With Friday’s deadline looming, Congressional negotiators have reached a new agreement on a bill to keep the government open through September 30th, NPR’s Susan Davis confirms.

On Sunday night, details of the deal were not yet public.

Last Friday, Congress bought a week’s time to finalize the bipartisan agreement when lawmakers in the House and Senate approved a short-term spending bill that averted a shutdown on Saturday — President Trump’s 100th day in office.

The agreement follows a tense week of dealmaking on Capitol Hill that led the Trump administration to concede on two sticking points.

On Monday, Trump dropped his demand that the spending bill include a down-payment for his wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats, who flexed their leverage in spending negotiations, refused to support any bill that included wall funding. And Wednesday, the White House said it would not stop paying federal subsidies to health insurers that help cover low-income Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

The agreement includes billions in funding for defense and border security, NPR’s Geoff Bennett reports, but scraps some of Trump’s key budget proposals, including his long-promised border wall with Mexico.

“The spending package also includes a nearly $70 million reimbursement to law enforcement agencies for costs incurred helping to protect President Trump and the first family,” Geoff says.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Democrats’ wins, which included increased funding for Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program and a $2 billion boost to the National Institutes of Health, which Trump proposed slashing. The spending bill also gives additional funding to combating opioid abuse and for summer school Pell Grants.

Lawmakers have until midnight on Friday to pass the deal to keep the federal government funded.

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Note: This episode originally ran in 2014.

As World War II was ending, world leaders realized they had a problem. Countries no longer knew how to trade with each other. Their economies were devastated. So representatives from 44 nations gathered in the small town of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to come up with the solution.

It came down to two different plans put forward by two very different men. One was the most famous economist in the world. A British aristocrat. The other was an American that no one remembers. But it was the American that won the day and put the U.S. dollar right in the middle of world trade.

Today on the show, how the US won. The story involves a carefully laid trap, late night dancing and copious amounts of alcohol.

Music: “Cool Down” and “Je Suis Juste Un Bad Boy.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show on iTunes or PocketCast.

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In 1949, Thomas Forkner Sr. was in the real estate business when he helped Joe Rogers Sr. buy a house.

Rogers was working for the Toddle House restaurant chain and he convinced Forkner to join him in starting their own restaurant.

The two opened the first 24-hour Waffle House on Labor Day in 1955 in the Atlanta suburb of Avondale Estates.

By the time they sold the business in the late 1970s, the chain had grown to 400 restaurants.

The Atlanta-based company that owns the chain now has more than 1,500 locations.

Waffle House said in a statement that Forkner died Wednesday at age 98.

Rogers died March 3, seven weeks before Forkner. Rogers was 97.

On March 4, Forkner’s wife of 71 years, Martha, died. They got married 90 days after dating, according to Forkner’s obituary.

The Associated Press reports:

“Forkner was known to drop by the company headquarters regularly, up until a few weeks before his death.

“He would often drive there to have lunch with new manager trainees, said Waffle House Chairman Joe Rogers Jr., whose father started the company with Forkner.

” ‘Tom and my father had a handshake deal, and their partnership and friendship continued for more than 60 years,’ Joe Rogers said in a statement.”

Forkner was also an avid golfer. He was listed among the top 10 senior golfers four times by Golf Digest.

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Following news reports Wednesday that the Trump administration intended to begin the process of withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, the White House said President Trump reassured the leaders of Canada and Mexico by phone that the U.S. had no immediate plans to do so.

A White House statement issued late Wednesday night said that Trump had spoken by phone with both Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The full White House statement:

“Late this afternoon, President Donald J. Trump spoke with both President Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. Both conversations were pleasant and productive. President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries. President Trump said, ‘it is my privilege to bring NAFTA up to date through renegotiation. It is an honor to deal with both President Peña Nieto and Prime Minister Trudeau, and I believe that the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.’ “

The Associated Press reports:

“The White House announcement came hours after administration officials said Trump was considering a draft executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the deal — though administration officials cautioned it was just one of a number of options being discussed by the president and his staff.

“Some saw the threat as posturing by Trump to gain leverage over Mexico and Canada as he tries to negotiate changes to the deal. Trump railed against the decades-old trade deal during his campaign, describing it as a ‘disaster.’ “

The AP reports that both the Mexican and Canadian governments confirmed the conversations had taken place.

As first reported by Politico, White House officials had drafted an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing from NAFTA. The reports were followed by a sharp drop in the value of the Mexican peso against the U.S. dollar. The Canadian dollar also fell, though not as sharply.

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The Cherokee Nation is suing top drug distributors and pharmacies — including Wal-Mart — alleging they profited greatly by “flooding” communities in Oklahoma with prescription painkillers, leading to the deaths of hundreds of tribal members.

Todd Hembree, attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, says drug companies didn’t do enough to keep painkillers off the black market or to stop the overprescription of these powerful narcotics, which include OxyContin and Vicodin. “They flooded this market,” Hembree says. “And they knew — or should’ve known — that they were doing so.”

Walgreens, CVS Health and Wal-Mart are all named in the suit, along with the nation’s three largest pharmaceutical distributors: AmerisourceBergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health. They act as middlemen between pharmacies and drugmakers, distributing 85 to 90 percent of the prescription painkillers that some see as fueling a growing opioid epidemic in the U.S.

When reached for comment, one of the defendants, Cardinal Health, sent a statement to NPR saying the suit was a mischaracterization of facts and a misunderstanding of the law. “We believe these lawsuits do not advance the hard work needed to solve the opioid abuse crisis — an epidemic driven by addiction, demand and the diversion of medications for illegitimate use.”

But the Cherokee Tribe says these companies regularly filled large, suspicious prescriptions within the Cherokee Nation’s 14 counties in northeastern Oklahoma. It also says the companies turned a blind eye to patients who doctor-shopped and presented multiple prescriptions for the same medication. Oklahoma, where 177,000 tribal members live, leads the nation in opioid abuse. Almost a third of the prescription painkillers distributed in that state went to the Cherokee Nation.

“There are safeguards that are supposed to be followed — federal laws — that they turn a blind eye to because their profits are much more important to them,” Hembree says. “We were being [overrun] by the amount of opioids being pushed into the Cherokee Nation.” A spokesperson for Walgreens told NPR the company declines to comment on pending litigation. CVS Health said in a statement, “We have stringent policies, procedures and tools to ensure that our pharmacists properly exercise their corresponding responsibility to determine whether a controlled substance prescription was issued for a legitimate medical purpose before filling it.” The other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nowhere has the country’s opioid crisis hit harder than in Indian Country. Compared with other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., American Indians have the highest rate of drug-induced deaths in the country. The use of OxyContin by American Indian high-schoolers is double the national average.

The lawsuit estimates opioid abuse led to over 350 deaths within the Cherokee Nation between 2003 and 2014.

Cherokee babies are often born with an opioid addiction resulting from their mothers’ use of prescription painkillers throughout the pregnancy. Some spend their first moments on earth suffering through withdrawals. “They will have shakes, they will cry, and a lot of these children go on to have developmental and cognitive issues,” Nikki Baker-Limore, executive director of child welfare for the Cherokee Nation, says. “These children are born and they don’t even have a chance the second they come out of the womb.”

Several studies suggest that high rates of addiction in Indian Country stem from the violence and cultural destruction brought down upon Natives over the past 200 years. Because both trauma and resilience are remembered in our DNA, the genocide and forced removal of Cherokee and other tribes from their homelands by the U.S. government during the early 19th century has resulted in generational trauma.

Cherokee Nation claims in the suit that drug companies are making money off a vulnerable population and ignoring epidemiological and demographic facts. While this is the first time an Indian Nation has sued top drug distributors and pharmacies, it’s not the first case of its kind in the country.

The city of Everett, Wash., recently filed suit against Perdue Pharmaceuticals, the maker of OxyContin, for allowing its drug to saturate the black market. West Virginia, one of the hardest hit places in the nation’s opioid epidemic, settled with Cardinal Health for $20 million last year. Soon after, the federal government slapped Cardinal Health and McKesson with multimillion-dollar fines for failing to report suspicious orders of controlled substances to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

“Legal action is one of the only effective measures we have against pharmaceutical companies and distributors,” Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Georgetown University, says. Fugh-Berman has served as an expert witness in several cases against pharmaceutical companies. “Companies don’t like lawsuits,” she says. “It’s a great way to get information into the public domain.”

But the Cherokee Nation’s lawsuit is different from other cases in a fundamental way: It was filed in tribal court. By doing so, lawyers for the Cherokee Nation say they hope to gain quicker access to internal corporate records. However, Hembree says they expect the defendants will file a motion to move the case into federal courts.

“We’re ready for that jurisdictional battle and we look forward to trying this case in Tahlequah, Okla.,” Hambree says, referring to the Cherokee Nation’s headquarters. The suit seeks billions of dollars in damages, and Hambree hopes it will help change the behavior of drug distributors and pharmacies.

“I can’t put Cardinal Health and McKesson and Amerisource in jail, but I can make them responsible for the damages they’ve incurred,” he says.

Even if the tribe is successful, Fugh-Berman says a change in behavior isn’t going to cure the opioid crisis in Indian Country and the U.S. in general. “It’s just one piece in this whole fabric of how to stop the opioid epidemic,” she says.

But curing that one piece could really make a big difference in the Cherokee Nation, according to Baker-Limore. She says the tribe has the infrastructure to provide recovery and rehab services. “Somebody needs to stop letting these opioids be so readily available,” she says. “We’re a small-town community. It’s hitting us hard.”

Nate Hegyiis a reporter for Montana Public Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @natehegyi

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Updated at 7:30 p.m. ET

An article on a State Department website about President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has been removed after criticism that it was an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.

Critics complained that resources were being used to tout the for-profit club, which Trump refers to as the Winter White House. The club, in Palm Beach, Fla., is held in Trump’s trust, of which he is the sole beneficiary.

“The intention of the article was to inform the public about where the President has been hosting world leaders. We regret any misperception and have removed the post,” a State Department official said in a statement that has now replaced the original article.

The ShareAmerica website says it “is part of the Bureau of International Information Programs, which works with U.S. embassies and consulates in more than 140 countries to engage with people around the globe on U.S. foreign policy and American society.”

But on the webpage about Mar-a-Lago, there was no discussion of policy. The page showed photos of the members-only club’s opulent rooms and exterior, and noted that “When he acquired the house, Trump also bought the decorations and furnishings that [original owner Marjorie Merriweather] Post had collected over the years, preserving Mar-a-Lago’s style and taste.”

The website generated attention Monday when Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and others started tweeting about it. In one tweet, Wyden said: “Yes, I am curious @StateDept. Why are taxpayer $$ promoting the President’s private country club?”

In another tweet, he steered people to the webpage, saying: “Here’s the full post in its kleptocratic glory.”

American Oversight, a watchdog group that includes some lawyers who worked at agencies in the Obama administration, said earlier Monday it would file a complaint with the State Department’s inspector general and the Office of Government Ethics. The group says that “promoting Mar-a-Lago appears to violate Section 2635.702 of the Standards of Ethical Conduct, which prohibits government employees from using their public office to endorse private enterprise.”

American Oversight also had said it would ask congressional oversight committees to conduct an “investigation into how and why the article promoting Trump properties was written and distributed.”

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Growing up the son of a coal miner in southern West Virginia, David Wiley saw the downside of the profession up close. His father had been injured in the mines, lost several fingers and damaged his knees and back. “He was just really beat up,” Wiley says.

So when it came to find his own line of work, Wiley says he had no desire to work in the coal mines. For a couple of years after high school, Wiley tried his hand at manufacturing and welding jobs in the neighboring state of North Carolina.

But when Wiley decided to return to West Virginia in his early 20s, the job opportunities were few and far between, and when he received a job offer to work in the mines for a starting wage of $22 an hour, the pay was too good to pass up.

“I was excited,” says Wiley, “that’s really good money for anybody. A young kid like me, I’d never made that kind of money.”

Wiley worked the overnight shift, beginning at 11 p.m. and clocking out at 7 a.m. and spent his nights scooping up spilled coal, helping to install structural supports in the tunnel ceilings, and cleaning and maintaining the mine for the next shift. Much of the work was in the dark and it usually involved heavy manual labor.

“Everything in the mines is heavy,” Wiley says. “The lightest thing is a 50-pound bag of rock dust.”

Wiley says that for a while, the high pay made up for difficulty of the work, but he says that he soon began to develop pain in his knees and back, and a falling rock injured his foot. Wiley also notes that the grueling hours meant he had little time to spend with his wife and children.

“You’d come home and sleep all day. You really didn’t have no life,” says Wiley. “You’re just a walking zombie.”

The final straw, Wiley says, was the instability of working in the mines.

“You can tell when the coal market is up, then you can tell when the bottom drops,” he says, “because they start laying people off.”

For more than five years, Wiley says he shuffled between different mining operations in southern West Virginia, as they opened and closed, riding out the off-periods with savings and by signing up for unemployment.

“One mine might work good for a year, then it might shut down,” he says. “Then you go somewhere else and it could work for two years, then it might shut down. I worked at one mine, we had over 500 men there at one time and they shut the doors. Five-hundred people lost their jobs … The last time that I got laid off, the coal market was so down that you couldn’t buy a job.”

Wiley says that the last time he was laid off, he began applying to every minimum wage he could find in the area.

“I was willing to take anything and everything,” Wiley says.

One day, he came across an online job posting for an ambulance driver with STAT Emergency Medical Services in Pineville, W.V. Though he’d never worked in the medical field, Wiley says he was desperate, and decided to apply.

He remembers speaking with the company’s hiring manager on the telephone, “basically crying because my unemployment was getting ready to run out. I had two babies at the time. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to feed them, and he gave me a shot.”

I was a shock at first, he says, going from having made around $30 an hour to minimum wage work at $8.75. But he needed a way to help support his family, and the constant demand for healthcare in the area meant plenty of opportunities to work overtime.

“I’ve come in at 3:00 in the morning and not gotten off until 3:00 in the morning,” Wiley says.

He says he knew within his first month that he’d made the right decision in picking his new line of work.

“I fell in love,” Wiley says. “It’s a steady job. You don’t have to worry about losing your job, because it’s always here.”

In the two years since he was hired on at STAT EMS, Wiley has graduated from ambulance driver to become an Emergency Medical Technician, and he’s currently enrolled in a paramedic science course at a local community college. Wiley plans to continue in the medical field as far as he can. And, despite lower pay, the meaning he derives from his interactions with his patients has made a huge difference in his life.

“You pick up somebody, and they’re on the verge of death. And you drop them off and they’re shaking your hand, saying, ‘You meant a lot to me.’ ” Wiley says, “It makes you feel you’re somebody — that’s enough payment.”

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There’s a running joke in Maringouin, Louisiana, a town of 1,100, that everyone is related. It’s funny because, as people in Maringouin will tell you, it’s true. Everyone calls each other ‘cuz’ or ‘cousin,’ and they mean it. People run into each other on the street, recognize a last name, start talking about people they know in common, then discover they’re related.

For a long time, no one knew exactly why. It wasn’t like there was a founding family that had moved there.

Maxine Crump, who grew up in Maringouin, always wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery. People in Maringouin were just… different from many of their neighbors. For one, there were a lot of black Catholics who didn’t speak any French.

“People used to say: You’re from the bayou area where a lot of people speak French. Do you? And it was like: No,” she’d say. “No, none of the black people speak French.” There were rumors and theories, but she never got an answer.

Then one day, Maxine got a call that answered her question about Maringouin’s past.

Today on the show, we tell the story of what happens when people in this little town in Louisiana figure out how they got to Louisiana. The answer put Maringouin and thousands of other people with roots in Maringouin, at the center of a fight over how to pay a very old and very complicated debt.

Music: “Lead Me Away” and “Bad Scene.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show on iTunes or PocketCast.

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