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Jewish girls undergo a bat mitzvah; 15 year-old Latinas celebrate with quinceaeras. But for generations of Indian American girls, the rite of passage is performing a classical Indian dance before a crowd of hundreds. After years of preparation, Hema Ramaswamy of Middletown, N.J., is ready to unveil her arangetram.

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Hema Ramaswamy prepares backstage for her performance. She studied with Chitra Venkateswaran (right) in preparation for this recital for four and a half years. Preston Merchant hide caption

itoggle caption Preston Merchant

Hema Ramaswamy prepares backstage for her performance. She studied with Chitra Venkateswaran (right) in preparation for this recital for four and a half years.

Preston Merchant

An arangetram, which literally means "ascending the stage," is a major accomplishment that takes years of preparation. This moment, when a student of dance or music asserts her artistic independence, usually happens in the teen years. Ramaswamy is 23.

Ramaswamy, who has Down syndrome, originally began dancing for health reasons. "But then it became part of her, and she really loves and enjoys it, and it took her 13 years with a lot of challenges, midway, to complete this," explained her father, Ram. "And now today is a perfect day for her — her graduating in this art."

She was able to achieve this despite her diagnosis and despite two major surgeries for a dangerous leak of cerebrospinal fluid. Her father said dance has strengthened Ramaswamy's muscles and given her fine motor skills she simply didn't have before.

"I feel so happy in dancing," she beams, surrounded by a flurry of doting aunties while preparing for her performance.

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Hema Ramaswamy performs her arangetram, the public presentation of Bharata Natyam. Preston Merchant hide caption

itoggle caption Preston Merchant

Hema Ramaswamy performs her arangetram, the public presentation of Bharata Natyam.

Preston Merchant

Ramaswamy's arangetram is 2 1/2 hours long and consists of 10 different dances. One is about the god Krishna, who, as a baby, starts devouring mud. Dancers usually try to mimic baby Krishna, but Ramaswamy becomes him. She then pivots into the role of Krishna's angry mother, who discovers her filthy son and orders him to open his mouth. But instead of finding mud, she finds planets, stars, galaxies — an entire unknown cosmos lying within. This is the dance that brings the audience to tears.

"Thank you, everybody for coming and supporting me," Ramaswamy says to a cheering audience. "I'm feeling so happy. Please enjoy your rest of your evening."

Her father tells the crowd that Ramaswamy's arangetram was more than a dance graduation; it was the day she became, in the eyes of the world, a full individual.

Having achieved this goal, Ramaswamy says, she now plans to go to college.

The election is over, right? Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate and padded their majority in the House.

So the big drama of the campaign may have subsided, but there is still a handful of congressional contests up in the air.

There are runoff elections scheduled. A couple of races that are still too close to call. And at least one official recount coming.

U.S. Senate Races

In Louisiana — a place where politics are always interesting — three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu finds herself in a runoff against Republican congressman Bill Cassidy, because both failed to get more than the 50 percent required to claim victory last Tuesday.

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In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu. Melinda Deslatte/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Melinda Deslatte/AP

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Melinda Deslatte/AP

Even though control of the Senate doesn't hang on the outcome, their battle now goes into an extra month of overtime.

The TV attack ads are back too. The Landrieu campaign introduced a new one this week, as did the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of the challenger.

The other Senate seat that's been undecided is in Alaska, where incumbent Democrat Mark Begich faced Republican Dan Sullivan. The Associated Press has called the race for Sullivan. But Begich hasn't conceded.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell posed with 10 new GOP senators-elect. He's looking for the number of newcomers to increase. "We're excited to have a great bunch here and we hope they're going to be joined by Bill Cassidy and Dan Sullivan shortly," he said. Sullivan, having claimed victory, has since flown to D.C. to begin new-member orientation.

House Races

There are two races in Louisiana, Congressional Districts 5 and 6, where runoffs will decide the winner. The latter involves Democrat Edwin Edwards, 87, who has a resume that includes Congress, the governorship — and eight years in federal prison for corruption.

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The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In Arizona, the battle for the 2nd District is heading for an automatic recount. It features incumbent Democrat Ron Barber, a former aide to Rep. Gabby Giffords who was shot and wounded along with Giffords by a gunman in January 2011. Barber trails Republican Martha McSally by just 133 votes. Nearly all of the votes have been tallied, and state law requires a recount if the margin is fewer than 200 votes.

Finally, there are two undeclared races in California: in the 7th District, near Sacramento, and the 16th, which includes parts of Fresno.

Both feature incumbent Democrats who currently hold very narrow leads.

So Election Day has come and gone.

We just don't know yet when it will all be officially ... and finally ... and mercifully over.

Americans grow up knowing their colors are red, white and blue. It's right there in the flag, right there in the World Series bunting and on those floats every fourth of July.

So when did we become a nation of red states and blue states? And what do they mean when they say a state is turning purple?

Painting whole states with a broad brush bothers a lot of people, and if you're one of them you may want to blame the media. We've been using these designations rather vigorously for the last half-dozen election cycles or so as a quick way to describe the vote in given state in a given election, or its partisan tendencies over a longer period.

It got started on TV, the original electronic visual, when NBC, the first all-color network, unveiled an illuminated map — snazzy for its time — in 1976. John Chancellor was the NBC election night anchor who explained how states were going to be blue if they voted for incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, red if they voted for Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

That arrangement was consistent with the habit of many texts and reference books, which tended to use blue for Republicans in part because blue was the color of the Union in the Civil War. Blue is also typically associated with the more conservative parties in Europe and elsewhere.

As the other TV operations went to full color, they too added vivid maps to their election night extravaganzas. But they didn't agree on a color scheme, so viewers switching between channels might see Ronald Reagan's landslide turning the landscape blue on NBC and CBS but red on ABC.

YouTube

The confusion persisted until 2000, when the coloring of states for one party of the other dragged on well past election night. As people were more interested in the red-blue maps than ever, the need for consistency across media outlets became paramount. And as the conversation about the disputed election continued, referring to states that voted for George W. Bush as "red states" rather than "Republican states" (and those voting for Democrat Al Gore as "blue states") seemed increasingly natural.

And it never went away. Instead, it became a staple of political discourse, not just in the media but in academic circles and popular conversation as well.

By the next presidential election, the red-blue language was so common as to be a metaphor for partisanship. That provided a convenient target for the most memorable speech of that election cycle, the 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, delivered by a young senatorial candidate from Illinois named Barack Obama.

"The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states," he said. "Red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too — we worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states."

Of course, that did not stop "the pundits" or anyone else from using these catchy labels. If anything, the practice has become more universal.

Not a few Americans see this as a symptom of a real disease in the body politic, an imbalance in favor of conflict that makes compromise more difficult.

Painting whole states with an ideologically broad brush is also offensive to many. No liberal in Idaho needs to be told that state leans conservative, just as conservatives in Minnesota are fully aware theirs was the only state not tinted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

But being on the minor-fraction side of the party balance does not make these citizens less Idahoan or less Minnesotan. On the contrary, they may be among the fiercest loyalists of either state.

#ColorFacts: A Weird Little Lesson In Rainbow Order hide caption

itoggle caption

No one thinks the red or blue designation makes a state politically single-minded. But the message sent by such media-driven characterizations is not without consequence.

Bill Bishop, the Texas-based writer who co-authored the influential book The Big Sort in 2004, says political affiliation is a powerful part of the allure certain communities have for Americans seeking a compatible home.

"All of this is a shorthand, right? So a 'blue community' is a shorthand not only for politics but for a way of life ..." says Bishop.

And for many people, that way of life includes a sorting out by political affinity.

"We thought at first that this was all lifestyle, but the more I talked to people, the more I talked to people who said it was a conscious decision to go to a Democratic area or a Republican area."

Which may mean the red and blue labels will be even harder for the media to resist using in the years ahead.

Boko Haram, the Nigerian rebel group that kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in April, has seized the northeastern town where the girls were abducted.

The Guardian reports:

"The militants attacked at about 4pm on Thursday, destroying communications masts and forcing residents to flee, according to witnesses. One described running past bodies strewn on a street.

"The fall of Chibok is hugely symbolic. The town in north-east Nigeria became the centre of world attention in April when Boko Haram fighters stormed the government girls secondary school, forced students onto trucks and drove them into the bush. There was a global Twitter campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, and criticism of the government's response."

Last month, the Nigerian government announced a cease-fire with Boko Haram, insisting that it included a deal to return the kidnapped girls. But the promise cited by the government was never fulfilled and soon more girls were kidnapped by the group.

The Associated Press reports: "In a separate development, police say a car bomb has exploded in northern Kano city tonight, killing at least six people including three police officers. The city is the second largest population center in Nigeria. There's been no claim of responsibility for the bomb, but Boko Haram extremists have detonated them in Kano in the past."

Boko Haram

Nigeria

The American Plate

A Culinary History in 100 Bites

by Libby H. O'connell

Hardcover, 330 pages | purchase

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Read an excerpt

Apple pie isn't American in the way people often mean. Every ingredient, from apples to butter to nutmeg and cinnamon, came from somewhere else.

But then, so do most Americans.

A new book traces the roots of American tastes from pemmican to Coca-Cola to what are now called "molecularly modified" foods. Libby O'Connell, the chief historian and a senior vice president for the History Channel and A&E networks, wrote The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites.

"My goal is to tell the story of American history through food," she tells Weekend Edition's Scott Simon. "Each food has a story of its own."

Pemmican, the fancy name for jerky, can be found in gas stations across America. But "it's an authentic food that is indigenous to the New World," says O'Connell. As a snack food, it's highly nourishing and drying was a great way to preserve food.

Macaroni also has colonial roots. We often think of Thomas Jefferson as a man who brought an elevated appreciation for food and wine to a young America. But he also popularized the favorite pasta of children everywhere.

"He brought in macaroni from his travels in Europe and liked to eat it with the cheese sauce," says O'Connell. There's also the famous song "Yankee Doodle Dandee" and the line: "Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni."

As for shoofly pie, the classic Amish dessert, the name comes from the fact that "a fly could get stuck in it," she says. Made of molasses and flour and maybe a few nuts, the pie attracted flies particularly in the days before doors and windows had screens. Growing up in Pennsylvania, O'Connell remembers it being served in her lunchroom cafeteria.

An overarching theme in her book is how foreign foods came to be embraced by Americans. Once upon a time, spaghetti was a garlic-heavy Italian food, she says. "There was a time in the late 19th century, those intense Italian flavors were scoffed at by people who had arrived in the U.S. a generation before the Italians," she explains. "The distaste toward foreign foods from immigrant groups is a tradition in this country."

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While the recipe for Coca-Cola has changed, the loopy font is still the same as it was in this ad from 1939. Says O'Connell: "The original Coca-Cola script that you see ... a friend of [the pharmacist who invented it] designed that script and the Coca-Cola company still uses it." Courtesy of Sourcebooks hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Sourcebooks

While the recipe for Coca-Cola has changed, the loopy font is still the same as it was in this ad from 1939. Says O'Connell: "The original Coca-Cola script that you see ... a friend of [the pharmacist who invented it] designed that script and the Coca-Cola company still uses it."

Courtesy of Sourcebooks

Within a generation, Americans started saying Italian food was great. However, the big meatballs being served in the U.S. were not actually Italian — they didn't have the same meat.

Salsa has also come a long way — it's been one of the most popular condiments in America since 1992. "It's fascinating that salsa outsells ketchup until you realize two things ... the families that are buying salsa are the same families that are buying ketchup ... and secondly think of how you consume ketchup." It might be a dollop on a hamburger, compared to piling salsa all over your tacos or chips.

But overall, O'Connell believes Americans are really open to new food. "Our stomachs are, I think, more open to the world, to different cultures, than almost any place," she says.

O'Connell also covers a wide range of meats in her book including scrapple, a culinary rag-bag of scraps, cornmeal, sage and pepper. "The Pennsylvania Dutch put a lot of ground pepper in it," O'Connell says, who remembers eating it once or twice with plenty of maple syrup.

One of O'Connell's most amusing stories features Sylvester Graham, an ordained Presbyterian minister who thought America was full of sin. If everyone ate whole grains and became vegetarians, they would become more peaceful and less lustful, he claimed. Therefore he created the popular Graham cracker. (The Graham cracker we have today has much more sugar than the original.)

Coca-Cola was originally intended "to be particularly healthy for you if you had an addiction problem," says O'Connell. Invented by a pharmacist who fought in the Civil War, the drink was made with cocaine and caffeine to help him get rid of his morphine addiction from his war wounds.

The Salt

An Oral History Of New York Food: Dining Out Wasn't Always 'In'

The Salt

Gourmands Through The Ages: 'A History Of Food In 100 Recipes'

But while the recipe changed, the loopy font is still the same. Says O'Connell: "The original Coca-Cola script that you see ... a friend of his designed that script and the Coca-Cola company still uses it."

Coca-Cola has marketed itself as an emblem of American life. "Not only did it have a national campaign very early on, but it followed the American troops wherever they were," she says. It actually built field bottling plants behind the troops during World War I and World War II. Now, there are only two places in the world you can't buy Coca-Cola: Cuba and North Korea.

O'Connell does admit she didn't try everything discussed in her book, including beaver tail. "I know that they have that scaliness," she says.

For those brave enough to try, she says the tail can be roasted over an open fire to blister the skin of the tail. After cooling, the scales can be scraped off, exposing the fat which will crisp and brown.

And how about a wine pairing? "A hearty burgundy," she says.

Read an excerpt of The American Plate

American History

books

What do you get when you mix big-deal comedians with real-life calamities? Sounds like a joke, but Steve Carell and Jon Stewart are answering that question this week in their movies Foxcatcher and Rosewater. And it turns out, seriousness suits them.

In fact, you'll likely do a double-take when you first see Carell's John Dupont in Foxcatcher. Maybe when you first hear him, too. He's the black sheep of the wealthy gunpowder-magnate family circa 1988, and he's all but unrecognizable behind a putty nose and a flat vocal affect that makes words and phrases emerge from him in what sound like burps.

Talking to an Olympic wrestler he's hoping to impress, Carell's Dupont is pasty, heavy, awkward, and when he flashes what he apparently intends as a pleasant smile, it's downright disquieting.

Mark Schultz, the gold medalist he's inviting to train at a facility he's built on his Pennsylvania estate, is played by Channing Tatum with a leaden affect and the wounded look of puppy who's been kicked too often. Mark is the younger of two Olympic medalists in his family. His brother Dave, played with more grace and verve by Mark Ruffalo, has prospered since his Olympic win. Mark, who won later, stalled out quicker, and now, to escape his brother's shadow, he signs on with Dupont, who showers him with money, sparring partners, cocaine, and inspirational speeches that sound increasingly unhinged.

"I am leading men," says Dupont. "I am giving them a dream and I am giving America hope."

A more astute man might realize his patron is ... well, maybe nuts, but Tatum's Mark isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and just gets himself, and later his brother, in deeper.

Director Bennett Miller is no stranger to sports or personal eccentricity in his films, having directed both Moneyball and the Truman Capote biopic Capote. In Foxcatcher, Miller uses three superb performances to take us deep into a privileged world where the choreographed struggle of wrestling mixes toxically with the psychological struggles of familial disappointment. The film does not — or maybe cannot — explain the inexplicable: the acts of a mentally ill man. But it can make the plight of those in that man's orbit profoundly anguishing.

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Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart. Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films hide caption

itoggle caption Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

Rosewater has the sense of urgency and nuanced take on media that you'd expect from first time writer-director Jon Stewart.

Laith Al-Majali / Open Road Films

You might expect anguish from Rosewater, a film drawn by Jon Stewart from BBC journalist Maziar Bahari's book about surviving solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. But while the film can be unnerving as it details the dangers of reporting on opposition demonstrators after Iran's elections, it's also steeped in the sort of humor you'd expect from Stewart, who both wrote and directed the movie. In fact, Stewart's connection with the story was more than moderately intimate: A Daily Show interview done by the real Bahari was used against him in jail. Stewart has actor Gael Garcia Bernal re-enact it with Jason Jones.

Funny to American ears, the sketch, in which Jones claims to be a spy, becomes less funny when Bahari's thrown in prison four days after it airs, and has to defend himself to an interrogator as "just a journalist."

The interrogator — an excellent Kim Bodnia — calls up the interview on his computer.

"Can you tell me," he wonders, "why 'just-a-journalist' would meet up with an American spy?"

Bahari, laughing, tells him it's a comedy show, that Jones is a comedian pretending to be a spy, but that doesn't even blunt the line of questioning.

"So can you tell me why an American pretending to be a spy has chosen to interview you?"

Jon Stewart took several months off from Comedy Central to make this movie last year, and painful as that sabbatical may have been for fans, it turns out to have been worthwhile. Rosewater (the title references the cologne by which the usually blindfolded Bahari recognizes the interrogator) has an urgency that's all about the storytelling smarts of its first-time writer-director. It's also got first-rate acting, the nuance about media manipulation you'd expect from Stewart, and even cinematic grace notes, as when Bernal, in a burst of antic feeling after months of isolation, dances in his cell, remembering a Leonard Cohen song his sister played for him as a child.

Rosewater — and Foxcatcher, too — could doubtless have been anchored by other talents. Their stories needn't have reached us, tears-of-a-clown-style, through Jon Stewart and Steve Carell. But the involvement of those comics proves a remarkable blessing, at least partly because it connects us to their sense of discovery.

What could be more astonishing, after all, than being moved by those we look to for laughter.

Maybe this duck won't be so lame after all.

It's All Politics

As Congress Breaks, Inaction Remains Most Notable Action

Judging by what we've seen so far, the "zombie Congress" that returned to town this week (the reelected and the not-so-lucky) will do more business in the weeks following the election than it did in many months preceding.

Consider these trains — all long-sidetracked, all suddenly leaving the station on Capitol Hill:

Immigration: The hot-button issue of the post-election session is the president's promise to change federal immigration practices by executive order. Republicans in the main oppose the expected changes, many strenuously. And all are incensed at the president's plan to do it unilaterally — calling it "executive amnesty" for lawbreakers.

Nonetheless, after waiting nearly two years for the House to take up the issue, the White House has leaked an outline of its own plan, including work permits for parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents. That could give more than 3 million currently undocumented residents the legal standing to stay. There would also be deferments for another million immigrants now facing deportation, and new standing for hundreds of thousands of migrant farm workers lacking legal status.

Budget and spending: Republican leaders in the House and Senate had hoped to enact an "omnibus" spending bill covering a dozen appropriations categories, all of which are now operating on stop-gap authority that expires at midnight Dec. 11. This omnibus would be expected to roll through the end of the fiscal year in September 2015.

But GOP hardliners are loath to give up the leverage they can wield through stop-gap funding bills and a series of "fiscal cliffs," which they hope to use to block Obama's immigration moves. If Obama calls their bluff, another government shutdown could ensue — a prospect Republican leadership abhors. But the anger among some in the rank and file will be hard to restrain.

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Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, speaks to reporters Wednesday about the new urgency to get congressional approval for the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline at the Capitol in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, speaks to reporters Wednesday about the new urgency to get congressional approval for the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline at the Capitol in Washington.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Keystone XL pipeline: Senate Majority Leader (until January) Harry Reid finally has scheduled a vote on authorizing this project, which the House approved on Friday (for the ninth time). Stalled for years in the no-man's land between House and Senate, this effort to suck Canadian crude from the oil sands of Alberta all the way down to refineries on the Gulf Coast finally may be on a fast track.

It needs 60 votes to clear the Senate on Tuesday, but sponsors appeared on the brink of that number Friday. The White House has not said the president would sign it, but they have not threatened a veto either.

So what changed? It's basically a "Hail Mary" pass by Reid, hoping to rescue Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., from defeat in her run-off election Dec. 6 (the only Senate race still unresolved). Landrieu has championed the pipeline as chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

National Security Agency: A bill reorganizing operations at the secret data gathering agency is a darling of many Democrats, including some who will not be returning in January. Reid would like to see it through while he's in charge, but the opposing corps of senators focused on war and terror remains strong in the Senate. No one may want to defend the practice of bulk collection of telephone call data, which was revealed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden in 2013, but these senators are wary of weakening the NSA in any way at a time when ISIS has heightened awareness of threats to the homeland.

Reid has slated a vote on this divisive issue, but it may not be able to reach the 60-vote threshold.

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U.S. Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, center, looks to outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder as President Obama stands nearby Nov. 8 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Carolyn Kaster/AP

U.S. Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch, center, looks to outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder as President Obama stands nearby Nov. 8 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Presidential appointments: It now appears the nomination of Loretta Lynch as the new attorney general will not be submitted to the Senate until January. This probably indicates that the White House thinks Lynch can win confirmation even in a Republican Senate. It also may mean Senate Democrats hope to focus on confirming nominees to vacant judgeships.

There are 14 nominees to the federal bench at the district level who have cleared the Judiciary Committee and are ready for floor action, three of which are slated for votes on Tuesday. Nine others have had hearings in committee, but no vote. There are also many ambassadors awaiting confirmation.

Thanks to a rule change Reid pushed through earlier in the 113th Congress, these judges and ambassadors can be confirmed with a simple majority of 51. After the lame duck ends and the Senate Republicans take over, however, finding even 51 votes to confirm any kind of presidential appointment will become much more difficult.

That's one more reason this lame duck is likely to be lively.

Keystone XL Pipeline

Lame duck Congress

Immigration

As part of UNMEER, WHO — along with GoL, GoSL and NGOS like IMC and MSF — has been fighting the EVD crisis, making sure doctors correctly put on PPEs according to CDC guidelines. Meanwhile WFP is sending in food and DETT from JFC-UA are training health workers who will staff pending ETUs in Liberia.

Did you guess that I was writing about the Ebola outbreak?

Like many medical and global health topics, the Ebola crisis has cooked up an acronym soup. There are the familiar and the newly created. An outsider eavesdropping on a couple of healthcare workers might think they're speaking a secret code. And in a way, they are.

Some acronyms are used for convenience — try saying "Department of Defense Ebola Training Team" five times fast. Now try "DETT."

Some roll off the tongue better than others. DART, for Disaster Assistance Response Team, has a snappier sound than UNMEER, for United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response.

Other times, the reason for using an acronym is to speak with precision. "Virology, or more generally science, is loaded with colloquialisms, especially in the public sphere," writes virologist Alan Schmaljohn. of the University of Maryland Medical School, in an email. Researchers commonly use EVD, for Ebola virus disease, as a way to be more accurate than the colloquial "Ebola."

This is what Dr. Schmaljohn had to say:

"Ebola virus (shorthand = Ebola) is the viral agent itself. EVD refers to the disease syndrome, the constellation of symptoms the virus may cause. Note the parallel with HIV (the virus), HIV-infected individual (potentially contagious, but often healthy), and AIDS (the immunodeficiency syndrome caused by uncontrolled viral infection over time). Only recently has the language moved from EHF (Ebola hemorrhagic fever) to EVD (Ebola virus disease), the latter now preferred because it has become more widely appreciated that hemorrhage is typically a late symptom and only appears in a minority of cases."

These acronyms present a special challenge for radio reporters, who might have to tell an interview subject: "Can you repeat that, only don't say PPE, say personal protective equipment."

But in way, these acronyms tell the story of the outbreak.

Here's a sampling collected by NPR's Ebola correspondents. Readers, please let us know of any acronyms you've encountered in this year of Ebola.

CCC: Community Care Center

CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

DART: Disaster Assistance Response Team from USAID

DETT: Department of Defense Ebola Training Team

DFID: Department for International Development, which leads the UK, er United Kingdom's efforts on global health and development

DoD: Department of Defense (which raises the question, why do some acronyms include a preposition while others do not?)

EOC: Emergency Operation Center

ETC/ETU: Ebola Treatment Center/Ebola Treatment Unit

EVD: Ebola virus disease, formerly known as EHF or Ebola hemorrhagic fever

GoL: Government of Liberia

GoSL: Government of Sierra Leone

JFC-UA: Joint Force Command United Assistance

LRCS: Liberian Red Cross Society

MMU: Memorandum of Understanding

MoHSW: Liberia's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare

MSF: Medecins Sans Frontieres (aka Doctors Without Borders)

NGO: Nongovernmental organization

PPE: Personal Protective Equipment

UNMEER: UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response

USAID of DA: United States Agency for International Development Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance

USG: United States Government

USPHS: United States Public Health Service

WFP: United Nations World Food Program

MSF

ebola

WHO

CDC

It's not a tiger, but they aren't sure what it is: That's what French police and armed forces have concluded after searching for two days for a mystery beast near Disneyland Paris, one of Europe's top tourist destinations.

The latest sighting of what is being described as a wildcat was Friday morning when truckers spotted it on a main road between Paris and eastern France. It was photographed several times Thursday in the town of Montevrain.

A statement from the Seine-et-Marne, the local administration, said the animal was an unknown feline and urged residents to stay indoors.

The Associated Press reports: "One theory is that the mystery cat could be a lynx — the wildcat once common in France before being hunted out of existence. It was reintroduced in France in the 1970s, according to the wildlife group Ferus. But the nearest known lynx habitat, the Vosges Mountains, is 350 kilometers (215 miles) away from where the cat was first spotted Thursday."

The Guardian adds:

"The alarm was raised on Thursday when a woman spotted an animal near the local supermarket. A dozen fire trucks, a helicopter with heat-seeking equipment, 200 firefighters, gendarmes and police officers armed with stun guns, and a sniffer dog specially trained to track bears and large game spent most of the day searching for the animal, while schoolchildren got a police escort home and local residents were warned to stay indoors."

The search was resumed Friday by dozens of police, who were armed with tranquilizer guns, and soldiers from a nearby base.

tiger

France

Americans grow up knowing their colors are red, white and blue. It's right there in the flag, right there in the World Series bunting and on those floats every fourth of July.

So when did we become a nation of red states and blue states? And what do they mean when they say a state is turning purple?

Painting whole states with a broad brush bothers a lot of people, and if you're one of them you may want to blame the media. We've been using these designations rather vigorously for the last half-dozen election cycles or so as a quick way to describe the vote in given state in a given election, or its partisan tendencies over a longer period.

It got started on TV, the original electronic visual, when NBC, the first all-color network, unveiled an illuminated map — snazzy for its time — in 1976. John Chancellor was the NBC election night anchor who explained how states were going to be blue if they voted for incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, red if they voted for Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

That arrangement was consistent with the habit of many texts and reference books, which tended to use blue for Republicans in part because blue was the color of the Union in the Civil War. Blue is also typically associated with the more conservative parties in Europe and elsewhere.

As the other TV operations went to full color, they too added vivid maps to their election night extravaganzas. But they didn't agree on a color scheme, so viewers switching between channels might see Ronald Reagan's landslide turning the landscape blue on NBC and CBS but red on ABC.

YouTube

The confusion persisted until 2000, when the coloring of states for one party of the other dragged on well past election night. As people were more interested in the red-blue maps than ever, the need for consistency across media outlets became paramount. And as the conversation about the disputed election continued, referring to states that voted for George W. Bush as "red states" rather than "Republican states" (and those voting for Democrat Al Gore as "blue states") seemed increasingly natural.

And it never went away. Instead, it became a staple of political discourse, not just in the media but in academic circles and popular conversation as well.

By the next presidential election, the red-blue language was so common as to be a metaphor for partisanship. That provided a convenient target for the most memorable speech of that election cycle, the 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, delivered by a young senatorial candidate from Illinois named Barack Obama.

"The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states," he said. "Red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too — we worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states."

Of course, that did not stop "the pundits" or anyone else from using these catchy labels. If anything, the practice has become more universal.

Not a few Americans see this as a symptom of a real disease in the body politic, an imbalance in favor of conflict that makes compromise more difficult.

Painting whole states with an ideologically broad brush is also offensive to many. No liberal in Idaho needs to be told that state leans conservative, just as conservatives in Minnesota are fully aware theirs was the only state not tinted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

But being on the minor-fraction side of the party balance does not make these citizens less Idahoan or less Minnesotan. On the contrary, they may be among the fiercest loyalists of either state.

#ColorFacts: A Weird Little Lesson In Rainbow Order hide caption

itoggle caption

No one thinks the red or blue designation makes a state politically single-minded. But the message sent by such media-driven characterizations is not without consequence.

Bill Bishop, the Texas-based writer who co-authored the influential book The Big Sort in 2004, says political affiliation is a powerful part of the allure certain communities have for Americans seeking a compatible home.

"All of this is a shorthand, right? So a 'blue community' is a shorthand not only for politics but for a way of life ..." says Bishop.

And for many people, that way of life includes a sorting out by political affinity.

"We thought at first that this was all lifestyle, but the more I talked to people, the more I talked to people who said it was a conscious decision to go to a Democratic area or a Republican area."

Which may mean the red and blue labels will be even harder for the media to resist using in the years ahead.

The election is over, right? Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate and padded their majority in the House.

So the big drama of the campaign may have subsided, but there is still a handful of congressional contests up in the air.

There are runoff elections scheduled. A couple of races that are still too close to call. And at least one official recount coming.

U.S. Senate Races

In Louisiana — a place where politics are always interesting — three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu finds herself in a runoff against Republican congressman Bill Cassidy, because both failed to get more than the 50 percent required to claim victory last Tuesday.

i i

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu. Melinda Deslatte/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Melinda Deslatte/AP

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Melinda Deslatte/AP

Even though control of the Senate doesn't hang on the outcome, their battle now goes into an extra month of overtime.

The TV attack ads are back too. The Landrieu campaign introduced a new one this week, as did the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of the challenger.

The other Senate seat that's been undecided is in Alaska, where incumbent Democrat Mark Begich faced Republican Dan Sullivan. The Associated Press has called the race for Sullivan. But Begich hasn't conceded.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell posed with 10 new GOP senators-elect. He's looking for the number of newcomers to increase. "We're excited to have a great bunch here and we hope they're going to be joined by Bill Cassidy and Dan Sullivan shortly," he said. Sullivan, having claimed victory, has since flown to D.C. to begin new-member orientation.

House Races

There are two races in Louisiana, Congressional Districts 5 and 6, where runoffs will decide the winner. The latter involves Democrat Edwin Edwards, 87, who has a resume that includes Congress, the governorship — and eight years in federal prison for corruption.

i i

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In Arizona, the battle for the 2nd District is heading for an automatic recount. It features incumbent Democrat Ron Barber, a former aide to Rep. Gabby Giffords who was shot and wounded along with Giffords by a gunman in January 2011. Barber trails Republican Martha McSally by just 133 votes. Nearly all of the votes have been tallied, and state law requires a recount if the margin is fewer than 200 votes.

Finally, there are two undeclared races in California: in the 7th District, near Sacramento, and the 16th, which includes parts of Fresno.

Both feature incumbent Democrats who currently hold very narrow leads.

So Election Day has come and gone.

We just don't know yet when it will all be officially ... and finally ... and mercifully over.

Tomorrow it begins again – open enrollment for Obamacare. Two very successful state health insurance exchanges, Connecticut's and California's, are both intent on reaching people who avoided signing up last year – especially young Latinos and African-Americans.

"The big takeaway for us last year was that the uninsured were really pocketed in a couple of key, large cities," says Jason Madrak, the chief marketing officer of Access Health CT, in Connecticut. In light of that, he says, the exchange has changed its ad strategy.

"We've dialed up some of the more locally-focused efforts while we've dialed down some of the broader efforts," he says.

The uninsured people Madrak's trying to reach tend to be young, male, urban and Hispanic or African American. They also "aren't really consumers of traditional media," he says.

“ We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage.

- Peter Lee, executive director, Covered California

They don't necessarily read the big daily newspapers and they don't watch mainstream TV, so they can be harder to reach. So Madrak is spending his media money on ads in community newspapers and on local television and radio.

Shots - Health News

Selling Health Care To California's Latinos Got Lost In Translation

Reaching potential customers is the first half of the job. The second half is figuring out what to tell them. One emphasis is on money, like in this TV ad with a barber asking his customer if he has health insurance. When the customer says, "No, I can't afford it," the barber says, "Now, you can, with Access Health CT, since you may quality for help to pay for your coverage."

Madrak says the messages of ads that appear later in the open enrollment period, as people are starting to think harder about choices, will be more specific about the cost of the insurance.

"If I say 'affordable,' nobody really knows what that means," he says. "If I say, 'I can get you a plan for 20 bucks a month with tax credits,' that means something to somebody at that point."

Credit: Access Health CT

California health officials are also deploying a new and (they hope) improved campaign to woo Latinos. Last year, Covered California made a series of missteps.

First, the exchange had only a handful of Spanish-speaking counselors at the call centers. And the Spanish advertising campaign was riddled with cultural oversights.

Among the worst gaffes: Some Latinos who worried that signing up would get undocumented relatives in trouble were shown a written promise from President Obama to the contrary – a note that, unfortunately, was printed on letterhead of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Covered California says it has learned from those mistakes. Peter Lee, the executive director, says this year, the agency is doubling down on making sure Latinos get the right messages.

i i

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish. Covered California hide caption

itoggle caption Covered California

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish.

Covered California

"We're actually spending more money on outreach, education, and marketing this year for a three-month period than we spent for six months last year," he says.

The agency has hired 200 new call center counselors who speak languages other than English, Lee says. It is enlisting more trusted community organizations to allay fears about deportation. And it's rolling out a new ad campaign tailored specifically to Latinos.

"Every person you see [in these advertisements] that is a Spanish speaker is a Latino who got coverage through Covered California this last year, and it made a difference in their lives," says Lee.

This new video commercial shows pages of immigration documents flying into a safety vault – accompanied by verbal assurances that the application process is confidential.

But the main challenge, Lee says, is persuading Latinos to buy something they don't believe they need or is worth the price.

"They've adjusted to a culture of coping," he says. "We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage."

Still, a woman in a recent focus group in Connecticut showed Madrak that even the best messages might not work.

"She said, 'Listen, I saved everything that you guys sent me,' " Madrak says. " 'I have a box of postcards and letters that you sent me because it has the phone number on it and I wanted to save it.' And we said, 'Did you call?' And she said, 'No, I never called.' And we said, 'But you saved it all!' And she said, 'I know, I knew it was important; I just never got around to actually doing it.' "

That, Madrak says, is the big, continuing challenge.

Open enrollment runs from Saturday, Nov. 15, and goes through February 15, 2015.

This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WNPR, KQED and Kaiser Health News.

CAlifornia

Affordable Care Act

Connecticut

Health Insurance

The election is over, right? Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate and padded their majority in the House.

So the big drama of the campaign may have subsided, but there is still a handful of congressional contests up in the air.

There are runoff elections scheduled. A couple of races that are still too close to call. And at least one official recount coming.

U.S. Senate Races

In Louisiana — a place where politics are always interesting — three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu finds herself in a runoff against Republican congressman Bill Cassidy, because both failed to get more than the 50 percent required to claim victory last Tuesday.

i i

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu. Melinda Deslatte/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Melinda Deslatte/AP

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy is in a tight runoff election against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Melinda Deslatte/AP

Even though control of the Senate doesn't hang on the outcome, their battle now goes into an extra month of overtime.

The TV attack ads are back too. The Landrieu campaign introduced a new one this week, as did the National Republican Senatorial Committee on behalf of the challenger.

The other Senate seat that's been undecided is in Alaska, where incumbent Democrat Mark Begich faced Republican Dan Sullivan. The Associated Press has called the race for Sullivan. But Begich hasn't conceded.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell posed with 10 new GOP senators-elect. He's looking for the number of newcomers to increase. "We're excited to have a great bunch here and we hope they're going to be joined by Bill Cassidy and Dan Sullivan shortly," he said. Sullivan, having claimed victory, has since flown to D.C. to begin new-member orientation.

House Races

There are two races in Louisiana, Congressional Districts 5 and 6, where runoffs will decide the winner. The latter involves Democrat Edwin Edwards, 87, who has a resume that includes Congress, the governorship — and eight years in federal prison for corruption.

i i

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate race for challenger Dan Sullivan. But incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (above) has not conceded.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In Arizona, the battle for the 2nd District is heading for an automatic recount. It features incumbent Democrat Ron Barber, a former aide to Rep. Gabby Giffords who was shot and wounded along with Giffords by a gunman in January 2011. Barber trails Republican Martha McSally by just 133 votes. Nearly all of the votes have been tallied, and state law requires a recount if the margin is fewer than 200 votes.

Finally, there are two undeclared races in California: in the 7th District, near Sacramento, and the 16th, which includes parts of Fresno.

Both feature incumbent Democrats who currently hold very narrow leads.

So Election Day has come and gone.

We just don't know yet when it will all be officially ... and finally ... and mercifully over.

Tomorrow it begins again – open enrollment for Obamacare. Two very successful state health insurance exchanges, Connecticut's and California's, are both intent on reaching people who avoided signing up last year – especially young Latinos and African-Americans.

"The big takeaway for us last year was that the uninsured were really pocketed in a couple of key, large cities," says Jason Madrak, the chief marketing officer of Access Health CT, in Connecticut. In light of that, he says, the exchange has changed its ad strategy.

"We've dialed up some of the more locally-focused efforts while we've dialed down some of the broader efforts," he says.

The uninsured people Madrak's trying to reach tend to be young, male, urban and Hispanic or African American. They also "aren't really consumers of traditional media," he says.

“ We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage.

- Peter Lee, executive director, Covered California

They don't necessarily read the big daily newspapers and they don't watch mainstream TV, so they can be harder to reach. So Madrak is spending his media money on ads in community newspapers and on local television and radio.

Shots - Health News

Selling Health Care To California's Latinos Got Lost In Translation

Reaching potential customers is the first half of the job. The second half is figuring out what to tell them. One emphasis is on money, like in this TV ad with a barber asking his customer if he has health insurance. When the customer says, "No, I can't afford it," the barber says, "Now, you can, with Access Health CT, since you may quality for help to pay for your coverage."

Madrak says the messages of ads that appear later in the open enrollment period, as people are starting to think harder about choices, will be more specific about the cost of the insurance.

"If I say 'affordable,' nobody really knows what that means," he says. "If I say, 'I can get you a plan for 20 bucks a month with tax credits,' that means something to somebody at that point."

Credit: Access Health CT

California health officials are also deploying a new and (they hope) improved campaign to woo Latinos. Last year, Covered California made a series of missteps.

First, the exchange had only a handful of Spanish-speaking counselors at the call centers. And the Spanish advertising campaign was riddled with cultural oversights.

Among the worst gaffes: Some Latinos who worried that signing up would get undocumented relatives in trouble were shown a written promise from President Obama to the contrary – a note that, unfortunately, was printed on letterhead of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Covered California says it has learned from those mistakes. Peter Lee, the executive director, says this year, the agency is doubling down on making sure Latinos get the right messages.

i i

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish. Covered California hide caption

itoggle caption Covered California

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish.

Covered California

"We're actually spending more money on outreach, education, and marketing this year for a three-month period than we spent for six months last year," he says.

The agency has hired 200 new call center counselors who speak languages other than English, Lee says. It is enlisting more trusted community organizations to allay fears about deportation. And it's rolling out a new ad campaign tailored specifically to Latinos.

"Every person you see [in these advertisements] that is a Spanish speaker is a Latino who got coverage through Covered California this last year, and it made a difference in their lives," says Lee.

This new video commercial shows pages of immigration documents flying into a safety vault – accompanied by verbal assurances that the application process is confidential.

But the main challenge, Lee says, is persuading Latinos to buy something they don't believe they need or is worth the price.

"They've adjusted to a culture of coping," he says. "We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage."

Still, a woman in a recent focus group in Connecticut showed Madrak that even the best messages might not work.

"She said, 'Listen, I saved everything that you guys sent me,' " Madrak says. " 'I have a box of postcards and letters that you sent me because it has the phone number on it and I wanted to save it.' And we said, 'Did you call?' And she said, 'No, I never called.' And we said, 'But you saved it all!' And she said, 'I know, I knew it was important; I just never got around to actually doing it.' "

That, Madrak says, is the big, continuing challenge.

Open enrollment runs from Saturday, Nov. 15, and goes through February 15, 2015.

This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WNPR, KQED and Kaiser Health News.

CAlifornia

Affordable Care Act

Connecticut

Health Insurance

In gambling, they say, the house always wins. But that hasn't been the case in Atlantic City this year. By year's end, the city that once had an East Coast monopoly on gaming may lose its fifth casino.

The city is reeling from the closures. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that the first order of business is to "stop the bleeding." So city and state officials are trying to reposition Atlantic City by literally building it up.

For a city with lots of closed shops and casinos, there's also a fair amount of new construction here. Across from the shuttered Trump Plaza, Mayor Don Guardian proudly shows off what will be a Bass Pro outdoor goods store occupying a whole city block.

i i

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian stands in front of an outdoor goods store under construction. The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority contributed land and $12 million for the project. Rob Szypko/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Rob Szypko/NPR

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian stands in front of an outdoor goods store under construction. The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority contributed land and $12 million for the project.

Rob Szypko/NPR

The state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority chipped in land and $12 million for the project. It will employ 290 people, Guardian says, "so that's real good for the city as well."

In trying to recast itself, Atlantic City must partially wean itself from its biggest industry: gaming. It lifted the city out of disrepair four decades ago, but over the years, Guardian says, the city became too dependent on it.

"The city was happy, because it provided decent jobs with benefits and it paid the taxes, but we lost everything else," Guardian says. "You lose your whole entrepreneurial spirit."

From Casino Hotspot To Conference Host

Guardian and redevelopers want to do what Las Vegas did two decades ago, on a smaller scale: branch out into more entertainment and conference and event hosting.

Nine million pounds of steel went into the structure that will become the Waterfront Conference Center in Atlantic City, says Rick Mazer, regional president of Caesars Entertainment. The center is being built with substantial backing from Caesars and the casino reinvestment authority.

Inside the adjacent casino and hotel, a food industry and teachers' convention are taking place. That's perfect, Mazer says, because meetings fill in weekdays and off-season months when the summer gaming season falls off.

"This is the business that I think will evolve and regrow Atlantic City," he says.

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

Donald Trump Sues To Remove His Name From Atlantic City Casinos

Around the Nation

Atlantic City Falls From Glittering Resort To Bargain Basement

N.J. Gov. Christie Backs A Long Shot: Sports Betting

But some are skeptical about the potential payoff from new construction. Standing on the city's famous boardwalk in front of the darkened Trump Plaza, Oliver Cooke, an economist at nearby Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, says city officials have an uphill battle.

"You simply are not going to consume your way out of the morass that you're in," he says. "Doing things like building more retail, building more convention centers, has a very, very limited upside."

Early this year, the Atlantic Club and Showboat casinos closed. The $2.4 billion Revel opened and closed within 10 months. Then Trump Plaza. And next month, the Trump Taj Mahal could close as its parent company negotiates with creditors through bankruptcy.

The city's gaming revenue is now at half its $5 billion peak eight years ago. Competition is fierce. According to the American Gaming Association, there are now 1,400 casinos in the country — 100 of them on the East Coast.

There is talk of reselling, reopening and repurposing some casinos. This week, Cooke's employer, Stockton College, announced its intention to buy the old Showboat property. The Revel's new owners are reportedly planning to reinvest and reopen.

'I Like The Challenge'

Meanwhile, the casinos that remain are doubling down. On a recent night, crooner Allen Edwards is the lounge act at Resorts Casino, singing Christmas tunes.

It feels old school. Indeed, Resorts is Atlantic City's first casino — and had its own brush with death four years ago.

"Everybody around would've bet this would've been the first place to close," says CEO Mark Giannantonio.

But it didn't. Instead, Giannantonio says, a new owner, backed again by the state development authority, invested in a Margaritaville restaurant-and-gaming wing — and now Resorts is turning a profit.

In addition to commercial projects, Mayor Don Guardian hopes state grants will attract new residents who want to invest and rebuild the city, one rundown home at a time.

"Then we've gotta work on our school system," he says. "But I gotta fix the city first, find jobs, get taxes, reduce cost of government, make the place pretty, and then we'll work on the schools. I like the challenge."

He's going to need that optimism; Atlantic City's challenge gets tougher with every casino closure.

gaming

economic development

gambling

Atlantic City

New Jersey

casinos

With gas and oil prices plunging, among those benefiting are airlines. With fuel prices down, profits are up, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to find cheap airfares, especially over the holidays.

The airline industry is predicting more people will take to the skies over Thanksgiving than any year since the start of the recession.

The weather in Chicago is not quite frightful yet, but the snow and cold is coming; so warm weather destinations for the holidays sound appealing.

Those are the kinds of inquiries travel agent Giselle Sanchez of Mena Travel is fielding. After a few very slow years during the recession, Sanchez says business is really picking up.

"We are seeing a lot of families wanting to take trips and planning their trips, so we do see more people wanting to travel now," Sanchez says. "Is it back to where it was before? Not yet, but I think it's getting there."

But that means planes are packed tight, and because demand is rising, fares are up, especially over the two weeks when schools are out over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Thanksgiving weekend fares are higher than last year, too, especially if you want to fly on the Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving.

“ So far this year, airlines have earned more than $2 billion more than at this time last year — but that doesn't mean passengers can expect air fares to drop anytime soon.

The airline industry is expecting 24.6 million passengers on planes around Thanksgiving, up 1.5 percent over last year. And a whopping 2.6 million of those travelers will fly on that Sunday.

"Sunday is not only expected to be the busiest day of the period, but if last year's an indication, it should be the busiest day of the entire calendar year," said John Heimlich, chief economist for the industry group Airlines for America.

In a conference call with reporters this past week, Heimlich noted that dropping fuel prices are pushing up profits. So far this year, airlines have earned more than $2 billion more than at this time last year.

But he says that doesn't mean we can expect air fares to drop anytime soon.

"The first priority is to make sure you have strong financial health, can pay down your bills and invest in the future and weather the next recession," Heimlich said.

Back at Mena Travel in Chicago, Giselle Sanchez is looking to find a bargain around Christmas.

"See all these zeroes? When you see zeros in all inventory, that means it's a pretty full flight," she says.

Sanchez says she can still find some low fares, even around Thanksgiving — if you fly on certain days.

But with the convenient flights packed, to get the deals, you might need to take some extra days off.

Thanksgiving

Travel

Holidays

Tomorrow it begins again – open enrollment for Obamacare. Two very successful state health insurance exchanges, Connecticut's and California's, are both intent on reaching people who avoided signing up last year – especially young Latinos and African-Americans.

"The big takeaway for us last year was that the uninsured were really pocketed in a couple of key, large cities," says Jason Madrak, the chief marketing officer of Access Health CT, in Connecticut. In light of that, he says, the exchange has changed its ad strategy.

"We've dialed up some of the more locally-focused efforts while we've dialed down some of the broader efforts," he says.

The uninsured people Madrak's trying to reach tend to be young, male, urban and Hispanic or African American. They also "aren't really consumers of traditional media," he says.

“ We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage.

- Peter Lee, executive director, Covered California

They don't necessarily read the big daily newspapers and they don't watch mainstream TV, so they can be harder to reach. So Madrak is spending his media money on ads in community newspapers and on local television and radio.

Shots - Health News

Selling Health Care To California's Latinos Got Lost In Translation

Reaching potential customers is the first half of the job. The second half is figuring out what to tell them. One emphasis is on money, like in this TV ad with a barber asking his customer if he has health insurance. When the customer says, "No, I can't afford it," the barber says, "Now, you can, with Access Health CT, since you may quality for help to pay for your coverage."

Madrak says the messages of ads that appear later in the open enrollment period, as people are starting to think harder about choices, will be more specific about the cost of the insurance.

"If I say 'affordable,' nobody really knows what that means," he says. "If I say, 'I can get you a plan for 20 bucks a month with tax credits,' that means something to somebody at that point."

Credit: Access Health CT

California health officials are also deploying a new and (they hope) improved campaign to woo Latinos. Last year, Covered California made a series of missteps.

First, the exchange had only a handful of Spanish-speaking counselors at the call centers. And the Spanish advertising campaign was riddled with cultural oversights.

Among the worst gaffes: Some Latinos who worried that signing up would get undocumented relatives in trouble were shown a written promise from President Obama to the contrary – a note that, unfortunately, was printed on letterhead of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Covered California says it has learned from those mistakes. Peter Lee, the executive director, says this year, the agency is doubling down on making sure Latinos get the right messages.

i i

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish. Covered California hide caption

itoggle caption Covered California

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish.

Covered California

"We're actually spending more money on outreach, education, and marketing this year for a three-month period than we spent for six months last year," he says.

The agency has hired 200 new call center counselors who speak languages other than English, Lee says. It is enlisting more trusted community organizations to allay fears about deportation. And it's rolling out a new ad campaign tailored specifically to Latinos.

"Every person you see [in these advertisements] that is a Spanish speaker is a Latino who got coverage through Covered California this last year, and it made a difference in their lives," says Lee.

This new video commercial shows pages of immigration documents flying into a safety vault – accompanied by verbal assurances that the application process is confidential.

But the main challenge, Lee says, is persuading Latinos to buy something they don't believe they need or is worth the price.

"They've adjusted to a culture of coping," he says. "We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage."

Still, a woman in a recent focus group in Connecticut showed Madrak that even the best messages might not work.

"She said, 'Listen, I saved everything that you guys sent me,' " Madrak says. " 'I have a box of postcards and letters that you sent me because it has the phone number on it and I wanted to save it.' And we said, 'Did you call?' And she said, 'No, I never called.' And we said, 'But you saved it all!' And she said, 'I know, I knew it was important; I just never got around to actually doing it.' "

That, Madrak says, is the big, continuing challenge.

Open enrollment runs from Saturday, Nov. 15, and goes through February 15, 2015.

This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WNPR, KQED and Kaiser Health News.

CAlifornia

Affordable Care Act

Connecticut

Health Insurance

Long-stalled legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline got new life on Wednesday after Senate Democrats suddenly abandoned efforts to block the measure in hopes of helping endangered Sen. Mary Landrieu keep her seat in energy-rich Louisiana.

Republicans responded swiftly to Landrieu's maneuvering, scheduling a vote in the House on Thursday on an identical bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy, Landrieu's Republican rival in a Dec. 6 runoff.

While the White House stopped short of directly threatening a veto, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review.

Republicans and several moderate Democrats insist that construction of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs. Environmentalists maintain that the project would have a negative impact and contribute to climate change.

"I believe that we should take the new majority leader at his word and stop blocking legislation that is broadly supported by the American public and has been for quite some time," Landrieu said in a speech on the Senate floor. "I want to say yes to majority leader — new majority leader Mitch McConnell. The time to start is now."

Landrieu cast herself as an independent willing to challenge Democrats and Republicans, hoping to shake up her Senate race.

"I've stood against my leadership," she told reporters, and added, "And I've stood up to the Republicans."

The back-and-forth came against the backdrop of a new political landscape and fresh calls for an end to Washington gridlock. Republicans rolled in midterm elections, seizing majority control of the Senate with a net gain of eight seats. A GOP victory in Louisiana would make it nine and Cassidy is heavily favored.

Come January, Republicans could have a 54-46 majority in the Senate if Cassidy wins, controlling the chamber and legislation for the first time in eight years.

McConnell said the election of a Republican Senate majority has already changed the dynamic.

"I hope this post-election conversion on Keystone signals Democrat cooperation on a whole host of other energy bills they have blocked, and whose passage would help to make America more energy-independent," he said in a statement.

Echoing Landrieu's plea for a vote were moderate Democrats from Republican states, who argued that the project that would carry oil from Canada south to the Gulf Coast. The southern leg of the pipeline between Oklahoma and Texas is already operational.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has moved in the past to prevent the Keystone measure from passing, giving credence to Republican claims that Landrieu is ineffective as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The Republican sponsor of the bill, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, said the measure has the support of all 45 Republicans and 11 Democrats. It will be incumbent upon Landrieu to persuade four more Democrats to back the measure to reach the 60-vote threshold.

One senior Senate Democratic aide said Reid would not attempt to defeat Landrieu's effort.

Asked if Obama would sign it, Landrieu told reporters: "I do not know."

Energy has been a central issue in the Senate race, and Keystone a frequent flashpoint with both Landrieu and Cassidy supporting the project. Cassidy has said Landrieu has been unable to deliver because of her party's leadership.

Landrieu has a strong alliance with the oil and gas industry and has pushed for an expansion of drilling in the U.S.

If elected, Cassidy would get a seat on the Energy panel. As a new senator, he would be low in the pecking order of panel members, and in the final two years of Obama's presidency, Cassidy and Louisiana's all-GOP congressional delegation would likely have little sway with the Democratic administration.

As Louisiana's last Democratic statewide elected official, Landrieu has a difficult path to victory in a state that overwhelmingly backed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Fifty-eight percent of voters supported someone other than Landrieu in the primary last week.

Republican leaders are uniting behind Cassidy, a three-term congressman, while the national Democratic Party has decided against providing advertising support for Landrieu in the runoff.

Asked if she was a lost cause, Landrieu told reporters, "No, I don't believe that I am."

In a statement, Cassidy said it "is easy to wonder if the Senate is only considering this because of politics, even so, I hope the Senate and the president do the right thing and pass this legislation creating thousands of jobs."

Two bills that would authorize building the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will soon come to a vote in Congress, as their sponsors — Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La. — head toward a runoff election next month to decide who will win the Senate race.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports:

"On the Senate floor, Landrieu called for action on the Canada-to-Texas pipeline project, saying, 'I believe with a push we could actually get the votes that we need to pass the Keystone pipeline.'

"Soon after, Republican leaders in the House scheduled a vote Thursday on a Keystone bill sponsored by Landrieu's rival, Cassidy.

"The two face off in a Dec. 6 runoff. The pipeline is a key issue in Louisiana, where the oil and gas industry dominates."

Energy company TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Canada to Texas; it has been a polarizing issue, pitting those who say it would create thousands of jobs against environmentalists who say tar sands oil is too expensive and toxic to refine. Where one side says the plan would bolster the energy industry, the other says it would increase greenhouse gases.

Wary landowners along its path have also spoken out, complaining that the pipeline would disrupt their property and damage farms — particularly if it ever sprang a leak. As the Two-Way has reported, "In February, a Nebraska judge struck down a 2012 law that allowed part of the pipeline to run through the state."

The AP notes that the Obama administration isn't welcoming news of a vote on the matter:

"While the White House stopped short of directly threatening a veto, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama takes a 'dim view' of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review."

From NPR's StateImpact project comes this background:

"The Keystone Pipeline already exists. What doesn't exist fully yet is its proposed expansion, the Keystone XL Pipeline. The existing Keystone runs from oil sand fields in Alberta, Canada, into the U.S., ending in Cushing, Okla.

"The 1,700 new miles of pipeline would offer two sections of expansion. First, a southern leg would connect Cushing, where there is a current bottleneck of oil, with the Gulf Coast of Texas, where oil refineries abound."

midterms 2014

Rep. Bill Cassidy

Sen. Mary Landrieu

Keystone XL Pipeline

Tomorrow it begins again – open enrollment for Obamacare. Two very successful state health insurance exchanges, Connecticut's and California's, are both intent on reaching people who avoided signing up last year – especially young Latinos and African-Americans.

"The big takeaway for us last year was that the uninsured were really pocketed in a couple of key, large cities," says Jason Madrak, the chief marketing officer of Access Health CT, in Connecticut. In light of that, he says, the exchange has changed its ad strategy.

"We've dialed up some of the more locally-focused efforts while we've dialed down some of the broader efforts," he says.

The uninsured people Madrak's trying to reach tend to be young, male, urban and Hispanic or African American. They also "aren't really consumers of traditional media," he says.

“ We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage.

- Peter Lee, executive director, Covered California

They don't necessarily read the big daily newspapers and they don't watch mainstream TV, so they can be harder to reach. So Madrak is spending his media money on ads in community newspapers and on local television and radio.

Shots - Health News

Selling Health Care To California's Latinos Got Lost In Translation

Reaching potential customers is the first half of the job. The second half is figuring out what to tell them. One emphasis is on money, like in this TV ad with a barber asking his customer if he has health insurance. When the customer says, "No, I can't afford it," the barber says, "Now, you can, with Access Health CT, since you may quality for help to pay for your coverage."

Madrak says the messages of ads that appear later in the open enrollment period, as people are starting think harder about choices, will be more specific about the cost of the insurance.

"If I say 'affordable,' nobody really knows what that means," he says. "If I say, 'I can get you a plan for 20 bucks a month with tax credits,' that means something to somebody at that point."

Credit: Access Health CT

California health officials are also deploying a new and (they hope) improved campaign to woo Latinos. Last year, Covered California made a series of missteps.

First, the exchange had only a handful of Spanish-speaking counselors at the call centers. And the Spanish advertising campaign was riddled with cultural oversights.

Among the worst gaffes: Some Latinos who worried that signing up would get undocumented relatives in trouble were shown a written promise from President Obama to the contrary – a note that, unfortunately, was printed on letterhead of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Covered California says it has learned from those mistakes. Peter Lee, the executive director, says this year, the agency is doubling down on making sure Latinos get the right messages.

i i

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish. Covered California hide caption

itoggle caption Covered California

Some of Covered California's ads detailing the benefits of insurance are in Spanish.

Covered California

"We're actually spending more money on outreach, education, and marketing this year for a three-month period than we spent for six months last year," he says.

The agency has hired 200 new call center counselors who speak languages other than English, Lee says. It is enlisting more trusted community organizations to allay fears about deportation. And it's rolling out a new ad campaign tailored specifically to Latinos.

"Every person you see [in these advertisements] that is a Spanish speaker is a Latino who got coverage through Covered California this last year, and it made a difference in their lives," says Lee.

This new video commercial shows pages of immigration documents flying into a safety vault – accompanied by verbal assurances that the application process is confidential.

But the main challenge, Lee says, is persuading Latinos to buy something they don't believe they need or is worth the price.

"They've adjusted to a culture of coping," he says. "We need to go from a culture of coping to a culture of coverage."

Still, a woman in a recent focus group in Connecticut showed Madrak that even the best messages might not work.

"She said, 'Listen, I saved everything that you guys sent me,' " Madrak says. " 'I have a box of postcards and letters that you sent me because it has the phone number on it and I wanted to save it.' And we said, 'Did you call?' And she said, 'No, I never called.' And we said, 'But you saved it all!' And she said, 'I know, I knew it was important; I just never got around to actually doing it.' "

That, Madrak says, is the big, continuing challenge.

Open enrollment starts Saturday, November 15, 2015 and goes through February 15, 2015.

This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WNPR, KQED and Kaiser Health News.

CAlifornia

Affordable Care Act

Connecticut

Health Insurance

Long-stalled legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline got new life on Wednesday after Senate Democrats suddenly abandoned efforts to block the measure in hopes of helping endangered Sen. Mary Landrieu keep her seat in energy-rich Louisiana.

Republicans responded swiftly to Landrieu's maneuvering, scheduling a vote in the House on Thursday on an identical bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy, Landrieu's Republican rival in a Dec. 6 runoff.

While the White House stopped short of directly threatening a veto, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review.

Republicans and several moderate Democrats insist that construction of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs. Environmentalists maintain that the project would have a negative impact and contribute to climate change.

"I believe that we should take the new majority leader at his word and stop blocking legislation that is broadly supported by the American public and has been for quite some time," Landrieu said in a speech on the Senate floor. "I want to say yes to majority leader — new majority leader Mitch McConnell. The time to start is now."

Landrieu cast herself as an independent willing to challenge Democrats and Republicans, hoping to shake up her Senate race.

"I've stood against my leadership," she told reporters, and added, "And I've stood up to the Republicans."

The back-and-forth came against the backdrop of a new political landscape and fresh calls for an end to Washington gridlock. Republicans rolled in midterm elections, seizing majority control of the Senate with a net gain of eight seats. A GOP victory in Louisiana would make it nine and Cassidy is heavily favored.

Come January, Republicans could have a 54-46 majority in the Senate if Cassidy wins, controlling the chamber and legislation for the first time in eight years.

McConnell said the election of a Republican Senate majority has already changed the dynamic.

"I hope this post-election conversion on Keystone signals Democrat cooperation on a whole host of other energy bills they have blocked, and whose passage would help to make America more energy-independent," he said in a statement.

Echoing Landrieu's plea for a vote were moderate Democrats from Republican states, who argued that the project that would carry oil from Canada south to the Gulf Coast. The southern leg of the pipeline between Oklahoma and Texas is already operational.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has moved in the past to prevent the Keystone measure from passing, giving credence to Republican claims that Landrieu is ineffective as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The Republican sponsor of the bill, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, said the measure has the support of all 45 Republicans and 11 Democrats. It will be incumbent upon Landrieu to persuade four more Democrats to back the measure to reach the 60-vote threshold.

One senior Senate Democratic aide said Reid would not attempt to defeat Landrieu's effort.

Asked if Obama would sign it, Landrieu told reporters: "I do not know."

Energy has been a central issue in the Senate race, and Keystone a frequent flashpoint with both Landrieu and Cassidy supporting the project. Cassidy has said Landrieu has been unable to deliver because of her party's leadership.

Landrieu has a strong alliance with the oil and gas industry and has pushed for an expansion of drilling in the U.S.

If elected, Cassidy would get a seat on the Energy panel. As a new senator, he would be low in the pecking order of panel members, and in the final two years of Obama's presidency, Cassidy and Louisiana's all-GOP congressional delegation would likely have little sway with the Democratic administration.

As Louisiana's last Democratic statewide elected official, Landrieu has a difficult path to victory in a state that overwhelmingly backed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Fifty-eight percent of voters supported someone other than Landrieu in the primary last week.

Republican leaders are uniting behind Cassidy, a three-term congressman, while the national Democratic Party has decided against providing advertising support for Landrieu in the runoff.

Asked if she was a lost cause, Landrieu told reporters, "No, I don't believe that I am."

In a statement, Cassidy said it "is easy to wonder if the Senate is only considering this because of politics, even so, I hope the Senate and the president do the right thing and pass this legislation creating thousands of jobs."

It's a gray afternoon in Columbia, Mo., and Officer Cory Dawkins is escorting a man to jail — the suspect is charged with endangering a child. Dawkins pushes a button on his body camera to start recording, then exits his patrol car and walks the suspect inside the jailhouse.

The officer signs papers, talks shop with the guards, and returns to his vehicle.

While Dawkins didn't need his camera for this process, he's glad he has one. Especially after what happened in Ferguson, Mo., about an hour and a half away. When Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August, he was not wearing a body camera to record the incident.

"Unfortunately that officer in Ferguson did not have a body camera, or we might not be having this conversation," Dawkins says. "We might not have had all the mayhem that's happened in Ferguson if he had been wearing a body camera."

Sixteen days before the Ferguson shooting, Columbia's police department announced it was equipping all of its officers with body cameras made by Taser International.

The cost was about $130,000 up front for hardware and software, and then $40,000 every year after that for digital storage. Assistant Chief John Gordon says that while that's a lot of money, with a smaller force it's feasible.

"That's also for 100 officers," he says. "Well, St. Louis County, St. Louis city, I don't know how many officers those [have], but I mean that's huge. A huge investment."

i i

In its first earnings report since Ferguson, Taser International said bookings for camera and digital evidence storage nearly tripled from the same period last year. Taser International hide caption

itoggle caption Taser International

In its first earnings report since Ferguson, Taser International said bookings for camera and digital evidence storage nearly tripled from the same period last year.

Taser International

And Gordon worries that the attention generated by events in Ferguson may force other departments to make some difficult tradeoffs.

"Our fundamentals is to provide services to our taxpayers," Gordon says. "Our fundamentals is to protect our officers and our employees. And another one of our fundamentals is to make sure that we have a good trained staff, and those things should never be sacrificed for technology."

But more attention is a good thing for Dan Behrendt, chief financial officer at Taser International, the dominant player in the officer body camera market.

"It's a really exciting time for Taser and certainly all the momentum we're seeing in our wearable camera business is fun to talk about," Behrendt says.

In its first earnings report since Ferguson, Taser said bookings for camera and digital evidence storage nearly tripled from the same period last year.

Post-Ferguson, Behrendt says the number of agencies seeking out Taser cameras, something he calls inbound activity, is surging.

"The two weeks after Ferguson we saw about a [tenfold] increase in inbound activity and that sort of sustained at about [double] what the previous level was," he says.

Steve Dyer, an analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital in Minneapolis, says with about 1 million sworn police officers in the U.S., there are lots of sales opportunities.

"It's a bit of a land grab, and by that I mean that I think a lot of these deals, you know, will happen, will be won in the next 12 to 18 months," Dyer says.

Dyer says Taser is positioned well to expand quickly to match demand, in part because it already sells police departments the weapons that share its name.

All Tech Considered

Using Technology To Counter Police Mistrust Is Complicated

The new demand is also luring others into the market.

Law

Even Police Body Cameras Can Lose Sight Of The Truth

Gordon, the assistant chief, says in just the past few months, he's seen new companies introducing competing technology.

"We're on a 3-year contract with Taser," he says. "But in 2 to 2 1/2 years, we're going to start seeing what technology is out there."

And when the time comes to renew their contract, Gordon is hopeful that the new generation of cameras will be much cheaper.

body cameras

Ferguson, Mo.

Police

A federal grand jury in West Virginia has indicted former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship for allegedly thwarting mine safety enforcement and conspiring to violate mine safety law when the company owned the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

In 2010, the mine exploded and 29 miners died. The indictment stems from that disaster and also accuses Blankenship of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the company's safety practices and stock purchases.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin declined to comment.

William Taylor, Blankenship's attorney, said in a statement that his client is innocent and will fight all charges.

"His outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats has earned this indictment," Taylor said. "He will not yield to their effort to silence him."

Blankenship has been an outspoken critic of mine safety measures and environmental policy.

In a federal court hearing last year, a former president of one of Massey's subsidiary mining companies accused Blankenship of conspiring with him to warn miners and foremen underground when federal regulators arrived for surprise safety inspections. Former Massey executive David Hugart had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts says the indictment brings families of the victims of the Upper Big Branch explosion and other accidents "one step closer to a measure of justice."

"The carnage that was a recurring nightmare at Massey mines during Blankenship's tenure at the head of that company was unmatched," Roberts added. Massey mines became largely nonunion under Blankenship's management.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement that Blankenship "will be treated far fairer and with more dignity than he ever treated the miners he employed," as he goes to trial. "And frankly," Rockefeller added, "it's far more than he deserves."

Blankenship suddenly left Massey Energy in December 2010 in a dispute with the company's board over sale of the company. In 2011, Alpha Natural Resources absorbed Massey, and Blankenship ended up with a departure package worth an estimated $86 million, according to an analysis of company records conducted by an investment banking firm.

An independent investigation of the Upper Big Branch disaster commissioned by Joe Manchin, then the governor of West Virginia, concluded that the corporate culture at Massey put production before safety.

If convicted of all four counts, Blankenship faces as much as 31 years in prison.

Updated at 1:20 p.m. ET.

In a deal that ends a months-long — and much-publicized — stalemate, Amazon and Hachette Book Group have reached what the companies say is a multiyear agreement on the pricing of e-books and print books. Under the new terms, which will take effect early next year, Hachette will set the consumer prices of its e-books — a key sticking point in the often heated negotiations.

Further details of the agreement weren't immediately available.

"This is great news for writers," Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch said in a statement. "The new agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners."

The sentiment was echoed in a statement released by Amazon executive David Naggar: "We are pleased with this new agreement as it includes specific financial incentives for Hachette to deliver lower prices, which we believe will be a great win for readers and authors alike."

Both companies had been seeking a deal since Hachette's contract with Amazon expired in March, only to be briefly extended by the online retailer into April. The stymied negotiations drew protests from authors on both sides of the dispute, including some who called for Justice Department scrutiny of Amazon's business practices.

Among the most vocal critics during the dispute was Hachette author Douglas Preston, who in June helped organize the Authors United group in opposition to Amazon. As a result, more than 900 authors signed a letter of protest printed as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times.

"The word 'worried' is an understatement," Preston told NPR's Neda Ulaby in September, explaining his motivations. "I mean, there are 2,500 authors whose books are being sanctioned, and they are in a panic."

Not every author had been on Hachette's side of the dispute, though. As NPR's Lynn Neary noted in July, several self-published authors defended Amazon with a letter of their own — a petition published on Change.org.

Thursday's deal appears to put an end to that long-simmering dispute. For Amazon, though, it marks the second pricing deal with a "Big Five" publisher in less than a month; it also inked an agreement with Simon & Schuster in October. In the coming months, Amazon is expected to negotiate new deals with HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Macmillan.

The two companies will now resume trading as usual, and Amazon promises that "Hachette books will be prominently featured in promotions."

hachette book group

e-books

Amazon.com

Automaker Volkswagen announced today a new policy that would allow interaction with labor unions at its plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., but specifically excluded collective bargaining from what it's calling the Community Organization Engagement policy.

In a statement Wednesday, Volkswagen said the new policy would allow a "constructive dialogue" with groups, including labor unions.

The policy sets up three levels of membership, which Nashville Public Radio explains: "The policy says unions have to prove they have support of at least 15 percent of employees. Depending on how big that group is, the union can gain access to the plant to post announcements. If they have enough members, they can meet regularly with VW management."

The company said an external auditor would verify membership.

The United Auto Workers, which lost an important vote at the Chattanooga plant in February, welcomed today's announcement, calling it "a step forward in building stronger relations between management and employees." The union added that it now represents a majority of workers at the plant.

That the UAW would welcome the news is unsurprising. As NPR's Bill Chappell noted in February:

"The Volkswagen plant's workers represented a possible lifeline to the UAW, which has seen its membership plunge from 1.5 million workers in 1979 to less than 400,000 in recent years. That's partly because of U.S. carmakers' layoffs, and partly because foreign automakers have opened new plants in the South, where tradition and laws have made it tough for the union to build momentum."

But today's Volkswagen statement noted, "This policy may not be used by any group or organization to claim or request recognition as the exclusive representative of any group of employees for the purposes of collective bargaining."

But The New York Times reports that the automaker has been under pressure from IG Metall, its labor union in Germany, to grant the UAW recognition in Chattanooga. The Wall Street Journal adds:

"The new policy could allow the auto maker to accomplish its goal of establishing a German-style 'works council' where workers and managers set up the rules and operations for the plant, but might prevent the UAW from gaining full bargaining control at the plant because of the presence of smaller unions."

One of those smaller groups is the American Council of Employees, a group of workers opposed to the UAW. Its members told The Journal that the policy "levels the playing field" for other unions that seek to represent workers at the plant.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, who previously opposed the UAW's bid to come to the state, told The Associated Press that he didn't "think there's really any new news in this beyond what they said before, but we need to let them speak for themselves on this."

Volkswagen

United Auto Workers

UAW

Tennessee