NPR News

There's no free lunch, economists will say. So when a company says, sleep on a mattress for a few months and return it for free — that actually costs money.

Just how much?

That question is now in the spotlight as online mattress seller Casper plans to go public. The decision forced Casper to disclose eye-popping losses: more than $92 million in 2018.

The first foreign filmmaker I ever heard of was Federico Fellini. Back then, he was an international brand name, and aside from Hitchcock, probably the most famous director in the world.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years and delivered a sermon in which he excoriated U.S. leaders as "clowns" and accused European countries of negotiating in bad faith over the foundering nuclear deal.

Khamenei also indicated that Iran might retaliate further for the U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying a missile attack on U.S. assets in Iraq had been a blow to America's dignity and its status as a superpower.

Updated at 9 a.m. ET

New birthrate figures show that China has so far failed to reverse the effects of its longtime one-child policy — a change that policymakers say is necessary to forestall the long-term economic consequences of an aging and shrinking population.

The National Bureau of Statistics of China released the new data on Friday, the same day it announced that the country's GDP growth has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years.

Gun violence is a growing problem in Canada's biggest city — and last year was Toronto's worst, with more shootings than any year to date, according to Toronto police statistics.

The highest-profile incident came in June, when shots rang out as more than a million fans gathered in Nathan Phillips Square to celebrate the Toronto Raptors' first NBA championship. Four people were injured in the shooting, and a panicked stampede of fans ensued.

Hope for an effective and inexpensive treatment for the deadly condition sepsis has dimmed following results of a major new study.

Researchers had hoped that a simple treatment involving infusions of vitamin C, vitamin B1 and steroids would work against a disease that kills an estimated 270,000 people each year in the United States and 11 million globally. Sepsis, or blood poisoning, occurs when the body overreacts to infection. It leads to leaky blood vessels, which can cause multiple organ failure.