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Chinese authorities have seized thousands of rolls of toilet paper featuring a likeness of Hong Kong's unpopular chief executive that were destined for restrooms in the former British colony.

The BBC reports:

"Hong Kong's Democratic Party, which had planned to sell the novelty items at a fair next week, called the seizure a violation of freedom of expression.

The [8,000 rolls of] tissues were confiscated from a factory in mainland China on Friday."

Hong Kong's leader, Leung Chun-ying, is appointed by Beijing and many in the Chinese territory view him as a puppet of the mainland authorities. As the BBC notes "products mocking him have sold well in recent years."

The tissues, which the Democratic Party says sold well at Hong Kong's annual Chinese New Year celebration last year, featured variations on Leung's image, including one with the Chinese character for "liar" stamped on its forehead.

The seizure of the items follows months of unrest in Hong Kong as pro-democracy demonstrators have filled the streets to protest Beijing's decision to renege on a promise for open elections for Leung's replacement in 2017.

The Associated Press reports that the authorities gave no reason for confiscating the toilet tissue, valued at $12,900.

"I guess (the Chinese authorities) don't like people mocking government officials, especially high-ranking government officials after the movement. They have become more cautious about criticisms about them," Lo Kin-hei, a vice chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, was quoted by the AP as saying.

Hong Kong protests

China

Pope Francis and the Vatican have recognized Oscar Romero as a martyr. This may move the name of the late archbishop of San Salvador a little further in the process that could one day make him a saint.

But being deemed a martyr is also holy. It means the church believes his life can inspire people; Pope Francis has said Romero inspires him.

Romero was considered a kindly, orthodox conservative parish priest when Pope Paul appointed him archbishop in 1977. He did not question El Salvador's ruling regime.

But that regime began to round up priests and nuns who said the teachings of Jesus led them to oppose El Salvador's military rulers. Several priests were killed. And Romero was truly galvanized. Responsibility opened his ear, and made his resolve as hard as steel.

In his weekly sermons, the archbishop began to read out the names of those civilians who were taken from their homes by the paramilitary and were never seen again: the desaparecido — the disappeared — as they became known. The simple weekly reading of names over the radio reached into every family.

One Sunday in 1980, in San Salvador's central cathedral, the archbishop spoke directly to Salvadoran soldiers, young men from small villages you'd see at armed checkpoints around the country, who often wore crucifixes on thin strings around their necks.

"Brothers," he said, "you are all killing your fellow countrymen. No soldier has to obey an immoral order. It is time to regain your conscience. In the name of God and in the name of the suffering people I implore you, I beg you, I order you, stop the repression."

It was a call for soldiers to heed the message of the crosses they wore, and their own consciences, above the regime.

And the very next night, as he celebrated mass in the small chapel of a clinic for cancer patients where he lived, a lone gunman in an unmarked uniform shot Romero to death. Years later, a U.N. commission found that a leader of the right-wing death squads had ordered his assassination.

But just before he was shot, Romero spoke words in the mass that may have been borne out by the recognition he received this week, and the reverence with which he is remembered.

"He who wants to withdraw from danger will lose his life," said Romero. "But the person who gives himself to the service of others will be like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies — but only apparently dies, for by its death, its wasting away in the ground, a new harvest is made."

Pope Francis

Catholic church

Vatican

Hedwig and the Angry Inch got rave reviews when it premiered off Broadway in the late 1990s. Since then, Hedwig, a gender-bending East German rock musician, has been portrayed by the likes of Neil Patrick Harris and Michael C. Hall. But for the first time since the play's debut and 2001 film adaptation, Hedwig is once again being played by the man who created every punk and glam-rock inch of her — John Cameron Mitchell. Mitchell tells NPR's Scott Simon where he got the idea for Hedwig:

"We had a baby sitter who doubled as a prostitute when we were in Kansas — Fort Riley, Kan. — and she became the germ of a character. She was a biological woman at the time. And my character is more of an accidental trans person who started out a boy in East Berlin trying to escape. The only way he could get out was to become a woman legally and marry an American GI. [He] didn't really want to become a woman; ended up divorced in a trailer park in Kansas and falls in love with a young man who goes on to become a rock star."

Mitchell will play Hedwig on Broadway until April 26.

Interview Highlights

On how his return to Hedwig has been different

Maybe I got less to lose, I don't care as much, but there's a kind of explosive, kind of rock and roll thing that I never quite got in the old days. I was coming out of Broadway myself and I wrote it with Stephen Trask to kind of make myself a fake rock star. And I could improvise and get out of the tried and true realm of my usual acting world. And now I don't really act anymore so I am much more spontaneous and messier on stage than I used to be. And I'm loving it.

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On how the show's meaning has changed for him

It's been a kind of microcosm of my life in many ways. Whatever you tend to write is an accretion of what's going on in your life, and at the time I was finding my own muscles and wings and escaping, you know, the system of being a normal actor. I was writing for the first time. I was in love for the first time. It was a wonderful time. It was loose, free. And now having experienced more loss, which is what happens when you move into your middle age and your parents ail, and you see the semi-permanence of everything. It has a different meaning. It feels deeper. It feels harder won. I feel extremely grateful to be able to do this. And I didn't think I'd be able to, just physically. Seven shows a week is hard on my old body.

On returning to Hedwig as a way of moving forward

I feel like I'm doing this to find out what's next in my life. You know, some people go off to an ashram or they, you know, have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car. For me, I do Hedwig, and I see it's a midlife crisis maybe, and I see what's next. And it's a good trampoline maybe into the next part of my life.

An eight-hour cease-fire declared in Eastern Ukraine allowed hundreds of civilians to escape heavy fighting between the government and Moscow-backed separatists, NPR's Teri Schultz reports.

About 50 buses entered the city of Debaltseve in the Donetsk region, Teri reports, then took those who wanted to leave to refugee centers farther from the fighting. The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that the fresh round of intense fighting has brought the number of internally displaced Ukrainians to nearly 1 million — in the middle of winter. High temperatures in the region are expected to hover just above freezing for the next week, according to weather.com.

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A Rise In The Civilian Death Toll As Ukraine Fighting Increases

The UN reports that in addition to those internally displaced, more than a half-million have fled the country entirely.

Europe

White House Urged To Re-Think Its Approach On Ukraine

"In addition, some 600,000 Ukrainians have sought asylum or other forms of legal stay in neighbouring countries, particularly the Russian Federation, but also Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Romania, since February 2014."

Parallels

The Russian Who Claims Credit For Fanning The Flames In Ukraine

The Associated Press reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande early Saturday, and that there would be a telephone call between the three leaders and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Sunday.

The European leaders, supported by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, have been pursuing a longer-term cease-fire in the conflict, which reintensified in in the past two weeks after a month of relative calm.

Vice President Joe Biden questioned Putin's resolve, the AP reported, saying he "continues to call for new peace plans as his troops roll through the Ukrainian countryside and he absolutely ignores every agreement that his country has signed in the past and that he has signed."

Ukraine

Russia

These days, when Larry David leaves work at the stage door of the Cort Theater, fans are lined up for his autograph. At age 67, David is now a Broadway star and that's new, scary territory for him.

David was co-creator of the TV sitcom Seinfeld and starred as himself — a cantankerous guy who says exactly what's on his mind — in the raucously funny HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. He hasn't been in a play since he was in eighth grade, but now he's written one called Fish in the Dark, and it's his name in lights.

The costumes hanging on the wall of his cramped dressing room — gray sweatpants, a shapeless blue jacket — look a lot like his schlumpy wardrobe in Curb Your Enthusiasm. There's a reason for that, which he explains to NPR's Melissa Block, who went to New York to talk with him about his Broadway debut.

The costumes hanging in David's dressing room aren't too far from his schlumpy wardrobe from Curb Your Enthusiasm. "Why can't I just wear my own clothes?" David asks. Melissa Block/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Melissa Block/NPR

"You know, everything I tried on I said, 'Why can't I just wear my own clothes?'" he says. "And they go 'No, no, you can't. You don't wear your own clothes.' I go, 'Well, I'm wearing my own clothes."

But the white dress shirt is definitely not his own: it has snaps on the inside placket to make for a quick costume change. "I can't say enough about the snap," David says. "Buttons should be eliminated."

... and just like that, he's off on a Larry David riff:

"I've always hated the button fly..." he laments. "The button fly, it's untenable, it can't be dealt with at all. I mean, you don't know because you're not a man, but you know — you've got to get there — and now you're dealing with buttons, opening buttons, it's not a good situation!"

But back to the play. Fish in the Dark is a comedy about a death in the family, a vigil at the hospital and the messy, funny aftermath. It all started with a conversation David had after a friend's father died.

"There were some very interesting and — dare I say — funny things surrounding it," David says.

So he started writing. But even as he wrote the play (and created a lead character who sounds very much like himself) he claims he didn't want to star in it:

"Who wants to do this thing?" he says. "It's insane! It's Groundhog Day! I'm living Groundhog Day. I don't even want to go to bed at night because I know when I wake up in the morning, it's going to be the same day again. ... It's taxing. I mean, it's not driving a cab or doing construction, but for me — for my delicate world — yeah, it's hard."

In addition to being hard, David says it's surreal to be on stage and ride a wave of laughter. "I didn't think it was going to get any laughs at all," he admits. "I'm so negative! So the first time we did it, like every laugh was a surprise to me because I was expecting nothing. That's how bleak I am."

"I'm not an actor — I consider myself, you know, a comedian, not really an actor ... I like to interject, and there's no interjections here. You have to wait and talk, and wait and talk ... [it's] very unnatural for an interrupter, and for a guy who likes to talk."

- Larry David

Which seems strange, because David spent years as a standup comedian, and there were all those seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. But that dialogue was mostly improvised — this is different.

"I'm not an actor — I consider myself, you know, a comedian, not really an actor," he explains. "Actors have to wait to talk, you know, there are lines, specific lines that you have to say ... I don't like waiting. I like to interject, and there's no interjections here. You have to wait and talk, and wait and talk ... [it's] very unnatural for an interrupter, and for a guy who likes to talk."

The show is still in previews, which means they're still fiddling with it — pruning lines, working on pacing and tone. During a recent rehearsal, David paces, frowns, sighs. Sometimes in a scene you can tell he's itching to interject. He wants to ad lib something. And why not? At one point — he looks out at the director, Anna D. Shapiro, and offers, "I can fill a little bit there, can't I?"

Shapiro says it's all been an adjustment. "He told me when he started his biggest problem is going to be that he wants to stare at the audience," she says. "Like, every time they laugh I think he wants to turn out and go: 'Thank you! Thank you so much!'"

As for him not being an actor and moving from improvised television to the stage — Shapiro says he's starting to get over that. The previous night she says she found him backstage, completely sweaty, tearing off his sweater.

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"He looked at me and he goes, 'How do people do this? How do they do this? This is crazy!' " Shapiro says. "And I was just dying laughing — because he felt it! And as much as he was 'complaining' about it — I've never seen him look that alive, he had a sparkle in his eye. He was acting. He acted. And it feels really good when you do it and when you don't have to pretend you didn't."

Fish in the Dark will run on Broadway until June 7 — which is a lot of Groundhog Days. "How can I get out of this? ..." David quips. "Get in an accident? Well, would it be better to be in a hospital bed for the next couple months? I'm, you know, weighing it."

Many Republicans claim that President Obama is among the most polarizing presidents in modern history. If the results of a new Gallup survey measuring his approval rating are any indication, they might be right.

The president's overall approval rating for his just finished sixth year in office stood at 42.6 percent, according to Gallup. That's well below Bill Clinton's or Ronald Reagan's sixth-year average (63.8 percent and 59.9 percent, respectively). Even so, Obama's average for the year is still ahead of Richard Nixon (25.4 percent), who was by this point in his presidency mired in Watergate, George W. Bush (37.3 percent) or Harry S. Truman (38.6 percent).

But another measure that looks at how Republicans and Democrats view presidential performance shows that Obama is on track to be the most polarizing president ever, nudging out his predecessor with an average 70-point gap between the political parties.

"Both Bush and Obama were elected with hopes of unifying the country. However, the opposite has happened, at least in the way Americans view the job the president is doing, with presidential evaluations more divided along party lines than ever before, Gallup notes.

"These increasingly partisan views of presidents may have as much to do with the environment in which these presidents have governed as with their policies, given 24-hour news coverage of what they do and increasingly partisan news and opinion sources on television, in print and online," the polling organization says.

In his sixth year in office, 79 percent of Democrats approve of Obama's performance, while just 9 percent of Republicans do. George W. Bush's numbers were exactly reversed in year six of his presidency (79 percent of Republicans approval vs. 9 percent for Democrats).

Obama and Bush had their most polarized approval ratings in their fourth years in office, both with a 76 percentage point gap between Republicans and Democrats for the final year of their first term (although Bush had slightly higher approval from both parties, the gap was still the same). As Gallup points out, the fourth year is typically the most polarized in a president's due to it being an election year.

According to Gallup: "Each of Obama's six years in office rank among the 10 most polarized in the last 60 years, with George W. Bush holding the other four spots. Bush's most polarized years were his fourth through seventh years in office, after the rally in support for him following the 9/11 terror attacks had faded. Clearly, political polarization has reached new heights in recent years, under a Republican and a Democratic president."

Gallup Poll

President Obama

President Bush

Thailand's junta — smarting over U.S. criticism of last year's coup that ousted an elected government — has announced that it will strengthen military ties with China over the next five years.

An agreement with Beijing was announced during a two-day visit to Bangkok by China's Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, reports Michael Sullivan.

The two sides say they'll increase cooperation in intelligence gathering and fighting transnational crime.

The move is viewed as a possible shift away from Washington, even as the U.S. has hoped to pivot toward Asia.

The two countries have been viewed as strong allies and closely cooperated during the Vietnam War, despite Thailand's revolving door of military governments. Even so, an annual joint military exercise between the two countries, known as Cobra Gold, is scheduled to go ahead as planned on Feb. 9, although Washington has scaled back the scope of it since the May 22 coup.

The Bangkok Post says: "China's Defense Minister Chang Wanquan also took pains to stress that Beijing has no plans to 'interfere' with Thailand's military regime, something the Thai government feels its long-time ally, the United States, did last month during the visit of a high-ranking diplomat."

The high-ranking diplomat in question, Daniel Russel, is the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs. Russel sparked the ire of Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha's government last month with a speech at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University that criticized the government's crackdown on free expression and called for an end to martial law, which has been in force since the May coup.

"I'll be blunt here," Russel told the audience at Chulalongkorn, one of Thailand's most prestigious universities. "When an elected leader is deposed, impeached by the authorities that implemented the coup, and then targeted with criminal charges while basic democratic processes and institutions are interrupted, the international community is left with the impression that these steps could be politically driven."

The remarks referred to the impeachment of twice-elected former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government was ousted in the May putsch. Her impeachment came months after she was ousted and living in self-imposed exile.

After the speech, Thailand's deputy foreign minister summoned the U.S. embassy's charge d'affaires, W. Patrick Murphy, to express his concern over "a wound that the U.S. inflicted on Thai people."

In addition to moving closer to China, Thailand's new leadership has also sought closer ties with neighboring Myanmar, which has its own history of military governments.

Thailand

China

As debate mounts in the U.S. over whether or not to require measles vaccinations, global immunization rates show something interesting: Many poor countries have far higher vaccination rates than rich ones.

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Once A Vaccine Skeptic, This Mom Changed Her Mind

Tanzania gets the most bang for its GDP-buck when it comes to measles vaccination. The East African nation is ranked 200th out of 228 countries in terms of gross domestic product per capita. Yet 99 percent of Tanzanians are vaccinated against measles.

By comparison, 91 percent of Americans have gotten the shot. (Check out this cool interactive map from the World Health Organization to see for yourself.)

The world's worst rate of measles immunization is in the Central African Republic. Given the intense violence that's been tearing that country apart for two years, parents in the CAR can be forgiven for not being up on their vaccines.

Goats and Soda

Beyond Rash And Fever: How Measles Can Kill

One of the other laggards on measles has no excuse. Equatorial Guinea has the third worst measles vaccination rate worldwide with just 42 percent of its population immunized. Unlike the two countries below it in the rankings (CAR and South Sudan), Equatorial Guinea is not in a state of war. And it's not poor either. Equatorial Guinea is a major oil exporter, pumping more than 300,000 barrels of oil each day. It's classified by the U.N. as a "high-income" country alongside the likes of the U.S., Japan and France.

In an ironic twist, Equatorial Guinea is holding this year's Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament, after fears about Ebola caused Morocco to back out as host. Equatorial Guinea, however, could be fertile ground for a measles outbreak.

Goats and Soda

Measles Is A Killer: It Took 145,000 Lives Worldwide Last Year

Among other rich nations, Austria is a standout for how few of its people have had measles shots. At a 75 percent immunization rate, Austria comes in just above Afghanistan, but below even Yemen and Sierra Leone.

What about over here in the Western Hemisphere? Yes, you guessed it: Haiti has the lowest measles vaccine coverage rate at 65 percent. The next worse is on the other side of the island of Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic reaches 79 percent of its kids.

When it comes to countries with the biggest populations, China is going all out against measles while India is lagging. China vaccinates 99 percent of its nearly 1.36 billion people, but India covers just 74 percent of its 1.25 billion.

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measles

Global Health

Map

Updated at 9:10 a.m. ET

Some 257,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January, continuing a 12-month-span of 200,000+ growth, according to the Department of Labor. Even so, in a separate survey released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the benchmark unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 5.7 percent.

The data exceeded the consensus forecast of economists, who looked for a slight slowing of growth from December. They forecast 230,000 new non-farm payroll jobs and an unemployment rate holding steady.

The healthy gains were in sharp contrast to six years ago, in January 2009, when the economy shed nearly 800,000 jobs in the depths of the Great Recession. In the first quarter of 2009, a whopping 2.3 million jobs were lost.

As we reported last month, unemployment rate had dipped from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent, while the economy added 252,000 jobs in December, according to initial reports.

January's slight rise in the unemployment rate from its 5.6 percent figure last month is explained by a 703,000 increase in the civilian labor force — amounting to a 0.2 percentage point rise in the labor force participation rate.

The month's data was also accompanied by a significant positive revision in the the November and December data. The revision pegs November's job gains at 423,000 from the 353,000 initially reported. Likewise, the December number was revised upward to 329,000 new jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the biggest job gains occurred in construction (+39,000), health care (+38,000) abd financial activities (+26,000). The manufacturing sector added 22,000 jobs.

CNBC reports that it is only the second time in the last 11 years that January's numbers beat Wall Street expectations.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"The report suggested employers maintained enough confidence to keep expanding in 2015 following the best year of job growth during the current expansion.

"The rise in workers' earnings offered a sign that slack in the labor market is diminishing. Average hourly earnings among private-sector workers rose 12 cents to $24.75 and were up 2.2% from a year earlier."

However, some offered up a note of caution on the good news. Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economists at High Frequency Economics said in a note to clients early Friday to "Be wary of January payroll data.

"While the data are noisy in general, limiting the information value of a single reading, the seasonal adjustment process is especially challenging in January," O'Sullivan wrote, according to The New York Times.

Even so, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high for some groups of individuals: for teenagers, it is 18.8 percent.

The rate for adult women was slightly better than for adult men (5.1 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively). The rate for whites was 4.9 percent and 4.0 percent for Asians. The rate for blacks was 10.3 percent and 6.7 percent for Hispanics.

U.S. economy

Jobs

Unemployment

In the 1990s, the face of immigration to Sweden was someone like Robert Acker. His family emigrated from Bosnia when he was 6 years old.

"I got along with the Swedes early on," he says in American-accented English from his years playing basketball in Kentucky and New York. "But now, I believe it's a totally different thing."

Acker lives in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, an industrial center that has become the power base for the far-right Sweden Democrats.

"They want us out," says Acker. "They just want Swedes here."

Across Europe, far-right anti-immigrant parties are gaining political power. This is true from the Slavic countries to the British Isles, and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.

The change has been especially dramatic in Sweden, which for decades has been known for its openness and tolerance.

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Residents wait at the bus stop in the Ronna neighborhood, where Syrian and Iraqi refugees are concentrated in Sdertalje, Sweden. The small Swedish city is known for its open-door policy toward refugees, which is mostly made up of Christian Syrians and Iraqis. People of Middle East origin account for 30,000 of the town's 90,000 residents.

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Father Stefan Ayoub presides over an evening prayer service at St. Gabriel Syrian Orthodox Church in Sdertalje. Ayoub moved here six years ago from Qamishli, a city in northeastern Syria. In the last three years, as civil war has torn apart Syria, and many residents from Qamishli want to come to Sodertalje.

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Parishioners attend a mid-week prayer service at St. Gabriel Syrian Orthodox Church. Since the Syrian war began three years ago, the town has seen a marked increase in Syrian refugees resettling in Sdertalje, straining many city services.

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Firas Jabro of Qamishli, Syria, wrote Swedish words and their Arabic translations in the Swedish language class. Sodertalje's unemployment rate is twice as high as Sweden's national rate. That's partly because refugees are struggling to learn Swedish, a requirement for a job.

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Saad Shamoon Moshi (left), Father Stefan Ayoub, and Swedish teacher Marie Siln in the Swedish language class for immigrants. Even by Swedish standards, Sodertalje has been exceptionally welcoming to refugees.

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Apartment blocks in Hovsj neighborhood, where there is a high population of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Sdertalje. The Swedish city now has five Syrian Orthodox churches, two professional soccer teams, and a TV channel that broadcasts in Neo-Aramaic, Arabic and English to eighty countries.

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Thousands of refugees from Iraq and Syria have settled there recently. Many of them are Muslim — and the ethnic tension is palpable.

"We can't take care of all the people in the whole world who have needs in their lives," says security guard Filip Wennerlund.

Wennerlund didn't mind Christian immigrants, but he believes it's not working with the Muslims, even though Sweden has had a Muslim population for decades.

"Often they don't want to come here and change," he says. "They want to change us. And we don't want to be changed. So that's a conflict."

Tensions Play Out In Politics

The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats first gained a foothold in Parliament in the 2010 elections. Last September, they more than doubled their performance from 4 years earlier, winning 13 percent of the national vote. For a party with its roots in the Neo-Nazi fringe, this was a remarkable transformation.

"They were much more extreme in the beginning, and now they're more mainstream," says Ana-Lena Lodenius, a freelance journalist and author who specializes in far-right political parties. "They want to transform the society," she says, to make it "more homogeneous."

To Sweden Democrats and their supporters, immigrants are distorting Swedish society beyond recognition.

"Immigrants are in general little bit more criminal than Swedes born in Sweden, and that's a fact," party leader Jimmie Akesson recently told the BBC. "You can see it especially in violence, rape and so on."

Two young girls carry leaflets that read, "Don't touch my mosque," as they participate in a demonstration at the house of parliament in Stockholm on last month. Fredrik Sandberg/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Fredrik Sandberg/AFP/Getty Images

Of course others dispute that claim. Nonetheless, the Sweden Democrats want to cut immigration by 90 percent. And they are willing to take dramatic steps to make it happen.

In December, this insurgent political party brought Sweden's government to the brink of collapse.

Only two months after the new government took power, the minority Sweden Democrats blocked Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's budget proposal. He called emergency elections — a development that Anders Widfeldt of the University of Aberdeen calls nearly unprecedented.

Jimmie Aakesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats Party, top left, attends the opening of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm in September 2014. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images

Widfeldt, author of a book called Extreme Right Parties in Scandinavia, says the Sweden Democrats proudly declare themselves to be outsiders, dedicated to upsetting the apple cart.

"They are sort of against everybody else," he says. "And the bigger they grow, of course, the more of a veto power they will have."

Just before New Year's, the prime minister forged a new alliance, got a budget deal, and avoided those snap elections. But these tensions are growing far beyond politics.

Racism Isn't Matter Of Simple 'Good Versus Evil'

Across Sweden, three mosques were fire-bombed in the span of a month.

"Every time I wake up, I'm very afraid to check my telephone to see that something happened during the night," says Omar Mustafa, president of the Islamic Association of Sweden.

At an interview in his Stockholm office, he says that although Sweden has a history of racism, "this year, and this time especially, it's the most scary time actually. People are really afraid, and people are actually talking about moving from Sweden."

The Sweden Democrats insist that there is no connection between these attacks and the party's anti-immigration rhetoric. At an interview in Malmo, party official Nima Gholam Ali Pour suggests that Muslims may have fire-bombed the mosques.

"Were there personal problems in the mosque, or was it someone from another mosque," he asks. "There are conflicts between Muslims."

When pressed about swastikas that have been painted on the side of mosques, though, Ali says, "Of course that's racist. That's racist."

The story is more complicated than just white racist Christians attacking Muslim immigrants. Jews in Sweden say they are being attacked, too. A recent documentary on Swedish television showed a reporter walking down the street wearing a yarmulke, as a hidden camera filmed bystanders shouting insults and threats.

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Riots In Sweden. That's Right. Sweden

And in many cases, the people attacking Jews are Muslim immigrants.

"Almost exclusively, they have some sort of background in the Middle East," says Aron Verstandig, a leader in Stockholm's Jewish community.

Verstandig says many people try to paint these ethnic tensions as good versus evil. They want clear victims and perpetrators, in separate boxes. But in fact, he says, the roles overlap and switch.

"You have these immigrants who are very poor, and they are the victims of a lot of violence, a lot of hatred from Sweden Democrats and other right-wing parties. And they are victims in one way," Verstandig says. "But some of them — a minority of them — are perpetrators in another way. You don't have people who are just good and bad. It's a very complex situation."

Omar Mustafa of the Islamic Association of Sweden agrees. He says it's part of humanity that there are always extremists.

"We have it in Islam, there is in Christianity, there is in the Swedish community. There is everywhere," Mustafa says. "So it's a good opportunity for us, the rest of society, to really take back the agenda. And we have to say to them, we don't buy it."

Mustafa says when fringe groups try to speak on behalf of everyone, the moderate majority needs to speak up — and say, "We have a different story to tell."

Boys read messages posted on the entrance of a mosque in Uppsala by neighbors pledging their support last month. Anders Wiklund/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Anders Wiklund/AFP/Getty Images

Updated at 10:23 a.m. ET

FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg — who has been at the center of controversial decisions such as relaxing age restrictions on the Plan B contraceptive — has decided to step down after six years in the job.

In a letter to FDA staff, Hamburg called the tenure "the most rewarding of my career." She cited, among other things, the agency's record in improving food safety, advancing the safety and effectiveness of medical products, reducing the time for pre-market reviews of medical devices as highlights of her six years at the FDA's helm.

Hamburg said FDA Chief Scientist Dr. Stephen Ostroff will serve as acting commissioner when she steps down at the end of March.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dr. Robert Cahill, who was recently selected by Hamburg to become the agency's deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco, is regarded as her likely successor for the top job.

News reports say the White House will announce Hamburg's departure on Friday.

Hamburg, 59, was approved by the Senate in 2009 and is among the longest-serving FDA commissioners the modern era.

FDA

Been there. And there. And there, too.

Chris Guillebeau's travels began in 2002, when he was an aid worker in Sierra Leone, and ended in Norway in 2013. Along the way, he's been to every single U.N. recognized country in the world: a grand total of 193.

Guillebeau, an adventurer at heart, had set a goal of visiting 100 countries, but he soon decided it wasn't ambitious enough. So he figured, why not go to every country?

A New York Times best-selling author of books on startups and entrepreneurship, Guillebeau says there are no better examples of self-starters than in developing countries, where resources are limited and a formal economy is often missing. "A lot of the writing and research done about startups and entrepreneurship are very focused on Silicon Valley," he tells Goats and Soda. "What I saw is that most people in villages whether they're part of the growing middle class or whether they're really poor, they are all entrepreneurs."

Guillebeau, who is currently promoting The Happiness of Pursuit, a memoir of his travels, has plenty of insights to share. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you define entrepreneurship?

Essentially all entrepreneurship is providing s­­olutions to problem. And people in lesser-income countries are all about finding these crafty solutions. In some ways they're funny to us if we look at them from a Western mindset. I remember meeting with a government minister in Sierra Leone, and her filing system was essentially to tack everything up to the wall. There was no filing cabinet. She had to get up on a ladder to pull out a file. I thought that was funny, but she had a handle on where everything was.

Why is there so much entrepreneurial spirit in the developing world?

Many don't have jobs. In some places they're kind of just making their own way buying and selling things. For a long time they've been doing this thing that everybody now is talking about in the West — being entrepreneurs and working for yourself. Of course they have disadvantages. They don't have the same access to capital or the same kind of technology and trading partners. But this model of self-reliance is very positive and optimistic. Nobody is waiting for someone else to do something for them.

Was that true even in the poorest of countries?

I lived in Liberia for a year [as an aid worker] after the civil war, and that's definitely one of the countries with the fewest resources. But if you talk to people on the streets, like "how are you doing," they always use the phrase "I'm managing," even if they're struggling. It kind of implies a sense of navigating the struggles [and] overcoming them.

In the U.S., Uber is one of the most popular startups. But I understand the concept really isn't all that new?

When I was in Mongolia in [the capital] Ulan Bator, it took me a little while to figure out that the public transport system there is that pretty much every single private vehicle is essentially a taxi. So this is kind of like the precursor to Uber, which everyone in Silicon Valley is so proud of. Ten years ago in Mongolia, if you wanted to go somewhere, my host [told me] you go on the street and make this certain hand signal, designating which direction you're going. If you're going to the airport, you make this airplane flapping signal. And then some guy will slow down and you guys will talk about the price. There's no manual or infrastructure, but it works.

What would you say is a big challenge for lower-income countries?

Corruption holds back so many people, in particular lower income people in the lower income countries. When I was in West Africa, particularly in Guinea, someone told me that even when there is somewhat of a formal economy, like in [the capital] Conakry, potentially everyone kind of lives by this law of corruption. You can be a well-meaning teacher, but you're not paid for a week. So you start taking school supplies and then you sell them on the streets because that's what everybody else does.

You once said the strangest thing you saw was a cow in the back of a taxicab.

[Laughs] Well that's pretty much the story. One day I saw this cow wedged into the backseat of a taxi with [its] head sticking out. This was in Freetown, Sierra Leone and was just one of those things you would never expect to see. I was in another taxi and said something to the driver, and he's like, "Oh yeah, there's a cow in the taxi." I guess that's how you transport a cow.

Was the cow dead or alive?

I'm not sure. I really don't know.

What can we learn from the developing world?

In [places] like northern Europe, if you walk into a shop you just do your business. But in lots of lower income countries, there's much more to a greeting. When you really get into rural areas it's not just about saying, "Hi, how are you?" It's more like "Hi, how are you and how is your family and how are things?" It can go on for seven or eight questions, and if you're in an agrarian society that does farming, you actually ask about their livestock: "How are your children and how are your goats?" The children are important but the goats are not too far behind.

So all of these things are actually conducted before you get to what you actually have come to discuss. Those kinds of extended greetings essentially show interest in all that is of worth in the other person's life. It's also fun because you can go to a village that's really, really small and you think, "How in the world can I spend a lot of time here?" But if there are 50 people in that village, you're going to talk to most of them and the conversation will take some time. If you can adapt to that, then I think you'll be far more successful as a traveler. And maybe it's actually a better way of life.

world travel

entrepreneurship

Been there. And there. And there, too.

Chris Guillebeau's travels began in 2002, when he was an aid worker in Sierra Leone, and ended in Norway in 2013. Along the way, he's been to every single U.N. recognized country in the world: a grand total of 193.

Guillebeau, an adventurer at heart, had set a goal of visiting 100 countries, but he soon decided it wasn't ambitious enough. So he figured, why not go to every country?

A New York Times best-selling author of books on startups and entrepreneurship, Guillebeau says there are no better examples of self-starters than in developing countries, where resources are limited and a formal economy is often missing. "A lot of the writing and research done about startups and entrepreneurship are very focused on Silicon Valley," he tells Goats and Soda. "What I saw is that most people in villages whether they're part of the growing middle class or whether they're really poor, they are all entrepreneurs."

Guillebeau, who is currently promoting The Happiness of Pursuit, a memoir of his travels, has plenty of insights to share. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you define entrepreneurship?

Essentially all entrepreneurship is providing s­­olutions to problem. And people in lesser-income countries are all about finding these crafty solutions. In some ways they're funny to us if we look at them from a Western mindset. I remember meeting with a government minister in Sierra Leone, and her filing system was essentially to tack everything up to the wall. There was no filing cabinet. She had to get up on a ladder to pull out a file. I thought that was funny, but she had a handle on where everything was.

Why is there so much entrepreneurial spirit in the developing world?

Many don't have jobs. In some places they're kind of just making their own way buying and selling things. For a long time they've been doing this thing that everybody now is talking about in the West — being entrepreneurs and working for yourself. Of course they have disadvantages. They don't have the same access to capital or the same kind of technology and trading partners. But this model of self-reliance is very positive and optimistic. Nobody is waiting for someone else to do something for them.

Was that true even in the poorest of countries?

I lived in Liberia for a year [as an aid worker] after the civil war, and that's definitely one of the countries with the fewest resources. But if you talk to people on the streets, like "how are you doing," they always use the phrase "I'm managing," even if they're struggling. It kind of implies a sense of navigating the struggles [and] overcoming them.

In the U.S., Uber is one of the most popular startups. But I understand the concept really isn't all that new?

When I was in Mongolia in [the capital] Ulan Bator, it took me a little while to figure out that the public transport system there is that pretty much every single private vehicle is essentially a taxi. So this is kind of like the precursor to Uber, which everyone in Silicon Valley is so proud of. Ten years ago in Mongolia, if you wanted to go somewhere, my host [told me] you go on the street and make this certain hand signal, designating which direction you're going. If you're going to the airport, you make this airplane flapping signal. And then some guy will slow down and you guys will talk about the price. There's no manual or infrastructure, but it works.

What would you say is a big challenge for lower-income countries?

Corruption holds back so many people, in particular lower income people in the lower income countries. When I was in West Africa, particularly in Guinea, someone told me that even when there is somewhat of a formal economy, like in [the capital] Conakry, potentially everyone kind of lives by this law of corruption. You can be a well-meaning teacher, but you're not paid for a week. So you start taking school supplies and then you sell them on the streets because that's what everybody else does.

You once said the strangest thing you saw was a cow in the back of a taxicab.

[Laughs] Well that's pretty much the story. One day I saw this cow wedged into the backseat of a taxi with [its] head sticking out. This was in Freetown, Sierra Leone and was just one of those things you would never expect to see. I was in another taxi and said something to the driver, and he's like, "Oh yeah, there's a cow in the taxi." I guess that's how you transport a cow.

Was the cow dead or alive?

I'm not sure. I really don't know.

What can we learn from the developing world?

In [places] like northern Europe, if you walk into a shop you just do your business. But in lots of lower income countries, there's much more to a greeting. When you really get into rural areas it's not just about saying, "Hi, how are you?" It's more like "Hi, how are you and how is your family and how are things?" It can go on for seven or eight questions, and if you're in an agrarian society that does farming, you actually ask about their livestock: "How are your children and how are your goats?" The children are important but the goats are not too far behind.

So all of these things are actually conducted before you get to what you actually have come to discuss. Those kinds of extended greetings essentially show interest in all that is of worth in the other person's life. It's also fun because you can go to a village that's really, really small and you think, "How in the world can I spend a lot of time here?" But if there are 50 people in that village, you're going to talk to most of them and the conversation will take some time. If you can adapt to that, then I think you'll be far more successful as a traveler. And maybe it's actually a better way of life.

world travel

entrepreneurship

Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor, has acknowledged he was not aboard a helicopter that was hit and forced down by enemy fire during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It's an about-face for Williams and the network, which for years claimed the anchor was aboard the chopper.

Williams' admission and apology was reported by Stars And Stripes.

"I would not have chosen to make this mistake," Williams told the newspaper. "I don't know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another."

Williams, the newspaper said, most recently made the claim about being on the helicopter last Friday when presenting his network's coverage of a tribute to a retired soldier who provided security for grounded helicopters.

"The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG," Williams said on the broadcast. "Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry."

But Stars And Stripes adds: "The NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said."

The newspaper quoted an Army sergeant as saying Williams and his NBC team were actually aboard a Chinook that took no fire but did land.

Brian Williams

NBC

Stars and Stripes

Iraq

State legislatures are back in session, under more Republican control now than at any other time in U.S. history. One issue they'll be debating a lot is voting — who gets to do it and how.

It's a hot topic, but this year's debate could be less contentious than it has been in the past. One reason is that lawmakers will be considering a lot of proposals to make voting easier and more efficient.

"In many states the most divisive battles have already been fought," says David Becker, director of election initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts. "That does give these states an opportunity to address more of these good governance issues. Things like, how do we make the voter registration process more effective, bring it into the 21st century? Should we adopt early voting, for instance? Should we expand the reach of mail voting?"

There are many such proposals among the 1,200 voting bills already introduced in state legislatures this year.

Several measures would expand online voter registration, something half the states already allow. Voters like the option and it saves money — something both parties can support.

Many lawmakers also want to clean up voter registration lists, which are often filled with outdated and invalid entries.

Wendy Underhill, who follows voting laws at the National Conference of State Legislatures, says there's a lot of interest in making sure that voter registration rolls are accurate. Several bills would require states to compare their voting lists with other states and national databases to weed out duplicate names.

There are also proposals in Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, New York and Oregon to do something completely new — automatically register eligible citizens to vote, unless they opt out.

Underhill says there are also many measures that would expand early and absentee voting.

"Right now, there are 37 states that offer such an opportunity for their voters," she says. "But that leaves another 13 states that don't have one of those options. And it looks like there is legislation in nine of those."

Becker says the bottom line is that voters today want convenience and lawmakers have gotten the message. Politicians have also realized that they might benefit.

"In the 2014 election cycle, both parties, particularly the Republican Party, used early voting quite effectively to their advantage to turn their voters out prior to Election Day," says Becker. "So this is something that both parties like. A voter they turn out early is a voter they don't have to worry about turning out on Election Day."

Of course, it's difficult to predict which of the many bills introduced will pass.

And it doesn't mean there won't be any big fights over voting in state legislative chambers. Republican lawmakers in Missouri, Nebraska and New Mexico are trying to push through bills requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls, something Democrats strongly oppose. And, Underhill says, there are similar efforts in West Virginia and Nevada that will be especially interesting to watch.

"Because, in both cases, the legislature was in the hands of Democrats until the 2014 elections and now, in both cases, the legislature is in the hands of Republicans," she says. "So it's possible that voter ID will have more of a chance there than in previous years."

She adds that there might be fewer contentious voter ID proposals so far this year because voter ID laws already enacted in other states are being challenged in the courts. Proponents might wait to see how that plays out first, before pushing ahead with their own proposals.

I'm guessing that the first thing fans of Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad want to know is whether its AMC prequel series, Better Call Saul, premiering Sunday and Monday is anywhere near as good as the original — which was TV at its very best. And I'm also guessing that people who haven't yet worked their way through Breaking Bad — and, really, by now, why not? — are wondering whether they can enjoy this new series without having absorbed the old one.

So let me announce with enthusiasm, at the outset: yes and yes. Better Call Saul not only stands right alongside Breaking Bad as a stunningly entertaining TV series — it stands on its own. Oh, if you know Breaking Bad well, you'll love some of the surprise treats and appearances heading your way — but even if you're a complete stranger to the character played by Bob Odenkirk in Better Call Saul, you're in for a great ride. Better Call Saul has the same tight plots, rich characters and delicious twists as its parent series. Yet Better Call Saul isn't a reboot — it's a pre-boot.

If Saul Goodman were a superhero, this would be his origin story — and that's really what this show is about, because Jimmy McGill, from the start, does have a superpower. It's his quick wit.

- TV critic David Bianculli

The central story of this new AMC series tells how Jimmy McGill, a scrappy, low-rent public defender in Albuquerque, N.M., came to adopt a sleazy new persona as Saul Goodman, a criminal lawyer specializing in representing unabashed criminals. If Goodman were a superhero, this would be his origin story — and that's really what this show is about, because McGill, from the start, does have a superpower. It's his quick wit — his fast mouth.

Better Call Saul is co-created by Gilligan, who created Breaking Bad, and Peter Gould, the writer-producer who created the Goodman character way back in Season 2. Together, they've come up with something very ambitious, and yet very playful, here. For starters — literally — this prequel series actually begins as a sequel, set somewhere in the snowy North, after the events of Breaking Bad. Goodman is hiding in plain sight, just as he said he would — with a new name and a blend-into-the-woodwork job, managing a Cinnabon concession at a local mall. Yet he's terrified that even in that public a place, danger and death lurk behind every corner, and can be read in every unsmiling face. To me, it's as if Better Call Saul starts precisely where The Sopranos suddenly stopped.

i

Jonathan Banks (left) plays Mike Ehrmantraut, a former cop and a hitman, on the new series. He often carries out illegal instructions from Saul Goodman (right, played by Bob Odenkirk). Ben Leuner/Courtesy of AMC hide caption

itoggle caption Ben Leuner/Courtesy of AMC

Jonathan Banks (left) plays Mike Ehrmantraut, a former cop and a hitman, on the new series. He often carries out illegal instructions from Saul Goodman (right, played by Bob Odenkirk).

Ben Leuner/Courtesy of AMC

There are two stylistic choices in this opening scene that ought to sell viewers on Better Call Saul immediately. One is that this scene, set in the "current" timeline after the end of Breaking Bad, is in black and white — that's how bleak Goodman's new life is. And for this new show's first seven minutes, Goodman doesn't say a word. Not one. This guy who lived and prospered with his gift of gab, like a courtroom Sgt. Bilko, is completely silent for what in TV terms is an eternity. It's only when he goes home, pours a drink, gets bored watching television and slides an old videocassette into his VCR to watch a series of his vintage TV ads that we hear his voice for the first time. The older Goodman listens and watches wistfully, as director Gilligan closes in on his weary face.

After that, the series flashes back to 2002, long before those ads were produced, when the future Goodman was still a hustling attorney named Jimmy McGill. Now the show switches to color — a reversal of the usual cinema dynamic of color for the present and black-and-white for the past — and Better Call Saul really takes off.

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I'm determined not to spoil any surprises here, but in the first hour alone, there's one that made me smile, and another that made me gasp. And it shouldn't be surprising, given how Gilligan cast Malcolm in the Middle sitcom actor Bryan Cranston and allowed him to blossom as the Emmy-winning dramatic actor of Breaking Bad, that comic actor Bob Odenkirk is given such weight and responsibility here. But he is, and Odenkirk is thrilling — another brilliant, genre-crossing role from another gifted actor.

There are plenty of funny moments in Better Call Saul — and, at least in the opening episode, some very overt stylistic nods to a few classic films from the '70s. But there's drama and darkness, too – even though we know Jimmy McGill will survive the flashbacks in this series, there's still a lot of tension — and watching him transform is going to be a blast.

David Bianculli is founder and editor of the website TV Worth Watching, and teaches television and film at Rowan University in New Jersey.

Controversial French comedian Dieudonne has gone on trial today on charges of "defending terrorism," which stem from comments he made on Facebook after the deadly attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

His alleged crime was writing " Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly" (I feel like Charlie Coulibaly) on Facebook, an apparent reference to "Je suis Charlie," the message of solidarity that many people shared after the attack on the magazine that was targeted by Islamist extremists on Jan. 7 for its cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Coulibaly is the last name of Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people at a kosher market in Paris on Jan. 9.

Dieudonne, whose full name is Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, has been in trouble before with the authorities. He was fined for hate speech, and in 2013, the French government tried to shut down his comedy shows, which critics say are anti-Semitic and incite hatred. He rejects those accusations, maintaining that he is anti-Zionist and insisting that his skits target everyone.

But Dieudonne's trademark gesture, which is known as a "quenelle," is a straight-arm salute. Critics call it a reverse Nazi salute, but the comedian denies that.

The Facebook post for which Dieudonne has been charged has long been deleted, but the comedian also wrote an open letter to France's interior minister in which he accused Bernard Cazeneuve of "looking for a pretext to forbid me. You consider me like Amedy Coulibaly when I am not any different from Charlie."

Dieudonne was also in court last week on separate charges of inciting racial hatred for comments he made in 2013.

Dieudonne's arrest sparked debate in France about the limits of free speech in the country. Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the U.S., defended his country's record in an interview last month with NPR.

"In France, the speech is free, but [not] if it could lead either to a crime, or if it could be seen as libel. But this is of course under the control of the judge," Araud said. "It's for the judge to decide whether the red lines have been crossed."

paris attack

Dieudonne M'bala M'bala

Charlie Hebdo

France

Last week in the northern Afghan province of Balkh, an impoverished mother chose the only option she felt was left to her, after her drug-addicted husband abandoned her. She had to care by herself for five young children and an elderly father. So she sold her one-month old infant for money — the equivalent of about $435 in American currency — to buy kindling wood to keep her four other children from freezing in the harsh winter weather.

The Theft Of An Infant Son: In Pakistan, A Not-Uncommon Crime

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Such incidents of child-selling are shocking — and illegal in Afghanistan. But in a country plagued by chronic poverty amid decades of conflict and instability, it is not the only instance. "This is the fourth case over the past year," according to Armakhail Safiullah, child protection adviser in Afghanistan for the international children's charity Save the Children. To learn more about the plight of children and families caught in such situations, we spoke to Safiullah and to Zubaida Akhbarto, a communications officer for Save the Children in Afghanistan. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is happening with this case now?

We're responding to this particular case in coordination with governmental agencies in the northern region of Afghanistan. The baby is still with the mother, and we will not separate them. We are also referring the father to treatment for his drug addiction.

What are the underlying factors for this and similar cases?

It is mainly poverty and the economy. They see no other option financially to survive.

How common is baby-selling? Isn't it illegal?

Child-selling and early marriage are completely illegal. The law clearly states that the selling of children is a crime.

It happens much more widely than we know about. It is socially accepted, and no one will normally interfere. In some cases girls are being exchanged and used like money to pay off debts. Sometimes it is child labor. Of the four cases over the past year, three were female, one male. Two of these cases were early marriages, where money is given in return for the engagement of young girls under the age of 16. It is called early marriage but it is child-selling. The other two cases were directly child-selling. The one-month old infant is the latest.

Could families who cannot support young children give up a child for adoption?

Adoption is not common in Afghanistan, and culturally is not very encouraged. If a child does not have any parents, generally a family member will be turned to first. Usually a blood relative such as grandparents or an uncle or auntie will become responsible. The family adopting has to be Muslim. And there is no international adoption.

What happens to those children who do not have anyone who will care for them?

At the end of 2013 we had 11,000-plus children in orphanages and child-care centers. But there are issues of quality in these orphanages and centers.

What is being done to protect vulnerable children and prevent families from feeling forced into abandoning or selling their children?

We're involved in two efforts. In the first, we are working with religious leaders to encourage them to talk during the Friday prayers, to help disseminate information from the mosques about the importance of child protection, about promoting positive practices toward children, and educating community members.

Second, we are building community-based networks to work for the protection of children. We meet with community and religious leaders, teachers, parents, and elders to raise awareness and help them monitor cases and raise concerns with local authorities.

Is it working?

These efforts are significantly contributing to the reduction of the number of cases of children requiring protection.

baby selling

Afghanistan

On whether the characters know their worlds, or are as surprised as the reader

I think both kinds of stories are a lot of fun. It's fun when a character is sort of a stand-in for the reader, and strange things happen to them, and they are unsettled by them. But it's a lot of fun to write a story in which everybody in the story already feels eddies with the strangeness — I think there's a kind of useful dissonance, reading a world in which the people in that world are used to that place. And that's because that's true of real life; you often come into situations where everybody already knows what's going on, and you have to sort of piece it together.

On the stories she grew up reading

I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. My dad read me all of Tolkien when I was in kindergarten. My mom read me all of C.S. Lewis. And then when once I learned to read — I was a little bit slow — I would just go to the library and sort of work my way through the shelves.

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My parents have explained to me that apparently I was ... a little bit lazy. I felt that if I learned how to read, that in fact they would stop reading to me ... I think what they finally did to get me to read was, they sat me down on the couch and explained that if I would learn how to read, I could read any time I wanted to read. And that was persuasive.

On romance in her work

I do love love stories. I spent a lot of the time when I was going through an MFA in creative writing program sneaking out to bookstores and reading paperback romance novels ... and I would really hope now that if anybody out there is in a writing program, that they would boldly read their romance novels. That's one of the things about figuring out what kind of story you want to write, is figuring out the kinds of things you are drawn to, even if you feel you shouldn't be drawn to them.

Read an excerpt of Get in Trouble

When it comes to organic certification, food producers must follow strict guidelines.

For an organic steak, for instance, the cow it came from has to be raised on organic feed, and the feed mix can't be produced with pesticides, chemical fertilizers or genetic engineering.

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering a set of rules for organic farmed fish. Several consumer groups, though, say the recommended rules don't go far enough to meet the strict standards of other organic foods.

The Salt

The Future Of Clean, Green Fish Farming Could Be Indoor Factories

The feed that the fish eat is at the center of the debate.

On one side of the issue: the National Organic Standards Board, a federal advisory board whose members are appointed by the secretary of agriculture. NOSB recommended guidelines for how fish can be grown organically in pens in the ocean, and how much wild-caught fish can be ground up as fishmeal to feed the fish.

"What the National Organic Standards Board recommended was that there would be some allowance for non-organic fish feed that would be phased out after a 12-year period of time," says Miles Mcevoy, the deputy administrator of the USDA's National Organic Program.

i

Farmed fish, like these rainbow trout, are at the center of a debate within the organic industry. Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media hide caption

itoggle caption Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media

Farmed fish, like these rainbow trout, are at the center of a debate within the organic industry.

Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media

Many organic stakeholders, however, say an organic diet is important for organic livestock and fish.

Lisa Bunin, the organic policy director at the Center for Food Safety, says fish farmed under the recommended standards shouldn't be certified as organic, because the wild fish used in the fishmeal can't be certified as organic.

The Salt

Can A Fish Farm Be Organic? That's Up For Debate

"It's not 100 percent organic — and organic requires all animals to have an organic diet," she says.

Bunin is also concerned about raising farmed fish in pens in the open ocean, as farmers can't control what toxins the fish are exposed to. Ocean-based fish farms could also be a source of pollution. Diseases can pass between populations of wild and farmed fish.

"The particles from these facilities eventually settle on the ocean floor and can dramatically alter the oxygen [available] and reduce the population of bottom-dwelling animals," Bunin says.

Consumer groups like Food and Water Watch and the Consumers Union have also opposed the recommended standards for organically farmed fish.

The labeling question has big monetary implications: The organic food market is exploding – it's currently worth about $35 billion a year — and many fish farmers and retailers want in.

The Salt

Scientists Seek A Break In Aquaculture's Fish-Eat-Fish Chain

But some in the organic industry worry that certifying farmed fish as organic would mark a watering down of organic standards.

"There will be a significant consumer education piece involved in what is the difference between a conventionally farmed fish and an organically farmed one," says Nathaniel Lewis with the Organic Trade Association. "And how does that relate to the difference between a conventional egg and an organic egg?"

With so many labels on food products at the grocery store, some worry that an organic label might lose its power.

Fish farmers and scientists are working to create more sustainable aquaculture. Some farms are using closed loop systems that recycle water. And researchers are experimenting with fish feed made from ingredients like soybeans and animal byproducts, which could possibly make up certified organic feed.

The organic debate is an important one for fish farmers like Merritt Van Landuyt. She and her husband, Dennis, run Troutdale Farm, which sits at the end of a dirt road near the edge of Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks. An upwelling spring feeds about a dozen cement raceways filled with rainbow trout. Workers use nets to pull out basketfuls of fully grown fish.

i

Troutdale Farm owner Merritt Van Landuyt doesn't use any growth hormones, synthetic chemicals or antibiotics in raising rainbow trout. Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media hide caption

itoggle caption Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media

Troutdale Farm owner Merritt Van Landuyt doesn't use any growth hormones, synthetic chemicals or antibiotics in raising rainbow trout.

Kristofor Husted/Harvest Public Media

The Van Landuyts took over the farm in 2002 and revamped it with a new water system. They also decided against the use of any chemical additives, growth hormones or antibiotics. It's a minimalist approach that Merritt Van Landuyt says she's proud of.

"We just decided to build a system that seemed like it could actually be more sustainable into the future," she says.

The Troutdale fish aren't technically organic, but Van Landuyt says she'll consider seeking that certification if regulations are passed. Ultimately, she says, it will depend on what her customers want — and on what the added cost will be to her farm.

"It's really fun to go out and play with the fish," she says. "And it's really nice to see those little eggs grow. But darn it, you're still a business."

The USDA plans to publish its organic standard proposal for farmed fish by summer. That will open a public comment period of at least 60 days.

Kris Husted is a reporter with member station KBIA in Columbia, Mo. This story comes to us via Harvest Public Media.

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Fish

At least eight civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours and 22 wounded in fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian troops in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk.

The civilian toll has risen during the past three weeks as the fighting between the two sides escalates. The U.N. says at least 224 civilians have been killed and 545 wounded in that period.

"Bus stops and public transport, marketplaces, schools and kindergartens, hospitals and residential areas have become battlegrounds ... in clear breach of international humanitarian law," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said.

The U.N. said the overall death toll in the fighting that began in April 2014 stands at 5,358. The violence has increased since early this year after a period of relative calm.

The past day's toll in Donetsk came from rebels; a Ukrainian military spokesman said five servicemen were killed and 27 wounded in the same period, The Associated Press reports.

The AP has more on the latest fighting:

"The rebels' main offensive is now directed at Debaltseve, a railway junction once populated by 25,000 people that lies between the rebel-held cities of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Almost 2,000 residents have fled in the past few days alone.

"Separatists last week captured the town of Vuhlehirsk, crucial for the advance on Debaltseve. Rebel leaders insist, however, they are not planning to storm Debaltseve itself because of potential for civilian casualties."

Russia denies claims by Ukraine and its Western allies that Moscow is backing the rebels. Russia is under U.S. and EU sanctions for its role in the crisis, but that has not resulted in a let up in the fighting.

A senior official in the Obama administration told the AP the increase in fighting is pushing the White House to review its policy of not sending weaponry to Ukraine's government to fight the rebels. A report released Monday by the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs urged the U.S. to authorize $1 billion in military aid to Kiev.

"We don't think that we could provide the kinds of weaponry or training in time for Ukraine to defend against an all-out assault by the Russians," Ivo Daalder, head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and one of the authors of the report told NPR's Robert Siegel. "But what we'd like to do is to have Ukraine's capacity be sufficiently strong that Russia is confronted with the choice to so escalate and, therefore, so raise the cost on itself to achieve its military objectives or, alternatively and preferably, to negotiate a political solution that is real and lasting.

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This week figures to be a big one in the debate about how to regulate the Internet.

Yesterday the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission announced he'll try to overrule laws in two states that restrict community-owned broadband networks. Later this week, he's expected to propose exactly what President Obama asked for last year: reclassifying the Internet under regulations known in the parlance of telecom wonks as Title II.

"In plain English, I'm asking them to recognize that for most Americans, the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life," Obama said in November.

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, left, speaks Oct. 8 during new conference in Washington. Wheeler has spoken in favor of regulating Internet providers as public utilities, an issue the commission is expected to decide on this month. Jose Luis Magana/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Jose Luis Magana/AP

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, left, speaks Oct. 8 during new conference in Washington. Wheeler has spoken in favor of regulating Internet providers as public utilities, an issue the commission is expected to decide on this month.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Big cable and phone companies warn that would stifle investment and cost consumers more, but the truth may be more complicated.

This policy shift, which the FCC is expected to vote before the end of the month, is what many Internet companies and public interest groups say is what the commission needs to do to stop broadband companies from charging extra to get information to consumers faster. But phone and cable companies warn that Title II would be a disaster.

"These regulations that we're talking about are public-utility-style regulations, and this industry's moving fast," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told an industry conference in November. "And if you can't bring new products to service at your speed, not the government's speed, why would you ever make these investments?"

Broadband industry executives have told the same story on Capitol Hill. But Fran Shammo, the chief financial officer of Verizon, seemed to go off script when he was asked about Title II at an investor conference in December.

"To be real clear, I mean, this does not influence the way we invest," Shammo said. "We're gonna continue to invest in our networks and our platforms. Nothing will influence that."

The differing messages don't necessarily result from a difference of opinion, but a difference of audience, says Susan Crawford, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

"When they're talking to Wall Street, they say different things than when they're talking to the press about what the FCC might like to do," she says. "They trot out these really simple and nonsensical platitudes, like 'regulation inevitably leads to lower investment.' That's just not true."

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The phone and cable industries also have warned that Title II could lead to billions of dollars in new taxes on consumer's broadband bills, but Open Internet advocates say those claims are wrong.

They also argue that Title II and robust investment can coexist, pointing to the success of the wireless phone industry, which is regulated in part under Title II. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said that cell companies have been "monumentally successful" under Title II regulations, noting they made billions in investment under that system.

In theory, reclassification would give the FCC broad powers — including the ability to cap the price your Internet provider can charge. Wheeler has hinted that the commission won't actually try to use that power, but the mere threat of price regulation is enough to scare Wall Street, says Paul Gallant, an industry analyst at Guggenheim Partners.

"The uncertainty that Wall Street has, though, right now about Title II is a little bit overdone," he says. "I don't think there's any real prospect that the FCC will end up regulating prices. I just don't think is a realistic fear."

Still, Gallant says phone and cable companies might find it harder to borrow money under Title II, which could in turn could be a drag on investment in their networks.

But Michael Powell, a former chairman of the FCC who now heads the cable industry's trade group, said the the question is one of degree.

"All hyperbole aside, the issue isn't whether people will invest — of course they will, they have businesses to run," Powell said. "The real question is, will it be at a diminished and dampened level compared to the velocity and ambitions that the country has?"

Amid the disputes about customer bills and pace of investing, however, one thing is viewed as an absolute certainty: Big phone and cable companies almost certainly will take the FCC to court if the commission moves toward Title II, as anticipated.

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When oil prices shot up a few years ago, many transportation and delivery businesses started adding fuel surcharges to their prices.

Now, fuel prices are plunging, but lots of those surcharges still linger, and consumer advocates are crying foul.

The drop in the cost of oil is a huge factor in the airline industry, where 30 percent of all expenses are for fuel. But airlines, along with other industries with large fuel expenses, have been slow to respond with lower prices.

Jean Medina, a spokesperson for Airlines for America, a group that lobbies for major cargo and passenger airlines, says carriers are still adding surcharges — but only on international flights. Each carrier determines what fees to tack on, and they can use those additional revenues to cover any expenses — not just fuel.

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"While airlines are reporting profits, it's modest," Medina says. "While fuel has come down, other costs have been increasing — costs of labor, cost of aircraft rent, cost of buying new planes."

Travelers United, a group that represents passengers, has sent a letter to airlines asking them to lower airfares. Chairman Charlie Leocha says airlines slapped on surcharges when prices were high, but never explained the rules for lowering them.

"It seems to have absolutely no connection with reality. It's just a random fee the airlines vary as they want to," he says.

Leocha blames recent major airline mergers and less competition for the slow response to the nearly 50 percent drop in the price of jet fuel.

Fees That Pay For More Than Fuel

But airlines aren't alone in being slow to respond. FedEx Ground raised its fuel surcharges Monday. And if you order a pizza or send a package or flowers, chances are you will still be paying surcharges.

"Delivery charges are meant to offset far more than just fuel prices," says Tim McIntyre, a communications executive with Domino's Pizza. Everything from uniforms to the bags that keep the pizza warm are part of the delivery equation, he says.

And franchises are free to drop the fuel surcharge if they want, he adds. "They should pay attention to the fees charged by their local competition and to make the best decision for their businesses," McIntyre says.

Thomas Smith, an economist at Emory University, says businesses can be slow to adjust to drops in volatile energy prices.

"When prices go down, you still want to hedge against the possibility that going forward, they might go up again," he says. "It's a lot harder to drop prices than it is to increase them."

'Aggravating' For Customers

But not all businesses are free to hang onto surcharges — just ask Atlanta's cab drivers. They used to charge a $2 fuel fee, but once the price of gas dropped below $2.90, city law requires that the surcharge be lifted.

A driver who gave his name as Wondimu, waiting for customers at Hartsfield-Jackson international airport, says he's kind of glad it's gone. "It was not really helping us. When we tell them this is fuel charges, it's surcharge, it's aggravating the customers."

Many economists predict that worries about aggravated customers will force other businesses to soon follow suit. Virgin Australia Airlines has — it announced last month that it will drop its fuel surcharges for flights to the U.S.

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People in Cambodia experience what we Americans call depression. But there's no direct translation for the word "depression" in the Cambodian Khmer language. Instead, people may say, "thelea tdeuk ceut," which literally means "the water in my heart has fallen."

Anxious or depressed Haitians, on the other hand, may use the phrase "reflechi twop," which means "thinking too much." And in parts of Nepal and India, people use the English word "tension."

Mental distress is a universal condition. The World Health Organization has made global access to mental health care one of its key goals.

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But just as words for depression and anxiety get lost in translation, so can treatments.

Simply setting up mental health clinics identical to the ones we have here in the U.S. isn't necessarily going to help anyone, says Devon Hinton, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, who works with Southeast Asian populations in the U.S. and abroad.

Culture affects how people understand and express mental disorders. So psychiatrists around the world are working to figure out what these differences are and develop treatments that work for each culture.

Take for instance khyal attacks, or "wind attacks." Cambodians who suffer from anxiety disorders often experience the quick onset of heart palpitations, blurry vision and shortness of breath. Like panic attacks, khyal attacks can happen without warning.

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"This is thought to indicate there's a surge of blood in their limbs and body," Hinton says. "And sometimes people feel like they could die from this."

For Cambodians who survived the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970's, khyal attacks often occur with flashbacks to traumatic events, bouts of dizziness and trouble sleeping. "There are many terms [in the Khmer language] that suggest that anxiety is like dizziness," Hinton says. "Patients will say 'I'm spinning in the heart.' "

Hinton says he plays off such metaphors when talking to patients about treatment. When a patient suffers from depression and tells Hinton, "The water in my heart has fallen," Hinton may suggest an antidepressant that will "increase the water in the heart, so it will be like the rice fields after a storm."

"We also talk a lot about treatment in terms of Buddhist metaphors," Hinton says. "We'll say 'If the mind is like the sky, these problems are like clouds, which will pass.'"

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"The key is understanding patients," Hinton says, "and making sure they feel understood."

American psychiatrists working in Nepal learned that lesson the hard way, says Dr. Brandon Kohrt of the Duke Global Health Institute.

"When we first studied PTSD treatment in Nepal, we realized the way that [foreign] social workers had translated PTSD was stigmatizing," Kohrt says. Counselors would often use the phrase maanasik aaghaat or "brain shock" to describe the condition.

But in Nepal, India and Pakistan, people distinguish between the physical brain — or dimaag — and what they refer to as the mann, or "heart-mind."

"If the brain is damaged, they feel it's permanent: There's no chance for recovery," Kohrt says. "But if the heart is distressed, that emotional distress can be fixed."

People in rural Nepal weren't showing up to PTSD treatment, Kohrt found, because they were confused by the terms used to describe it. "It was this sort of Eureka moment," Kohrt says, when he realized why attendance was so bad.

"A lot of effort needs to go into engaging the patient," says psychologist Arpita Anand, who works with the nonprofit mental health organization Sangath in Goa, India.

Some of her patients know quite a bit about depression, Anand says, while others aren't familiar with it at all. Many of them start out by describing the physical symptoms of their depression or anxiety rather than their emotional distress, she says.

"One woman, for example, who started seeing me three months ago, said she had lost her appetite," Anand explains. "And she talked about her fatigue and sleep difficulties."

But doctors couldn't find any particular reason for these complaints. "After talking with her, it became clear that she was suffering from depression," Anand says. "So then a lot of my effort was to help her recognize that her physical and mental conditions are actually connected."

When working with a new community, counselors and researchers like Kohrt and Hinton often have patients map out their emotions on a drawing of the human body. They tell a patient to describe exactly where and how they feel each symptom of depression or anxiety.

"You've got to figure out what the core signs are for different people," Hinton says. "Ultimately, it's just a matter of being an interested listener."

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At the end of Angela Kohtala's leadership skills course, her high school students have to plan and carry out a community service project. Maybe it's fixing up their school courtyard, or tutoring younger students in an afterschool program.

Afterwards, they create a PowerPoint with pictures of the project. This isn't just a nice way to develop presentation skills — it's mandatory to prove that they really weeded that garden or sat with those kids in the first place.

You see, Kohtala's students are spread across the state of Florida, while she herself lives in Maine.

Kohtala teaches in the fastest-growing sector of K-12 education: the online public school. She is at Florida Virtual School, one of the biggest in the business.

The organization, which is technically a Florida school district, enrolls over 200,000 students across Florida and the world. The vast majority are part time, taking an average of just one course. But another 200,000 K-12 students are studying online full-time, most at the high school level, in at least 33 states.

Most of these states have passed laws in the last decade encouraging, or even requiring, online school choices.

One big reason is cost. Especially in large, rural states, virtual schools can allow students to take an AP class or a foreign language that their school doesn't offer, without having to pay another teacher to do it.

Another impetus is what's called credit recovery. Many states have set up these schools in order to allow students who have fallen behind to catch up, during summers, nights and weekends, with an eye toward earning their diplomas on time.

And then there's the idea that online learning, ideally, allows each student to work at his or her own pace and take advantage of multimedia resources and contemporary digital ways of working.

But there are big quality divides in the world of e-learning providers.

Most full-time online students are enrolled at schools run by two for-profit companies: K12 and Connections Academy.

Of those full-time schools that have academic ratings, an independent report found last year, two thirds are rated academically "unacceptable." And their graduation rates are less than half the average of all public schools.

"Across the board, all the outcome measures we're looking at are negative," says Gary Miron, one of the authors of that report from the National Education Policy Center. He has a clue as to why. "When we looked at actual expenditures, we could see that these schools spend a fraction of what districts spend on teacher salaries." About one in 10 of their students had a learning disability, yet they spent "next to nothing" on special education-certified teachers, his report found.

Allison Bazin, a spokeswoman for Connections Academy, says their schools' results are "generally on par" with state averages, though the math scores are lower.

K12 Inc., in particular, has come under fire from a quarter that's not normally known for its concern about public education: investors. At least two shareholder lawsuits have been filed alleging that it misleads investors about its enrollment growth prospects and the regulatory issues it faces. Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for K12 Inc, points out that one suit was settled, while another was dismissed.

Nate Davis, CEO OF K12 Inc., said the company's business is thriving. He verifies that teachers in his schools are paid less than those at brick and mortar schools — in exchange, he says, for the flexibility to work from home.

He also acknowledges that their schools have lower average test scores — a product, he says, of the fact that the majority of students are low-income. Plus, he says, look at the reasons they are studying online in the first place:

"Some are accelerated. But others were in some way at risk," he said in an interview. "The public school wasn't working for them. Maybe the school system wasn't good in their area and their parents want a different solution."

Miron points out that his research shows K12 Inc. schools actually have a lower proportion of low-income students than the state average.

But, he also notes, there's another side to the e-learning picture.

Florida Virtual School, for example, is a very large online school with, by all accounts, good outcomes. On state end-of-course tests and AP exams, students do as well as, or better than, other Florida students.

Students log on each week from wherever they are — the school computer lab, a library, Starbucks — to hold class discussions and do group work in real time, using collaboration software. Some of their assessments involve answering questions from a teacher over the phone, a technique designed to discourage cheating. They may also be called in randomly to take an exam face-to-face.

Teachers, meanwhile, pledge to be available over text and phone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., five days a week and even a few hours on the weekends.

Angela Kohlata says she often fields late-night texts from students who need personal as much as academic support. "In my class we're helping them to learn, set goals, and think about trying new things. Sometimes a little anonymity allows for a little more intimacy."

So what's the upshot here? Are online schools a great idea or a terrible one?

It seems the answer can be a hybrid of both. What Miron and other scholars who study the topic are recommending is that states curb the growth of full-time virtual schools until better quality safeguards are put in place. "The issue," he says, "is not to ban the schools, but to figure out why they're not working."

Peter Greste went out for a run at his Egyptian prison Sunday when the warden called him over.

He "told me that, you know, it's time to pack your stuff," Greste, an Australian who spent more than a year in an Egyptian prison, told his employer, Al-Jazeera. "I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'You're going.' I said, 'Well, where? To another prison?' He said, 'No, no, no. The embassy is coming. They'll be here in an hour. Get your stuff and go.'"

That's how Greste learned that he would be returning home to Australia.

Greste and fellow Al-Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were detained in December 2013 and imprisoned in June 2014. They were convicted on terrorism charges and accused of aiding or being members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. Fahmy, who holds dual Canadian-Egyptian citizenship, and Mohamed remain in prison.

NPR's Leila Fadel reported Sunday that Fahmy has also applied for deportation under a new law that allows foreigners accused or convicted of a crime in Egypt to be deported to their home countries and be tried there, with the approval of the president.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera in Cyprus, where he had stopped before heading home, Greste spoke of the mixed emotions he was feeling.

"To be out now, today, with just a few minutes notice, really, is just extraordinary," he said. "But I also feel incredible angst about my colleagues, leaving them behind."

He added: "You spend 400 days in such close proximity with people, and you really get to know them very, very well. So it was a very difficult moment walking out of that prison, saying goodbye to those guys, not knowing how much longer they will have to put up with this."

Greste credited exercise, study and meditation as keys to his well-being inside prison.

When asked what he looked forward to, he replied: "Watching a few sunsets. I haven't seen those at all for a very long time; watching the stars; feeling the sand under my toes. The little things.

"This has been like a rebirth and you realize that it is those little beautiful moments of life that are really precious. And spending time with my family, of course, too."

Greste was released following approval by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Peter Greste

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Today marks the return of a cult public television hit — Foyle's War. It's previously appeared as part of PBS's big Sunday night Masterpiece lineup — but it won't be on TV tonight — for now, viewers will have to stream the show digitally. Acorn, the company that produces Foyle's War, has embarked on something of a Netflix strategy — raising the question of whether a niche pay portal can be a going concern.

Acorn has long sold videos and DVDs of the hundreds of hours of U.K. shows for which it holds North American rights, Now it's offering a digital streaming service that gives subscribers instant access to much of its extensive back catalogue — and an advance look at programs it produces.

Miguel Penella is the CEO of Acorn's corporate parent RLJ Entertainment. "We want consumers to think of Acorn TV as the primary destination for British mystery and drama television in North America," he says — a brash claim for a market crowded by HBO, the BBC and PBS.

As Acorn expanded its ambitions, it bought a controlling stake in Agatha Christie's literary estate — and is now producing some of her mysteries for TV. The company is betting enough fans of British programs will add one more subscription to their virtual cart — along with Netflix or Amazon prime.

This season is to be the last for Foyle's War. Michael Kitchen plays Christopher Foyle — a senior police official turned intelligence operative at the close of World War II, and his performance has inspired a near-rhapsodic response from critics. But the financing for this season of the show appeared in doubt — so Acorn decided to buy the rights and produce Foyle's War itself, earning much of the cost back from foreign broadcasters

American viewers who want to see it right now will have to pay five dollars a month or $50 a year. "For us, it is simply an opportunity to bring our content to consumers in a different new way," says Penella. Acorn's decision to stream programs itself illustrates how the lines separating distributors, producers, syndicators and networks have blurred.

Good for Acorn, says Rebecca Eaton, the longtime executive producer of Masterpiece — but she argues that PBS has a public mission, while Acorn has a business plan. "To use public broadcasting, to use public television as a platform and a showcase for programs they might acquire," she says, "that's pretty good advertisment for selling them on down the line."

Millions of viewers watch Masterpiece every week for free, and Eaton says her program endures through changes in viewer appetites because of Masterpiece's sustained quality: "I think there's a tremendous interest in high-end British drama," she says. "And I think you can lay that at the feet of Downton Abbey, Sherlock, a lot of the programs we've had on the air — and why wouldn't a business want to spin that particular stuff into gold?"

Acorn says it currently has just 116,000 subscribers — but that's growing — and Penella says its revenues more than justify the cost of producing and streaming shows like Foyle's War: "In recent years, with the convergence of television and the internet, we saw for us an opportunity to develop a proprietary digital platform that would allow our consumers, our audience to access our deep library — anytime, anywhere," he says.

Foyle's War will run later this year on individual PBS stations, but not on PBS as a network. And if anything, the relationship between PBS and Acorn evokes the frosty rapport between the two matriarchs of Masterpiece's Downton Abbey: The Dowager Countess and Isobel Crawley. Collaborators, peers, competitors — in other words, frenemies.