National News

Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice was fired for abusive actions towards players on the practice court. Did he go too far, or should people toughen up? Host Michel Martin asks the Barbershop guys for their take.

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Season 6 of AMC's "Mad Men" premieres this Sunday. Fans are no doubt eager to catch up with the exploits of Don, Peggy and Pete -- and businesses are eager to catch up with those fans.  

John Stires' bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, usually serves wine and beer. But for weddings and special events they do have liquor. And this Sunday, they're serving cocktails.

"We only do it for special occasions and Sunday nights for Mad Men is going to be one of them," Stires says. The promotion helps draws customers on a typically slow night, and Sunday sales during the show's run often more than double.

"We know that people are going to come because they know that we're going to have our TV's on, set to 'Mad Men,' " he says.  

Bars aren't the only businesses to piggyback on the popularity of "Mad Men." Banana Republic has a "Mad Men"-inspired clothing line, which helped boost its parent company's third quarter profits last year. But you don't see a clothing line inspired by "The Walking Dead." What is it about "Mad Men" that marketers love?

"It's very much transmitting an image or look that its very easy for brands to import themselves into," says Brent Vartan, who handles market strategy for advertising firm Deutsch. He says "Mad Men" taps into yearnings for glamour and a lifestyle of cocktail-swilling fun -- themes that appeal to sought-after younger consumers.

As Don Draper himself says, "Advertising's is based on one thing --- happiness."

An outbreak of E. coli in frozen pizza, cheesesteaks, and other foods makes it clear: Just because the freezer's frosty doesn't mean it can kill microbes that cause food-borne illness.

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Nearly two week after rebels seized control of the Central African Republic and ousted its president, the country is a shambles after widespread looting. Conflict-weary citizens want peace and to choose a new government, but it's far from certain that the future will more stable than the past.

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The 11.7 million Americans searching for work got discouraging news Friday morning when the Labor Department said employers created only 88,000 net jobs in March. The weak job growth comes at the same time benefits for the long-term unemployed are shrinking.

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The 11.7 million Americans searching for work got discouraging news Friday morning when the Labor Department said employers created only 88,000 net jobs in March. The weak job growth comes at the same time benefits for the long-term unemployed are shrinking.

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The ruling could end a more than decade-long battle that has spanned two administrations. The decision overturns a controversial 2011 action by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius overruling the Food and Drug Administration's decision to allow sale of morning-after pill without a prescription or regard for a person's age.

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Even as the U.S. economy is adding jobs, nearly five million people have been out of work for at least six months, and figures show their wait to return to the workforce is growing.

The Department of Labor is reporting the U.S. added 88,000 jobs last month, falling below analyst expectations. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 7.6 percent. The monthly jobs numbers give a snapshot of the economy and its recovery, which has a been a slow and bumpy one so far.

Larry Summers, who was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama, discusses the state of the recovery and what's ahead for the economy.

The first contact most job seekers have with their potential employer is, of course, the resume. And that's where things can go wrong, right from the start. Veronica Wells experienced it first hand. A career counselor once told her that some places may be hesitant to hire her because she was involved in historically African-American professional organizations.

"It was shocking," says Wells. "When I went back and thought about it, I was kind of like this is not really what I'm about -- hiding such a big part of who I am. I thought, do I really want to work for a company who would not hire me based on race?"

Virginia Clarke, president and CEO of Talent Optimization Partners, is a career counselor who says she hears stories like Wells' pretty often. She thinks Wells made the right call. But these days, with so many workplaces now saying they are committed to diversity, wouldn't minority candidates want to feature their backgrounds?

"Diversity continues to be an issue. You can still question whether or not people are giving lip service, but at least many of the corporations -- large ones that I speak to -- they're trying to identify diverse candidates. That's part of the reason I encourage people to list it. It doesn't guarantee you anything, but it might get you a second look," says Clarke.

Clarke says companies that operate under Equal Employment Opportunity laws can't ask about a job candidate's background, but a potential worker can certainly offer. Then it becomes part of a job candidate's unspoken record. Companies that operate under EEOC laws have to be very careful about what they write down and put in front of a hiring manager, says Clarke. And it's not just race -- sexual orientation, religion, and gender can also be used to discriminate or fill quotas.

"Religion would probably be more of a sensitive issue. LGBT still, unfortunately, might be something that people downplay," says Clarke. "As a recruiter, I did work for some religious organizations and had to make sure that they understood that the candidates I was going to show them were going to be from a variety of religious backgrounds, so I was hoping they would be agnostic, so to speak."

Deciding whether to advertise one's background depends on a lot factors. How much does the job or type of company matter when deciding whether to advertise one's background? Clarke says it matters a lot. Some companies make judgments based on something as simple as someone's name.

"I've done exercises with recruitment teams that will say they are making a snap judgment based on the name, based on the resume and many, many other factors. In some ways there's even a class consideration -- if your name is pronounceable or if it's something that might be perceived as made up or if it's from a completely different language and culture," says Clarke.

While Clarke has never encountered Wells' issue, she does say that her race is apparent in her resume -- and she's proud to advertise it.

"It's part of who I am. It speaks to how I think. It speaks to what's important to me. There's some self-selection that goes on here. I want to be with an organization that is going to value all of me, including my ethnicity and race. I wouldn't want to work for an organization that wouldn't want me to bring my whole self to work," she says.

At Chester Zoo in the north of England a chimp hurls himself at the thick pane of glass. What's he trying to say? Biologist Patrick Van Veen runs a course for zoo attendees that explains the primate's actions.

The course aims to show how watching a chimp's behaviour can help you better understand your colleagues. Dutch company Ape Management is behind the idea and runs sessions in zoos across Europe. And for around $2,000, businesses can send a group of their workers to learn about their ape ancestors instincts -- and see how they mirror our own. For example, how we make friends with people or how we react when we're jealous or how we try to take charge of a group. Founder Van Veen was inspired to set up the business 10 years ago by his own boss.

"He was about two meters tall, he was huge, he had small glasses and when you entered his office he stared at you as though, 'What are you coming to bring to me?'" says Van Veen.

So what sort of behavior does Van Veen see in the primate world that applies in the business world?

"There is a lot of behavior, sometimes it's good to make people aware of the way they show dominant behaviour and how that reflects on the people in their group. It's also about grooming. We spend a lot of time chit-chatting and drinking coffee with each other and that's grooming behavior like primates do, that's building relationships," he says.

Van Veen's original client base was from the insurance industry, where he started his career. It's now branched out into all sectors, with a client list including accountancy firm Price Waterhouse Coopers and oil giant Shell. So what do the businesses who visit the zoo make of bringing biology to the boardroom?

Sandra Bruce works for British bank NatWest and says she learned a lot from the day.

"One of the things I took away was that when we see different behaviours, how we put those into categories instead of just watching the behaviour and understanding it," says Bruce. "It's about observing people more and not immediately putting them into certain cliques, but understanding the different behaviours and what that means. The organization is about people and they're the most important part and it's really understanding the people who work for you."

Bruce says the monkeys reminded her of some people in her organization, but won't reveal who.

The training's gone down well with the companies that have taken part, but is the science sound?

"We see things like dominance displays, we see posturing, we'll see submissive behaviour where animals move out the way of each other just in the same way as we'd try to avoid certain people sometimes," says Sonia Hill, a research officer at Chester Zoo specializing in animal behavior.

Now the company's hoping to expand its courses from Europe to the other side of the Atlantic and give more workers an opportunity to find out who's really King Kong in their office.

President Barack Obama is hunting big game. His budget proposal -- which will be formally unveiled next week -- is seeking a grand bargain of taxes on the rich and spending cuts. But perhaps the most controversial measure in his proposal is a move to slow payments to Social Security.

So, get ready to hear lots of talk about "chained CPI." That’s wonk talk for altering how inflation is measured when the federal government cuts checks for Social Security, or veteran benefits. 

University of Pennsylvania Economist Olivia Mitchell says imagine you’re grocery shopping.

"If the price of a breakfast cereal went up, people might substitute the generic brand instead," he says, "and so the chained CPI takes into account that people do do those substitutions."

Bottom line: Moving to chained CPI would slow annual cost of living increases by a fraction. Over a decade, that would cut federal spending by $130 billion and generate roughly the same in tax increases.

Paul Van de Water, an economist with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says most taxpayers lose less than 1 percent of their after tax income in year 10 of chained CPI -- and the average person on social security would lose $350. 

"For a lot of people it’s not going to make a noticeable difference," says Van de Water.

If that’s really the case, then chained CPI may become a political reality.

Also: Tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula; President Obama reportedly plans to propose some cuts in projected spending on social programs; building collapse in India kills and injures dozens of people.

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Just 88,000 jobs were added to private and public payrolls in March. The jobless rate still edged down to 7.6 percent — but only because nearly half a million fewer people were in the labor force.

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You have to give Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware credit. He's a really good sport. The sophomore who broke his leg last weekend delivered David Letterman's Top 10 list Thursday night. No. 1: "At least my bracket's not busted."

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Tensions are high. But South Korea says it does not plan to remove its workers an industrial complex inside the North. Also, while a Russian diplomat says North Korean officials have asked that it consider evacuating staff, no such action is planned at this time.

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Also: Isabel Allende's love of Zorro; Lemony Snicket makes a Twitter appearance; Cat Marnell's book proposal was leaked.

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Administration officials are telling news outlets that the budget the president unveils next week will include proposals he made last year during negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Those include changes that could reduce increases in Social Security and Medicare spending.

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Weekends are when one usually relaxes, but you're probably working on your taxes. Hey, that rhymes, which reminds me: It's National Poetry Month. Next weekend on the show, we're paying homage to Tax Day with poems and prose submitted by our listeners. Some of you have already written in with your lyrical odes to filing.

Michael Panhorst in Auburn, Ala., sent in this short poem:

Money now
Money later
Stock your I. R. A.
Refrigerator

Venida Corda in Van Nuys, Calif., writes:

As April approaches I suddenly see the prospect of money leaving me.
I saved all my receipts for taxes and such,
But I can tell I don't have enough.
With medical, work, and charity giving,
I should have spent more.
So tax man I prey please get out of my way for Aprils the month I most want to avoid.
Good-by to my wealth, I wont see you again, but what can I say but wait till next year.

John Baglio sent in this haiku via Twitter:

Where's my tax refund?/The feeling of found money/Sweet self-deception.

Even our own social media mascot, Piggy got in on the act:

Could do this myself
But tax forms make me nervous
So I pay for pro.

Think you can do better than these poets? Send us your poem about taxes... after you finish filing, of course. Or leave a comment with your poem.

As far as the economy goes, the labor market has been something of a tortoise — slowly moving along. Housing has been the hare — moving ahead quickly. We'll hear much more Friday morning when the March data on jobs and unemployment are released.

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Updated (11:30am EST): The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the economy added 88,000 jobs last month, falling below analyst expectations. The unemployment rate ticked down to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent.

"There was a lot of volatility in certain areas like construction and the retail sector," says Julia Coronado, chief economist with the investment bank BNP Paribas. "[They] were very, very strong in February and then were very, very weak in March."

Chris Low, chief economist with FTN Financial, believes the sequester may have something to do with the slowdown in job growth.

"The jobless claims from two weeks ago rose more in Virginia than another other state -- the state most sensitive to the sequester," says Low, adding that private companies may be getting ready to pare back on hiring in the next few months.

Seth Harris, acting U.S. Secretary of Labor, agrees.

"The sequestration didn't help, when you are trying to get your car to go faster it doesn't make sense to step on the break," Harris says. "It is an indication of the economy as a whole needing the government to be a catalyst rather than a barrier."

Harris says raising the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure, and increasing job training could be that catalyst. 

March's report also revealed a continuing trend that troubles economists: a decrease in workforce participation -- the number of people working and looking for jobs. Though the unemployment rate fell, much of the decline came from workers leaving the labor force.

"As our labor force ages, older workers tend to participate in the work place less than do younger workers," Harris says. "But also, part of it is because the labor market is facing a lot of challenges and so some number of workers are giving up."