Want an airline to feel your pain? Tell the feds.

The Department of Transportation compiles annual ratings using not just arrival-time and baggage-handling statistics, but customer complaints across an array of categories. Unlike a nasty email, airlines are guaranteed to take that seriously. [NPR]( [View this email in your browser]( [Best of NPR]( Pounds and pounds of cure [Health care is a huge U.S. industry, but the free market is failing consumers]( Drug prices rise until it's impossible to pay more, and generics are barely any cheaper. Hospital system mergers create efficiencies before breeding regional monopolies, with higher prices for no noticeable medical benefit. Managing an ailment is far more profitable than preventing or curing it. [A doctor-turned-journalist explains all in her new book.]( Singling out the poor kids [When families fail to pay for school lunches, often the kid gets punished. This legislator is changing that.]( "A 6-year-old ... they have no power to fix this issue and to resolve this," says New Mexico state Sen. Michael Padilla, but they're the ones who have their meals taken away and might be forced to do chores. Padilla knows it, he says, because he lived it while growing up in multiple foster homes. [His legislation may spread to other states]( Unite against bad airlines [For flight miseries, there's one direct route to getting even]( An airline loses your luggage, or cancels a flight and strands you in a far-off city, and your first instinct might be to call and give them a piece of your mind. But an author of the federal Airline Quality Rating says that's just wasting your breath. Complaining to the Department of Transportation, however, could ding the airline's rating and spur actual change at the company. [It could even lead to legislation or new rules.]( wish you could hear [Meet the rock-n-roll-branded shrimp with the killer sound: a 210-decibel claw snap]( Synalpheus pinkfloydi's sonic attack is loud enough to kill small fish nearby -- just as the band supposedly did during an especially cacophonous performance. But it's that Day-Glo claw that brought the moniker. [Shine on, you crazy crustacean.]( He said-he said [If you don't like one of President Trump's policies, the trick may be to wait a couple of weeks]( NATO was obsolete until suddenly it wasn't. China was the biggest currency-manipulator in the world, but have definitely stopped cold-turkey. We should be friends with Russia, except the relationship's now at an all-time low. Absolutely do not attack Syria, or at least get congressional approval first. Unless... [See more examples of White House whiplash.]( NPR | 1111 N. Capitol St. NE | Washington, DC 20002 | [Privacy Policy]( This message was sent to {EMAIL} based on your NPR email subscriptions. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you may [unsubscribe]( at any time. [NPR](