What's going on in the world

Editor's Note: We've been having so much fun running advice columns from the Internet's own Chaucer Doth Tweet, we've brought him back to dispense wisdom on all things summery. As always, Middle English is involved.

Gentil folke, yt ys wyse and profitable to seeke advyce and counsel yn all thinges. And counsel ys sore needed whan the brighte dayes of summer do puzzle and distracte us all lyke a newe Apple product. Ye have sent your summer questiones to NPR thrugh the litel birdes of Twytter, and heere am Ich, Geoffrey Chaucer, minor bureaucratte and woulde-be poet, redy to helpe wyth my summer tippes.

@nprbooks @LeVostreGC how doth one live under the sone, and burne nat? #ChaucerSummerTIps

— Waif of Bath (@Bunny_FiFi) June 2, 2015

Trewelye, thogh the summer sonne doth bringe muchel lighte and joye, yet yt kan also be lyke the love of Tristan and Isolde: an unendurable burninge payne that causeth rash.

Worry not, for heere ys a remedye. First, gather all of the sages and folk wise in lore who dwell yn thy realm. Commaunde them to build a greate dome of clear glass and to ynscribe that dome wyth the auncient runes of UV protectioun. Once thy dome ys inscrybed, presto! Spende thy summer dayes within thy lovelye and mirthful dome of glass. The magique of thy dome shal protect thee from the harmful power of the sonne. O, the great joye and festivitye thou shalt have within thy protective dome! Thou mayst have dome barbeques, and dome garden partyes, and great dome gatheringes of slippe and slyde. Thou kanst flye a kite but not verye high. And whanne the dayes grow shorter thou kanst assemble thy somer memoryes ynto a kynde of boke that doth collect the photographs of thy plesaunt dayes within thy dome: a veritable domesdaye boke.

Of course, thys doth assume thou art a riche and powerful monarch and kan commaunde magicians. Yf not, trye parasols. By cause parasols are cool.

@LeVostreGC @nprbooks Glampynge - yes or no? #ChaucerSummerTips

— Chorlton Bookshop (@ChorltonBkshop) June 5, 2015

O controversye! Greate debate doth aryse about Glampynge, the which ys a worde that doth joyne 'glamour' and 'campinge.' To glamp doth signifye to go campinge but not to seek the simple lyfe of the woodes. Ynstead, glamperes wisshe to be outsyde yn great comfort and fashione and style.

Books

Gentlefolk All, Survive Your Holidays With Help From Chaucer

Books

Can Amor Truly Vincit Omnia? Chaucer Doth Advise

Lo, good folke, Ich have reade muchel of glamping in the romaunces and historyes of knightes and chivalrye. For yn dayes of oold manye a great knighte and warlike kynge hath glamped. And yn our tyme wyth myne owene eyes Ich have seen Kynge Edward III glampinge whanne on campaign. Hys royal pavilion was so huge yt hadde a bowlinge alleye and ynogh breakfast nookes for al the knightes of the Order of the Garter to have French toaste simultaneouslye.

Yet al of thys feste and richenesse doth beare some ymprint of vanitye and excess. And certes, yt ys far from the purpose of campinge. For the wisdam of campinge ys to be close to the goodnesse of the earth, to the smell of floweres and trees, and to the lovely tweetinge birdinesse of birdes, the which ys right harde to do when thou hast a mahogany trayler and a portable xboxe CCCLX and a wardrobe of fyne silkes. And thus upon the issue of glampinge Ich wolde advyse: go easye, unless thou art Kyng Edward III.

@nprbooks @LeVostreGC #ChaucerSummerTips Any suggestions for remaining pleasaunt & gentil while driving for hours and hours with the family?

— karen poremski (@profkarenpski) June 2, 2015

Sumer ys indeed a tyme of manye familye roade trippes, the which ys immortalized yn the wel-knowne lyric poeme:

Sumer is icumen in
Let vs get in the car!
Are we ther yet?
Nay, we are not —
Trye to take a nap!
TAKE A NAP.
NO. REALLYE. TAKE A NAP!

Ich present to thee three keyes to a pleasaunt journey, the which are trewe for eny pilgrimage, whethir ye go to Caunterburye or to the the Mouses Kyngdom of Sorcerye or to the house of sum distant but insistent relatives. Whanne on a journey thou must alwayes bear yn mynde the three Ts: Timinge, Tales, and Treates. Timinge, for thou must leave neyther too late nor too earlye so that thou mayst breake thy journey yn to reasonable stoppes. Tales, for storyes are the shippes yn which we cross the rough seas of boringe hours. And the thirde thinge nat to forget ys Treates. For we litel realise how a smal sweete taste on the tonge kan greatlye strengthen the heart and corage within us.

And yn the hotte monethes of sumer, the best treate of all treates ys broken yce wyth flavored syrup upon yt. Thys disshe hath many a name yn manye a lande and fer contree, and ys sum tymes crusshed finelye lyke tinye diamonds or sum tymes chypped lyke shininge flakes of sapphire. But alwayes a slushye icye thinge ys the best of al treates of summer, and the moost courtlye and delectable snack to fynde asyde the roade. Sum bokes of olde saye that Vergil the wyse poet was the first to devyse the magic of flavoured yce for the Emperour Octayven, and other legendes tell us that Merlyn dyd create yt afir the worke of buildinge of Stone Henge was finisshid. But thogh the origin of thys disshe ys forevir lost to tyme, the great deliciousnesse of yt ys apparent to all folke.

So goode readeres, remembir the great virtue of tastye yce, and forget not the three Ts, so that your journeyes shal be right pleasant, no mattir how small your car. And yf ye have cattes, make certayn that folk shal come to thy hous to entertayn the cattes and to make muchel of them, for no thinge ys as wrathful and damaginge to the sydes of a couch as a catte that hath not been entertayned.

Yn the summer, and eny othir seasoun, Ich remayne

Your humble servaunte,

— LVGC

European leaders hold an emergency summit in Brussels on Monday in an effort to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debts. Greece owes the International Monetary Fund $1.8 billion by the end of this month, and it needs Europe's help to make the payment. But the Athens government is refusing to commit to an economic overhaul package that officials are demanding.

Greece has come close to default many times before — only to work out a last-minute compromise with its creditors. This time, though, it faces much longer odds.

"This is a real deadline, unlike the others because we really are at the end of the road," says Jacob Kierkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Greece desperately needs Europe's help to roll over some big debt payments coming due. But the Athens government has strenuously rejected Europe's demands for further tax increases and pension cuts.

Over the weekend, Athens made a last-ditch effort to resolve the dispute with what it called a mutually beneficial proposal to European officials. It provided no details. But relations between Greece's leftist government and its creditors are chilly at best right now. And neither side seems inclined or able to budge much.

"There is now a dire risk of markets bringing forward the day of reckoning for Greece, leaving little room for pushing off the end game any further," says economist Eswar Prasad of Cornell University.

The concern in the markets is the recent surge of withdrawals from Greek banks. Many Greek citizens are worried that without the European Central Bank's backing, Greek banks will no longer be liquid enough to keep operating. And the government might have to impose capital controls to prevent a run.

The Peterson Institute's Jacob Kierkegaard says that if no agreement is reached at Monday's summit in Brussels, Greece may even have to shut down its banks altogether.

"It is quite likely that the Greek banks will not open up Tuesday morning, or at least open up with some variations of restrictions on access to the bank deposits," Peterson says.

He adds people and businesses would no longer be able to access their funds, and that would lead to a sharp deterioration in Greece's already weakened economy.

The emergency summit in Brussels is an attempt to prevent that kind of disaster and pull Greece back from the brink — yet again.

You know it's springtime in Germany when eager shoppers ransack the produce aisle of the local supermarket.

In April, it's the rhubarb, in May, it's the peaches and in June, it's the cherries. These fruits only put in a brief appearance while they are in season; the rest of the year, you have to rely on their canned or frozen equivalent.

Right now, Kollwitzmarkt — a farmers market in the leafy Berlin neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg — abounds with produce. Retired schoolteacher Dorothea Berint, 62, has just bought a basket of strawberries, one of the few summer fruits sometimes available out of season.

"It's not natural to expect strawberries in December," she says, "and if you can get them at all, they're grown in hothouses or they've come from halfway across the globe."

Her attitude is typical. Yes, buying local produce — which is de facto seasonal — or eating "farm to table" is as big a trend in Germany as it is in the United States.

But in Germany, seasonal shopping is not just an organic, ethical endeavor favored by urbane foodies. It's a fact of life: The supermarkets simply don't stock everything all year round.

i

Beelitz, Germany, is home to some serious asparagus mania — including these walking, talking asparagus stalks. Esme Nicholson/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Esme Nicholson/NPR

Beelitz, Germany, is home to some serious asparagus mania — including these walking, talking asparagus stalks.

Esme Nicholson/NPR

"German shoppers don't understand the concept of the very huge hypermarket offering everything at the same time," says Frankfurt-based retail analyst Denise Klug.

This is not just a legacy of East Germany, where lines would form for rare items such as oranges. Klug says consumers in the former West also have moderate expectations, because discount food stores dominate the market and guarantee their low prices by offering limited stock.

"The discounters have been around for 60 years now," Klug says. "They have educated shoppers that they don't need all this choice."

Of course, grocery stores offer staples like cucumbers and tomatoes, or fruit not grown in Germany like bananas, kiwis and oranges. But anticipation for other seasonal vegetables proves to be successful marketing — especially when cabbage and potatoes dominate supermarket shelves over the winter.

Whether it's plums, nectarines, blackberries, redcurrants or chanterelle mushrooms, shoppers stockpile and restaurants lay on special menus before the goods disappear for another year.

i

Dana Beiler is this year's Asparagus Queen in the German town of Beelitz. John-Erik Jordan hide caption

itoggle caption John-Erik Jordan

Dana Beiler is this year's Asparagus Queen in the German town of Beelitz.

John-Erik Jordan

And because some vegetables are more equal than others, certain seasons prompt consumer worship. One of these is "Spargelzeit" — asparagus season — for which there is an entire epicurean liturgy. The pinnacle is the crowning of the Asparagus Queen at the Asparagus Festival in the town of Beelitz, 30 miles southwest of the capital.

This year's asparagus royalty is 26-year-old masters student Dana Beiler. She hopes the honor will give her public speaking experience and look good on her resume.

"I sent my application to the Asparagus Association," Beiler says. "Then I had an interview with the farmers and had to answer some asparagus questions." She says the farmers wanted to hear her opinion on the challenges faced by the revered vegetable.

For festival-goer Andre Stein, celebrating this king of vegetables is no challenge at all. With a half-liter of Pils in his hand, he says, "It's very known for drinking beer before asparagus.

"That's the rule," he insists: "you have to start with beer and then you have the asparagus later."

While Germans delight in as much asparagus as possible over a period of eight weeks, barley is one crop they are happy to consume — in its preserved, liquid form — all year round.

asparagus

Germany

This summer, NPR is getting crafty in the kitchen. As part of Weekend Edition's Do Try This At Home series, top chefs are sharing their cleverest hacks and tips — taking expensive, exhausting or intimidating recipes and tweaking them to work in any home kitchen.

First up: making magically moist sous vide chicken without the fancy equipment.

The Chef

Christina Tosi knows a thing or two about elaborate cooking techniques. In fact, she's invented quite a few of them as founder of Milk Bar, the innovative New York bakery that's a cousin to David Chang's Momofuku restaurants. And she recently won the James Beard award for Outstanding Pastry Chef.

i

Set a piece of tin foil in the pot like a hammock (with the ends folded over the edge). Then put the bag into the pot of hot — but not boiling — water. Ted Robbins/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ted Robbins/NPR

Set a piece of tin foil in the pot like a hammock (with the ends folded over the edge). Then put the bag into the pot of hot — but not boiling — water.

Ted Robbins/NPR

But as she explains in her new cookbook and memoir, Milk Bar Life: Recipes and Stories, Tosi is no stranger to the joys of the quick, low-brow meal. After a long day in the commercial kitchen, after all, a chef often wants a break — from the hard work, but not from the flavor.

"You have the technique and you use it all day long [at a restaurant], and then you come home and you find a way to get the same delicious flavors," she says. "But you gotta do it really quickly and usually on a shoestring budget."

In that spirit, she shares a hack that saves hours (and hours) of cooking time. It mimics a toy that's the darling of many a professional and amateur chef: the sous-vide machine.

The Hard Way

Sous-vide is a cooking method for attaining ideal levels of moisture and tenderness. It involves sealing a piece of meat or vegetable in an air-tight bag and cooking in a warm bath at a constant, low temperature.

The catch? First, it takes forever: up to 96 hours. And second, it normally requires a fancy machine, called a water oven, which retails for anywhere from $400 to $2,200.

But Tosi shows us how to get a similar effect, cooking chicken with a spiced-buttermilk sauce sous-vide, in just five to 20 minutes, with a wallet-friendly Ziploc bag.

The Hack

Tosi calls this her "Bird in a Bag." You'll need a chicken breast or boneless thigh, seasoning of your choice (either salt and pepper or a spice blend), buttermilk (or even bottled ranch dressing), a heavy-duty zip-top freezer bag, and a straw.

i

Tosi serves her Bird in a Bag with mashed potatoes and cut roasted okra seasoned with smoked paprika. Ted Robbins/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ted Robbins/NPR

Tosi serves her Bird in a Bag with mashed potatoes and cut roasted okra seasoned with smoked paprika.

Ted Robbins/NPR

Butterfly the chicken breast, or pound it flat, and season.

Put a butterflied chicken breast in a plastic freezer bag with the buttermilk (or ranch).

Seal the bag except for one corner. Insert a straw into the remaining hole and slowly suck out the air with your mouth. Be careful not to suck the sauce into your mouth! Seal the bag to get it as air-free as possible.

OPTIONAL: If you are using thinner storage bags, repeat the process in a second bag, to prevent leaks.

Bring a pot of water nearly to a boil. Set a piece of tin foil in the pot like a hammock (with the ends crimped over the edge).

Plop the bag into the pot of hot — but not boiling — water. The foil will suspend the bag above the bottom of the pot so the bag doesn't burn.

If the chicken is thin, it will cook (poach, essentially), in five or 10 minutes. An intact chicken breast may take 20 minutes.

You can test the chicken by looking and feeling to make sure it isn't pink inside.

If your bag appears a little unappetizing, don't be alarmed. When you're done, Tosi says, it "looks like a bag of crazy." That's because the buttermilk has coagulated and separated from the chicken juice, but it's fine to eat.

And your chicken will be moist and evenly tender — sans sous vide.

Final step? Sear the chicken in a pan briefly to brown it for better presentation.

The Plate

Tosi serves "Bird in a Bag" with mashed potatoes and cut roasted okra seasoned with smoked paprika.

Then it's time to enjoy this not-so-hard-earned dinner.

Do Try This At Home

food hacks

On working with the Russians

People think of espionage as this sort of very, very, very glamorous — you know, with fast cars and exotic drinks and great food and in faraway locations — but the reality is, it's more like sales. The real gold of any intelligence agency is a spy, is a human asset ... so these intelligence agencies here in the United States and abroad, they go and knock on doors and they cold-call people. And say they take 20 — maybe one is in something that is both worthwhile, is willing, and is able to deliver information.

You know, with the FBI it's so rare that you get a senior person ... which Oleg, my handler, was. ... He was my spy handler. He was the person who the Russians had appointed to run me as a spy. They knew that just having access was a great start, that this is someone who's gonna come back. We know that it's not gonna be one shot and he's gone. We have a chance to reel him in, so they knew that there was a unique opportunity here, and it was just me convincing them that I was able to deliver the Russians to kind of grow the relationship.

On convincing the Russians he was the "real deal"

It wasn't so much about politics or "I hate the United States" and stuff. It was "Hey, I'm this young kid who's into material things and I wanna make money and you know what? I'm smarter than the rest of the people out there, and i can fool them. I can't get caught." So the Russians' end game was to develop a long term asset, which was me, you know, someone who was gonna operate in five, 10, 15 years. They knew that I was applying to the military and, you know, they assumed that I was gonna have access to more and more information.

On why he wanted to be a spy

After September 11th, I really, you know, I felt a need to do something more than working in technology and I was sort of devastated when I applied to this program as an intelligence offer in the Navy, did not get in — so the first motivation was the Navy. And then when I started doing it the challenge of kind of going head to head with Oleg, it became a challenge of trying to outsmart, outmaneuver Oleg and the Russians and that became sort of a major incentive on its own — it was a real rush to take these guys on.

Read an excerpt of How to Catch a Russian Spy

On how he's regarded in Russia

Look, if anyone wants to send me there I can promise it'll be cheap 'cause you just have to pay airfare one way ... room and board is included. ... I mean it's unfortunate, but I don't think Putin's gonna be — you know, Anna Chapman got over there and he gave her a medal. I don't think that's gonna be the same with me.

double agent

intelligence

FBI

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.

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.

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 Zimbabwe's new black farmers couldn't get credit or bank loans. 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, 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 premium 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

Congress' official scorekeeper says repealing Obamacare would increase the federal budget deficit and the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million.

The report from the Congressional Budget Office comes as Washington awaits a ruling by the Supreme Court that could end insurance subsidies for some six million people in 30 states.

The report says repealing the Affordable Care Act's spending cuts and tax increases would add $137 billion to the deficit over the next ten years, and the number of people with health insurance would drop from 90 percent of the population to 82 percent.

The CBO says economic growth would be boosted a bit because more people would join the labor force, as the Affordable Care Act's subsidies make it easier for people to work less or stop working and not lose health coverage.

Reaction to the report, as with most things about the health care law, fell along party lines. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Republican Mike Enzi of Wyoming, chose to focus on how repeal would effect economic growth:

"'CBO has determined what many in Congress have known all along,' said Chairman Enzi. 'This law acts as an anchor on our economy by dragging down employment and reducing labor force participation. As a result, the deficit reduction that the Democrats promised when it was enacted is substantially unclear.'"

Democrats put their focus on the negative impacts of repeal. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi said:

"The cost to the deficit would be surpassed only by the human toll of repeal. Republicans would add over 20 million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured, and strip vital health protections from hundreds of millions of American families – shattering the newfound health security that has made a difference in the lives of so many families. Republicans should look at the numbers and finally end their fixation with repealing this historic law."

The new CBO report incorporates the principles of dynamic scoring, which takes into account a wider array of economic factors, and which Republicans say provides a more realistic picture of the economic impact of repeal. The CBO says under the old rules, the deficit would increase even more, by $353 billion over ten years.

Politico says the CBO report could have political implications:

"The estimate will make it harder for Republicans to use so-called reconciliation to repeal the law because congressional budgeting rules bar lawmakers from using the parliamentary maneuver to move legislation that adds to government red ink.

The CBO report said over the long term, repeal would add even more to the deficit:

"Repealing the ACA would cause federal budget deficits to increase by growing amounts after 2025, whether or not the budgetary effects of macroeconomic feedback are included. That would occur because the net savings attributable to a repeal of the law's insurance coverage provisions would grow more slowly than would the estimated costs of repealing the ACA's other provisions—in particular, those provisions that reduce updates to Medicare's payments. The estimated effects on deficits of repealing the ACA are so large in the decade after 2025 as to make it unlikely that a repeal would reduce deficits during that period, even after considering the great uncertainties involved."

federal budget

CBO

Affordable Care Act

deficits

When tragedies happen, like the shooting in Charleston, they usually find their way into the realm of politics eventually.

This time is no different, as Democrats and Republicans are finding very different ways of talking about what happened in South Carolina. Democrats see race and gun control as issues at the center of it. Republicans, on the other hand, largely point to mental illness and label what happened, a tragic, but random act.

The shooting that left nine people dead in a historically black church Wednesday night happened just before the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference kicked off in Washington. It's an event, where Republican presidential candidates woo religious conservatives, and nearly everyone mentioned or alluded to Charleston. (The exception was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who delivered a standard stump speech. Earlier in the day, he tweeted support for the victims.)

"I just want to begin today with a moment of silence remembering those who were murdered last night," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the stars of the event. He added, "A sick and deranged person came and prayed with an historically black congregation for an hour, and then murdered nine innocent souls. Christians across our nation, across our world — believers across the world are lifting up the congregants at Emanuel AME."

Rand Paul had the most directly political comments. He expressed grief, but cautioned against a government solution.

"What kind of person goes into a church and shoots nine people," the Kentucky senator said, adding, "There's a sickness in our country, but it's not going to be solved by our government."

i

Jeb Bush speaks at the Road to Majority conference on June 19, 2015. Lydia Thompson/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Lydia Thompson/NPR

Jeb Bush speaks at the Road to Majority conference on June 19, 2015.

Lydia Thompson/NPR

Few seemed to want to ascribe motive to the shooter.

"It's depraved," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said. "It's unthinkable. We can't put our minds around conduct like that, can we?"

He added, "Laws can't change this. Only the goodwill and the love of the American people can let those folks know that that act was unacceptable, disgraceful, and that we need to do more to show that we love each other."

Jeb Bush expressed sympathy with the victims, but said he did not know why the killer did what he did.

"I don't know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes," the former Florida governor said. "But I do know — I do know what was in the heart of the victims."

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO, said, "We ought not to start immediately rushing to policy prescriptions or engaging in the blame game."

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who is black, alluded to race as a cause.

"[I]f we don't pay close attention to the hatred and the division that's going on in our nation," Carson said, "this is just a harbinger of what we can expect."

The Republican candidates were not explicit about race as a motive in the way Democrats were.

Democrats look at quotes, like one relayed by a cousin of one of the victims, and the reasons couldn't be more obvious.

"He just said, 'I have to do it. You rape our women, and you've taken over our country. And you have to go,'" said Sylvia Johnson, quoting survivors with whom she said she had spoken, per NBC News.

An emotional President Obama made it clear where he stood Thursday.

"The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history," said Obama, the nation's first black president, from the White House. "This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked. And we know that hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals."

He went on, noting that "those old vestiges of hatred can be overcome. That, certainly, was Dr. King's hope just over 50 years ago, after four little girls were killed in a bombing in a black church in Birmingham, Alabama."

He also called on the country "to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively," though he acknowledged the politics of gun rights were against him.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton added to that in Las Vegas at a conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.

"In order to make sense of it, we have to be honest," Clinton said. "We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns, and division."

The presidential hopeful, who is closest to the shooting is Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, who is from South Carolina. He took a more nuanced view, calling for stricter enforcement of existing gun laws.

"Really, the last thing on my mind right now is a political debate," Graham said on CNN Friday morning. "My job is to be here, and to show solidarity with my community and my state."

He added, "I own a bunch of guns, and I haven't hurt anybody..."

But, he added, "...but there is something wrong with the background system.

He noted that too many fall through the cracks.

"If I get to be President of the United States," he said, "you fail a criminal background check, you try to buy a gun when you're not supposed to, you're gonna meet the law head on."

Ben Carson

2016 Presidential Race

Ted Cruz

Chris Christie

Jeb Bush

Lindsey Graham

Democrats

Marco Rubio

Rand Paul

Hillary Clinton

Republicans

Barack Obama

The Man v. Horse Marathon starts out like a typical cross-country race. Hundreds of runners stream past the starting line, through the town of Llanwrtyd Wells and then up into the Welsh hills.

But 15 minutes later, a second set of competitors takes off. Fifty horses and their riders chase the runners up and down ridges, across streams, and past hundreds of bewildered sheep.

This bizarre race was created in 1980 to settle an argument between a local pub owner and an opinionated customer. The outcome seems obvious — horses are bigger, stronger and much faster in a sprint. They've been bred for centuries to help humans get around faster.

Humans, on the other hand, aren't that speedy. Sprinter Usain Bolt — the world's fastest man — would have trouble outrunning a lot of house cats, let alone a cheetah.

But scientists say when it comes to marathon distances, humans might actually have an edge.

"We're essentially the tortoises of the animal world rather than the hares," says Dan Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. "We have a series of adaptations that are literally from our heads to our toes that make us superlative at long distance running."

Specialized structures in our inner ears keep us balanced as we lope along; our springy arches and long elastic tendons make running more efficient, and our big muscular bottoms help stabilize our trunks. And then there's the way we keep our cool. Millions of years ago we traded in fur for a naked body covered in sweat glands. The result: We can lose heat while we run.

Losing heat's not so easy for quadrupeds like antelopes, zebras and horses. They need to pant to really cool off, and that's difficult to do when they're moving at top speeds.

"The guts — the huge viscera — slams into the diaphragm with every step and prevents the animal from panting while galloping," Lieberman says.

When it's hot out, quadrupeds need to slow down to cool down. Humans sweat and keep going. And all that sweating probably helped our ancient ancestors survive.

i

Meet a few of the competitors: Paul Sorrell, Russ White and Tim Clayton of the North Derbyshire Running Club, and Claire Trafford with her horse Santo. Adam Cole and Ryan Kellman/NPR's Skunk Bear hide caption

itoggle caption Adam Cole and Ryan Kellman/NPR's Skunk Bear

Meet a few of the competitors: Paul Sorrell, Russ White and Tim Clayton of the North Derbyshire Running Club, and Claire Trafford with her horse Santo.

Adam Cole and Ryan Kellman/NPR's Skunk Bear

"Running was important because it helped us become better hunters," Lieberman says.

His research supports the theory that early humans were "persistence hunters." On hot days, he says, people would chase animals across the African savanna. Unable to rest, the animals would eventually collapse from heat exhaustion, and the hunters would have fresh meat.

The Man v. Horse Marathon is a less violent analogue of persistence hunting. Horses are the ones chasing humans over a 22-mile trail, but temperature still plays an important role.

"The few occasions where humans have beaten the horses have been on hot days," Lieberman says. "And that makes total sense."

This year, the Man V. Horse Marathon took place in a light, refreshing rain — bad news for humanity. Still, the first racer to reach the finish line was human: a 30-year-old civil servant named Hugh Aggleton.

This was Aggleton's third time entering the race, and in previous years he's had some close encounters.

"When you are overtaken by horses you can feel the ground sort of start to shake, as the galloping horses come up behind," Aggleton says. "Then you hear their breathing and you think, 'All right, gotta get going.' "

This year, Aggleton managed to stay ahead of the cavalry, completing the course in 2 hours and 30 minutes. But that wasn't quite fast enough. Leo the horse, ridden by Geoff Allen, reached the finish just five minutes after him. After subtracting the human's 15-minute head start, the horse had a time of 2:20, and it was crowned this year's champion.

Still, Aggleton managed to beat a lot of the other horses in the race.

"I might make that a sort of tag line," Aggleton says. "Faster than 46 out of 50 horses."

That means if he had lived long ago, he probably would have been able to chase down dinner.

ultramarathon

human evolution

horse

marathon

horse racing

run

Monkey See

Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees

I'm just going to tell you right off the bat, you guys: we really liked Inside Out. This does not exactly make us outliers in the critical landscape, but we sit down this week with the great Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch team to talk about the film. It's a thought-provoking story and visually inventive, so we'll spend some time on the various creative forces at work. At the same time, we ding its one weak scene that unfortunately shows up in a lot of the trailers and we debate who cried the most. (Spoiler alert: the parent.)

Speaking of parents, we got talking this week about why television in particular has such a tendency to rob parents of the vitality of their romantic lives once they have kids — and why married couples in general often are reduced to people who are only sexy for laughs. It's a good time to listen again to "Stacy's Mom," but then, there's really no bad time.

As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about finding himself wildly overserved by the culture, particularly because of a new performance video. Glen is happy about a documentary for which he admits he's not the most obvious audience and a podcast (shocker!) of which I can tell you I'm also a fan. Kat is happy about a book she found particular relevant in the last week or two. I am happy about a bizarre piece of television performance art (kind of, kind of) as well as a segment of a great comedy special I hope you'll seek out.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: the show, me, Stephen, Glen, Kat, producer Jessica, other producer Kiana, and pal and producer emeritus Mike.

Julie Hamp — Toyota Motor Corp.'s first senior female executive who was appointed head of public relations just weeks ago — has been arrested in Japan for allegedly importing the prescription painkiller oxycodone in violation of the country's narcotics laws.

A total of 57 pills were discovered by Japanese customs officials on June 11 inside a package that Hamp mailed to herself from Kentucky, declaring the contents to be a necklace, according to Japanese news reports.

Oxycodone is legal in the U.S. with a prescription.

The Asahi Shimbun writes: "When customs officials at Narita Airport checked an international parcel addressed to Julie Hamp, a 55-year-old American, they found pills, placed in bags, at the bottom of the parcel, Tokyo police said.

Hamp, who was arrested on Thursday, has denied the charges. A spokesman for Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department said she told authorities that she did not think she had imported an illegal substance.

The Associated Press writes: "The high-profile stumble of a media-savvy executive, so early in the game, is an embarrassment for the automaker. Toyota had highlighted Hamp's appointment with much fanfare as a sign that it was promoting diversity."

In a statement issued by Toyota, the company said it was "sorry for causing a stir."

"We believe that it will be made clear in the investigation that she had no intention to violate the law," the statement said.

And, at news conference today, Toyota President Akio Toyoda "bowed briefly and apologized for the troubles set off by the arrest of Hamp," according to The Associated Press.

"To me, executives and staff who are my direct reports are like my children," he said. "It's the responsibility of a parent to protect his children and, if a child causes problems, it's also a parent's responsibility to apologize."

Reuters offers a bit of background:

"Hamp was appointed managing officer in April as part of a drive to diversify Toyota's male-dominated, mostly Japanese executive line-up. She joined Toyota's North American unit in 2012 and this month relocated to Tokyo, where she was to be based. She had been staying in a hotel, a Toyota spokeswoman said.

"[Company President] Toyoda vowed that the automaker would maintain its policy of seeking out talent regardless of gender or nationality and expressed regret that the company had not provided enough support for an employee who was not Japanese and had come to live in Japan."

According to Medicinenet.com, oxycodone is "a strong narcotic pain-reliever and cough suppressant similar to morphine, codeine, and hydrocodone."

Toyota

Julie Hamp — Toyota Motor Corp.'s first senior female executive who was appointed head of public relations just weeks ago — has been arrested in Japan for allegedly importing the prescription painkiller oxycodone in violation of the country's narcotics laws.

A total of 57 pills were discovered by Japanese customs officials on June 11 inside a package that Hamp mailed to herself from Kentucky, declaring the contents to be a necklace, according to Japanese news reports.

Oxycodone is legal in the U.S. with a prescription.

The Asahi Shimbun writes: "When customs officials at Narita Airport checked an international parcel addressed to Julie Hamp, a 55-year-old American, they found pills, placed in bags, at the bottom of the parcel, Tokyo police said.

Hamp, who was arrested on Thursday, has denied the charges. A spokesman for Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department said she told authorities that she did not think she had imported an illegal substance.

The Associated Press writes: "The high-profile stumble of a media-savvy executive, so early in the game, is an embarrassment for the automaker. Toyota had highlighted Hamp's appointment with much fanfare as a sign that it was promoting diversity."

In a statement issued by Toyota, the company said it was "sorry for causing a stir."

"We believe that it will be made clear in the investigation that she had no intention to violate the law," the statement said.

And, at news conference today, Toyota President Akio Toyoda "bowed briefly and apologized for the troubles set off by the arrest of Hamp," according to The Associated Press.

"To me, executives and staff who are my direct reports are like my children," he said. "It's the responsibility of a parent to protect his children and, if a child causes problems, it's also a parent's responsibility to apologize."

Reuters offers a bit of background:

"Hamp was appointed managing officer in April as part of a drive to diversify Toyota's male-dominated, mostly Japanese executive line-up. She joined Toyota's North American unit in 2012 and this month relocated to Tokyo, where she was to be based. She had been staying in a hotel, a Toyota spokeswoman said.

"[Company President] Toyoda vowed that the automaker would maintain its policy of seeking out talent regardless of gender or nationality and expressed regret that the company had not provided enough support for an employee who was not Japanese and had come to live in Japan."

According to Medicinenet.com, oxycodone is "a strong narcotic pain-reliever and cough suppressant similar to morphine, codeine, and hydrocodone."

Toyota

The federal government's new rules aimed at preventing explosive oil train derailments are sparking a backlash from all sides.

The railroads, oil producers and shippers say some of the new safety requirements are unproven and too costly, yet some safety advocates and environmental groups say the regulations aren't strict enough and still leave too many people at risk.

Since February, five trains carrying North Dakota Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded into flames in the U.S. and Canada. No one was hurt in the incidents in Mount Carbon, W.Va., and Northern Ontario in February; in Galena, Ill., and Northern Ontario in March, and in Heimdal, N.D., in May.

i

Stephanie Bilenko of La Grange, Ill. (from left), Paul Berland of suburban Elgin and Dr. Lora Chamberlain of Chicago, are members of a group urging more stringent rules for the oil-carrying trains. David Schaper/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Schaper/NPR

Stephanie Bilenko of La Grange, Ill. (from left), Paul Berland of suburban Elgin and Dr. Lora Chamberlain of Chicago, are members of a group urging more stringent rules for the oil-carrying trains.

David Schaper/NPR

But each of those fiery train wrecks occurred in lightly populated areas. Scores of oil trains also travel through dense cities, particularly Chicago, the nation's railroad hub.

According to state records and published reports, about 40 or more trains carrying Bakken crude roll through the city each week on just the BNSF Railway's tracks alone. Those trains pass right by apartment buildings, homes, businesses and even schools.

"Well just imagine the carnage," said Christina Martinez. She was standing alongside the BNSF tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood as a long train of black tank cars slowly rolled by, right across the street from St. Procopius, the Catholic elementary school her six-year-old attends.

"Just the other day they were playing soccer at my son's school on Saturday and I saw the train go by and it had the '1267', the red marking," Martinez said, referring to the red, diamond-shaped placards on railroad tank cars that indicates their contents. The number 1267 signifies crude oil. "And I was like, 'Oh my God.' Can you imagine if it would derail and explode right here while these kids are playing soccer and all the people around there?"

Business

U.S., Canada Announce New Safety Standards For Oil Trains

Around the Nation

Safety Changes Are Small Comfort When Oil Trains Pass

New federal rules require stronger tank cars, with thicker shells and higher front and back safety shields for shipping crude oil and other flammable liquids. Older, weaker models that more easily rupture will have to be retrofitted or replaced within three to five years. But Martinez and others wanted rules limiting the volatility of what's going into those tank cars, too.

Oil from North Dakota has a highly combustible mix of natural gases including butane, methane and propane. The state requires the conditioning of the gas and oil at the wellhead so the vapor pressure is below 13.7 pounds per square inch before it's shipped. But even at that level, oil from derailed tank cars has exploded into flames.

And many safety advocates had hoped federal regulators would require conditioning to lower the vapor pressure even more.

"We don't want these bomb trains going through our neighborhood," said Lora Chamberlain of the group Chicagoland Oil by Rail. "Degasify the stuff. And so we're really, really upset at the feds, the Department of Transportation, for not addressing this in these new rules."

i

Oil trains sit idle on the BNSF Railway's tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. David Schaper/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Schaper/NPR

Oil trains sit idle on the BNSF Railway's tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

David Schaper/NPR

Others criticize the rules for giving shippers three to five years to either strengthen or replace the weakest tank cars.

"The rules won't take effect for many years," said Paul Berland, who lives near busy railroad tracks in suburban Elgin. "They're still playing Russian roulette with our communities."

A coalition of environmental groups — including Earthjustice, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club — sued, alleging that loopholes could allow some dangerous tank cars to remain on the tracks for up to a decade.

"I don't think our federal regulators did the job that they needed to do here; I think they wimped out, as it were," said Tom Weisner, mayor of Aurora, Ill., a city of 200,000 about 40 miles west of Chicago that has seen a dramatic increase in oil trains rumbling through it.

Weisner is upset the new rules provide exemptions to trains with fewer than 20 contiguous tank cars of a flammable liquid, such as oil, and for trains with fewer than 35 such tank cars in total.

"They've left a hole in the regulations that you could drive a freight train through," Weisner said.

At the same time, an oil industry group is challenging the new regulations in court, too, arguing that manufacturers won't be able to build and retrofit tank cars fast enough to meet the requirements.

The railroad industry is also taking action against the new crude-by-rail rules, filing an appeal of the new rules with the Department of Transportation.

In a statement, Association of American Railroads spokesman Ed Greenberg said: "It is the AAR's position the rule, while a good start, does not sufficiently advance safety and fails to fully address ongoing concerns of the freight rail industry and the general public. The AAR is urging the DOT to close the gap in the rule that allows shippers to continue using tank cars not meeting new design specifications, to remove the ECP brake requirement, and to enhance thermal protection by requiring a thermal blanket as part of new tank car safety design standards."

AAR's President Ed Hamberger discussed the problems the railroads have with the new rules in an interview with NPR prior to filing the appeal. "The one that we have real problems with is requiring something called ECP brakes — electronically controlled pneumatic brakes," he said, adding the new braking system that the federal government is mandating is unproven.

"[DOT does] not claim that ECP brakes would prevent one accident," Hamberger said. "Their entire safety case is based on the fact that ECP brakes are applied a little bit more quickly than the current system."

Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg disagreed. "It's not unproven at all," she said, noting that the railroads say ECP brakes could cost nearly $10,000 per tank car.

"I do understand that the railroad industry views it as costly," Feinberg adds. "I don't think it's particularly costly, especially when you compare it to the cost of a really significant incident with a train carrying this product."

"We're talking about unit trains, 70 or more cars, that are transporting an incredibly volatile and flammable substance through towns like Chicago, Philadelphia," Feinberg continues. "I want those trains to have a really good braking system. I don't want to get into an argument with the rail industry that it's too expensive. I want people along rail lines to be protected."

Feinberg said her agency is still studying whether to regulate the volatility of crude, but some in Congress don't think this safety matter can wait.

"The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll," U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a statement. "It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to address the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars."

Cantwell is sponsoring legislation to force oil producers to reduce the crude's volatility to make it less explosive, before shipping it on the nation's rails.

train crashes

train derailments

oil

oil spill

The federal government's new rules aimed at preventing explosive oil train derailments are sparking a backlash from all sides.

The railroads, oil producers and shippers say some of the new safety requirements are unproven and too costly, yet some safety advocates and environmental groups say the regulations aren't strict enough and still leave too many people at risk.

Since February, five trains carrying North Dakota Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded into flames in the U.S. and Canada. No one was hurt in the incidents in Mount Carbon, W.Va., and Northern Ontario in February; in Galena, Ill., and Northern Ontario in March, and in Heimdal, N.D., in May.

i

Stephanie Bilenko of La Grange, Ill. (from left), Paul Berland of suburban Elgin and Dr. Lora Chamberlain of Chicago, are members of a group urging more stringent rules for the oil-carrying trains. David Schaper/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Schaper/NPR

Stephanie Bilenko of La Grange, Ill. (from left), Paul Berland of suburban Elgin and Dr. Lora Chamberlain of Chicago, are members of a group urging more stringent rules for the oil-carrying trains.

David Schaper/NPR

But each of those fiery train wrecks occurred in lightly populated areas. Scores of oil trains also travel through dense cities, particularly Chicago, the nation's railroad hub.

According to state records and published reports, about 40 or more trains carrying Bakken crude roll through the city each week on just the BNSF Railway's tracks alone. Those trains pass right by apartment buildings, homes, businesses and even schools.

"Well just imagine the carnage," said Christina Martinez. She was standing alongside the BNSF tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood as a long train of black tank cars slowly rolled by, right across the street from St. Procopius, the Catholic elementary school her six-year-old attends.

"Just the other day they were playing soccer at my son's school on Saturday and I saw the train go by and it had the '1267', the red marking," Martinez said, referring to the red, diamond-shaped placards on railroad tank cars that indicates their contents. The number 1267 signifies crude oil. "And I was like, 'Oh my God.' Can you imagine if it would derail and explode right here while these kids are playing soccer and all the people around there?"

Business

U.S., Canada Announce New Safety Standards For Oil Trains

Around the Nation

Safety Changes Are Small Comfort When Oil Trains Pass

New federal rules require stronger tank cars, with thicker shells and higher front and back safety shields for shipping crude oil and other flammable liquids. Older, weaker models that more easily rupture will have to be retrofitted or replaced within three to five years. But Martinez and others wanted rules limiting the volatility of what's going into those tank cars, too.

Oil from North Dakota has a highly combustible mix of natural gases including butane, methane and propane. The state requires the conditioning of the gas and oil at the wellhead so the vapor pressure is below 13.7 pounds per square inch before it's shipped. But even at that level, oil from derailed tank cars has exploded into flames.

And many safety advocates had hoped federal regulators would require conditioning to lower the vapor pressure even more.

"We don't want these bomb trains going through our neighborhood," said Lora Chamberlain of the group Chicagoland Oil by Rail. "Degasify the stuff. And so we're really, really upset at the feds, the Department of Transportation, for not addressing this in these new rules."

i

Oil trains sit idle on the BNSF Railway's tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. David Schaper/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Schaper/NPR

Oil trains sit idle on the BNSF Railway's tracks in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

David Schaper/NPR

Others criticize the rules for giving shippers three to five years to either strengthen or replace the weakest tank cars.

"The rules won't take effect for many years," said Paul Berland, who lives near busy railroad tracks in suburban Elgin. "They're still playing Russian roulette with our communities."

A coalition of environmental groups — including Earthjustice, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club — sued, alleging that loopholes could allow some dangerous tank cars to remain on the tracks for up to a decade.

"I don't think our federal regulators did the job that they needed to do here; I think they wimped out, as it were," said Tom Weisner, mayor of Aurora, Ill., a city of 200,000 about 40 miles west of Chicago that has seen a dramatic increase in oil trains rumbling through it.

Weisner is upset the new rules provide exemptions to trains with fewer than 20 contiguous tank cars of a flammable liquid, such as oil, and for trains with fewer than 35 such tank cars in total.

"They've left a hole in the regulations that you could drive a freight train through," Weisner said.

At the same time, an oil industry group is challenging the new regulations in court, too, arguing that manufacturers won't be able to build and retrofit tank cars fast enough to meet the requirements.

The railroad industry is also taking action against the new crude-by-rail rules, filing an appeal of the new rules with the Department of Transportation.

In a statement, Association of American Railroads spokesman Ed Greenberg said: "It is the AAR's position the rule, while a good start, does not sufficiently advance safety and fails to fully address ongoing concerns of the freight rail industry and the general public. The AAR is urging the DOT to close the gap in the rule that allows shippers to continue using tank cars not meeting new design specifications, to remove the ECP brake requirement, and to enhance thermal protection by requiring a thermal blanket as part of new tank car safety design standards."

AAR's President Ed Hamberger discussed the problems the railroads have with the new rules in an interview with NPR prior to filing the appeal. "The one that we have real problems with is requiring something called ECP brakes — electronically controlled pneumatic brakes," he said, adding the new braking system that the federal government is mandating is unproven.

"[DOT does] not claim that ECP brakes would prevent one accident," Hamberger said. "Their entire safety case is based on the fact that ECP brakes are applied a little bit more quickly than the current system."

Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg disagreed. "It's not unproven at all," she said, noting that the railroads say ECP brakes could cost nearly $10,000 per tank car.

"I do understand that the railroad industry views it as costly," Feinberg adds. "I don't think it's particularly costly, especially when you compare it to the cost of a really significant incident with a train carrying this product."

"We're talking about unit trains, 70 or more cars, that are transporting an incredibly volatile and flammable substance through towns like Chicago, Philadelphia," Feinberg continues. "I want those trains to have a really good braking system. I don't want to get into an argument with the rail industry that it's too expensive. I want people along rail lines to be protected."

Feinberg said her agency is still studying whether to regulate the volatility of crude, but some in Congress don't think this safety matter can wait.

"The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll," U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a statement. "It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to address the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars."

Cantwell is sponsoring legislation to force oil producers to reduce the crude's volatility to make it less explosive, before shipping it on the nation's rails.

train crashes

train derailments

oil

oil spill

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal isn't revived in the next few days, labor unions will have helped defeat one of President Obama's main foreign policy goals. But what will defeating the TPP, an agreement that covers 12 nations along the Pacific Rim, do for labor?

Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff at the AFL-CIO, has had a front-row seat to the trade negotiations on Capitol Hill.

She opposes many of the provisions in the new trade deal, but she can't tell you exactly which.

"We are sworn to secrecy, so we can't talk about it — not to our colleagues, not to our members, not to the press, and so that's frustrating," she says. "If I talked to you specifically about what I think the shortcomings of the labor chapter are, I could lose my security clearance. I don't know if I'd go to jail, but ..."

So she's left talking in generalities.

"These deals make it easier for multinational corporations to move jobs overseas," Lee says.

She, as well as other union leaders, point first and foremost, to the North American Free Trade Agreement that took effect 21 years ago.

Roland Zullo, a University of Michigan labor and employment policy researcher, says that for organized labor, NAFTA's wounds still linger.

"Labor has enough of a institutional memory to know what happened with NAFTA," he says. "There was a theory behind NAFTA; there was a theory that by integrating Canada, U.S. and Mexico, there would be a sort of overall net economic benefit."

But that didn't happen for U.S. workers in sectors like manufacturing. Michigan auto workers, for example, lost more than 100,000 jobs in the years that followed NAFTA's passage.

But it's not a clear case of cause and effect. This is the period when Japanese automakers were setting up shop in the U.S. and taking market share away from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Other industries, and consumers, did benefit from NAFTA.

Related Stories

U.S. House Looks To Buy Time For Obama's Trade Agenda

It's All Politics

Obama Says China Could Join Already Huge Asia Trade Deal

The Two-Way

Dealing Blow To Obama, Efforts To Pass Trade Plan Fail In The House

It's All Politics

Clinton Walks Delicate Line On Trade, Economy In First Press Conference

Matt Slaughter, associate dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, says he understands labor's concerns about a new trade deal. But, he adds, labor faces a paradox in opposing the TPP.

"A lot of the academic research and policy work shows companies and their workers that are connected to the dynamism in the global economy tend to pay higher wages and create better jobs than do the purely domestic companies," he says.

He says labor should stop trying to kill the new trade pact, and instead push for a more robust 21st century social safety net for dislocated workers.

But that idea was torpedoed last week by House Democrats, who, ironically, support the idea. It was a political maneuver to scuttle the entire bill.

Slaughter also questions what kind of victory labor would gain by torpedoing the TPP. After all, the U.S. already has free-trade agreements with a handful of countries in the TPP talks.

"Even for countries in the TPP negotiations with whom we don't have a free-trade agreement already, we are already relatively open to those countries for bringing in imports of almost all of their goods and services," he says.

Tim Waters, the national political director for the United Steelworkers, strongly disagrees with talk like this.

"For us to just say, 'Oh well, it's inevitable, we shouldn't try to stop it, we shouldn't try to stand up, we should just try to get in there and cut some kind of deal that made it less sickening,' doesn't make any sense," he says.

Waters adds that unions aren't anti-trade; they want fair trade. He says trade deals need to put the concerns of American workers first.

And, he says, this new agreement, yet again, doesn't do that.

labor unions

trans-pacific partnership

trade agreement

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, (R-Wis.) says approving a massive trade package sought by President Obama will allow the U.S. to "write the rules" of the global economy. Parts of the package are now in limbo in the House.

Ryan spoke with NPR's Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep about the trade deal and about Trade Promotion Authority, also known as fast-track, which would allow the president to negotiate the trade agreement with Pacific Rim nations known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and then have Congress pass it with an up-or-down vote.

On what the trade package does for the U.S.:

"What we're requiring in these negotiations, as we direct in our trade promotion authority legislation, is that these other countries level the playing field — they treat us like we treat them, they open their markets reciprocally to ours to our exports, and they raise their standards to our standards. Play by our rules with respect to things like intellectual property protection, rule of law, those kinds of things that are very important to make sure that we set the standards for the global economy.

"So if it goes like people like myself hope it goes, then America along with our allies are writing the rules of this global economy at the beginning of this 21st century. If we chose not to engage, if we say America shouldn't bother negotiating trade agreements ... then we're simply saying, 'We forfeit the leadership role in the world to write the rules' and we let other countries such as China write the rules instead of us."

On arguments that deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership will cost American jobs:

"Since ... 2007, there have been 100 trade agreements struck around the world without America. And that means other countries are already doing this, getting better access, getting better market access, and we're not, and that means we lose jobs."

On arguments from some Democrats that the trade deal will allow other nations to effectively lower U.S. wages and standards for financial rules, labor regulations, and the environment:

"There really isn't any justice in that claim, it's really kind of a straw man or what I'd call a red herring argument, because we make it extremely clear in our trade promotion authority that only Congress can change laws. You can't enter into an agreement that Congress doesn't approve that changes our laws.

"We make it very clear that the goal of this is to have other countries raise their standards to our levels and not degrade their standards. That's one of the criticisms from agreements back in the 20th century. So we want modern agreements that raise high standards to get other countries to play by our rules, and we do not allow other countries through any mechanism to require or force changes in U.S. laws."

On whether the treaty would mean foreign trading partners can challenge U.S. policies and regulations that they think adversely affect them:

"No. They can get monetary damage penalties, they can't challenge or change regulations at any level of our government."

On criticism that the treaty is being written in secret:

"It's one of the reasons why we're trying to pass trade promotion authority, so that we can guarantee that the public gets to see any trade agreement that is reached. We do not have trade promotion authority in place right now, and ... as a result of that, the kind of transparency that occurs is whatever the administration wants.

"What we are demanding and insisting on in our trade promotion authority is not only that members of Congress have full access to anything that's classified for the moment, but once an agreement is actually reached between countries, that agreement must be made public ... for 60 days for the public to see before a president can even sign an agreement, and when he signs it he simply sends it to Congress and then Congress spends a minimum of 30 days ... considering the agreement.

"The reasons some things are classified right now is it's in negotiations. You don't want to go into negotiations at any level, whether it's transactions or government-to-government with all your cards face up."

trans pacific partnership

Paul Ryan

For the next few days, two large billboards in New York's Times Square are being given over to art created by the city's public school students. The project highlights students' work that's part of a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Art is my favorite subject. It lets me see new things," artist and fifth-grader Sharon Yang told a crowd Wednesday, according to member station WNYC.

Through the weekend, art by Yang and 22 other students will rotate on an hourly basis. WNYC intern Isaak Liptzin has more photos at the station's site.

i

Young artist Sharon Yang told a crowd in Manhattan about her painting — assisted by Times Square Advertising Coalition president Fred Rosenberg, who held the microphone. Isaak Liptzin/WNYC hide caption

itoggle caption Isaak Liptzin/WNYC

Young artist Sharon Yang told a crowd in Manhattan about her painting — assisted by Times Square Advertising Coalition president Fred Rosenberg, who held the microphone.

Isaak Liptzin/WNYC

The Times Square show comes after the start of an exhibit of 88 works of students' art hosted by the Met, titled P.S. Art 2015.

You can see a slideshow of their art at the museum's website – along with comments from both the students and their teachers.

A sample:

"I like to make art because sometimes I give the artwork to my family, and they put it up in our home. I did a lot of hard work on this painting, and my arm got very tired while I was making it." — Lilybeth Jimenez, age 6.

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

In the waiting room of a courthouse in the West Bank city of Ramallah last week, a clerk called defendants to pick up their files while loudspeaker announcements blared courtroom assignments.

A skinny young man in jeans and a blue T-shirt waited to hear his name. Ayman Mahareeq, who just turned 24, faced charges of insulting officials based on comments he'd posted on Facebook.

"One of my posts was about how Palestinian security forces act whenever Israeli forces enter the West Bank," Mahareeq says. "They withdraw and hide."

He characterizes the post — which he has since taken down — as harshly critical.

In another post, Mahareeq wrote: "May the rule of the Palestinian Authority collapse," referring to the governing body with certain administrative powers over Palestinians in the West Bank.

Both caught the eye of the Palestinian police. Officers arrested him in a coffee shop last November. He was interrogated — and beaten, he says — and imprisoned for a month.

Conflicting Laws

One Palestinian law promises freedom of expression. But another bans people from insulting any official, from the head of state on down. The indictment against Mahareeq says he illegally insulted the Palestinian Authority and police force with his Facebook posts.

Mahareeq is clear: He does not support the Palestinian Authority, saying this body, created through the Oslo agreement with Israel more than two decades ago, does not represent the Palestinian people.

"Political arrests go up and down according to two main factors. One is the relationship with Israel. The other is the relationship with Hamas."

Anas Barghouti, lawyer

The original plan was for the Palestinian Authority to exist for just a few years as part of an interim arrangement while the Israelis and Palestinians negotiated a comprehensive peace agreement that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

But with negotiations stalled, the Palestinian Authority has limped along since 1994 with limited powers in the West Bank, and even less authority in the Gaza Strip, which is now dominated by the Islamist group Hamas.

"The Palestinian Authority has signed agreements with Israel that humiliate Palestinians," Mahareeq says. "And we don't accept being insulted."

Neither side likes insults. Even Mahareeq's lawyer, Anas Barghouti, hired by a human rights organization, says there is no place for insults in civil society, even of leaders.

Barghouti says he is not a fan of Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who is the Palestinian Authority president.

"If I say Abu Mazen is a donkey, that's not a political view," Barghouti says. "This is an insult to a human being."

And, under Palestinian law, it's a crime. But Barghouti argues that Mahareeq made no such insults. Besides, he says that's not what's going on here.

He thinks recent arrests for Facebook posts are all about politics.

NPR Related Stories

Parallels

Just Under The Surface, Palestinian Rivals Remain Bitterly Divided

Parallels

For Israel, Soccer Becomes A Geopolitical Football

Parallels

Clearing The Tangled Path For Land Ownership In The West Bank

"Political arrests go up and down according to two main factors," Barghouti says. "One is the relationship with Israel. The other is the relationship with Hamas."

Palestinian Authority officials deny they make political arrests.

Internal Palestinian Feuds

Parallels

Under Cover Of Conflict, Hamas Killed Palestinians, Amnesty Alleges

The Palestinian Authority is largely run by the Fatah political party, which reached a formal reconciliation last year with its more militant and Islamist rival, Hamas. But in practice, the two groups remain very much at odds.

Compared to other places in the Middle East, there's more room for political debate in the West Bank than in Gaza or in many Arab nations.

But Mahareeq is not the only Palestinian arrested for Facebook posts. Security agents arrested Mohammad Zaki, a university student, from his home last September. He says he spent five days in solitary confinement, with intervals for interrogation.

"On the first day, all the interrogations were about Facebook," the IT student says. "The next day, the prosecutor charged me with insulting Palestinian officials. The third fourth and fifth days focused on political activities at the university."

Hamas recently won a student government election at Birzeit University, a major West Bank campus. After that, students were questioned by both Palestinian and Israeli security forces.

Zaki says it's all to scare students from voicing political opinions. And he has quit, at least on Facebook.

"Before I was first arrested, I thought that I can put my opinions on Facebook. That there was freedom of expression, freedom of exchange of ideas," Zaki says. "But after what happened to me, I decided there is no freedom of thinking."

Zaki says he got a one-year sentence for insulting authorities reduced to three months, which meant he could pay a $125 fine and go free.

But even after his case was over, he says Palestinian security officials interrogated him several more times. Last month, he says, he stopped using Facebook entirely because officials questioned him about chats and messages he thought were private.

Meanwhile, Ayman Mahareeq's court date was postponed last week — for the fourth time. Like Zaki, he has also cut back on social media posts.

But he says he still shows up at protests against the Palestinian Authority — in person.

free speech

Fatah

Palestinian Authority

West Bank

Middle East