When businesses have accused Google of antitrust violations in the past, they’ve often focused on its key asset: search. We look at the complaints, and Google’s response.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

This month in All Tech Considered, why everyone wants to break up big tech.

(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS’ “NOTHING HAPPENS IN JUNE”)

CORNISH: Google is hands-down the top destination for searching on the Internet and has been for years, which means a company’s success can depend on where it pops up in search results. This is one reason why lawmakers and regulators are asking whether Google has too much power. NPR tech correspondent Shannon Bond is here to explain. Welcome.

SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.

CORNISH: We should disclose right now Google is among NPR’s financial supporters. Shannon, I want to talk to you about your reporting because you’ve actually been speaking with some of the companies that take issue with the search results. What are their concerns?

BOND: Yeah. So I’ll give you an example. There’s a company called Basecamp, and they sell software. And they say if you Google their name, you may, in search results, not actually see them as the top result. You might see some ads for their competitors.

And so Basecamp says, look; in order to appear at the top of our own search results on our own name, we actually had to buy ads. In fact, they bought an ad that said, we don’t want to buy this ad. And they felt like they had to do it in order to be able to be visible to their customers.

So I spoke to Jason Fried, Basecamp’s CEO, over Skype, and here’s what he had to say about Google.

JASON FRIED: Now that they own the market, they’re using that market power to force brands, especially small businesses, to have to pay up to be found. And I find that to be just totally unfair. And it shouldn’t be that way. And I’m glad that attention’s being brought to that topic.

BOND: Yeah. And when he says market power, I mean, remember, Audie; Google makes billions of dollars every year selling ads in search results. And those top results are where people are going to click. So this really matters to a company like Basecamp.

CORNISH: Is this just public griping, or are they doing more?

BOND: Well, Basecamp is complaining in public. They’ve taken to Twitter about this. They say they’re not going to pursue any further action. But Google has faced lawsuits about this. There’s the company Edible Arrangements. You probably know them. They make fruit baskets and sell chocolate-dipped strawberries. They’ve actually filed a federal lawsuit over this exact issue about rival ads.

But now there is actually a new outlet for companies that have grievances against Google. There’s a bunch of investigations that are going on into the company and its power. So we see the Justice Department looking at this. We see a group of attorneys general. And we see Congress holding hearings. And fundamentally, you know, these investigations show us that the attitudes toward tech’s power are really changing. That’s what antitrust lawyers and experts that I’ve been talking to say. And that gives more ears – more receptive ears – for companies like Basecamp and other complainers.

CORNISH: So you have this new wave of scrutiny. How is Google responding?

BOND: So they say on this specific issue of these rival ads and search results, you know, that’s something they say is just standard practice in online advertising. Other search engines sell those kinds of ads. And they say, look; you know, a company can buy ads against its competitors or buy its own keyword. And they also point to a 2013 result of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission that found Google didn’t violate any antitrust or competition laws in how it displays search results. And more specifically about the recent investigations, the company says it engages in robust and fair competition and will work with regulators.

But they have come under pressure elsewhere. I mean, we see in Europe they think this is a really big deal. The EU has fined Google $9 billion in total in the past few years over these things of how they treat competitors and other companies.

CORNISH: So that’s the EU. What’s the next step in all this here?

BOND: Well, if the Justice Department or the state attorneys general feel their case is strong enough, they could take Google to court and, you know, try to force some changes. That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. We’re at the early stages of these investigations, and we’re heading into an election year next year, which could change things up.

Ultimately, whether they decide to bring those cases will depend on how they want to interpret antitrust law. And antitrust experts I spoke to said, look; you know, it’s not illegal to be unfair. You know, there isn’t a duty to be fair to your competitors or to your clients. And so they’d have to show some kind of concrete harm to consumers. Google’s critics say there is concrete harm that, you know, they may not be showing the best search results. So the question is are you seeing the best results from anywhere on the Web when you search for something, or are you seeing results that benefit Google itself?

CORNISH: That’s NPR’s Shannon Bond. Shannon, thanks for explaining it.

BOND: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUCKETT’S “LOOKING AT MUM OBJECTIVELY”)

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new Facebook ad falsely claims the social network, and its CEO, endorsed President Trump. She says she’s protesting Facebook’s policy of not fact-checking political ads.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, have not endorsed President Trump for reelection. So why is Elizabeth Warren spreading that falsehood in a new ad running on Facebook? She says she did it to protest the social network’s political advertising policies, and she accuses Facebook of profiting from spreading lies. We’re going to look at this deliberate ploy by Warren’s campaign in our regular segment called Troll Watch.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

PFEIFFER: NPR’s tech correspondent Shannon Bond joins us from San Francisco. Hi, Shannon.

SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: Hi, Sacha.

PFEIFFER: So if anyone’s seen this ad, you realize, if you read beyond the headline, that it’s not true. But if you only read the headline, you might think it’s true. So describe this ad for us.

BOND: Sure. It shows a picture of President Trump shaking hands with Mark Zuckerberg in the Oval Office. And it says breaking news – Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for reelection. You’re probably shocked. And you might be thinking – how could this possibly be true? And then the ad goes on to say, well, it’s not. Sorry.

So we should reiterate here. Facebook and Zuckerberg have not endorsed the president or any other candidate. But the Warren campaign – they started running this ad on Thursday. It’s already been shown to a lot of people all over the country.

PFEIFFER: And Facebook actually approved the ad, you know. As you said, it’s been up for a few days, even though it’s gotten a lot of publicity. So this didn’t just accidentally slip through some automated approval system. Now, Warren says that proves her point, although I’ve seen some comments on Facebook saying it’s not really a lie, it’s just a parody, and Facebook is fine with parodies. But explain to us. Why is she running this ad?

BOND: Yeah, I mean, Elizabeth Warren has been a relentless critic of Facebook. And she says she’s made an ad that’s deliberately false to highlight this fact that Facebook allows political candidates to essentially lie in their ads. So this actually came up because of another misleading political ad. The Trump campaign was running this ad across social media and on TV, making false claims about Joe Biden. And the Biden campaign complained, but Facebook didn’t take it down. It says it doesn’t fact-check political speech as a matter of course. That’s the problem that Warren is raising. She says by taking money for these kinds of ads, Facebook is choosing profits over, quote, “protecting democracy.”

PFEIFFER: When I was getting ready to talk to you, I was reading about Facebook’s policy on when it will or won’t reject ads or downplay ads. And it’s confusing, and it’s controversial. What are the rules governing this area?

BOND: Yeah, it is confusing. So what Facebook says is, we aren’t actually doing anything different than what broadcast television does. There’s actually an FCC rule that says broadcast stations have to air political ads. They can’t block them based on what they say. The difference is for cable networks, and people might have seen that CNN refused to air the Trump ad. It sets its own policies for what it airs. Facebook has that discretion, but they’re saying they consider themselves to be like the broadcast network. And so they’re not going to censor political ads.

PFEIFFER: It seems like Facebook is framing this as a free speech issue. But how much of this is driven by ad revenue? And is Facebook possibly looking the other way because advertising is so lucrative?

BOND: I mean, that’s a good question. Now, Facebook says political ads are actually just a drop in the bucket for them. I mean, that company sold $55 billion worth of ads last year, and political ads are just a single digit percentage of their total. But it’s also clearly reluctant to drop political advertising, altogether. So I think this is really about Facebook feeling it can’t win if it starts policing political speech.

PFEIFFER: The presidential election is, obviously, more than a year away. How do you see this playing out over the coming year and beyond?

BOND: Well, candidates are spending more money online. We know this. And Facebook is, you know, particularly important for them as a place to advertise. You can reach so many people there. Facebook’s made very clear, though, it’s not going to tell politicians what they can or can’t say. And it’s going to keep selling these ads. So I think there’s clearly a continued risk that it’ll be, once again, a place where misinformation is spreading.

PFEIFFER: That’s NPR’s tech correspondent Shannon Bond. Shannon, thank you.

BOND: Thanks.

PFEIFFER: And we want to note that Facebook is among NPR’s recent financial supporters.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with yoga instructor Markella Los about forming the first yoga union in the United States.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Yoga is a very big business in this country. Americans spend billions of dollars annually on yoga classes, but many instructors say they’re not getting their fair share. So next week, more than a hundred yoga teachers who work for the YogaWorks chain in New York City will vote on whether they will certify as a union. They want better pay, benefits and job security. And they’re backed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. To learn more about this, we called Markella Los. She’s a yoga instructor in New York City who’s involved in this union organizing. Markella, welcome.

MARKELLA LOS: Hi Sacha. Thanks for having me on.

PFEIFFER: Could you give us a sense of what are the kinds of work conditions for yoga teachers that motivated this unionization movement?

LOS: One of the biggest issues that we face as yoga teachers at YogaWorks but also in the industry as a whole is the lack of job security. We are at-will employees, which means that we could be let go at anytime for any reason with zero severance. We also don’t have any benefits. So even though our job is physically demanding and sort of emotionally and mentally demanding, we don’t have any benefits that other workers typically have.

And we also really want to have a voice on the job. As the ones on the ground, we have a lot of valuable information to share, both in terms of what our students need but also in terms of being, like, stewards of this practice. And so we really want to be able to stand up for the integrity of what we do, our work.

PFEIFFER: What kind of response have you received from YogaWorks in your effort to unionize?

LOS: The initial response we got was not exactly what we were hoping for. The emails that we got were actually full of quite a bit of misinformation and what I’ve come to see as, you know, a pretty typical union-busting tactics – telling us that we’d have to pay really high dues, that there would be a flat rate, that we’d lose all power. Since then, there’s been a changeover in the CEO position. And his tone so far seems to be different. He seems to be taking a different approach. But we have yet to see what actually happened. So, you know, the proof will be in the action. And also, the offer to recognize us still stands, and he hasn’t taken us up on that either. So we’ll see.

PFEIFFER: Markella, how many yoga instructors are involved in this unionization effort?

LOS: Our group of yoga teachers that gets to vote next week is about 120. Our current unionization effort only affects the four YogaWorks studios in New York City. So it’s not like an – a whole industry-wide thing at the moment, but we are hoping to at the very least get the conversation going, which we’ve already been pretty successful at and hopefully sort of, like, pave the way for other people to figure out in what way they can use their collective voice.

PFEIFFER: There’s an irony that if a wellness industry, at least from the point of view of its workers, is not being that mindful of the wellness of its workers. Do you view it that way in terms of pay and benefits?

LOS: That’s so well-said. That’s been a really big part of this. You know, we offer so much to our students. And we’re members of our community. And we’re not asking for the moon. We really just want to feel like we’re also taken care of so that we can continue to take care of other people. And in order to really provide the service that we’re providing, we need some basic security and some basic rights.

PFEIFFER: That’s Markella Los. She’s a yoga instructor for YogaWorks in New York City, and she’s part of the push to unionize yoga instructors there. Markella, thank you.

LOS: Thank you so much.

PFEIFFER: We reached out to YogaWorks for a comment, but the company has yet to respond.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Loot boxes are mystery boxes purchased through video games, and they are a multi-billion dollar industry. But are they gambling and should they be legal?

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

In the last few years, a new, unregulated and lucrative game of chance has popped up. It is tempting kids and confounding regulators around the world. We are talking about loot boxes. They are embedded in video games. Ben Brock Johnson from our Planet Money podcast explains.

BEN BROCK JOHNSON, BYLINE: You know that little box from the seminal Nintendo game “Super Mario Brothers,” the one with a question mark on it? When busted open, it would give Mario special abilities…

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JOHNSON: …Like growing into a giant version of himself or shooting fireballs at his enemies. This might have been the video game ancestor of the modern loot box, and these days loot boxes are a key part of an exploding video game business. Video games blew past global box office sales in 2018, part of a nearly 20% growth in the video game industry year over year. Loot boxes are part of that growth and projected to increase to a $50 billion annual business by 2022. In the game, “Overwatch,” which boasts a reported 40 million players around the world, a loot box costs about the same price as your average lottery ticket.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

JOHNSON: Nine ninety-nine will get you a pack of 11. Open one up – you might get a new outfit, called a skin, or a catchphrase for your avatar to say.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Catchphrase.

JOHNSON: Players buying loot boxes can get all kinds of digital tchotchkes. They can also get addicted. Gamers have reported spending thousands of dollars on these mystery in-game purchases, and regulators are starting to take notice. In May, Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill that would ban the sale of loot boxes to minors. Here he is in a video posted to Twitter.

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JOSH HAWLEY: They need to be upfront about what their games are actually doing, and they need to stop practices that intentionally exploit children.

JOHNSON: Belgium and the Netherlands have already moved to ban the sale of loot boxes in games like “Overwatch” and “FIFA 18.” Australian regulators have recommended making games that include loot boxes rated R. But it’s far from game over for loot boxes, and that’s because lawmakers are having a hard time deciding if popping open imaginary boxes is really gambling. Lawmakers generally draw a line between games of chance and games of skill when it comes to defining what is and isn’t gambling. Lia Nower is the director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University.

LIA NOWER: Somebody in a position of regulatory or legislative authority has got to really clearly start to define these boundaries.

JOHNSON: Nower and colleagues at Rutgers conducted a study on the correlation between loot boxes and gambling.

NOWER: Forty-six percent of those who played video games also bought loot boxes, and among the loot box players, they were significantly more likely to also have gambling problems and-or problems with video gaming.

JOHNSON: As loot boxes have become more controversial, video game companies are adjusting their business models anyway. Electronic Arts, a game-maker who faced a horde of angry gamers after making loot boxes a central part of its 2017 “Star Wars Battlefront II” game, changed the video game to be less focused on loot box sales. Other gaming companies have changed their loot box policies and design as well. Whether or not regulators in the U.S. will eventually make a call one way or the other on whether loot boxes are gambling, it’s a bit of a mystery all its own.

For NPR News, I’m Ben Brock Johnson.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with E&E News reporter David Ferris, who’s part of a team traveling the country in electric cars to learn how the vehicles will change driving as well as the economy.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Six thousand miles through 17 states – now, that would be an ambitious road trip for anyone. It’s an especially ambitious undertaking for the team of reporters who are driving that entire route in electric cars. To explain, we’re joined by the leader of the pack. That’s reporter David Ferris of E&E News, an online news site that covers energy and environmental issues David Ferris, how you doing?

DAVID FERRIS: I’m doing well.

KELLY: Good. So I want to get in just a second to where exactly on this road trip we’ve reached you. But start with the why. What is your team hoping to accomplish with this? It’s a two-month-long road trip, is that right?

FERRIS: It is two months.

KELLY: OK.

FERRIS: Well, we’re in an interesting interval with electric cars. I think they’ve been kind of a geeky science project. And now we know that automakers are devoting billions of dollars to building these cars. And we thought it was the right time to inform ourselves, not just to what it’s like to be in the car, not just to what it’s like to fuel to charge the car but actually how it’s going to affect the whole economy – manufacturing, cities, jobs.

KELLY: So your team began this whole journey in Texas about a month ago. Y’all are tag-teaming as you go. I know…

FERRIS: Exactly.

KELLY: …At first, people started through southern states. Then you turned north. You went through Detroit, which I’m sure was fascinating. And then you took over on Sunday. Where exactly have we found you?

FERRIS: You’re talking to me in Dickinson, N.D. This is the single-hardest leg of the trip because North Dakota has less charging, less fueling infrastructure than any place in the country. And so I’ve been learning some hard lessons about how to manage an electric car when there’s almost no place to fuel.

KELLY: That sounds intriguing. Have you had any close calls where you were stranded on the side of the road?

FERRIS: Yes. So I left Minneapolis on Sunday. And I know I’m not going to make my destination to Fargo when I have to stop in this little town called Fergus Falls. And I know I have enough battery to get there. So I’m going down the road enjoying myself, really windy day, and I’m going along and I’m noticing that the cushion, the difference between how many miles the car tells me I can go and the number of miles I actually need to go, it’s narrowing. So I’m like, maybe, I should ease it off. I’ll go to 65. Night’s falling. It’s raining. And I have no other options because there’s just simply – unless I begged with someone to plug into their dryer outlet, there’s nowhere to charge. And so I finally end up limping off the interstate into this town of Fergus Falls and ease into the brewery, which, it turns out, is one of the only two places to charge.

KELLY: The brewery. Wow. OK.

FERRIS: So I was able to charge there, and since the charging is slow – rats. I had to spend three hours at a brewery on a Saturday night.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: So now you have the challenge of sobering up before you can get back in your charged up car.

FERRIS: I know. I limited myself to only two beers. I was like, keep it under control.

KELLY: Part of what y’all are calculating is how much cleaner electric cars are than gas cars – right? – because electric vehicles say there’s zero emissions. But, of course, the electricity powering them has to be generated, and that results in carbon emissions. What have you found in terms of how much better for the planet these might be?

FERRIS: Well, we’ve been rigorously calculating the carbon emissions of the charging we’re doing, and that has to do with the power mix in that individual state. If that state uses a lot of coal, the emissions are going to be higher. If it’s a state that uses a lot of hydropower or wind or solar, it’s going to be lower. And in either case, it’s still significantly lower emissions than gas, but it does vary a lot.

KELLY: I gather that one of the things you’ve noted as you’ve been doing this drive across North Dakota is signs for electric vehicles that say powered by coal. Explain this.

FERRIS: Yes. The Lignite Energy Council, which is the advocacy group for North Dakota coal, has embraced electric vehicles as a way to create a market for itself in the future. The writing is on the wall that it’s going to get tougher for coal. And they’ve realized that electric vehicles need to charge and that they could be a good market for coal power.

KELLY: That electric cars will drive the market for electricity, obviously, which then helps coal – fascinating.

FERRIS: Yeah.

KELLY: Have you found it requires a different mindset setting out on such an ambitious journey in an electric car?

FERRIS: It definitely requires a different mindset. I travel a lot more slowly. That’s a part of a battery-conservation thing. And when you stop, you need to stop for longer. And when you make those stops, you might stop a place that you didn’t expect. And it’s – I think it’s possible that because electric vehicles take longer to fuel, they could change the pace of travel, make it more relaxed with longer stops. And I think that’s an intriguing option. That’s the part of travelling along in an electric car I’ve really enjoyed.

KELLY: Well, David Ferris, we wish you luck with the many miles still to go.

Thanks for catching us up on the road trip so far.

FERRIS: Absolutely. It’s been fun to talk to you.

KELLY: That is David Ferris, reporter with E&E News and leader of E&E’s Electric Road Trip.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

A recent study found that the average allowance for kids is $30 a week. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with certified public accountant Michael Eisenberg about that number.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

It happens every week in my household. My kids hunt me down, hold out their palms and ask, may I please get my allowance? They are supposed to do regular chores. I’m supposed to hand over pocket money, but how much? Well, a new study by professional CPAs asked parents and found $30 is the weekly average. Joining us now is Michael Eisenberg from the American Institute of CPAs, which commissioned the study.

Mr. Eisenberg, welcome.

MICHAEL EISENBERG: Thank you.

KELLY: First off, just your top line reaction to that number – 30 bucks a week. Did that strike you as high, low? What did you think?

EISENBERG: It was a shocker to me because my kids are a bit older, and they certainly didn’t get $30 a week when they were growing up. That’s for sure.

KELLY: So what number did your study find in terms of how many – what percentage of American parents do tie the chores to the allowance?

EISENBERG: It’s a pretty high percentage. I would say that more than half of the people surveyed were saying that yes, there should be chores associated with the money.

KELLY: Another number that jumped out at me was that just 3% said that their kid put anything aside for savings, and I guess that jumped out at me because one of the goals of giving children an allowance is supposed to be teaching them fiscal responsibility and the value of money. Is that a big disconnect there?

EISENBERG: I think it is a big disconnect, and you see that as the kids grow older. Whether they’re in high school or college or getting out of college, their knowledge of financial literacy is very low, unfortunately, because they’re not always getting this information at home. They’re certainly not getting it at schools, but the place to really start giving this information is with the parents at home.

KELLY: So do these findings point us toward some better way of handling allowance or some better way to take allowance out of the equation completely, some better way to teach kids about money?

EISENBERG: Well, you know, I think the other thing that parents can do is – and I know this is old-fashioned, but it’s certainly still true today, and it works – take the young person into the bank themselves. And if you set up a savings account with them and you make deposits into the child’s account, you can show them it’s getting bigger and bigger. They can see it in black and white, and that’s what happens when you start to save.

KELLY: Yeah. Did you get an allowance?

EISENBERG: I didn’t get an allowance, but as I got a little bit older in high school, I actually went to work with my dad on weekends. He had a dry cleaning store in New York at the time, and he would have me in the store working.

KELLY: Yeah.

EISENBERG: And my dad, you know, he gave me some money. That was part of it, but he also taught me the other social skills that somebody needs when they’re out in the real world.

KELLY: What about families who are not in a position financially to be able to give allowance of any amount? What is your advice to them?

EISENBERG: What that family can do is sit down and talk with the kids and show them. We have a little budget, and we’re spending money here and here and here. But the other thing the parents can do which I think is really important is – you start to talk to the children and say, you know what? Here it is in May or June, and, you know, we’re going to be going back to school in August or September, and you would love to have that new backpack. How about we sit down and we say we’re going to put away X amount of dollars each week or each month towards the purchase of that backpack or pair of sneakers or whatever it’s going to be? So the child has this goal that he or she are reaching for, and the parents are not overextending themselves and also trying to – and will accomplish getting something for the kid when they go back to school, which they would have done anyway.

KELLY: Yeah. It sounds like what you’re describing is – it’s not the amount that matters. It’s the talking to your kids so that they understand the value of money. That’s the important thing here.

EISENBERG: That is so true, and the parents shouldn’t be ashamed that they don’t know that much about finances to talk to their kids. They can talk in very simplistic terms to the child, and the child will get it.

KELLY: That is Michael Eisenberg. He is on the financial literacy commission of the American Institute of CPAs talking there about weekly allowance.

Michael Eisenberg, thank you.

EISENBERG: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.