National News

One company says it has a solution to long delays between flights: tiny suites where you can sleep, watch TV or work without leaving the airport. Minute Suites is currently operating in Atlanta and Philadelphia and is headed next for Chicago O'Hare and Dallas-Forth Worth.

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

The United States and Europe have agreed to talk about a transatlantic free trade deal. It will be the biggest pact of its kind ever negotiated, attempting to liberalize more than $600 billion worth of imports and exports a year. Talks will begin before June, but it could take at least two years before any deal is done. Success is not guaranteed. There are certain cultural hurdles to overcome.

“This is going to be like two elephants trying to mate,” said one European analyst today. “More of a collision than a delicate intertwining.”

Simon Tilford, chief economist with the Centre for European Reform, identifies agriculture as the problem area. He claims the two sides will struggle to open their markets fully to each other’s farm produce.

“When they get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s possible that the negotiations will founder on some of the cultural differences between the EU and the U.S. over things such as genetically modified food,” says Tilford.

GM-food is banned in most of Europe. And there’s stiff resistance to American poultry that's been washed in chlorine and to hormone-treated beef.

On the other hand, U.S. farmers may not be entirely sympathetic to the social aims behind Europe’s vast system of farm subsidies.

“The Common Agricultural Policy was designed by the French, for the French and primarily for the French peasant farmer to keep an idyll of a way of life going -- and it’s suitably subsidized,” argues Justin Urquart Stewart of Seven Investment.

Urquart Stewart describes the long-running culture clash between U.S. and European farming as “bourbon meets Burgundy: they’ll never mix!"

Some find it heartening that an attempt is underway to sink some of these cultural differences. But Gillian Tett of the Financial Times is not reassured.

“It indicates just how desperate the American and European governments are to find something, anything that can reignite growth at a time when many of the other policy options are, frankly, running out of steam,” says Tett.

But even she admits that this is the world’s biggest trading relationship, and therefore worth nurturing.

Japanese men aren't known for expressing their feelings. But at least a few are trying to do better by taking part in a high-volume display of romance: the annual love-your-wife shout-out.

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

This final note today, in which we bring back our hit series from last fall, the Fiscal Cliff Time Machine.

Except now it's the State of The Union Time Machine. You remember the rules. See if you can tell which piece of tape was this year, and which one was last year.

Topic number one: climate change. Here you go. Was choice 1 from this year, or was it choice 2?

I know! Hard, right? Wait 'til you hear this next one on housing.

Can't tell, can you? I wonder if you can plagiarize your own speech?

Give us your best guess by answering in the comments below or tweeting us at @MarketplaceAPM.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, like deft politicians before him, has managed with humor and a morning television prop (a water bottle, of course) to spin an awkward visual gone viral into gold — or at least political pyrite.

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

Benedict made his first public appearance since he announced his resignation. The pope also delivered what is likely to be his final mass.

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

Latin America's largest economy is growing fast and has plans to put up dozens of dams in the coming years. Environmentalists and residents in some areas are opposed, but the projects are moving ahead rapidly.

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

"The Americans" is a new show on the FX Network. It's set in 1981 and revolves around two Russian sleeper agents sent to America years before. They have an arranged marriage, a couple of kids and live near the nation's capital. The characters are sinister, but not as sinister or as evil as how we usually remember Russian spies to be.

When show creator Joe Weisberg approached FX with the idea for the show, his pitch for this show was that the Russians were actually the good guys. He says, "they didn't even flinch." And that's why the show is here today.

Executive producer Joel Fields says one reason the show works is because you care about the characters. "You do care about them, and you care about their marriage," he says. "The show is really about the people and the human relationships in this intense moment in history."

In addition to the life of the characters, the show touches on the competing economic visions at the height of their competition.
"These two people came here, they moved in to a subdivision in the suburbs of Falls Church, Va., that to people that grew up the way that they did in the Soviet Union -- which was essentially a very poor country -- it would be heaven," says Weisberg. "It's something almost unthinkable to live like this, which to an average American would be a fairly ordinary way to live."

He adds, "how the economics of it affect people on a personal level, I think is a big part of the story we're telling."

"The Americans" airs on Wednesdays on FX.

The ACLU argues the portrait, hanging inside a Jackson, Ohio, middle school violates the Establishment Clause. The school says the portrait is not government speech, but protected speech by the students.

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

In last night's State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama laid out his plans to keep the state of the union strong. He also said, that "our work must begin by making some basic decisions about our budget, decisions that will have a huge impact on the strength of our recovery."

New York Times Washington Bureau Chief David Leonhardt has a new e-book out about that very thing, it’s called "Here’s the Deal" -- and it’s about the decisions and choices, some of them tough, that we have to make with respect to our debt and national deficit.

He says in part that our actions make it so that "we are pro deficit. We say we're not, we say the deficit is a terrible thing but then you come back to us and you ask us, are we willing to pay higher taxes? No. Are we willing to accept fewer Medicare and Social Security benefits? No. Do we want to make big cuts to the military? Mostly no. And that's really the deficit."

He says the answer to reducing the deficit and getting what we want is economic growth. And the federal government has to jump in and do things that the private sector won't do. It should be responsible for what amounts to basic research and innovation: "The Internet, radar, penicillin, the jet engine, radio all these things started as a government program. And they started because this really early stage stuff isn't profitable and you need someone other than the private sector to do it."

Leonhardt believes that despite the political divide in this country, we have the capability to get things right. He believes that America comes into the 21st century economy with more advantages than any other country.

President Obama is urging Congress to boost the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. But other workers who make more than the minimum, currently at $7.25 an hour, could see their pay go up too as employers adjust their pay scales.

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

Images of holey foods, like Swiss cheese, aerated chocolate and lotus pods, are freaking out people on the Internet. Urban Dictionary has even coined a term for it: trypophobia. These photographs may make your skin crawl and stomach churn, but here's why you shouldn't panic.

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

Quick, when I say Intel, what comes to mind? The stuff inside your PC, right? The chips that make it run. Well, Intel has decided to get into something a little more visible: Internet TV. And you won’t be the only one watching it, the TV will be watching you.

Intel says it’s making a TV set top box that’ll deliver Internet TV and will have a built-in camera that’ll recognize you. It’s part of a growing trend on the part of tech companies, which are trying to make gadgets that can get to know you, said Michele Reitz, an analyst at Gartner.

“It really is just about personalization, having the ability to recognize you and then give you options that’ll recognize you,” Reitz said. “So for instance, if it's your 6-year-old kid,” the TV might say, ‘Hey Junior, here’s some cartoons you can watch.'"

But if Reitz walked into the room, it’ll show her something more age-appropriate.

Privacy, of course, is going to be an issue. But the Internet TV space is getting crowded. And tech giants -- from Google to Apple and Samsung -- need to find a way to differentiate themselves.

Computer chips have been Intel’s bread and butter, says Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at Sterne Agee. But that market is slowing down and Intel needs to pivot toward smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

“In your TV, there is mobile connectivity. In your cars, there’s mobile connectivity,” said Rakesh. “It’s always an opportunity for somebody like Intel to step in.”

Brian Steinberg, an analyst with Tech Savvy, says the living room is the one frontier that no tech company’s captured. And if Intel can capture the TV, it’ll get closer to capturing all the devices -- your phone, your tablet -- that’ll talk to it, he said.  

“There’s really one single innovation that’s really revolutionalized the way that the iPhone did the smartphone,” said Steinberg.

President Obama was barely into his post-State of the Union road trip today when House Speaker John Boehner poured cold water all over one of the key economic items in the speech. The president proposed raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour. Boehner said it would hurt small business and kill jobs.

Economists disagree about whether raising the minimum wage helps by putting more money in the hands of low-wage workers or hurts by encouraging employers to eliminate jobs. A raise from to $9 an hour, from $7.25 an hour, would add about $3,600 to a minimum wage earner's annual income -- and a business's payroll.

Many minimum-wage workers are employed in the restaurant business, although their wages are often supplemented by tips. At the Marmalade Café in El Segundo, Calif., employees like 32-year-old food runner Alejandro Serbin earn California's $8 minimum wage, plus about $35 a day in shared tips.

Serbin, an immigrant from Mexico City, says a dollar raise would help. "It's so much different for me. Because I have a family I have to support. The rent is high. I have to pay bills, insurance."

Serbin and his wife, who works as a cook, have a 3-year-old and pay about $1,000 a month in rent, not unusual for Los Angeles. He's hunting for a second job and says most of the minimum-wage workers he knows have two or even three jobs.

Selwyn Yosslowitz is one of the Marmalade Café's founders. The restaurant employs about 600 people in nine locations in southern California. Yosslowitz says a dollar increase in the federal minimum wage would likely force him to raise prices or cut labor costs.

"It wouldn't be layoffs," Yosslowitz says. "But maybe you make the hours more efficient. There's lots of people who come in at 9 o'clock right now. I would make sure they come in at 9:30 and cut off half an hour across the board to be able to afford the increase."

Serbin and a co-worker from Peru say their hours are sometimes cut when business is really slow and management sends them home early.

If Congress raises the minimum wage, that ultimately may help boost all the wages at a place like the Marmalade Café, including the better-paid cooks in the kitchen.

A teacher put herself between the gunman and a group of students. Then the deputy helped negotiate a peaceful end to the dangerous situation.

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

Until now, a new SARS-like virus showed little signs of being contagious. Only 10 cases have been reported, and all appeared to originate in the Middle East. Health officials now say a British resident likely caught the virus from a family member in the U.K., indicating that the virus can spread between people.

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

Scientists who the agency deferred to when it delayed action related to the cancer risks of one chemical had previously worked on behalf of a company that used the chemical. But the EPA didn't know of the possible conflict of interest.

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

The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the 50 most generous donors from 2012 is younger than ever.  The list, released this week, shows there are more donors -- individuals or couples -- under 40 among its ranks. Of the five biggest donors on the list, three are under 40. It's the first time that has happened. And taken together, these under-40 donors account for more than 15 percent of the total amount the Philanthropy's 50 donors contributed in 2012. 

Some bad news? The median amount given away by the Philantropy's 50 donors for 2012 was $49.6 million, compared to a median of $61 million in 2011, and a pre-recession high of $74.7 million. (The chronicle first began tracking this data in 2000.)

Which donors on the list are people keeping an eye on? Along with youth, a lot of the donors are coming from Silicon Valley and high-tech. Marketplace compiled a list of five of the younger, more surprising philanthropists:

1. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (No. 2 overall)

The Facebook co-founder and his wife, a pediatrician, gave 18 million shares of their Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to fund education programs and health awareness. This isn’t the first time the social network guru and his wife have supported education. In 2010, they gave $100 million to support public schools in New Jersey.

2. John and Laura Arnold (No. 3 overall)

The hedge fund founder and his wife (a former lawyer and businesswoman) established the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in 2008 to help nonprofits working to improve pension systems and public education. So far the couple has put over $900 million into this fund. The couple has also supported charter schools in New Orleans and obesity research. In 2012, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation founded the Giving Library, an online tool to educate philanthropists on different charities.

3. Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki (No. 5 overall)

The Google co-founder and his wife spent 2012 donating money to the Micheal J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. They also supported the Brian Wojcicki Foundation, which donated to Ashoka, the Human Rights Foundation and the Tipping Point Community, an organization geared toward eliminating poverty in Northern California.

4. Joshua Rechnitz (No. 20 overall)

Amount donated in 2012: $57 million. The heir to the Heilbrunn fortune (he's the grandson of Robert H. Heilbrunn, who invested in undervalued companies beginning during the Depression) spent 2012 donating his time and money to a nonprofit he created to fund an indoor sports complex. He also put close to $7 million into the Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation, a nonprofit he created to turn an old fire station into a studio for artists.

5. Jon Stryker (No. 39 overall)

The heir to the Stryker Corporation (a firm that develops and produces medical supplies) fortune donated over $30 million in 2012. All of the money went towards to the Arcus Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 2000 to fight discrimination against the LGBT community. Last year the foundation awarded 116 grants of more than $17 million.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the 50 most generous donors from 2012 is younger than ever.  The list, released this week, shows there are more donors -- individuals or couples -- under 40 among its ranks. Of the five biggest donors on the list, three are under 40. It's the first time that has happened. And taken together, these under-40 donors account for more than 15 percent of the total amount the Philanthropy's 50 donors contributed in 2012. 

Some bad news? The median amount given away by the Philantropy's 50 donors for 2012 was $49.6 million, compared to a median of $61 million in 2011, and a pre-recession high of $74.7 million. (The chronicle first began tracking this data in 2000.)

Which donors on the list are people keeping an eye on? Along with youth, a lot of the donors are coming from Silicon Valley and high-tech. Marketplace compiled a list of five of the younger, more surprising philanthropists:

1. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (No. 2 overall)

The Facebook co-founder and his wife, a pediatrician, gave 18 million shares of their Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to fund education programs and health awareness. This isn’t the first time the social network guru and his wife have supported education. In 2010, they gave $100 million to support public schools in New Jersey.

2. John and Laura Arnold (No. 3 overall)

The hedge fund founder and his wife (a former lawyer and businesswoman) established the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in 2008 to help nonprofits working to improve pension systems and public education. So far the couple has put over $900 million into this fund. The couple has also supported charter schools in New Orleans and obesity research. In 2012, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation founded the Giving Library, an online tool to educate philanthropists on different charities.

3. Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki (No. 5 overall)

The Google co-founder and his wife spent 2012 donating money to the Micheal J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. They also supported the Brian Wojcicki Foundation, which donated to Ashoka, the Human Rights Foundation and the Tipping Point Community, an organization geared toward eliminating poverty in Northern California.

4. Joshua Rechnitz (No. 20 overall)

Amount donated in 2012: $57 million. The heir to the Heilbrunn fortune (he's the grandson of Robert H. Heilbrunn, who invested in undervalued companies beginning during the Depression) spent 2012 donating his time and money to a nonprofit he created to fund an indoor sports complex. He also put close to $7 million into the Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation, a nonprofit he created to turn an old fire station into a studio for artists.

5. Jon Stryker (No. 39 overall)

The heir to the Stryker Corporation (a firm that develops and produces medical supplies) fortune donated over $30 million in 2012. All of the money went towards to the Arcus Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 2000 to fight discrimination against the LGBT community. Last year the foundation awarded 116 grants of more than $17 million.

With the Carnival cruise ship Triumph and its 3,143 passengers now being towed to Mobile, Ala., more reports are emerging from passengers on the ship that lost engine power early Sunday. They describe a tent city on the upper deck and continuing problems with the sewage system.

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