdown.

Job growth "is disappointing, given that employment is still down by about 1.8 million from its peak prior to the recession," Gus Faucher, senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group, said in his analysis.

The Labor Department said employers added 148,000 jobs last month – the 43rd straight month of growth. The unemployment rate slipped to 7.2 percent, down a tenth of a point from August. Still, the number of people with paychecks remained lower than before the Great Recession, with many potential workers not even in the game. They were sitting at home, rather than trying to find jobs.

The report showed labor-force participation was unchanged in September at 63.2 percent, but that rate's "long-term decent will continue" unless employers give sidelined workers more reason to resume job searches, Doug Handler, an economist with IHS Global Insight, wrote in his assessment.

Still, beneath the disappointing data, one could find some reasons for optimism in the new year. For one thing, economists are virtually unanimous in saying the relatively weak labor market makes it more likely the Federal Reserve will continue its efforts to stimulate growth.

Throughout the recession and weak recovery, the Fed has used all of its monetary tools to push down interest rates. One of those efforts involves a bond-buying program that has the effect of restraining long-term interest rates. In June, the Fed indicated that U.S. economic growth was getting strong enough that the central bank might begin to "taper" down its stimulus effort.

But given this month's economic disruptions caused by the federal government shutdown — combined with last month's sluggish job growth — the Fed probably will not act until 2014. "A December taper remains possible, but now is increasingly unlikely," Handler said.

Translation: Interest rates probably will still be low on home mortgages come spring.

Meanwhile, the September jobs report showed an increase in construction jobs, up about 20,000 workers. A separate report Tuesday from the Commerce Department showed that in August, private residential construction spending hit the highest level in five years.

So the real estate market may look pretty good for the spring buying season, with fresh inventory and cheap mortgages. A surge in homebuying would boost growth for lots of Americans, in construction, retail, landscaping and so on.

But that optimism assumes Congress will avoid another shutdown and debt ceiling crisis this winter. Congress has set a schedule for itself to complete a budget in January, and resolve debt-ceiling issues by Feb. 7. If those federal fiscal matters are resolved in the winter, the economy could brighten with the blossoms. "Job growth should be stronger in 2014 as the drag from fiscal policy on economic growth lessens," PNC's Faucher said.

Forests cover about half of Russia's land mass, an environmental resource that President Vladimir Putin calls "the powerful green lungs of the planet."

But Putin himself acknowledges that Russia, the world's biggest exporter of logs, is having its timber stolen at an unprecedented rate.

The demand for high-value timber is fueling organized crime, government corruption and illegal logging in the Russian Far East. The hardwood cut in the endless forests often ends up as flooring and furniture in the United States, Europe, Japan and China.

At meeting on timber management earlier this year, Putin said that illegal logging has increased by nearly 70 percent over the past five years, and he added that timber thieves have no problem selling their product.

Illegal loggers are often linked to violent organized crime, and together, they undermine what officials say could be sustainable forests, and contribute to Russia's endemic corruption by paying off local officials.

Threat To The Siberian Tiger

But there's another reason illegal logging is considered a threat in the Far East.

"This provides an important habitat, both in terms of shelter and food, for such unique animals as the Amur tiger. Only about 450 of these beautiful animals are left in the wild," says Nikolay Shmatkov, the forest policy projects coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund in Russia.

The Amur tiger, more commonly called the Siberian tiger, is known throughout the world as one of the largest living members of the cat family. It preys on deer and wild boar, which in turn live on acorns and walnuts that grow in one of Russia's most diverse forests.

But oak and walnut wood are highly prized for flooring and furniture, and are targets for illegal loggers.

Shmatkov says that timber can be stolen outright from the tiger's habitat, but he notes that much of it is taken by companies with valid logging permits.

They cut much more than they're allowed to, or they cut species that aren't permitted. A U.S.-based environmental group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, or EIA, recently released a report that traces illegally cut timber from the source to the consumer.

"We found out that the vast majority of it first goes into China, which is right next door, into their manufacturing centers, and in products of any type you can imagine, as it spreads around the world," said EIA's executive director, Alexander von Bismarck.

China's Involvement

Von Bismarck says the team set up a dummy corporation and posed as buyers of wood flooring. They recorded conversations with a Mr. Yu, an executive of a big Chinese wood products company called Xingja.

"He openly described the types of illegality in the supply chain — that he cuts illegally on his own land, which is a common method that is destroying the forest there, and he talked about corruption and how he used that to stay out of trouble," von Bismarck said.

More On Russia

Parallels

The U.S. Has More Guns, But Russia Has More Murders

One year ago the Michigan apple harvest, hurt by a late winter warm-up and a spring freeze, was almost nonexistent at 3 million bushels. This fall, the crop is projected to yield a record-setting 30 million bushels, but now there's concern that not enough pickers will be in the orchards.

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The hottest hot seat in Washington is the one occupied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose office confirmed Monday she'll testify about the Internet disaster that is Healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act website.

It's not yet clear when she'll go before Congress, but it won't be soon enough for the Republicans who are calling for her resignation. Sebelius originally declined to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday, saying she had a scheduling conflict.

Many Democrats are also fuming at the shambolic roll out of the federal health exchange website, which isn't just an embarrassment to the administration but a threat to President Obama's legacy.

When she does testify, here are five questions Sebelius will almost certainly get:

What did she know and when did she know it?

This is a Washington classic, a staple of any investigatory effort. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chair of the House committee holding Thursday's hearing, has signaled that he wants to know why Sebelius and others told lawmakers the federal government would be ready to go on Oct. 1 when that was far from true.

"Top administration officials repeatedly testified everything was on track, but the broad technological failures reveal that was not the case," Upton said in a news release. "Either the administration was not ready for launch, or it was not up to the job."

How many people have actually "enrolled" for health insurance through the health exchanges?

HHS on Sunday said there were "nearly a half million applications for coverage." But that's a vague number, as is the definition of enrollment. To some, it means submitting an application; to others, it means actually paying for insurance. The administration has been notably reticent about providing details. Which is why the Republican National Committee is trying to pry them out through a Freedom of Information Act request. Expect plenty of questions from House Republicans seeking hard numbers.

How can anyone trust that the problems will be fixed in time when past Obama administration assurances proved so wrong?

The Affordable Care Act's open-enrollment period is scheduled to end December 15. In a speech Monday that defended the law while also expressing frustration with the website, Obama said: "We are doing everything we can possibly do to get the websites working better, faster, sooner. We got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address the problems."

Still, experts question whether the website can be made to function as well as it needs to in the remaining time. Expect much skepticism about any assurances Sibelius gives.

Do the problems with Obamacare support the delaying of the individual mandate for a year?

This is likely to be a major line of questioning for Sebelius from Republicans. Obama previewed her likely response when he said that Obamacare is "not just a website" — his point being that the law itself is working just fine, and the flaws of one component aren't enough to delay it. Sibelius will likely be forced to repeatedly push back against this line of questioning.

Given the scope of the problem, shouldn't she resign?

This is likely to be a recurring theme during the hearing. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., a long time acquaintance, has called for her resignation as have Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several House members.

Sebelius has shown no signs that she is considering stepping down and was prominently seated in the front row of Obama's Monday speech. If Sebelius, a holdover from the first term, did step down, it would not only give Obamacare's Republican opponents their biggest trophy yet but it would also create more turbulence at a critical moment for the law. So it's unlikely to happen. But that won't stop Republicans from repeatedly posing the question.

The hottest hot seat in Washington is the one occupied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose office confirmed Monday she'll testify about the Internet disaster that is Healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act website.

It's not yet clear when she'll go before Congress, but it won't be soon enough for the Republicans who are calling for her resignation. Sebelius originally declined to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday, saying she had a scheduling conflict.

Many Democrats are also fuming at the shambolic roll out of the federal health exchange website, which isn't just an embarrassment to the administration but a threat to President Obama's legacy.

When she does testify, here are five questions Sebelius will almost certainly get:

What did she know and when did she know it?

This is a Washington classic, a staple of any investigatory effort. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chair of the House committee holding Thursday's hearing, has signaled that he wants to know why Sebelius and others told lawmakers the federal government would be ready to go on Oct. 1 when that was far from true.

"Top administration officials repeatedly testified everything was on track, but the broad technological failures reveal that was not the case," Upton said in a news release. "Either the administration was not ready for launch, or it was not up to the job."

How many people have actually "enrolled" for health insurance through the health exchanges?

HHS on Sunday said there were "nearly a half million applications for coverage." But that's a vague number, as is the definition of enrollment. To some, it means submitting an application; to others, it means actually paying for insurance. The administration has been notably reticent about providing details. Which is why the Republican National Committee is trying to pry them out through a Freedom of Information Act request. Expect plenty of questions from House Republicans seeking hard numbers.

How can anyone trust that the problems will be fixed in time when past Obama administration assurances proved so wrong?

The Affordable Care Act's open-enrollment period is scheduled to end December 15. In a speech Monday that defended the law while also expressing frustration with the website, Obama said: "We are doing everything we can possibly do to get the websites working better, faster, sooner. We got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address the problems."

Still, experts question whether the website can be made to function as well as it needs to in the remaining time. Expect much skepticism about any assurances Sibelius gives.

Do the problems with Obamacare support the delaying of the individual mandate for a year?

This is likely to be a major line of questioning for Sebelius from Republicans. Obama previewed her likely response when he said that Obamacare is "not just a website" — his point being that the law itself is working just fine, and the flaws of one component aren't enough to delay it. Sibelius will likely be forced to repeatedly push back against this line of questioning.

Given the scope of the problem, shouldn't she resign?

This is likely to be a recurring theme during the hearing. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., a long time acquaintance, has called for her resignation as have Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several House members.

Sebelius has shown no signs that she is considering stepping down and was prominently seated in the front row of Obama's Monday speech. If Sebelius, a holdover from the first term, did step down, it would not only give Obamacare's Republican opponents their biggest trophy yet but it would also create more turbulence at a critical moment for the law. So it's unlikely to happen. But that won't stop Republicans from repeatedly posing the question.

The hottest hot seat in Washington is the one occupied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose office confirmed Monday she'll testify about the Internet disaster that is Healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act website.

It's not yet clear when she'll go before Congress, but it won't be soon enough for the Republicans who are calling for her resignation. Sebelius originally declined to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday, saying she had a scheduling conflict.

Many Democrats are also fuming at the shambolic roll out of the federal health exchange website, which isn't just an embarrassment to the administration but a threat to President Obama's legacy.

When she does testify, here are five questions Sebelius will almost certainly get:

What did she know and when did she know it?

This is a Washington classic, a staple of any investigatory effort. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chair of the House committee holding Thursday's hearing, has signaled that he wants to know why Sebelius and others told lawmakers the federal government would be ready to go on Oct. 1 when that was far from true.

"Top administration officials repeatedly testified everything was on track, but the broad technological failures reveal that was not the case," Upton said in a news release. "Either the administration was not ready for launch, or it was not up to the job."

How many people have actually "enrolled" for health insurance through the health exchanges?

HHS on Sunday said there were "nearly a half million applications for coverage." But that's a vague number, as is the definition of enrollment. To some, it means submitting an application; to others, it means actually paying for insurance. The administration has been notably reticent about providing details. Which is why the Republican National Committee is trying to pry them out through a Freedom of Information Act request. Expect plenty of questions from House Republicans seeking hard numbers.

How can anyone trust that the problems will be fixed in time when past Obama administration assurances proved so wrong?

The Affordable Care Act's open-enrollment period is scheduled to end December 15. In a speech Monday that defended the law while also expressing frustration with the website, Obama said: "We are doing everything we can possibly do to get the websites working better, faster, sooner. We got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address the problems."

Still, experts question whether the website can be made to function as well as it needs to in the remaining time. Expect much skepticism about any assurances Sibelius gives.

Do the problems with Obamacare support the delaying of the individual mandate for a year?

This is likely to be a major line of questioning for Sebelius from Republicans. Obama previewed her likely response when he said that Obamacare is "not just a website" — his point being that the law itself is working just fine, and the flaws of one component aren't enough to delay it. Sibelius will likely be forced to repeatedly push back against this line of questioning.

Given the scope of the problem, shouldn't she resign?

This is likely to be a recurring theme during the hearing. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., a long time acquaintance, has called for her resignation as have Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several House members.

Sebelius has shown no signs that she is considering stepping down and was prominently seated in the front row of Obama's Monday speech. If Sebelius, a holdover from the first term, did step down, it would not only give Obamacare's Republican opponents their biggest trophy yet but it would also create more turbulence at a critical moment for the law. So it's unlikely to happen. But that won't stop Republicans from repeatedly posing the question.

A former UBS bank executive who has been a fugitive since being indicted on federal charges in 2008 has been arrested in Italy. Swiss citizen Raoul Weil, the former head of UBS Global Wealth Management International, is accused of defrauding the U.S. government by helping clients evade taxes.

From Rome, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"A police spokeswoman in Bologna said Raoul Weil was arrested Saturday when he checked into a Bologna hotel. That set off an alert system thanks to an international arrest warrant for Weill issued by the United States.

"The U.S. declared him a fugitive in early 2009, after he failed to surrender on charges he conspired to help 17,000 Americans hide assets worth $20 billion in Swiss bank accounts.

"That same year, UBS was fined $780 million and agreed to hand over the names of some 4,500 U.S. clients with secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid facing criminal charges. That deal marked a historic break in Switzerland's long tradition of bank secrecy."

There were 1.9 percent fewer existing homes sold in September than in August, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

But the slip came after two months when sales were touching four-year highs and as mortgage rates were edging up. So there's a case to be made that a bit of a drop shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Also, sales in September were still 10.7 percent above the pace of the same month a year earlier — a sign that the housing sector's recovery hasn't been stopped in its tracks.

What's more, The Associated Press writes that "many economists expect home sales will remain healthy, especially now that [mortgage] rates have stabilized and remain near historically low levels."

We'll learn much more about how the economy fared in September when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its delayed monthly jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday. As NPR's Marilyn Geewax has reported for us, the report's released was postponed by the partial government shutdown.

According to Reuters, economists expect to hear that there were 180,000 jobs added to payrolls in September and that the jobless rate was 7.3 percent. If they're right, that would mean the unemployment rate was unchanged from the month before and that job growth picked up just a bit from the initial August figure of 169,000.

There's one state highway running through Myrtle, Mo. It's a sleepy town in the Ozarks, population about 300. There's no bank or restaurant here, but enormous oak and persimmon trees loom over a small stone building right next to the road. Half of it is a post office; the other half, a one-room public library.

Rachel Reynolds Luster took over this branch four months ago with the goal of creating a learning hub. She calls herself a curator, not just a librarian.

Her first task? Filtering out some of the favorites of the previous librarian.

"It's been interesting working this transition with her," Luster says. "She was quite upset that the cooking magazines were gone. But we recycled them all, and we kept some holiday cookie editions."

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The 1920s were a time of literary liberation. In the footsteps of pioneers like May Sinclair, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, writers dabbled in new subjects and new styles, creating characters who would have been controversial — if not downright unthinkable — in the Victorian era: promiscuous women and effeminate men, businesswomen and stay-at-home fathers, atheists and revolutionaries.

There was a price for this freedom, however. It's not easy to break free from the constraints of tradition or to stand up as the lone supporter of a new and unsettling belief. For both the authors and their characters, such acts took bravery — a bravery most poignantly portrayed on the battleground of love. Whether writing about a man who loves his children and despises his work, a missionary more interested in his neighbors than his God or a girl wondering how to initiate a romance, these 1920s authors explored every variety of love.