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They were the ones who went door to door to stop the spread of Ebola. They were accused of passing on the virus and had water hurled at them. They were the community health workers — the unsung heroes of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia.

During the darkest days of the epidemic, the West Point slum in Monrovia became a battle ground over Ebola. Last August, as people were dying in the streets from the disease, residents of West Point trashed a shelter for people infected with the virus. The government responded by slapping a quarantine on the entire township. Riots ensued, but in the background there was still a deadly epidemic to fight.

Now, more than a half-year later, things have turned around. Liberia hasn't reported a single case of Ebola since the end of March. This Saturday, as the country marks its 42nd day since the last recorded case of Ebola — twice the incubation period for the virus — officials in Monrovia plan to announce that Liberia is finally Ebola-free.

And it's thanks, in large part, to the volunteers whose messages at first fell on deaf ears.

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A group of community health volunteers in the West Point township of Monrovia. Jescina Washington is at the far left and Hassan Newland is second from the left. Jason Beaubien/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Jason Beaubien/NPR

A group of community health volunteers in the West Point township of Monrovia. Jescina Washington is at the far left and Hassan Newland is second from the left.

Jason Beaubien/NPR

"Oh, it was too difficult, you trying to talk to the people," says Jescina Washington. "Some will tell you Ebola is not real. Some tell you Ebola is not in Liberia."

Washington worked in West Point as a community health volunteer, trying to educate people on Ebola prevention. She says people denied that Ebola even existed. They accused her and other health care workers of making people sick to attract international aid money. People even threw dirty water at them.

But Washington and an army of volunteers pushed on. They kept pounding on doors, warning people not to touch sick relatives, not to bury anyone who suddenly died and to seek treatment immediately if they started to get sick.

In West Point and across the region, the virus continued to spread as people ignored the workers. In September Liberia was logging more than 300 new cases a week.

Then things started to change.

"The communities were the heroes in this fight," says Hassan Newland, who was in charge of mobilizing communities for UNICEF in Monrovia at the time. "They took on Ebola and decided enough is enough."

The key to turning the corner on the outbreak in the Liberian capital, he says, was neighborhood groups that took on the disease block by block, house by house. "They were locating the sicknesses themselves," he tells NPR. "They were reporting the cases themselves. So when they decided to get involved we started to defeat Ebola."

A lot of other things happened at that time. More Ebola treatment units were built, the U.S. military sent in mobile labs to quickly diagnose cases, and shipments of protective clothing and gloves started to flow in. More international medical teams arrived.

But all of that would have been wasted if the number of cases just kept growing exponentially. Health workers had to first change people's minds and get them to protect themselves from the virus, says Mohammed Sankoh, medical director of Redemption Hospital.

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Former Ebola Fighters Feel As If They Get No Respect

After people's behavior changed, he says, transmission slowed. So it was much easier to track down people who were at risk of infection and send them to treatment centers if they started to get sick.

Goats and Soda

How Liberia Is Starting To Beat Ebola, With Fingers Crossed

The elimination of Ebola took a lot of hard work by brave health care workers and international disease experts, Sankoh says. But ultimately this was a victory by the Liberian people.

health workers

ebola

Liberia

The long wait for Muppets fans is over: ABC is bringing back the beloved puppets in a prime time TV series this fall for the first time in nearly 20 years.

News of the new show, called The Muppets, dropped this week as TV networks begin calling producers, stars and studio executives in advance of next week's "upfronts" — the annual ritual where broadcasters roll out their fall schedules for advertisers to score advance sales.

Staged as glitzy events in such Manhattan venues as Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall, the upfront presentations require stars and producers from shows airing next season to show up in New York and glad-hand advertisers.

That means some people get calls telling them to pack their bags for New York, and others learn their schedules will be a little freer in the weeks to come.

The Muppets, which features the Disney-owned puppets from The Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight TV series, along with the movie franchises, was considered a shoo-in for pickup at Disney-owned ABC. The series will be filmed like a "mockumentary" — similar to The Office or Modern Family — showcasing the puppets' personal and romantic lives in a little more adult setting.

But not all the upfront news has been well-received. Fans of Fox's The Mindy Project learned this week the show's production company was in talks to move the show from the network to the streaming service Hulu. The broadcaster declined to comment, but a source close to the production confirmed negotiations aimed at securing a two-season deal at Hulu.

The move makes sense for a few reasons: TV shows generally need about 100 episodes to be sold into syndication, where the studio that makes the show can make perpetual profits on the program. (The Mindy Project has aired 65 episodes.) The series has struggled in ratings, drawing about 2 million viewers for its finale episode this season, but has a passionate fan base and critical acclaim.

And Hulu has shown — through high-profile deals to acquire exclusive streaming rights for Seinfeld and South Park libraries — that they are hungry for high-profile series fans can't find elsewhere.

If the Mindy move happens, it would confirm a recent trend that has seen several canceled series finish up runs on streaming services, from NBC's Community on Yahoo to A&E's Longmire and AMC's The Killing on Netflix. In today's increasingly crowded streaming/video/TV universe, getting canceled by a network isn't necessarily the end of a series' story — especially if it has a passionate, advertiser-friendly fan base.

ABC also picked up new seasons of several freshman shows that were considered on the "bubble" of cancellation, including TV's only network sitcom centering on an Asian family, Fresh Off the Boat, the Marvel movie spinoff Agent Carter and the crime anthology series Secrets and Lies.

There's no hint of resurrection for other ABC shows that have been cancelled this week, however. Stars of the sitcom Cristela and the drama Forever told fans their shows had been cancelled on social media; Forever star Ioan Gruffudd admitted on Instagram he was "a little bit shaken up" at losing "the role of my dreams."

Comic Cristela Alonzo, who had blogged about Cristela's efforts to build a traditional sitcom around a Latino family — and retweeted complaints about the show's lack of promotion by ABC — told fans on Twitter "you can't make people get something they haven't lived."

Despite Alonzo's concerns, early news indicates the broadcast networks will have more new series coming next TV season that are centered on black, Latino and Asian characters and families.

ABC has picked up a reboot of the 1989 John Candy movie Uncle Buck with an African-American cast, and a workplace/family comedy called Dr. Ken starring Ken Jeong, the co-star of the Hangover movies. NBC will have a comedy starring Eva Longoria called Telenovela and a new series featuring former Ugly Betty star America Ferrara called Superstore.

The final word on most networks shows will come next week, as broadcasters reveal their schedules for the next TV season, starting with NBC and Fox on Monday, followed by ABC on Tuesday, CBS on Wednesday and The CW on Thursday.

Until then, TV fans will face a tense time as news trickles out on more "bubble" shows culled to make room for new efforts.

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TV

The price of iron ore has crashed recently — from more than $190 a ton in 2011, to about $50 today. Iron ore is the key ingredient in steel, and global demand for it, especially in China, is way down. That's being felt far away in northern Minnesota.

Miners have clawed iron ore out of northern Minnesota for more than a century. The Iron Range, as it's known, is pockmarked with deep abandoned pits carved out of the red earth.

Six mines still operate here, processing a lower grade iron ore called taconite. They still employ about 4,500 people, with an average salary of around $80,000.

So when U.S. Steel announced it will be laying off more than a thousand workers at its two mines, it was devastating.

"This isn't the Twin Cities," says John Arbogast with the United Steelworkers union at Minntac, the area's largest mine. "This is all we have, and they're good-paying jobs, and these are hard-working people. They love living here, they love the fishing, the hunting, everything that comes with living on the Iron Range."

And it's not just miners who get hurt. Doug Ellis owns a sporting goods store in Virginia, the largest of nearly 20 small towns that line the Iron Range. It's surrounded on three sides by giant mines.

"My business is built on mining money," Ellis says. "It's what drives all these towns. So really what happens is, when the mines catch a cold, we all catch pneumonia."

Every year he sells hundreds of pairs of expensive steel-toed boots to miners, and a lot of hunting rifles.

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Doug Ellis has owned Virginia Surplus for 25 years in Virginia, Minn. "My business is built on mining money," he said, and will feel the impacts of impending mine layoffs. Dan Kraker/MPR hide caption

itoggle caption Dan Kraker/MPR

Doug Ellis has owned Virginia Surplus for 25 years in Virginia, Minn. "My business is built on mining money," he said, and will feel the impacts of impending mine layoffs.

Dan Kraker/MPR

"Those will be impacted," he says. "By the time November comes around, if they don't have the money, they won't be buying new rifles."

Iron Rangers are hardened to this traditional boom-and-bust cycle. The last big round of layoffs occurred in 2009. The industry did come roaring back, but iron miner John Arbogast says this feels different.

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"In '09, everything was down. It was recession and you could feel it coming," he says. "Now, America's doing great. Unemployment's at record low type levels, everyone's doing well, and then we're the ones getting hit on this. So that's what makes it tough."

The difference this time is the Chinese economic juggernaut has slowed, says Andrew Lane, an analyst for Morningstar.

"The significant decline in iron ore spot prices since about 2011 is largely a function of fading Chinese demand," he says.

At the same time, Lane says, the world's three largest iron ore mining companies have all ramped up production over the past decade.

Some analysts predict the price of iron ore could drop still further.

But in the long term, Tony Barrett, an economist at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, thinks Minnesota's taconite iron ore industry will stabilize.

"The world needs steel. I see the demand for steel recovering, and with that the demand for taconite," he says.

The question everyone's asking here, says Keewatin Mayor Bill King, is when. Because he says with every layoff, every closure, "it just seems like a small part of the town dies away. Each time. You know you lose this business, or maybe a couple citizens move away. So it's hard, it's hard to watch."

King and others here are waiting to see if other mines will announce layoffs, before the next boom on the Iron Range.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has praised a federal appeals court's ruling that the agency's surveillance program is illegal, saying the decision was "extraordinarily encouraging."

As we reported on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd District in New York, issued a ruling on Thursday that the bulk collection of metadata that Snowden's leaks revealed was not authorized under federal law, including the USA Patriot Act.

In an interview on livestream published by Forbes, Snowden, speaking from exile in Russia, called the ruling "significant."

"The importance of it in the U.S. legal community—the policy community–can't be overstated," Snowden said. "This decision will not affect only the phone metadata program. It will affect every other mass surveillance program in the U.S. going forward."

"What's extraordinary about this is the fact that in 2013 before the leaks, the same issues had been tried to be reviewed by the courts," Snowden told livestream. "Another NGO called Amnesty International brought the same challenge against the same individual. They threw it out of court because Amnesty could not prove it had been spied upon."

"It is extraordinarily encouraging to see the court are beginning to change their thinking to say 'if Congress will not pass reasonable laws, if the executive will not act as a responsible steward of liberty and rights in how they execute the laws, it falls to the courts to say this has gone too far,'" Snowden said.

Edward Snowden

National Security Agency

The Labor Department's latest report shows employers created 223,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate went down another notch to 5.4 percent.

So, yay!

But study the wage figures in Friday's report — and your "yay" turns to "meh."

Workers got raises of just 0.1 percent in April. Over the past year, wages advanced only 2.2 percent, a pace that amounts to treading water for most families. The average workweek has stalled at 34.5 hours, unchanged from the previous month — and from a year ago.

So workers aren't getting longer hours or fatter raises, even though the private sector has added 12.3 million jobs over 62 straight months, the longest streak on record.

Both President Obama and labor leaders want to end this long period of wage stagnation. But they are locked in a bitter dispute over whether a proposed trade deal would help or hurt workers' wallets.

On Friday, just hours after the jobs data were released, Obama visited the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., to talk up the advantages of completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

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Japan's Abe Pushes The Pacific Trade Deal Onto Center Stage

He says that if Congress were to expand trade among the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations, it would help the sportswear giant create more high-paying jobs for Americans. "Let's just do it," Obama told the Nike gathering.

Nike says that under the TPP's terms, Americans would pay much less in tariffs on footwear. As a result of those savings, the company would be able to move forward with plans to develop advanced manufacturing facilities in the United States, which in turn would create 10,000 good jobs.

In a phone interview Friday, Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that's exactly what the president wants to see — more high-paying jobs resulting from the opening of new markets and lowering of tariffs.

Moreover, Obama wants the TPP to force Asian nations to raise labor standards, which then would "give U.S. companies less incentive to ship jobs overseas," Furman said.

"There's no doubt that the process of globalization has created a lot of opportunities for American companies, but it also created challenges for American workers," he said. "The TPP is designed precisely to better manage the process of globalization" to help U.S. workers export more and face less wage competition from Asian workers.

Many labor and environmental leaders aren't buying those arguments. They say Nike has long been a leader in outsourcing factory jobs and lacks credibility on employment issues.

"The Nike brand was built by outsourcing manufacturing to sweatshops in Asia," said Murshed Zaheed, deputy political director at CREDO, a group opposed to TPP. "President Obama should listen to his party's base, and stop pushing this titanic job-killing corporate power grab."

While Obama and many Democrats may disagree over the impact of this trade deal, there is little argument that the labor market could still use some help. Economists generally described April's employment growth as "solid" but also noted that March's original count of 126,000 net new jobs added was revised downward to just 85,000.

Doug Handler, the chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, said the latest report shows "an economy that is now growing at moderate rate [but] not as good as in mid-2014."

The Obama administration wants to strap a booster rocket onto the labor market. It cannot count on getting more economic stimulus from the Republican-controlled Congress, and it's impossible to get more monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve, which already has cut interest rates to extreme lows — and is considering when to raise them.

So that leaves exports as the best tool available to create more jobs, the argument goes.

"If you're opposed to these smart, progressive trade deals, then that means you must be satisfied with the status quo," Obama said at the Nike event. "And the status quo hasn't been working for our workers."

He said the TPP could make the labor market much better and that if it couldn't, "I would not be fighting for it."

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, was not buying his pitch, or Nike's: "Under this unrealistic best-case scenario of an additional 10,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs, less than 2 percent of the more than 1 million workers who make Nike's products would be U.S. workers."

Wages

employment report

Jobs

trade agreement

Nike

Updated at 9 a.m. ET

The U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs in April, hewing close to expectations from economists, but the numbers fell short of a threshold that forecasters believe would signal an early rise in interest rates.

The unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent, according to data released by the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It is a moderately strong showing following on March's weak report of 126,000 new jobs, but the jobs figures for that month were revised downward to just 85,000. February's numbers were revised slightly up from 264,000 to 266,000.

NPR/Bureau of Labor Statistics

However, strong growth in construction, which added 45,000 jobs after, and in the leisure and hospitality sector tend to reinforce the theory that March's poor showing was at least partly weather-related.

The labor force participation rate was largely unchanged at 62.8 percent. The average workweek on private non-farm payrolls remained at 34.5 hours in April.

The results were roughly in line with forecasts of between of 222,000 to 228,000 new jobs. As MarketWatch suggested ahead of the Labor Department's release "anything less than a 200,000 increase in April would be viewed as another letdown."

The New York Times added: "A strong number — a jump in payrolls by more than 300,000, for example — could rekindle speculation about when the Federal Reserve will take its long-awaited first step in raising short-term interest rates, which have been near zero since the onset of the financial crisis in late 2008."

The Associated Press says home sales staged a big rebound in March and restaurants, retailers and banks grew at a faster pace in April than in the previous month, according to the Institute for Supply Management.

Other sectors that grew at a healthy clip in April include professional and business services (+62,000), health care (+45,000).

Mining and oil and gas construction both lost jobs.

unemployment report

jobs report

Economy

Republican Warren Limmer sits in the second row of the Minnesota state Senate. He says more than 80 percent of his colleagues sit behind him. But he doesn't dare turn around to look at them when he gets up to speak.

He might get scolded. It's happened before.

"Then my cadence is thrown off," Limmer said. "I have to beg forgiveness to the Senate president. And then I'll get a slight admonishment, and then I can proceed."

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Sens. Warren Limmer, left, and Bill Ingebrigtsen, talk in the Senate chamber. Limmer said he has been scolded for looking at his colleagues during debate before, and had "to beg forgiveness to the Senate president." David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate hide caption

itoggle caption David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate

Sens. Warren Limmer, left, and Bill Ingebrigtsen, talk in the Senate chamber. Limmer said he has been scolded for looking at his colleagues during debate before, and had "to beg forgiveness to the Senate president."

David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate

Minnesota Senate Rule 36.8 requires that all remarks during debate be addressed to the Senate president at the front of the chamber. It's been on the books forever. And it's actually a rule most state legislatures have. Even the U.S. Senate has it. But Minnesota — known for its "Minnesota Nice" — takes it one step further, interpreted to mean that senators cannot look at each other during debate.

Some senators, like Limmer, wanted the rule changed. But most of his colleagues disagreed. Last month, by a 44-15 margin, the state Senate voted to keep the rule. In this day and age of intense political rancor, Minnesota is trying to keep things, well, nice. But does a lack of eye contact really keep things more civil? The answers might be found, believe it or not, in animal behavioral science.

'Minnesota Nice'

Some Minnesotans say banning eye contact in the state legislature reflects Minnesota values. Rule 36.8 simply reads, "All remarks during debate shall be addressed to the President." When Sen. Tom Bakk became majority leader two years ago, he read that to mean senators cannot look at each other during debate.

The Minnesota "no-eye contact" rule, seen above. Minnesota "Permanent Rules of the Senate 87th Legislature (2011-2012)" hide caption

itoggle caption Minnesota "Permanent Rules of the Senate 87th Legislature (2011-2012)"

"Going through the president forces people to listen rather than watch facial expressions and look at each other, which sometimes I think kind of inflames some of the rhetoric going back and forth," Bakk said.

He added that he believes it elevates decorum — because eye contact can make people more aggressive. And to prove he's right, he said to consider the sometimes unruly Minnesota State House, which doesn't have the rule.

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"Going through the president forces people to listen rather than watch facial expressions and look at each other" said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, "which sometimes I think kind of inflames some of the rhetoric going back and forth." David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate hide caption

itoggle caption David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate

"Going through the president forces people to listen rather than watch facial expressions and look at each other" said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, "which sometimes I think kind of inflames some of the rhetoric going back and forth."

David J. Oakes/Minnesota State Senate

His office pointed to a recent example. In March, decorum broke down in the House after Speaker Kurt Daudt ignored raucous calls for a roll call vote and one representative loudly called Daudt a "dictator" in the chamber.

Many Minnesotans have Scandinavian roots, and some parts of the culture still permeate, like when it comes to confrontation.

"Swedes tell the joke about Finns — that you can identify a Finnish extrovert, because he's looking at your shoes instead of his own when he's talking to you," joked Steven Schier, who teaches political science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., about 40 miles south of Minneapolis. Schier noted his own Scandinavian roots, too.

Or wait — was the joke about Norwegians?

"The old line is about the extroverted Norwegian. That's the person that looks at the other person's shoes," said Roger Moe, who served as Majority Leader in the Minnesota state Senate in the 1980s and 1990s.

The men weren't together for the disagreement, so there's no way to tell if either would have looked at the other — or their shoes.

Thank The Brits For The Origination Of The Eye Contact Rule

As far as legislative etiquette goes, it wasn't Scandinavia that came up with this rule requiring lawmakers to address the front of the chamber instead of each other. It came from England.

Peverill Squire, a historian of legislative etiquette at the University of Missouri, said there are references to the rule going all the way back to the 1500s in the House of Commons. That's about when rules were also put in place banning swords in the chamber. The idea was lawmakers shouldn't come ready to fight each other. When debate isn't personal, it's orderly.

The origination of the no eye-contact rule, seen above, can be traced back to Britain in the late 1500s. "The Constitutional History of England in Its Origin and Development," Vol. 3 by William Stubbs hide caption

itoggle caption "The Constitutional History of England in Its Origin and Development," Vol. 3 by William Stubbs

British rules, like the one above banning swords in Parliament, were designed to create civility among lawmakers. "The Evolution of American Legislatures" by Peverill Squire hide caption

itoggle caption "The Evolution of American Legislatures" by Peverill Squire

Of course, today, the British Parliament is often used as an example where the opposite is true. Lawmakers can get downright personal. Members of Parliament have hurled insults at each other ranging from "crook", "drunk" and "swine" to "guttersnipe" and "stupid cow."

In 2010, Labour Party Member of Parliament, or M.P., Tom Watson famously called Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove "a miserable pipsqueak."

The Irish Parliament has similar rules, and it can get even worse there. Like when Paul Gogarty of the Green Party told Emmet Stagg of the Labour Party to go "- - - -" himself in 2009.

So how can the very system that came with rules against getting personal degenerate so completely?

Some may notice that, unlike the Minnesota state senators, members of Parliament look at each other from across a divide when they're speaking.

So maybe the Minnesotans are on to something. Maybe there is something inherently confrontational about eye contact.

Testing the Hypothesis With Dogs

There's a common perception that looking a dog in the eye can make it uncomfortable. That would certainly bolster the Minnesota theory. But dog behavioral expert Clive Wynne at Arizona State University's Canine Science Collaboratory said it's more complicated than that.

"A dog that's wagging its tail happily while it looks another dog in the eye is maybe communicating something friendly," he said, "whereas a dog that growls and has its hackles raised in a very tense body posture — the eye contact may just intensify that threat."

In other words, eye contact for dogs is like eye contact for humans. When there's genuine good will, eye contact can be a positive thing.

So what can man learn from man's best friend?

"What would be good advice for a legislature would be to encourage positive, friendly eye contact, and discourage more aggressive, intimidating forms of eye contact," Wynne said. "What we found worked very well with dogs is small pieces of summer sausage. I don't know whether that could be applied here."

Which maybe raises the question, how much summer sausage would it take to get Republicans and Democrats to work together?

eye contact

civility

dogs

science

Minnesota

Congress

Many companies reward their most loyal customers with incentives, discounts and freebies. But in car insurance, the opposite can actually happen. A driver can be punished with a higher premium just for being loyal to the company.

It's called price optimization, and it happens to lots of people all the time. A driver could have no history of accidents but all of a sudden their car insurance goes up.

Justin Mulholland is a financial adviser whose company manages money for people at the University of Michigan. He owns a Ford Focus, a Buick LeSabre and a Chevy Venture. He got a pretty good rate from the insurance company he chose. And for two years, all was well.

Then he received a notice that his premium was going up. The increase "was pretty substantial — it was about $100 a year," Mulholland says.

A guy who helps people manage their money most likely pays attention to his own as well.

"I got on the phone with another friend of mine who sells insurance and he got me a deal with Cincinnati Insurance that brought it down to what it was before, and it's stayed there ever since," Mulholland says.

"They'll give you a discount for loyalty. But, they'll give you a 10 percent discount after they've raised your rate 25 percent."

- Bob Hunter, Consumer Federation of America

Mulholland's lack of loyalty in the face of a premium increase means he's less likely to be snared by the insurance practice called price optimization.

"Well, it's really profit maximization," says Bob Hunter, with the Consumer Federation of America. He says insurance companies can buy software that compiles an astonishing amount of data on everyone who buys almost anything, anywhere.

"They have all the information on what you buy at your grocery store. How many apples, how many beers, how many steaks," he says. "They have all the information on your house. They have incredible amounts of information on are you staying with Direct TV when Verizon is cheaper."

A sophisticated algorithm crunches that data and spits out an index showing how sensitive a customer is to price increases. Only the insurance company knows the index. Clients may see a loyalty discount on their premiums but Hunter says it may not be what it seems.

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"They'll give you a discount for loyalty," Hunter says. "But, they'll give you a 10 percent discount after they've raised your rate 25 percent."

This can mean as much as a 30 percent rate difference between two drivers with the same risks. Only one's a shopper and one's not.

Rich Piazza, chief actuary for the Louisiana Department of Insurance, says this it's pretty complicated.

"As regulators, we're not always on the cutting edge of these changes in modeling and ratemaking practices, so we have to catch up sometimes," he says.

But unlike Hunter, Piazza's not convinced the practice is widespread. And he's not yet sure that it's wrong. He says insurance companies have many legitimate reasons to raise rates or charge a customer more than the next person. The company's costs go up. Every driver is different, and poses different risks.

"Insurance pricing rating is discriminatory," Piazza says. "It always has been."

But is it fair to discriminate based on a quality totally unrelated to risk? Maryland, Ohio and California say it isn't and have explicitly banned price optimization.

So far only Allstate has disclosed that it uses the price optimization tool. In a statement, the American Insurance Association said "the auto insurance market remains very competitive and consumers have numerous options available to them."

Hunter says even if all people do is suspect they're being price optimized they can still fight back.

"Shopping around will foil price optimization because if you shop around, the insurance company's going say, 'This guy's gonna leave if I raise the price, so let's hold it down.' "

Cars

insurance

Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind has over the years been subject of books, legal battles and controversy – all for a movie that was never completed. But, if a group of producers have their way, the movie that was supposed to be Welles' comeback film might still see the light of day.

As NPR's Andrew Limbong reports, they have started a $2 million crowd-funding campaign on the website Indiegogo to finish putting the movie together. Andrew says:

Welles "wrote a script about an aging filmmaker who tries a comeback with one last movie. Welles never got enough money together to finish The Other side of the Wind. The producers are hoping to edit the material he shot into a final movie."

This is the latest twist to a fascinating tale of how Welles conceived of the movie and filmed it, and ultimately why it was never completed.

The idea for the movie dates back to 1937 when Welles brawled with Ernest Hemingway during Welles' recording of a documentary on the Spanish Civil War. Welles used that interaction to work on a story about an author in decline. He later changed the story to focus on a filmmaker. The producers say:

"Originally self-financed, Welles later turned to a mixture of financiers (German, Spanish and Iranian) to complete the film. Things turned for the worse when a producer absconded funds and the Persian revolution complicated the Iranian investors involvement.

"Orson came to an eventual impasse with the Paris-based, Iranian investor. During that time potential resolutions came and went, and new financiers came and went, but Orson was never given the chance to fulfill his own vision of the film. Taking admittedly mediocre acting jobs in film, television and in commercials to help finance his attempts to finish the film, Orson would spend the very last years of his life battling to regain full control of The Other Side of the Wind."

Legal battles continued for the three decades after Welles' death in 1985. Last year, producers Filip Jan Rymsza, Frank Marshall and Jens Koethner Kaul resolved those rights issues. They hope to finish the movie by the end of the year.

For more on the story, please read this Vanity Fair article from this month. The New York Times also chronicled the efforts to complete The Other Side of the Wind in a piece last October.

Orson Welles

That's the simple version, anyway. But Lewis doesn't tell this story simply. Instead, he deftly intercuts two time-frames. One is set in the present in the off-season resort of Mablethorpe where George keeps a seaside hideout and finds himself getting involved with Lesley, a blonde who may really be a brunette, or a brunette who may really be a blonde. The other storyline takes place in London — nicknamed The Smoke — and chronicles what happened with his wife, lawyer and sidekick that forces George to hide out in Mablethorpe. As we hopscotch between present and past, The Sea and The Smoke, we discover that George is so mired in events that he doesn't fully grasp his own story.

The same may have been true of Lewis, a self-destructive sort who died at 42. He was a boozer, a womanizer, and I've heard it said, not immune to participating in dodgy enterprises. True or not, his sense of the criminal life is utterly convincing. You won't find any debonair cat burglars in his world. He knows the appetites that drive violent men, knows the codes of honor that give the underworld a kind of morality and knows how the British ruling class has its finger in every pie — even the illegal ones.

Not one to glamorize criminals, Lewis is brilliant at showing us the seedy world they inhabit. Get Carter is one of the best-ever fictional portraits of a small, industrial English city with its tawdry shops, dingy rooming houses, and suffocating air of decline from something that wasn't that great to begin with. It's matched by the disillusioned pungency of GBH's vision of off-season Mablethorpe with its talent-challenged cabaret, shuttered amusement park, and gigantic hotel bar that George describes as having "all the charm of a crematorium." Lewis really knows — and feels — the places he's writing about.

And his work cuts to the bone, both literally and metaphysically. At his best, he achieves something only a handful of crime writers ever do — the chilling sense of cosmic fatality that links noir anti-heroes to the likes of Oedipus and Macbeth. Now, it might be a tad much to call GBH a tragedy. George lacks the requisite nobility of soul — he's a thuggish porn baron, after all. But his story is one of hubris, and it leads to an inexorable fall. The cocky George is a clever, masterful man who learns — too late, of course — that he's not quite as clever and masterful as he thought.

Read an excerpt of GBH

Raised in foster care from the time he was 14, Marquell Moorer was determined to go to college, keeping up his grades and working part-time at Dairy Queen to save up money for it.

By the end of his senior year in a Milwaukee high school, he'd done so well that letters of acceptance started pouring in from not one or two, but 12 colleges and universities.

Moorer was still riding high when another wave of letters started to arrive: the ones outlining how much financial aid he would or would not be offered by each school.

And those proved a lot less clear-cut.

"They'll tell you they're going to give you all this money, but it turns out to be a loan," he said. "They'll tell you the award and they'll let you know the tuition, but not the activities fees, travel, books — how much you need to live. They'll include work-study in their financial-aid awards, but they don't tell you you're not guaranteed a job."

Financial aid offers from some universities and colleges, which have been landing in mailboxes around the country, are worse than frustrating. Many critics say they're misleading, crafted in a way that makes them look more appealing than they are, and they can be hard to compare with offers from competing schools.

With no parents or friends who had gone to college, and scant support from his high school, Moorer was lucky: He found a coach from an organization called College Possible, which helps low-income students navigate the obstacle course of admissions and financial aid.

"Even with my coach, it was difficult to figure out," said Moorer, now a sophomore at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, double-majoring in business marketing and communications. "For a student who is first-generation and doesn't have a coach, it has to be very, very frustrating."

That's because, among other reasons, universities and colleges need to fill seats at a time of declining enrollment.

"Students and families don't necessarily question much," said Christine Roque, advising manager at uAspire, another organization that counsels low-income students about how to pay for higher education. "They think, 'The college must have my best interests in mind,' and they don't necessarily see them as businesses. There's that sense of trust."

The most misleading of these letters sometimes begin with words such as "Congratulations," but go on to outline financial aid that consists almost entirely of loans that have to be repaid. Loans are described as "awards."

The letters will list an "expected family contribution" of zero, not accounting for those parent or student loans, which, in fact, eventually require a substantial family contribution.

Other problems: Work-study money promised as part of a financial-aid package, even though work-study jobs or earnings can't be guaranteed. And while that, and the total amount of financial aid a university or college is offering, might be listed, the ultimate cost of tuition, room, board and other expenses often is not, complicating the process of understanding how much families actually will have to pay.

Some letters are packed with technical jargon and abbreviations that even families with experience in financial matters are unlikely to understand, such as "Unsub Staff" to refer to unsubsidized Stafford federal loans. One alludes bafflingly to something called "credit-based alternative loans."

When Bob Giannino, uAspire's CEO, showed some of these financial-aid offers to the organization's board of directors — which includes venture capitalists, PhDs, a top executive at a global bank and a partner at an international accounting firm — "they were all flummoxed," he said. "So imagine if you're the first in your family to go to college, maybe English is your family's second language. It's a pretty huge challenge."

Not every university does this. Duke, for instance, gets good grades for requiring its financial-aid recipients to sit down with a counselor every year to make sure they understand the process. It even flies in some low-income applicants who have been accepted to the university, to meet with financial-aid advisors.

"It's up to the school to be honest about what the cost is going to be," said Alison Rabil, Duke's director of financial aid.

Not being straightforward about it, critics say, only worsens the trillion-dollar student debt crisis, forcing families to borrow even more to fill the gaps they thought had been closed by their financial-aid package. In some cases, these critics contend, unanticipated costs drive students to drop out.

That's to say nothing of other little-known practices that affect what students get. When some colleges and universities learn that students have won scholarships from outside organizations, for example, they reduce their own promised financial aid by an equivalent amount, according to a 2013 report by the National Scholarship Providers Association.

Repeated attempts to improve financial-aid offer letters have made little difference. U.S. Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., introduced a bill two years ago to create a standardized letter so students could compare financial aid. It was referred to a Senate committee, where it stalled.

"Knowing exactly how much college is going to cost should be as simple as knowing how many calories there are in a slice of bread," said Franken.

And while the U.S. Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did create a standardized form for financial aid offices to use called the Shopping Sheet, they're not required to, and advocates and universities alike complain the form is too restrictive.

The Shopping Sheet requires schools that don't have dorms or dining halls, for example, to estimate the cost of housing and food for students who live off campus, which the schools say creates an inexact comparison.

It was three years ago that a task force on this topic set up by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, or NASFAA, urged changes to financial-aid notifications, saying that "a well-presented, easy-to-understand financial-aid award notice is critical and should be a top priority" for financial-aid offices.

But Douglas Levy, director of financial aid at Macomb Community College in Michigan, who chaired that committee, said, "I can't say that I've seen much movement" since then.

Some financial-aid offer letters, Levy said, still look like they're "not exactly as upfront" as possible. "Whether that's intentional or not, I can't get into the colleges' heads, but it's selective in terms of what information you give students to put you in the best light. There's no doubt about it, it's used for marketing. It's used to make a case that you can afford that school."

Now, with little fanfare, NASFAA has unveiled a code of conduct that will take effect July 1, requiring some of the changes Levy's task force recommended.

NASFAA member institutions will now have to provide a breakdown of their costs of attendance; clearly identify which aid is in the form of grants or loans; and use standard terminology, such as "out-of-pocket costs" to indicate expenses that financial aid won't cover. Repeated violations of the new requirements can result in temporary or permanent suspension from the association, which has members from 3,000 colleges and universities.

Those changes won't come in time for students like the ones arriving this time of year at uAspire, for what the organization's counselors grimly describe as "dream-crusher" meetings. That's when they tell the students that what looks like an offer of a full ride to college is actually an invitation for them and their families to go deep into debt.

"Financial-aid offices are there to make sure the student finds the money to pay the school. That's the wrong incentive," said Dan Mendelsohn, uAspire's director of postsecondary programs. "They should help the student understand whether or not they can afford to go there."

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about higher education.

Britain votes Thursday in what could be one of the country's closest elections in decades.

Here's the rundown: The latest polls show the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party neck and neck. Voters will pick representatives to the country's 650-seat Parliament. The first party that gets a majority – in this case 326 seats – wins. But neither the Conservatives nor Labour is expected to reach that mark on its own. That's where smaller parties come in.

The Liberal-Democrats, who played kingmakers in the last election by joining a coalition government with the Conservatives, have lost support. The Scottish National Party (SNP), on the other hand, is expected to make significant gains and could play an important role in determining who governs Britain next. Smaller parties, including the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) and the Greens, could make gains as well.

Some of the political coverage ahead of the elections is decidedly more colorful than in the U.S.

The general mood ahead of the election is described by the cover of Private Eye, a current affairs magazine:

Passionate Cameron captures national mood: http://t.co/oz6f9Eurq4 - Eye 1391, on its way to shops and subscribers now.

— Private Eye Magazine (@PrivateEyeNews) April 28, 2015

Cameron was also skewered for misstating the football (soccer) team he supported. He blamed a "brain fade."

Ed Milliband had the misfortune of being photographed eating a sandwich – an image media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Sun used to urge its readers not to vote for the Labour leader.

Save our bacon: Keep Ed and his porkies OUT http://t.co/PFHOKe4eOi pic.twitter.com/8I2it1m20n

— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) May 6, 2015

A BuzzFeed U.K. poll found more than 40 percent of the British public found the Labour leader "weird."

If polls are to be believed, Nicola Sturgeon, head of the SNP, is likely to the happiest when results are announced. Her party could win as many as 45 seats in the U.K. Parliament – up from six. Even the Scottish edition of Rupert Murdoch's Sun has publicly backed her – though her politics lie to the left of Milliband's.

Nigel Farage's UKIP wants to restrict immigration to Britain and wants the U.K. out of the European Union. It's his immigration stance that's received much attention – and some criticism.

NPR's Ari Shapiro will be reporting on the voting on Thursday's Morning Edition. We'll leave you with some of NPR's other coverage of the U.K. election:

Colorful Fringe Candidates Vie For Prominence In UK Election

Britain Backs Away From World Stage In Lead-Up To Elections

Upcoming British Election May Determine Welfare State's Fate

Britain

Parallels

Is 'Womenomics' The Answer To Japan's Economic Woes?

Digital Life

In Japan, Mobile Startups Take Gaming To Next Level

Toshiba. Sony. Sharp. You know those brand names because they dominated the Japanese economy's global rise in the eighties. But that was 30 years ago. As the Japanese economy stagnates, it's unclear which new companies will replace them.

Doga Makiura is Japanese, and a startup founder. But he's not a startup founder in Japan. He created businesses in other Asian countries instead.

Why not be an entrepreneur in his native country?

"Cause I think it's boring," he said. "There's a huge, bigger market in everywhere in the world. Japan is a shrinking market and I don't really understand why you'd do business in Japan."

He's not alone. Only 6 percent of Japanese surveyed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor said they thought there were opportunities to start a business in Japan, and other indicators show the country has one of the lowest levels of entrepreneurship in the developed world.

Part of the problem is the past. After the success of the pioneering postwar electronics companies, the lure of working for established places created a risk-averse culture.

"[Entrepreneurship] is all about whether you take a risk or not, and parents have great authority and power in Japan. So parents say, 'No, you're actually getting into these companies that pay you a stable income,' " Makiura says.

As parents promote the promise of stability at Japanese giants, the economy misses out on the kind of entrepreneurship it needs.

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A concept demonstration at Slush Asia, a tech festival that brings together investors and innovators. Elise Hu/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Elise Hu/NPR

A concept demonstration at Slush Asia, a tech festival that brings together investors and innovators.

Elise Hu/NPR

But lately, energy behind startups is picking up. At Slush Asia, a brand-new tech festival held in Tokyo in late April, the scene and the energy resembled a small-scale South by Southwest Interactive. With the fest's futuristic looking blow-up domes for talks and demos, an endless line of food trucks and a focus on bringing together investors and innovators, young Japanese told NPR they felt inspired.

"We're not allowed to wear suits, apparently. That kind of casual event is the first [of its kind] in Japan," Makiura says.

As things are now, young Japanese companies attract only only a fraction of the venture capital that American startups do. But talk with venture capitalist Aiko Tanaka, whose firm backs Japanese companies — and the outlook isn't so grim.

"Lately we are starting to see larger ideas," Tanaka says. "Ideas we like to back. People who are trying to change the infrastructure of how things are getting done."

He says Japan's economic downturn has helped encourage entrepreneurship.

"Young people now watch what's happening with Sony, Panasonic, all those companies and realize that none of those companies actually are able to offer the kind of lifetime employment they used to offer," Tanaka says.

"We really have to thank ... the failure of some of the big companies, because if they didn't fail, I don't think it actually [would] fuel this growth of startup industries," he says.

Among cheerleaders for this kind of growth is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants to make life easier for risk-takers. During his visit to Silicon Valley last week, he announced a new government-funded incubator. It will send Japanese companies to the Bay Area for learning and launch.

Abe said unless Japan focuses on the future, the country will get left behind. So policy changes to reduce bureaucracy and encourage investment are happening, and events like Slush Asia are aiming to show young Japanese workers a different path.

"One of the major purpose or goal of this movement is encouraging the younger generations, in the sense that the elder people are discouraging. That's why we need this kind of event," Slush Asia founder Taizo Son said.

It will take more than just one cool event, but if the burgeoning Japanese startup community can start humming, it'll make a tradition-bound country a kinder place to create business.

Chie Kobayashi contributed to this story.

japanese companies

startup

Japan

The Rules Of Crowdfunding

How It Works On sites like GoFundMe, Indiegogo Life and Crowdrise are popular in part because of their ease of use. A campaigner sets up a page for free with information about their cause, sets the deadline, then starts sharing via social media. Donors can use a credit card. When the campaign ends, the website transfers the funds to a designated account, sends a check to the individual behind the campaign or sends the money directly to a charity. Some campaigners opt for an all-or-nothing campaign to motivate donors: That means the goal must be met by a certain deadline or the cause gets nothing (and donors are not charged).

Pricing & Fees GoFundMe charges 5 percent per donation and WePay, the online payment service that the site works with, charges 2.9 percent for each payment plus 30 cents. GoFundMe announced last week it will donate its 5 percent fee from all Nepal relief donations to AmeriCares.

Indiegogo Life currently doesn't charge a fee but its third-party processor charges 3 percent of funds raised.

Crowdrise takes 3 to 5 percent of donations. Like GoFundMe, CrowdRise uses WePay, which takes an additional 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per donation.

The clock is ticking on Lokesh Todi's efforts to raise $150,000 for charities based in Nepal. That's what happens when you use social media. You set up a donation campaign on a site like Indiegogo Life (as Todi has done). Then you have a set amount of time to meet your goal. And as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, there are only 61 hours left. So far, the 28-year-old graduate from Yale University has collected over $130 ,000 from more than 1,600 donors.

Todi is part of a crowded crowd of crowdfunders using the web to appeal for small donations for a cause.

Crowdfunding was widely popular in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy. But the magnitude of mini-campaigns for the Nepal disaster is unprecedented, says Amy Sample Ward, CEO of a nonprofit technology organization called NTEN.

GoFundMe alone has more than 700 individual campaigns and 45,000 donors who've collectively raised $3.5 million for Nepal. And Todi's campaign on Indiegogo Life is one of more than 100. Some of Ward's own friends on Facebook are simply asking for people to send donations to their bank accounts.

Ward has some theories about the surge of crowdfunders.

First, the location of the disaster may have given that method a boost. Nepal is often a destination for tourists and trekkers. Many volunteers go there to help as well. So people are more likely to have a friend — or a friend of a friend — who's either working there or was affected by the quake. And those friends are often motivated to raise money. (Below: A tweet from a Nepalese YouTube star who's one of the many current crowdfunders.)

WE NEED YOUR HELP !!! New video : https://t.co/JOJXdOKg4d

— promise Tamang (@TamangPhan) April 27, 2015

The familiarity helps, Ward says. Donating to someone who "you can almost picture going down the street to all their neighbors and making sure they are OK" makes donors feel as if they are likely to see tangible results.

Goats and Soda

Why Your Brain Wants To Help One Child In Need — But Not Millions

It also helps that these fundraisers have goals that seem achievable. An individual campaign may be aiming for $10,000, $50,000, $100,000. "The closer one can be to the [goal] the more people will feel that they are making a difference," says Dr. Jen Shang, a philanthropic psychologist at Plymouth University in England. But she adds there's no evidence that donating to small campaigns makes a bigger impact on ground.

It's just that "with a big institution, it's harder to see how your $10 is helping when a million dollars is needed," says Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing at the charity watchdog Charity Navigator.

Still, Miniutti recommends donating to established charities because there's too much risk with individual campaigns. "There's no vetting in the front end and no insurance on [the] back end that people will actually use the money for what they say they will," she says.

And asking for donations via a check or direct transfer into his or her bank account is a huge red flag.

Her advice: "Generally speaking, don't give through these websites unless you know the [campaigner] directly."

At Better Business Bureau, Bennett Weiner echoes Miniutti's point. But his concerns go beyond trust. "Are [crowdfunding sites for local charities] most effective in terms of philanthropy?" asks Weiner, vice president of BBB's Wise Giving Alliance.

Not during disasters, he says.

He believes an international aid agency that's dealt with disasters before is a better choice than a small charity. "You may have only one runway available for deliveries, and places may be inaccessible immediately because roads are now broken," he says. "Well guess what? If they are impassable to the staff at established charities, they're probably going to be impassable to other charities there."

The difference is that larger charities may be better equipped to find alternative ways to transport goods, he says.

Both nonprofit technology expert Amy Sample Ward and psychologist Jen Shang stress that the effectiveness of these small campaigns needs to be studied.

But sometimes crowdfunding and big charities hook up. On Indiegogo, a team of entrepreneurs and coders has raised nearly $37,000 on behalf of Oxfam America. "Why should we do this?" the organizers wrote on their campaign page. "Because the hard-working organizations on the ground don't have time."

"It certainly does not undermine our efforts, especially in the case of humanitarian emergency response," says Megan Weintraub, associate director of digital engagement for Oxfam America. "We have no ill-feelings about the ways other people are getting involved. It's just good that they are."

As for Lokesh Todi, who's just $20,000 shy of his $150,000 goal on Indiegogo, he says the money will be given to Nepalese-run charities working in the Sindhupalchowk district. "I wanted to make sure the local organizations that are here for the long term have the money to deal with the situation," he says from Nepal.

Goats and Soda

What You Need To Know Before Donating To Earthquake Relief For Nepal

Goats and Soda

You Want To Go To Nepal And Help Out. Is That A Good Idea?

Right now, he's working with other young professionals and the Nepali branch of the nonprofit ChildReach to send supplies to remote villages in Sindhupalchowk. They're also coordinating with doctors who want to help. And he's keeping his donors updated with videos, photos and written notes.

Goats and Soda

Virtual Volunteers Use Twitter And Facebook To Make Maps Of Nepal

When his campaign ends, he hopes the money will make a difference — even if it is only in a handful of villages. "Twenty thousand dollars is equal to 2 million Nepalese rupees, and that goes a long way in Nepal," Todi says. "If I can choose one small village and focus my energy on that and work with local NGOs I can make transformation happen."

In the end, it's all up to the donor, says Megan Weintraub from Oxfam. But the first step to donating is the same regardless of the platform: Do your research.

earthquake relief

crowdfunding

Nepal

Samme slides down a rocky embankment, crosses the highway and trudges down into the brush, pointing to a deep ravine that runs parallel to the highway: a perfect place for Taliban to hide.

The general smiles and gestures toward his troops across the highway. They're shooting at suspected Taliban in the village and the parched hills beyond. They press on, crossing a small stream and rising toward an open plain.

This is just a small part of a larger Afghan effort called Operation Rescue. It's one of the first large-scale combat operations planned, organized and fought by Afghan forces.

Afghans are now in charge of fighting the Taliban — with no Americans in sight — and compared to just two short years ago, they're doing well: They are relatively well equipped, organized and led. They look like a professional army and are eager to go out and take on the Taliban.

It's a far cry from just a few years ago, when Americans were in the lead. Then, for instance, American soldiers would turn up for dawn patrols in full combat gear, ready to go — and the Afghans would be sleepy, half-dressed and sometimes smelling of hashish.

Now, Samme's exclusively Afghan troops, joined this day by local police, are fanning out into a village that is the site of some suspicious targets.

The soldiers push open a metal door and surge into a compound. Children scatter about. Several women cover themselves in shawls, huddle together and squat by a wall.

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An officer with the local police greets a child in the village of Tazir Abad, a Taliban stronghold in Shah Joy district. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

An officer with the local police greets a child in the village of Tazir Abad, a Taliban stronghold in Shah Joy district.

David Gilkey/NPR

A policeman digs through a pile of hay looking for weapons. A middle-aged man with a turban and thick black beard walks up. His name is Haji Abdul Bari.

"No one is happy with the war," he says. "Look at my children over there on the ground. Do you think they are happy when the bullets are passing over them? Can you hear them shooting? No one is happy with the war."

He says the Taliban come into the village at night, looking for food and water. They meet in the mosque, and when day breaks, they slip back into the hills.

At least, he adds, his village is more secure because it's near an army outpost.

The police push aside a blanket hanging from his doorway, and stream into his house, pulling up carpets, opening doors and cabinets. Abdul Bari stands by and slightly shakes his head. When the police leave, he tells a different story.

"Look, being near the [army] post, it has two sides. One is safety of course. The other is a problem," he says.

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Haji Abdul Bari, a farmer in the village of Tazir Abad, says he is concerned about the war's lasting effects on his children. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

Haji Abdul Bari, a farmer in the village of Tazir Abad, says he is concerned about the war's lasting effects on his children.

David Gilkey/NPR

Abdul Bari says he has a cow tied in his garden. But he's afraid every time he tends to it. That's because the soldiers watching from the Army post have mistaken him for a Taliban fighter planting a bomb.

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His neighbors have actually come under fire, though no one has been hurt. He prefers the government to the Taliban, he says, but the local government isn't making his life easier. There are no police patrolling the village.

His eyes fill with tears.

"Both of the sides, leave us. Leave us!" he says. "We want to be at peace."

Afghan military officers agree that local government has failed. They say the provincial governor is weak and doesn't provide basic services. And the district governor – something akin to a mayor or county council chairman – is nowhere to be seen. He lives in Kandahar — two hours away.

The soldiers move on, searching a few more houses. They find nothing. No Taliban. No weapons.

As the soldiers head back through the fields, artillery continues to pound the Taliban in the hills.

They cross the river, and climb the windy hill to their armored vehicles.

Back at the Army outpost above the village, Samme, the Afghan general, settles in his office, just a large open room with a white plastic table.

I ask him about what the villager said, about a lack of help from the government. Samme agrees that his military operation can only achieve so much.

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Afghan National Army soldiers return to Camp Eagle after a patrol in Shah Joy district. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

Afghan National Army soldiers return to Camp Eagle after a patrol in Shah Joy district.

David Gilkey/NPR

"When we go in and disturb people's homes, it disrupts their lives," he says.

"It is not the military's job to govern," he continues. "The provincial government needs to provide services and hire more police."

Without better government, Samme says, we'll be conducting the same operation over and over.

Both Americans and Afghans agree that the government is still not addressing the basic needs of its citizens — things like police, schools, electricity and clean water. And the risk is that this frustration and anger could still fuel support for the Taliban.

Afghanistan

But more often, the journey is made on small inflatable rafts with puny motors. Migrants pay smugglers $1,000 a piece for a place on those rafts.

The rafts appear on a radar monitored by Papadakis, a boyish officer with a buzz cut. He sometimes sees three or four at once.

"We can't reach them all, so we have to make choices" he says. "We rescue those in distress; we escort those that are not. Some reach our shores alone."

The closest shore is on the islet of Farmakonissi, which is uninhabited except for a military base. The voyage there can be treacherous.

"Especially when the sea is rough and (there are) bad weather conditions, the search and rescue operation must be done in five to 10 minutes," Papadakis says.

The Aegean Sea crossing from Turkey to Greece isn't as deadly as the Central Mediterranean Sea route from North Africa to Italy. The International Organization for Migration says 1,829 people have died so far in 2015 in the Mediterranean, but only 31 of those deaths have been recorded in the Aegean, or the eastern Mediterranean, and most in Turkish waters.

But the Leros Coast Guard is still haunted by the drowning deaths of 11 Afghans early last year near Farmakonissi.

"Only women and children died in this accident," Papadakis says. "It was very bad."

i

Afghan migrants arrive in the courtyard of the Greek Coast Guard offices on the Aegean island of Leros. The coast guard and local police fingerprint and register new migrants, most of whom can only stay in Greece legally for a month. Joanna Kakissis for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Joanna Kakissis for NPR

Afghan migrants arrive in the courtyard of the Greek Coast Guard offices on the Aegean island of Leros. The coast guard and local police fingerprint and register new migrants, most of whom can only stay in Greece legally for a month.

Joanna Kakissis for NPR

Human rights groups accused the Greek coast guard of overturning the migrants' wooden boat while trying to tow it back to Turkish waters. But the coast guard says the boat capsized when the men on deck ran to one side. The women and children were all inside the boat's cabin.

Papadakis suddenly notices something strange on the radar. He orders the crew to chart a course for it.

Vrastaminos explains that it's a small boat moving at high speed. "It doesn't have lights, that's suspicious," he says. "There's likely a smuggler on board They're trying to outrace us — they don't want to be rescued."

Smugglers face long prison terms in Greece if they're arrested and convicted.

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Another crew member stands on the deck, holding a machine gun.

"Sometimes the smugglers have weapons," Vrastaminos says. "We have to be prepared."

Couple Rescues Migrants Trying To Reach Europe On Overpacked Boats

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There are likely migrants on that boat, too, he says. Smugglers try to evade arrest by leaving migrants on Greek islands and speeding back to Turkey.

Tonight the coast guard pursues the suspicious boat for an hour before it heads back to Turkish waters. A few hours later, the coast guard crew returns to Leros alone.

The next night, another crew rescues 46 Afghans, including three toddlers in tiny orange life vests. Their inflatable raft was so overloaded it was starting to sink.

The Afghans say a smuggler, fearing arrest, had told them to head out to sea alone. "He said, look for lights," says one of the Afghans, 20-year-old Amir Baktash. "We didn't know what we were doing. We cannot swim."

Under international law, the Greek Coast Guard is obliged to rescue them. The crew threw a rope to the migrants, then gently pulled the migrants' listing raft close.

"They helped us onto their boat one by one," Baktash says.

They arrive on Leros just as dawn is breaking.

migrants

Syrian refugees

Turkey

Greece

Afghanistan

Samme slides down a rocky embankment, crosses the highway and trudges down into the brush, pointing to a deep ravine that runs parallel to the highway: a perfect place for Taliban to hide.

The general smiles and gestures toward his troops across the highway. They're shooting at suspected Taliban in the village and the parched hills beyond. They press on, crossing a small stream and rising toward an open plain.

This is just a small part of a larger Afghan effort called Operation Rescue. It's one of the first large-scale combat operations planned, organized and fought by Afghan forces.

Afghans are now in charge of fighting the Taliban — with no Americans in sight — and compared to just two short years ago, they're doing well: They are relatively well equipped, organized and led. They look like a professional army and are eager to go out and take on the Taliban.

It's a far cry from just a few years ago, when Americans were in the lead. Then, for instance, American soldiers would turn up for dawn patrols in full combat gear, ready to go — and the Afghans would be sleepy, half-dressed and sometimes smelling of hashish.

Now, Samme's exclusively Afghan troops, joined this day by local police, are fanning out into a village that is the site of some suspicious targets.

The soldiers push open a metal door and surge into a compound. Children scatter about. Several women cover themselves in shawls, huddle together and squat by a wall.

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An officer with the local police greets a child in the village of Tazir Abad, a Taliban stronghold in Shah Joy district. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

An officer with the local police greets a child in the village of Tazir Abad, a Taliban stronghold in Shah Joy district.

David Gilkey/NPR

A policeman digs through a pile of hay looking for weapons. A middle-aged man with a turban and thick black beard walks up. His name is Haji Abdul Bari.

"No one is happy with the war," he says. "Look at my children over there on the ground. Do you think they are happy when the bullets are passing over them? Can you hear them shooting? No one is happy with the war."

He says the Taliban come into the village at night, looking for food and water. They meet in the mosque, and when day breaks, they slip back into the hills.

At least, he adds, his village is more secure because it's near an army outpost.

The police push aside a blanket hanging from his doorway, and stream into his house, pulling up carpets, opening doors and cabinets. Abdul Bari stands by and slightly shakes his head. When the police leave, he tells a different story.

"Look, being near the [army] post, it has two sides. One is safety of course. The other is a problem," he says.

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Haji Abdul Bari, a farmer in the village of Tazir Abad, says he is concerned about the war's lasting effects on his children. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

Haji Abdul Bari, a farmer in the village of Tazir Abad, says he is concerned about the war's lasting effects on his children.

David Gilkey/NPR

Abdul Bari says he has a cow tied in his garden. But he's afraid every time he tends to it. That's because the soldiers watching from the Army post have mistaken him for a Taliban fighter planting a bomb.

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With The U.S. In The Background, Afghan Commandos Step It Up

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As U.S. Troops Draw Down, Can Afghans Take The Lead?

His neighbors have actually come under fire, though no one has been hurt. He prefers the government to the Taliban, he says, but the local government isn't making his life easier. There are no police patrolling the village.

His eyes fill with tears.

"Both of the sides, leave us. Leave us!" he says. "We want to be at peace."

Afghan military officers agree that local government has failed. They say the provincial governor is weak and doesn't provide basic services. And the district governor – something akin to a mayor or county council chairman – is nowhere to be seen. He lives in Kandahar — two hours away.

The soldiers move on, searching a few more houses. They find nothing. No Taliban. No weapons.

As the soldiers head back through the fields, artillery continues to pound the Taliban in the hills.

They cross the river, and climb the windy hill to their armored vehicles.

Back at the Army outpost above the village, Samme, the Afghan general, settles in his office, just a large open room with a white plastic table.

I ask him about what the villager said, about a lack of help from the government. Samme agrees that his military operation can only achieve so much.

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Afghan National Army soldiers return to Camp Eagle after a patrol in Shah Joy district. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

Afghan National Army soldiers return to Camp Eagle after a patrol in Shah Joy district.

David Gilkey/NPR

"When we go in and disturb people's homes, it disrupts their lives," he says.

"It is not the military's job to govern," he continues. "The provincial government needs to provide services and hire more police."

Without better government, Samme says, we'll be conducting the same operation over and over.

Both Americans and Afghans agree that the government is still not addressing the basic needs of its citizens — things like police, schools, electricity and clean water. And the risk is that this frustration and anger could still fuel support for the Taliban.

Afghanistan

The Hillary Clinton campaign went into overdrive Tuesday trying to minimize the damage from a new book that delves into Clinton foundation fundraising — and it's not using the typical channels to do so.

On the same day that the controversial new book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, was officially released, the Democrat's presidential campaign largely went around the traditional media in favor of new media tools.

Though campaigns have been trying to bypass the media filter for years, it's an advent of a new era in politics. The Clinton campaign is embracing several new technologies and platforms to get its message out more directly to voters, and it's a tactic her potential rivals are sure to employ, too.

"It's almost media 3.0," said Tobe Berkovitz, a professor of political communication at Boston University. "If 1.0 was dealing with the press and 2.0 was trying to circumvent the press and going to friendly sites, 3.0 is, 'Why even bother with that? Just invent your own.' "

Through a new section of its campaign website, called "The Briefing," and a post on the platform-sharing site Medium, Clinton's campaign went on offense against Schweizer and his suggestions that foreign donations to her family's foundation influenced her time at the State Department — all without the candidate addressing it head-on.

A 2 1/2-minute video posted on the new site from campaign spokesman Brian Fallon derides Schweizer as a GOP operative who was a former adviser to 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and a close friend of the Koch brothers. He also noted that research by ABC News and even Fox News revealed there was no "smoking gun."

"The book is already being debunked far and wide," Fallon said. "It's full of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of thin air with no actual evidence. And it's missing the most important thing of all: facts."

Campaign Chairman John Podesta also explained the campaign's strategy in a memo posted to Medium:

"While we will not be consumed by these kinds of attacks, we will also not let them go unchallenged. That's why we are building a new one-stop shop to provide the facts about Hillary Clinton's positions and her record. We are calling it 'The Briefing.' You will be able to find information and it will serve as a hub that allows Hillary for America to cut through the partisan noise over the next 18 months and directly communicate with voters. This forum will provide the public with direct access to the facts on the positive policy agenda that Hillary will unveil over the course of campaign, as well as the facts needed to debunk false attacks."

This isn't the first time since she announced last month that Clinton's team has used these new platforms, especially to target Schweizer. Though his book was just released on Tuesday, details have been leaking out for weeks, and other media organizations like The New York Times have used his research to further investigate specific claims.

Team Clinton has turned to Medium before. Fallon released a statement on the site after the publication of a Times story that raised questions about the linkage between donations to the Clinton foundation and the government's approval of a Russian uranium mining company while Clinton was secretary of state:

"Without presenting any direct evidence in support of the claim, the Times story — like the book on which it is based — wrongly suggests that Hillary Clinton's State Department pushed for the sale's approval to reward donors who had a financial interest in the deal."

Last week, the Clinton campaign also released a Vine of comments Schweizer had made at a 2014 Koch brothers summit, where he told fellow conservatives "we cannot let up."

The use of new media in favor of more traditional media isn't a surprising strategy from the Clinton campaign, given Clinton's decades-long distrust of and tension with the media. It's also not a new tactic, with campaigns' rapid-response teams trying to get their message out at any cost and through any channel. And given the way more and more people, especially younger voters, consume news, it might be the most efficient as well.

The embrace of these new platforms is one that both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are likely to use even more this cycle.

Clinton's campaign insists it is not bypassing the media in the new approach but is instead using multiple platforms to get its message out.

"Our campaign will work with the oldest of media outlets and the newest of technologies to reach voters," Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin told NPR in an emailed statement. "It would be a false choice to say it's one or the other. There is so much misinformation flying around that, whether it's through the press or on social media, it's important for voters to be able to access the facts directly, so they can assess for themselves and help beat back the partisan attacks."

It's also a way for the campaign to release a controlled, scripted narrative instead of having Clinton herself answer questions about the issue. National Journal noted last week she has only answered a total of seven media questions since she became an official candidate. She twice dismissed allegations in Schweizer's book as "distractions," but she did not answer the charges directly.

The one unscripted response came from former President Bill Clinton in an interview with NBC News Monday that the family foundation had "never done anything knowingly inappropriate" in accepting money from foreign governments.

The foundation has reinstated a ban on donations from all but six foreign countries now, but the former president said that move was "absolutely not" an acknowledgement that accepting previous donations was a mistake.

For the Clinton campaign, this approach is "much better than actually trotting Hillary out somewhere and have her answer what might be tough or aggressive questions," Berkowitz said. "Release the video, and then you release the hounds."

Democratic strategist Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it's the right approach for the Clintons.

"What I see happening is a classic Clinton-style war-room operation utilizing all the new media that are out there," Manley said. "I think they deserve a lot of credit for utilizing new things like Medium, but I also respect that they're not going to leave any charge unanswered."

Clinton is far and away the Democratic front-runner for president, and she still beats most of her possible GOP rivals in hypothetical head-to-heads too. But amid questions about the Clinton foundation and an earlier controversy about her use of a private email server instead of a government account while she was at the State Department, her polling numbers have suffered.

Since March, Clinton's unfavorable rating has risen 6 percentage points while those who said she was honest and straightforward have dropped 13 points in a year, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this week.

Clinton has been under sustained assault from Republicans on the campaign trail and Capitol Hill. And she will continue to be, with hearings and testimony coming about the terrorist attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

"I think every bit is going to help, but the Republicans have an amazing ability to drudge up all sorts of crazy conspiracies about the Clintons," Manley said. "These kind of tools can only take you so far, but at some point she's going to have to start addressing some of these things herself."

Britain votes Thursday in what could be one of the country's closest elections in decades.

Here's the rundown: The latest polls show the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party neck and neck. Voters will pick representatives to the country's 650-seat Parliament. The first party that gets a majority – in this case 326 seats – wins. But neither the Conservatives nor Labour is expected to reach that mark on its own. That's where smaller parties come in.

The Liberal-Democrats, who played kingmakers in the last election by joining a coalition government with the Conservatives, have lost support. The Scottish National Party (SNP), on the other hand, is expected to make significant gains and could play an important role in determining who governs Britain next. Smaller parties, including the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) and the Greens, could make gains as well.

Some of the political coverage ahead of the elections is decidedly more colorful than in the U.S.

The general mood ahead of the election is described by the cover of Private Eye, a current affairs magazine:

Passionate Cameron captures national mood: http://t.co/oz6f9Eurq4 - Eye 1391, on its way to shops and subscribers now.

— Private Eye Magazine (@PrivateEyeNews) April 28, 2015

Cameron was also skewered for misstating the football (soccer) team he supported. He blamed a "brain fade."

Ed Milliband had the misfortune of being photographed eating a sandwich – an image media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Sun used to urge its readers not to vote for the Labour leader.

Save our bacon: Keep Ed and his porkies OUT http://t.co/PFHOKe4eOi pic.twitter.com/8I2it1m20n

— The Sun (@TheSunNewspaper) May 6, 2015

A BuzzFeed U.K. poll found more than 40 percent of the British public found the Labour leader "weird."

If polls are to be believed, Nicola Sturgeon, head of the SNP, is likely to the happiest when results are announced. Her party could win as many as 45 seats in the U.K. Parliament – up from six. Even the Scottish edition of Rupert Murdoch's Sun has publicly backed her – though her politics lie to the left of Milliband's.

Nigel Farage's UKIP wants to restrict immigration to Britain and wants the U.K. out of the European Union. It's his immigration stance that's received much attention – and some criticism.

NPR's Ari Shapiro will be reporting on the voting on Thursday's Morning Edition. We'll leave you with some of NPR's other coverage of the U.K. election:

Colorful Fringe Candidates Vie For Prominence In UK Election

Britain Backs Away From World Stage In Lead-Up To Elections

Upcoming British Election May Determine Welfare State's Fate

Britain

The Staten Island prosecutor who was at the heart of the investigation into the death of Eric Garner at police hands last year was overwhelmingly elected to Congress on Tuesday night.

In the special election in New York's 11th District to replace disgraced former Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., Republican District Attorney Daniel Donovan cruised to a nearly 20-point win over the Democratic nominee, New York City Councilman Vincent Gentile.

Donovan was the heavy favorite in the GOP-leaning district, despite the controversy that surrounded him after the death of Garner, the 43-year-old African-American man who died last July in a police chokehold. Garner was under suspicion of selling loose cigarettes.

His death was captured on video and added to the tension across the country after deadly standoffs between police and black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Cleveland (and, since then, Baltimore this past month). Donovan impaneled the grand jury that ultimately declined to press charges against the police officers in the incident. Protests and riots in New York City and beyond followed after the decision.

Despite the controversy, Democrats didn't use the Garner case to attack Donovan. That's because in the working-class, police-heavy borough trying to leverage the case could have backfired. National Democrats didn't play in the special election, and Gentile was heavily outraised by Donovan.

Democrats have a glimmer of hope in trying to knock off Donovan during the regular 2016 general election, though, when they anticipate former New York Sen. Hillary Clinton will be atop the ticket. President Obama narrowly won the district, which includes all of Staten Island and a sliver of Brooklyn, in 2012. Four years earlier, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won there.

The 11th district and Staten Island are the most conservative of the city's boroughs, and that's largely how Grimm — who was under a 20-count indictment last November for charges ranging from tax fraud to perjury — was still able to win re-election. He eventually pleaded guilty to one felony charge as part of a plea deal and resigned his House seat in January.

eric garner

Michael Grimm

New York

The Rules Of Crowdfunding

How It Works On sites like GoFundMe, Indiegogo and Crowdrise are popular in part because of their ease of use. A campaigner sets up a page for free with information about their cause, sets the deadline, then starts sharing via social media. Donors can use a credit card. When the campaign ends, the website transfers the funds to a designated account, sends a check to the individual behind the campaign or sends the money directly to a charity. Some campaigners opt for an all-or-nothing campaign to motivate donors: That means the goal must be met by a certain deadline or the cause gets nothing (and donors are not charged).

Pricing & Fees GoFundMe charges 5 percent per donation and WePay, the online payment service that the site works with, charges 2.9 percent for each payment plus 30 cents. GoFundMe announced last week it will donate its 5 percent fee from all Nepal relief donations to AmeriCares.

Indiegogo charges 9 percent of funds received, with a 5 percent return if you reach your goal by the deadline you set. All registered nonprofits get a 25 percent reduction on fees.

Crowdrise takes 3 to 5 percent of donations. Like GoFundMe, CrowdRise uses WePay, which takes an additional 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per donation.

The clock is ticking on Lokesh Todi's efforts to raise $150,000 for charities based in Nepal. That's what happens when you use social media. You set up a donation campaign on a site like Indiegogo (as Todi has done). Then you have a set amount of time to meet your goal. And as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, there are only 61 hours left. So far, the 28-year-old graduate from Yale University has collected over $130 ,000 from more than 1,600 donors.

Todi is part of a crowded crowd of crowdfunders using the web to appeal for small donations for a cause.

Crowdfunding was widely popular in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy. But the magnitude of mini-campaigns for the Nepal disaster is unprecedented, says Amy Sample Ward, CEO of a nonprofit technology organization called NTEN.

GoFundMe alone has more than 700 individual campaigns and 45,000 donors who've collectively raised $3.5 million for Nepal. And Todi's campaign on Indiegogo is one of more than 100. Some of Ward's own friends on Facebook are simply asking for people to send donations to their bank accounts.

Ward has some theories about the surge of crowdfunders.

First, the location of the disaster may have given that method a boost. Nepal is often a destination for tourists and trekkers. Many volunteers go there to help as well. So people are more likely to have a friend — or a friend of a friend — who's either working there or was affected by the quake. And those friends are often motivated to raise money. (Below: A tweet from a Nepalese YouTube star who's one of the many current crowdfunders.)

WE NEED YOUR HELP !!! New video : https://t.co/JOJXdOKg4d

— promise Tamang (@TamangPhan) April 27, 2015

The familiarity helps, Ward says. Donating to someone who "you can almost picture going down the street to all their neighbors and making sure they are OK" makes donors feel as if they are likely to see tangible results.

Goats and Soda

Why Your Brain Wants To Help One Child In Need — But Not Millions

It also helps that these fundraisers have goals that seem achievable. An individual campaign may be aiming for $10,000, $50,000, $100,000. "The closer one can be to the [goal] the more people will feel that they are making a difference," says Dr. Jen Shang, a philanthropic psychologist at Plymouth University in England. But she adds there's no evidence that donating to small campaigns makes a bigger impact on ground.

It's just that "with a big institution, it's harder to see how your $10 is helping when a million dollars is needed," says Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing at the charity watchdog Charity Navigator.

Still, Miniutti recommends donating to established charities because there's too much risk with individual campaigns. "There's no vetting in the front end and no insurance on [the] back end that people will actually use the money for what they say they will," she says.

And asking for donations via a check or direct transfer into his or her bank account is a huge red flag.

Her advice: "Generally speaking, don't give through these websites unless you know the [campaigner] directly."

At Better Business Bureau, Bennett Weiner echoes Miniutti's point. But his concerns go beyond trust. "Are [crowdfunding sites for local charities] most effective in terms of philanthropy?" asks Weiner, vice president of BBB's Wise Giving Alliance.

Not during disasters, he says.

He believes an international aid agency that's dealt with disasters before is a better choice than a small charity. "You may have only one runway available for deliveries, and places may be inaccessible immediately because roads are now broken," he says. "Well guess what? If they are impassable to the staff at established charities, they're probably going to be impassable to other charities there."

The difference is that larger charities may be better equipped to find alternative ways to transport goods, he says.

Both nonprofit technology expert Amy Sample Ward and psychologist Jen Shang stress that the effectiveness of these small campaigns needs to be studied.

But sometimes crowdfunding and big charities hook up. On Indiegogo, a team of entrepreneurs and coders has raised nearly $37,000 on behalf of Oxfam America. "Why should we do this?" the organizers wrote on their campaign page. "Because the hard-working organizations on the ground don't have time."

"It certainly does not undermine our efforts, especially in the case of humanitarian emergency response," says Megan Weintraub, associate director of digital engagement for Oxfam America. "We have no ill-feelings about the ways other people are getting involved. It's just good that they are."

As for Lokesh Todi, who's just $20,000 shy of his $150,000 goal on Indiegogo, he says the money will be given to Nepalese-run charities working in the Sindhupalchowk district. "I wanted to make sure the local organizations that are here for the long term have the money to deal with the situation," he says from Nepal.

Goats and Soda

What You Need To Know Before Donating To Earthquake Relief For Nepal

Goats and Soda

You Want To Go To Nepal And Help Out. Is That A Good Idea?

Right now, he's working with other young professionals and the Nepali branch of the nonprofit ChildReach to send supplies to remote villages in Sindhupalchowk. They're also coordinating with doctors who want to help. And he's keeping his donors updated with videos, photos and written notes.

Goats and Soda

Virtual Volunteers Use Twitter And Facebook To Make Maps Of Nepal

When his campaign ends, he hopes the money will make a difference — even if it is only in a handful of villages. "Twenty thousand dollars is equal to 2 million Nepalese rupees, and that goes a long way in Nepal," Todi says. "If I can choose one small village and focus my energy on that and work with local NGOs I can make transformation happen."

In the end, it's all up to the donor, says Megan Weintraub from Oxfam. But the first step to donating is the same regardless of the platform: Do your research.

earthquake relief

crowdfunding

Nepal

When it comes to energizing Latino voters, a group of young people who can't even vote play an outsized role.

They are known as DREAMers — undocumented immigrants, brought to the country by their parents when they were kids. Now they're a political force.

Hillary Clinton sat down with a small group of DREAMers Tuesday at Rancho High School at the heart of the growing Latino community in Las Vegas. She said it was time to provide immigrants in the country illegally with a path to citizenship. But she didn't stop there, staking out positions on immigration that put her to the left of President Obama and the controversial executive actions he took last fall.

"I will fight to stop partisan attacks on the executive actions that would put DREAMers — including many with us today — at risk of deportation," she said. "And, if Congress refuses to act, as president I will do everything possible under the law to go even further."

Juan Salazar, 22, sat in the high school's library with Clinton, wearing a blue dress shirt and tie and told her he worried his parents could be deported.

Salazar came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 7 years old.

"Words are wonderful, but until my parents have that fear lifted that they're not going to be deported, we can only continue fighting."

- Astrid Silva

Now he's a business owner. Seven hours earlier, he was in the back yard of a home in north Las Vegas wearing work boots and cleaning a swimming pool. "If anybody has a pool, give me a call," he said.

After high school, the recession was raging and Salazar and his dad worked for a landscaping company. He says he got paid $6 an hour, less than minimum wage.

"But being undocumented you can't really say anything because you're afraid," Salazar said.

Then, in 2012, President Obama announced his executive action for DREAMers like Salazar, letting them stay in the country — and get work permits.

"Once I passed, all my family members started calling me, my aunts, my grandma, crying," he said. "It's like, now is your chance and, you know, take on the world."

He started his pool cleaning business right away and it just kept growing.

Now he services 40 pools, and says he'll probably have to bring on an employee soon.

As Salazar fired up a pump to pull water and gunk from the bottom of the pool, he reflected on his biggest worry.

When president Obama announced his expanded executive actions on immigration in November, he offered parents of U.S. citizen children a chance to avoid deportation and get work permits.

But people like Salazar's parents were left out because none of their children were born in this country.

"My dad was pretty upset because everyone was in the TV, just glued for hope — hopeful for an opportunity now, so it was sad that my parents couldn't qualify."

Back in the school library, Clinton sought to reassure him.

"Juan, the fact that you're so worried about your parents, I mean I will certainly try to do everything I can to avoid family breakup," she said. "Avoid the kind of terrible experience that too many families have already gone through."

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Astrid Silva (left) and Erika Castro with Clinton at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. Ethan Miller/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Astrid Silva (left) and Erika Castro with Clinton at Rancho High School in Las Vegas.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Clinton said as president she would put in place a system for parents of DREAMers and others to avoid deportation.

If the young activists had come into their meeting with Clinton with a wish list, she knocked item after item off of it.

Astrid Silva, another DREAMer, says this wasn't what they were expecting.

"We came prepared with our tough questions, and she answered them," she said.

But activists like Silva have heard plenty of promises from politicians over the years. And only some of them have been kept.

"Words are wonderful, but until my parents have that fear lifted that they're not going to be deported, we can only continue fighting," she said.

Clinton's critics on both the left and the right point out her positions on immigration have changed over the years. One GOP candidate accused her of pandering.