National News

The estimated 7.8 magnitude temblor was felt across the region. Buildings swayed in India's capital.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine school shootings, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster are among the infamous and sometimes horrific moments that have occurred during the month of April.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The investigation into the explosions that killed three and injured dozens continues. We're tracking developments.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Since Marissa Mayer took the helm of Yahoo, the company has been acquiring tech and media brains.

""Yahoo is buying people's companies that are very talented especially in mobile where consumer is moving," says Laura Martin, an analyst with Needham & Company.

Yahoo bought Summly, Snip.It, and Jybe among other small startups you may never have heard of. The strategy, basically is: Smart people will develop smarter products. Shares are up more than 50 percent under Mayer, but analysts say it has nothing to do with her or Yahoo's main business.  

"The reality is the vast, vast, vast majority of the underlying appreciation of Yahoo stock is due to the tremendous growth in value of the company's Asian assets," says Brian Wieser, analyst with the Pivotal Research Group.

He says Yahoo owns a big stake in Yahoo Japan, an independent web portal, and Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company that sold more last year than Amazon and eBay combined. They're both growing 40-60 percent per year and pushing up Yahoo's stock. 

Yahoo's recent run on brainpower:

Stamped

Yahoo purchased Stamped, which was Mayer's first acquisition as CEO, in October of 2012. Stamped is a New York City start-up with a mobile app that allows users to record and share recommendations with friends. All of Stamped's nine employees were reported to join Yahoo.

OnTheAir

In December of 2012, Yahoo purchased video chat broadcasting app OnTheAir. The app lets people webcast single or splitscreen interviews. All five members of the start-up joined Yahoo's mobile team.

Snip.It

In January of 2013, Yahoo acquired Snip.It, a Pinterest-like app which lets users clip and display news articles. All but one of Snip.It's 10-person staff were reported to join Yahoo.

Alike

Mayer made a move to purchase Propeld, the maker of mobile app Alike, which lets users mark nearby venues as "favorites," in February of 2013. After the acquisition, the Alike team moved over to work at Yahoo.

Jybe

In March, Yahoo purchased Jybe, a startup food, event, book, and movie recommendations service that hopes to "help connect people with the world around them." Jybe was founded by three ex-Yahoo employees, who will now re-enter the company fold.

Summly

Last month, Yahoo acquired news-reading app Summly from its 17-year-old founder Nick D'Aloisio. D'Aloisio is working with the company to incorporate Summly's technology, which translates long-form news stories into shorter summaries, into Yahoo's mobile apps.

Can a plane's cockpit be hacked? One researcher, who used a smartphone to hack the cockpit of a virtual airplane at a security conference in Amsterdam, says yes. The FAA and several makers of cockpit equipment disagree. They say it would be much harder, if not impossible, in a real aircraft.

Chester Wisniewski of the computer security firm Sophos joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain if the idea has much credence.

A day after three people were killed and over 130 injured by two bombings at the Boston Marathon, the search for answers is well underway.

This morning, President Obama addressed the nation:

"Clearly we are at the beginning of our investigation. It will take time to follow every lead and determine what happened, but we will find out."

No arrests have been made at this point. The FBI has taken charge of the investigation and is appealing for any video, audio and still images taken by spectators.

But sifting through all the submissions in an organized fashion presents a significant challenge.

"Videos could be coming from everywhere, they could be coming in a multitude of formats. In order to maintian the kind of evidentiary chain, you need to pin down a lot of details," says Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, who wrote an article about forensic video analysis of this sort yesterday on the publication's website.

During a press conference yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick urged the public to be patient as the investigation unfolds:

"There will be a heightened law enforcement presence consistent with the severity and seriousness of the ongoing investigation. People should expect -- those who are riding the T -- that there will be random checks of backpacks and other parcels. We just ask everyone to be patient with that inconvenience for the time being. It is for the public's safety."

Laura Perille, executive director of the educational philanthropic organization Edvestors, says her first priority was making sure her coworkers, a few of whom were near the explosions, were safe.

"We did what any family does, check on eachother. We used email and text," she says. "Most of the team are feeling the way most residents of Boston are feeling -- really absorbing the dimensions of the tragedy, compassion for the victims, respect for the heroism of the first responders."

The area around Copley Square remained closed Tuesday morning, as did exit ramps from major highways leading to the area. People may return to work today, though city officials are urging those who can work from home to do so and to avoid the city as investigators continue to scour the area for evidence.  

"It's very important that we move forward in our day to day lives and not be paralyzed by fear," says Karen DiMartino, who works for Palladium Group which decided not to suspend their strategy conference today. "We need to move forward, we need to show a productive positive attitude."

Immediately following yesterday’s explosions, many in the Boston area were having trouble making cell calls. Cell phone companies denied reports their systems had been shut down as a precaution. Officials say the problem had to do with bandwidth -- the ability of the telecommunications system to handle the crush of calls.

"What we understand from looking at disasters like Katrina, or Sandy or some of the tsunami disasters it that the best way to keep communications going in a crisis is to have redundancy and diversity of services, so that at least some of the services will be operating, you hope, when others fail," says Daniel Weitzner, principal research scientist at MIT's CSAIL program. 

The Red Cross set up a place for family members and loved ones to connect. Google has also stepped in to help family and friends of Boston Marathon runners find their loved ones after explosions near the finish line. The site, called Google Person Finder, allows users to enter the name of a person they're looking for or enter information about someone who is there. Authorities are asking the public to call in tips at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).

The Associated Press contributed to this report. This article was updated at 1:45 pm EST to include a quote from President Obama.

Patent protection for the painkiller OxyContin expires today. That means generic drug manufacturers hope to soon grab a chunk of the nearly $3 billion market. But first, the FDA must give its blessing -- but right now, that's far from certain.

OxyContin is one of the most dangerous and widely abused drugs available. And the FDA is hesitant is to flood the market with a painkiller that's easily abused. So no matter how anxious generic drug makers are, RBC Capital Markets analyst Shibani Malhotra says the firms may have to wait.

"Every single company executive that we've spoken to believes that the market is going to have to move to tamper resistant products," Malhotra says. 

The FDA may require tamper-resistant drugs, like a pill that's impossible to crush into powder.

But Justin Collishaw, with Frost & Sullivan, says requiring tamper-resistant safeguards makes it harder for generics to get into the game. 

"Do I think that a generic manufacturer would develop their own tamper resistant formulation? The margins are not there," Collishaw says.

Industry observers believe the issue is so thorny, the FDA may remain silent over the coming weeks.  

Of all the programs in the federal budget, Section 8 housing doesn't have much fat to cut. The program provides rent vouchers to families earning an average of less than $13,000 a year. But sequestration has left housing authorities with a stark choice: Eliminate some vouchers altogether, or ask people to contribute more.

In the lobby of the Los Angeles City Housing Authority, Chanel Henderson waits with her two year old daughter, Heaven, sitting on her lap. Henderson tells me she has never heard of the sequester. But as a result of sequestration, she may soon see her rent rise by as much as $200 a month.

"That's a lot for people who are already struggling," Henderson says.

Henderson is a single mother and a full-time nursing student. Her main source of income is a monthly welfare check. She says a $200 rent increase may be too much.

"With my income now, I already don't have enough left over at the end, after paying rent and bills."

Up to 24,000 Los Angeles families -- half the people in Section 8 -- will see a rent increase before the end of this year. But according to Doug Guthrie, President and CEO of the city's Housing Authority, that may be the best available option.

"Although we're impacting a large part of the population, what we don't want to do is actually have to take people off the program entirely," Guthrie says.

The reason people are in Section 8 housing is because they have nowhere else to turn. Most are senior citizens, or people with disabilities, and families with children. When rents go up, Guthrie says, "Sadly, I believe that is going to have a negative impact on homelessness."

For its size, LA has more homeless people than any city in the country. In recent years, though, the city has made progress by building permanent supportive housing to fight chronic homelessness.

"Section 8 rental subsidies are right at the heart of that solution," says Greg Spiegel, Public Policy Director for LA's Inner City Law Center. "If Congress wanted to pass a budget cut that would make the most people in Los Angeles homeless, this is exactly the cut they would do."

Spiegel says saving money on subsidies only to cause more homelessness is penny-wise and pound-foolish. 

"When people are homeless," he says, "there's an increased use in emergency rooms, healthcare costs, mental health services, the court system, policing, shelters. These are all very expensive services."

But those services, like homeless shelters? They've also been hit by cuts to the federal budget.  

This final note on the way out this Tuesday. Some odds and ends we didn't get to elsewhere.

Item one: American Airlines. This was a very rough day for them. They were grounded -- not flying a single plane -- for about four hours today. A computer glitch in their reservations system, of all places, forced 'em to cancel 400 some odd flights.

Item two: Also not a good day for economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff. If you recognize those names, it's because they wrote a very high-profile paper a couple of years ago showing, they said, that countries with a lot of debt grow really, really slowly. It kind of became the guidebook for government backing government austerity.

Why a bad day for these two? A different paper out today says the Rogoff-Reinhart analysis doesn't hold up because -- and here's the great part -- they missed a column in their Excel spreadsheet.

Economists being economists, there's a rebuttal coming soon, I'm sure.

The group, said to support the regime of President Bashar Assad, has attacked other news organizations' websites in recent months. This time, it got into NPR.org, The Two-Way and some of NPR's Twitter accounts.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

These days hospitals drill for mass-casualty disasters like the explosions at Monday's Boston Marathon. But when it happened for real, the first response was disbelief. Then the victims began arriving. Doctors say they were confronted with the kinds of IED injuries that U.S. troops have gotten in Iraq and Afghanistan.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

These days hospitals drill for mass-casualty disasters like the explosions at Monday's Boston Marathon. But when it happened for real, the first response was disbelief. Then the victims began arriving. Doctors say they were confronted with the kinds of IED injuries that U.S. troops have gotten in Iraq and Afghanistan.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

It's called a use tax. As far as I can tell, accountants and tax lawyers are some of the only people who pay it.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

After a South Carolina couple adopted a baby girl, her biological father sought full custody. Normally, the Supreme Court does not hear such disputes, but this case tests a federal law meant to stop Native American children's being improperly taken from their families.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Dallas is home to more than 40 people who've been released from prison for wrongful convictions. Some of those men have formed not just a support group, but a detective agency devoted to getting other innocent people out of prison.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Washington, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco were among the cities taking action following the blasts.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Syrian Electronic Army Was Here

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Bill Iffrig, 78, finished second in his division despite being knocked over by an explosion at the Boston Marathon.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Even as the shock and horror of the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon had yet to subside Monday, people were turning to online tools to check on the safety of their friends and family who were at the event. The latest estimates of the casualties include more than 3 dozen people injured, with two dead.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

President Obama said whoever perpetrated the attack on Boston would feel the full weight of justice.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us