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Four years of brutal sectarian war in Syria has devastated the lives of nearly 10 million people.

But one group among them stands out: the children of Syria.

In a new documentary, Children of Syria, BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet tells the stories of six young Syrians, age 8 to 14, and the extreme challenges they face, regardless of what side of the war their families are on.

Doucet, who has reported from the front lines of the conflict, shares some of those stories with NPR's Scott Simon.

Actor James Shigeta had the looks, the talent — and the voice.

"It's melodious. It's deep. There is something quite sensuous about it," says L.S. Kim, a film professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Kim adds that Shigeta — who died from pulmonary failure on Monday in Beverly Hills at age 85, according to his agent Jeffrey Leavitt — embodied an unusual sight on the big screen: a self-assured Asian-American man.

"In many portrayals of Asian-American men in particular, there is no sense of confidence. And with James Shigeta, his screen presence was as deep and seductive as his voice," Kim says.

A co-star of the 1961 movie musical Flower Drum Song, Shigeta broke barriers on screen as one of Hollywood's first Asian-American actors to play romantic lead characters. In Bridge to the Sun, a 1961 film based on a memoir of the same name, Shigeta played Hidenari Terasaki, a dashing Japanese diplomat from Tokyo who meets cute and later marries Gwen Harold, a young white woman from Johnson City, Tenn.

Want to borrow money for a car or a home this fall?

Oddly enough, the interest rates available months from now for big-ticket items may be determined by the prices you pay today for everyday consumer goods. When store prices are rising rapidly, policymakers start pushing interest rates higher, too.

But for the moment, at least, inflation appears mild enough to keep interest rates low for a long while.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that its consumer price index for June shows inflation running at an annual rate of just 2.1 percent — well below the historical average of 3.2 percent.

But instead of celebrating this low-inflation news, many economists are fretting about it. They look past consumer prices to see financial-asset prices. And they think too many of those, say tech stocks, are getting too expensive. They want interest rates to rise more quickly to tamp down those asset "bubbles."

This is turning into a huge, heated debate. Let's listen in.

Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told Congress that maintaining low rates "likely will be appropriate for a considerable period" since inflation remains so tame. But Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire hedge fund manager, gave a televised speech criticizing the Fed, saying "the current policy makes no sense."

Fed critics see "bubbles" involving everything from stock prices to artworks to real estate in the Hamptons. They want the Fed to slow further price increases by making borrowed money more expensive.

Many economists say that's exactly what the Fed did back in 2000 when its interest rate hikes were followed by the sudden deflation of tech-stock prices.

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Economists Say Inflation Is Tame; Consumers Aren't Buying It

It used to be that if you were a public employee, you knew your pension benefits could not be touched.

That's no longer the case.

Pensions have been under political attack in recent years, with some politicians arguing they can't afford to fund generous retirements at the same time they're cutting services. Numerous states and cities have trimmed the type of pension plans they're offering employees — mostly new employees.

But pension benefits already earned have always been sacrosanct, protected by federal law and, often, state constitutions. Retirees could rest easy, knowing their money couldn't be touched.

The vote Monday in Detroit by retired city workers to cut their own benefits by 4.5 percent calls all that into question.

"Detroit has raised it as a possibility," says Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at City College of New York who studies public sector labor issues. "I don't think that most people, maybe with the exception of some unions, think pensions are inviolable."

With several other cases pending, it's not at all clear whether federal bankruptcy law trumps traditional pension protections. Pensions continue to have strong legal protection, and there's not going to be any great rush among states and cities to test whether cutting benefits for current retirees is something that will necessarily fly with the courts.

But the vote in Detroit does suggest that at least some pensioners might have to give up more than they ever expected.

"I think the deal in Detroit is going to mean that other troubled Michigan cities are more likely to reach deals," says Kim Rueben, a government finance expert at the Urban Institute.

Judges Growing Skeptical

The reason a big majority of retirees in Detroit were willing to accept cuts is that they worried they might be hurt worse if they didn't.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes said late last year that federal bankruptcy law could override pension protections — including provisions in the Michigan Constitution.

Politics

What It's Like Living In A Bankrupt City

Touting rosy U.S. economic news that has come out this week, President Obama said America's recovery from a debilitating recession is well underway. But he also said the economy "could be doing even better" if Congress were working harder.

Citing the 200,000 jobs created in July – continuing a six-month streak of at least that level – Obama noted that it was "the first time that has happened since 1997."

Today's monthly jobs report showed that 209,000 jobs had been added to the U.S. market, as NPR reported earlier today. But not every person who's been hired has been able to find full-time work, as we also noted.

"The good news is, the economy clearly is getting stronger," the president said. "Unfortunately, there are a series of steps we could be taking" to create more jobs and boost wages – but Congress isn't taking action, Obama said.

Speaking as Congress was poised to leave Washington for a five-week break, Obama told reporters in the White House Briefing Room, "while they're out on vacation, I'm going to have to make some tough choices to meet the challenge,"

We'll note that later this month, the Obama family is taking its own summer vacation, for a little over two weeks.

The president spoke Friday afternoon shortly after meeting with members of Congress in the Cabinet Room. And while Obama thanked Congress for approving new funding for the Veterans Administration and for transportation projects, he said that for the most part, the "big-ticket items" that could help middle-class families had been ignored.

He went on to talk about immigration problems along the southern U.S. border, accusing Republicans in the House of focusing on a "message bill" that has no hope of becoming law.

Saying that Republicans in Congress don't agree with one another on the best approach to immigration, Obama said, "I'm just one of the people they disagree with on this issue."

Venting his frustration, the president said, "They can't pass the bill. They can't even pass their own version of the bill."

Obama also said that Congress had also held back other issues, such as improvements to student loan programs and the approval of career diplomats whose ambassador posts. He stated that in the current environment, even "basic, commonsense, plain vanilla" legislation had no chance of passing.

Responding to a question about Israel's fight with Hamas, Obama said both he and UN had condemned Hamas Friday for disrupting a cease-fire this morning by killing two Israeli soldiers and taking another hostage.

He also said that "innocent civilians in Gaza, caught in the crossfire, have to weigh on our conscience."

Obama noted that both the situation in the Middle East – and a possible solution — are difficult.

"The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been going on for even longer than you've been reporting," Obama told one journalist.

Questioned about how the U.S. might use its influence to bring about peace between Israel and Hamas — and also between Ukraine and Russia — President Obama noted that his administration is working hard to bring calm to those areas.

But Obama said of the participants in those talks, "They've got to want it."

"People don't always act rationally" or in their long-term interests, the president said.

Pressed to answer more questions before leaving the briefing room, Obama was asked about the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation" in its effort to fight terrorism, as well as its intrusion into computers belonging to congressional staffers.

Obama said he was confident the agency wouldn't make similar mistakes again — and he acknowledged that the problems were significant.

"We tortured some folks," the president said. "We did some things that are contrary to our values."

He went on to say that he could understand why the incidents had occurred, noting the fear and pressure the nation felt after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job those folks had," Obama said. "But having said all that, we did some things that are wrong."

He added, "When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I believe — and I think any fairminded person would believe — were torture, we crossed a line. And that needs to be understood and accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so that hopefully we don't do it again in the future."

For a while there, China was the American farmer's best friend. The world's most populous nation had so many pigs and chickens to feed, it became one of the top importers of U.S. corn and soybeans almost overnight.

China also developed a big appetite for another corn-derived animal feed called "dried distillers grains with solubles," or DDGS, a byproduct of ethanol production. China's appetites for the stuff drove up global grain prices and filled Midwestern pockets with cash.

This year, though, the lovely relationship has gone sour, all because of biotechnology.

A couple of years ago, American farmers began planting a new type of genetically engineered corn invented by the seed company Syngenta. This GMO contains a new version of a gene that protects the corn plant from certain insects. Problem is, this new gene isn't yet approved in China, and Chinese officials didn't appreciate it when traces of the new, as-yet-unapproved GMOs started showing up in boatloads of American grain.

The crackdown began in November 2013. China began rejecting shiploads of corn when officials detected traces of the new gene. By February of this year, U.S. exports of corn to China had practically ceased.

The Salt

Chickens That Lay Organic Eggs Eat Imported Food, And It's Pricey

The Two-Way

Pot Use On The Rise In U.S., Report Says

The House voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would address widespread problems with health care for veterans.

The vote in favor of the $16.3 billion package was 420 to 5.

The problems veterans have had obtaining care has drawn national attention in recent weeks. A White House investigation into problems at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals found "significant and chronic systemic failures."

House and Senate negotiators unveiled a package to address the problems on Monday. The deal provides $10 billion for veterans to see private doctors if they live far away from VA facilities or have to wait more than two weeks to get an appointment.

The package would also provide $5 billion to hire additional medical staff to address crowding problems at VA facilities themselves, with $2 billion more devoted to opening new offices and expanding existing programs.

"The Department of Veterans Affairs is in the midst of an unprecedented crisis caused by corruption, mismanagement and a lack of accountability across the board," Florida Republican Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement. "VA is in need of reform, and I applaud my colleagues in the House for passing legislation to do just that."

The Senate is expected to approve the measure before leaving for the summer recess at the end of the week.

On Tuesday, the Senate unanimously confirmed former Procter & Gamble executive Robert McDonald to lead the Veterans Affairs Department.

Though wildfires this summer have burned hundreds of homes and scorched thousands of square miles of land in Washington, Oregon and California, officials say that so far, this wildfire season could be worse.

But the cost of fighting those fires has skyrocketed, and the Obama administration and some in Congress say it's time to rethink how those dollars are spent.

In places like central Washington, watching the evening news has recently not been for the faint of heart, with daily broadcasts chronicling evacuations of local towns with the approach of "firestorms."

The fire there is still not fully contained, and officials say more than 300 homes have been destroyed. Still, while it is no solace for people who live in the fire-struck areas, the government says that so far, this fire season is below average.

"It's never good when we have fires that are threatening homes and high-value resources, but so far, generally, so good," says Jim Douglas of the U.S. Department of the Interior. But he adds that weeks of high risk still lie ahead.

"We are not out of the woods yet; we're going to have a lot of potential in California in particular and other parts of the country before the summer's done," he says.

Together the Interior Department and the Forest Service, which bears the lion's share of wildfire-fighting responsibilities, have budgeted over $1 billion for firefighting this year.

That's five times more than 20 years ago, and may not even be enough if recent years are any guide.

"Damage to property, damage to people's livelihoods, public health costs, impacts on electric infrastructure, water sheds — so these costs are growing, and we've got to start taking steps to address these risks of wildfires," says Rachel Cleetus, a senior climate economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says total expenses for wildfires can amount to 30 times the cost of putting one out. A study by the group says some 1.2 million homes in 13 Western states are at a high or very high risk of wildfires, and that hotter fire seasons, brought about by climate change, are making things worse.

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell says the focus on protecting homes is one reason costs have grown so quickly.

"If we're having to first of all protect homes, communities from fire, that drives the strategy," says Tidwell. "It's going to require a lot more engines; it's going to justify the use of more equipment; and it's just much more difficult. There's no question, when there's homes involved, the costs go up."

And as the costs go up, the government must divert money from other important functions, including fire prevention. Last year about half a billion dollars in "fire borrowing" was needed.

It's the biggest fires that burn through the most money. Last year's Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park, for example, cost more than $100 million to fight.

As a result, the Obama administration is proposing a new formula for fire funding.

Douglas says it makes sense to pay for fighting those big fires like the government pays for hurricanes and tornado damage.

"That last 1 percent of our fire activity — the most severe — takes about 30 percent of our budget," he says. "So our proposal is, treat these the way we treat other natural disasters."

So rather than having to take money from fire prevention, there would be an emergency fund similar to the kind FEMA now uses for hurricane and tornado damage. That proposal has bipartisan support, and is part of an emergency spending bill now moving through the Senate.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll shows fewer than half of Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling international affairs.

But the president's grade on foreign policy has actually improved slightly since the beginning of summer, even as crises around the globe have multiplied. And Obama says he's confident in his strategic approach, even as he cautions there are no quick fixes.

For Obama, Tuesday's announcement of tough economic sanctions against Russia for its interference in Ukraine — the culmination of a months-long diplomatic push – finally put the U.S. and Europe on the same page.

"Today is a reminder that the United States means what it says. And we will rally the international community in standing up for the rights and freedom of people around the world," he said.

White House aides argue it was American leadership that created space for Ukraine to hold elections and strengthen ties to Europe, while Russia now finds itself increasingly isolated.

But critics scoff at that position, noting the international coalition against Russia coalesced only after the downing of the Malaysian jetliner. They also point to polls showing foreign policy, once a strong suit for Obama, now a drag on his overall approval rating.

David Rothkopf, editor of Foreign Policy magazine, said it's not just Republicans who are critical.

"There's a sense of disengagement, there's a sense of aloofness, and frankly, there's not a great deal of a sense of competence in terms of managing foreign policy issues," he said.

And Ukraine is just one of many foreign challenges confronting Obama, along with fighting in the Middle East, territorial tensions in Asia, and turmoil in Central America that's sent tens of thousands of young people fleeing to the US border.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told CBS this week that compared to the days of the Cold War, when leaders could focus on a single enemy, the trouble spots today are far more diffuse.

"There are an awful lot of things going on that need understanding and explanation. But to put it mildly, the world is a mess," she said.

Obama himself acknowledged the wide range of foreign policy challenges during a White House briefing earlier this month.

"None of these challenges lend themselves to quick or easy solutions, but all of them require American leadership," he said. "And as commander in chief, I'm confident that, if we stay patient and determined, that we will, in fact, meet these challenges."

Indeed, patient diplomacy is the hallmark of Obama's foreign policy, said Michael Cohen of the Century Foundation. And while it doesn't grab headlines the way a military response might, he said it can yield positive results.

"There are those who I think would love to see a more dramatic response – one that would turn back Russia's escalation," he said. "That's not going to happen. If you want to convince Putin and Russia to pursue a different course than they've pursued in Ukraine, then it's going to take time."

Cohen pointed to the example of Iran, where Obama was willing to wait years as economic sanctions took their toll, finally forcing Iran to the bargaining table over its nuclear program. Those talks have now been extended, and it's still not clear if they'll bear fruit.

What's more, it's hard to counsel patience to those fleeing the civil war in Syria, or caught in crossfire between Israel and Hamas. Rothkopf said patience is the wrong word for the Obama Administration's approach.

"That's a very charitable interpretation," he said. "I think it comes across to a lot of people as passive and to some people as inert."

Rothkopf's forthcoming book, National Insecurity, charts US foreign policy under both Obama and George W. Bush. He said while Americans came to regret the foreign adventures of the early Bush years, many see today's approach as too hands off and an over-correction.

He said Americans instead want the United States to be seen as a leader, one with clear goals and the ability to advance its interests.

"You're an amazing woman who has decided to go into war zones and take pictures. You're a bit crazy to want to do that, and I think now you're too crazy to stop."

That's what Albert (Ben Kingsley) tells photojournalist Lee (Catherine Keener) in War Story, and much of the same has been said about real-life war correspondents from Martha Gellhorn to Marie Colvin to Chris Hedges, who in an interview acknowledged that he sometimes gets urges "to live at that kind of pace again. ... But in the end it's a very unhealthy way to live."

With War Story, director and co-writer Mark Jackson spotlights none of the adrenaline of Lee's job but much of the resulting trauma. The movie begins soon after Lee has returned from covering the conflict in Libya, where her reporting partner Mark was violently killed in front of her. In shock, she retreats to Sicily, to a town and hotel she has visited recently, where she asks for the same room she stayed in before and hunkers down, blinds lowered, the world frantically kept at bay.

Jackson sticks close to Lee throughout the film, at times even stubbornly refusing to cut away from her in dialogue scenes. This is, at heart, a film trying to get us into Lee's head, particularly in the first 15 minutes, which largely consist of her roaming the streets of Sicily, taking pictures and convincing doctors to prescribe her painkillers for a potentially broken rib that she refuses to check on with an x-ray.

The story expands slightly when Lee encounters Hafsia (Hafsia Herzi), a Tunisian migrant attempting to ultimately settle in France. Lee, believing at first that Hafsia is a girl she photographed in Libya, decides to help her not only in securing passage across Europe but also in the more short term project of getting an abortion that Italian doctors refuse to provide.

The topical and politically-charged subplot conflicts with the film's otherwise tightly-focused psychological profile of Lee. Good intentions notwithstanding, Hafsia is in part a distraction for Lee, a woman that she can help in lieu of helping herself. But Hafsia also represents the migrant crisis in Italy, in which hundreds of people have died trying to make it from North Africa to Europe by boat.

Jackson is not so blind or callous as to ignore this: we hear Hafsia's description of her perilous voyage across the Mediterranean and, in a hotel manager's warning to Lee not to bring "undesirable guests" to his establishment, we witness the kind of treatment they face once they arrive.

But Jackson isn't able do justice to Hafsia's story while also portraying Lee's frail psyche. That's in part because he accomplishes the latter by sticking so close to Lee, focusing largely on her perspective and shooting her primarily in close-up, a style that makes it difficult to get beyond her immediate reality. And that's precisely what's missing from Hafsia's story: a sense that she belongs to a wider problem, that she's not merely a sketched-out representative of a widespread injustice.

It's not just her. Any time War Story's plot pushes beyond Lee, it exhibits a troubling superficiality. Kingsley is wasted as Albert, a former reporter who worked with Lee and seemingly exists in the film only to state the coldhearted (and exaggerated) newsman's idea that death is but part of war reporting and Lee must pick herself up and continue searching after the story.

Such missteps might have done the film in completely were it not for Keener's controlled performance. The film doesn't offer much explicit context for Lee's plight either — we get little information about her relationship to Mark, few details about her work or the ingrained dangers of war reporting. But all of that is slowly implied through the deterioration of Lee's mental state. In Keener's hands, the collapse feels urgent but not unhinged, and Lee's trajectory from steely and determined to openly distraught lends an otherwise meandering film a strong core. That alone doesn't entirely outweigh War Story's other undeveloped elements, but it does keep you invested in a film that otherwise never fulfills its larger ambitions.

Air travel in some of eastern China's busiest airports has slowed to a crawl over the past week or so, stranding thousands of travelers and igniting debate about the increasing competition between military and civilian flights for the country's airspace.

On Tuesday, civil aviation authorities warned that air traffic capacity in Shanghai would be reduced by 75 percent. The explanation was that "other users" — later identified as China's military — were using the airspace.

While recent delays have been particularly bad, pressures have been building over the past few years, leading to a number of "airport rage" melees between infuriated passengers and airline and airport staff. In one incident that went viral in 2013, a mining company executive had a meltdown after he and his family missed a flight at Kunming Changshui International Airport:

Millinery seems like a brilliant career choice, right? Everybody's got a head.

But for Luke Song, the owner of Mr. Song Millinery outside Detroit, it happened by accident. "I wanted to be an artist, but I went the route of biochemistry. A typical route," he told Ask Me Another host Ophira Eisenberg. He quit overnight and went to art school, but still never considered hat design, the chosen profession of his South Korean immigrant parents.

"I needed to make money, so I went to my mom's boutique and I made some hats the only way I knew how." They flew off the shelves, and in six months he had paid off his student loans.

More From This Episode

Ask Me Another

Smitten With The Mitten State

As you plan — or even go — on your summer vacation, think about this: More and more Americans are no longer taking a few weeks off to suntan and sight see abroad. Instead they're working in orphanages, building schools and teaching English.

It's called volunteer tourism or "volunteerism." And it's one of the fastest growing trends in travel today. More than 1.6 million volunteer tourists are spending about $2 billion each year.

But some people who work in the industry are skeptical of volunteerism's rising popularity. They question whether some trips help young adults pad their resumes or college applications more than they help those in need.

i i

Israeli officials say the country's deadly ground offensive won't end until its soldiers destroy a vast network of Hamas tunnels the militants use to try to attack Jewish communities outside the Gaza Strip.

Three more soldiers died Wednesday when explosives detonated as they uncovered one of those tunnels. That came hours after Hamas released a graphic video claiming to show another deadly tunnel-generated attack inside Israel earlier in the week.

Such incidents have many Israelis asking why their forces didn't stop Hamas from building the elaborate tunnels in the first place. And in Israel, calls are mounting for an investigation into how authorities have handled the tunnel threat.

In the grainy video released by Hamas Wednesday, black-clad militants shove their weapons through a tunnel entrance, then climb out and run toward what looks like an army post inside Israel.

Five Israeli soldiers were killed in the attack Tuesday — which the video purportedly shows — as were a handful of Hamas fighters. Israeli officials say the militants' aim was to kill and kidnap Israeli citizens.

Such revelations are rattling Israelis more than the 2,000-plus rockets Hamas has fired into their country since the war began earlier this month, says Smadar Perry, who writes about the tunnels for Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.

"If we don't finish the problem of the tunnels, people in the southern part of Israel along the border with Gaza may leave their houses and go look for a new address because nobody wants to go to sleep and wake up with the killers and terrorists in his bedroom," says Perry, who is the paper's Middle East editor.

But she and other journalists say Israeli authorities will likely have to answer for how Hamas was able to build enough tunnels to allow militants to infiltrate Israel six times since the Gaza offensive began three weeks ago.

i i

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it will ease up slightly on its efforts to stimulate the economy.

Fed officials said that there is still room for improvement in the labor market, but with the economy growing, they expressed concern that inflation might start ticking up.

Continuing its own recent trend, the Fed announced it will be buying fewer up fewer financial assets. It's on track to end its bond-buying program in October.

Starting in August, the Fed will buy $10 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities a month, which is a cut from $15 billion. The bank will also buy $15 billion worth of long-term Treasuries every month, down from $20 billion.

"Fed officials led by Chair Janet Yellen are stepping up a debate over when to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006 as unemployment falls faster than expected and inflation picks up toward their 2 percent goal," reports Bloomberg News.

Earlier Wednesday, the Commerce Department announced that the economy grew by 4 percent in the spring, rebounding from a disappointing first quarter earlier in the year.

But the Fed said it will wait to raise interest rates, which would have a dampening effect on the economy. Earlier this month, Yellen testified before Congress that although the economy is improving, its recovery is not complete.

Today's announcement states that the Fed will keep short-term interest rates low "for a considerable time" after its bond-buying program ends, especially if inflation remains under 2 percent.

"In the first two quarters of this year, we'll make more money than we did all of last year," Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley predicted at a ReadWriteWeb event in San Francisco last month. And Foursquare Chief Operating Officer Jeff Glueck, who has insight into actual user data, told The Verge that current users are checking in more than ever. "People are using Foursquare and Swarm better," he says. "They check in more often on Swarm according to our data, and are using Foursquare more often to explore. We're seeing more Explore queries once people migrated."

The company did admit to some missteps with this rollout, and as we wait for the revamped Foursquare, more and more users like Meredith Gould are quitting both apps. Gould, a Baltimore-based digital strategist whose more than 80,000 tweets indicate she's a social media lover, not hater, gave up on Swarm about a week ago.

"It's such an ugly, dysfunctional, cumbersome, irrelevant, unnecessary app that sucks battery life," Gould says of Swarm. "Why bother? Why do I need two apps when I had one that provided both services?"

But she misses Foursquare for what it was, especially because it served a real function in her daily life.

"Checking into Foursquare was a way to keep track of my day, connect with people in my network and stay connected with them. Getting rid of Foursquare means I've lost something that was helping organize my day, and organize the way I was thinking about and sharing my day," Gould says. "What I'm interested in is, at what point are they going to recognize that the public is right and go back to what used to be normal?"

She isn't alone.

New Jersey used to be known as "the nation's medicine chest," but over the last two decades, many of the state's pharmaceutical industry jobs have dried up or moved elsewhere and left millions of square feet of office space, warehouses and laboratories sitting empty.

One of those sites is the 116-acre corporate campus of the Swiss drug maker Roche in Nutley, N.J. There are dozens of buildings on this campus, 10 miles west of midtown Manhattan. In fact, there are enough bio and chem labs, offices and auditoriums to fill up the entire Empire State Building. But since December, all of that space — 2 million square feet of it — has been vacant, the laboratories dark and the sidewalks deserted.

"When this was a thriving site, this sidewalk would have been busy with folks walking up and down," says Darien Wilson, one of just 38 Roche employees still working at the site as the company tries to sell the property. "We had great amenities for people, like on-site childcare, you had dinners to-go where you could order food by lunch and take it home with you if you were working late. We had dry cleaning," he says.

Five years ago, Roche acquired Genentech, moved its management to San Francisco and started to slowly withdraw from New Jersey. That's a pretty typical story for what's been happening in the state. In the last 20 years, New Jersey went from having more than 20 percent of U.S. pharma manufacturing jobs to less than 10 percent.

"Essentially, every time there's a merger or one company acquires another company, there's a reduction in force, and there's been furious mergers and acquisitions in the pharma industry, particularly over the past 10 years," says James Hughes, dean of the school of public policy at Rutgers.

i i

He immediately put himself into an isolation ward.

"He is still conversing and is in isolation. But he is seriously ill with a very grave prognosis," says Dr. David Mccray, of John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, who spoke to Brantly by phone on Monday.

"Kent is a calm, confident, focused individual, with a deep calling for the work that he's doing," Mccray says.

After Brantly completed his residency at John Peter Smith Hospital in 2013, he traveled to West Africa with his wife and two children to work with the Christian aid group Samaritan's Purse.

Then the Ebola outbreak started in March. And Samaritan's Purse asked Brantly to direct the group's Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia.

“ Many people are infected with Ebola in Africa, and many people are not surviving. And Kent does not see his situation as unique in any way.

An American court has ordered U.S Marshals to seize $100 million worth of oil sitting in a tanker off the coast of Galveston, Texas. But that oil may never reach American shores.

The oil comes from Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq. In recent weeks, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been sending oil through a pipeline to Turkey and attempting to sell it overseas.

The hitch is that Iraq's central government says the oil belongs to the nation — a stance supported by the international oil market.

"We believe that Iraq's energy resources belong to the Iraqi people and certainly have long stated that it needs to go through the central government," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told Bloomberg News.

A court agreed with Iraq's claim late Monday night.

"You have to have a pretty strong appetite for litigation to buy Iraqi oil which comes from the KRG, because it is pretty clear to most parties that the marketing and export of oil from a country is a right which accrues to the national government," David Goldwyn, a former special envoy for international energy affairs at the State Department, told NPR's Jackie Northam recently.

That has interfered with Kurdish hopes of carrying out oil sales and with them gaining more economic power and international recognition.

Four tankers carrying four million barrels of Kurdish oil have set sail from the Turkish port of Ceyhan since May, but only one shipment has been offloaded. The oil waiting near Galveston was intended for a company called Talmay Trading Inc., which is registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The American company that had been hired to offload the oil from the United Kalavtra, AET Offshore Services, asked in a separate court filing for a restraining order so it could get out of the job. AET said it "would be placed at considerable risk if required to ... take possession of the cargo before those disputes and claims of ownership are resolved," according to Reuters.

As Jackie reported, Kurdish security forces, the peshmerga, now control major oil fields in northern Iraq. The territory may hold as much as 45 billion barrels of oil reserve.

But offloading and selling it is proving to be a difficult task.

"I think the KRG are in real trouble now because everything seems to have been laid on the hopes of making a breakthrough in sales and they have been thwarted at each turn," Richard Mallinson, an analyst at the London-based research firm Energy Aspects, told The Wall Street Journal. "It does feel like their shot at getting into the market is exhausted."

It's not yet clear where the United Kalvrata or the oil it's carrying will wind up.

"It wouldn't surprise me if it ends up sitting there for a little while or ends up going to another port," Jamie Webster, senior director of global oil markets for IHS, told the energy industry newsletter FuelFix.

In about one-third of U.S. households, the sound of a phone or door bell ringing may trigger a desire to duck.

That's because roughly 77 million adults with a credit file have at least one debt in the collection process, according to a study released by the Urban Institute, a research group. A credit file includes all of the raw data that a credit bureau can use to rank a borrower's creditworthiness.

Some of those debts can be quite small — perhaps just a $25 overdue water bill. But some are substantial and all can hurt a family's long-term economic prospects, the study found.

"In addition to creating difficulties today, delinquent debt can lower credit scores and result in serious future consequences. Credit scores are used to determine eligibility for jobs, access to rental housing and mortgages, insurance premiums, and access to (and the price of) credit in general," the study concluded.

The typical adult in trouble with bill collectors has a median debt of $1,350 in the collection process.

We aren't talking about home loans here. This report looks at non-mortgage debt, such as credit-card balances, stacked-up medical bills or past-due utility bills. These are debts that are more than 180 days past due, and have been placed in collections. The study didn't count personal debts, such as loans from family members, or pawnshop loans.

Nevada, a state hit hard by foreclosures, has the worst problem with overdue bills. There, just under half of the residents with credit files have debt in collections, according to the study. The Urban Institute based its report on a random sampling of 7 million people with 2013 credit bureau data from TransUnion, a major consumer-credit reporting agency.

While Nevada is a standout, problems with debt are concentrated mostly in the South, the study found. Of the 12 states besides Nevada with high levels of debt in collection, 11 are Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. The 12th state is New Mexico.

The states with the fewest troubled debtors are Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

About 22 million Americans have no credit file, which typically means they are too poor to have any credit at all. In other words, the study under-reports the financial troubles of the truly poor, and is more a reflection of the stresses on middle-class families in the U.S.

The report talks about the problems with "snowballing" debt. A lot of these overdue bills start out as relatively minor problems, such as past-due gym memberships or cell-phone contracts. But once those old bills get turned over to the collection industry, troubles mount for the debtors whose credit scores worsen.

Here's an odd twist to the debt story in the post-recession era: Most people are actually cleaning up their credit-card debt. The American Bankers Association said earlier this month that as a share of Americans' income, credit-card debt has slipped to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Today, about 2.44 percent of credit-card accounts are overdue by 30 days or more, compared with the 15-year average of 3.82 percent, according to the ABA Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin.

In other words, most people these days are more focused on paying off their bills. "More and more consumers are using their credit cards as a payment vehicle, paying off or paying down their balances each month," the ABA's chief economist, James Chessen, said in a statement.

Here's another peculiar point: The recession really hasn't done much to change the percentage of Americans dealing with debt collection. A decade ago, a study done by Federal Reserve economists concluded that just more than one-third of individuals with credit records had a debt in the collection process.

For the people who have fallen behind on an array of non-mortgage debts — from hospital bills to cellphone charges — being in the hole hurts because it undermines their long-term prospects.

"High levels of delinquent debt and its associated consequences, such as limited access to traditional credit, can harm both families and the communities in which they live," the Urban Institute study concludes.

Saying that the conflict in Ukraine had "gone on for far too long," Secretary of State John Kerry called on Russia to use its "considerable influence" to make sure investigators had access to the debris field of the downed Malaysia Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine.

The separatists who control that area of Ukraine, said Kerry, "have displayed an appalling disregard for human decency."

Kerry spoke after Dutch and Australian experts abandoned their attempts for a third day in a row to reach the debris field.

CNN reports that the 50-member team was accompanied by monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, who were unable to leave Donetsk because "there is too much fighting at the moment on and near the route to the disaster site."

Kerry also spoke after the European Union agreed to implement tougher sanctions against Russia.

Reuters reports the deal reached by the EU on Tuesday targets the Russian "oil industry, defense, dual-use goods and sensitive technologies."

"Among the new measures that were discussed are steps that could limit access of Russian banks to European capital markets, which could affect European holders of Russian debt and financial services firms that do business there," Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, the White House said the U.S. could also unveil additional sanctions against Russia as early as today.

"It's precisely because we've not yet seen a strategic turn from Putin that we believe it's absolutely essential to take additional measures, and that's what the Europeans and the United States intend to do this week," Tony Blinken, Obama's deputy national security adviser, told the AP earlier today.

Kerry, who was speaking alongside the Ukrainian foreign minister in Washington, said he had talked to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who told him Russia wanted to deescalate the situation in Ukraine.

However, Kerry said, actions have not shown "a shred of evidence" that Russia wants to end the violence.

Russia Today, the Russian-funded, English-language news service, reports that Lavrov blamed Kiev. If it adhered to a cease-fire agreement, Lavrov said, investigators would have access to the Malaysia Airlines disaster site.

Three recent college graduates are getting paid to take a road trip. The one catch? They have to drive a giant peanut while they do it.

The giant Nutmobile is part of a brand campaign by Planter's, the snack food company. They've hired the grads as brand ambassadors to drive it around the country. After all, it takes teamwork to maneuver a 27-foot-long, yellow peanut in shopping mall parking lots. But if you think handling the vehicle sounds tough, there's more.

"Today, I get to walk in the shoes of a 98-year-old American icon," says Megan Kreuger, one of the Nutmobile's drivers. "I get to greet the customers and Planters fans as Mr. Peanut."

Last January Salma Jaffar was shot while she was going door to door in Karachi, giving children drops of the polio vaccine.

"Even when they took out the pistol, I couldn't understand why he was taking out the gun," Jaffar says of the two men who pulled up on a motorcycle and started shooting at the vaccination team.

"But when he opened fire, that is when I thought it was the end of the life," she says. "My first thought was that I won't be able to see my children again."

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday dismissed international calls for an immediate ceasefire in the country's conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

"We need to be prepared for a long operation until our mission is accomplished," Netanyahu said in televised remarks.

He defined that mission as Israeli officials have since launching a ground offensive in Gaza — taking out the tunnels Hamas uses to infiltrate Israel.

"Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels — death from above and from below," Netanyahu said, adding that Israelis would not "end this operation without neutralizing the tunnels, whose sole purpose is killing our citizens."

After a brief lull in fighting to mark a Muslim holiday — and following adoption of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire — intense shelling resumed in Gaza Monday night.

"The Israeli Defense Forces warned residents of neighborhoods in northern Gaza – including Shujai'iya, the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the three-week war – to evacuate immediately, suggesting a major escalation of military action was imminent," the Guardian reports.

Five IDF soldiers were killed Monday in Gaza, bringing Israel's military death toll to 48.

As we reported earlier, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians. Thousands more have been injured.

On the diplomatic front, Obama administration officials pushed back against harsh criticism in Israeli news outlets of Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to secure a truce. A draft of his cease-fire proposal was leaked to Israeli media.

"It's as if he isn't the foreign minister of the world's most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast," wrote diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid in Haaretz.

Ravid and other mocking commentators took Kerry to task for attempting to bring Qatar and Turkey — viewed in Israel as Hamas allies — into negotiations.

Susan Rice, President Obama's national security adviser, described herself as "dismayed" by the characterizations.

"Our view is it's simply not the way partners and allies treat each other," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The House voted Monday to allow airlines to advertise lower prices for their routes.

The Transparent Airfares Act, which was approved with minimal debate, would overturn a 2012 rule that requires airlines to post the full price of tickets, including taxes and fees.

Shoppers are smart enough to figure out the price of an airline ticket without federal regulation, said Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio, a bill cosponsor.

"Talk about the nanny state," he said. "Give me a break. What do they think, Americans are idiots?"

Consumer groups oppose the legislation. Prior to implementation of the rule, airlines would often "hide" the cost of taxes and fees in small print in advertising or down at the bottom of Web pages.

That gave the impression you could fly for a lot less than the actual total cost.

"Before the full-fare rule went into effect, it wasn't uncommon to find an attractive ticket price — say, $299 for a transatlantic flight — but once taxes, fuel surcharges and other fees were added, the total fare came to $899," notes travel writer Christopher Elliott in The Washington Post. "That price was revealed only at the end of the booking process, frustrating passengers."

Despite quick action, it's not clear that the bill — which is supported by the airline industry and transportation unions — will have much life in the Senate.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has introduced what he calls the Real Transparency in Airfares Act, which would double maximum penalties to $55,000 per day for airlines and major ticket sellers that don't post the full fare.

The House voted Monday to allow airlines to advertise lower prices for their routes.

The Transparent Airfares Act, which was approved with minimal debate, would overturn a 2012 rule that requires airlines to post the full price of tickets, including taxes and fees.

Shoppers are smart enough to figure out the price of an airline ticket without federal regulation, said Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio, a bill cosponsor.

"Talk about the nanny state," he said. "Give me a break. What do they think, Americans are idiots?"

Consumer groups oppose the legislation. Prior to implementation of the rule, airlines would often "hide" the cost of taxes and fees in small print in advertising or down at the bottom of Web pages.

That gave the impression you could fly for a lot less than the actual total cost.

"Before the full-fare rule went into effect, it wasn't uncommon to find an attractive ticket price — say, $299 for a transatlantic flight — but once taxes, fuel surcharges and other fees were added, the total fare came to $899," notes travel writer Christopher Elliott in The Washington Post. "That price was revealed only at the end of the booking process, frustrating passengers."

Despite quick action, it's not clear that the bill — which is supported by the airline industry and transportation unions — will have much life in the Senate.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has introduced what he calls the Real Transparency in Airfares Act, which would double maximum penalties to $55,000 per day for airlines and major ticket sellers that don't post the full fare.

This week is summer's sweet spot — the peak time for pool parties, fresh-picked berries and cool drinks. But for economists, it may feel more like Christmas — so much to unwrap!

Each day will bring new decisions and reports that could have a big impact on the nation's economy. So economists, investors and workers will have plenty to ponder. Here's what's happening this week:

Tuesday and Wednesday: The Federal Reserve Board's policymakers are meeting over two days this week to chew over economic data and decide whether to continue the current policies that restrain interest rates. They will announce their decision at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Wednesday : At 8:30 a.m. ET, the Commerce Department will release its first estimate of GDP growth for the second quarter. This is a big deal because the first quarter was dismal – with the economy actually shrinking. Most economists believe the second quarter will show a healthy bounce back, with GDP expanding at about 3 percent.

Thursday: At 3 p.m. ET, the USDA will report on farm prices. Earlier this year, a lot of prices shot up for food — especially meat. High grocery prices can hit consumers hard. So economists will be watching for signs of what's to come for consumers when they head to the grocery store this fall.

Friday: The Labor Department will release its July jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET. This report is always a big deal because a healthy labor market is the key to economic growth. In recent months, jobs have been growing rapidly. Did the pace continue in July?

In addition, economists will be watching for lots of wild cards this week. For example, Congress will be finishing up some work before starting its August recess. Lawmakers could make decisions involving issues with big economic impacts, such as on immigration and federal highway spending.

The stock market may be in for a wacky week with so much key economic data hitting, along with a surge of corporate earnings reports.

And there's no shortage of geopolitical tension. Any number of developments in Gaza, Libya or Ukraine could upset economic expectations.

So if ever there was a week to pay attention to economic reports, this is it. Just keep a tall, cool drink handy. You may need it.

Politics

'Citizens United' Critics Fight Money With Money

Medical tests are rarely a pleasant experience, especially if you're worried that something could be seriously wrong. That's true even though we know that regular screenings and tests often help doctors catch issues early.

But of course, humans don't always behave rationally. Sometimes people will go to great lengths to avoid hearing bad news. Social scientists call this sort of behavior information aversion, or the ostrich effect (based on the old myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they're scared). And it can have important implications for our health, researchers say.

In order to gauge how information aversion affects health care, one group of researchers decided to look at how college students react to being tested for a sexually transmitted disease.

Shots - Health News

Feds Cracks Down On 'Bogus' STD Remedies

The Harrier Jump Jet combines the speed of a jet with the maneuverability of a helicopter.

These single-seater planes are known for vertical take-off and landing, making them ideal for close-air support near the front-lines where runways are damaged or non-existent.

Designed by the British and now flown by the U.S. Marine Corps, Harriers have an accident-prone track record and are notoriously difficult to fly.

But why not have one for your private collection?

Yesterday, a 1976 Harrier that once flew in the British Royal Air Force sold at the Silverstone Auctions in England for the equivalent of $179,611.

The weapons systems are dismantled and the engine isn't fitted to the plane. But with some work, it could fly again.

If a civilian flying a Harrier sounds ridiculous, well, there's already a guy doing it. His name is Art Nalls, a retired test pilot from the United States Marine Corps.

Nalls says he's the only civilian in the world to privately own and fly a Harrier.

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The Philippines on Sunday welcomed its 100-millionth citizen — a baby girl named Chonalyn who was born at a hospital in the capital, Manila.

Juan Antonio Perez III, executive director of the Commission on Population, announced the official milestone after the birth at Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, which has one of the busiest maternity wards in the world. The 6-pound Chonalyn arrived shortly after midnight Manila time.

The Associated Press describes the baby "[wrapped] in a blanket and pink bonnet and cradled by her beaming mother." It says "Chonalyn was showered with a cake, infant clothes and other gifts by health and population commission officials at a hospital ceremony."

But the celebration is mixed with concern in the Philippines, a predominately Catholic country with one of the fastest growing populations in Asia. Many in the country struggle to meet the basic necessities of life.

"We are faced with the challenge of providing for all 100 million Filipinos," Perez acknowledged about the otherwise happy event.

In response to that challenge, millions of Filipinos are forced to work abroad as healthcare workers, construction workers, household maids and au pairs in places such as Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Europe and North America. The money they send home as "foreign remittances" provides a lifeline to the Philippine economy.

"The government can no longer give them jobs. That's the reason why many are leaving the country," Ben de Leon, president of the Forum for Family Planning and Development, is quoted by Xinhua as saying.

The AP quotes the United Nations Population Fund as saying that the population milestone offers both challenges and opportunities to the Philippines, which is the world's 12th most populous country.

"It is important to emphasize that population is not merely a matter of numbers, but of human rights and opportunities," says Klaus Beck, the UNPF's Philippines representative.

With 54 percent of its population under the age of 25, the Philippines needs to provide the young with education, job opportunities and skills, he says.

Ernesto Pernia, a former lead economist for the Asia Development Bank, told American Public Radio's Marketplace in 2012 that the Philippines "is already beyond its carrying capacity." That same year, Philippine President Benigo Aquino III signed a law directing government health centers to provide free access to contraception, but the measure was challenged in court by representatives of the Roman Catholic church.

However, earlier this year, the country's Supreme Court upheld the 2012 law.

Chinese often complain that corruption is endemic in every sector of their society. So it may come as no surprise that a government anti-corruption drive has swept up 25,000 officials in the first half of this year.

The drive's victims include everyone from lowly local functionaries to, this month, a young celebrity news anchor named Rui Chenggang.

Authorities showed up at China Central Television headquarters earlier this month, and took away Rui, the 36-year-old news anchor on CCTV's finance channel, watched by millions of viewers.

Rui is known for rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty, and occasionally asking them some pointed questions.

At an economic forum in the northern city of Dalian three years ago, Rui asked then-U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke, who flew economy class from Beijing to Dalian, if that was "a reminder that the U.S. owes China money?"

"Well actually that's U.S. government policy," Lock responded, "whether we're here in China or even throughout the United States ..."

In 2009, Rui reported on President Obama's trip to the G20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

Obama tried to give Korean media the last question, but Rui raised his hand and the president, apparently thinking he was Korean, called on him.

"Unfortunately, President Obama, I hate to disappoint you, I'm actually Chinese," Rui said. "But I think I get to represent the entire Asia."

Not all Chinese are so happy to be represented by Rui, but some agree with him that China gets a bad rap from biased foreign media.

They agree with their government, which is spending billions of dollars to create media that they hope can compete with CNN, the BBC and the like. They want China to speak with a more assertive voice that wins the country more respect, and they saw Rui as that voice.

“ As long as the media's power is linked to the government's ... corruption will be inevitable.

As the host of the Goats and Soda blog, I wanted to learn a little bit more about goats.

At the top of my list: How do you cook goat meat?

“ You gotta break down that meat, and you got to give it love.