NPR News

Jackson "Jax" Teller, the antihero at the heart of FX's blockbuster biker gang series Sons of Anarchy, is pretty easy to distinguish from a traditional hero. Just this season, Jax blew away a rival gang with an RPG missile, shot a Russian gangster in the head and got into some serious trouble while selling guns to the scariest gangsters on the planet.

China has announced that it will increase duties on some U.S.-made vehicles. The Ministry of Commerce in Beijing says it will levy "anti-dumping" duties on all U.S. imports with engines larger than 2.5 liters. It's just the latest volley in an ongoing tariff war with China.

President Obama visited Fort Bragg Wednesday as the military continues to pull troops out of Iraq. More than 200 of the troops killed in Iraq came from this Army post.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

One of the year-end fights going on in Congress is about extending unemployment insurance. Democrats want to extend benefits for people long out of work. Republicans say, wait a minute, it's time to reform the program and lower its cost.

The stakes are high on this one. The Labor Department estimates that if Congress doesn't do something soon, some two-and-a-half million people could stop receiving checks by March. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports now on the politics and on the realities of unemployment insurance.

Television has always loved heroes who sometimes act a bit like the bad guys — from cheeky gambler Brett Maverick to know-it-all bigot Archie Bunker. But today's TV shows seem addicted to the anti-hero, pushing audiences to fall in love with a meth dealer, murderous biker gang and a serial killer. TV critic Eric Deggans of the "St. Petersburg Times" explains why bad-guy heroes are so popular now.