National News

Turns out, the sugar in regular soda helps slow down your body's absorption of the alcohol in cocktails. So switching to diet in your rum and cola will save you calories but may leave you spinning.

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

A confidential Justice Department white paper outlines legal theories the Obama administration has used to justify killing American citizens abroad.

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

A U.S. attorney said he was sticking by his earlier decision to drop the case against the cyclist, who admitted he doped during his Tour de France wins.

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

Researchers are using data from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media sites. There are, however, questions about the accuracy of the reports coming from Syria.

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

Computer maker Dell has announced it’s going private in a $24.4 billion deal that founder Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake Partners hope will make the company more agile and more profitable.

The leveraged buyout would be the biggest in five years and it has prompted speculation about other major changes at big tech companies. The financial news site Quartz is reporting that Hewlett-Packard's board of directors “is studying a break-up” of the Silicon Valley pioneer. (The report is based on quotes from people familiar with the matter.)

In an interview with Marketplace in November, HP CEO Meg Whitman pushed back against speculation that Hewlett-Packard would no longer be around as an independent company in five years, saying, "I would be very surprised if that was the case."

"This is one of the great brand names in technology. Tremendous goodwill. We have customers who want us to win. And the reason is they don't want to live in an IBM-only world, or an Oracle-only world, or a Lexmark-only world, or a Dell-only world and they want us to succeed."

Of course, spinning off parts of the business don't mean HP would cease to be an independent company.

Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget told the Marketplace Morning Report that in the Dell deal, shareholders will probably be happy with the 25 percent premium the company will pay to buy back Dell stock.

But “on the other hand, you’re probably kind of frustrated that if Michael Dell has some brilliant ideas for how to make Dell much more valuable, that he’s not just doing that with you as a shareholder,” says Blodget.

While a tough fight is almost certain in the House of Lords, the bill is expected to become law because it has the support of Prime Minister David Cameron.

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

There’s a parade of cute coming down the hallway -- a gaggle of first graders, walking single file, each one wearing a construction paper crown with a Penn State or University of Delaware logo.

The procession passes a classroom door decked out with the Seton Hall mascot. “Pirates!” the kids shout.

Today, every door at Oyler has been decorated to represent a college or university. The kids walk past the University of Georgia, Auburn and Cincinnati State. These 6- and 7-year-olds are still learning to read. So they practice.

“Start here, and go down,” teacher Michelle Reiring instructs them, pointing to a sign for the University of Missouri.

Then they come to another door, with letters cut out from magazines, like a ransom note. Seven-year-old Mark Tobin slowly sounds out the words.

“Did you know college graduates make almost twice as much money as people who don’t have a degree?” he manages.

“How cool is that?” Reiring says.

And that’s pretty much the point of this day -- to get kids from preschool to 12th grade talking and thinking about college. “When I came to Oyler, there was, like, this complete absence of college,” says Oyler’s principal Craig Hockenberry. “Nobody even knew what a college was.”

When Hockenberry took the job 12 years ago, Oyler only went through eighth grade. Without a high school in their neighborhood, most kids eventually dropped out. So Oyler added a high school, and Hockenberry set about building a college-going culture at the school -- almost from scratch.

Most Oyler parents never finished high school, let alone went to college, Hockenberry says. “It’s not a dinner table topic,” he says. “There’s a lot of absence of conversation with parents about that.”

Once a year, Oyler devotes a day to having that conversation. Teachers and staff wear college gear. There’s a recruiting fair in the gym. And every class spends an hour talking about college.

Teacher Joe Saylor shows his class of fifth graders the website for Hocking College, a small public school in Ohio. A recent Oyler graduate goes there.

“This is direct evidence that if you graduate high school from Oyler, you can go to college,” he tells them. “You can succeed.”

Saylor says that’s a message kids from Oyler need to hear long before sophomore or junior year. “You have to plant that seed early,” he says. “The sad truth is, not only are they not hearing it at home, they may be hearing the opposite at home: ‘You’re not going to go to college. You’re no better than me.’”

Saylor knows. He grew up a block away from the school. He also knows college isn’t for everyone. This year Oyler’s added trades into the mix, like plumbing and auto detailing.

At the recruiting fair in the gym, senior Richard Carter checks out an apprentice program in construction. He could start making around $15 an hour right out of school, while taking some classes.

“I wanted to actually do something hands on, where they pay me so I don’t have to pay them that much,” he says.

The real mission of this day is to encourage kids to set their sights beyond high school. Joe Saylor’s fifth graders seem to be getting the message. Their guest speaker, Chip Murdock arrives. He’s an admissions rep from Wilmington College.

“How many of you guys want to go to college some day?” he asks.

All of them raise their hands.

Throw together the Talking Heads, Standard & Poor’s, Attorney General Eric Holder and what do you get? A lawsuit, of course. Today Holder announced the Justice Department is suing S&P over its rosy ratings of dubious investments. Holder says those ratings were at the “very heart” of the financial crisis.

The Justice Department says S&P knew its ratings of investments made up of shaky mortgages were misleading. As proof, it points to a video of an analyst singing a song he wrote about the tanking housing market -- set to the Talking Heads song, “Burning Down the House.” The Justice Department wouldn’t share the video with us. So one of Marketplace's engineers, Bill Lancz, grabbed a mic and the doctored lyrics: "Housing market went softer/Cooling down/Strong market is now much weaker/Subprime is boi-ling o-ver/Bringing down the house.”

Could any ripple effects from this lawsuit reach your house? Bill Chambers says, possibly. He used to work at S&P and now teaches finance at Boston University. He says if S&P lost and went under, the other two major rating agencies could decide to get out of the business. Chambers says without them, you’d have fewer bond funds to choose from in your 401(k) plan, because fund managers would shy away from unrated bonds.

“I think there would be some fewer funds and the ones that existed wouldn’t have the same variety to choose from as well,” Chambers says.

David Wyss used to be S&P’s chief economist; he now teaches at Brown University. He says the cost of borrowing would go up if rating agencies weren’t around to give a borrower a stamp of approval. Banks would have to pay more to borrow the money they lend to consumers. And, Wyss says, that would trickle down to you and me.

“It’s going to be harder for folks to get a mortgage and it could even affect things like credit cards, car loans,” say Wyss.

Mike Tae is an investment advisor with Millstein and Co. He says consumers needing jumbo loans to buy a house would have to pay much higher interest rates.

He explains, “It would ultimately ultimately flow down to jumbo borrowers as well as normal, mom and pop consumers of mortgages as well.”

So, it might be worth paying attention to the S&P lawsuit. Even if you’re a Talking Heads fan.

Testing for prostate cancer won't get any less confusing anytime soon. But researchers say the much-maligned PSA screening test is worthwhile if it's used for the right men at the right time.

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

A lawsuit over congressional district lines in Florida produces emails showing coordination between lawmakers and Republican Party officials, which is prohibited by the state Constitution.

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

The Congressional Budget Office expects 1.4 percent growth this year, down from 2.3 percent in 2012. The nation's unemployment rate will likely stay near 8 percent this year.

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

The AFL-CIO is among the groups leading the charge for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. But it wasn't long ago that unions viewed illegal workers in the U.S. as a threat and fought against proposals that would allow them to become citizens.

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

Making a candy dispenser head that looks just like you is pretty cool in its own right. But some people are taking 3-D printers much further, using the new technology to spit out actual food, like chocolate — and maybe one day, raw meat.

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

The longer you’ve been out of a job, the harder it is to get one. That’s why New York’s City Council is trying to ban discrimination against the unemployed during hiring. Mayor Bloomberg opposes the effort, citing threat of lawsuits.

Still, people do make it out of long-term unemployment.

There are about 4.8 million long-term unemployed -- people out of work 27 weeks or longer. Jason Grote was one of them. He was laid off from a job teaching English at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2010, shortly before his son was born.

“It was extremely difficult,” he says. The family lived in Brooklyn then.

He says he spent a lot of time navigating New York's public assistance system, trying to get the baby health insurance. He and his wife, a freelancer, ended up paying their son’s medical costs out-of-pocket. He says they were lucky to have a healthy child.

Months passed as Grote looked for work. By 2011, more than a quarter of successful job searches lasted six months or longer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We talked about the possibility of bankruptcy, although the majority of my wife’s and my debt is student loan debt, so it wouldn’t eliminate that,” he says. “We had a lot of conversations about what we would do in case things really didn’t pan out. But at the same time, I also did a lot of scrambling around to figure out a new way to make it work.”

Grote says having a child pushed him to get serious about, if not a career switch, a career shift. The English teacher and playwright decided to try TV. He asked friends for advice. After a year of unemployment, he got a made-for-TV break writing for the musical drama "Smash."

“I felt just extraordinarily lucky. I felt just tremendous gratitude,” he says.

Today, Grote lives in California and he writes for "Mad Men." He knows many of the long-term unemployed don’t get a Hollywood ending. Or even one that includes supporting their families.

The 71-year-old singer died at his home in England. If you can play three chords, you can pay him some musical respect.

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

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said the incident could have "led to a dangerous situation in case of a misstep."

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

In the past, having a good credit score made you an attractive candidate for credit cards or loans. But did you know your credit score nowadays can also make you an attractive - or unappealing - date? Host Michel Martin finds out why a growing number of singles are asking for more than just a telephone number.

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

Many of the college students who have returned to campus for another semester will struggle to pass their classes and graduate. To find out how students can get on the path to success, host Michel Martin talks with Melvina Noel, author of How to Thrive in College.

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

Pop singer Rihanna recently announced she's back together with recording artist Chris Brown, after an abusive relationship and public breakup. She says he's changed, but many people say this shows just how complicated domestic abuse can be. Host Michel Martin finds out why victims reconcile and whether abusers can really change.

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

The national conversation about overhauling immigration often focuses on Latino immigrants. But what works for one ethnic group may not be ideal for all. Host Michel Martin finds out what Asian immigrants want most from immigration reform.

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