What's new

This week, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department over the sale of faulty mortgage securities that led to the financial crisis. It's the largest settlement with a single company in U.S. history.

From that settlement, $4 billion must go to help the millions of families who saw the values of their homes plummet and who still struggle to keep up with mortgage payments.

Your Money

When You Hear $13 Billion, Don't See Dollar Signs

Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers of other major powers were converging Saturday to lend their weight to the Iran nuclear talks after envoys reported progress in marathon negotiations to curb the Iranian program in return for limited sanctions relief.

After a third day of talks, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said late Friday that Kerry was heading to Geneva to "help narrow the differences" — just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was the first to arrive Saturday, his plane landing before dawn as the talks neared a final, pivotal stage, telling reporters: "On the Iranian nuclear issue, I want a deal — but a solid deal — and I am here to work toward that end."

Fabius' brief comments conveyed a guarded tone compared to his public comments during the previous round of talks two weeks earlier that fanned talk of disunity among the world powers negotiating with Iran.

French diplomats believe the talks are in the final stretch, but the failure to strike a deal in the last round "taught us to be prudent," said a French official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted publicly on the matter.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced he would also travel to Geneva. The announcements followed a day in which diplomats appeared more and more optimistic that a deal could be struck.

As talks adjourned, a diplomat said Iranian Foreign Minister and top European Union diplomat Catherine Ashton had made progress on a key sticking point — Iran's claim to a right to produce nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva as saying that Iran's right to uranium enrichment must be part of any deal.

Enrichment is a hot-button issue because it can be used both to make reactor fuel and to arm nuclear missiles. Iran argues it is enriching only for power, and scientific and medical purposes. And it says it has no interest in nuclear arms.

But Washington and its allies point to Tehran's earlier efforts to hide enrichment and allege it worked on developing such weapons.

Iran has insisted on that right throughout almost a decade of mostly fruitless nuclear negotiations. But Zarif last weekend indicated that Iran is ready to sign a deal that does not expressly state that claim, raising hopes that a deal could be sealed at the current Geneva round.

For the U.S. and Iran, the talks represent more than trying to hammer out a nuclear deal. In style and substance they are an extension of the historic dialogue opened during September's annual U.N. gathering, which included a 15-minute phone conversation between President Barack Obama and Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani.

The nuclear negotiations have included intensive one-on-one sessions between U.S. and Iranian envoys, offering opportunities to widen contacts and begin the long process of reconciliation after more than three decades of estrangement. For Iran, it also gives Rouhani's government a chance to show skeptical hard-liners that dialogue is possible with Washington without putting the country's Islamic system in peril.

Iranian hard-liners are suspicious of talk of nuclear compromise since Rouhani took office in September, fearing his team will give too much at the negotiating table and not get enough in terms of sanctions relief.

On Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said his country would never compromise on "red lines." Since then Tehran has publicly reverted to its original stance — that the six powers must recognize uranium enrichment as Iran's right, despite strong opposition by Israel and within the U.S. Congress.

Still, comments from Iranian officials in Geneva indicated that reverting to tough talk on enrichment may be at least partially meant for home consumption.

University of Notre Dame women's basketball coach Muffett McGraw has led her team to five NCAA Final Fours, is the reigning Naismith College Coach of the Year, and has a spot in the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. On top of all that, she could almost certainly beat most NPR listeners at a game of H-O-R-S-E.

The only other Muffet we've ever met is the Little Miss, so we've invited McGraw to play a game called "So what exactly is a tuffet anyway?" Three questions about nursery rhymes and children's songs.

About Billy Graham

The Rev. Billy Graham is a religious leader with a worldwide reach. In his long career as an evangelist, he has spoken to millions and been an advisor to US presidents. Graham has preached to nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories.

Graham was the first major evangelist to speak behind the Iron Curtain, calling for peace in countries throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union — while during the Apartheid era he refused to visit South Africa until its government allowed for desegregated audiences.

About Anne Graham Lotz

Called "the best preacher in the family" by her father, Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz is the founder and president of AnGeL Ministries. Her most recent releases are Fixing My Eyes on Jesus, Expecting to See Jesus and her first children's book, Heaven: God's Promise for Me.

About Billy Graham

The Rev. Billy Graham is a religious leader with a worldwide reach. In his long career as an evangelist, he has spoken to millions and been an advisor to US presidents. Graham has preached to nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories.

Graham was the first major evangelist to speak behind the Iron Curtain, calling for peace in countries throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union — while during the Apartheid era he refused to visit South Africa until its government allowed for desegregated audiences.

About Anne Graham Lotz

Called "the best preacher in the family" by her father, Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz is the founder and president of AnGeL Ministries. Her most recent releases are Fixing My Eyes on Jesus, Expecting to See Jesus and her first children's book, Heaven: God's Promise for Me.

Wal-Mart's pay practices have long been targeted by advocates of America's working poor.

So it was no surprise that it became national news when the discount retailer, the nation's biggest employer, asked workers at an Ohio store to contribute to a holiday food drive — for fellow workers.

Wal-Mart officials said the store-level effort spoke to employees' concern for each other, and that similar drives have been held in prior years.

But activists lobbying Congress for the first increase since 2007 in America's $7.25 per-hour minimum wage have seized on the food drive as fresh evidence for their cause.

"Wal-Mart is the largest employer of low-wage workers in the country, and they set the terms of this debate," says Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project. "Don't add insult to injury and ask low-paid workers to help those even worse off."

The Wal-Mart food drive, and recent reports detailing a McDonald's website for employees that suggested selling possessions online at eBay for extra cash, comes as the Senate — with President Obama's support — is poised to consider a bill that over three years would bump up the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

The legislation, expected to go to the Senate floor in early December, would also increase tipped workers' federal minimum hourly wage of $2.13, unchanged since 1991, to $7.10 over a similar period.

Meanwhile, low-wage worker advocates in at least nine states, from New Jersey to Alaska, are campaigning for state-level increases in minimum hourly wages. A handful of counties and municipalities, including Washington, D.C., are contemplating the same.

The latest? The Massachusetts Senate this week voted overwhelmingly to raise the state's minimum wage from $8 an hour to $11 an hour over three years, and ultimately to tie increases to inflation. The measure now moves to the state House.

Push For Fed Action

There is no denying that the nation's minimum wage has not kept up with rising prices since Congress overwhelmingly passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

Calculations based on the Consumer Price Index suggest that if the federal minimum wage approved six years ago was adjusted for inflation, it would be $10.75 today — $3.50 more per hour than the actual minimum wage.

The 2007 legislation passed with a 315-116 House vote and a 94-3 vote in the Senate. It bumped up the federal minimum hourly wage — then $5.15 — incrementally over three years to its current $7.25 level.

According to data compiled for the Senate Labor committee, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have since approved minimum wages that exceed the federal mandate, with a high of $9.19 in Washington state. Ten of those states have minimum wage increases tied to inflation. And 30 states have voted to approve higher minimum wages for tipped workers.

And a recent Gallup poll found that three-quarters of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, would support a hypothetical hike in the minimum wage to $9.

But even the most ardent advocates of the legislation, introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., initial sponsor of the 2007 bill, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, acknowledge that its prospects are dim, given the atmosphere on Capitol Hill and sustained opposition by powerful business interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and other business groups assert that increases should be linked to tax incentives for small businesses, similar to provisions in previous minimum wage bills, like deductions for small business investment in equipment and expansion.

Says Randy Johnson, senior vice president of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits for the U.S Chamber, in a statement provided to NPR:

"Any discussion about raising the minimum wage needs to recognize that small employers often have to operate under very slim profit margins and will have the hardest time absorbing these higher labor costs. They will have to find more revenues or trim costs to make up the difference. This reality is never part of the discussion. Furthermore, indexing the minimum wage to inflation means that employers will likely be faced with automatically increasing labor costs without an automatic increase in revenues or profits.

"Additionally, many small employers are currently trying to figure out how to keep their current benefits for their employees or whether they can continue to have their employees continue to work a traditional 40 hour week. Increasing the minimum wage will only add to their uncertainty and burdens and make creating new jobs and expanding considerably more difficult."

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

Sylvia Browne, the bestselling author of dozens of books about the paranormal, died Wednesday in San Jose, Calif. She was 77. Browne, who claimed to be psychic, said she frequently worked with police on missing persons cases. But as The New York Times notes, "More than once, with the television cameras rolling, Ms. Browne told the parents of a missing child that their son or daughter was dead — sometimes she would say precisely where — only for the child to be found alive later. In 2004, she told the mother of the Ohio kidnapping victim Amanda Berry that her daughter was dead. Ms. Berry, held captive for more than a decade, was rescued this May." Browne once told CNN that although she has contact with the dead, "psychics can never be 100 percent. I think that would be scary to be 100 percent."

C.S. Lewis' "Image and Imagination," a previously unseen essay that was rescued following a fire at the Lewis family home, will be published in a collection of the writer's essays from Cambridge University Press. The Guardian has an excerpt: "Always the real world is the bank on which the poet draws his cheques; and though a metaphysical lyric may be a fine and private place, all the meanings embraced within it are but passengers who come there from the public, eternal, objective world of reality and haste thither again."

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien can now explore Middle-Earth. The project, a partnership between Google and Warner Bros, was timed to coincide with the movie release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. As The Wall Street Journal reports, people can tour Rivendell, Trollshaws and Dol Guldur, and that more places in Middle-Earth will be added soon.

Salman Rushdie speaks to The Wall Street Journal about the Internet and his next novel: "Every time there has been a new form of communication that has emerged, people have always predicted that it will kill the novel. Radio was supposed to have killed the novel. Movies, TV were supposed to kill the novel, but none of them have done that. There is something very persistent about sitting quietly and enjoying an interaction between the reader and the words in a book." Rushdie also hints at the contents of his next novel, which he calls "the most surrealist novel I have written for a long time." He added, "I went back to the thing that I first fell in love with, when I was reading the wonderful stories that you grow up in the East, the Arabian nights, the Ramayana. I'm writing something modern that relates to those stories."

At The Hairpin, Sarah Miller admits she hates poetry: "I have always felt that to like poetry I would have to become another person, one who wasn't just really obvious, who thought about things a lot before opening my mouth, who was more dependably capable of enjoying a subtle experience, and who had questions about life other than, 'Oh my God, what did she say when he said that?' and, 'So are they getting back together?' and, 'How much?' It would be such an effort to be this person, the person who could savor the idea of cold plums and stand in front of the Emily Dickinson Museum and marvel, 'Wow, she wrote all those poems in there' instead of, 'I wonder what that place would look like with a bigger porch.' "

Gene Demby considers Bartlett's Familiar Black Quotations: "Like any work of history — because that's what this is, really — it's the choices about what to include and leave out that are the most telling. 'Why that passage from Frantz Fanon or that particular Jay-Z lyric?' "

The author and journalist Herbert Mitgang died Thursday at age 93. A book critic and prominent journalist, he also wrote or edited more than a dozen books on topics ranging from FBI surveillance of writers with left-wing views to biographies of Abraham Lincoln. Mitgang served as the president of both the Authors League Fund and the Authors Guild. In an obituary, The New York Times quotes Alfred Kazin as saying: "Reading Mr. Mitgang, one remembers the forgotten pleasures of idealism."

Wal-Mart's pay practices have long been targeted by advocates of America's working poor.

So it was no surprise that it became national news when the discount retailer, the nation's biggest employer, asked workers at an Ohio store to contribute to a holiday food drive — for fellow workers.

Wal-Mart officials said the store-level effort spoke to employees' concern for each other, and that similar drives have been held in prior years.

But activists lobbying Congress for the first increase since 2007 in America's $7.25 per-hour minimum wage have seized on the food drive as fresh evidence for their cause.

"Wal-Mart is the largest employer of low-wage workers in the country, and they set the terms of this debate," says Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project. "Don't add insult to injury and ask low-paid workers to help those even worse off."

The Wal-Mart food drive, and recent reports detailing a McDonald's website for employees that suggested selling possessions online at eBay for extra cash, comes as the Senate — with President Obama's support — is poised to consider a bill that over three years would bump up the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

The legislation, expected to go to the Senate floor in early December, would also increase tipped workers' federal minimum hourly wage of $2.13, unchanged since 1991, to $7.10 over a similar period.

Meanwhile, low-wage worker advocates in at least nine states, from New Jersey to Alaska, are campaigning for state-level increases in minimum hourly wages. A handful of counties and municipalities, including Washington, D.C., are contemplating the same.

The latest? The Massachusetts Senate this week voted overwhelmingly to raise the state's minimum wage from $8 an hour to $11 an hour over three years, and ultimately to tie increases to inflation. The measure now moves to the state House.

Push For Fed Action

There is no denying that the nation's minimum wage has not kept up with rising prices since Congress overwhelmingly passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

Calculations based on the Consumer Price Index suggest that if the federal minimum wage approved six years ago was adjusted for inflation, it would be $10.75 today — $3.50 more per hour than the actual minimum wage.

The 2007 legislation passed with a 315-116 House vote and a 94-3 vote in the Senate. It bumped up the federal minimum hourly wage — then $5.15 — incrementally over three years to its current $7.25 level.

According to data compiled for the Senate Labor committee, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have since approved minimum wages that exceed the federal mandate, with a high of $9.19 in Washington state. Ten of those states have minimum wage increases tied to inflation. And 30 states have voted to approve higher minimum wages for tipped workers.

And a recent Gallup poll found that three-quarters of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, would support a hypothetical hike in the minimum wage to $9.

But even the most ardent advocates of the legislation, introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., initial sponsor of the 2007 bill, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, acknowledge that its prospects are dim, given the atmosphere on Capitol Hill and sustained opposition by powerful business interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and other business groups assert that increases should be linked to tax incentives for small businesses, similar to provisions in previous minimum wage bills, like deductions for small business investment in equipment and expansion.

Says Randy Johnson, senior vice president of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits for the U.S Chamber, in a statement provided to NPR:

"Any discussion about raising the minimum wage needs to recognize that small employers often have to operate under very slim profit margins and will have the hardest time absorbing these higher labor costs. They will have to find more revenues or trim costs to make up the difference. This reality is never part of the discussion. Furthermore, indexing the minimum wage to inflation means that employers will likely be faced with automatically increasing labor costs without an automatic increase in revenues or profits.

"Additionally, many small employers are currently trying to figure out how to keep their current benefits for their employees or whether they can continue to have their employees continue to work a traditional 40 hour week. Increasing the minimum wage will only add to their uncertainty and burdens and make creating new jobs and expanding considerably more difficult."

As often as we can, your tech team is focusing our reporting into themes over the course of a week, and this week, we're all about the sharing economy, or collaborative consumption. (Check out the series page where we'll archive all the stories from the week.)

The sharing economy can encompass a lot. There's tool sharing — whether that's bike-sharing, car-sharing or actual sharing-sharing. It also includes a subset called the peer economy, which describes peer-to-peer platforms in which people sell things to one another. There's also a subset called the "gift economy," which is stuff like couch-surfing through platforms like Airbnb. Speaking of which, the Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia described this movement this way, to New York Magazine:

"Social media is about sharing online. We've extended that behavior into the offline world. In the wake of the recession, there's a slightly different mentality beginning to emerge, which is that access is more powerful than ownership. The last century was predicated around ownership as status. There's an opportunity for this century to be defined by access as status. You see this across all industries. Zipcar is a great example. You don't need to own a car; having access to Zipcar actually gets you status. Suddenly, you can be the guy with the car when it's needed. For Airbnb, you don't need a vacation home anymore. You have access to 500,000 of them when you want them."

The Dow Jones industrial average tacked on 109 points Thursday for a gain of less than 1 percent. But the small rise brought a big milestone, as the industrial index closed above 16,000 for the first time in its history. The index had touched the mark earlier this week but fell short by the day's end.

Today, the Dow closed at 16,009.99.

The historic moment for the benchmark index that tracks 30 leading U.S. companies came on a day that began with positive economic news.

Jobless claims fell by 21,000 last week and wholesale prices fell 0.2 percent, as Mark reported for The Two-Way earlier today.

The Treasury also said it would sell millions of shares in GM, propelling the carmaker's stock to a 1.1 percent gain, according to Bloomberg.

Investors may also have been further reassured by the Senate Banking Committee's vote to approve the nomination of Janet Yellen to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve.

Bettie Page Reveals All

Director: Mark Mori

Genre: Documentary

Running Time: 101 minutes

Rated R for sexual content and graphic nudity throughout.

Cochran remembers what attracted him to the space: "It's just this amazing feeling, because of the sounds and the sites — those screeching trains going overhead — that kind of confirms everything that we've learned as outsiders about the hip-hop history of New York City — starting from that whole subway culture. The remnants and history is still alive, you can still feel it."

Corinne Mitchell, a Londoner studying in Manhattan, visited the wall before it was covered over. "I like the technique of it," she says. "I like how the paint seems to be dripping and you can see the drip marks. It looks like it's been done very delicately but with a messy feel as well."

And just around the corner, Ali Moussaddykine, who's from Morocco and in town for an internship, contemplated a 20-foot-tall photorealistic painting of a hand with its index finger pointing toward the sky: "You can stare and think about a lot of things, about yourself, about the city, about people who made this. It means a lot of things," he says.

College basketball seems to get started sooner every year, like puberty in American children. Why does everything have to begin so early now, before you have time to get ready for it?

Things move so fast in college basketball that there are three players this year who are being called "the next LeBron James. " In the NBA, most of the talk is already about where the superstars will be next season.

Because basketball involves so few players, the hot shots are more valuable, so it's like the Kardashians — not whom they're married to now, but whom they'll be married to next.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.

If Americans were writing the Constitution over again in 2013, would it make sense to include the right to bear arms? Or has it become outdated?

Some argue that states should have the ability to decide the laws they want around guns, instead of having a national standard. And they point to the Second Amendment's language about the need for well-regulated militias as evidence of its anachronism.

Others counter that the right to bear arms has become fundamental to the notion of self-defense and safety today — that without guns, people would be unable to protect themselves from criminals. They say it's important for that right to continue to be enshrined in the Constitution so that it is ensured for all citizens, no matter which state they call home.

A group of scholars recently faced off on the motion "The Constitutional Right To Bear Arms Has Outlived Its Usefulness" in an Oxford-style debate for Intelligence Squared U.S.

Before the debate, the audience at New York City's Kaufman Music Center voted 64 percent in favor of the motion and 18 percent against, with 18 percent undecided. Afterward, 74 percent agreed with the motion, while 22 percent disagreed — meaning the side arguing that the right to bear arms has outlived its usefulness were the winners of the debate.

More From The Debate

Not surprisingly, in the explosive revelations about the Miami Dolphins team turmoil, most attention has been paid to the fact that, in the midst of a locker room predominately composed of African-American players, a white, Richie Incognito, slurred a black teammate, Jonathan Martin, with the ugliest racial epithet –– and was actually publicly supported by some blacks on the team. Incognito's sadistic employment of the word has not only sickened but also astounded most of us.

However, I would submit that once we accept the inherent racism in this one dismal affair, the greater lasting impression will be to damage the sport of football itself, for the broader implications illustrate again how brutish our most popular American game has become.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.

AGAINST THE MOTION

Joseph "Gray" Davis was the 37th governor of California. As governor, he signed legislation aimed at strengthening California's K-12 system by establishing the Academic Performance Index to increase accountability in schools, and worked to expand access to higher education with scholarships and college loans. Davis also funded and established Institutes of Science and Innovation in partnership with the University of California and private industry. Today, Davis is of counsel at Loeb & Loeb LLP; a member of the bipartisan Think Long Committee; a senior fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs; and honorary co-chair of the Southern California Leadership Council. He has also served as lieutenant governor, state controller and state assemblyman. He began his public service as a captain in the U.S. Army, earning the Bronze Star for meritorious service in Vietnam.

Michael Lind is a co-founder of the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he is the policy director of its Economic Growth Program and Next Social Contract Initiative. A columnist for Salon, he has been a staff writer or editor at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and The National Interest and contributes frequently to The New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of a number of books of history, political journalism, fiction and poetry, including Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012). Lind has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities. He is a fifth-generation native of Texas, where he worked for the state legislature.

The U.S. military has been fighting in Afghanistan for 12 years, and its future role could be determined, or at least heavily influenced, in the next few days by an Afghan Loya Jirga.

Which begs the question: What's a Loya Jirga?

They are "grand assemblies," an Afghan tradition dating back at least three centuries, and which brings together elders and community leaders from across the land to discuss matters of major national importance.

President Hamid Karzai called some 2,500 delegates to the capital, Kabul, to weigh in on a security agreement with the United States that would define what U.S. forces could and couldn't do after U.S. troops end their combat mission at the end of 2014.

Under a tentative deal, a reduced number of U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan mostly to train and assist the Afghan military in its ongoing battle against the Taliban. No numbers have been set, but there's been talk of up to 15,000 U.S. troops staying on. The U.S. has about 50,000 troops in the country.

In a letter to Karzai, President Obama also noted that U.S. forces would engage in counterterrorism operations. This has raised the sensitive question of whether U.S. forces would do things like storm into Afghan homes on occasion. And what happens to U.S. troops accused of a crime — do they face justice in Afghanistan or the U.S.?

On these matters, the Loya Jirga's verdict could be critically important.

There is no doubt the Afghan military could use the U.S. support. But after the extended U.S. presence in Afghanistan, some Afghans are weary of the American forces and want to keep their role limited and low-profile.

Enlarge image i

The family and friends of an 85-year-old California grandfather have appealed to North Korean officials to release the man, who reportedly has been held by authorities in the communist state since Oct. 26.

Merrill Newman, a veteran of the Korean War who traveled with a friend to North Korea last month, was "removed from a plane three weeks ago" just minutes before he was to depart on the first leg of his trip home, the San Jose Mercury News writes.

Jeffrey Newman, the missing man's son, tells The Associated Press it appears that a North Korean military officer boarded the plane, asked the elder Newman for his passport and then said the American had to leave the aircraft. "My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that's the last he was seen," Jeffrey Newman says.

The scene was witnessed by Merrill Newman's friend, Bob Hamrdla. The two men had traveled to North Korea together. Hamrdla was allowed to depart.

The Mercury News adds that:

"The day before he was to depart, Newman met with North Korean officials, who discussed his Army service in the Korean War more than a half-century earlier ... Jeffrey Newman said Wednesday night.

"Merrill Newman was slightly unnerved, his son said, but went to dinner and thought nothing of it until the next day ... when he was escorted off the plane. ...

"Hamrdla released a statement Wednesday afternoon, calling Newman's detention 'a terrible misunderstanding.'

While it's always important to keep in mind that neither one week nor one month make for a trend, there is good economic news to pass along:

— There were 323,000 first-time claims filed for jobless benefits last week, down by 21,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says. It was the fewest for any week since late September. Reuters says the news suggests "some strengthening of labor market conditions."

— Wholesale prices fell 0.2 percent in October from September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's the second month in a row that those costs dipped. The decline was led by a 1.5 percent drop in wholesale energy prices. The data reinforce the sense that inflation is well under control.

The day's other major economic story looks to be the vote Thursday morning by the Senate Banking Committee on the nomination of Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen to become the central bank's chairman.

Yellen, who if confirmed by the full Senate would be the first woman to lead the Fed, is expected to easily win the committee's OK. President Obama's fellow Democrats hold 12 of the panel's 22 seats and at least one of the committee's Republicans — Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee — has said he supports the nomination.

Ben Bernanke's term as Fed chairman officially ends in January.

Many organic farmers are hopping mad right now at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and their reason involves perhaps the most under-appreciated part of agriculture: plant food, aka fertilizer. Specifically, the FDA, as part of its overhaul of food safety regulations, wants to limit the use of animal manure.

"We think of it as the best thing in the world," says organic farmer Jim Crawford, "and they think of it as toxic and nasty and disgusting."

Every highly productive farmer depends on fertilizer. But organic farmers are practically obsessive about it, because they've renounced industrial sources of nutrients.

So on this crisp fall morning, Crawford is practically rhapsodic as he watches his field manager, Pearl Wetherall, spread manure across a field where cabbage grew last summer.

"All that green material — that cover crop and the cabbage — all mixed up with that nice black manure that's just rich and full of good microrganisms, and we're going to get a wonderful fertility situation for next spring here," he says.

Enlarge image i

In the wake of any natural disaster, there are almost always shortages of fuel. Even in the United States, gas stations shut down during blackouts because there's no electricity to run their pumps.

It was no different in the Philippines, where practically no fuel was available after Typhoon Haiyan struck. Aid agencies said the lack of gasoline was a major impediment to relief efforts.

One small American nonprofit called the Fuel Relief Fund is trying to change that.

Immediately after Haiyan hit, all the gas stations in Tacloban were shut, along with everything else. Many of the stations were damaged; none had electricity. The storm had caused so much destruction that fuel wasn't even available on the black market.

So when a couple of gas stations opened almost a week later, people waited in long lines to fill jerrycans, plastic containers, Coke bottles and motorbikes with gasoline.

Enlarge image i

In an agreement settling many U.S. claims over its sale of troubled mortgages, JPMorgan Chase will pay a record $13 billion, in a deal announced by the Justice Department Tuesday. The plan includes a $4 billion payment for consumer relief, along with a payment to investors of more than $6 billion and a large fine.

The latest updates on this story are at the bottom of this post. We've also added a few key points to the main post.

JPMorgan Chase brought in nearly $24 billion in revenue last quarter, but it still reported a net loss of $400 million, widely attributed to legal fees. The company's settlements since January add up to at least $20 billion.

$13 billion: The investment company is expected to reach a settlement Tuesday related to its risky mortgage-backed securities.

$4.5 billion: Several days ago, the company agreed to pay investors — including 21 major institutions — for the faulty securities.

$1 billion: In September and October, it paid to end investigations into the botched financial transactions of traders in London that cost the company more than $6 billion.

$389 million: In September, the bank refunded money to 2.1 million credit-card customers and paid a fine after allegedly misleading and overcharging them.

$300 million: In September, it resolved an insurance lawsuit, splitting payment with Assurant Inc.

$410 million: In August, it settled allegations that it manipulated U.S. energy markets.

$842 million: In June, it agreed to forgive debt owed to it by Jefferson County, Ala., where the company's securities deals led to the county's bankruptcy in 2011.

$8.5 billion: In January, 10 banks, including JPMorgan, split a settlement related to wrongful home foreclosures.

$9.2 billion: The company's legal fees from its third quarter this year

Federal investigations continue into its hiring practices in Asia and its relationship to Bernie Madoff's financial Ponzi scheme.

-Emily Siner

In our Weekly Innovation series, we pick an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Got an innovation you think we should feature? Fill out our form.

When it comes to online media, Russia is a country synonymous with digital piracy: Some reports say the amount of movies, television shows, books, software and music consumed online illegally in Russia costs U.S. companies billions of dollars each year.

The Russian government has taken a crucial step in tackling the problem by passing a law protecting the rights of TV show and movie makers. But the legislation has failed to include e-books — and Russia's largest publishing house says that up to 95 percent of all e-book downloads are pirated.

So, how do you solve a problem like literary piracy?

It's not too much of a plot twist to discover that a solution has come from Russia itself, a country with a rich literary tradition. One Moscow-based tech company has an answer that sees access to books as the next big streaming service — read: a Netflix or Spotify for books.

Enlarge image i

Many organic farmers are hopping mad right now at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and their reason involves perhaps the most under-appreciated part of agriculture: plant food, aka fertilizer. Specifically, the FDA, as part of its overhaul of food safety regulations, wants to limit the use of animal manure.

"We think of it as the best thing in the world," says organic farmer Jim Crawford, "and they think of it as toxic and nasty and disgusting."

Every highly productive farmer depends on fertilizer. But organic farmers are practically obsessive about it, because they've renounced industrial sources of nutrients.

So on this crisp fall morning, Crawford is practically rhapsodic as he watches his field manager, Pearl Wetherall, spread manure across a field where cabbage grew last summer.

"All that green material — that cover crop and the cabbage — all mixed up with that nice black manure that's just rich and full of good microrganisms, and we're going to get a wonderful fertility situation for next spring here," he says.

Enlarge image i

This is the first in a three-part report on Philadelphia schools in crisis.

Sharron Snyder and Othella Stanback, both seniors at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High, will be the first in their families to graduate from high school. This, their final year, was supposed to be memorable. Instead, these teenagers say they feel cheated.

"We're fed up with the budget cuts and everything. Like, this year, my school is like really overcrowded. We don't even have lockers because it's, like, too many students," Sharron says.

Franklin High doubled in size because it absorbed hundreds of kids from two high schools the district could not afford to keep open this fall.

But "we didn't gain an extra counselor, we didn't gain extra teachers," Othella says.

Timeline: The Quest To Fix Philadelphia Public Schools

1998 — Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and David Hornbeck, school district superintendent, sue Pennsylvania, accusing the state of not adequately funding the city's public schools. The suit goes nowhere.

2001 — Pennsylvania moves to take over the school district, citing a total breakdown in administration as well as scandalously low test scores and graduation rates. Hornbeck and the city's elected school board are ousted. The state creates a five-member School Reform Commission (SRC).

2002-2011 — The SRC oversees a massive expansion of charter schools and takeover of struggling schools by private third-party operators. Dozens of private foundations pour millions of dollars into Philadelphia, mostly to subsidize charter schools.

2011 — Philadelphia loses almost $200 million due to federal aid budget cuts.

Feb. 2012 — The SRC hires a global business consulting group to help the district devise a cost-cutting plan. The group's $2.7 million fee is paid with private donations, reportedly from powerful pro-charter, pro-voucher advocates. The group wants to expand privately run, publicly funded charter schools, shut down 60 traditional public schools over five years and reorganize all other schools.

June 2012 — In the face of a $304 million budget deficit, the SRC eliminates athletics, art, music and most extracurricular activities. Layoff notices go out to 3,800 district employees, including teachers, counselors, administrators, aides and clerical staff.

Fall 2013 — Still broke, the district announces it will have to permanently close more than 20 schools. The mayor borrows money to open the remaining schools with bare-bones budgets. Many parents are asked to buy paper, books and basic supplies for schools to operate.

Oct. 2013 — The SRC restores music, art and athletics programs and rehires some guidance counselors and support staff after Gov. Tom Corbett releases $45 million he had been withholding pending discussions with Philadelphia's teachers union. Superintendent William Hite warns that without union concessions on pay and health benefits, the district next year will be back to where it was: broke and unable to operate.

For the third time this year, the Democrats who run the Senate are again threatening to change that chamber's rules on the Republican minority's most potent weapon: the filibuster. They say the GOP's obstruction of President Obama's nominations leaves them no other choice.

Democrats say that this time, they're ready to pull the trigger on what's known as "the nuclear option." Doing so would amount to altering the rules not with the traditional two-thirds majority, but a simple majority of 51.

The push to curtail Republicans' right to filibuster has been led mainly by Democratic newcomers who have only served in the majority — and thus have never used the threat of endless debate to block a nomination they didn't like.

Among them is Jeff Merkley, a soft-spoken, first-term Democrat from Oregon. He took to the Senate floor Wednesday to declare that good-hearted dialogue and understanding have not been enough to cure the repeated abuse of the filibuster.

"We have a single path left to us to appropriately exercise advice and consent, and that is to change the rules so that they can't be abused," Merkley said.

And the biggest abuse, Merkley and his fellow Democrats say, has taken place just in the last three weeks. During that time, GOP filibusters have blocked three of President Obama's nominees to fill three longstanding vacancies on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

That court is widely seen as second only to the Supreme Court in importance, since it rules on the actions of federal agencies and the White House as well as major laws such as the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans say the court, which currently has four judges appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans, is already well staffed.

"The data overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the D.C. Circuit is underworked," said Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican. "Everyone knows this is true. That circuit does not need any more judges. "

Senate Republicans are hoping that a few Democratic holdouts will stymie the effort to force a rules change with only a bare majority.

Politics

Republicans Push Back On Obama's D.C. Court Nominees

Bitcoin, the virtual currency that exists as alphanumeric strings online, is on the verge of getting into politics.

The Federal Election Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to allow bitcoin contributions to political action committees — even as skeptics say that bitcoins could undermine the disclosure standards of federal law.

The FEC is acting as other federal agencies are also exploring the uses, and dangers, of digital currency. At a Senate hearing on Monday, federal law enforcement officials cited Silk Road, an online illegal marketplace that used bitcoin before it was shut down.

Edward Lowery III, chief of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division, told the panel: "While digital currencies may provide potential benefits, they present real risks through their use by the criminal and terrorist organizations trying to conceal their illicit activity."

Still, no one at the Senate hearing wanted to stifle virtual currency, and neither does the FEC. The commission was brought into the issue by the Conservative Action Fund, a political action committee that is seeking approval to accept bitcoins as contributions.

"Our interest here is we know this is happening, we're getting requests to make this happen. We really want to understand: How do we do this right?" said Dan Backer, the PAC's lawyer, at an FEC meeting on Nov. 14.

But the six commissioners weren't sure about nongovernmental currency, as commission chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, acknowledged.

Planet Money

Adam Davidson Talks Bitcoin With Stephen Colbert

Bitcoin, the virtual currency that exists as alphanumeric strings online, is on the verge of getting into politics.

The Federal Election Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to allow bitcoin contributions to political action committees — even as skeptics say that bitcoins could undermine the disclosure standards of federal law.

The FEC is acting as other federal agencies are also exploring the uses, and dangers, of digital currency. At a Senate hearing on Monday, federal law enforcement officials cited Silk Road, an online illegal marketplace that used bitcoin before it was shut down.

Edward Lowery III, chief of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division, told the panel: "While digital currencies may provide potential benefits, they present real risks through their use by the criminal and terrorist organizations trying to conceal their illicit activity."

Still, no one at the Senate hearing wanted to stifle virtual currency, and neither does the FEC. The commission was brought into the issue by the Conservative Action Fund, a political action committee that is seeking approval to accept bitcoins as contributions.

"Our interest here is we know this is happening, we're getting requests to make this happen. We really want to understand: How do we do this right?" said Dan Backer, the PAC's lawyer, at an FEC meeting on Nov. 14.

But the six commissioners weren't sure about nongovernmental currency, as commission chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, acknowledged.

Planet Money

Adam Davidson Talks Bitcoin With Stephen Colbert

In our Weekly Innovation series, we pick an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Got an innovation you think we should feature? Fill out our form.

When it comes to online media, Russia is a country synonymous with digital piracy: Some reports say the amount of movies, television shows, books, software and music consumed online illegally in Russia costs U.S. companies billions of dollars each year.

The Russian government has taken a crucial step in tackling the problem by passing a law protecting the rights of TV show and movie makers. But the legislation has failed to include e-books — and Russia's largest publishing house says that up to 95 percent of all e-book downloads are pirated.

So, how do you solve a problem like literary piracy?

It's not too much of a plot twist to discover that a solution has come from Russia itself, a country with a rich literary tradition. One Moscow-based tech company has an answer that sees access to books as the next big streaming service — read: a Netflix or Spotify for books.

Enlarge image i

In our Weekly Innovation series, we pick an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Got an innovation you think we should feature? Fill out our form.

When it comes to online media, Russia is a country synonymous with digital piracy: Some reports say the amount of movies, television shows, books, software and music consumed online illegally in Russia costs U.S. companies billions of dollars each year.

The Russian government has taken a crucial step in tackling the problem by passing a law protecting the rights of TV show and movie makers. But the legislation has failed to include e-books — and Russia's largest publishing house says that up to 95 percent of all e-book downloads are pirated.

So, how do you solve a problem like literary piracy?

It's not too much of a plot twist to discover that a solution has come from Russia itself, a country with a rich literary tradition. One Moscow-based tech company has an answer that sees access to books as the next big streaming service — read: a Netflix or Spotify for books.

Enlarge image i

Republican Rep. Henry "Trey" Radel of Florida pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to misdemeanor cocaine possession, NPR, The Associated Press and other news outlets report.

That plea in a Washington, D.C., court comes one day after word that Radel had been charged with buying $260 worth of the drug from an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

The Washington Post notes that the 37-year-old Radel "faced a maximum of 180 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine."

But USA Today writes that he was "sentenced to one-year of supervised probation" and fined $250. It adds that "the freshman congressman, who represents a solidly Republican district in southwest Florida, said he'll enter an in-patient rehab program in his home state."

Radel wrote Tuesday that he is "profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida. I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. ... However, this unfortunate event does have a positive side. It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling. I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease."

Indonesia, Jakarta Post

Indonesia says it has scaled down its diplomatic relations and its level of cooperation with Australia in the wake of reports that Australia's security services spied on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other top officials.

"We have downgraded the level of relations between Indonesia and Australia," Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said. "Like a faucet, it is turned down."

Yudhoyono met with Natalegawa, Alui Joelianto, Indonesia's envoy to Australia, who was recalled from Canberra, as well as intelligence chief Norman Marciano, to discuss the revelation published by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and Britain's Guardian newspaper that Australia had targeted the phone lines of Yudhoyono and others.

The reporting was based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency who has taken refuge in Russia.

Marciano said before the meeting that his Australian counterparts had assured him that the wiretapping had stopped and won't resume.

At a news conference after the meeting, Yudhoyono said he expected a formal explanation from Australia.

"I asked for temporary termination of cooperation on intelligence exchanges and information sharing," he said. "I also asked for the termination of joint exercises between Indonesia and Australia, either for army, navy, air force or a combination."

United Kingdom, Press Association

Northern Ireland's attorney general says there should be no more criminal prosecutions in killings related to the Troubles, the terms used to describe the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland.

"More than 15 years have passed since the Belfast agreement, there have been very few prosecutions, and every competent criminal lawyer will tell you the prospects of conviction diminish, perhaps exponentially, with each passing year, so we are in a position now where I think we have to take stock," John Larkin said.

He also said he backed stopping further investigations into the acts committed during the conflict.

Larkin made his proposals to Richard Haass, the former U.S. diplomat, who is trying to reach a political consensus in Northern Ireland on still-unresolved issues.

Venezuela, Globovision

The National Assembly has approved a measure to allow President Nicolas Maduro to rule by decree for the next 12 months.

The move essentially means that Maduro, the successor and protg of late President Hugo Chavez, can govern without consulting Congress.

Opposition lawmakers derided the move.

"What does Maduro needs more powers for?" opposition lawmaker Andres Velasquez said.

The move comes as Venezuela is battling an economic crisis that includes food shortages, high inflation and power cuts. Earlier this month, Maduro seized an electronics chain, saying the move would "protect the middle class." He said his government would reprice the goods to make them fair.

The hard work of getting aid to survivors and accounting for the dead continues in the central and southern Philippines, which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan on Nov. 8.

Reuters writes that "the Philippines and international armed forces and aid agencies are struggling to get help to devastated areas due to the extent of the destruction, which has left 4 million people displaced."

The good news, NPR's Russell Lewis reported earlier Tuesday from the scene, is that the airport in the heavily damaged city of Tacloban is now able to handle scores of flights per day. That means vital food, water, medicine and equipment are pouring into the area.

But it was hard for Anthony to avoid thinking she might leave him.

"Because a lot of people, they don't want to be seen with someone that was ugly. What was it, like 70-plus surgeries, skin grafts? I really didn't want to leave the house," he says. "I just thought to myself, man, people don't know how to ask questions. They just want to stare and point."

He's thankful his wife stuck by him.

"The crazy thing is I'm still more self-conscious about what I look like than you are," Jessica tells him. "But I have grown so much over the past five years. I didn't ever think that I'd be as strong as I am today and most of it is from you. I can't imagine you not being in my life."

Today, the couple is attending college together.

They've been through "so much in so little time," Anthony says. "There shouldn't be anything that could tear us apart besides death itself."

Audio produced for Weekend Edition by Yasmina Guerda.

Since childhood, Rami Aizic knew he "needed and wanted to be a dad." He assumed he would one day meet the girl of his dreams and it would all just happen.

Then he realized he was gay.

Robin Share also wanted kids, but had no partner. So when a mutual friend told Rami about Robin, he called her up and left a message: "Hi, Robin. I'm a friend of Scott's and he said you might be interested in having a baby with me. So give me a call back."

The two hit it off and began making plans — and then Robin met someone. It almost derailed the process, but a few weeks later, Robin knew he "wasn't Mr. Right."

Rami, Robin and their daughter, now 14, consider themselves a family. They don't live under one roof, but spend holidays and other important events together as much as possible.

"Do you ever have any regrets?" Rami asks Robin.

"Never," Robin says. "Couldn't be more perfect."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Katie Simon.

AGAINST THE MOTION

Joseph "Gray" Davis was the 37th governor of California. As governor, he signed legislation aimed at strengthening California's K-12 system by establishing the Academic Performance Index to increase accountability in schools, and worked to expand access to higher education with scholarships and college loans. Davis also funded and established Institutes of Science and Innovation in partnership with the University of California and private industry. Today, Davis is of counsel at Loeb & Loeb LLP; a member of the bipartisan Think Long Committee; a senior fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs; and honorary co-chair of the Southern California Leadership Council. He has also served as lieutenant governor, state controller and state assemblyman. He began his public service as a captain in the U.S. Army, earning the Bronze Star for meritorious service in Vietnam.

Michael Lind is a co-founder of the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he is the policy director of its Economic Growth Program and Next Social Contract Initiative. A columnist for Salon, he has been a staff writer or editor at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and The National Interest and contributes frequently to The New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of a number of books of history, political journalism, fiction and poetry, including Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012). Lind has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities. He is a fifth-generation native of Texas, where he worked for the state legislature.

College basketball seems to get started sooner every year, like puberty in American children. Why does everything have to begin so early now, before you have time to get ready for it?

Things move so fast in college basketball that there are three players this year who are being called "the next LeBron James. " In the NBA, most of the talk is already about where the superstars will be next season.

Because basketball involves so few players, the hot shots are more valuable, so it's like the Kardashians — not whom they're married to now, but whom they'll be married to next.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.

For four years, the Islamist militants of Boko Haram have been waging a deadly campaign in northern and central Nigeria, killing thousands of people. In response, the Nigerian military is cracking down on the group and the United States last week designated Boko Haram a terrorist organization.

I recently traveled to the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where the insurgency began in 2009 with the goal of imposing Islamic law on Africa's most populous nation. This was after the founder of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed while in police custody and his mosque and camp headquarters razed by the security forces.

Enlarge image i

In an agreement settling many U.S. claims over its sale of troubled mortgages, JP Morgan Chase will pay a record $13 billion, in a deal announced by the Justice Department Tuesday. The plan includes a $4 billion payment for consumer relief, along with a payment to investors of more than $6 billion and a large fine.

"The settlement does not absolve JPMorgan or its employees from facing any possible criminal charges," the Justice Department says.

JPMorgan Chase brought in nearly $24 billion in revenue last quarter, but it still reported a net loss of $400 million, widely attributed to legal fees. The company's settlements since January add up to at least $20 billion.

$13 billion: The investment company is expected to reach a settlement Tuesday related to its risky mortgage-backed securities.

$4.5 billion: Several days ago, the company agreed to pay investors — including 21 major institutions — for the faulty securities.

$1 billion: In September and October, it paid to end investigations into the botched financial transactions of traders in London that cost the company more than $6 billion.

$389 million: In September, the bank refunded money to 2.1 million credit-card customers and paid a fine after allegedly misleading and overcharging them.

$300 million: In September, it resolved an insurance lawsuit, splitting payment with Assurant Inc.

$410 million: In August, it settled allegations that it manipulated U.S. energy markets.

$842 million: In June, it agreed to forgive debt owed to it by Jefferson County, Ala., where the company's securities deals led to the county's bankruptcy in 2011.

$8.5 billion: In January, 10 banks, including JPMorgan, split a settlement related to wrongful home foreclosures.

$9.2 billion: The company's legal fees from its third quarter this year

Federal investigations continue into its hiring practices in Asia and its relationship to Bernie Madoff's financial Ponzi scheme.

-Emily Siner

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has opened an investigation into battery fires in two Tesla Motors Model S sedans.

The fires — three reports in six weeks — have sparked concern about the safety of the electric cars. The New York Times reports:

"Tesla also said late on Monday that it would implement certain measures aimed at creating more ground clearance in the cars and would extend its warranty policy to cover vehicles damaged by fire.

"The first Model S incident occurred Oct. 1, when the car struck a metal object on a highway in Kent, Wash., outside of Seattle. After a delay of more than two weeks because of a partial government shutdown, the agency decided the fire was not the result of a defect in the car's design and that an investigation was not necessary.

"The incident in Mexico, which is outside the federal agency's scope, happened Oct. 18. A third fire, on Nov. 6 on a Smyrna, Tenn., highway near Nashville, started after the car struck a tow hitch lying in the roadway."

Shiite Muslims gathered in Kabul last week to celebrate Ashura, one of the holiest days on their religious calendar. Hundreds of shirtless men chanted and flogged themselves with chains tipped with knife-like shards of metal.

In the past, these public Shiite commemorations have become targets of the Taliban and other Islamist extremists. In 2011, a suicide bomber killed 56 Shiites marking Ashura. But this year, security was particularly tight.

Shopkeeper Noor Aga said the celebration was magnificent, and he felt safe.

"Security is better compared to previous years in Afghanistan, but we cannot say our country is fully secure," he said through a translator. "There are provinces and cities that are very insecure."

Wardak Province, just southwest of Kabul, is one. Zalmai, a civil servant who uses only one name, said there's no security there.

"I cannot go to my province because the roads are not safe," he said in Dari.

Zalmai, like many Afghans, said he doesn't think Afghan forces are ready to provide security without NATO support. And that support has been the subject of negotiations between U.S. and Afghan officials, who reached a compromise Tuesday on a security agreement that would allow some U.S. troops to stay in the country after 2014.

A special assembly of Afghan tribal and religious leaders convenes later this week to debate the agreement. If they reject it, it is likely that all U.S. and NATO troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of next year.

Afghan Forces

This year has been a test case for Afghan forces. NATO handed over security duties last spring just as the annual Taliban offensive began. It was a campaign intended to demoralize Afghan forces and undermine public confidence in the military and the government.

U.S. Maj. Gen. James McConville assumed command of NATO forces in the east just as that spring offensive began.

"What I was concerned about as we came in, at least I was watching for, is as we brought our soldiers down, could the Afghans hold?" McConville said.

He says Afghan forces did hold their ground this year — but there's plenty of room for improvement.

"They're not winning by enough that the enemy is willing to stop fighting yet," he said.

Maj. Gen. Afzal Aman, head of operations in Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, says Taliban fighters did not achieve their goals during this year's fighting season.

But, he says, Afghan forces still need help with logistics and air power, as well as continued training. That training will end next year unless there is a security agreement with the U.S.

More On Afghanistan

Parallels

Are Afghanistan's Schools Doing As Well As Touted?

The hard work of getting aid to survivors and accounting for the dead continues in the central and southern Philippines, which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan on Nov. 8.

Reuters writes that "the Philippines and international armed forces and aid agencies are struggling to get help to devastated areas due to the extent of the destruction, which has left 4 million people displaced."

The good news, NPR's Russell Lewis reported earlier Tuesday from the scene, is that the airport in the heavily damaged city of Tacloban is now able to handle scores of flights per day. That means vital food, water, medicine and equipment are pouring into the area.

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake served up one of those mind-bending proverbs he's known for: "The road of excess leads," he wrote, "to the palace of wisdom." I thought about this line as I watched two terrific new movies that put Blake's words to the test.

Paolo Sorrentino's thrillingly good The Great Beauty tackles the idea head-on — it's an excessive film about excess. Sorrentino doesn't merely aim to update one of the most famous movies of all time (Fellini's portrait of decadent Rome, La Dolce Vita). He intends to better it.

Movie Reviews

A Rome Portrait, And What A 'Great Beauty'!

Editor's Note: There's no question that gaming culture has made a huge impact on the way we live. So this week, as we examine the evolution of video gaming, you'll be hearing a lot of stories on the topic. We're also going to give NPR gaming junkie Steve Mullis a space each week to analyze indie games — something that might not get the attention of, say, Grand Theft Auto, but makes us think a little harder about the future and deserves a look. Take it away, Steve:

Anyone with even a cursory interest in the video game industry already knows that it has exploded over the past two decades into a mainstream, multi-billion-dollar business. Triple-A titles from the major developers and publishers like EA, Sony, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard often have production and marketing budgets that rival blockbuster films.

Video games are also being increasingly seen as a deep, artistic medium as well as a form of entertainment. But behind the industry's big-budget behemoths sits the growing and expanding market of independent video games. As industry expert John Davison told All Things Considered host Robert Siegel on Monday, these are games created by small teams and even solo developers.

Like indie movies and music, these are games developed outside the gaming studio system — one that is not unlike the big-budget Hollywood studio system — often filled with creative control issues and executive intervention. Many of these independent games often get funded through sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

This freedom of both financial and creative control has allowed indie developers to create games that buck the current trends, create new genres and put experimental titles on the market that challenge the conventions of an industry that often seems to produce the same games year after year.

While it's not to say that the big, triple-A titles like Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and GTA V don't have their merits, their massive sales and fanbase shows that they most certainly do. But indie game developers have shown that it is equally possibly to evoke emotion, tell a compelling story and be innovators with a small budget, a small development team and a lot of passion.

The spread of high-speed Internet, greater access to technology and development tools, as well as new digital distribution platforms like Steam, have allowed small developers to see their vision through and bring their games directly to consumers. With Sony and Microsoft also embracing indie games on their current and next-generation consoles (the PS4 and Xbox One), the audience and opportunity for small gaming studios is about to be bigger than ever.

Our aim with this feature is to shine a light on games from the indie market that significantly disrupt the conventions of the gaming industry, break new ground or are just amazing pieces of interactive art that should be experienced. We'd also like to hear suggestions about indie gaming gems you've found and enjoy or games that have had a significant impact on the way you view video games and the industry.

Let's Press Play

OK, so now that we have the introductions out of the way, let's check out some games. Below are just a small sample of indie titles that are a great introduction to what is out there and help illustrate what the indie gaming market is like.

Cave Story

Argentina, La Nacion

She's back.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has resumed duties a month after undergoing brain surgery to remove a clot found during a routine examination.

"Thank you ... to the thousands of Argentines who have been praying for me," she said in a televised address.

During the address, she briefly held a small white dog sent by a brother of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Kirchner ally.

Kirchner also announced a Cabinet reshuffle, naming Axel Kicillof, the minister of economics. Kicillof is the leftist economist who orchestrated the government's expropriation of YPF, the country's largest oil company. He replaces Hernan Lorenzino, who was named envoy to the European Union.

Nepal, Kathmandu Post

Now to Nepal, where voters are choosing a Constituent Assembly that has the task of writing a new Constitution.

More than 12 million voters are expected to cast ballots to pick candidates for the 575-seat chamber. Nepal, which is sandwiched between giants China and India, became a republic in 2008 following more than two centuries as a monarchy.

More than 100 parties are contesting the election, including Maoists, the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxist-Leninist.

At the last election in 2008, 54 political parties were in the fray. The Maoists emerged as the largest party, but the Constituent Assembly that was formed failed to come up with a new Constitution following disputes over the number of provinces and forms of governance. The chamber was disbanded last May.

Britain, BBC

Finally, it's not Spam.

Monty Python's five surviving members say they will reunite for a stage show, for the first time in more than a decade.

"We're getting together and putting on a show - it's real," Terry Jones told the BBC. "I'm quite excited about it. I hope it makes us a lot of money. I hope to be able to pay off my mortgage!"

The reunion is expected to be officially announced at a news conference Tuesday.

The other members — John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin — will appear at the show with Jones. Graham Champan, the sixth member of the group, died in 1989.

They last performed together on stage at the 1998 the Aspen Comedy Festival.

Monty Python shot to fame with the BBC TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus. They then took their comedic genius to the big screen with iconic films such as Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Sure, you want IHOP all the time. But what if you want the "P," without the "I" and the "H"— at which point the "O" is just kind of hanging there? Fortunately, you can now have food from the International House of Pancakes at home, even if your house is not the slightest bit international. We sampled IHOP's new microwavable Griddle n' Sausage breakfast sandwich.

Eva: Now I have something to eat when I'm drunk at 3 a.m. alone at home.

Miles: After I finished my meal, I left a $4 tip in my microwave.

Enlarge image i

"There was one issue that was a giant box with a head painted on it, so when you put it on your shelf, it looks like you have a disembodied head on your shelf," says Eggers. "I think we wanted the journal to work on all those different levels — to surprise and delight on an object level and a design level, but also when you get into the stories, you get phenomenal new writing."

Big names like David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon have filled the pages alongside all manner of emerging voices, and the new anthology reflects that history. It begins with McSweeney's' mock letters section, easily its goofiest offering. Typical to the section is a letter from one Tom O'Donnell:

Dear McSweeney's,

I have a common name. According to some estimates, nearly 40 percent of men are named "Tom O'Donnell." ... In the time it took me to write this sentence, chances are you named at least one of your children "Tom O'Donnell."

This would all be fine if it were still Bible times, but today it's a problem. Why? Because it's basically impossible to Google myself.

In the 50 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the public has never tired of books about the charismatic young president and his tragic death.

This year, the market has been particularly flooded with Kennedy books — from glossy photograph collections to serious biographies and histories to a new round of books devoted to conspiracy theories.

There were already thousands of books about Kennedy before this 50th anniversary year, but Tony Lyons of Skyhorse Publishing believes there is always room for more. His company is releasing 25 Kennedy books this fall: eight new ones and 17 reprints.

"I think that this is the biggest story probably in U.S. history," Lyons says.

Lyons firmly believes that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Most of the books he is publishing point the finger at an assortment of conspiracies: the CIA, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Mafia — even Kennedy's own father, Joseph Kennedy, is blamed for the assassination. One book Lyons expects will sell well is a primer on conspiracy theories by Jesse Ventura.

"I think many of these books are a piece of the puzzle, and that's why it's such a fascinating story," Lyons says. "So each issue is covered by a separate book. Some of them have similar points of view, but I think people ought to feel that this is a story they should really want to get to the bottom of in their own mind — and that they should want to read a dozen or two dozen books on it."

More On JFK's Legacy

U.S.

How Kennedy's Assassination Changed The Secret Service

"I breathed in deeply," the narrator says in one story, "but when I exhaled, no air seemed to come out, like something inside me had eaten it."

There are one or two duds in here. When you can tell van den Berg spent more effort writing than storytelling, they become a little brittle. But after the first story, when the book gets rolling, she's completely on her game.

My favorite was the last piece, which also happens to be the title story. It's about a pair of identical twins, one wild, one dull, who barely talk to each other. We find out the wild sister once tried to steal the plain one's husband. But now she needs her twin to swap lives for a couple days, in order to fool a drug lord. And the ensuing events are full of delicacy and surprise.

Plenty of authors write with this sort of detachment. It can be divisive, sometimes too cool to love. I'm thinking of Joan Didion, Mary Robison, and, again, Murakami. But for those of us who do love them, Laura van den Berg is a new name to add to the list.

Read an excerpt of The Isle of Youth

JP Morgan Chase & Co. will pay $4 billion to consumers who were hurt by faulty mortgage underwriting, part of a larger $13 billion deal to settle the bank's liability in the collapse of toxic securities during the housing crisis.

The deal is expected to be announced this week.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that "a source familiar with the settlement says that as much as $1.7 billion will go to homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Portions of the money will also go to restructure mortgages. And in an unusual agreement the bank will use part of the money to fight blight in distressed neighborhoods by doing things such as tearing down rundown buildings."

Last month, we reported that JPMorgan had reached a tentative deal with the Justice Department to pay $13 billion to settle civil charges related to wrongdoing by some of its units during the housing crisis. The sum represents the largest-ever such settlement.

And last week, the bank agreed to pay $4.5 billion to large institutional investors who bought mortgage-backed securities whose risk they said JPMorgan misrepresented. Many of those securities were loaded down with sub-prime mortgages and quickly tanked when the housing bubble burst.

Reuters reports:

"The agreement is to require JPMorgan to spend the money by the end of 2016 under the watch of an independent monitor, [a person familiar with the deal] said.

... The total deal is also to include a $2 billion penalty and at least $4 billion for federal housing finance agencies under a previously announced agreement. The fact that the $13 billion deal would include $4 billion for some form of "consumer relief" has been known for weeks. The details of how the $4 billion would be spent were reported earlier on Monday by The Wall Street Journal."

On Day 11 of the disaster caused in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan, "I am not so sure that we've reached every single portion of the territory where people are in need of aid," Bernard Kerblat, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees representative for the Philippines, said Monday.

Reuters adds that another U.N. official, Orla Fagan from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, described the scope of the challenge facing relief workers as "massive ... between 10 and 12.9 million people have to be assisted to recover from this. This is absolutely huge. It's like taking the whole of Belgium and trying to assist."

J.J. Abrams already had the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises under his belt when he was offered Star Wars. He says taking on the beloved work of science fiction in addition to the others was a big decision: "It's too much power for one man!"

"I was insanely flattered, but felt like it was too much," he tells NPR's Arun Rath. "I was already involved in a couple series that pre-existed me and I wanted to get back to doing original stories. [But] it was such a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something completely thrilling and wildly challenging."

Abrams has has managed to work get those original stories into the world. The man behind hit TV shows like Alias and Lost, is also the executive producer of the new Fox show Almost Human.

Code Switch

Fox Says Diversity Leads To Good Ratings And Better Business

She tried many strange foods for the book, but for her, the strangest was a $90 cup of coffee, brewed from beans collected from the droppings of civets — a small wild cat — in Southeast Asia. The coffee, which she bought from gourmet grocer Dean & Deluca, tasted "wonderful," she says. (Indeed, civet poop coffee, or kopi luwak, is so rare and pricey that scientists have developed a chemical test to tell if you've bought the real thing. But, as we've previously reported, the coffee's high price tag has also encouraged some to cage the cats and force feed them coffee beans.)

Ironically, she notes, the elite diners at the vanguard of the food movement — the ones who can afford to eat at restaurants where the tasting menu is $250 a head — more and more often are paying high prices to eat the foods of poverty.

"What does it mean," muses Goodyear, "that the richest people in the world are starting to eat like the survivors of a catastrophe?"

And that's pretty much how things stood for the next 17 or 18 years: Me, resigned to the fact that my Mom thought I was an incestuous freak.

(As I veteran of the PC age, I almost added a Seinfeldian "Not that there's anything wrong with that" qualifier to "incestuous freak," so as not to offend the incest freaks out there. Then I remembered, "Oh, wait, in some cases 'freak' is appropriate.")

My Mom passed away 10 years ago. Towards the end of her life, I decided I had to correct the record. You know, tell my frail mother that I didn't want to have sex with her. Over lunch I explained everything about the book. When I finished, she laughed and said, "Wow, I don't remember that at all."

She didn't think of it again, because she gave me the benefit of the doubt. Unconditional love.

Ask Me Another

Tom Ruprecht: Make It 'Til You Fake It

There's a land rush going on right now. At least that's how everyone seems to be describing the opening up of vast amounts of Internet real estate with so-called top-level domains.

Pretty soon, there's going to be a lot more than .coms out there, and a lot of big companies and a few upstarts are bidding huge amounts to get the new Internet addresses.

To register a domain name you typically go through a commercial domain retailer, like GoDaddy or DomainNames.com. But it is never totally clear who owns the address you're buying.

You might think you're buying it from the government, and that the sale of these new domain names is like selling parts of the radio spectrum for TV or radio broadcasts. It would make sense to think that since the U.S. government created the Internet in the 1980s. But, in a move with staggering implications, the U.S. gave it up to the world.

Regulating Domain Name Space

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the organization that sprang up to administer the sale and designation of domain names. It is the only governing body that does this, and it developed the rules for who got .coms, .edu, .orgs and regional designations like .uk (United Kingdom) or .ly (Libya).

For the two-letter country codes, ICANN established early on that whoever presents themselves as the designated official representative of that nation's government is allowed to manage the name space from there on.

If it wants, the country or territory can just sell the space to the left of its top-level domain, and many have. Take NPR's ownership of n.pr, which ends in Puerto Rico's regional domain. TV stations and a lot of other companies buy these links because they need short URLs. They're easier to deal with and fit in a 140-character tweet.

That's why domains can be so valuable — and why so many people are excited about the new top-level domains.

The problem with the land rush analogy, though, is that this isn't land or anything like land. Land is a physical thing, and there is a limited amount. But that doesn't apply to the Internet: ICANN can simply make more virtual real estate, which is exactly what they did.

Who Is Buying?

If you have a few million dollars to spare, and are willing to take a bit of a risk, you too can take advantage of the new top-level domains. Jeff Sass is the marketing director for the newly minted .CLUB, now owned by the company .CLUB Domains.

"The [application] fee alone was $185,000," Sass tells NPR's Arun Rath. "And then of course there's [the] legal costs and financial papers and other things that have to be done as part of it."

After paying these initial hundreds of thousands of dollars, the company then had to bid for .CLUB in a private auction. The auction went on for several days, but in the end Sass' company was victorious. Sass wouldn't say how much exactly the company paid for the name, but says his company has raised $8.2 million to date and spent in excess of $5 million so far on obtaining the name and the marketing.

So is shelling out millions for the perfect name space a good strategy? On the Internet, property value is what you make of it.

"If you start thinking about these top-level domains, we see that .com is valuable. Will .soda, for soda pop vendors, will that be valuable?" says Charles Severance, who teaches information technology at the University of Michigan. "I think it'll be more about how they make it valuable rather than just getting it."

Severance says there are some people who do get lucky from speculating on and buying domain names, sometimes known as cyber-squatting. But he said that's rare.

"In general, just holding onto a four- or six-character string — unless you've made it valuable — you have to invest in making it valuable," he says.

In other words, this may not be the kind of land rush that opens up opportunity for the little guys. In fact, ICANN spokesman Brad White doesn't think you should look at it like a land rush at all.

Related NPR Stories

All Tech Considered

Beyond .Com: Some See Confusion In Internet Domain Expansion

We told you this morning about changes announced in China regarding the country's one-child policy, as well as an announcement that it was ending its system of labor camps. But those aren't the only policy shifts by the Communist Party.

China also said Friday that it would loosen restrictions on foreign investment in e-commerce and other businesses, and allow private competition in state-dominated sectors.

The Associated Press says the changes "could be China's biggest economic overhaul in two decades." Here's more:

"Chinese leaders are under pressure to replace a growth model based on exports and investment that delivered three decades of rapid growth but has run out of steam. Reform advocates say Beijing must curb the privileges and dominant role of state companies they say are inefficient and a drag on growth."

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle claims from investors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities that went sour as the U.S. housing market imploded.

The settlement is with 21 institutional investors and is separate from the $13-billion-dollar agreement reached last month with the Department of Justice to settle civil charges related to wrongdoing by some of JPMorgan's units.

In Friday's deal, Reuters says:

"The bank will make a binding offer to the trustees of 330 residential mortgage-backed securities trusts issued by the bank and Bear Stearns, which it took over during the financial crisis, [a person familiar with the matter] said. The settlement does not include trusts issued by Washington Mutual, which JPMorgan also acquired, the person said."

There's a land rush going on right now. At least that's how everyone seems to be describing the opening up of vast amounts of Internet real estate with so-called top-level domains.

Pretty soon, there's going to be a lot more than .coms out there, and a lot of big companies and a few upstarts are bidding huge amounts to get the new Internet addresses.

To register a domain name you typically go through a commercial domain retailer, like GoDaddy or DomainNames.com. But it is never totally clear who owns the address you're buying.

You might think you're buying it from the government, and that the sale of these new domain names is like selling parts of the radio spectrum for TV or radio broadcasts. It would make sense to think that since the U.S. government created the Internet in the 1980s. But, in a move with staggering implications, the U.S. gave it up to the world.

Regulating Domain Name Space

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the organization that sprang up to administer the sale and designation of domain names. It is the only governing body that does this, and it developed the rules for who got .coms, .edu, .orgs and regional designations like .uk (United Kingdom) or .ly (Libya).

For the two-letter country codes, ICANN established early on that whoever presents themselves as the designated official representative of that nation's government is allowed to manage the name space from there on.

If it wants, the country or territory can just sell that space, and many have. TV stations and a lot of other companies buy these links because they need short URLs (like n.pr). They're easier to deal with and fit in a 140-character tweet.

That's why domains can be so valuable — and why so many people are excited about the new top-level domains.

The problem with the land rush analogy though is that this isn't land or anything like land. Land is a physical thing, and there is a limited amount. But that doesn't apply to the Internet. ICANN can simply make more virtual real estate, which is exactly what they did.

Who Is Buying?

If you have a few million dollars to spare, and are willing to take a bit of a risk, you too can take advantage of the new top-level domains. Jeff Sass is the marketing director for the newly-minted .CLUB. He can say that now, because his company successfully bid on the .club domain.

"The fee alone was $185,000," Sass tells NPR's Arun Rath. "And then of course there's [the] legal costs and financial papers and other things that have to be done as part of it."

After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the application and legal fees, they then had to bid for .club in a private auction. The auction went on for several days, but in the end they were victorious. Sass wouldn't say how much exactly they paid for the name, but that his company has raised $8.2 million to date and spent in excess of $5 million so far on obtaining the name and the marketing.

So is shelling out millions for the perfect name space a good strategy? On the Internet, property value is what you make of it.

"If you start thinking about these top-level domains we see that .com is valuable. Will .soda, for soda pop vendors, will that be valuable?" says Charles Severance, who teaches information technology at the University of Michigan. "I think it'll be more about how they make it valuable rather than just getting it."

Severance says there are some people who do get lucky from speculating on and buying domain names, sometimes known as cyber-squatting. But he said that's rare.

"In general, just holding onto a four or six character string, unless you've made it valuable, you have to invest in making it valuable," he says.

In other words, this may not be the kind of land rush that opens up opportunity for the little guys. In fact, ICANN spokesman Brad White doesn't think you should look at it like a land rush at all.

Related NPR Stories

All Tech Considered

Beyond .Com: Some See Confusion In Internet Domain Expansion

The image of Walter Cronkite taking off his glasses as he announced President John F. Kennedy's death on Nov. 22, 1963, is one that seems seared into our collective memory — even for those of us who weren't around to see it live.

Nearly 40 years later, Cronkite revisited that moment and the rest of that unsettling day in a piece that aired on All Things Considered on Nov. 22, 2002.

Cronkite's story is one of the many that we're looking back on as we mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. You can listen to his recollections — and three other compelling pieces from the NPR archives — below.

Cronkite Remembers

In his piece, Cronkite explores the disorienting period immediately after the shots rang out in Dallas. Incredibly, six members of Kennedy's Cabinet, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, were aboard a jet on their way to Japan when the president was shot — meaning we have recordings of real-time updates from the White House Situation Room in the form of ground-to-air radio traffic.

Cronkite weaves together those tense updates with his behind-the-scenes insight into how the media — and through them, the public at large — learned about what happened on that fateful Friday.

"Those whose jobs often involve great emotional stress develop an amazing stoic power to defer emotion — a power that momentarily eluded me," Cronkite recalled in the 2002 piece. "None had it more than the men who had to give aircraft 972 the news."