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I was 9 years old and living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the summer of 1992 when my mother announced that we were heading downtown to run errands.

It was an opportunity to escape the house, my grandmother's nagging and my little brother's jokes. Also, trips downtown almost always meant ice cream. I remember putting on a pink dress with a pink cloth flower over my chest.

In an hour, we were downtown. We reached the front patio of a bookstore when a thunderous explosion went off just down the block. The power was overwhelming.

"It's a bomb," my mother yelled, as she pushed me to the ground.

As an adult, I realize this was the first time I became aware of death. More importantly, it was my first exposure to violence and the fact that it often goes unpunished in Latin America.

Things that normally go together, like smells, sounds and noise, were splintered. Glass exploded. A giant column of thick black smoke rose into the sky. People screamed. It culminated with the rumbling sound of the explosion itself.

When my mother pulled me up so we could run away, my world went dark, partly from dust and smoke, but also because I was having trouble breathing, and was starting to pass out. My mother shook me. She said later I had a blank stare and was as pale as a sheet of paper.

The blast devastated the Israeli Embassy, killing 29 people and wounding more than 200. It cost my mom some of her hearing. And it was also my first lesson in the terrible things that happen periodically in Argentina, but which rarely seem to get resolved.

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This 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aries, Argentina, killed 85 and demolished a seven-story building. The case has never been solved and is currently at the center of a major controversy in Argentina. Daniel Luna/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Daniel Luna/AFP/Getty Images

This 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aries, Argentina, killed 85 and demolished a seven-story building. The case has never been solved and is currently at the center of a major controversy in Argentina.

Daniel Luna/AFP/Getty Images

My family had endured the Dirty War in the 1970s, when thousands of Argentines were killed or disappeared under a military dictatorship. It took decades before there was any real accounting of what happened.

The 1992 embassy bombing remains unsolved. And two years after that blast, 85 people were killed in an even larger bombing at a Jewish community center. Many believe the two bombings are linked and suspicion has fallen on Iran, which denies any role.

The second bombing, which is also unsolved, recently returned to the front pages when special prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and others close to her of plotting to absolve Iranians suspected in the attack in exchange for commercial deals.

The Argentine government denied the accusation. Shortly afterward, Nisman was found dead. Many believe, in the lexicon of Argentina, that "lo suicidaron," or "they suicided him."

For me, at age 9, the embassy explosion was so powerful, it shifted the way I thought. I couldn't describe it back then, and the closest I could come was a strange feeling of being trapped.

As an adult, I realize this was the first time I became aware of death. More importantly, it was my first exposure to violence and the fact that it often goes unpunished in Latin America.

Events since then have taught me the lesson my parents had learned long before, during the Dirty War, when they saw friends vanish into thin air, never to be seen again.

Philosopher Santiago Kovadloff summed it up very well in a recent story that appeared in The New York Times: "Argentina is monotonous, it repeats its tragedies."

Argentina

Director Wes Anderson is known for his especially exacting visual style — an attention to detail that goes right down to the individual hairs on his actors' faces.

Take The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson's historical fairy tale about a luxury central European hotel on the edge of war in the 1930s. Nearly every male character in the film has some kind of painstakingly designed facial hair.

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Oscar-nominated hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon styles actress Tilda Swinton on the set of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight hide caption

itoggle caption Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Oscar-nominated hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon styles actress Tilda Swinton on the set of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

And in charge of the trimming, styling and coloring of each follicle — real or fake — was hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon. She's been nominated for an Oscar for her work on the film, which has been nominated for nine Academy Awards in total — including in other behind-the-scenes categories like costumes and production design.

Hannon says once she received the assignment from Anderson, she "did a huge amount of research" on beard and mustache styles, stretching from the 16th century to the present day.

"I covered the spectrum completely," Hannon tells NPR's Arun Rath, "so that with all the mustaches, not only would I find something that suited that actor's face, but I could give something different to everybody."

Some characters' mustaches were more classical and precisely clipped, like M. Gustave, played by Ralph Fiennes. (His mustache, Hannon says, was based on Austrian-born actor Anton Walbrook.)

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Actor Adrien Brody portrays the villainous Dmitri in the film. To design the mustaches in the film, Frances Hannon studied facial hair styles throughout centuries of history. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Actor Adrien Brody portrays the villainous Dmitri in the film. To design the mustaches in the film, Frances Hannon studied facial hair styles throughout centuries of history.

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Others featured a slight twirl, like the mustache worn by the villainous Dmitri, played by Adrien Brody.

And then there's Bill Murray's vast face-spanning mustache, which Hannon says was not the work of CGI.

"I have to tell you that was real," Hannon says. "Bill grew a full beard and mustache. He turned up the hairiest I'd ever seen him."

(Hannon has some expertise there. She's worked with Murray since 1997's The Man Who Knew Too Little.)

But not every actor was able to naturally grow a mustache or beard for the film.

"The majority were fake," says Hannon. "I would say probably about 60 or 70 percent were stuck-on."

In part, that's because several actors had commitments to other films, and couldn't show up to another set wearing a mustache better suited to central Europe in the 1930s.

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Nearly every male character in The Grand Budapest Hotel has some kind of beard or mustache. Some were real, but hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon says "about 60 or 70 percent" were artificial. Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight hide caption

itoggle caption Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Nearly every male character in The Grand Budapest Hotel has some kind of beard or mustache. Some were real, but hair and makeup designer Frances Hannon says "about 60 or 70 percent" were artificial.

Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

But Hannon says those fake mustaches are themselves works of art.

"They're made of real human hair, which you buy in all different textures and colors," says Hannon. "There's usually five minimum colors in each mustache."

The hairs are sewn individually into tiny holes — less than a half-millimeter in diameter — of what Hannon calls "the finest silk lace you can find. ... So you can imagine the time that goes into the perfection of each."

But of all the actors' beards, Frances Hannon reserves special praise for Jeff Goldblum's very real, somewhat Freudian goatee. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hannon said Goldblum had "the most extraordinary beard I've ever come across," and praised how carefully he took care of it.

"I think the difference with Jeff was firstly the way the natural color came through on his beard," Hannon tells NPR. "I had never seen such distinctive black and white areas that weren't peppered throughout. ... That was completely natural. And we just enhanced the strength of the black [with coloring]."

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Hannon told the Los Angeles Times that actor Jeff Goldblum, who plays Deputy Kovacs, had "the most extraordinary beard I've ever come across." Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight hide caption

itoggle caption Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Hannon told the Los Angeles Times that actor Jeff Goldblum, who plays Deputy Kovacs, had "the most extraordinary beard I've ever come across."

Martin Scali/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Goldblum says he found out during pre-production that Wes Anderson was looking for a "banquet of beards" from the actors.

"And I wasn't otherwise obligated facially," Goldblum says, "so I allowed my hair to grow out for a couple of months."

Hannon then took Goldblum's salt-and-pepper palette to shape the final product.

"She would use her very talented hands and do some little pruning and shrubbery work," Goldblum says. "We would come up with something and then we'd show Wes [Anderson], and he'd say, 'I like that. What if we took off a few more hairs here and there? And I'm thinking this and that.' And we had a few sessions like that, and then we wound up with that thing."

Goldblum, who was thrilled the "alien creature" that wound up on his face, calls Hannon a "genius" — and he's not alone in his praise. Hannon, along with makeup artist Mark Coulier, received a BAFTA award earlier this month for her work on the film.

As for the Oscars, Hannon says she was "very excited and a little suprised" to receive the nomination.

"But I couldn't be more pleased," she says, "because I do think that Wes created an extraordinary look in the end product of that film that I have never seen in another film before. So I'm really delighted for him and extremely delighted to have been a part of it."

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Frances Hannon

Beards

Wes Anderson

Academy Awards

If you know comedian David Cross, chances are you recognize him from his role as Tobias in the TV comedy Arrested Development. Now Cross is making his directorial debut with the dark comedy Hits, a film that explores how easy it is to become famous in our celebrity-obsessed culture.

The movie was released Friday on BitTorrent, an online file-sharing system that's often associated with piracy. The film's producers are asking downloaders merely to pay what they want.

As Cross tells NPR's Arun Rath, Hits is all about our collective obsession with fame.

Interview Highlights

On the plot of Hits

It centers around a father and a daughter. The father is a simple municipal worker who wants his pothole fixed on his street, and his daughter wants to be famous and just feels that she deserves fame because she's an interesting person. And one of the videos of the dad ranting at town hall about his pothole ends up going viral. Meanwhile this is all frustrating this girl. She wants to be famous and desires fame, and her dad, who wants nothing to do with it, is getting increasingly famous.

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Dave (Matt Walsh, center) unwittingly enjoys a ride of fame after a dust-up at a town hall. This, of course, angers his fame-hungry daughter to no end. Courtesy of Honora Productions hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Honora Productions

Dave (Matt Walsh, center) unwittingly enjoys a ride of fame after a dust-up at a town hall. This, of course, angers his fame-hungry daughter to no end.

Courtesy of Honora Productions

On the ways that notions of fame have changed during his career

Being [a celebrity] is probably not that much different. Getting to be a celebrity — that's changed dramatically, and that's what the movie's about. You don't have to show any discernible talent to be famous, and we've all heard the phrase, you know, "famous for being famous." I mean, look at Bravo now, look at TLC. ...

The people that are, for the most part, ... on shows on Bravo are anywhere from bad to despicable. They're shallow people with terrible morals, terrible ethics, and then the people that watch those shows mostly watch it with "detached irony" or supposedly ... but actually really do perpetuate the existence of the very show they claim to hate and make fun of just by them watching it and writing, you know, snarky blogs about it.

Author Interviews

'Hollywood Said No,' But 'Mr. Show' Fans Said Yes!

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Comedian David Cross Plays Not My Job

On the characters in his film who are obsessed with fame

I don't like any of them. The thing with Katelyn [the daughter who wants to be famous] is that I understand her. I mean, she's a product of her environment, and that's an environment that you and I gave her. ... This is the world we gave them. And as much as I feel like it's shallow and valueless, I don't fault her. That's where we are now. ...

I'm totally aware that every generation makes fun of the generation that comes after it, but still, I think we can all agree — no matter how old you are, whether you're 15 or 105 — that the Baby Boomers were literally the worst generation [laughs]. Let's all agree on that, at least.

david cross

fame

No cargo will go in or out of 29 West Coast ports this weekend.

It's the third partial shutdown in operations at these ports in a week, the result of a bitter labor dispute between shipping lines and the union representing 20,000 dock workers. The dispute has been dragging on for eight months, and now the economic impacts of the shutdown are starting to be felt.

Even before the labor dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, there was a major congestion crisis brewing at West Coast ports, and the shutdowns this weekend are only making things worse.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Port of Los Angeles, one can see a half-dozen huge container ships sitting idle; there are at least six more on the horizon.

"If you think about being on a tarmac for a couple of hours at an airport, some of these people have been waiting off-shore for weeks to get in," says Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman with the Port of Los Angeles. He's standing on the docks inside the port, where things are eerily quiet. Two massive container ships look like someone abandoned them in a hurry, and the cranes towering above them are just hanging there.

"We need to get back on schedule and we're hearing from customers throughout the country and beyond that it is affecting their businesses," Sanfield says. "So we need to get this cargo moving."

The Salt

California's Strawberry Feud Ends, But Who Will Breed New Berries?

Even a partial shutdown of operations is a big deal here. At the combined ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about $1 billion worth of cargo comes through every day. Most of it is from Asia: electronics, clothes, toys and car parts.

And then there's the export side of things. One industry especially caught in the middle of all this is agriculture. California's citrus industry is blaming the port shutdowns and congestion for a 25 percent drop in export business.

"Season to date it's estimated that this has impacted the California citrus industry by the reduction of about $500 million in export sales," says Dusty Ference, director of grower services at the industry trade group California Citrus Mutual.

Ference says this is all coming at a really bad time because this is the industry's peak export season ahead of the Chinese New Year.

"We're getting reports now that, not including trucking time, these containers are sitting on the docks for 10 days, and in some cases, longer," he says.

Some industries are now turning to the air to ship freight. Some of Ference's growers are trucking cargo down to the Port of Houston, but going the long way through the Panama Canal is expensive and not always practical.

Mostly they're waiting and hoping things get resolved quickly. The Pacific Maritime Association's president has warned of an all-out "meltdown" on West Coast ports if the union doesn't accept what he called its "generous contract offer."

"You know the truth. We want to go to work and they're blaming us," ILWU President Robert McEllrath said in a video to membership. "There's space on the docks to unload vessels. There's cargo to be delivered and we're here to do it."

For now, unless a deal is reached, the Pacific Maritime Association's enforced closure of most major operations up and down the West Coast is scheduled to last through the President's Day holiday.

labor

Los Angeles

Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists traded artillery fire today, each side hoping to secure territory ahead of a cease-fire set to go into effect hours from now.

As we reported earlier this week, the truce was forged during a meeting in Minsk, Belarus, the second such deal in six months. The previous cease-fire agreed in September quickly unraveled as fighting resumed around the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Under the new agreement, fighting is to halt at midnight local time (5 p.m. ET).

Ahead of the appointed hour, Russia Today reports "warm, spring weather [in] Donetsk – as well as the sounds of mortar firings and explosions."

Associated Press reporters saw the artillery barrage near the town of Svitlodarsk as well as considerable movement of Ukrainian forces' armored vehicles and rocket launchers along the road. Shelling was also reportedly taking place in the coastal city of Mariupol.

The Guardian says the peace deal, which is meant to facilitate the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the battle zone and an exchange of prisoners, is being viewed sketicism: "The agreement is clearly fragile, previous attempts at a truce have utterly failed, and expectations are high of an upsurge in fighting ahead of the Saturday deadline."

NPR's Eleanor Beardsley, reporting from Brussels, tells our Newscast unit that some feel the deal, reached after 16 hours of negotiations among the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, gives too much to Russia and the pro-Russian rebels.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said it had to be done to stop the fighting.

"We managed to get the sides to commit to the cease-fire and this wasn't an easy task," Poroshenko said.

Eleanor says European leaders, who have already joined the U.S. in punishing economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine situation, are prepared to impose further sanctions on the Kremlin if the deal fails.

Speaking at a European Union summit in Brussels on Friday, European Council President Donald Tusk said European leaders are watching cautiously.

"Words put down on paper must translate into real deeds," Tusk said.

U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, tweeted satellite photos of what he said was Russian artillery near the town of Lomuvatka, about 12 miles northeast of Debaltseve. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Russia has repeatedly denied charges that it is arming the rebels.

Ukraine: "We are confident these are Russian military, not separatist systems" http://t.co/NfPuVPuop4 pic.twitter.com/WAsTLDl9M4

— US Mission to NATO (@USNATO) February 14, 2015

The Wall Street Journal quotes Gennady Korban, a deputy governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk province who has managed defenses in the area as saying a lasting peace is not in Moscow's interest.

"The Kremlin's long-run plan, he said, hasn't changed since last year: to destabilize Ukraine so that it can't pursue closer relations with the West.

"'So there will be some cease-fires and resumptions of fighting and so on,' he said. 'The most important thing is for us to prepare our defenses during the cease-fire.'"

crisis in Ukraine

Russia

Baskin helped create the show's signature look with her nighttime shots of New York City and portraits of the cast and guest hosts which she colorized by hand. "I used markers, pencils, oils, colored chalk," she recalls.

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Hugh Hefner poses with (from left) Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman in 1977. Edie Baskin says she remembers using "markers, pencils, oils, colored chalk" to create images like these. Edie Baskin/Taschen hide caption

itoggle caption Edie Baskin/Taschen

Hugh Hefner poses with (from left) Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman in 1977. Edie Baskin says she remembers using "markers, pencils, oils, colored chalk" to create images like these.

Edie Baskin/Taschen

She was also a fly on the wall during all the work that went into creating the show — the writing and design sessions, the read-throughs and rehearsals. Baskin says the structure never changed.

"When you see a picture in the writers' room in the '70s and the writer's room now, it's the same writers' room," she says. "It's the same read-through. It's the same meeting in Lorne's office.

The schedule hasn't changed either. It goes something like this:

"Monday's the pitch meeting, Tuesday's the writers are writing, Wednesday's the read-through, Thursday rehearsals start and the band comes in, and Friday just continues with rehearsals and blocking, and Saturday's the show," explains Mary Ellen Matthews.

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Will Ferrell, being made up as George W. Bush in 2012, reviews dialogue for his monologue with Wally Feresten. Dana Edelson/Taschen hide caption

itoggle caption Dana Edelson/Taschen

Will Ferrell, being made up as George W. Bush in 2012, reviews dialogue for his monologue with Wally Feresten.

Dana Edelson/Taschen

Matthews started as Baskin's assistant in 1993 and took over when Baskin left in 2000. Of all the performers Matthews has worked with, her favorite is Will Ferrell.

"All my dreams come true when he walks in the door," Matthews says.

She says that the cowbell skit with Ferrell and guest host Christopher Walken was one of the funniest she ever shot. "Oh my god, I couldn't even really keep the camera steady," she recalls. "The laughter in the studio ... you could not believe how funny it was — no one could keep it inside."

Matthews' and Baskin's photographs capture the zeitgeist of each era — stars on the rise or at their peak, playing to the camera, sneaking a quiet moment off-set, reveling during their moment in the spotlight.

Gilda Radner pays no mind as the Land Shark gobbles John Belushi's arm backstage in 1976. Edie Baskin/Taschen hide caption

itoggle caption Edie Baskin/Taschen

"You're right there when some great sketch is being written," says Matthews "That's always that feeling on the table that something great is being done — so let's get it."

And when new, unknown cast members have their debut, Matthews says she can always tell when they're headed for stardom.

"Immediately, their first time on the show you can just see it that they're going to fit in and they're going to be great," she says. "They kind of jump off the TV, don't they?"

And when they do, Matthews is there, with her camera.

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Pete Schweddy (Alec Baldwin) makes a guest appearance on the "Delicious Dish" public radio show with hosts Margaret Jo McCullin and Terry Rialto (Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon) in 1998. Mary Ellen Matthews/Taschen hide caption

itoggle caption Mary Ellen Matthews/Taschen

Pete Schweddy (Alec Baldwin) makes a guest appearance on the "Delicious Dish" public radio show with hosts Margaret Jo McCullin and Terry Rialto (Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon) in 1998.

Mary Ellen Matthews/Taschen

God, Guns, Grits, And Gravy

by Mike Huckabee

Hardcover, 258 pages | purchase

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TitleGod, Guns, Grits, And GravyAuthorMike Huckabee

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It's that time again. Every four years, politicians fan out to Iowa and New Hampshire and other early primary states in search of ... book sales. It seems like you can't hardly run for president anymore without publishing a book to go along with your campaign. Sen. Marco Rubio will be in Iowa Friday to hawk copies of his new work. Other potential GOP candidates also have new tomes out.

Rubio's book is titled American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone. Maybe not quite as catchy as Mike Huckabee's, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy. Huckabee jokes "some people hear the title God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy and think that it is a recipe book of southern cuisine but that's really not the goal. There is sometimes a cultural disconnect between the cultural bubbles of New York Washington and Hollywood versus the fly-over country." Huckabee spoke on NPR's All Things Considered recently about his book.

And that's one of the reasons why candidates like to publish — the free media associated with the book tour, which often coincides with the campaign tour. It's no coincidence that Rubio will be promoting his book over the next few weeks in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Those are all states with early primaries or caucuses. But the book/campaign tour isn't the only reason candidates publish.

There are many reasons why candidates publish books, says Priscilla Painton, executive editor for nonfiction at Simon and Schuster. "The one that's the most obvious is they want to get their own version of their record and their ideas out there in an uncontested way."

One Nation

What We Can All Do to Save America's Future

by Ben, M.d. Carson and Candy Carson

Hardcover, 225 pages | purchase

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More on this book:

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That's kind of what Ben Carson told us. He's written a number of books since retiring as a pediatric neurosurgeon, and is among those considering a run for the GOP nomination. "It's a very good way to get views out," he says, "and it's a very good comeback for the people who say 'well you just speak in platitudes and no one knows what your real views are.' Well, my views are extremely well documented in several writings."

Carson's latest book, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future came out last year. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's new book, written with his wife, is titled Bella's Gift. Far from a campaign book, it details the couple's struggles dealing with their special needs daughter.

Painton says the best candidates books go beyond policy prescriptions and tell personal stories. "You sort of have to dig deeply into your own past and be honest about it for people to connect with you, and I think that's why a state senator from Illinois wound up having a huge best seller when he wrote Dreams from My Father."

That was Barack Obama's first book, published in 1995, which helped raise the profile of the future president. It was followed by The Audacity of Hope, which came out as then U.S. Sen. Obama was about to launch his campaign for the White House.

The Audacity of Hope

Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

by Barack Obama

Hardcover, 375 pages | purchase

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TitleThe Audacity of HopeSubtitleThoughts on Reclaiming the American DreamAuthorBarack Obama

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Iowa has seen plenty of presidential candidates and campaign books. Sue Davis, owner of River Lights, an independent book shop in Dubuque says "if they're a legitimately well-written book then it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, they do sell."

Davis says it helps if you're a potential candidate who already has a high profile:

"Huckabee is always popular. Rubio and some of the lesser known candidates aren't going to be huge sellers here because were a little bit disconnected to some of the East Coast politics."

The remainder shelves are filled with political tomes that didn't sell, written by candidates who didn't catch on either. Simon and Schuster's Painton says titles such as Tim Pawlenty's Courage To Stand: An American Story and Herman Cain's This is Herman Cain My Journey to the White House "come and go and there's a reason for that: At the end of the day people want a good read."

And we may be opening the book on a new trend. Earlier this week, Jeb Bush released the first chapter of a new e-book, bypassing publishers all together.

Read an excerpt of The Audacity of Hope

Read an excerpt of God, Guns, Grits, And Gravy

If you were to try and list the biggest game-changers for the American food system in the last two decades, you might note the Food Network, or the writing of Michael Pollan, or maybe even the evolution of Walmart.

But you'd probably overlook NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

And that would be a mistake, according to a lengthy report out early February from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In one fell swoop, the report finds, President Bill Clinton's 1994 landmark legislation unleashed a dizzying array of market forces on agriculture, with vast long-term impacts. And with greater access to the neighboring markets, farmers and other food producers in the U.S., Mexico and Canada have helped reshape diets in some pretty significant ways.

The Salt

The Fruits Of Free Trade: How NAFTA Revamped The American Diet

The Salt

Mexican Megafarms Supplying U.S. Market Are Rife With Labor Abuses

If you take the report at face value, NAFTA has greatly increased the "economic integration" between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Instead of giving preferential treatment to domestic products by imposing tariffs on imports, the three NAFTA countries let goods flow relatively freely between them. And that includes food — a lot of it.

Today, Americans consume twice as much fruit, and three times as many vegetables, from both Mexico and Canada as we did two decades ago, according to the report. A parade of greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers now come down, often by truck, from Canada. From Mexico, we've seen huge increases in imports of seasonal fruit.

Mexican berries are an obvious example, but 20 percent of the imported watermelon we consumed in 2010-2012 also came from Mexico, compared with 5 percent in 1991-1993. As for imported avocados, 49 percent now come from Mexico, up from 0 in 1991-1993. Lots more tomatoes and papaya are coming from south of the border, too.

This produce trade boom, says the report, is only partly a product of tariff changes. It's also a result of the improved food safety standards now in place in Mexican fields, which allow more produce to get past U.S. inspectors.

But while NAFTA has largely meant that we're getting more of our favorite fresh foods from our next-door neighbors, the USDA suggests that NAFTA is profoundly transforming the food system in Mexico, sometimes in less healthful ways.

While Mexico is now the largest market for American apples and pears, U.S. meat exports to Mexico have doubled in the last two decades. Our exports of feed corn for livestock also now account for nearly one-third of the country's supply — meaning that even when Mexicans eat domestic meat, it's often been fed on American corn.

But the biggest change is how much more processed food and American-style supermarkets our neighbors have been importing. Indeed, American investment in Mexican food manufacturing — rather than agriculture, for example — has tripled since 1999, as have sales of American processed food products there.

American companies are also sending Mexico the ingredients to make foods like high-fructose corn syrup; HFCS exports to Mexico are now 863 times what they were before NAFTA. And all of that ends upon the shelves of supermarkets, whose business model relies heavily on processed food. Walmart, which opened its first Mexican store in 1991, four years after it began selling groceries, now operates 2,114 stores that offer food in Mexico.

You've likely heard that America's in the middle of a craft beer revolution. Well, we're also, apparently, swooning for cerveza de Mexico. In 2013, we imported about 2 million tons of Coronas and Modelos, making beer Mexico's largest agricultural export to the U.S.

The Salt

With Cartels On The Run, Mexican Lime Farmers Keep More Of The Green

While we may be glad that Corona is now plentiful across the U.S. (and that we're washing down more guacamole made with Mexican limes and avocados with it), there is a dark side to how NAFTA has reshaped the region's food systems: working conditions. And you won't find much exploration of that in the USDA report.

While the USDA report discusses immigration and guest worker programs, it does not address the disconnect between improved attention to produce without a corresponding attention to workers' welfare. As a recent Los Angeles Times investigation of Mexican farms growing tomatoes bound for the U.S. market found, "The contrast between the treatment of produce and of people is stark."

Mexico has also likely paid a price for opening its gates to so much processed food laden with high-fructose syrup and other not-so healthful ingredients. As the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minnesota-based think tank, has shown, Mexico's recent spike in obesity and soda consumption correlates with the passage of NAFTA.

Tracie McMillan is the author of The American Way of Eating, a New York Times bestseller, and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. You can follow her on Twitter @tmmcmillan.

trade

farmers

NAFTA

agriculture

Mexico

In a move the White House says will help "quickly identify and protect against cyber threats," President Obama will sign an executive order today urging companies that come under attack to share information about the threat with both other companies and the government.

The effort will be a chief topic Friday, when Obama meets with representatives of a wide range of companies, consumer advocates and law enforcement in Palo Alto, California.

The Obama administration is promoting a framework for sharing information about cyber threats, hoping to prevent or limit attacks like those that recently hit Sony, Anthem Inc., and other companies.

The new executive order encourages businesses to form "information sharing and analysis organizations," or ISAOs, which would gather data about hacking attacks and share it with companies and the government.

From San Francisco, NPR's Aarti Shahani reports that Friday's cybersecurity summit at Stanford University will include experts from the credit card and banking industry, along with those from healthcare companies and utilities such as electricity and gas.

"The White House expects a thousand people here," Aarti says, "to talk about what they are doing — or can do — to protect digital life."

As for what happens to compromised data after it's stolen, Aarti has a story about that process on today's Morning Edition.

The speakers will include Apple CEO Tim Cook, she reports, who'll likely talk about mobile payments.

Apple is one of several firms that the White House says have embraced the Cybersecurity Framework that was announced Thursday. The administration provides this summary of new developments:

Intel is releasing a paper on its use of the Framework and requiring all of its vendors to use the Framework by contract.

Apple is incorporating the Framework as part of the broader security protocols across its corporate networks.

Bank of America will announce that it is using the Framework and will also require it of its vendors.

U.S. Bank and Pacific Gas & Electric are announcing that they are committed to using the Framework.

AIG is starting to incorporate the NIST framework into how it underwrites cyber insurance for large, medium-sized, and small businesses and will use the framework to help customers identify gaps in their approach to cybersecurity.

QVC is announcing that it is using the Cybersecurity Framework in its risk management.

Walgreens is announcing its support for the Cybersecurity Framework and that it uses it as one of its tools for identifying and measuring risk.

Kaiser Permanente is committing to use the Framework.

The new initiatives will need to balance customers' privacy rights with the need to stop repeated hacking attacks. A White House statement says the president's order "ensures that information sharing enabled by this new framework will include strong protections for privacy and civil liberties."

"Skeptics are watching to see what the president has to say about digital privacy," Aarti reports, "and the limits of government access to tech company data."

cybersecurity

Restaurant servers are three times more likely to receive below-poverty-line pay than the rest of the U.S. workforce. Yet in a world where shoppers fret over cage-free eggs and organic vegetables, how many are also asking how much their favorite restaurant pays its staff?

An app from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, an organization of restaurant workers, employers and customers, aims to encourage diners to ask those kinds of questions about the welfare of industry workers. Think of it as a kind of Yelp for labor rights.

The ROC United Diners' Guide app lets diners investigate the policies at restaurants in the U.S. When a user enters her location, the app brings up a few local restaurants and shows whether they pay their staffs a living wage and offer a few basic benefits, like paid sick leave. When the user swipes left, the app shows and evaluates the top 100 chain restaurants in the U.S. – so you can see how they stack up.

The app actually rolled out a couple of years ago, but an updated version offers a new twist: crowdsourcing. ROC officials hope this component will quickly help expand the list, which currently offers detailed information for only about 150 restaurants.

The Salt

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If your restaurant of choice isn't on the list, the app encourages you to talk to a manager about the establishment's policies. Users can then create an entry for the restaurant and fill out as much as they know about its wages and practices. The information they submit goes to ROC's staff, who verify the details before adding it to the list of restaurants.

That feature isn't just about enlisting diners to do ROC's legwork, says Maria Myotte, the group's national communications coordinator. Every time diners reach out directly to a restaurant manager, they are demonstrating that these issues are important, she says.

"We want it to be less of an easy 'here's what you can use' list and more of an engagement tool," Myotte says.

Non-chain restaurants listed on the app appear under a category called "high road." They are rated on four different criteria.

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A screenshot of the app from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Meredith Rizzo/NPR

A screenshot of the app from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

Meredith Rizzo/NPR

The first and second criteria are related to wages: The restaurant must pay its non-tipped workers at least $10 an hour. And tipped staff must earn at least $7 an hour to make the list. That's higher than the federal minimum wage for anyone who earns tips — just $2.13 an hour, a number that hasn't increased since 1991. (As we've reported, some states have higher tip minimum wages.)

Next, the restaurant must give all employees paid sick days. "Working while sick is so commonplace," says Myotte, because most restaurant workers can't afford to take a day off without pay.

"We have heard from our workers that they face termination or [that] colleagues have been fired for not showing up" when they are sick, says Myotte.

Paid sick days, Myotte says, should really be a no-brainer. Foodborne illness moves quickly through restaurants. Because so many people touch the food, it's easy for germs to spread from restaurant staff to customers.

Finally, the restaurant must have a nondiscriminatory program for internal promotion. "A majority of actual living-wage restaurants are in fine dining," says Myotte, "but they're dominated by white workers, especially white men."

She says many restaurants have qualified applicants of color already working inside their doors, but in lower-paying positions like busboys or dishwashers. Those workers, she says, often don't get considered when management is looking to fill higher-paying, front-of-the-house positions.

"A lot of the servers are hired externally, even though there's qualified staff right there at the restaurant," says Myotte. Hiring from within might help decrease the $4 wage gap that ROC United found between white and black restaurant employees when they surveyed more than 4,000 workers.

I opened up the app here in Washington, D.C., to see who's ethically serving my lunch. Shake Shack appears on the list — but the nearest location, the app tells me, is Grand Central Terminal, in New York City. For the record, the closest one is actually about a 10-minute walk away.

Location snafu aside, according to the ROC app, Shake Shack meets all criteria for a "high road" restaurant except for one: the wages for tipped workers. But this isn't quite accurate — Shake Shack doesn't have tipped workers, so how could it be underpaying them?

"It's a little wonky on the back end to remove that standard," Myotte admits, but she says that ROC United is working on this technical issue. "What we want to make it do is specify that those restaurants don't have tipped workers."

Indeed, very few of the restaurants listed meet all four of the "high road" criteria. But with enough pressure from consumers, ROC United expects restaurants to shape up.

"There's more than just a few restaurants in cities doing this," says Myotte.

restaurant workers

Social Media platforms are getting closer to answering the question: What happens to our online accounts after we die? Facebook, Google and other popular services are offering more control over how we are remembered online. And at least one startup is looking at ways of using artificial intelligence to keep us alive virtually — long after we're gone.

Facebook announced Thursday that it is adding a new "legacy contact" feature — think of it as an emergency contact for your account in the case of death. As before, Facebook says the account of a deceased user will change to a "memorialized" status. But now, depending on the preferences the user has selected while they've living, Facebook says a family member or friend can:

"Write a post to display at the top of the memorialized Timeline (for example, to announce a memorial service or share a special message)

"Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook

"Update the profile picture and cover photo"

Previously, Facebook has been strict on refusing account access to family members of the deceased.

This announcement follows several other moves from companies attempting to grapple with the legal and emotional challenges of the digital afterlife:

Google introduced the Inactive Account Manager tool to protect the privacy of the deceased.

Yahoo Ending from Yahoo Japan also allows the living to prepare by crafting posthumous emails, canceling subscriptions and curating videos and photos to share when they're gone.

We've already seen the emergence of QR codes on headstones, linking visitors to personalized Web pages for the deceased.

It's not just a solution for confidentiality and the grieving process. These new models satisfy our fears of dying, says University of Arizona psychologist David Sbarra. "For centuries, humans have tried to battle immortality," he says.

"Culture is a manifestation of peoples' efforts to symbolically make themselves permanent," he says. "So we have technological advancements that can then ward off fears of our own mortality."

A startup called Eterni.me offers an ambitious and perhaps creepy experience to quell this universal anxiety. It lets people continue to communicate with a digital replica of their loved ones after they die. Eterni.me plans to let you curate your own immortal avatar while you're living and choose who you make it accessible to when you pass on.

"We all pass away sooner or later, leaving only a few memories behind for family, friends and humanity—and eventually we are all forgotten," reads the website's landing page. "But what if you could be remembered forever?"

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Eterni.me says it plans to create a digital replica of a loved one from past social media postings, photos and other data. Eterni.me website hide caption

itoggle caption Eterni.me website

Eterni.me says it plans to create a digital replica of a loved one from past social media postings, photos and other data.

Eterni.me website

Though the website is sparse, Eterni.me's concept has already evolved from a chatbot-navigated site to a 3-D digital avatar that mimics your personality. The startup's motto: "Simply Become Immortal."

The website adds:

"Eterni.me collects almost everything that you create during your lifetime, and processes this huge amount of information using complex Artificial Intelligence algorithms.

"Then it generates a virtual YOU, an avatar that emulates your personality and can interact with, and offer information and advice to your family and friends, even after you pass away."

Early reactions called it creepy and likened the concept to Black Mirror, the popular British TV series set in a dystopian tech-driven future. One episode revolves around a widow resorting to a service similar to what Eterni.me promises. Fragile with grief, she turns to an online service that connects her with her late husband through instant messaging, phone calls — and more.

But Eterni.me doesn't see this as simply science fiction. The company wants to make virtual immortality a reality.

As co-founder Marius Ursache told The New Yorker last year, Eterni.me launched early to gauge public interest:

The company plans to store data from Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, photos, video, location information, and even Google Glass and Fitbit devices. While you are living, you can curate and add to this material; you can also choose privacy settings and determine what information you want stored and made public. Eterni.me then allows you to create a list of people who will be contacted and given access to your account in the case of death, giving your descendants quick and easy access to that Instagram pic of your latte or a detailed history of your Facebook pokes.

The service's defining feature is a 3-D digital avatar, designed to look and sound like you, whose job will be to emulate your personality and dish out bits of information to friends and family taken from a database of stored information. A user will be encouraged to "train" its avatar, through daily interactions, in order to improve its vocabulary and conversational skills. Eterni.me's co-founder, Marius Ursache, thinks of it as a more advanced version of Siri, who, ten or fifteen years from now, will be able to "respond to questions more naturally, and learn from every conversation you have with her."

Ursache said he plans to bring on a psychologist to address the more sensitive issues. As The New Yorker reported:

[Ursache] describes Eterni.me more as a library of material. 'The avatar acts as a librarian, helping users make sense of the stored information,' he said. 'We're not trying to replace the person who died.' "

Emma Bowman is an intern with NPR Digital News.

digital afterlife

Facebook

On his way home from Europe last Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry didn't go directly to Washington. He routed his government plane to Boston's Logan Airport, which was battling a major snowstorm.

The plane circled for a half-hour before landing, and was then on the tarmac for about an hour-and-a-half. Kerry's staff and journalists traveling with him remained on board, while the secretary got off to meet his newborn granddaughter. When Kerry got back on board, the plane then proceeded to Washington.

Mixing business with family life is a perennial issue for secretaries of state and other senior government officials who are frequently traveling. The personal side trips are permitted, though they sometimes raise eyebrows and questions of cost.

When Leon Panetta was the defense secretary, he traveled most weekends on his specially equipped Pentagon plane to and from his home in California.

Last March, Kerry's plane full of U.S. government employees and journalists made a "refueling stop" in New York on the way to Ukraine, so that he could see another newborn grandchild.

A couple months before that, his plane met him in New York on the way to Paris to pick him up after he dropped the puck at the start of a Yale-Harvard hockey game at Madison Square Garden.

The State Department said the ceremonial puck drop was Kerry at work in his official capacity. The stopovers in Boston on the tail end of trips are "in keeping with precedent."

"The secretary works in Washington and overseas, but his home is in Boston," spokesperson Jen Psaki noted. "It's certainly not uncommon and far from without precedent for secretaries of state or other Cabinet officials to return to their hometowns when they have been traveling or working overseas for some time."

When she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was dropped off in New York on the way home from a few of her trips. A journalist who covered former Secretary of State George Schultz remembers dropping him in Palo Alto, Calif., on the way home from Asia so that he could spend time with his wife and play some tennis.

Kerry has done that too, taking advantage of a needed refueling and crew rest stop to join his family on a ski trip.

"He does pay fair market value for some travel," according to one official, who asked not to be named. The official was not sure how much it cost to re-fuel and de-ice the plane in Sunday's stopover in snowy Boston.

A spokesperson for MassPort, which runs Logan Airport, said there are no landing fees for U.S. government aircraft.

Secretary of State John Kerry

Citing violations of aviation safety rules, a court in South Korea has sentenced Cho Hyun-ah, former vice president of Korean Air, to one year in prison. Cho sparked an uproar after she demanded that the jet she was on return to an airport gate to leave behind a flight attendant.

The incident on the plane at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport immediately drew criticism from Koreans who saw the outburst by Cho, whose family controls Korean Air, as another sign of the entitlement enjoyed by the country's wealthy families.

It also inspired a nickname that stuck: "Nut Rage."

The Dec. 5 incident began after Cho was displeased by the manner in which she had been served macadamia nuts: They were in a bag rather than on a plate, and she had not been asked if she would like them.

Cho, who was then in charge of cabin service for the airline, angrily questioned the crew about protocol and demanded that the plane, which had pulled away from its gate to leave New York City for South Korea, return to the gate and leave a member of the cabin crew behind.

Days after the incident, Cho, who's also known as Heather Cho, apologized and resigned from the airline. But she was arrested in late December.

According to the Korea Herald, in its ruling, Seoul's Seobu District Court found that Cho "had violated a law banning passengers from pressuring crew members to deviate from the flight route," and that she "physically and verbally assaulted a female flight attendant as well as the cabin crew chief."

Prosecutors had sought a three-year sentence for Cho.

In addition to the former executive, two other people — another airline employee and an official at South Korea's Transportation Ministry — were also punished by the Seoul court.

The Korea Herald says that Korean Air's executive director was sentenced to eight months in jail after being accused of destroying evidence; a government official who had reportedly tried to interfere with witness testimony was given a suspended prison term.

nut rage

For a lot of parents, spanking your kids isn't an option. But not too long ago, many a child's bottom met the occasional switch. And while attitudes about corporal punishment have changed, it's still a provocative issue — one NBC is taking on in The Slap, a new miniseries that premiers Thursday.

The show's big event takes place in the first episode at a barbecue in Brooklyn. Family and friends are milling about, and one of the little boys, 5-year-old Hugo, is a terror. He throws someone else's iPad on the floor and digs up the host's garden, and his parents — hippies who like to drink — pretty much do nothing to stop him.

At one point, Hugo swings a baseball bat dangerously close to the other kids. His dad doesn't seem too concerned, but when the bat nearly hits another boy, that boy's father storms toward Hugo and takes him by the shoulders. Hugo kicks him in the shin and the man slaps him, setting off a firestorm of reactions. Hugo's mother is distraught, the slapper's wife is mortified and the slapper's 73-year-old aunt is old school: "The brat deserved it," she says.

The show has a dream cast that includes Peter Sarsgaard, Thandie Newton and Uma Thurman. The two main characters — Hugo's mom and the slapper — are played by Melissa George and Zachary Quinto, and each brought their personal feelings about corporal punishment to their performances. Quinto says when he was a kid, his parents were not against physical pain.

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"We called it the stick," he says. "And the stick was brought out in extreme cases of infraction. I didn't grow up in a household that was in any way damaging to me. I hated it and it terrified me, but it also instilled me with a sense of what happens when you break the rules."

But George says, "To me, no one has the right to punish someone else's child."

Harry, the slapper, definitely has anger issues. He's a self-made man who's rigid and has high expectations for his son. On the other extreme, Rosie, Hugo's mom, is a free spirit. She hates violence, wants to shelter her son from the Harrys of the world and doesn't believe in giving her son too many boundaries.

"Like her house that they live in — he can draw on the windows because she thinks it's [an] expression of his artistic abilities," George says. "You know, they say that he was swinging the bat, and what she says is ... 'Every child misbehaves.'"

Quinto and George say they brought their own experiences of either parenting or being parented into the roles. And because those experiences vary, The Slap brings up stuff that a lot of people are afraid to talk about, like the stress of balancing a job and a marriage, and being a parent.

"It is important to show this today because it puts in our faces what's happening in many households on a daily basis," says psychologist Lesley Sanders.

The series also looks at how older generations disciplined their kids 15 to 20 years ago, when things were different. "There was a sense of community, a sense of, you know, 'it takes a village to raise a child,'" Sanders says. "So ... it was OK to discipline a child that was not your own."

The Slap was originally a novel that was first adapted into a miniseries for Australian television. The American version was written by playwright Jon Robin Baitz. He says one reason he was drawn to the story was that it begins at a barbecue, a fairly routine setting.

"There's an idea in playwriting that, you know, the drama begins once ritual is broken," he says. And the drama isn't just the slap itself; it's also the ugly repercussions.

Space, you may have heard, can be a cold and lonely place. But the NASA/ESA Hubble telescope has identified a particularly well-adjusted corner of space — or at least that's what a recent image suggests, with the help of an effect called an Einstein Ring.

In the Hubble image of galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849, two bright galaxies resemble eyes, NASA says, "and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing."

The striking photo drew our attention to a recent posting by the space agency, in which we learned:

"Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble's discoveries, can be explained by Einstein's theory of general relativity.

"In this special case of gravitational lensing, a ring — known as an Einstein Ring — is produced from this bending of light, a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer and resulting in the ring-like structure we see here."

The European Space Agency says the image was flagged by Judy Schmidt (aka Geckzilla) as part of the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image-processing competition.

Hubble Space Telescope

NASA

photographs

It's a scary time to be an altruistic American abroad. The death of Kayla Mueller of Prescott, Ariz., is a sobering reminder of just how dangerous the world can be for aid workers.

Mueller had a big place in her heart for displaced Syrians. She'd worked with the Danish Refugee Council and other nonprofits.

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Family members confirmed Tuesday that Kayla Mueller, 26, died. Kidnapped in Syria in 2013, she was held by the Islamic State, which reported that she had been killed in Jordanian airstrikes. The Mueller Family hide caption

itoggle caption The Mueller Family

Family members confirmed Tuesday that Kayla Mueller, 26, died. Kidnapped in Syria in 2013, she was held by the Islamic State, which reported that she had been killed in Jordanian airstrikes.

The Mueller Family

Then she was kidnapped in 2013, along with a Syrian friend. They had driven to Aleppo, where the friend had a contract to fix the Internet at a Doctors Without Borders hospital. The friend — a man — was soon released. Mueller was not. It was confirmed Tuesday that she had died, reportedly as a result of Jordanian airstrikes.

The news sent waves of sorrow through humanitarian groups and the people who work for them. And raised many questions:

How can these groups protect their employees and volunteers? What should the workers find out before signing on? We asked Trevor Hughes of International Relief and Development and Joel Charny of InterAction. The interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

Is the world a more dangerous place for aid workers today?

Hughes: Fifteen years ago, there was a kind of assumption that being a humanitarian gave you some level of protection. Obviously things have changed.

How so? What's different in the way warring parties view aid workers?

Charny: [The view is] if you're not with us, you're against us. That extends to aid workers as well. And more conflicts involve [parties that] are not members of the United Nations. Or they're countries that have not signed on to the Geneva Convention.

What burden does this put on aid groups?

Hughes: If an aid group isn't in a continuous cycle of evaluation and risk assessment, they're in more trouble than anyone can imagine.

Is it up to the people on the ground to decide if they're safe or not?

Hughes: I'm a firm believer that people on the ground must be listened to. But there has to be someone qualified to make those determinations back in headquarters.

If you were a new volunteer or aid worker, what questions would you ask of an organization?

Hughes: What I like to tell people a lot is look into the little things. If you're going to be traveling to a field site, ask who's going to meet you at the airport, how will you know it's them, how will they know it's you, what happens if you show up and there's no one there. You can see if they have protocols in place and share them. And those questions will get you to the group's security person because the recruiter won't have those details.

Charny: There's a kind of protocol InterAction has developed for its member groups called the minimum operating security standards, or MOSS. The first question is: Is your organization MOSS compliant? Can you show me your security plan, your policy in the event that, God forbid, I'm kidnapped.

And what should you ask yourself?

Hughes: If you're going into an extraordinarily violent situation, like Syria, you need to ask yourself if that's the place for volunteers. There's a lot of hurt in this world; a lot of people need help. If you're a doctor with serious wartime emergency room skills and you're going in with an organization that's established clinics in wartime situation, that makes sense. But make sure you're not volunteering blindly or inappropriately.

No one wants to blame the victim, but when it comes to young workers, are they more naive about the threats out there?

Charny: I went to Cambodia in 1980 when there was still a war going on between the Vietnam-backed government and the Khmer Rouge. I was 26, the exact same age as Kayla Mueller. When you're that young, you feel invincible. You want to help people. You don't spend your time preoccupied with everything that could go wrong.

It's up to the organization to say, "Well, time out. Here's what you need to be aware of, and we want you to go through this five-day security training. And we want you to understand that if something terrible goes wrong, this is what we're going to do about it."

You can't depend on people in their 20s to be fully aware of the risks they're undertaking. It's the responsibility of the organization.

Should an aid group consider pulling out of a dangerous country, such as Syria, Somalia or parts of South Sudan?

Charny: We have a lot of jargon in our field, just like any other. One of the terms is "program criticality." It's a fancy way of saying, "Is this program life-saving? Is it really necessary for us to do this program?"

And then you look at the criticality of the program and compare that to the risks in carrying it out. If it's a famine situation and your organization has a credible belief that it can deliver food without threat to its staff, if you're going to be able to save lives through this intervention, the risk calculation is a little more liberal than if you're doing a training program or long-term education initiative and all of a sudden bombs start falling. Then it becomes a lot more difficult to put staff in harm's way.

If it's too risky to bring in foreign aid workers, can you rely on local people to staff the programs?

Charny: It's not fair. It's objectively true that there's less danger for Syrians in Syria and Somalis in Somalis, but at a fundamental level, international relief agencies need to be concerned about the safety and welfare of all of staff and not have a bias toward saying, "they [citizens of the country] are more likely not to be attacked."

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Do you think a nonprofit might put staff or volunteers in a dangerous country so it can say it has people on the ground when its does its fundraising?

Charny: I don't think so. I'm pretty cynical, but I'm not that cynical. I think anyone who's working in Syria is not doing it for branding purposes. They're doing it because they're really trying to help.

But could some groups be naive about the risks?

Charny: That can be. At a fundamental level, our community believes that if we act, things can get better. If we don't act, or we ignore a problem, it's almost shameful. We are pushing the envelope. Whether you want to call that naivete or hubris or a martyr complex, there's some truth to that.

kayla mueller

aid workers

development

Global Health

How much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?

What's your best guess? 10 percent? 20 percent? 1 percent?

If you're like most Americans, you probably guessed wrong.

In December, the Kaiser Family Foundation polled 1,505 people. Only one in 20 knew the right answer: less than 1 percent of the $4 trillion federal budget goes to foreign aid. The average respondent estimated that 26 percent went toward assisting other countries.

What's more, our ignorance colors the way we think about foreign spending. Fifty-six percent of the poll respondents thought the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid. Once they were told that the U.S. spends less than 1 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid, only 28 percent still thought we were overspending.

This is nothing new. The Kaiser Family Foundation has conducted this poll since 2009, and every year the response is the same. But maybe it's not our fault. Maybe the problem is that foreign aid is incredibly complicated. Even coming up with a definition of "foreign aid" is tough. So we spoke to five specialists to soak up some foreign aid smarts.

With Obama's $4 trillion budget for 2016 newly submitted to Congress for approval, here's a primer on the 1 percent.

The definition of foreign aid is pretty broad. The largest portion of the money goes to health; in 2014 the U.S. spent about a third of the foreign aid budget, or more than $5.3 billion. The next two biggest portions go toward economic development and humanitarian assistance. Small sums of aid support democratic elections in other countries. A tiny portion goes to protect forests in countries where logging is destroying natural habitats. Some aid funds programs that train local law enforcement to combat drug trafficking. (But no foreign aid goes directly toward another country's military.)

The vast majority of spending on health goes to HIV/AIDS projects. In 2014, the U.S. spent $3.1 billion on HIV/AIDS — about a fifth of the foreign aid budget. The next two big health categories were "Maternal and Child Health," at about $530 million, and malaria, at about $470 million. Of all the global health expenditures, a category labeled "Pandemic Influenza and Other Emerging Threats" receives the least funding, about $66 million in 2014. Funding for the U.S. Ebola response counts as emergency assistance and is not included in the budget.

The U.S. spent $2.7 million — about a sixth of foreign aid money — on economic development in 2014. Economic development mostly includes infrastructure projects, like building roads, expanding electricity and improving phone and internet access.

Another sixth goes to humanitarian assistance. The majority is earmarked for "Protection, Assistance, and Solutions" — a vague title that refers to caring for refugees who've fled from conflicts. The money feeds and houses the refugees and sometimes covers shelter and migration costs. A tiny amount from this category goes toward disaster readiness.

There's more to foreign aid than the foreign aid budget. First, there's money for Overseas Contingency Operations, or more simply, finishing up projects that the U.S. already started. For example, in 2013, the U.S. spent $2.1 billion on foreign aid in Afghanistan, even though only $700 million was allocated in the federal budget. Then there's emergency assistance, like the aforementioned Ebola. Finally, the private sector often chips in to help build infrastructure, and their contributions are separate from foreign aid. For example, USAID partnered with Coca Cola to build juicing facilities in Haiti so that locals could turn their mangoes into a marketable product.

If you want to know more about foreign aid, you'll have an easier time of it than in years past. Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Transparency and Accountability Act in 2013 to help people understand where foreign aid money goes, and many of the agencies that are applying those aid dollars are doing the same. If you want the details, check out foreignassistance.gov.

The U.S. is pretty generous...until you consider how much money we have. "On the one hand, you can say that the U.S. is the most generous because it is one of the biggest donators to foreign aid," says Phyllis Pomerantz, a professor of public policy at Duke University. "But on the other hand, we have one of the lowest percentages of gross national income donated to foreign aid," she says.

foreign aid

Last Sunday, hundreds of Paulistanos, as the residents of Sao Paulo are known, dressed up and danced on the streets at one of the dozens of block parties that happen in advance of the annual celebration known as Carnival.

Except this year – among the pirates and Viking bumblebees — some costumes had a more serious, if still not entirely sober, theme.

Antonio Passareli was dressed as a water fountain — with the spigot placed strategically on his waist. But it's no laughing matter, he said.

"We have to make some noise about water," Passareli said, adding he was desperately worried about the city's current water shortage.

And he's not alone.

Southern coastal Brazil is suffering its worst drought in 80 years. South America's biggest city – home to more than 20 million people – may soon be under severe rationing.

Water restrictions are pretty arbitrary at the moment, but the state government is considering emergency rationing in the coming weeks: The most draconian plan could see residents without any water for five days a week.

"Sao Paulo was known as the drizzle city, lots of drizzle. Not anymore," says Augusto Jose Pereira Filho, a professor of atmospheric science at Sao Paulo University. "Now it's kind of a desert."

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A demonstrator dressed as a bather protests against the rationing of water, outside the official residence of Sao Paulo's Governor Geraldo Alckmin in Sao Paulo, on Jan. 26. The banner behind him reads, "Planet Water, Dry Lives." Andre Penner/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Andre Penner/AP

A demonstrator dressed as a bather protests against the rationing of water, outside the official residence of Sao Paulo's Governor Geraldo Alckmin in Sao Paulo, on Jan. 26. The banner behind him reads, "Planet Water, Dry Lives."

Andre Penner/AP

The reason for the drought is complicated: a mix of climate change, Amazonian deforestation, water mismanagement and Pereira's theory that the massive expansion of cities like Sao Paulo with very little green spaces left has created a kind of heat island which sucks up moisture. That, Pereira says, actually diverts water from the surrounding countryside where the reservoirs are. He says he fears a future where there will be riots over water.

"That scenario is really scary," he says. "Water is very important; it's a fundamental resource for us."

The Cantaeira reservoir system provides half Sao Paulo's drinking water. It's now down to only 6 percent of capacity.

But it's not only Sao Paulo that's in crisis. The drought has affected the breadbasket state of Minas Gerais as well as Rio de Janeiro. Food prices are soaring and businesses are struggling to adapt.

Pablo Muniz is the owner of Tigre Cego restaurant, which is using disposable plates and cutlery — as are many restaurants in Sao Paulo.

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Renata Cabral (left), Luciana Figueredo (right) and a friend dressed in water-themed costumes at a pre-Carnival block party in Sao Paulo. "It's Carnival and we can't forget it's a reality the water is finishing and we have to do something," said Cabral. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Lourdes Garcia-Navarro/NPR

Renata Cabral (left), Luciana Figueredo (right) and a friend dressed in water-themed costumes at a pre-Carnival block party in Sao Paulo. "It's Carnival and we can't forget it's a reality the water is finishing and we have to do something," said Cabral.

Lourdes Garcia-Navarro/NPR

"I've no water every day from 12 midday to 8 a.m. in the morning the next day," he says.

Muniz and others in the city blame the local government for the problem. The drought has been going on for months, but he says in advance of the World Cup — which Brazil hosted last summer — and the elections that followed, the authorities didn't want to take tough action. And now it's a disaster, he says.

"They were pretending we didn't have a problem, but it was already very clear that we were having a problem," he says.

Many apartment buildings in the city are drilling for wells; others are trucking in water at great cost.

Tania Franco is a freelance journalist. Its 1:50 in the afternoon. The water gets shut off in her building at 2 p.m., and she is rushing around filling up containers.

"(I use this bottle) to flush the toilet," she tells me. "It's the only way. We try to do everything before two p.m. We take showers, we do the laundry, but there are some things we cannot do in advance right?"

She says she hopes this crisis will lead to better conservation policies – some estimates say that 40 percent of water in Brazil is lost to leaky pipes and old infrastructure.

environment

drought

Brazil

Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh recently went to Mexico City to talk with women who've gotten unwanted "piropos," as catcalling is known in Mexico. Here are some of the things they recalled hearing:

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Maricela, a politician, describes the vulgarity of the "Piropos" teenage girls receive in Mexico City. Courtesy of Fusion. hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion.

Maricela, a politician, describes the vulgarity of the "Piropos" teenage girls receive in Mexico City.

Courtesy of Fusion.

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Daniela, 28, is studying communications. Courtesy of Fusion hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion

Daniela, 28, is studying communications.

Courtesy of Fusion

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Valerie, 30, a publicist from Mexico City. Courtesy of Fusion hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion

Valerie, 30, a publicist from Mexico City.

Courtesy of Fusion

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Sabina, 30, a university professor from Mexico. Courtesy of Fusion. hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion.

Sabina, 30, a university professor from Mexico.

Courtesy of Fusion.

Fazlalizadeh, 29, has been taking on street harassment since 2012 with her campaign "Stop Telling Women to Smile," a series of street posters with portraits of women and messages like "critiques on my body are not welcome" and "women do not owe you their time or conversation." The campaign started in Brooklyn and has expanded to other cities including, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston.

Mexico City, where rampant sexual harassment has led the city to provide female-only subway cars and buses, is the campaign's first international foray, and it's part of an impressive new interactive project at Fusion, a joint startup between ABC and Univision aimed at attracting millennials. The page includes short videos of women describing their experiences, map of where the posters were planted throughout the city, and videos documenting the project.

One thing that really stands out about the project is the range of ages of women who participated; some are as young as 18, and some are as old as 63.

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More posters from the campaign. Courtesy of Fusion hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion

More posters from the campaign.

Courtesy of Fusion

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Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, 29, talks to one of the women she depicted in poster she pasted on the streets of Mexico City. Courtesy of Fusion hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion

Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, 29, talks to one of the women she depicted in poster she pasted on the streets of Mexico City.

Courtesy of Fusion

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Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, a Brooklyn-based artist, pasting a poster in Mexico City. Courtesy of Fusion hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, a Brooklyn-based artist, pasting a poster in Mexico City.

Courtesy of Fusion

"There have been women [fighting] against street harassment since forever here in Mexico but I think that for a couple of years now, this dialogue has been reignited," Gabriela Duhart-Herrera, 26, of Hollaback! Mexico told Fusion. "It is something that happens all the time. Every day."

"I want to present people in a metropolitan environment dealing with things that women in the United States deal with, the 'jackals' and sexual harassment," says the editor of digital voices and storytelling at Fusion, Anna Holmes. "It's not a pretty picture."

Head over to Fusion to see the strong reaction the project had in Mexico, in which many participants talk in detail about the vulgarity of the comments.

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Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, the woman behind "Stop Telling Women to smile," in Mexico City. Courtesy of Fusion. hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fusion.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, the woman behind "Stop Telling Women to smile," in Mexico City.

Courtesy of Fusion.

This week, President Obama will propose legislative language, pre-negotiated with Congress, granting him specific permission to make war on the group calling itself the Islamic State.

If approved by the House and Senate, that language will formalize the struggle against the Sunni extremists who are also known as ISIS or ISIL — and best known for such actions as the torture killing of a captive Jordanian pilot and the beheading of other hostages from around the world.

The anti-ISIS struggle has already been underway for six months, with President Obama ordering airstrikes against thousands of ISIS targets and supplying military aid to anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria.

Why has the president not sought formal permission for any of this up to now? Why has Congress not focused on a firm insistence that he do?

The answers are both legal and political. The White House cited previous okays from Congress in the region, and for a time no one wanted to elevate the ISIS threat, or seem unprepared to deal with it. Both parties were also dealing with the complex calculus of last November's midterm elections.

The Obama administration also might have preferred not to have its actions framed by a formal Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). This was, after all, the instrument by which previous wars in the region were prosecuted by the Bush administrations — both of them with the approval of Congress in 1991, 2001 and 2002.

Surely it is not a welcome thought for the current White House that their moves in the Islamic world will now be accompanied by the phrase "...just like President Bush."

But the ISIS crisis has deepened, becoming the salient challenge posed by radical Islam in all its forms at this moment in time. The torture and beheadings and terror attacks in Paris blur into a single provocation — even when they are carried out by unconnected cells of militant Islamist radicals. A heightened period of military engagement is coming, and a clearer legal justification is needed for what will come next.

So how should the commander in chief be governed in pursuing this new war? We no longer contemplate outright declarations of war. In the nuclear age, and in the era of asymmetrical wars between great powers and guerrilla movements, war has long since been redefined. Beginning with the Korean conflict of the early 1950s, the U.S. has made war by other names — including "police action" and "peace-keeping." The Vietnam War dragged on for a decade under the congressional authority of the open-ended 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

In more recent decades, the superannuated declaration of war has been superseded by the sleek and facilitating AUMF.

An AUMF was approved by Congress in January 1991, responding to a request from President George H.W. Bush. The provocation was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait, on the Persian Gulf. The first President Bush wanted to send something like 250,000 troops to liberate Kuwait and he had lined up the support of dozens of other countries — many of them Arab or Islamic.

Congress was restive at first, complaining and hectoring throughout the fall of 1990 (another midterm election year). But as the troop build-up in the Gulf continued, the leaders of the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate insisted on a showdown with the president.

Days of reasonably serious and substantive debate ensued in both chambers, and in the end Bush got his AUMF. The vote in the Senate was a stunningly close 52-47. The House was more easily persuaded, approving 250-183.

The result was then known as the Persian Gulf War, an immediate victory for the U.S. and its allies. The Iraqi Army was expelled from Kuwait with heavy casualties. But President Bush decided to settle for the basic objective and ended the hostilities with much of the Iraqi military and political power structure still intact. Saddam Hussein had lost his prize but retained his pride, claiming he had fought the U.S. to a standstill.

The second AUMF was associated with the second President Bush. It was approved by Congress in 2001 just one week after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. At the time, the House was controlled by Republicans, most of them eager to grant the second President Bush extraordinary powers to pursue the perpetrators of the attacks and terrorism in general.

The Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, had more misgivings about a blanket authority. Some senior senators remembered their regrets from the Gulf of Tonkin tragedy. In the end, however, that chamber went along as well.

A year later, after a far more spirited debate, the Congress approved a new AUMF directed at the regime of Saddam Hussein. Although no link between Baghdad and the Sept. 11 plotters was ever proven (nor even explicitly alleged), the second Bush administration was committed to revisiting the unfinished business of the first. It was enough that Saddam Hussein had rejoiced in the success of the Sept. 11 attacks, and that he had supposedly defied the world community by pursuing "weapons of mass destruction."

No such weapons were found after the AUMF of that fall was used to justify an invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But the U.S. forces once again easily vanquished the official military of Iraq, this time marching on to Baghdad and eventually capturing Hussein himself hiding in a "spider hole."

There followed, however, years of insurrection and sectarian warfare in Iraq, amid floundering efforts to establish a pluralistic government. That effort continues today, and its travails have left the countryside vulnerable to ISIS — among other sorrows.

Each of these AUMF votes has proven politically contentious in some measure. The 1991 votes reflected the misgivings left over from Vietnam. The 2001 vote, along with the Patriot Act, ushered in the War on Terror that would dominate American foreign policy for a decade and more.

And a yes vote on the 2002 AUMF, which seemed quite mainstream at the time, would come back five years later to haunt the presidential candidacy of then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Without that pro-war vote, and all the sorrows that followed on that invasion, there would have been far less daylight in 2007 and 2008 for Clinton's upstart challenger, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Unintended consequences, in both the international arena and the realm of domestic politics, have followed upon each of these AUMF votes. They are, in many ways, the most remembered legacy of the two Bush presidencies.

This week, President Obama will propose legislative language, pre-negotiated with Congress, granting him specific permission to make war on the group calling itself the Islamic State.

If approved by the House and Senate, that language will formalize the struggle against the Sunni extremists who are also known as ISIS or ISIL — and best known for such actions as the torture killing of a captive Jordanian pilot and the beheading of other hostages from around the world.

The anti-ISIS struggle has already been underway for six months, with President Obama ordering airstrikes against thousands of ISIS targets and supplying military aid to anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria.

Why has the president not sought formal permission for any of this up to now? Why has Congress not focused on a firm insistence that he do?

The answers are both legal and political. The White House cited previous okays from Congress in the region, and for a time no one wanted to elevate the ISIS threat, or seem unprepared to deal with it. Both parties were also dealing with the complex calculus of last November's midterm elections.

The Obama administration also might have preferred not to have its actions framed by a formal Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). This was, after all, the instrument by which previous wars in the region were prosecuted by the Bush administrations — both of them with the approval of Congress in 1991, 2001 and 2002.

Surely it is not a welcome thought for the current White House that their moves in the Islamic world will now be accompanied by the phrase "...just like President Bush."

But the ISIS crisis has deepened, becoming the salient challenge posed by radical Islam in all its forms at this moment in time. The torture and beheadings and terror attacks in Paris blur into a single provocation — even when they are carried out by unconnected cells of militant Islamist radicals. A heightened period of military engagement is coming, and a clearer legal justification is needed for what will come next.

So how should the commander in chief be governed in pursuing this new war? We no longer contemplate outright declarations of war. In the nuclear age, and in the era of asymmetrical wars between great powers and guerrilla movements, war has long since been redefined. Beginning with the Korean conflict of the early 1950s, the U.S. has made war by other names — including "police action" and "peace-keeping." The Vietnam War dragged on for a decade under the congressional authority of the open-ended 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

In more recent decades, the superannuated declaration of war has been superseded by the sleek and facilitating AUMF.

An AUMF was approved by Congress in January 1991, responding to a request from President George H.W. Bush. The provocation was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait, on the Persian Gulf. The first President Bush wanted to send something like 250,000 troops to liberate Kuwait and he had lined up the support of dozens of other countries — many of them Arab or Islamic.

Congress was restive at first, complaining and hectoring throughout the fall of 1990 (another midterm election year). But as the troop build-up in the Gulf continued, the leaders of the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate insisted on a showdown with the president.

Days of reasonably serious and substantive debate ensued in both chambers, and in the end Bush got his AUMF. The vote in the Senate was a stunningly close 52-47. The House was more easily persuaded, approving 250-183.

The result was then known as the Persian Gulf War, an immediate victory for the U.S. and its allies. The Iraqi Army was expelled from Kuwait with heavy casualties. But President Bush decided to settle for the basic objective and ended the hostilities with much of the Iraqi military and political power structure still intact. Saddam Hussein had lost his prize but retained his pride, claiming he had fought the U.S. to a standstill.

The second AUMF was associated with the second President Bush. It was approved by Congress in 2001 just one week after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. At the time, the House was controlled by Republicans, most of them eager to grant the second President Bush extraordinary powers to pursue the perpetrators of the attacks and terrorism in general.

The Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, had more misgivings about a blanket authority. Some senior senators remembered their regrets from the Gulf of Tonkin tragedy. In the end, however, that chamber went along as well.

A year later, after a far more spirited debate, the Congress approved a new AUMF directed at the regime of Saddam Hussein. Although no link between Baghdad and the Sept. 11 plotters was ever proven (nor even explicitly alleged), the second Bush administration was committed to revisiting the unfinished business of the first. It was enough that Saddam Hussein had rejoiced in the success of the Sept. 11 attacks, and that he had supposedly defied the world community by pursuing "weapons of mass destruction."

No such weapons were found after the AUMF of that fall was used to justify an invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But the U.S. forces once again easily vanquished the official military of Iraq, this time marching on to Baghdad and eventually capturing Hussein himself hiding in a "spider hole."

There followed, however, years of insurrection and sectarian warfare in Iraq, amid floundering efforts to establish a pluralistic government. That effort continues today, and its travails have left the countryside vulnerable to ISIS — among other sorrows.

Each of these AUMF votes has proven politically contentious in some measure. The 1991 votes reflected the misgivings left over from Vietnam. The 2001 vote, along with the Patriot Act, ushered in the War on Terror that would dominate American foreign policy for a decade and more.

And a yes vote on the 2002 AUMF, which seemed quite mainstream at the time, would come back five years later to haunt the presidential candidacy of then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Without that pro-war vote, and all the sorrows that followed on that invasion, there would have been far less daylight in 2007 and 2008 for Clinton's upstart challenger, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Unintended consequences, in both the international arena and the realm of domestic politics, have followed upon each of these AUMF votes. They are, in many ways, the most remembered legacy of the two Bush presidencies.

Senegal is full of tourist attractions: sandy beaches, historic buildings, religious sites. But when historian Donna Patterson visits, she heads to the drugstore.

"Pharmacies are the lens [through] which I view Senegal," she says. A historian of African medicine at Wellesley College, Patterson explores how Senegalese pharmacies became "the forefront of health care" in her latest book, Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship.

Unlike the chain pharmacies that dominate the U.S., most of Senegal's are privately owned. hey come in all different shapes and sizes. Some stand out, with old-fashioned signs painted in bright blue and green. A cheerful cardboard teddy bear sits in front of one, telling customers the pharmacy is open for business.

Inside, the shelves resemble those in an American drugstore: filled with cosmetics, baby items, toothbrushes and other toiletries. Boxes of medicine neatly line the shelves behind the counter, where a pharmacist can be seen diagnosing a patient or mixing medicinal syrups by hand.

Patterson credits the rise of Senegal's pharmaceutical industry partly to French colonizers in the early 20th century. Senegal was then suffering from outbreaks of yellow fever, bubonic plague, flu and smallpox. That put pressure on the French to build a better health infrastructure.

The first school of medicine was established in 1918, training the Senegalese to become pharmacists, nurse, veterinarians and midwives. The locals were first trained as assistants, but over time "[the colonizers] decided to professionalize Africans in these biomedical health [care] not just use them in terms of auxiliary support," Patterson says.

Fast forward a few decades. Today there are more than 1,000 pharmacies serving a country of 14 million. Many Senegalese prefer to visit a pharmacy to get diagnosed and treated for minor injuries, infections and illnesses. It's both cheaper and more convenient than visiting the doctor, says Patterson.

Why are pharmacies are at the forefront of health care?

The primary reasons are proximity and cost. [People] don't have to pay a fee to visit the pharmacy [as they do] at a hospital. In terms of proximity, pharmacies are everywhere. You can find multiple pharmacies in many neighborhoods, particularly in cities and increasingly in smaller towns. Whereas doctors are congregated primarily in the urban centers and neighborhoods that have high socioeconomic status.

And in some circles, pharmaceuticals are considered a status symbol?

Being able to take pharmaceuticals can be seen as a sign of affluence — someone can have a cold and take five different things that they were able to go to a pharmacy and buy these things — [even] if they only need one.

How do pharmacists regard Senegal's traditional healers?

Traditional healing is so pervasive. It's been a major part of [Senegalese] life and we just can't scalp that. What often happens is that many people will go to the traditional healer first. And if it's not working, they'll go to the pharmacist. And the pharmacists know this. [They will ask] if someone is taking some sort of herbal remedy [because] there could be drug interactions. Some of the pharmacists are absolutely opposed [to traditional healers]. Others say, "we should have more collaboration."

In your book you write that women own 48 percent of pharmacies in Senegal. How did women become such big players?

We first see a handful of African women getting into the School of Medicine and Pharmacy in the 1940s. The literacy rates for women are lower than they are for men — they've always have been — [and] most women weren't going that far in [primary and secondary] school so that made it difficult. There was also discrimination so qualified women were often not admitted to keep more spots for men. What happened in the 1960s and '70s is that women started [attending university] in much higher numbers. They tended to stick with it and were more tenacious in their studies, and men dropped out at higher rates.

More [women] were able to own pharmacies. Madame N'deye Dieynaba Mbodj Fall, who ran the National Order of Pharmacist [Senegal's major pharmacist association] from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, became the most powerful pharmacist in the country. And [she and other women pharmacists] were able to open up this sphere for women after them.

How has that affected gender roles?

These women have a very lucrative pharmacy [business], and money speaks. They're able to contribute to the welfare of their immediate and extended family — if someone is getting married or needs school fees. With this kind of economic contribution comes power. The [women] can influence decisions, like what their family member should study.

For some husbands, it's very difficult to deal with a woman with this much economic clout so some of the [women] get divorced. They only remarry if they want to because they can support themselves and their children.

You write about Keur Serigne Bi, an underground market for illegal drug sales. How does that play into Senegal's health care?

In many countries in the global south, there are parallel drug trades. Keur Serigne Bi is this [marketplace] where the focus is [selling] pharmaceuticals that have been acquired through [illegal] means. Things are often perceived to be slightly less expensive. And some people of lower social economic strata who have the perception that pharmacies are judging them feel more accepted [at these markets]. There are problems though because most of those who are selling are illiterate. Some things that should be refrigerated aren't. Some things are expired and where a pharmacist would throw that away, they would keep it until they sell it.

Why hasn't the government or pharmacist associations shut them down?

It's tricky. The Mourides [a branch of Sufi Islam] is one of the largest investors in Keur Serigne Bi [which means "the house of religious leaders"]. They are very powerful in terms of religion or influencing elections. So one can understand why the government would be reticent to go up against a religious brotherhood.

What's the outlook for the new generation of pharmacists?

The only way they can really own pharmacies is to move outside of congested urban areas, where there are too many [pharmacies], and into rural areas. There is money to be made. Maybe [the government] needs to give the graduates incentive to open pharmacies in the rural areas.

pharmacies

Senegal