What's new

On some French trains, the conductor's whistle signals more than just a departure. For commuters traveling on an express train from Reims to Paris — a 90-mile, 45-minute ride — it means the beginning of English class.

"Before the course, we were sleeping in the train in the morning," says passenger-student Gilles Hallais. "So I prefer practicing English."

Hallais, 44, is a journalist at French public radio. He says while he doesn't need English for his work, he does need it for his life. "I think it could be a handicap if I don't speak fluent English."

Rail officials hope these classes, called English on Track, will become more popular, especially after a recent study ranked France at the bottom in Europe in English proficiency, which is one offshoot of the country's efforts to protect French culture and language.

In France, unlike in some other European countries, the law mandates that foreign shows on television must be dubbed into French, not just subtitled. So young people don't have the chance to beef up their English while watching American shows.

Learning On The Rails

David Potier, head of commercial relations with France's state rail company, the SNCF, says when a high-speed rail link opened between Reims and Paris a few years ago, the number of regular passengers quadrupled to 1,000 a day. He says it makes sense to offer such professional customers special services at competitive prices.

Jerome Paillot, a 37-year-old native of Reims, recently began working at the French headquarters of an Italian coffee company. He believes improving his English is important for his career.

i i

Would March Madness be terribly different if the players were paid?

Probably not. The college basketball tournament might become more professionalized, but it wouldn't look much different from what we're seeing right now.

"I don't see it changing one iota," says ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas.

Last week's National Labor Relations Board ruling that football players at Northwestern University should be able to form a union triggered dire warnings from the NCAA that the ideal of the student-athlete would be forever corrupted if players were treated as employees and paid as such.

But for fans, the reality is that the game wouldn't change. The real question is how the pie would be sliced, with players suddenly demanding a share of the take.

"It's another NCAA scare tactic," says Bilas, who played basketball at Duke University. "They're saying it's going to crumble when they talk about giving the athletes a penny over their expenses, and it's wrong."

The Game's Already For Sale

It's hard to imagine March Madness getting any more commercial.

The tournament is already a billion-dollar event, with as many Burger King and AXE body wash commercials as television can carry.

"Any time we cover an NCAA tournament event, the NCAA will not allow you to sit courtside with beverages that do not have the label from one of their sponsors," says Kenneth Blackistone, a sportswriter who teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.

Fans would still be able to buy jerseys emblazoned with team names and the numbers of their favorite players — with those players maybe seeing a cut.

It's possible that ticket prices could go up, but that's been happening for years anyway, as coaching salaries have soared into the multi-million-dollar range.

And it's not like the pro version of the sport will suddenly be dominated by big-money programs — the Stanford Facebookers or the Kansas Koch Brothers — or at least no more than it's dominated by big money programs already.

The Two-Way

Labor Board Rules Northwestern University Players Are Employees

Washington state, with its many steep slopes, streams and rivers and some of the heaviest annual rainfall in the country, is a mudslide waiting to happen. Add in soil erosion from logging, as was reportedly the case near the community of Oso before last week's tragedy, and the probability of such an event increases.

And, as we now know, this was just the latest in a string of mudslides in the area over the years as well as (apparently unheeded) official warnings about the potential for such a disaster.

As the death toll from last week's tragedy rises, we take a closer look at mudslides — what they are, where they are and what causes them:

What's the difference between a landslide and a mudslide?

Landslides occur when masses of rock, earth or debris move down a slope. Debris flows, also known as mudslides, are a common type of fast-moving landslide that tends to flow in channels, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet.

What causes landslides/mudslides?

Unstable soil, heavy rain, especially following droughts, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Mudslides occur when the soil becomes saturated on steep slopes.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the conditions that make mudslide most likely are:

— Areas where wildfires or human modification of the land have destroyed vegetation

— Areas where landslides have occurred before

— Steep slopes and areas at the bottom of slopes or canyons

— Slopes that have been altered for construction of buildings and roads

— Channels along a stream or river

— Areas where surface runoff is directed

In Oso, for example, the area received up to twice the normal rainfall for the 45 days before the mudslide — 15 inches above the norm for this time of year.

"As the moisture gets more and more it's pushing the particles apart. It makes them slippery and has less friction. The force of gravity is constantly trying to pull things down," Brent Bower, hydrologist, was quoted as saying by King 5 TV.

To make matters worse, a 7-acre forest clear-cut "went right up to the edge of the groundwater danger zone" near Oso, Aaron Everett, a Washington state forester, tells NPR member station KUOW.

How often do these events occur?

The U.S. Geological Survey says that landslides are not uncommon. As recently as November, there was one in Colorado that injured several people and killed one man who was "buried beneath significant amounts of debris."

The CDC says landslides and mudslides kill an average of about 25 to 50 people in the U.S. each year. Having said that, it's already clear from the Oso mudslide that 2014 will not be an average year.

Where are they most likely to happen?

The states considered most vulnerable are Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii.

When and where did the biggest landslide/mudslide occur?

The largest mudslide in recorded history occurred just 140 miles south of Oso, on the slope of Mount St. Helens, when the volcano erupted in May 1980. The intense heat from the eruption "instantly turned more than 70% of the snow and glacial ice on the mountain to water. This massive movement of rock, ash, water and downed trees swept into Spirit Lake and down the north fork of the Toutle River Valley at speeds in excess of 175 miles per hour," according to a website on the history of the eruption.

The volume of mud and debris put in motion by Mount St. Helens was 3.3 billion cubic yards, or the equivalent of 1 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, the USGS says.

The Mount St. Helens eruption killed 57 people in total, but it's hard to say how many of them were killed by the mudslide itself.

In 1969, a landslide in Nelson County, Va., killed 150 when Hurricane Camille, downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit the region, nonetheless dumped heavy rain. According to Yahoo:

"The soils of Nelson County had already been saturated from previous rain. The storm's east side reached as far as Fredericksburg, and it kept dumping more water — a total of 31 inches in six hours. With that water came flash-floods and landslides."

This month, millions of Americans picked winners and losers in college basketball games, hoping to make money from wise bets.

But you can play for much higher stakes by placing sensible bets with your savings. If you wager well, you can have a much more comfortable retirement.

Economists, though, are making forecasts that make it tough to guess which way growth is going.

What's the best bet: protect your money by stuffing it into a mattress or invest in the stock market?

This month, millions of Americans picked winners and losers in college basketball games, hoping to make money from wise bets.

But you can play for much higher stakes by placing sensible bets with your savings. If you wager well, you can have a much more comfortable retirement.

Economists, though, are making forecasts that make it tough to guess which way growth is going.

What's the best bet: protect your money by stuffing it into a mattress or invest in the stock market?

The romantic comedy-drama is not dead; it's just being platformed.

I saw The Lunchbox, the first feature from director Ritesh Batra, at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of last year. Starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur, it takes as its jumping-off point the dabbawalas of Mumbai, guys on bikes who run a lunchbox-delivery system that brings hot, delicious lunches to people working in offices. (Spoiler alert: you will envy this system by film's end.)

In many families, the dabbawalas deliver lunches made at home by wives to husbands who are at work, and the story revolves around a rare dabbawala mistake in which young wife Ila (Kaur) makes a delicious lunch for her unappreciative husband and it winds up accidentally going to Saajan (Khan), a single man in middle age. They begin to exchange letters.

Related NPR Stories

'Lunch' Gets Boxed Out: India's Oscar Pick Controversy Jan. 18, 2014

A lot of artists say they find inspiration in unlikely places. Architects Alejandro D'Acosta and Claudia Turrent, designers based in Ensenada, Mexico, most often find theirs digging through dumpsters and junkyards.

Their work, however, isn't remotely trashy. One of their latest creations, the Vena Cava winery in Baja's Guadalupe Valley, is sleek and totally modern. It's one of a growing number of wineries that's designed to give visitors a memorable visual experience — not just a taste of fine wine.

The vaulted ceilings of Vena Cava are made out of salvaged discarded boats from a nearby port. Some of the walls are decorated with discarded lenses from a local eyeglass factory. In addition to these distinctive emblems of place, the winery incorporates the shapes and colors of the region's natural landscape so that it almost blends in.

With their passion for reclaimed materials, the husband and wife team have secured a niche designing stunning, upscale wineries and other buildings in Baja. They've designed five wineries to date, and have two more in the works.

The Mexican wine industry has been flourishing lately, prompting the The Economist to call the Guadalupe Valley the "Napa of Mexico." D'Acosta says he and Turrent are in the right place to experiment with winery design, at the right time.

i i

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., confirmed Friday that he will not seek re-election in November and is going to host a talk show on the Cumulus radio network starting next year.

He made the announcement, which was the subject of rumors Thursday night, on WJR radio, a Detroit news/talk station that is one of the Cumulus network's 525 stations in 110 cities across the nation.

The congressman, now serving his seventh term, has been a frequent face on Sunday morning talk shows in recent years and a go-to source for comment on national security issues.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the 50-year-old Rogers said Friday that his radio show will focus on conservative and national security issues. He made the case that the conservative voice "is missing" in the news media.

During his career in Congress, Rogers has been viewed as a strong supporter of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Boehner picked Rogers to be the Intelligence Committee's chairman in 2010, over Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, who remains the committee's second-ranking Republican.

Politico offers this background on Rogers:

"Rogers joined the FBI in 1989 as a special agent in the Chicago office, focusing on public corruption and organized crime, among other issues. In 1995, he was elected to the Michigan Senate, rising to majority floor leader in 1999.

"In 2000, Rogers won election to Congress. His southeastern Michigan district voted for Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race following redistricting, but Barack Obama carried it in 2008.

"Rogers has been a frequent Obama critic during many appearances on Sunday morning talk shows, although he was briefly floated as a potential CIA director nominee following President Obama's 2012 reelection victory.

"He has been a harsh critic of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, suggesting — without offering additional proof — that Snowden was working with foreign intelligence agencies."

The difficult search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 shifted dramatically Friday.

There was word that the search has been moved to an area of the Southern Indian Ocean about 700 miles northeast of the zone that planes and ships have been crisscrossing for more than a week. They've been looking for any sign of the plane and the 239 people who were on board when it disappeared three weeks ago.

According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, 10 aircraft were sent to the new zone on Friday. The area is about 123,000 square miles in size — roughly the same as the state of New Mexico — and is located more than 1,100 miles west of Perth, Australia.

One of the planes that went to the area on Friday, the AMSA says, spotted some objects. But whether those objects are connected to the missing jet still needs to be established and most likely can't be until ships get to the scene on Saturday.

From Sydney, correspondent Stuart Cohen tells our Newscast Desk that the search zone has shifted because investigators have reexamined radar data and calculated that the jet may have been flying faster than previously thought — and fast enough that it burned through its fuel much sooner than had been estimated.

As the BBC reminds readers:

"Search efforts had until Friday morning focused on an area some 2,500km (1,550 miles) to the southwest of the Australian city of Perth. Using satellite images, several nations have identified objects floating in the sea in that search area, but these have not been located and there is no evidence that they are related to the plane. ...

"Acting Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that the fact that the search area had moved did not discount the earlier satellite images of possible debris further south.

" 'Because of ocean drift, this new search area could still be consistent with the potential objects identified by various satellite images over the past week,' Mr Hussein said."

i i

Border Citizens

While traveling in Arizona I met a businessman named Jaime Chamberlain, who described himself as a border citizen.

Chamberlain took some time to explain. He's a patriotic U.S. citizen. But he also described himself as Mexican. His family past stretches back into both countries, and his future depends on both. His company imports vegetables from across the border in Mexico. He has investments in both countries.

In the 2008 pilot of AMC's Breaking Bad, high school teacher Walter White fails to interest his chemistry students in the study of change. But over the course of the series, Walt himself came to exemplify radical change, using his knowledge of chemistry to become a master meth cook and transforming himself into a notorious outlaw who was willing to kill, when necessary, to keep his operation running.

i i

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's "account of these events rings true" and he has "conducted himself at every turn as someone who has nothing to hide," according to an investigation — done at the request of the governor's office — of the George Washington Bridge scandal.

The law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher also concludes that the only person in the Republican governor's office who was involved in closing lanes from Fort Lee, N.J., to the bridge last September was his deputy chief of staff at the time, Bridget Kelly.

"We have not found any evidence of anyone in the governor's office knowing
about the lane realignment beforehand or otherwise being involved, besides Bridget Kelly," the reports states.

What motivated Kelly and David Wildstein, director of interstate capital projects at The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to order the lane closures still isn't clear, the report adds. But, "it was not at the behest of Gov. Christie, who knew nothing about it."

The investigators did not speak with Kelly or Wildstein, who along with former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien declined to talk to them.

The firm's report is posted here.

As you'll likely recall, lane closures from Fort Lee to the bridge last September caused massive traffic problems in that city for four days. Over subsequent weeks and months, news reports uncovered evidence that the lanes may have been closed in part to cause problems for Fort Lee's mayor, who is a Democrat.

Kelly and Wildstein were identified in those news reports as allegedly being central characters in the scandal.

NJ.com adds that the report released Thursday also "concluded that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's allegations that the Christie administration withheld Hurricane Sandy aid in an effort to help a private developer were unsubstantiated, 'demonstrably false,' and 'unbelievable.' " Zimmer is a Democrat.

The report recommends, though, that Christie name a chief ethics officer for his office to guard against future scandals.

Thursday's report is by no means the final word on the scandal. New Jersey legislators are also looking into what happened. Democrats, in part because Christie is a potential 2016 presidential contender, are sure to keep digging.

Randy Mastro, the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyer who led the review, told reporters Thursday that "had we found evidence to the contrary of what we found, we would have been reporting that. ... We believe we got it right." Mastro said the review was done at the request of the governor's office and for the people of New Jersey, not for any individual.

Each year, the federal government provides more than $150 billion in grants and loans to help students pay for college. And while a bachelor's degree has become increasingly valuable, young people are taking on record levels of debt to earn that degree.

That's the backdrop for a Senate hearing Thursday on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the 1965 law which governs the federal financial aid system. As part of a series of conversations about paying for college, Morning Edition spoke to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who will run the hearing.

The chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer that for-profit, public, and private colleges and universities should be more accountable for the federal student aid they receive.

When Facebook purchases a company, you can often hear a collective groan go around the Internet — "There goes the neighborhood."

The Oculus VR acquisition announced Tuesday is Facebook's first high-profile hardware purchase. A very popular one, too. Since debuting on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter two years ago, the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset quickly became the most-talked-about device in gaming.

Virtual reality is so hot that Sony announced its own VR headset — Project Morpheus — last week, and even showed one of the first games made for the Oculus Rift running on Sony hardware: The starfighter simulator EVE: Valkyrie.

Gamers and developers alike have been expecting big things from Oculus, and even speculating about an acquisition — just not by Facebook.

"I'd say I was pretty shocked," said E McNeil, the developer of a virtual reality game called Darknet. His first reaction to news of the Oculus acquisition was pretty common among his fellow developers, he says. "A lot of people were thinking that maybe Microsoft would try to purchase Oculus — or some other gaming company and I guess Facebook is involved in gaming. No one really saw this coming. A lot of people are surprised right now."

Some of that surprise has turned to anger; many of the hundreds of comments on the Oculus blog post announcing the deal can't be read on air. The commenters accuse Oculus of abandoning its grassroots vision, and worry that Oculus headsets will be flooded with Facebook's ads.

All Tech Considered

Getting Your Head Into The Facebook-Oculus Virtual Reality Deal

Author Howard Rheingold has been thinking about virtual reality tech for decades. He spoke to us on Twitter about Facebook's $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift headset.

[View the story "Howard Rheingold Reacts To The Facebook-Oculus Deal" on Storify]

Ever since the Watergate era, taxpayers have been able to check a box on their federal tax returns and designate a little bit of their tax payment to help finance the presidential campaigns and wean politicians away from big donors.

The public financing program has had its ups and downs. But now President Obama is prepared to sign legislation that, for the first time, takes taxpayer money out of the fund.

First of all, let's pause to reflect on some of the great moments of American political conventions brought to you by presidential matching funds.

Bill Clinton in 1992: "I still believe in a place called Hope."

George W. Bush in 2000: "Americans live on the sunrise side of the mountain. The night is passing. And we are ready for the day to come."

Then Barack Obama in 2008: "This election has never been about me. It's been about you."

And in 2012, not Republican nominee Mitt Romney but actor Clint Eastwood with an empty chair: "What do you want me to tell Romney? I can't tell him that. He can't do that to himself."

Get recipes for Pine Nut And Meyer Lemon Aioli, Pistachio And Tarragon Aioli, Pecan And Red Pepper Sauce, Spicy Spinach And Cashew Sauce, Cilantro, Pistachio, Almond And Castelvetrano Sauce, Walnut, French Lentil And Herb "Gravy" and Savory Almond And Vanilla Sauce.

i i

In a new rule released on Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service says it will treat bitcoin and other virtual currencies as property.

The Wall Street Journal reports this means any profits made on the currency will be taxed at the capital-gains rate and that investors will have to keep extensive records.

The Journal adds:

"The announcement in general was expected to be greeted favorably by the fledgling industry, and many had anticipated exactly this result. But the announcement also served as a reminder that new technologies often can't avoid being subject to the old rules for long.

"In a notice, the IRS said that it generally would treat bitcoin held by investors much like stock or other intangible property. If the virtual currency is held for investment, any gains would be treated as capital gains, meaning they could be subject to lower tax rates.

"The top long-term capital-gains tax rate is 20%, while the top ordinary income-tax rate is 39.6%, although add-on taxes often make both rates somewhat higher. But as capital investments, loss deductions from bitcoin often would be limited, whereas currency losses can be easier to deduct up front."

President Obama has met with the leader of Russia's close ally, Kazakhstan, in a meeting that both sides said had nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine, but the one-on-one follows earlier contact between the two that was aimed at defusing the Crimea crisis.

The Associated Press says the meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was a last-minute addition to Obama's schedule at a nuclear summit in The Hague. The two leaders had previously spoken by telephone on March 10, when the White House said it had urged Nazarbayev to play an active role in seeking a peaceful resolution over Crimea.

That meeting follows a surprise face-to-face on Monday between Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart. It was the highest-level meeting between the two countries since the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea earlier this month. Lavrov used the sit-down with Andriy Deshchytsia to reiterate Moscow's call for autonomy for Russian speakers in the border regions between the two countries.

"We set forth our vision to establish good national dialogue taking into account all residents of Ukraine," Lavrov said in a news conference in The Hague.

Lavrov also brushed off the concerns about Russia being expelled from the G8 group of leading industrialized nations as a punishment for its military actions in Crimea, calling the move "no great tragedy."

Other members of the G8 have agreed to scrap a July summit that was to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of this year's Winter Olympics.

"If our Western partners think that this format has outlived itself, then so be it," Lavrov told reporters. "At the very least, we are not trying to cling on to this format."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has alluded to the post-Cold War orphaning of Russian-speaking populations in former Soviet republics, as justification for its actions in Crimea and its demand that Russian speakers in Ukraine be protected.

(For a look at Russian-speaking populations living on Russia's periphery, we have a closer look here.)

On Monday U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, said that after Crimea, Moscow might be eyeing Moldova's mainly Russian-speaking separatist Transdniestria region.

Breedlove's comments come amid concern that Russia, which has massed troops on its eastern border with Ukraine, might also make a move.

Adm. James Stavridis, also a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, tells NPR that he thinks both of those concerns "will trigger an enhanced level of cooperation between NATO and Ukraine in particular."

"I share Gen. Breedlove's concern, however, about the massing of troops on the eastern border of Ukraine. That is, in my view provocative and destabilizing," Stavridis tells Morning Edition.

With grief still fresh in his own mind, the Town Chronicler also sets off to follow them, encountering the royalty of the region — a Duke — and a grief-stricken centaur. The centaur is a writing, thinking beast who tells the Chronicler that he "can't really understand anything" until he writes it down. "I must re-create it in the form of a story'" he declaims. "Yes — mix it into a story is what I need to do, have to do. And it must have plots! And imagination! And hallucinations and freedom and dreams! Fire! A bubbling cauldron!"

That's what Grossman tries to include in this dramatic work-out on grief, though as much as he can he pares everything down to the scale of the everyday, especially the language (as much as I can surmise without having read the Hebrew original) and tone. So, ironically, he gives us ordinary life, with nearly overwhelming grief that lives on and on after the death of the loved one, ordinary life with dukes and centaurs. From page one, as the mourners walk, the power of the simple language intensifies, as a single truth emerges for the high and low characters alike: The person they mourn for is dead, but the death is not dead.

Don't consider this last thought a spoiler. The surprising final truth lives on from the first lines of Falling Out of Time, this lyrical, keening Israeli version of our own Our Town, a book you may want to pick up, pace with, chant from aloud.

A lot has changed for the energy industry since the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in 1989 and began spilling oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. The outcry over images of oil-soaked wildlife and a once-pristine shoreline dirtied by crude ushered in greater scrutiny of oil operations and increased interest in research on how to clean up oil spills.

But while regulation may be tighter and spill response more robust today, companies are working in more challenging environments than they were 25 years ago. Fracking shale underground and drilling in remote places like the Arctic and below the ocean floor, experts say, also means a greater risk of accidents.

Just before the Exxon Valdez disaster, domestic support for oil spill research had waned. The federal government had shut down an outdoor testing lab on a naval base in Leonardo, N.J.

But the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 ordered the facility and its 667-foot-long saltwater pool re-opened. Today, Ohmsett, the National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy test facility, is busier than ever. The crew is working year-round — even importing ice to simulate Arctic conditions.

"We're at about 85 to 90 percent capacity at this moment," says Paul Meyer, program manager with federal contractor MAR, Inc. "We're running, almost every week, a different test and a different scenario."

i i

Another day, another wave of Democratic attacks on the Koch brothers and their Republican allies.

Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, took to the Senate floor Monday to bash the Koch brothers and the GOP, as has become his habit in recent weeks.

In his latest criticism, he accused Republicans of stalling aid to beleaguered Ukraine until Democrats agreed to delay new Internal Revenue Service rules that would affect the political activities of non-profit groups.

"Republicans delayed this aid package for 10 days in order to protect the Koch brothers and billionaires just like them," Reid said. Reid didn't cite the non-profit, Koch-brothers-funded group Americans for Prosperity, but that's what he meant.

Another Democratic attack on Charles and David Koch came from a different direction. American Bridge 21st Century, the opposition research group, weighed in with a new web ad that accused AFP and the Kochs of misleading voters via untrue attacks on vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election.

That ad followed news that another independent Democratic group intends to spend $3 million on anti-Koch ads in the several states where Democrats are thought to be most at risk.

Why do Democrats seem to be so fixated on the Koch brothers? First, the Koch brothers are arguably good for fundraising. Dave Weigel of Salon reported that Democratic email pitches that mentioned the Koch brothers generated more donations than those that didn't.

But Democrats said it wasn't really about the Kochs being good for Democratic fundraising pitches (though there's nothing wrong with that). The additional amounts raised are trivial compared with the estimated $30 million AFP has already spent, they said.

Instead, it's about defining Republican opponents of Democratic Senate candidates as essentially being stalking horses for the billionaire brothers.

"While most voters may not know who the Koch brothers are, they all know who out-of-state, very wealthy special interests are," said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"Everyone knows there are people who have it easier who are trying to game the system ... It's about holding Republican Senate candidates accountable in a believable way."

The Republican take on what's happening is, of course, decidedly different.

"The signs are that Harry Reid is on the verge of losing his mind now that he's on the verge of losing his majority," said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"And American Bridge, it's quite something to see them attacking special interest money when George Soros funds their entire operation," Dayspring said. "Their attacks are laughable, they have to motivate their base in a year when they seem primed to sustain major electoral losses."

Actually, the explanations aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. All of them could actually explain why Democrats will try to keep the Kochs theme going through Election Day.

Russia's 20 years of having a seat at the table when leaders of the world's most powerful industrialized nations meet came to at least a temporary end Monday.

President Obama and his counterparts from six other major nations announced in The Hague that because of Russia's actions in Crimea, "we will suspend our participation in the G-8."

The announcement was not a big surprise. It was already clear that the other leaders would not attend the next scheduled meeting of the G-8, which had been set for June in Sochi, Russia. The U.S. and European Union have also tried to punish Russia by aiming some financial and travel sanctions at members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

But by saying that "Russia's actions in recent weeks are not consistent" with the beliefs and responsibilities of major nations and that their nations won't take part in any G-8 activities "until Russia changes course," the leaders are trying to send yet another message to Putin about their objections to the way Russia has taken Crimea from Ukraine.

Putin's foreign minister, though, pooh-poohed the other nations' announcement. "If our Western partners believe the format has exhausted itself, we don't cling to this format. We don't believe it will be a big problem if it doesn't convene," Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

Obama and the other leaders in the newly reconstituted G-7 said they will hold a summit in Brussels instead of Sochi in June.

As this official history spells out, world leaders have been meeting in annual group summits since 1975, when French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing hosted the G-6. The other five countries that sent their leaders that year were Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the U.K.

Canada joined the club in 1977, creating the G-7.

As the Iron Curtain started to come down, the former Soviet Union was invited to attend — but not to be a member — in 1991. In 1994, the group was renamed the G-7+1 and in 1997 it became the G-8 when Russia became a full-fledged member.

The crisis in Ukraine, though, has for the first time led to a member nation's exclusion from the group.

Background

As the crisis in Ukraine has developed over recent weeks, we've tracked developments. Here's a recap:

Crimea has been the focus of attention as the ripple effects of the protests that led to last month's ouster of Yanukovych have spread.

Summing up the history and importance of Crimea to Russia and Ukraine isn't possible in just a few sentences, of course. The Parallels blog, though, has published several posts that contain considerable context:

— Crimea: 3 Things To Know About Ukraine's Latest Hot Spot

— Crimea: A Gift To Ukraine Becomes A Political Flash Point

— Why Ukraine Is Such A Big Deal For Russia

Shortly after Yanukovych was deposed and fled Ukraine, Russia moved to take control of Crimea by sending thousands of troops there to secure strategic locations. Along with "local defense forces," those soldiers surrounded Ukrainian military facilities.

Last week, after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Putin signed a treaty to annex the region. The U.S. and European Union have objected, calling that action a violation of international law. Putin says he is supporting Crimeans' right to "self-determination."

We've recapped what set off months of protest in Kiev and ultimately led to Yanukovych's dismissal by his nation's parliament last month this way:

"The protests were sparked in part by the president's rejection of a pending trade treaty with the European Union and his embrace of more aid from Russia. Protesters were also drawn into the streets to demonstrate against government corruption."

It was after Yanukovych left Kiev and headed for the Russian border that troops moved to take control of strategic locations in Crimea.

Russia's 20 years of having a seat at the table when leaders of the world's most powerful industrialized nations meet came to at least a temporary end Monday.

President Obama and his counterparts from six other major nations announced in The Hague that because of Russia's actions in Crimea, "we will suspend our participation in the G-8."

The announcement was not a big surprise. It was already clear that the other leaders would not attend the next scheduled meeting of the G-8, which had been set for June in Sochi, Russia. The U.S. and European Union have also tried to punish Russia by aiming some financial and travel sanctions at members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

But by saying that "Russia's actions in recent weeks are not consistent" with the beliefs and responsibilities of major nations and that their nations won't take part in any G-8 activities "until Russia changes course," the leaders are trying to send yet another message to Putin about their objections to the way Russia has taken Crimea from Ukraine.

Putin's foreign minister, though, pooh-poohed the other nations' announcement. "If our Western partners believe the format has exhausted itself, we don't cling to this format. We don't believe it will be a big problem if it doesn't convene," Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

Obama and the other leaders in the newly reconstituted G-7 said they will hold a summit in Brussels instead of Sochi in June.

As this official history spells out, world leaders have been meeting in annual group summits since 1975, when French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing hosted the G-6. The other five countries that sent their leaders that year were Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the U.K.

Canada joined the club in 1977, creating the G-7.

As the Iron Curtain started to come down, the former Soviet Union was invited to attend — but not to be a member — in 1991. In 1994, the group was renamed the G-7+1 and in 1997 it became the G-8 when Russia became a full-fledged member.

The crisis in Ukraine, though, has for the first time led to a member nation's exclusion from the group.

Background

As the crisis in Ukraine has developed over recent weeks, we've tracked developments. Here's a recap:

Crimea has been the focus of attention as the ripple effects of the protests that led to last month's ouster of Yanukovych have spread.

Summing up the history and importance of Crimea to Russia and Ukraine isn't possible in just a few sentences, of course. The Parallels blog, though, has published several posts that contain considerable context:

— Crimea: 3 Things To Know About Ukraine's Latest Hot Spot

— Crimea: A Gift To Ukraine Becomes A Political Flash Point

— Why Ukraine Is Such A Big Deal For Russia

Shortly after Yanukovych was deposed and fled Ukraine, Russia moved to take control of Crimea by sending thousands of troops there to secure strategic locations. Along with "local defense forces," those soldiers surrounded Ukrainian military facilities.

Last week, after Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, Putin signed a treaty to annex the region. The U.S. and European Union have objected, calling that action a violation of international law. Putin says he is supporting Crimeans' right to "self-determination."

We've recapped what set off months of protest in Kiev and ultimately led to Yanukovych's dismissal by his nation's parliament last month this way:

"The protests were sparked in part by the president's rejection of a pending trade treaty with the European Union and his embrace of more aid from Russia. Protesters were also drawn into the streets to demonstrate against government corruption."

It was after Yanukovych left Kiev and headed for the Russian border that troops moved to take control of strategic locations in Crimea.

We got our hands on an MRE — a "Meal, Ready to Eat" from the Department of Defense. It's a real marvel of engineering. In one flat bag, there's an imitation McRib, clam chowder, a couple of drinks, and some trail mix, and some note about how by eating this you consent to joining the Marines. All in one flat bag!

Special Guest Mike Pesca: This meal disgusts me more before 8 a.m. than most meals disgust me all day.

Miles: I'm going to imitation eat this imitation pork rib.

Ian: Anybody got napkins? I'm looking for a few good napkins.

i i

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

Adolf Hitler wakes from a coma to find himself in modern-day Berlin, where everyone assumes he's a comedian who never breaks character — and so the Fhrer becomes a novelty act, a YouTube sensation (the "loony YouTube Hitler") and then eventually a celebrity and politician. This is the premise of the German satirical novel Er Ist Wieder Da (Look Who's Back) by Timur Vermes, which is about to be published for the first time in English. The book has sold more than a million copies (and spurred furious debate) in Germany. Although many critics in Germany found the book tasteless, Vermes told The Guardian that it contains a serious warning: "If [the book] makes some readers realise that dictators aren't necessarily instantly recognisable as such, then I consider it a success." The book will be released next week in the U.K. — it doesn't appear to have a U.S. publisher yet — and will test how comfortable English-speaking audiences are with laughing about Hitler.

Rules in the U.K. ban people from sending books to prisoners. The restriction apparently went into effect in November, but the news went viral over the weekend. In an op-ed, the Horward League for Penal Reform's Frances Crook wrote that "punishing reading is as nasty as it is bizarre."

The Best Books Coming Out This Week:

In Laura Kasischke's psychological thriller Mind of Winter, Holly Judge wakes up on Christmas morning with the sentence "Something had followed them home from Russia" echoing around her skull. Alone in the house with her daughter, Tatiana, Holly becomes increasingly convinced that something is wrong – that Tatiana isn't the girl she picked out in a bleak Siberian orphanage 13 years ago. A blizzard keeps mother and daughter trapped in the house together, as Holly's narrative becomes more and more confused, with dark hints of a psychotic break. Though understated, Mind of Winter is leave-the-lights-on-tonight frightening, with a quiet edge of horror that is much more effective than gore.

Published in Nigeria in 2007, Teju Cole's Every Day Is for the Thief is being released in the U.S. this week. A lean and careful portrait of Lagos from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, it describes the city's everyday corruption, from the police to the woman who sells fuel at the gas station. One of the most arresting sketches is of the "yahoo yahoo," who spend their time in internet cafes writing email scams: "Once, looking to my right in an internet caf ... I see a letter being written from the 'Chairman of the National Office for Petroleum Resources.' The writer is a rough-looking man who is clearly chairman of nothing. There are other letters, from the heirs of fictional magnates, from the widows of oil barons, from the legal representatives of incarcerated generals, and they are such enterprising samples of narrative fiction that I realize Lagos is a city of Scheherazades. The stories unfold in ever more fanciful iterations and, as in the myth, those who tell the best stories are richly rewarded."

It's often said that the closest interaction many Americans have with other countries' cultures is through food. That kind of culinary diplomacy is particularly common in Washington, D.C., where immigrants from all over the world have cooked up a diverse food scene.

Now one scholar-in-residence at American University is using the city's food culture to teach her students about global affairs via a course on "gastrodiplomacy" — using food as a tool to foster cultural understanding among countries.

While the concept of gastrodiplomacy has been gaining traction among governments in recent years (former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a "chef ambassador" corps a couple of years ago), the class is the first of its kind at a school of international relations, says Johanna Mendelson Forman, a policy expert on international conflict who teaches the new course.

"What's unique is that students themselves would never make the connection that food is a part of international relations," she says.

Already halfway through its first run, the course immerses students in the study of war and conflict prior to Sept. 11 — including the Vietnam War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and Ethiopia's civil war — and how those have led to the sizable diaspora in D.C. Students also get a taste of how food affected those conflicts.

Perhaps the best part of her class? The field trips to local ethnic restaurants, where students get to enjoy a traditional meal and hear the owners speak about the history of their culture. During a recent trip to Das Ethiopian Cuisine in Georgetown, students learned about the influences Italians had on Ethiopian cuisine when they colonized the country in the 1930s.

"The idea is for students to hear from the cooks, from the owners of these places, [about] how they see their cuisine as a communication tool in their own communities," says Mendelson Forman.

While gastrodiplomacy is a relatively new field in the realm of public diplomacy, the idea itself can be traced back to the ancient Romans, who often made peace with their enemies over a good meal.

Related NPR Stories

The Salt

N.Y. Immigrants Find They Can Earn Bread And Butter From Baking

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

Adolf Hitler wakes from a coma to find himself in modern-day Berlin, where everyone assumes he's a comedian who never breaks character — and so the Fhrer becomes a novelty act, a YouTube sensation (the "loony YouTube Hitler") and then eventually a celebrity and politician. This is the premise of the German satirical novel Er Ist Wieder Da (Look Who's Back) by Timur Vermes, which is about to be published for the first time in English. The book has sold more than a million copies (and spurred furious debate) in Germany. Although many critics in Germany found the book tasteless, Vermes told The Guardian that it contains a serious warning: "If [the book] makes some readers realise that dictators aren't necessarily instantly recognisable as such, then I consider it a success." The book will be released next week in the U.K. — it doesn't appear to have a U.S. publisher yet — and will test how comfortable English-speaking audiences are with laughing about Hitler.

Rules in the U.K. ban people from sending books to prisoners. The restriction apparently went into effect in November, but the news went viral over the weekend. In an op-ed, the Horward League for Penal Reform's Frances Crook wrote that "punishing reading is as nasty as it is bizarre."

The Best Books Coming Out This Week:

In Laura Kasischke's psychological thriller Mind of Winter, Holly Judge wakes up on Christmas morning with the sentence "Something had followed them home from Russia" echoing around her skull. Alone in the house with her daughter, Tatiana, Holly becomes increasingly convinced that something is wrong – that Tatiana isn't the girl she picked out in a bleak Siberian orphanage 13 years ago. A blizzard keeps mother and daughter trapped in the house together, as Holly's narrative becomes more and more confused, with dark hints of a psychotic break. Though understated, Mind of Winter is leave-the-lights-on-tonight frightening, with a quiet edge of horror that is much more effective than gore.

Published in Nigeria in 2007, Teju Cole's Every Day Is for the Thief is being released in the U.S. this week. A lean and careful portrait of Lagos from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, it describes the city's everyday corruption, from the police to the woman who sells fuel at the gas station. One of the most arresting sketches is of the "yahoo yahoo," who spend their time in internet cafes writing email scams: "Once, looking to my right in an internet caf ... I see a letter being written from the 'Chairman of the National Office for Petroleum Resources.' The writer is a rough-looking man who is clearly chairman of nothing. There are other letters, from the heirs of fictional magnates, from the widows of oil barons, from the legal representatives of incarcerated generals, and they are such enterprising samples of narrative fiction that I realize Lagos is a city of Scheherazades. The stories unfold in ever more fanciful iterations and, as in the myth, those who tell the best stories are richly rewarded."