June 8, 2015

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U.S. Women's World Cup Opens Tonight Against Australia

United States women's soccer players (from left) Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Abby Wambach take questions during the U.S. women's national team World Cup media day last month in New York.

United States women’s soccer players (from left) Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe and Abby Wambach take questions during the U.S. women’s national team World Cup media day last month in New York. Bebeto Matthews/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Bebeto Matthews/AP

The United States women’s national soccer team begins its quest for a third World Cup championship today when the U.S. takes on Australia. It’s the first game for both teams and should be one of the best in the tournament so far. The U.S. is ranked second in the world and Australia is 10th.

Hundreds of rabid U.S. fans from the group American Outlaws and thousands of others wearing red, white and blue are expected to pack the stadium for the Group D opener in Winnipeg, Canada. One of the biggest questions is the health of the U.S. squad. The team has been hobbled by injuries to several key players, including forward Alex Morgan and midfielder Megan Rapinoe. Still, the U.S. team is deep and the coaches have tinkered with various starting lineups over the past few games.

Those aren’t the only issues swirling around the team. At a pre-game news conference on Sunday, questions surfaced again about star goalkeeper Hope Solo. Solo is widely considered the best goalkeeper in the world and, arguably, of all-time. But she’s been dogged by brushes with the law, and over the years some teammates have been frustrated by the distractions. U.S. head coach Jill Ellis says she’s standing by Solo despite media reports that surfaced this weekend detailing the goalkeeper’s demeanor during a domestic violence arrest last summer.

“That was a long time ago. We’ve moved on,” Ellis told reporters.

Even if the latest drama in the Solo-saga spills onto the field, Australia won’t have much of an upper-hand. The Americans have played the Aussies 24 times — and never lost (beating them 22 times and tying twice). One reason for that success is forward Abby Wambach. She’s scored the most goals (182) of any woman in international play.

Another player to watch on the U.S. squad is Julie Johnston who is playing in her first World Cup. At 23, she’s the second-youngest person on the team and has appeared in only nine international games. But as my colleague Shereen Marisol Meraji reported today on Morning Edition, Johnston is a player to watch:

“A couple of injuries on the back line of the U.S. National Team cleared room for Johnston to show off ahead of the tournament. As a defender she scored three goals. She hasn’t always played defense – she was a midfielder and forward at Santa Clara University.

“In an NPR interview, she said ‘I loved being an attacker so much, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t think defending was fun or anything like that. It’s just that growing up, all I knew was attack, attack, attack.’ It’s that drive that her fans can’t get enough of — U.S. team coach Jill Ellis calls her a warrior. And she brings that fire to the defensive line, sometimes going on 60-yard runs up the field.”

The last time the U.S. won the World Cup was 1999. Many believe that if the U.S. doesn’t win this year, it will be a disappointment. The march to a third victory begins tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET. You can watch it on Fox Sports 1.

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Spain's Air Traffic Controllers Go On Strike; Pay Isn't The Big Complaint

Two Spanish Iberia airplanes stand on the the tarmac at the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport in Madrid Monday. Spanish air traffic controllers started a four-day partial strike that could affect some 5,300 flights.

Two Spanish Iberia airplanes stand on the the tarmac at the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport in Madrid Monday. Spanish air traffic controllers started a four-day partial strike that could affect some 5,300 flights. J.J. Guillen/EPA /LANDOV hide caption

itoggle caption J.J. Guillen/EPA /LANDOV

Despite being among the best-paid public workers in Spain, the country’s air traffic controllers started a strike Monday. Their union is protesting the punishment of dozens of controllers who were involved in a 2010 strike that sparked a national state of alarm.

“Some 5,300 flights to and from Spain are expected to be affected,” NPR’s Lauren Frayer reports from Madrid. “This is the first of four days of work stoppage by Spain’s air traffic controllers.”

Lauren adds, “But the workers get little sympathy in Spain. They’re among the best-paid civil servants, with average salaries almost half a million dollars a year.”

The 2010 strike created chaos for travelers in Spain and beyond; Enaire, the company that administers Spain’s commercial air navigation, recently ordered dozens of controllers to be suspended for a month without pay over the incident.

Unlike the action five years ago, today’s strike was announced well in advance; it also coincides with the start of the busy summertime tourist season.

So far, only minimal delays have been reported, according to Europa Press. The government has set a minimum staffing rate of at least 70 percent for the strike, which will occur in eight two-hour windows over the course of four days.

Spain’s air traffic controller union, the USCA, has set the strike for June 8 10, 12 and 14.

In addition to arguments over the punishments for workers over the 2010 strike, the union and Enaire have recently been in a dispute over attempts to boost the number of work hours and cut the pay of Spain’s air traffic controllers.

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Wawrinka Upsets Djokovic At French Open Final

Stan Wawrinka thwarted Novak Djokovic’s bid to complete a career Grand Slam. Serena Williams won her third French Open title. Renee Montagne talks to freelance tennis writer Courtney Nguyen.

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Julie Johnson: Player To Watch On U.S. Women's World Cup Team

Julie Johnston, 23, didn’t make the World Cup qualifier, but is now a starting defender on the team. She protects the goal, but is known to go on 60 yard runs from the back line to score goals.

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Federal Judge To Assess Damages In Chinese Drywall Lawsuit

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Residents are still fighting Chinese manufacturers who sold bad drywall that went into the post-Katrina rebuilding effort. On Tuesday their case picks up again in a New Orleans federal courtroom.

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The Forces Behind The Decline Of For-Profit Colleges

Dragons XXX

Dragons XXX LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption LA Johnson/NPR

Barring a last-minute legal decision, as of July 1, the nation’s for-profit colleges are going to be subject to a new Education Department rule known as gainful employment. That is: Do students end up earning enough to pay off their loans?

A trade group of career colleges is suing to stop the rule, but this is far from the only monkey on the sector’s back. As recently as 2010, these schools enrolled one in nine college students. Today, some are shutting down, cutting back, tanking in the stock market, even going bankrupt. The bellwether was the giant Corinthian Colleges a year ago, but many others are in trouble as well. Even the University of Phoenix, which five years ago had 460,000 students, has seen that number fall by half.

Part of this is thanks to government crackdowns. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is the new watchdog in town. And it has taken a particular interest in for-profits that market student loans directly to their own students, sometimes in misleading and aggressive ways.

Officials at the bureau sued Corinthian Colleges, alleging predatory lending and illegal debt collection tactics, and in the wake of the Corinthian shutdown they arranged for $480 million in private student loans to be forgiven.

Student activists have also been vocal in criticizing the industry and demanding relief from their loans.

But government enforcement and political debate is not the only reason that these colleges are having problems. Market forces should be considered too.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, if you were a working adult who needed flexibility, in most parts of the country, your best — or maybe your only option — for finishing your degree was probably an online program from a for-profit college. It was hard to ride public transit or turn on a TV during the day without seeing an ad for one of the schools, and they were sophisticated in online advertising as well.

Today, public institutions like Arizona State University and nonprofits like Southern New Hampshire University and Western Governors University have gotten into the game. They are trying to meet the needs of this same student population by offering online, go-at-your-own-pace programs.

They are enrolling tens of thousands of students. And they are partnering with employers, such as Starbucks with ASU, to defray tuition costs. Their tuition tends to be lower in any case than what the for-profits charge.

“I think the market’s been educated,” says Paul LeBlanc, the president of Southern New Hampshire. “People used to not be aware of the difference between for-profits and nonprofits.”

Seven years ago he began the process of building a large online program at his regionally accredited private college. Today it enrolls 22,500 students and has partnerships with 78 employers. Recently Anthem, the health insurer, agreed to offer SNHU’s College for America bachelor’s program to employees for free.

About half of the company’s 55,000 workers — call center employees, administrative assistants, and the like — may be eligible.

So what is the upshot for students and prospective students here?

There are still hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of current and former for-profit college students from over the last two decades who are saddled with high loan debt and degrees of potentially dubious value.

The Education Department says it’s working to develop a process for providing debt relief to defrauded borrowers, including many at Corinthian. But critics say that these processes are too onerous and too slow.

At the same time, with the gainful employment rule, observers say the Department of Education is opening a can of worms. Right now, the rule applies only to for-profits. But there are a lot of public and nonprofit privates out there too that may be graduating too few students and leaving them with loans that are too high.

For example, across the country the graduation rate at public community colleges is still just one in five. Nor have the new big online institutions furnished hard evidence about the life experiences or employment prospects of their graduates.

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