France's 35-hour work week has plenty of critics who say it has sapped the country of its competitiveness and is tying companies in knots. And to make their case, a leading example is the current state of overtime at French hospitals.

Along with five weeks of annual leave, French employees get time off if they work more than 35 hours in a week. At the Hopital Vaugirard, a public hospital in central Paris, employees have accumulated more than 2 million days off in the past decade.

President Obama is feeling election-year pressure on the pending decision over the Keystone XL pipeline. Republicans say the Canadian project would provide the U.S. with oil and new jobs, but environmentalists want him to block it. They say Alberta's oil sands generate more greenhouse gases than other kinds of oil, and Americans must not become dependent on such a dirty source of energy. But it may already be too late to change that.

Old mattresses are among the worst kinds of household waste: Most recycling companies won't touch them, and landfills would rather not. But a new business in Nashville that started as a college project hopes to move mattress recycling into the mainstream — and employ former convicts in the process.

Now that Tim Tebow is out of hearts and minds, and we can actually turn our attention to other things, let us go clear to the other side of the world. There, a short while ago, while preparing for the Australian Open, Serena Williams said: "I don't love tennis today, but ... I've actually never liked sports."

While her confession might have surprised some, I suspect that even more were irritated, actually angered, that an athlete — a great champion! — could utter such blasphemy.

What the recession looks like from inside a food bank; people who solve their food problems by growing their own food; a teenager reflects on the nature of modern entertainment; the nutrition of McDonald's; and local singers Con Alma.

The cavernous building of the Alameda County Community Food Bank looks like an airplane hangar for the nearby Oakland Airport. Through the door of the community engagement center, with its bright orange awning, pallets of potatoes sit by empty donation barrels piled high to the ceiling. Volunteers busily bag produce. Giant walk-in refrigerators, the size of small houses, hum in the background.

NOTES FROM MARK

Greetings, friends and neighbors...

--> Now playing on the "Local Music Player"... 

      BLUES POWER HOUR #502

      KALW air date: December 19, 1994

Artists include:

This week as tech geeks and gurus gather at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Oakland-based Youth Radio is looking at the future of television. And where better to glimpse future viewing habits than inside a teenager’s bedroom. Youth Radio’s Rayana Godfrey brings us this story.

RAYANA GODFREY: I’m laying in my room. You know, this is basically my dojo, my sanctuary, my place to go.

There's a controversy brewing in India over an invitation extended to Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie by the organizers of the Jaipur Literary Festival.

Rushdie, the author of Midnight's Children, angered Muslims with his 1988 novel Satanic Verses. The novel, which many Muslims say insults the Prophet Muhammad, led to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declaring a fatwa against Rushdie. The writer spent much of the next few years in hiding.