National / International News

The French parliament approves a bill legalising same-sex marriage and adoption, after a divisive public debate.

Celebrations of St. George's Day in England and around the world

Footage from privately owned surveillance cameras along the Boston Marathon route gave the FBI early clues about the bombing suspects. But the proliferation of cameras in America's big cities raises some tricky questions about the balance between security and privacy.

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Members of the Cuban opposition group Ladies in White collect the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in Brussels.

The first minister urges parents to make sure their children have both doses of the MMR vaccine, as the Swansea measles epidemic total rises to 886 cases.

Lord Justice Leveson dismisses suggestions an alleged relationship between two barristers involved in his inquiry had damaged its integrity.

The college said it was breaking with more than a century of tradition to protect its long-term viability. Cooper Union will begin to charge its undergraduate students half of the going rate in the fall of 2014.

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A chain of cafe bars employing 200 which was founded in north Wales 21 years ago and spread around the UK is placed into administration.

Shakespeare may not seem a suitable subject for a business show, but think again. A group of literary researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales, say that Shakespeare was a businessman to his fingertips, strongly motivated by money and not as lofty or magnanimous in his financial dealings as you’d expect.

“This was a man who lent money and pursued people through the courts when they did not repay on time,” says Jayne Archer, a lecturer in medieval and Renaissance literature at Aberystwith. “He also took out loans from other individuals and did not repay them.”

Clearly the Bard did not obey Polonius’ injunction in "Hamlet": “Neither a lender nor a borrower be.”

And he wasn’t always full of “the milk of human kindness” either. Jayne Archer and her colleagues say that the so-called Swan of Avon engaged in some unscrupulous commodity dealing, stockpiling grain at  a time of near famine in England.

“He buys an illegal quantity of grain and of barley to sell at a later date at inflated prices, probably in the late winter, early spring when people are at their most desperate for food," says Jayne.

Grain hoarder, money lender and -- the historical record shows -- a tax evader, too. This doesn’t fit with the popular image of Shakespeare as a wise and generous chronicler of the human heart.

Indeed, these revelations make the playwright sound both ruthless and sleazy.

But Jayne Archer’s co-researcher, Prof. Richard Marggraf Turley, says we should not judge Shakespeare too harshly. We should bear in mind that he was struggling to survive and prosper in a dog-eat-dog environment. He was driven by a powerful desire to rescue and protect his family’s fortunes after his father’s business failed. And we should dismiss the romantic notion about what motivates a towering talent like Shakespeare.

“This is the idea that great artists -- geniuses -- are solely driven to write for art’s sake. That is not a view of Shakespeare that his contemporaries would have recognized,” says Marggraf Turley.

Writing plays, running a theatre, buying land, and dealing in grain...Shakespeare was -- first and foremost -- in it for the money.

A millionaire businessman who sold fake bomb detectors around the world, including Iraq, knowing they did not work, is convicted of fraud.

Apples, oranges and ... squirrel? A new interactive map pinpoints more than a half-million locations around the world open to foraging for typical and not-so-typical free foods.

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Every year, consumers buy more stuff online, and that means big business for the companies that ship all those packages.

One of the world’s largest carriers, FedEx, is launching a new service that lets people customize when and where they get their deliveries.

It’s not exactly an original idea... FedEx’s biggest rival, UPS, rolled out its “My Choice” service more than a year and a half ago, and it’s approaching three million users. Customers can pay a $5 fee to reroute packages, or $40 a year for premium perks like a two-hour delivery window. Now FedEx is launching a similar service called Delivery Manager.

The companies charge similar fees for the same options. But, spokeswoman Carla Boyd says, there’s no subscription cost for the Fedex service.

“We do not lock users of service into premium price membership to access the options they want,” she explains. Boyd says FedEx is responding to market research on the growth of online sales, which increased 28 percent last year over the year before, according to the National Retail Federation.

“E-commerce sales are what’s driving the increase in retail sales across the industry,” says Vicki Cantrell, executive director of the federation's digital division Shop.org.

The big parcel carriers are looking for ways to respond.

“UPS is clearly ahead,” says shipping industry consultant Satish Jindel. He says he thinks the name "UPS My Choice" is more consumer friendly than "FedEx Delivery Manager."

“It’s amazing that FedEx is such a marketing-oriented company, that they would have came up with a very boring and technical name for a service that’s meant for a consumer, not a transportation manager,” he says.   

Jindel says both companies face the same challenge: as more retailers offer free shipping, consumers might not want to pay for shipping perks.

The phrase “Boston Strong” became part of the vernacular last week, after the attack on the Boston Marathon.

It was printed on posters. It was on “The Green Monster” – the left field wall at Fenway Park. It also appeared on t-shirts. Now, a Massachusetts resident and an apparel company that’s based there argue they should be able to register “Boston Strong” as a trademark. 

Dale Cendali, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School, says a trademark can be virtually anything.

“The NBC chimes, a particular color green, or even the sound of a Harley Davidson engine,” she says. “All those kinds of things could be trademarked.”

Cendali says that, to register a trademark, you have to show that it’s being used for commercial purposes – that phrase, that sound, that object has to identify the company that’s behind it. Then, there’s the issue of “fair use.” Cendali says she finds it “very hard to believe” that people could be prevented from using a phrase like “Boston Strong.”

“We see this all the time,” Jennifer Taylor says. She is a partner at Morrison & Foerster. “And it happens for celebratory events, and it also happens in times of tragedy, like this.”

In the late ’80s, Pat Riley won the right to license the phrase “three-peat.” On Sept. 11, Todd Beamer, a passenger on United Flight 93, said, “Let’s roll.” That’s a phrase the Todd M. Beamer Foundation now has rights to.

Born Into It is one of the parties trying to register “Boston Strong.” In a statement, the company claims it has no intention of policing the trademark. It wants to make sure others don’t profit from it.

Boston University Law Professor Stacey Dogan says that makes it unlikely Born Into It’s application will be successful.

“Someone who says, I want to register this mark so that other people can’t claim rights to it, but I am going to allow others to use it freely, is basically conceding that the term has no trademark significance,” she says.

As the government grapples with what could go on t-shirts, Nike has had to grapple with what is already on some.

The apparel maker pulled a shirt it designed for Yankees fans months ago. It read, “Boston Massacre,” alluding to an attack by British soldiers in 1770, and a couple of series with the Sox.

That’s a phrase that means something different to many people today.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of the firm Morrison & Foerster. The text has been corrected.

The suspects in the marathon bombings are also suspected of killing a MIT police officer and carjacking an SUV. The driver of that vehicle says they told him he wouldn't be hurt. He did not believe that.

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Liverpool striker Luis Suarez accepts a charge of violent conduct by the FA for biting Branislav Ivanovic.

A petty criminal addicted to chewing the stimulant plant khat is jailed for life after nearly decapitating a former friend.

A new analysis of census data shows that net household worth between 2009 and 2011 was up significantly for the top 7 percent.

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But is government planning cut to schools budget?

Silicon Valley is known as the cradle of innovation, right? And you could make the case that Apple, Google and Facebook -- all in Silicon Valley –-- are some of the sexiest companies in business right now.

But here’’s the thing, when you drive around Silicon Valley its pretty boring --– just freeways and office parks.

Apple, Google and Facebook are aiming to change that. The tech companies are breaking ground on new corporate headquarters that promise to be architectural landmarks.

Apple's "mothership"

Apple is building a gigantic, circular building made out of glass with room for 12,000 people.

“Some people have described it as the mothership that has landed. A place for some kind of harmonic convergence. Or as an iPod click wheel,” said Brian Schermer, a professor of architecture at the University of Wisconsin.

And like Apple’s most iconic products, the building will be a wonder of technology and design. It’ll generate its own electricity, with more than 700,000-square feet of solar panels. The center of the circle, which is a about a mile across, will be filled with Apple orchards and trails.

And the building itself will be sheathed in gigantic 40-foot-high panels of curved glass -- something that’s never been tried before.

“I tend to think of the building as a philosophy and approach to the creation of objects and that’s seamless, timeless beautiful,” Schermer said.

The late Steve Jobs, with his usual modesty, presented plans for Apple’s new headquarters to the Cupertino City Council in 2011.

“I think we do have a shot of building the best office building in the world. I really do think architecture students will come here to see this,” Jobs said.

The new Apple headquarters will sit on the hallowed ground of Hewlett-Packard's former headquarters -- the company that started it all. But it couldn’t be a bigger break from Silicon Valley’s architectural tradition.

For all the glamour associated with tech these days, the architecture in Silicon Valley can be summed up in two words: office parks, said Louise Mozingo is a professor at UC Berkeley and the author of "Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes."

“They’re kinda like the building and landscape version of khakis and polo shirts,” she said.

Not very sexy, but adaptable.

“Your company booms, you move outward. Your company shrinks, new innovators come in and take over,” Mozingo said.

With its new headquarters, Apple is changing that paradigm.

“This kind of move on the part of a corporation represents a company that’s matured and has an interest in being sort of seen as an institution,” Mozingo said.

"Bay View" (aka a whimsical office park for Google)

About 10 miles north in Mountain View, Google is putting forward a different vision with its new headquarters called “Bay View.” If Apple is about an eco-system, where the iPod, iPhone, iPad feed into each other in an endless circle, Google’s business is unpredictable.

“Our business is constantly changing,” said Anthony Ravitz, who works on Google’s real estate and workplace services team.

While Google makes most of its money off search, it’s also into smartphones, driverless cars, electronic wallets -- and it’s set to release Google Glass, a wearable computer that sits on your face like glasses.

“In 50 years, what will our business look like and how can we evolve the space over time?” Ravitz said.

The answer is “Bay View,” which is made up of about a dozen buildings that look very much like… an “office park.” The “J”-shaped buildings fit together around a series of outdoor courtyards and the campus sits right on the southern shores of the San Francisco Bay. Google is restoring the wetlands around it and creating a natural habitat for its own workers. There will be paths along the water for jogging and bike riding and places for Googlers to practice yoga or ride scooters on the rooftop gardens.

“We definitely want this campus to be a reflection of our culture and whimsy is a part of that,” Ravitz said.

Google believes innovation can’t be planned, but it can be fostered by creating spaces where employees can run into each other and share ideas. And the San Francisco Bay is rarely out of view.

“There’s a lot of data out there showing that access to views impacts us physiologically,” Ravitz said.

Louise Mozingo, the UC Berkeley professor, says that Google’s new headquarters is iconic in its own way. It’s not about the building but the idea that you can actually create spaces that lead to innovation.

“Each one of these reflect a very different kind of corporate persona,” she said.

Mozingo says Apple and Google could cement Silicon Valley’s reputation as ground zero for technological and architectural innovation.

We’ll know in a few years if the tour buses start rolling by.

It quickly became clear that the "news" was not true. There had been no explosions at the White House and President Obama was fine. But a message on the wire service's Twitter account rattled investors.

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