Last note

Cyborgs and androids are nowhere to be seen in the new USA show Mr. Robot. Instead, the drama is centered on a very human interior — the mind of Elliot, the unlikely hacker hero. From his first words — "Hello, friend" — his voice-over keeps audiences squarely inside his world.

"Elliot is sort of an internal, isolated guy who can't really interact with people socially, in real life, but online he can hack them and knows all the intimate, private details of them," Sam Esmail, the show's creator and executive producer, tells NPR's Arun Rath.

Elliot, played by actor Rami Malek, is a cybersecurity engineer by day and vigilante hacker by night. He uses his hacking skills to influence the lives of those around him without leaving a trace.

One day, he stumbles upon a secret society run by a man called Mr. Robot, played by Christian Slater. The group wants to destroy the modern economic system by wiping out all debt. Elliot is pulled into a web of anarchy and danger where all the moral lines are blurred.

"Who's good and who's bad in this show? I don't know," Esmail tells Rath. "I mean, you really can't pinpoint the clear-cut morality here, who is the person I should be rooting for or not. I think it's more interesting when it's messier 'cause I think it's just more true to life."

Interview Highlights

On putting the audience inside Elliot's head with voice-over

Taxi Driver was a huge inspiration. One of the things about Taxi Driver that's so great is that it's just a pure character piece. Obviously there's a plot and there's a story, but just — you are purely inside this guy's brain.

And when I went to write Mr. Robot, I just knew in order to really pull off this really tricky thing, to see the world through this guy's point of view, I needed just to immerse the audience.

Voice-over gets a bad rep a lot of times in screenwriting because people think it's lazy, whatever it is, but when it is done really well, it just adds this other dimension. It creates this sort of intimate relationship with the audience that you really can't do just with dialogue and scene.

On whether the "alienated young techie" character was inspired by people like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning

No. ... Look, teen angst I think has been around since Holden Caulfield. ... I think it's kind of interesting that now it's associated with techies, I think it's a lot older than that, but it's cool the association has become more popularized with technology. ...

You know, it's weird, it's like the nerds are having their moment right about now.

On portraying the hacking world and making people typing at keyboards exciting

So I was a nerd growing up, and I was a big techie and I watched all of those terrible movies and all those terrible television shows. And it was actually, I think, more work to portray it as poorly as they did because they forced all these CGI graphics and all this ridiculous stuff to force the drama there. One of the rules I have on my show is that we don't green screen ... anything. So everything you see that we filmed is real. And so the actors, I really wanted them to react to what is actually going on on-screen.

But I gotta be honest, I'm not some genius over here, I'm just actually going through what a programmer or coder or cybersecurity engineer would do in a certain hack. And the funny thing is, even though people don't completely understand it, they get it. And it's almost like when you watch a medical drama, or a legal drama or whatever, I don't necessarily understand all of the terminology, but I get what's going on emotionally, I get what the stakes are.

On the positive feedback about the show from hacker groups

You know how much of a risk that is to not only do a show about technology and about hackers, but then to kind of ... reference hacker groups. There's a popular Twitter feed for Anonymous and it's all, you know, unofficial, but when they gave us kudos, I was in heaven.

I mean, that's a real huge endorsement. And look, if it went the other way it would have been totally bad.

On potential misconceptions about Filipino workers

There's an over-arching sense of [overseas Filipino workers] as the heroes and saints of their families, who are making this huge sacrifice — which, of course, they are — of being apart from the people they love in order to support those same people. And I was curious about where some of these characters ... hew to that narrative and where they kind of go off script as well.

On unlikely friendships among migrants

When people are sort of thrown together in a place that's strange or foreign to them, Filipinos who maybe would not have socialized with each other back in Manila spend all their free time socializing with each other and kind of lean on each other and feel a responsibility to each other.

Book Reviews

Morally Messy Stories, Exquisitely Told, In Mia Alvar's 'In The Country'

Book Reviews

We're All Looking For A Home 'In The Country'

On writing in the second person

I think the second person is just polarizing for understandable reasons. People don't like being told that they are someone they're not, or that they're doing something that they definitely aren't. It can come across in ... almost an aggressive way.

And I sort of decided that I was OK, in this particular story, with aggressively insisting that the person reading identify with [the main character], whose real-life counterpart might not have time to read a literary short story collection.

I think the second person kind of speaks to the desire to have someone identify with this character, and also the impossibility of it.

Read an excerpt of In the Country

Philippines

New York state's Seneca Lake is the heart of the Finger Lakes, a beautiful countryside of steep glacier-carved hills and long slivers of water with deep beds of salt. It's been mined on Seneca's shore for more than a century.

The Texas company Crestwood Midstream owns the mine now, and stores natural gas in the emptied-out caverns. It has federal approval to increase the amount, and it's seeking New York's OK to store 88 million gallons of propane as well.

That's definitely not OK for a growing movement opposed to the plan. Since October, nearly 300 people have been arrested for blocking entrances to the storage site.

"These fossil fuels will not leave us with a viable future and certainly our lake is in immediate jeopardy," says Regi Teasley, who recently joined the action.

Late last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned hydro-fracking in New York state. But fracked gas is still present in the state, part of the nationwide distribution system. Crestwood executive Bill Gautreaux says the new project will relieve the propane shortages that in recent years have hit the northeast hard.

"Every time that happens it dramatically drives up the price for consumers," he says. "So the demand for this facility is really, really high."

Crestwood adds that those price spikes cost New Yorkers $100 million in 2013.

But opponents cite problems or accidents at other facilities. They fear gas could escape or the lake be ruined by leaking brine. A tanker truck or train might explode. They also question whether the caverns could collapse.

But even short of catastrophe, the project will industrialize the area, says Joe Campbell.

"This isn't just a hole in the ground they're going to pump gas into," he says. "There's a whole lot that goes with it."

The addition things include a six-track rail siding, two large brine ponds, and a 60-foot flare stack. Campbell and others say these will hurt a growing tourism-based economy. Nearly 130 wineries now dot the region, and Wine Enthusiast magazine recently named the Finger Lakes one of the world's 10 top travel destinations.

Will Ouweleen is getting ready to expand his Eagle Crest Vineyard. He says the Finger Lakes' climate and soil allow fine European grapes to thrive. So he has joined with other wineries urging New York to reject the plan.

"Why mess with an economic engine that continues to grow at double-digit rates creating local, sustainable jobs and giving everyone in the region something to be proud of?" he asks. "Why take the risk?

Natural gas and propane are already stored in the area. Still, more than 300 business owners have signed a petition opposing the project. But not Jim Franzese. He owns a bed and breakfast and small motel right next to the site.

"If anybody should be concerned, it would be me," he says. "They've been storing gas right up the street from me for years and years and years, since I was a kid. And we've never had any troubles. So I just don't think it's a major deal."

Crestwood admits it underestimated the reaction to the project, but Bill Gautreaux insists many opponents are misinformed.

"It's simple from a technical standpoint, very low risk on the spectrum of risks," he says. "It would be more dangerous to get in your car and drive to work."

Crestwood says the project will create up to 12 jobs and several hundred thousand dollars in annual tax payments. Gautreaux believes the fossil fuel industry can co-exist with wineries and tourism.

But the plan's opponents hope to convince state officials to sign on to a different future.

new york state

national parks

winemaking

fracking

natural gas

In his 33 years on earth, rock critic Lester Bangs left behind tens of thousands of pages of writing. He died of a drug overdose in 1982 — but this month, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, Calif., Bangs and his ideas are coming to life on stage in the new one-man play How to Be a Rock Critic.

It's a held in a small space, and it's meant to feel like the audience is in Lester Bangs' living room. There are albums sprawled everywhere, along with magazines, beers, pills, a typewriter — and, of course, Bangs himself, played by actor Erik Jensen.

Jensen and Jessica Blank, a married duo, wrote the play together. They spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about the show and the man who inspired it; hear their conversation at the audio link and read an edited version below.

Arun Rath: So, first off, why is Lester Bangs worthy of the one-man show treatment?

Jessica Blank: He basically, I think, invented modern rock journalism. You know, part of the tragedy of Lester was that he never saw himself as an artist while he was alive — he always thought he was a guy that wrote about artists. But he actually invented a new form of writing. He had a mind like no one else's, and he had a voice like no one else's, and the man probably wrote about 20 pages a day and had a ferocious appetite for culture and for life.

Erik Jensen: And drugs.

Blank: And for drugs. I mean, for everything! He was a wild man. As a character, he's compelling on so many levels.

Jensen: Also, he was a big champion of ineptitude in art, and the mistake in art, at a time when there was a lot of prog-rock happening. He was a fan of noise and garage rock and the fact that rock 'n' roll was something that anybody could do. And I think Lester recognized that the whole cultural idea of picking up a piece of junk and turning it into something new was as beautiful as any symphony that a classical composer could write.

Rath: There's a line Lester says close to the top of this play, and it's very sad — it's something like, "Yo, nobody ever comes up to you in the street and says, 'Hey man, that review of Three Dog Night really just changed my life.'" But the thing is, if he'd lived a little bit longer, that would have happened to him.

Jensen: We're actually saying that with this play: Lester, you changed our lives.

Blank: And it may be that nobody ever came up to him in the street and said that because they might not have recognized him. But I think the fact is that his reviews did change lives.

Jensen: And also, I think, he was completely flummoxed by crap. I mean, we live in a world of Auto-Tune now, where mistakes aren't respected. I think that that sort of punk ethos is something that everybody could benefit from. Now, you'll have to excuse me if I'm getting a little circular, because having 32 pages of text — out of the 15,000 that we gleaned through to make the play — memorized in my head creates kind of a Lester filter through which I see the world.

Rath: I mean, you're physically exerting yourself in this thing. You kind of have a breakdown in this room; you sort of trash the apartment. Are you tired after doing that?

Jensen: Oh man, I'm exhausted. I actually was saying to Jessica this morning, I started off the play feeling like a young John Belushi and ended up feeling like a very old David Byrne. I just kind of want to sit in a chair and not talk to anybody.

Rath: There are words in the play that seem like familiar from his reviews, things that definitely sound like Lester Bangs-isms. How much is this taken from his own writing?

Blank: The play is an adaptation directly from Lester's writing. Our playwriting background, prior to this, has primarily been in documentary theater. With that kind of work, we are fairly strict with ourselves, and we're transparent about any time we throw in a joke or something like that. This [play] is not that strict: We gave ourselves a little more latitude, because we're adapting the play from 15,000 pages worth of, primarily, criticism. Criticism is not inherently a narrative form, so we have to construct a story and tell the story of Lester's life as well as sharing his writing with the world. There are places where we constructed some connective tissue, sort of in the style of Lester. But largely, the play is adapted from his body of work.

Rath: I'm curious, Erik, about having Lester Bangs in your head and living as him. There's a funny side, but also, he was a self-destructive person.

Jensen: When I'm in Lester mode, it's hard to be a husband. It's actually pretty easy for me to be a parent, because he's fairly playful. I'm not the most method guy in the world; I can go in and out. But your whole metabolism changes when you get a guy like this in your head. I'm exhausted at the end of the show. I couldn't get to sleep until 2 in the morning last night. I think that Lester's brain was switching radio stations often, loudly. I've become a lot more sensitive. I'm a lot more paranoid right now. I want to do a lot of drugs, but I don't.

Rath: Stay away from the cough syrup.

Jensen: Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of self-questioning that goes on when Lester's in my head, that I don't usually engage with: Is this good? Am I doing the right thing? Does this have value?

Blank: Well, that's the critic.

Jensen: That's the critic, yeah. But I would like to get back to the point where I can have a conversation with my wife that doesn't circumnavigate the globe.

Mindy Kaling started out as the youngest writer on the staff of NBC's The Office and ended up being a star, producer and director of the show. She went on to create her own sitcom, The Mindy Project and now, she's the voice of Disgust in the new Pixar movie, Inside Out.

Since Kaling was the star of The Mindy Project, we're going to ask her to play a game called "The Home Improvement Project" — three questions about do-it-yourself projects.

More With Mindy Kaling

The Changing Lives Of Women

Mindy Kaling On Refusing To Be An Outsider And Sexism On Set

Television

Mindy Kaling Loves Rom Coms (And Being The Boss)

Monkey See

Mindy Kaling On Diets, High School And Other American Pastimes

Listen to the Story

11:30

Playlist

Embed

Embed

Transcript

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., returned to his home state the day after nine people were killed in Charleston's Emanuel AME Church. The crime was emotionally devastating for many of his constituents, and the senator himself lost a friend in the attack. He took time out for a wide ranging conversation about the shooting, what he believes may have caused it, and how he'd like his state — and the country — to move forward. A version of the interview aired on Here & Now.

Interview Highlights

Remembering his friend Clementa Pinckney

He was a Democrat, I'm a Republican. When I got elected to Congress, one of the calls that I received, one of the first that I saw was Clementa Pinckney, and his goal was to find a way for he and I to bring people together. And one of the ways that I hope to remember him is to work harder at bringing people together. To be a bridge that makes sense, and to be included in the conversations, no matter how difficult they are, no matter how varied the topics, to be a part of the conversation of restoring hope and creating opportunities for as many Americans and as many around the world as possible. That is how I think I can best serve my friend who is now gone.

On the role of gun laws

Anyone who has the level of hate in their heart that it scrambles their brains, perhaps someone would call that mental illness. I just call that hatred.

Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina

What gun law would have stopped a person with a hand gun? The only gun law that comes to mind that can do that is banning guns, and I am completely in opposition of that. I think it's very clear that we are looking for a solution that a new law may not be the answer to, in this case specifically. He was already breaking laws by having a gun because he was awaiting a felony charge. He certainly took a gun into a place where you can't take a gun into, which is a place of worship. So, the laws that are on the books did not stop him from doing so. It's the old saying that ..."locks are for good people." In other words, if you have someone who is willing to obey the law, it will work. Unfortunately, the fact is that there isn't a law that someone can think of that would have prevented this situation.

Does it matter if it's called 'terrorism?'

I don't know what matters to me more than the fact that I've lost a friend. Us trying to put the definition of why he did what he did is not as important to me today, as it may be in a week. Today, I know that my friend is gone, and eight members of his congregation [are] gone, because of someone who was so filled with hate, so filled with venom, that they acted out in the most violent horrific way possible, and that grieves my heart, and cuts my soul ... As we all will look for labels to put on this situation, I think we can all agree that this was a crime of hate, and that this is a challenge that we will have to address, and that we will address as a community.

'My people' becomes 'our people'

i

The Rev. Sidney Davis leads mourners at Charleston's Second Presbyterian Church during a community prayer service for the nine victims of the shooting at the historic Emanuel AME Church. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Rev. Sidney Davis leads mourners at Charleston's Second Presbyterian Church during a community prayer service for the nine victims of the shooting at the historic Emanuel AME Church.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

I just received a text from a friend of mine from Colorado saying he was praying for me and praying for my people. And then he corrected himself and said, "I'm praying for our people because we are — in essence — one before the good Lord, and one as a nation." And frankly, that's how I see this. I see this as an issue of a demented, evil person striking terror in the hearts, and then killing nine people. Was race a factor? Obviously! He said that he was going to kill black people so there's no doubt that race is one of the motivations, and frankly I'm sure that he will get justice at the fullest extent of the law.

On whether mental illness was the primary factor in the attack

I think it's hate. I don't think mental illness is the reason why he did what he did. I think anyone who has the level of hate in their heart that it scrambles their brains, perhaps someone would call that mental illness. I just call that hatred.

Charleston Shooting

Senator Tim Scott

Emanuel AME

For several years, Democrats have gleefully watched as Republicans threatened to eat their own at the ballot box. Trying to enforce a rigid orthodoxy, groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Club for Growth and others have funded primary challengers if Republicans didn't fall in line on certain votes on taxes, spending cuts and other conservative issues.

Now, it's Democrats' turn to try and manage intra-party turmoil — also rooted in a similar economic populist strain to the fight on the right — over President Obama's trade legislation. The fight could spill over into the next election, with labor groups threatening primaries against members — even those who sit in swing districts — who sided with the president.

Last Friday, the fast-track authority the president wanted to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership failed in the House after Democrats blocked a key part of the bill that would provide job-training assistance to those who could lose jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a massive Pan-Asian trade deal, is finalized.

Part of that fast-track authority — with the job-training assistance stripped out — passed the House Thursday narrowly, 218-208. But it still has to get through the Senate before the president can sign it. The challenge for President Obama now is how to get enough Democrats on board in the Senate without the job assistance in the bill or if there will be a supplementary bill that puts it back in.

Labor groups — a well-funded and powerful Democratic stronghold — waged a massive campaign against the bill and claimed victory after it went down last week. Several Democrats found themselves targeted by unions and progressive groups, warning consequences if they backed the trade bill.

"Democrats who allowed the passage of Fast Track Authority for the job-killing TPP, should know that we will not lift a finger or raise a penny to protect you when you're attacked in 2016," said Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy for America after the House vote Thursday. "We will encourage our progressive allies to join us in leaving you to rot, and we will actively search for opportunities to primary you with a real Democrat. ... Make no mistake, we will make certain that your vote to fast track the destruction of American jobs will be remembered and will haunt you for years to come."

Some have already put their money where their mouth is, too — even if that means inadvertently helping a Republican win next November. The AFL-CIO launched a six-figure ad buy in the expensive New York City media market slamming freshman Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice for switching her position to back the deal. The freshman congresswoman won her Long Island seat just 52 to 47 percent in 2014.

A Rice spokesman shot back telling Vox, "I wouldn't want to be a labor leader and have to explain to my hardworking nurses or truck drivers or tradesmen why we're wasting hundreds of thousands of their families' dollars attacking a progressive Democrat who's with them on nearly every issue but this bill. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to explain to those workers that if their money is successful, they'll get a staunch anti-union representative as their reward."

The labor group also aired a TV ad against California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, charging he will "do anything to keep his job, including shipping your job overseas."

In total, just 27 Democrats voted yes on both the Trade Promotion Authority, TPA, and Trade Adjustment Assistance, TAA, measures last week. Most of those members come from centrist districts and are facing tough reelection fights. That includes Bera, who is among the most vulnerable members of Congress after only narrowly winning reelection last November. He has claimed the groups are trying to "bully" him into changing his position and that he's voting for what is best for his district.

But labor groups don't seem fazed by the prospect a Republican who would be at odds with them even more could win the seat.

"Ami Bera won off the support of working families' boots in the district, knocking on doors for him," AFL-CIO spokesperson Amaya Smith told Politico. "But no one's saying, 'Let's not call him out, because we're scared of a Republican taking him out.'"

Another California Democratic lawmaker is already seeing rumblings of a primary challenge. Labor groups are urging Assemblyman Henry Perea to challenge Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, according to Roll Call. Costa also only narrowly won reelection last year.

In California, especially, unions and progressives backing another Democrat could have an impact. The state has a "top-two" party primary system, with the top-two finishers advancing regardless of party. An anti-trade candidate could push past the incumbent in a primary and be favored over the GOP nominee, or a split among Democrats could help two Republicans make it to the general.

Some are starting to see shades of the advent of the Tea Party in the aggressive tactics. New York Times columnist David Brooks certainly thinks so, writing in a column this week raising the idea that "the Republican Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global diplomatic arrangements. The Democrats' version of the Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global economic arrangements."

Other groups say that the biggest threat is that their members won't be helping with grassroots efforts. But if it comes to using the same tactics they decry in conservatives, some Democrats are embracing that moniker.

"To the extent that the Tea Party puts pressure on the Republican Party, then yes, we're also putting pressure on Congress to behave a certain type of way," MoveOn.org Action campaign director Justin Krebs told NPR.

MoveOn.org has already put another top lawmaker on notice over trade. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, faced backlash for his support for the bill, with the group saying there is support for a primary challenger, though no alternative has yet emerged.

Earlier this year, the group Fight for the Future began following Wyden around to town-hall meetings in Oregon with a 30-foot blimp, urging him to oppose the trade deal.

The divide isn't just manifesting itself in Congress, though. With progressives like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — who's surging in the Democratic presidential primary race — leading the charge, it's an issue that's spilling out into the presidential race, too.

Leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has expressed skepticism about the current deal, but has yet to take a concrete position either for or against the proposal. Previously, as secretary of state, she was in favor of it.

Progressives are promising this will be a defining issue for them next election cycle and beyond — one they will use as a stringent litmus test for candidates.

"We know that our members are deeply committed to this issue," Krebs said. "I think you will see that leading into the 2016 discussion even more."

trans pacific partnership

Ron Wyden

trade

Democrats

Congress

Hillary Clinton

Tea Party

David Brooks

Barack Obama

Noisy trolleys roll bales of tobacco on and off the auction floors in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Here they call it "green gold." Some of the country's estimated 100,000 small-scale tobacco farmers look on, hoping for profitable sales.

Auctioneers, quoting prices at high speed, pace up and down rows of extra-large jute-covered bundles, with yellow tobacco leaves spilling out.

Goats and Soda

How To Make A Living In Cash-Poor Zimbabwe

Goats and Soda

Zimbabwe To Street Vendors: Pack Up, Clean Up, Ship Out!

Closely behind the auctioneers follow the tobacco buyers. They indicate interest with a wink, a nod, two fingers up, eyes closed and all manner of gestures.
Celani Sithole is an auctioneer and floor manager at TSF — Tobacco Sales Floor — in Harare.

"Our standard sale speed is supposed to be five seconds per bale," she says.

Sithole says they're pushing through 7,000 to 8,000 bales a day. Farmers get their money the day their tobacco is sold.

"As soon as the bales are sold, before arbitration, the farmer has the right to cancel the bale or accept the price," says Sithole.

What we're witnessing on the auction floor is a far cry from just a few years ago. Output of most crops, including tobacco, dropped dramatically when President Robert Mugabe's followers violently drove white farmers, the backbone of the economy, from their industrial-sized farms, starting in 2000.

The government handed the annexed land to black farmers, many of whom had little or no experience. The result was disastrous and the economy collapsed in a spiral of hyperinflation.

Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe began importing food.

Tobacco production also suffered. Export earnings fell from $600 million in 2000 to $175 million in 2009.

But tobacco output jumped 235 percent last year, compared with 2009.

The CEO of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, Andrew Matibiri, says production has rebounded.

"It's back to normal almost," he says. "In terms of world production, we're nowhere near the top — but we're probably at number two or number three, after Brazil and the United States."

Matibiri says farming was especially hard-hit, in part because unlike the industrial white farmers who were landowners, Zimbabwe's new black farmers are leaseholders and couldn't get credit or bank loans without title deeds. So the tobacco sector and private companies stepped in with a new scheme. They contract with tobacco growers to produce the crop, providing fertilizers and chemicals.

Taizivei Chitaunhike is one of those farmers. The mother of four received her five-hectare farm from the government in 2003. She smiles shyly as she describes how her fortunes changed when she became a contract farmer two years ago.

"If you grow with contractors, you will manage to do all the things that you like on your farm," she says. "The amount of capital that they give me helps me. For sure, I'm now much better for farming production. Tobacco is much better, because I manage to do all my budgets on my farm, we manage to pay school fees, labor, get food and other things."

Chitaunhike says she has been up to the auction floors three times this selling season, with almost 25 bales of tobacco, and is getting good prices.

Sitting close by, under a young jacaranda tree, and listening attentively to Chitaunhike, is another tobacco farmer, Milca Matimbe. She's 53 and got her 27-hectare farm ten years ago. Matimbe has been growing tobacco for five years but does not have a contract with a company. She sells independently and is disappointed with sales this season.

"The prices are not so good for us," she says. "Last year it was better than this year, because the prices are not going up, they're going down. Ah but we have got good tobacco. We don't know if we can go back to the fields this coming season, because we've got no money."

Zimbabwe consumes only a fraction of its tobacco output. Tobacco marketing board CEO Matibiri says the flue-cured tobacco is top quality, much prized and expensive. Forty percent of exports go to China, followed by the European Union and South Africa.

"We produce a premium product, which is in demand the world over," he says. "It is said to have very good blending properties. In other words, it mixes very well with lower quality tobaccos produced in other parts of the world, producing nice, very pleasant cigarettes to smoke, if you're a smoker – yeah."

Back on the auction floor, brisk tobacco selling continues. It appears the banks are listening. The Bankers Association of Zimbabwe looks set to lend a billion dollars to agriculture this year — the lion's share going to tobacco farming.

tobacco

Zimbabwe

Soda is at the crossroads.

The U.S. is still a world leader in taking the pause that refreshes (and causes weight gain).

But soda drinking is flat or declining in the West. The reasons are many: Health consciousness. Bottled water. Energy drinks.

So the Big Soda companies are spending money to develop new markets in low- and middle-income countries. In some of these places, people are earning a bit more than a few years before, so there's money for soda.

Health advocates aren't happy that soda consumption is going up in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They would like to see the sale of soda go down because it's pretty well documented that soda just isn't good for you.

New data suggest that Mexico's tax on soda may be one way to get people to drink less soda. (Check out this post from The Salt.) Other countries, including Chile, are considering a similar tax.

But a soda tax won't necessarily lead to a reduction in consumption. "Soda companies could reduce their prices and absorb the tax," points out Dr. Bruce Lee, director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University.

And there isn't always another drinking option.

"In many low-income countries, access to clean drinking water is limited, so soda becomes a viable alternative," Lee says. "People will say, 'We don't have anything else to drink.' "

One way for countries to address this issue, he suggests, is to levy a soda tax as Mexico did, then use the proceeds to bring clean water to people via aqueducts, water purification systems or better sanitation so water sources aren't contaminated by human waste.

But it's tough to convince soda drinkers to give it up. People's habits are influenced by "what everyone else is doing, what's available, what's cool and hip," says Lee.

Plus, it's easy to drink a lot of soda because it doesn't make you feel full, says Steve Gortmaker, who directs the Harvard School of Public Health Prevention Research Center. With some foods — whole grains, salad — you get a feeling of fullness. With soda, "your body doesn't sense it's getting all these extra calories," he says. "And you consume it so rapidly, a couple hundred calories in a couple of gulps, your body hasn't had a chance to react to it."

Would you drink fewer cans soda if a national tax jacked up the price?

When it comes to schemes to counter the staggering rates of obesity and diabetes around the world, there's a growing consensus that taxes that force consumers to reckon, via their pocketbooks, with their food and drink habits might be the way to go.

But since so few countries – or cities — have dared to try a "sin" tax on soda or junk food, no one really knows if they'd actually work.

The Salt

Navajos Fight Their Food Desert With Junk Food And Soda Taxes

Mexico is one of the only countries in the world that's managed to pass and implement such a tax. (France has done it, too, and Chile is working on it.)

The Salt

Is It Time For A Warning Label On Sugar-Loaded Drinks?

In January 2014, the price of all sodas and other sugary drinks in Mexico went up by one peso (about seven cents) per liter — about a 10 percent tax. The government also added an 8 percent tax on unhealthy snacks, like potato chips and cookies.

Now, a study by the Mexican National Institute of Public Health and the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill suggests that the tax is working. To be clear, the results, which were released Wednesday, are highly preliminary — the study has been submitted to the prestigious U.S. journal Health Affairs, but it hasn't yet been peer-reviewed or published.

But according to the researchers, who analyzed data on household consumption in 53 Mexican cities, purchases of sugary beverages dropped 6 percent on average in 2014 compared to pre-tax trends. And by December 2014, they'd gone down by 12 percent, compared to previous years.

"Despite promotions and marketing strategies [from beverage companies to counter the tax], the effect of the soda tax in Mexico has been successful," Juan Rivera, a researcher at the Mexico's National Institute of Public Health who was involved with the study, tells The Salt. "Along with other strategies the Mexican government is using, I hope that intake of sugar-sweetened beverages will continue to drop."

As you can see from this handy soda consumption chart from our pals over at Goats And Soda, Mexico comes in fourth worldwide, with about 139 soft drink purchases per capita in 2014. And according to one study looking at the public health burden of sugar-sweetened beverages, some 4,100 deaths per year in Mexico can be attributed to consumption of them.

Not only did people in Mexico drink fewer soda with the tax, they also drank more water, according to the researchers. Their study was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The tax has been controversial in Mexico, especially in the business community. Unsurpisingly, the beverage industry lobbied hard against it, says Rivera. As Marc Silver over at Goats and Soda reports, Big Soda companies are investing heavily to develop new markets in low- and middle-income countries.

According to a press release touting the study results from the Nutritional Health Alliance, a Mexican public interest coalition, the beverage industry also launched marketing campaigns in Mexico, including "Share a Coke" and personalized Coca-Cola cans, in mid-2014 after the tax went into effect. Still, Rivera says, consumers, on average, chose to cut back more and more as the year wore on.

Consumption dropped most among the lowest socioeconomic group, the researchers say: That group drank 9 percent fewer sugary beverages on average in 2014, and 17 percent less by the end of the year, compared to pre-tax trends.

The government collected a total of $1.3 billion in 2014 from the tax, which it says it is using to fund programs to prevent obesity and its associated diseases — for example, making clean drinking water available in schools that don't currently have it.

As we've reported, only two communities in the U.S. have managed to pass such a policy: the city of Berkeley, Calif., and the Navajo Nation.

But already, advocates here say they see the Mexican study's preliminary results as a sign that soda taxes are an effective measure for improving public health.

"It is time for federal, state and local policymakers to take real action to curb America's rising tide of diabetes and obesity," Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, said in a statement. "A soda tax is a critical step. Mexico has done it for their residents. So can we."

In the meantime, Rivera says he's working to get funding to continue to measure the impact of the Mexican tax in 2015.

And Mexico's Nutritional Health Alliance says it will be lobbying the government to increase the tax from 10 percent to 20 percent to take more of the fizz out of soda sales.

A new animated feature from Pixar aims to do the near-impossible, as any parent would tell you: get inside the mind of a preteen girl. Inside Out is about an 11-year-old girl named Riley, but the real stars are her emotions — five colorful characters representing joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust.

Pete Docter, the creative force behind Up and Monsters, Inc., wrote and directed the film, and actress Amy Poehler plays Joy. Both of them laugh about one of the biggest challenges of the movie: deciding how many emotions to include.

i

Joy (Poehler) and the other four emotions take turns at the controls of a console in 11-year-old Riley's head. Disney/Pixar hide caption

itoggle caption Disney/Pixar

Joy (Poehler) and the other four emotions take turns at the controls of a console in 11-year-old Riley's head.

Disney/Pixar

"We started by talking to all these scientists about which emotions are there, and there's no consensus, which is kind of baffling" Docter tells NPR's Renee Montagne. "So some guys would say, 'Well there's three basic emotions.' And then someone else would tell us there's 27 basic emotions. ... I almost bought them, but then the room got too crowded so we cut it back down to five."

In the movie, Riley's emotions see the world through Riley's eyes and take turns at the controls of a console that determines how she feels at any given moment. Joy is the star, but Sadness is the key to the movie's meaning: Riley was all about Joy until she's torn from her blissful childhood home in Minnesota by her father's new job in San Francisco. As Riley's childhood friends and fun recede, Joy struggles to keep control and Sadness starts giving Riley the blues.

Interview Highlights

On Joy

Joy was a really hard character — of all the characters in the movie, the hardest one to write — because people who are just relentlessly positive and upbeat at all times, you kind of want to smack them, you know? You just don't take them seriously.

Pete Docter

Poehler: Joy goes through her own journey in the film: She realizes that she has to also be sad. And so when we were working on the character together, it was like: What level are we at in the beginning? Can we modulate that? And how does she change?

Docter: Joy was a really hard character — of all the characters in the movie, the hardest one to write — because people who are just relentlessly positive and upbeat at all times, you kind of want to smack them, you know? You just don't take them seriously. You don't trust them. And I remember we had that discussion when we first met. We were struggling with that. One of the keys that we tried to do together was to show a kind of a vulnerability at times, that she doesn't just react to horror by saying, "Let's go!" You know, she has a moment of letting it sink in ... so you really feel it before she then powers on.

On Disgust

Docter: Disgust is about keeping you from being poisoned. And that can be either physically — like don't eat the gross food — or socially — don't wear that disgusting dress because your friends will mock you. ... And that's especially big amongst teenagers.

On Sadness

More On 'Inside Out'

Movie Reviews

From The 'Inside Out,' A Lively Look Inside A Young Mind

Movie Interviews

It's All In Your Head: Director Pete Docter Gets Emotional In 'Inside Out'

Shots - Health News

Science Of Sadness And Joy: 'Inside Out' Gets Childhood Emotions Right

Poehler: It's such a funny opposite energy to Joy, who is literally jumping up and down. And Sadness just wants to lie down and kind of feel her feelings. And there's a beautiful moment in the film where Sadness sits down next to a character, and he's upset about something. And Joy's first instinct is to kind of distract him and cheer him up and talk over him. And Sadness sits down next to him and says, "I'm very sorry that you lost something that you love. That must make you very sad." And frankly, it's like a pamphlet on how to speak about loss, because it's just someone sitting next to you and saying, "I'm very sorry that you're sad and you lost something that you love, and that must be hard." The end, you know? So Sadness is like a superhero.

On how the movie's lessons have resonated with Poehler's kids

Poehler: It's such a great tool to be able to talk to young people. It's very hard to sit a child down and say, "How are you feeling?" ... I have young boys and they say things like, you know, "Isn't it funny how Anger doesn't listen?" And I say, "Yeah, you know that was kind of like what was happening the other day with you at school." You know? Or they say, "I think that I'm like Fear when I don't want to go to bed." ... It's like one step away from their actual feelings and they feel really safe in talking about it.

And also in the film there are these core memories, this idea that we all have these memories that shape us and we remember them. And I asked my son what his core memories were. And he listed off five things — some were big and some were small. And just to hear a young person tell you, like, "My life so far," it's fascinating.

In a decision that could have major implications for the entire sharing economy, the California Labor Commission has ruled that a San Francisco Uber driver is a company employee, not a contractor. In that decision, the commission awarded Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick $4,152.20 in employee expenses, including mileage reimbursements, toll charges and interest.

The ruling was made public when Uber filed an appeal Tuesday in a state court in San Francisco.

The Associated Press says Uber claims the ruling is nonbinding, and only applies to one driver. And in a statement sent to NPR, Uber claimed the ruling in favor of Berwick actually contradicts a previous ruling from the same commission.

Uber says that classifying drivers as contractors is part of giving them the freedom they want. "It's important to remember that the No. 1 reason drivers choose to use Uber is because they have complete flexibility and control," spokeswoman Jessica Santillo said. "The majority of them can and do choose to earn their living from multiple sources, including other ride-sharing companies."

But Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer working on a class-action suit of drivers against Uber, told NPR that the company owes its drivers more than it's currently giving them. "Uber's obviously been wildly successful because it developed a concept that caught on," Liss-Riordan said. "But that gives it no excuse to ignore labor laws that have been put into place over decades that protect workers' rights. Uber is a $50 billion company, it says. And the idea that it somehow can't afford to pay for what employers are required to pay for is just a little bit beyond belief."

In Berwick's case, Uber argued that it is just a "technological platform" for private vehicle drivers to facilitate private transactions, that drivers are independent contractors, that Uber has no control over the hours drivers work, and that the company does not have to reimburse drivers for any "expenses related to operating their personal vehicles."

But the labor commission disagreed and found that Berwick is in fact an employee of Uber, saying, "Without passengers such as Plaintiff [Berwick], Defendant's [Uber's] business would not exist." Relying on precedent that applied to cabdrivers and pizza delivery employees, the commission ordered Uber to reimburse Berwick for 6,468 miles she drove while working as an Uber driver, at a rate of $0.56 per mile. Berwick was also awarded toll charges of $256.00, and $274.12 in interest.

Berwick also asked for wages for 470.7 hours she worked as an Uber driver, but she was not awarded that payment, in part because she failed to provide some payment documentation the court asked for.

Jonathan Handel, a law professor at the University of Southern California who has been following the sharing economy, said of the ruling, "Uber should be worried about this." He says it has the potential not just to increase the company's expenses, but also increase its liability. "It really could represent a major roadblock for the sharing economy model that Uber and other companies like Lyft and Airbnb, even, are dependent on."

"If not a surprise. It certainly illustrates the tension between a new economy model," Handel told NPR, "where Uber and others say, 'look, we're just information providers; we hook people up,' and an older model."

Handel says rulings like that of the commission could mean higher prices for Uber rides down the road. It sets up companies like Uber to be responsible for things like Social Security, health care and other benefits. The Los Angeles Times reports that just in California, if Uber drivers were classified as employees, they'd have to be reimbursed for gas, tolls, insurance, unemployment benefits, workers' compensation and Social Security.

Whatever happens with Uber's appeal of the commission's ruling, more challenges are on the way. A site for drivers involved in legal challenges against the company says a hearing for a class certification of one lawsuit will come in August.

Uber

sharing economy

"I thought you wanted to loosen up," Charlotte (Judith Godrche) asks Alex (Adam Scott) close to the end of Patrick Brice's The Overnight. "I do," Alex replies warily. "But I guess I'm just wondering what loosen up means at this point."

It's a fair question given how, at that moment — i.e. somewhere around three or four in the morning, alone in Charlotte's bedroom — Charlotte and her husband Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) have known Alex and his wife Emily (Taylor Schilling) for less than 24 hours, but the couples have managed already to get drunk, stoned and naked together, to list only some of their more publishable interactions.

The debauchery by this point has become pronounced, but it develops gradually, and Brice manages admirably to make his comedy at once daring and earnest, outlandish and relatable, obscene and sweet. The Overnight opens just after Emily and Alex have moved to Los Angeles with their son RJ (R.J. Hermes). When RJ becomes quick friends with Kurt's son Wade (Kyle Field), the parents decide to get together for dinner.

To start, The Overnight largely occupies itself with taking jabs at hipsters, sometimes in a way that's too obviously derivative of Portlandia and its ilk. When Alex realizes that Kurt and Charlotte are impressively wealthy, for instance, he rips the label off the Two-Buck Chuck wine that he and Emily have brought over for dinner and pretends that it's from a local winery that uses recycled bottles. "It's organic," he proclaims.

Apart from that, the film's hipster mockery focuses on Kurt, who, upon first meeting Alex and Emily, informs them that they've moved into the coolest neighborhood in town, extols the nearby oyster bars, and becomes worried when he finds out that the two haven't done their tours of local schools yet. It also turns out that he's the kind of Renaissance man who designs his own house, makes water desalination filters for impoverished countries, and paints on the side.

In this respect, The Overnight's general tone and subject matter recall the work of the Duplass brothers, both of whom serve as executive producers on this film. (Mark Duplass is also a co-writer and co-star of Creep, Brice's first movie, which was recently released on iTunes.) The hipster satire certainly unites the artists, as does the increasing focus on Kurt and Alex's male bonding. But there's also a commitment to candor, and a similarly direct approach to achieving it, that carries through their movies.

The Duplass brothers seek a visceral realism through their improvised scripts and handheld camera work. Brice, meanwhile, seems to believe that the only path to honesty is through head-on confrontation. So if male insecurity is going to be central theme of the movie, as it is here, then a liberal use of male nudity is necessary to make that discussion quite specific.

In The Overnight, as in some of the Duplass brothers' movies, this philosophy of direct confrontation inspires an increasingly absurd escalation of events as the two couples, upon putting their kids to bed, proceed to stay up all night testing the boundaries of their new relationship. But what keeps the movie together, what prevents it from being a laughable showcase of risqu acts for the mere sake of showing them, is its emotional sincerity.

Part of the credit here goes to the actors, particularly Schilling, who, as in Orange is the New Black, is not only funny but remarkably tender. In a movie that veers toward the crude, her subdued, quietly magnetic presence is, first and foremost, endearing.

A similar counterweight comes from the way Brice pulls back from absurdity just soon and often enough to not lose our patience. Granted, the moments in which he does so are also the more predictable and sentimental portions of the film. But predictability and sentimentality here stand in for recognizable humanity — they're traits that help us maintain an emotional connection to the characters, stops us from just gaping at them.

As The Overnight charts the extremes of its characters' personalities and their own search for honest expression, Brice seems both tempted and scared by what he puts on screen. When Alex wonders if he's going too far, it also suggests a question for Brice: How far down this path can I go before I've committed? Before the veneer of comedy peels off?

In the clutch, Brice plays it a bit too safe. By pushing the boundaries of acceptable and rational behavior, he also promotes a vision of marriage, sexuality and adulthood that's far from the traditional view espoused in many comedies. It's one thing to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, as Brice successfully does throughout to avoid too pedantic a tone, but it's another thing to laugh off the whole endeavor in the last minute, as happens in the unnecessary final scene. In a sense, the film belatedly discovers its own limits when it comes to loosening up, though thankfully only after overshooting the comfort zone spectacularly, humorously and repeatedly for a good hour before that.

A day after a shooting left nine dead in a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., President Obama mourned the losses and lamented the politics of gun control.

"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Obama said from the White House Briefing Room. "It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it."

Still, Obama noted that power is limited.

"I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now," Obama continued. "But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point, it's going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively."

The president made a high-profile push for tighter background checks after the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 that left 26 people dead, including 20 children.

"Our hearts are broken today," Obama said from the same podium back in 2012. He added, "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

Despite the president's impassioned plea, the effort failed. And his statement Thursday was a recognition that any renewed push would likely suffer the same fate without something fundamental changing.

Charleston, SC

gun control

White House

Guns

Barack Obama

For several years, Democrats have gleefully watched as Republicans threatened to eat their own at the ballot box. Trying to enforce a rigid orthodoxy, groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Club for Growth and others have funded primary challengers if Republicans didn't fall in line on certain votes on taxes, spending cuts and other conservative issues.

Now, it's Democrats' turn to try and manage intra-party turmoil — also rooted in a similar economic populist strain to the fight on the right — over President Obama's trade legislation. The fight could spill over into the next election, with labor groups threatening primaries against members — even those who sit in swing districts — who sided with the president.

Last Friday, the fast-track authority the president wanted to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership failed in the House after Democrats blocked a key part of the bill that would provide job-training assistance to those who could lose jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a massive Pan-Asian trade deal, is finalized.

Part of that fast-track authority — with the job-training assistance stripped out — passed the House Thursday narrowly, 218-208. But it still has to get through the Senate before the president can sign it. The challenge for President Obama now is how to get enough Democrats on board in the Senate without the job assistance in the bill or if there will be a supplementary bill that puts it back in.

Labor groups — a well-funded and powerful Democratic stronghold — waged a massive campaign against the bill and claimed victory after it went down last week. Several Democrats found themselves targeted by unions and progressive groups, warning consequences if they backed the trade bill.

"Democrats who allowed the passage of Fast Track Authority for the job-killing TPP, should know that we will not lift a finger or raise a penny to protect you when you're attacked in 2016," said Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy for America after the House vote Thursday. "We will encourage our progressive allies to join us in leaving you to rot, and we will actively search for opportunities to primary you with a real Democrat. ... Make no mistake, we will make certain that your vote to fast track the destruction of American jobs will be remembered and will haunt you for years to come."

Some have already put their money where their mouth is, too — even if that means inadvertently helping a Republican win next November. The AFL-CIO launched a six-figure ad buy in the expensive New York City media market slamming freshman Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice for switching her position to back the deal. The freshman congresswoman won her Long Island seat just 52 to 47 percent in 2014.

A Rice spokesman shot back telling Vox, "I wouldn't want to be a labor leader and have to explain to my hardworking nurses or truck drivers or tradesmen why we're wasting hundreds of thousands of their families' dollars attacking a progressive Democrat who's with them on nearly every issue but this bill. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to explain to those workers that if their money is successful, they'll get a staunch anti-union representative as their reward."

The labor group also aired a TV ad against California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, charging he will "do anything to keep his job, including shipping your job overseas."

In total, just 27 Democrats voted yes on both the Trade Promotion Authority, TPA, and Trade Adjustment Assistance, TAA, measures last week. Most of those members come from centrist districts and are facing tough reelection fights. That includes Bera, who is among the most vulnerable members of Congress after only narrowly winning reelection last November. He has claimed the groups are trying to "bully" him into changing his position and that he's voting for what is best for his district.

But labor groups don't seem fazed by the prospect a Republican who would be at odds with them even more could win the seat.

"Ami Bera won off the support of working families' boots in the district, knocking on doors for him," AFL-CIO spokesperson Amaya Smith told Politico. "But no one's saying, 'Let's not call him out, because we're scared of a Republican taking him out.'"

Another California Democratic lawmaker is already seeing rumblings of a primary challenge. Labor groups are urging Assemblyman Henry Perea to challenge Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, according to Roll Call. Costa also only narrowly won reelection last year.

In California, especially, unions and progressives backing another Democrat could have an impact. The state has a "top-two" party primary system, with the top-two finishers advancing regardless of party. An anti-trade candidate could push past the incumbent in a primary and be favored over the GOP nominee, or a split among Democrats could help two Republicans make it to the general.

Some are starting to see shades of the advent of the Tea Party in the aggressive tactics. New York Times columnist David Brooks certainly thinks so, writing in a column this week raising the idea that "the Republican Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global diplomatic arrangements. The Democrats' version of the Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global economic arrangements."

Other groups say that the biggest threat is that their members won't be helping with grassroots efforts. But if it comes to using the same tactics they decry in conservatives, some Democrats are embracing that moniker.

"To the extent that the Tea Party puts pressure on the Republican Party, then yes, we're also putting pressure on Congress to behave a certain type of way," MoveOn.org Action campaign director Justin Krebs told NPR.

MoveOn.org has already put another top lawmaker on notice over trade. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, faced backlash for his support for the bill, with the group saying there is support for a primary challenger, though no alternative has yet emerged.

Earlier this year, the group Fight for the Future began following Wyden around to town-hall meetings in Oregon with a 30-foot blimp, urging him to oppose the trade deal.

The divide isn't just manifesting itself in Congress, though. With progressives like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — who's surging in the Democratic presidential primary race — leading the charge, it's an issue that's spilling out into the presidential race, too.

Leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has expressed skepticism about the current deal, but has yet to take a concrete position either for or against the proposal. Previously, as secretary of state, she was in favor of it.

Progressives are promising this will be a defining issue for them next election cycle and beyond — one they will use as a stringent litmus test for candidates.

"We know that our members are deeply committed to this issue," Krebs said. "I think you will see that leading into the 2016 discussion even more."

trans pacific partnership

Ron Wyden

trade

Democrats

Congress

Hillary Clinton

Tea Party

David Brooks

Barack Obama

For several years, Democrats have gleefully watched as Republicans threatened to eat their own at the ballot box. Trying to enforce a rigid orthodoxy, groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Club for Growth and others have funded primary challengers if Republicans didn't fall in line on certain votes on taxes, spending cuts and other conservative issues.

Now, it's Democrats' turn to try and manage intra-party turmoil — also rooted in a similar economic populist strain to the fight on the right — over President Obama's trade legislation. The fight could spill over into the next election, with labor groups threatening primaries against members — even those who sit in swing districts — who sided with the president.

Last Friday, the fast-track authority the president wanted to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership failed in the House after Democrats blocked a key part of the bill that would provide job-training assistance to those who could lose jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a massive Pan-Asian trade deal, is finalized.

Part of that fast-track authority — with the job-training assistance stripped out — passed the House Thursday narrowly, 218-208. But it still has to get through the Senate before the president can sign it. The challenge for President Obama now is how to get enough Democrats on board in the Senate without the job assistance in the bill or if there will be a supplementary bill that puts it back in.

Labor groups — a well-funded and powerful Democratic stronghold — waged a massive campaign against the bill and claimed victory after it went down last week. Several Democrats found themselves targeted by unions and progressive groups, warning consequences if they backed the trade bill.

"Democrats who allowed the passage of Fast Track Authority for the job-killing TPP, should know that we will not lift a finger or raise a penny to protect you when you're attacked in 2016," said Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy for America after the House vote Thursday. "We will encourage our progressive allies to join us in leaving you to rot, and we will actively search for opportunities to primary you with a real Democrat. ... Make no mistake, we will make certain that your vote to fast track the destruction of American jobs will be remembered and will haunt you for years to come."

Some have already put their money where their mouth is, too — even if that means inadvertently helping a Republican win next November. The AFL-CIO launched a six-figure ad buy in the expensive New York City media market slamming freshman Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice for switching her position to back the deal. The freshman congresswoman won her Long Island seat just 52 to 47 percent in 2014.

A Rice spokesman shot back telling Vox, "I wouldn't want to be a labor leader and have to explain to my hardworking nurses or truck drivers or tradesmen why we're wasting hundreds of thousands of their families' dollars attacking a progressive Democrat who's with them on nearly every issue but this bill. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to explain to those workers that if their money is successful, they'll get a staunch anti-union representative as their reward."

The labor group also aired a TV ad against California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, charging he will "do anything to keep his job, including shipping your job overseas."

In total, just 27 Democrats voted yes on both the Trade Promotion Authority, TPA, and Trade Adjustment Assistance, TAA, measures last week. Most of those members come from centrist districts and are facing tough reelection fights. That includes Bera, who is among the most vulnerable members of Congress after only narrowly winning reelection last November. He has claimed the groups are trying to "bully" him into changing his position and that he's voting for what is best for his district.

But labor groups don't seem fazed by the prospect a Republican who would be at odds with them even more could win the seat.

"Ami Bera won off the support of working families' boots in the district, knocking on doors for him," AFL-CIO spokesperson Amaya Smith told Politico. "But no one's saying, 'Let's not call him out, because we're scared of a Republican taking him out.'"

Another California Democratic lawmaker is already seeing rumblings of a primary challenge. Labor groups are urging Assemblyman Henry Perea to challenge Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, according to Roll Call. Costa also only narrowly won reelection last year.

In California, especially, unions and progressives backing another Democrat could have an impact. The state has a "top-two" party primary system, with the top-two finishers advancing regardless of party. An anti-trade candidate could push past the incumbent in a primary and be favored over the GOP nominee, or a split among Democrats could help two Republicans make it to the general.

Some are starting to see shades of the advent of the Tea Party in the aggressive tactics. New York Times columnist David Brooks certainly thinks so, writing in a column this week raising the idea that "the Republican Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global diplomatic arrangements. The Democrats' version of the Tea Partiers are suspicious of all global economic arrangements."

Other groups say that the biggest threat is that their members won't be helping with grassroots efforts. But if it comes to using the same tactics they decry in conservatives, some Democrats are embracing that moniker.

"To the extent that the Tea Party puts pressure on the Republican Party, then yes, we're also putting pressure on Congress to behave a certain type of way," MoveOn.org Action campaign director Justin Krebs told NPR.

MoveOn.org has already put another top lawmaker on notice over trade. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, faced backlash for his support for the bill, with the group saying there is support for a primary challenger, though no alternative has yet emerged.

Earlier this year, the group Fight for the Future began following Wyden around to town-hall meetings in Oregon with a 30-foot blimp, urging him to oppose the trade deal.

The divide isn't just manifesting itself in Congress, though. With progressives like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — who's surging in the Democratic presidential primary race — leading the charge, it's an issue that's spilling out into the presidential race, too.

Leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has expressed skepticism about the current deal, but has yet to take a concrete position either for or against the proposal. Previously, as secretary of state, she was in favor of it.

Progressives are promising this will be a defining issue for them next election cycle and beyond — one they will use as a stringent litmus test for candidates.

"We know that our members are deeply committed to this issue," Krebs said. "I think you will see that leading into the 2016 discussion even more."

trans pacific partnership

Ron Wyden

trade

Democrats

Congress

Hillary Clinton

Tea Party

David Brooks

Barack Obama

Legislators in Hong Kong rejected China' plan to hand-pick the slate of candidates for the territory's next leader, but Beijing quickly announced that the vote would change nothing because it didn't reflect the will of the people.

Moments before the vote, pro-Beijing lawmakers walked out of the legislative chamber.

"Such a result is a departure from the mainstream public opinion of Hong Kong," a spokesman for the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. "It is also not what the central government likes to see."

"The central government sincerely hopes the various sectors of Hong Kong could unite under the leadership of the chief executive and the SAR government, and focus on developing the economy, improving people's livelihoods, maintaining social harmony and maintaining Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability," the spokesman added, according to The South China Morning Post.

A statement from the council reads: "Although the universal suffrage motion was not passed ... the direction towards universal suffrage and the legal principles laid down in the decision of the ... Standing Committee, must continue to be upheld in future efforts to pursue universal suffrage," it read.

The electoral reform package would have allowed a direct vote for Hong Kong's chief executive in 2017, but Beijing has insisted that it alone gets to control the nominating process.

In August, anger boiled over into the streets of Hong Kong over what many view as Beijing reneging on a promise it made when Britain handed back Hong Kong to China in 1997 to have free and fair elections for the territory's leader, known as the chief executive, beginning in 2017.

As we reported over the weekend, protesters gathered in Hong Kong to push the legislature to reject Beijing's plan. However, the numbers for those demonstrations were small compared to the tens of thousands who filled the streets last year.

Hong Kong protests

China

After four years of war, Syrians are everywhere in Istanbul — on street corners, squatting in abandoned buildings. But a new venture run by Syrian and Turkish book lovers aims to be a cultural oasis for Arabic readers, and, along the way, give Turks a fuller picture of the Syrians, Iraqis and Libyans increasingly filling the city.

In a painstakingly restored old wooden house in a working class neighborhood, Syrians, Iraqis and Turks mingled recently amid the shelves of the Pages bookstore.

i

A trio of Syrian musicians perform at the opening of Pages bookstore in Istanbul. The store has a cafe and a play area for children, and owners hope to host movie screenings and workshops. Peter Kenyon/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Peter Kenyon/NPR

A trio of Syrian musicians perform at the opening of Pages bookstore in Istanbul. The store has a cafe and a play area for children, and owners hope to host movie screenings and workshops.

Peter Kenyon/NPR

A Syrian string trio played in the corner, as browsers flipped through volumes in Arabic, Turkish, English and French. One teenager brings his choice — an Arabic translation of George Orwell's 1984 — over to his headscarf-wearing mother. She looks at it, nods and puts it on the pile to purchase.

Partner and manager Samer al-Kadri has lived here for over a year now, after Bright Fingers Publishing — the company he co-founded in Damascus, Syria — became impossible to run because of the war.

When he got here he noticed right away the booming population of Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and other Arabs, and saw a gaping need for an Arabic bookstore.

"There is a huge Arab community here, and there is no Arabic book," he says. "And this is our job."

i

Arabic- and English-language books are displayed in the new Syrian-run Pages bookstore in Istanbul. Titles in Turkish and French are also available. Peter Kenyon/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Peter Kenyon/NPR

Arabic- and English-language books are displayed in the new Syrian-run Pages bookstore in Istanbul. Titles in Turkish and French are also available.

Peter Kenyon/NPR

Upstairs, there's a combination playroom and reading room stocked with children's books. Downstairs is adult fiction and nonfiction, some 2,000 titles in all, and in the basement is a small caf. Kadri hopes the space will become a kind of cultural mixing zone for Turks and Arabs.

"We want to let people know us, to see us in different way, and see them in different way," he says. "And this is very important to us."

Kadri says they're not just trying to attract better-off Syrians: The store will also let people borrow books, or read them for free in the store. There are plans for book signings by Turkish authors, movie screenings, and workshops for both children and adults.

As more and more visitors crowd into the modest shop, Kadri's Turkish partner, Zeynap Sevde Paksu, says they know their efforts are just a drop compared to the ocean of needs confronting the some 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey these days. But it is something she can do to help Syrians, and her fellow Turks as well — at least those willing to have their stereotypes about Arabs challenged.

Parallels

Turkish Educator Pledges $10M To Set Up Universities For Syrian Refugees

Turkey Welcomes Syrian Refugees As Kurds Close In On ISIS

3:04

Playlist

Download

Embed

Embed

"They will come and see here — Syrian people are intellectual people, they are writers, they are poets," she says. "For example, for Turkish people a Syrian person can't be unreligious — they're all mullahs, okay? And when they see Arabic book, they will just think it is a religious book. No, it's popular — there are love stories here, crime stories here — too many kinds of novels here."

From Baghdad's once-famous "street of books," Mutanabbi Street, to the smoky literary cafes of Damascus, the Arab love of poetry and prose continues. Despite the conflict raging in their country, Syrians who are descended from some of Damascus' leading poets and writers are converting their family homes into literary and cultural centers.

Now there's an outpost of sorts in Istanbul too.

bookstores

Syrian refugees

Turkey

The Federal Reserve's policymakers Wednesday held steady on interest rates — and gave no specific time frame for when they might change course.

That was the expected outcome of their two-day meeting.

But this changed: The policymakers seemed a bit more optimistic about the U.S. economy. Their statement said that while inflation is very low, "economic activity has been expanding moderately."

At a news conference, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said, "We have seen some progress." Still, rate hikes won't come until the Fed sees "more decisive evidence" that growth really is sustainable.

Overall, her words struck most analysts as a sign the Fed will start to nudge up interest rates, probably once in September and again before Dec. 31.

"After that, it will take its time and will only gradually tighten monetary conditions further," Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS, said in a statement.

But for now, it's still groundhog day, with no changes. The Fed has not had a rate hike since June 2006 — so long ago that the housing bubble was still inflating and Shakira was assuring us that "Hips Don't Lie."

So here's what the Fed decision means for you:

The nation's central bank is going to continue holding down interest rates to encourage you to borrow money for a new car or a home rehab or some other purchase. The goal is to stimulate a recovering economy.

Some economists say that extra help isn't needed anymore. They point to signs of an improved economy. For example, the Bertelsmann Foundation's International Non-profit Credit Rating Agency just upgraded its U.S. assessment from AA+ to AAA, saying that the "United States promises to be a more reliable driver of the global economy in coming years — with expected growth of 1.5 to 3 percent in 2015, and 2.5 to 3 percent in 2016."

But the Fed noted lingering problems, saying that "business fixed investment and net exports stayed soft."

Although the Fed statement didn't mention it, there's another worrisome factor hanging over the economy. It's the trouble in Greece, which owes more money to creditors than it can afford to pay.

Because Greece belongs to the European Union, its debt crisis is a big problem. European leaders are meeting next week and will try to sort out that debt mess. But it's possible there are no solutions and Greece might have to leave the EU. That would open up all sorts of unknowns that could upset markets.

"The one and only reason the Fed chose not to act this time was because of Greece," Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for The Economic Outlook Group, said in a statement.

"The Fed couldn't comfortably pull the interest trigger this time until it got past the potential fallout of a Greek default," he added.

Fed policymakers have been keeping its benchmark federal funds rate at near zero since December 2008.

Translation: Your cost of borrowed dollars has been at historically low levels for a long time now.

Cheap loans might sound good, but there are downsides. For one thing, it's hard on savers who need to earn more interest on their money. Also, a lot of economists worry that super low interest rates make it too easy to borrow, leading to dumb spending decisions by both individuals and businesses.

So most economists would like to see interest rates rising gradually to more normal levels amid a strengthening economy.

Fed officials worry that if interest rates go up while the economy is still fragile, consumers might stop shopping and home sales could stall. Better to keep rates low as a precaution, goes the thinking.

Janet Yellen

Economy

Federal Reserve

In a decision that could have major implications for the entire sharing economy, the California Labor Commission has ruled that a San Francisco Uber driver is a company employee, not a contractor. In that decision, the commission awarded Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick $4,152.20 in employee expenses, including mileage reimbursements, toll charges, and interest.

The ruling was made public when Uber filed an appeal Tuesday in a state court in San Francisco.

The Associated Press says Uber claims the ruling is non-binding, and only applies to one driver. And in a statement sent to NPR, Uber claimed the ruling in favor of Berwick actually contradicts a previous ruling from the same commission.

Uber says that classifying drivers as contractors is part of giving them the freedom they want. "It's important to remember that the number one reason drivers choose to use Uber is because they have complete flexibility and control," spokesperson Jessica Santillo said. "The majority of them can and do choose to earn their living from multiple sources, including other ride sharing companies."

But Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer working on a class-action suit of drivers against Uber, told NPR that the company owes its drivers more than it's currently giving them. "Uber's obviously been wildly successful because it developed a concept that caught on," Liss-Riordan said. "But that gives it no excuse to ignore labor laws that have been put into place over decades that protect workers' rights."

In Berwick's case, Uber argued that it is just a "technological platform" for private vehicle drivers to facilitate private transactions, that drivers are independent contractors, that Uber has no control over the hours drivers work, and that the company does not have to reimburse drivers for any "expenses related to operating their personal vehicles."

But the labor commission disagreed, and found that Berwick is in fact an employee of Uber, saying, "Without passengers such as Plaintiff [Berwick], Defendant's [Uber's] business would not exist." Relying on precedent that applied to cab drivers and pizza delivery employees, the commission ordered Uber to reimburse Berwick for 6,468 miles she drove while working as an Uber driver, at a rate of $.056 per mile. Berwick was also awarded toll charges of $256.00, and $274.12 in interest.

Berwick also asked for wages for 470.7 hours she worked as an Uber driver, but she was not awarded that payment, in part because she failed to provide some payment documentation the court asked for.

Jonathan Handel, a law professor at the University of Southern California who's been following the sharing economy, said of the ruling, "Uber should be worried about this." He says it has the potential not just to increase the company's expenses, but also increase its liability. "It really could represent a major roadblock for the sharing economy model that Uber and other companies like Lyft and Airbnb, even, are dependent on."

"If not a surpirse, It certainly illustrates the tension between a new economy model," Handel told NPR, "where Uber and others say, 'look, we're just information providers; we hook people up,' and an older model."

Handel says rulings like that of the commission could mean higher prices for Uber rides down the road. It sets up companies like Uber to be responsible for things like Social Security, health care, and other benefits. The Los Angeles Times reports that just in California, if Uber drivers were classified as employees, they'd have to be reimbursed for gas, tolls, insurance, unemployment benefits, workers' compensation, and Social Security.

Whatever happens with Uber's appeal of the commission's ruling, more challenges are on the way. A site for drivers involved in legal challenges against the company says a hearing for a class certification of one lawsuit will come in August.

Uber

sharing economy