Marketplace - American Public Media

A new study shows allowing unauthorized immigrants in Arizona to become legal citizens would improve their pay and working conditions.

The Morrison Institute Latino Public Policy Center at Arizona State University released the study Wednesday. It says the state's estimated 190,000 unauthorized workers would see a pay increase of 8 to 11 percent if they were granted citizenship. 

"They do better because they can compete for jobs that are available only to U.S. citizens. But more than that, becoming a citizen shows your commitment to America," says author Mike Slaven. 

Slaven says employers will invest in those committed workers. According to the study, a path to citizenship could mean up to $246 million a year in extra income for Arizona's low-wage immigrant workforce. This trend applies to the whole country, because "every state has people who fall into that category," Slaven says. 

Still, citizenship may not be a magic tonic. The UCLA Labor Center's Victor Narro points to 1986 — when a wave of three-million people were granted amnesty. He says that law had something very important missing from it. It did not guard against wage theft and workplace discrimination.

"We need to make sure that no matter what comes out of Congress, there has to be a commitment of resources to make sure worker protection laws are going to be enforced," Narro says.

Otherwise, he adds wages will stay low.

Springtime in Central China’s Hubei province is marked with bright yellow terraced fields of rapeseed blossoms -- life abounds. But inside a small home in the tiny village of Niuchong, death is near. 42-year-old Zhang Runxiang is curled up in the fetal position on her bed inside a bare concrete room, insulated from the sound of birds singing to each other outside. She’s suffering through the late stages of uterine cancer. Her mother sits beside her, caressing her pale white hand, sobbing. Zhang’s husband Zhou Yuansheng walks out of the room, shaking his head.

“My wife was diagnosed with cancer three years ago after they started digging underneath our home,” recalls Zhou. “She got it from the drinking water. It changed color and it developed a thick layer of sediment from all the mining.”

Economy at the expense of the environment

Like many other villagers here who have lost loved ones to cancer in recent years, Zhou blames his wife’s condition on Dasheng Chemical, the village’s phosphate mining operation and fertilizer factory that began operations nearly a decade ago.

“Now many people here have cancer,” says Zhou, shaking his head, “all kinds of cancer.”

Stories like this have become more common as China begins to come to terms with three decades of historic economic growth that has left much of the nation’s countryside –the source of China’s massive food supply -- contaminated with toxic chemicals. It’s also left Chinese people suffering from an 80 percent increase in cancer rates from 30 years ago, at the start of the country’s economic reforms.

“Our existing economic growth model –the relentless pursuit of GDP growth- is built on sacrificing the environment,” says Zeng Xiangbin, a Wuhan-based environmental lawyer. “There is simply no pollution site that I visit where I don’t feel heartbroken.”

Zeng has made a career out of defending farmers who live in China’s so-called “cancer villages” against local industry and government officials. On this day, he’s in Niuchong village to assess the damage from Dasheng Chemical’s mining and fertilizer production operation. A one thousand foot-high pile of ash looms above a river valley, blending in with the mountains that surround the village. Each day, Dasheng Chemical’s dump trucks unload more ash onto the hill, dumping piles of phosphogypsum, an industrial byproduct of phosphate fertilizer that contains cancer-causing chemicals like arsenic, chromium-6, and cadmium. Factories have dumped 300 million tons of phosphogypsum in villages like Niuchong all over the country. China produces nearly half of the world’s phosphate fertilizer, exporting nearly a fifth of it to other countries.

In 2009, Chinese journalist Deng Fei published a map highlighting a number of China's 'cancer villages.' Stella Xie translated this version of the map.

View China's Cancer Vilages in a larger map

It takes a village

Niuchong Villager Yao Chengying, a straight-talking pig farmer in her 50s, says the runoff from the mountain of phosphogypsum combined with the emissions from Dasheng’s fertilizer factory have poisoned the village’s crops. “All the crops just died,” says Yao. “The watermelons were inedible. Even the pigs wouldn’t eat them.”

Yao’s piglets were born with deformed bodies as her other pigs slowly died off. She tried to fall back on her rice crop, but as the pollution became worse, more regional purchasers avoided the region, labelling rice from Niuchong village as poisonous. And that’s when farmers in Niuchong realized the battle for safer food in China started with them.

“Ever since 2010, we’ve assembled a group of farmers to protest at the Dasheng factory gates on a weekly basis,” says Yao. Farmers have even made several trips to Beijing to petition to the central government authorities. Facing pressure from the provincial government, Dasheng chemical reimbursed the first two farming families to complain about lost livestock and crops. And then more farmers protested.

“The local government quickly became scared,” says Yao, “so police arrested the two residents -- my husband included -- who’ve managed to get reimbursed by the company as a warning to the other farmers who were protesting.”

Yao’s husband Wei Kaizu and villager Yu Dinghai were arrested by police six months ago, charged with blackmailing Dasheng Chemical. Yao says the two men were framed by the local government, which owns a stake in Dasheng Chemical and was doing the company a favor.

Neither Dasheng Chemical nor officials from the city of Zhongxiang, which carried out the arrest, agreed to an interview with Marketplace. The trial of the two men is was originally scheduled for April 9th. It’s been postponsed until the end of April.

Village chief: "I'm ashamed."

Meanwhile, the village chief of Niuchong has been busy mediating the near-constant struggle between his villagers, Dasheng Chemical, and government officials in Zhongxiang, the city that has jurisdiction over the village.

“As the head of the village, I’m ashamed that I can’t do more to help get villagers access to cleaner water,” says Li Jun, “They have every right to complain about it. I’ve appealed many times to my superiors in the city government, but since it’s going to cost a lot to install new water lines here, they’ve put the village on a waiting list.”

In the past year, city officials have sent Li to Beijing multiple times to intercept local villagers who made it to Beijing to file official complaints against local officials.

“My villagers made it to Beijing three times last year,” recalls Li, “I was finally removed from my previous party secretary role because of my failure to rein them in.”

But Li’s got other things to worry about. His father is one of dozens in Niuchong village who are dying of cancer.

At the home of Zhou Yuansheng, family from throughout the region crowd around the bed of his wife, who is in her final days of battling cancer. His 20 year-old son has just arrived from Southern China.

“Before she became sick, we made enough money to ensure that our son would finish high school and go onto university,” says Zhou. “But we’ve spent so much on her chemotherapy treatment, my son had to drop out of high school to earn more money at a factory.”

Two days later, Zhou’s wife Zhang Runxiang died at the age of 42, the latest villager in Niuchong to succumb to cancer.

Correction: Due to a translation error, the original article misstated the type of cancer Zhang Runxiang suffered from. She died from uterine cancer. The text has been corrected.

The hill of chemical waste beside Farmer Wu Shuliang’s rice paddy began to take shape in the 1990s.

“It was yellow and green and it smelled terrible," says Wu, standing on the edge of his rice paddy in rural Yunnan, in China's southwest. The waste was from a factory next door, a byproduct from making chemicals used for tanning leather.

Each day for 20 years, workers dumped more of it, making the hill bigger and bigger. Last year, an estimated 300 million pounds of chemical sludge towered over Wu’s land and the river below.

"Whenever it rained, our rice paddy and the river would suddenly turn bright yellow," Wu says. "Much of my rice died. It killed everything in its path."

Around the time the hill began to form, Wu and his wife had two sons. The two boys grew up bathing in the river that turned yellow when it rained, they breathed the dust that blew off of the hill on windy days, and the oldest son, Wu Wenyong, spent much of his childhood working the rice paddies in the hill’s shadow.

When he was 14, Wu Wenyong began having health problems. He couldn’t stop coughing, he had difficulty breathing, and his chest hurt.

"We heard on the local news that this hill might be harmful to our health, so we took our son to the hospital and asked the doctor whether it had anything to do with his health problems," remembers Wu's mother Qi Xianying. "The doctor didn’t say anything. He just shook his head."

This was in 2011.

At the time, the environmental NGO Greenpeace had traveled to Wu’s village here in rural Yunnan province to test the water in the rice paddies and wells surrounding the hill. The samples were high in Chromium-6, a known carcinogen. One water sample from Wu’s land showed the level of Chromium-6 was 240 times higher than what China and the U.S. allows in their drinking water.

“I would say that’s startlingly high," says U.C. Davis researcher Peter Green, who studies chromium’s impact on water. “Although some people can detoxify some amount of it, the amounts mentioned are very, very high and to me it’s not plausible that that could be detoxified by anyone.”

Wu Wenyong was in eighth grade when he was diagnosed with two types of cancer: leukemia and thymoma.

The doctor handed over the diagnosis report to the 14-year-old. Neither his father nor his mother can read.

“We didn’t understand what was going on, but as my son read the diagnosis, he seemed to understand how severe his cancer was," says Qi Xianying through tears. "I felt so guilty and so sad, but he had the strength to smile. He told me ‘Mom, don’t cry. I won’t be around to help farm the land anymore, but dad will help you. It’ll be all right.’”

Qi and her husband borrowed thousands of dollars from family and sold all of their cattle and sheep — everything they owned — to pay for Wu’s chemotherapy.

"It didn’t work. He would wake up with foam all over his mouth and he couldn’t settle down," says Qi, sobbing. "He was in so much pain. He finally asked me to open the window. He said ‘Just let me jump, mom.’”

On Feb. 16, 2012, Wu Wenyong died in his hospital bed. He was 15.

“There are a lot of sad stories of pollution victims all over China," says Ma Tianjie, who works for Greenpeace China.

In a recent trip to Xinglong, the village where the Wu family lives, Ma found at least 30 other villagers among 500 who had been diagnosed with cancer. Even the government has started referring to these places as cancer villages.

In 2009, Chinese journalist Deng Fei published a map highlighting a number of China's 'cancer villages.' Stella Xie translated this version of the map.

View China's Cancer Vilages in a larger map

Significant implications

Officials are worried, because villages like these supply China with its food.

"I think the implications are significant," Ma says. "A lot of these heavy metals will be accumulated in food crops grown near the pollution site."

Five years ago, a soil survey taken from rice in three of China’s largest agricultural provinces shocked Chinese consumers.

Sixty percent of the rice samples showed excessive amounts of cadmium, a heavy metal that causes bone and kidney damage. At the time, Chinese scientists openly discussed the widespread contamination of China’s food supply. But these days, they’re not talking. Several scientists declined interviews with Marketplace. That’s because late last year, China’s communist party declared national soil surveys ‘state secrets.’

Revealing China’s ‘state secrets’ can send you to prison.

American scientist Peter Green says in the case of Chromium-6, which polluted the soil in Xinglong Village, it’s undoubtedly been absorbed by the rice grown there.

"Rice, like all plants, takes up water from its roots," Green says,  "and Chromium-6 — hexavalent chromium — is very soluble in water, and will get into the plants. And that’s unfortunate, because it can get into the food chain and be eaten by humans or perhaps other animals.”

Back in Xinglong village, the 300-million-pound hill of Chromium-6 waste is now gone. The company that created it, LuLiang Peace Technology, removed the waste a few months ago. But farmer Wu Shuliang says his well water is still contaminated. I ask him to show me.

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Wu grabs a 10-foot long stick and dips it down into the well.

When he pulls it up, the end of the stick is covered with a thick, mustard-yellow chemical sludge.

Marketplace contacted LuLiang Peace Technology,  and the factory manager, Mr. Qian, spoke to us. After we told him we were a news organization, he hung up and didn’t answer any more calls. The local government also ignored Marketplace’s repeated requests for interviews.

Farmers Qi Xianyi and Wu Shuliang still grow rice in the yellow contaminated water they pump from their well. Their family doesn’t dare eat it.

Instead, they sell it to others.

"We don’t have a choice," says Qi. "We lost all our money paying the medical bills for our son. Now he’s dead, and we’re broke. We know the rice is dangerous. We sell it to vendors from other provinces in China who travel here to purchase it."

And those vendors sell this contaminated rice throughout China. The situation seems hopeless, but lately there have been encouraging developments.

A week ago, a top official of China’s Ministry of the Environment said the soil survey currently deemed ‘a state secret’ will soon be released to the public.

A local judge has also agreed to review the case of Luliang Peace Technology’s contamination of Xinglong Village. If the judge rules against the factory, millions of dollars would be set aside for villagers like the Wu family who have lost loved ones.
But Qi says the ruling may come too late for her family. Her father-in-law is dying. And her 12-year-old son has recently developed a chronic cough that sounds like his brother's before he got cancer.

The problem is, Qi says, her family has so much debt from treating her first son’s cancer that now they can’t afford to bring their remaining son to the doctor for help.

The Boston bombings have raised fears about the world’s biggest marathon, which takes place in London next Sunday.

“It makes you do a double-take on the whole thing. And I just pray that everybody will be safe,” says Hannah Carter, one of the 36,000 runners scheduled to take part.

The British government insists that the runners and the half a million spectators expected to line the route will all be totally safe -- thanks to the U.K.’s expertise in security. Those skills were honed fighting IRA terrorism for more than 30 years in Northern Ireland. They were further refined  by the experience of staging the Olympics in London last year. The U.K. spent a billion dollars on security at the Games, which has also left it well equipped technically.

"The technology, things like CCTV cameras and the software that can automatically recognize odd behavior in crowds, is still state of the art,” says Jennifer Cole, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

London has an estimated 400,000 closed circuit television cameras, more than any other major city.

London is already bristling with security personnel; thousands of soldiers and police officers will be officiating tomorrow at Margaret Thatcher’s ceremonial $13 million funeral. Their security operation could be extended -- at no great extra cost -- to cover the marathon.

“There are personnel around and processes in place that are going to be very easy to just carry on over into the weekend,” says Cole.

Another analyst, Dr. Peter Lehr -- a terrorism studies lecturer at St. Andrews University in Scotland -- says there is a much safer and cheaper way to stage the London Marathon. You have the competitors running round and round inside Wembley stadium, behind locked doors, and without any spectators.

But, he says, the only winner would be terrorism.

Most days, Laura Perille shows up to the office, planning on a full day of fund raising, grant reviews and phone calls.

Perille is the executive director of Edvestors, a small non-profit that works to bring private investment to urban public schools.

But today isn't one of those days. Today is the day after.

The day after two bombs went off in Boston, just a few blocks from EdVestors offices in the heart of Back Bay. The day after three people were killed and more than a hundred injured. Today, business is a lot less about business and a lot more about family.

"The number one thing people are looking for is information and reassurance and community," Perille said. "In moments of great tragedy and damage, that's what people look for. And so in our very small way, that's what we were doing."

So, today, coffee and pastry greeted workers at EdVestors as they came into the office.

And the usual meetings, calls and tasks were pushed to the side.

People in and around the city are rattled. One of yesterday's victims – 8-year-old Martin Richard — attended Neighborhood House Charter School, a school Edvestors works with.

Richard's mother and 6-year-old sister were seriously injured in the blasts.

Perille knows minds will wander, and they must.

"It's a day to take time to reflect. It doesn't have to be about getting the job done," she says.

Yesterday after the bombs went off, Perille immediately began tracking her people down, including Rachael Alldian. She's the youngest and newest staff member. She was running the marathon and had yet to cross the finish line.

"As soon as I saw [the explosions], the next thought was I have to make sure Rachael is ok," Perille said.

She fired off a text.

"Are you OK?"

Thirty long minutes later, Rachael replied.

"I'm OK. We were right there. Was anyone else there? Is everyone OK?"

Perille told everyone to avoid the chaos of rush hour and come in late today, and if that was too much – the office is just outside the 15-block crime scene – it was fine to work from home.

Perille says from EdVestors earliest days, back in 2002 when it had just two employees, Perille has tried to create an atmosphere where people are valued professionally and personally.

"I am responsible. I don't think of it as being the boss. I think of it as being the leader. It is the leader's job to set the tone. That's the culture we have. And that's what my team would expect from me," she says.

Perille says keeping people informed and demonstrating her care is one way to make sure her employees give their best effort when it comes to their job helping to improve Boston public schools.

Housing starts in March rose to the highest level in five years. If developers keep building at that rate, there’d be one million new houses by the end of the year.

So, what are builders building and what kind of homes do consumers want? The granite countertop of the new kitchen is like the leather interior of a new car -- a standard, special order must-have.

Kira Sterling, chief marketing officer for Toll Brothers, a custom home builder, says buyers want kitchens that look semi-professional and bathrooms that could rival a spa. “They are spending a lot of money in the kitchen, and in the master bath,” she says.

And since mortgage rates are so low, and Sterling notes, money is “almost free”, she says new home buyers are looking to reward themselves with special features throughout the house. “Like man caves, cathedral ceilings, additional bedrooms and bathrooms.”

Don’t forget the bonus room. Extra space, in your house for... whatever you want.  

David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, says that homes are a little larger than before the recession. “They’re particularly bigger than during the recession,” he says.

Crowe notes that while the average size of a home fell during the recession now it’s picking up again. “But that has more to do with the fact that only those with very good credit ratings and employment histories can purchase right now, can get a mortgage,” he says.

While single-family home construction is up over last year, according to Crowe the rise in housing building is really due to new apartments. Younger workers often don’t have cash for a mortgage and choose to rent instead.

What about those who can afford to buy a brand new home? Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at Wharton, says there’s a new trend going on -- smaller houses in more urban areas. “There’s an actual increase in demand for city living, for being closer to transit, or less commuting,“ she says.

For those buying homes on smaller lots, Wachter says it’s not just proximity to the potential jobs. It’s also because land prices are coming back strong.

Illustration: Reporter Sally Herships' illustration of what would appear in her own house, if it was only six rooms.

Travel can be romantic, adventurous, and exciting--but it's also a big business, says Elizabeth Becker, author of "Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism."

"It is one of the world's biggest industries" she says. One of every 11 people is employed in tourism. It is the second only to the energy field [when it comes to a] strategy of poorer countries ... to climb out of their poverty.

But wealth it brings can have negative consequences as well.

"You can see the schizophrenia when a local government wants to make money but then they're seeing the incredible destruction" she says."They drain the services and often they don't give much back to the local economy." Venice is one example Becker points to in the book. Visitors can overwhelm the city at times, far outnumbering Venetians. Stores favored by locals, like grocery stores, are pushed out for businesses that cater to tourists, including high-end chain stores.

The cruise industry has created similar problems in the spots they've chosen for docking and single-day destinations. Becker notes that some sites have created "sacrifice zones" -- "areas where tourists would be gently pushed to protect the greater area." Countries like Belize have resorted to the so-called sacrifice zones to help protect nature preserves.

Who's doing all this travel? And who causes the biggest problems? Becker says American tourists are getting a better reputation. But as for those traveling the most? That soon will be the Chinese.

"In 2009, more Chinese visited Paris than all of the United States." And the French have embraced them. Some stores have hired translators, restaurants have encouraged fusion Franco-Chinese cooking, and the French tourism board has paid close attention to the habits and likes of the Chinese tourist.

There are, without question, benefits to be gained by opening a country up to tourism. But still, "tourism is the typical double edged sword where it can bring so much pleasure but so much destruction." It's up to governments to figure out the right balance of regulation to preserve their resources and their economies.

Dozens of Boston blocks are locked down so investigators can pick through bombing evidence in the triangle-shaped crime scene. But just outside borders of that triangle, small businesses are reopening. They’re unlocking their doors because they feel a deep connection and obligation to the community that houses them.

Transit and traffic difficulties have convinced many to steer clear of the area near the attacks, meaning fewer people walking around. The drop in pedestrians gives the area the feel of a college town when students are on break: Not empty, but tangibly lacking.

Just outside the police barricades are the pleasant and stately grounds of the Christian Science Plaza. On most sunny days like Tuesday, people lounge around the gardens and hear chirping birds, so long as they aren't too close to the Massachusetts Avenue traffic. But today the birds also competed with the sound of police helicopters overhead.

Among the businesses along Massachusetts Avenue that opened was a flower shop called Fern.

Crystal Cobb Collier was sweeping up as she recalled Monday’s events. Through the store windows, she saw people both fleeing the blast and running toward it to help. Staffers weren’t sure if their street would be accessible Tuesday, but once they knew it would open, the owner decided the store would too. But few customers came through.

“It’s been a slow morning,” Collier sighs.

It’s the same story for a lot of businesses nearby. None of them expressed surprise. Collier says that one reason to open in the face of slow sales is to be there for special transactions that occur without words or money. She described a man wearing his marathon jacket who stepped into the shop today. He said and bought nothing, merely leaning in to inhale the floral aroma.

“I guess he was just taking in that moment to thank God he made it through another day,” Collier says. “I didn’t say anything; I just kinda let him take that moment.”

A florist is a rare kind of business that serves people at their most joyous and darkest moments. Monday’s attacks turned one into the other. Flowers that might have graced bouquets for triumphant runners now await service in a memorial arrangement.

Massachusetts Avenue connects with Boylston Street, where the bombs exploded. But just beyond that is the quirky shopping of Newbury Street. Open for business Tuesday was Bauer Wine & Spirits, a business dating to the mid '60s. In normal years, the marathon’s aftermath was filled with popping corks. But there’s no such thirst this year.

“They’re not celebrating,” says general manager Howie Rubin. “I don’t think we’re gonna sell any champagne for a while.”

Just a block off the blast site, Newbury Street wasn’t guaranteed to be accessible today. But once Rubin found out it was, he decided to open. He says customers come in wanting to talk about their experience. And he wants to make sure they can gather over a drink if they prefer.

“You’ve gotta get life back to normal after something like that,” he explains. “People do want to get together with their friends and try and resume life as they knew it as quickly as they can.”

The Fairy Shop is near the wine store and closer still to the blast site. Michael Selletto closed about 20 minutes after hearing, feeling and smelling the explosions. The eclectic, fantasy-focused store has loyal fans, who thanked him for opening and providing an otherworldly escape from the week’s events. He shrugged off the possibility of slow sales this week when he decided to reopen.

“Bringing a little magic into the world,” he says. “That’s really what drives me.”

After the explosions, comes the investigation. The president has said that authorities will "follow every lead," and Boston's mayor is reminding the public that "no piece of information or detail is too small." But in an age of surveillance cameras on nearly every block, and cell phone cameras in nearly every pocket, how do investigators actually wade through all that possibly helpful video they're going to get?

Consider that almost as soon as the bombs went off, social media sites were full of snippets of the tragedy that people had captured on their cell phones. But it's not just dramatic footage like this that could help investigators.

“As important is a video five minutes before the explosion, two blocks away,” says Angelo Guarino, president of Ocean Systems, a company that develops forensic video technology for use by law enforcement. He says in a moment where you might be waving "hi mom" into the camera, in the background a person that investigators have connected to the attack might be walking by, “and that might be where they get the best image.”

Investigators will likely gather thousands of hours of video, from cell phones and store security cameras. And ATM cameras.  And traffic light cameras. But it will be in hundreds of different digital formats, many of them proprietary, so just collecting it all into one system is tough. Guarino warns that the usual ways we share videos, over YouTube, or burned on a dvd, involve data compression, to make the files smaller and easier to send. “That means throwing data away, throwing evidence away,” he says.  “It could come down to a pixel.”

To tackle that issue, companies like Guarino’s have developed special technology that can be used to gather and copy video without compromising its quality. Once all that video is gathered, it goes to a place like the Digital Media Evidence Processing Lab at the University of Indianapolis, where, someone like Grant Fredericks -- a forensic video expert -- sifts through it all, frame by frame, trying to make connections.

Fredericks says his team will tag everything, including “clothing descriptions, hat descriptions, backpack descriptions, shoes descriptions, location descriptions.” Those tags are cross-referenced so “you can then track an individual across the city,” he says. 

But is all this technology, all this combing of video, worth it? When asked what are the odds that the person who planted the package would have actually been caught on video yesterday, Fredericks doesn’t hesitate. “One hundred percent likely, probably 100 times or more,” he says.

On an average day, a person is likely to be recorded 30 times, he adds. And this was the Boston Marathon.

Tens of thousands of kids in Arizona got a free breakfast this week from McDonald's. Franchise owners in a handful of states have gotten together to give out food on the days that schools administer big standardized tests.

The promotion was such a big draw at a Central Phoenix McDonald's Tuesday morning that it took some effort to squeeze through the front door. "I suspect that we'll serve over 500 students this morning, just in this restaurant alone," says franchise operator Jerry Gehrke.

Last year, Arizona McDonald's restaurants gave out more than 81,000 meals to kids on test day. Restaurants in a handful of other states, including Florida, Oklahoma and Minnesota, have also participated. Gehrke spends $2 a head on each student's Egg McMuffin, a pack of apple slices, and a carton of milk or orange juice. He says it's good for the kids, who need brain food to ace the state's standardized tests.

The free breakfast also builds customer loyalty.

"It does. It makes me feel like, oh my God, after so much money being spent here, I finally get something back," says mom Naomi Quintero, who eats at the restaurant every weekend with her family.

Quintero's sons will each get 18 grams of protein in their egg sandwich. That's pretty good fuel for a test, said Simin Levinson, a nutritionist at Arizona State University. "I would consider it to be a well-rounded meal," she says.

But it's not the only place to get one. The nearby Creighton School District says about 4,700 students eat a free breakfast every day. Their families are poor enough to qualify for subsidized meals. Levinson says these meals are nutritionally similar to the free McDonald's menu. But if she had a choice, she'd take the one that's free of corporate influence.

"This is where I can't help but be a little bit skeptical: Is this a ploy that McDonald's is using in creating a whole new generation of consumers that will be brand loyal specific to McDonald's?" she says.

That worries Levinson because she says the next time those 500 kids are in line, they're likely to chose something loaded with fat and sodium.

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. 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.

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.

Yahoo has 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. 

Support has been pouring in from around the world to help those in Boston affected by the Boston Marathon bombings Monday.

There are a number of ways for you to help, whether in person or digitally. We've listed a few below.

Have other ways to help? Tell us in the comments.

General information and support

Boston Marathon's Official Facebook Page: Marathon officials are adding the latest information to their Facebook page, including where runners can reclaim their belongings.

#BostonHelp is one of many hashtags being used to collect and disseminate information about how to help and help being offered.

The Boston Police is also regularly tweeting news and updates from Boston.

Finding a place to stay

Those stranded in the Boston area and need a place to stay can fill out this form, provided by The Boston Globe, to connect with people who are offering housing. The paper's @GlobeMarathon lists news, information for runners, and other offers that poured into this Google spreadsheet.

Making sure loved ones are OK

Boston Police Help Line: Family members looking for information about individuals injured during the incident are encouraged to call (617) 635-4500.

Boston Marathon Athlete Tracker: This section of the marathon's official website lets users track runners by name or bib number to find out if and when runners finished the race.

Google Person Finder's Boston Marathon Page: Google Person Finder allows users to enter the name of a person they're looking for or enter information about someone who is there.

The American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts: This branch of the Red Cross has opened a disaster operation center to help families locate loved ones who were at the Boston Marathon.

American Red Cross's Safe and Well website: This allows people to register their status with the Red Cross so family members can search for them.

To give police help

Boston Police Tip Line: Anyone with information about the incident at the Boston Marathon is encouraged to call the Boston Police Department's tip line: 1-800-494-TIPS or call the department's task force tip line at 617-223-6610 or email Boston@ci.fbi.gov

Community members wanting to help this investigation can call 1(800) CALL-FBI or the BPD's Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 1 (800) 494-TIPS.

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.

Two explosions detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Hospitals reported at least 144 people injured, at least 17 of them critically. The victims' injuries included broken bones, shrapnel wounds and ruptured eardrums.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said two other bombs were found near the end of the 26.2-mile course in what appeared to be a well-coordinated attack.

The fiery twin blasts took place about 10 seconds and about 100 yards apart, knocking spectators and at least one runner off their feet, shattering windows and sending dense plumes of smoke rising over the street and through the fluttering national flags lining the course. Blood stained the pavement, and huge shards were missing from window panes as high as three stories.

President Barack Obama, responding to the explosions at the Boston Marathon, says the United States does not know "who did this or why" but vowed that whoever is responsible "will feel the full weight of justice."

He said: "We will find out who did this and we will hold them accountable."

Obama made his remarks Monday evening from the White House about three hours after two explosions detonated near the marathon's finish line. 

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis asked people to stay indoors or go back to their hotel rooms and avoid crowds as bomb squads checked parcels and bags left along the race route.

"Police were basically pleading with everybody to get out of the way," said Curt Nickisch of WBUR.

Video of the explosions:

About two hours after the winners crossed the line, there was a loud explosion on the north side of Boylston Street, just before the photo bridge that marks the finish line. Another explosion could be heard a few seconds later.

"Fortunately, the explosions happened very late in the race," Nickisch said. "This was hours after the winners went through and the crowd of runners was thinning out pretty well, so it wasn't as densely packed."

Authorities shed no light on a motive or who may have carried out the bombings, and police said they had no suspects in custody. Authorities in Washington said there was no immediate claim of responsibility. The FBI took charge of the investigation.

A few miles away from the finish line and around the same time, a fire broke out at the John F. Kennedy Library. The police commissioner said it may have been caused by an incendiary device but didn't appear to be related to the bombings.

Competitors and race volunteers were crying as they fled the chaos. Authorities went onto the course to carry away the injured while race stragglers were rerouted away from the smoking site.

Roupen Bastajian, a 35-year-old state trooper from Smithfield, R.I., had just finished the race when they put the heat blanket wrap on him and he heard the first blast.

"I started running toward the blast. And there were people all over the floor," he said. "We started grabbing tourniquets and started tying legs. A lot of people amputated. ... At least 25 to 30 people have at least one leg missing, or an ankle missing, or two legs missing."

A Boston police officer was wheeled from the course with a leg injury that was bleeding.

"There are a lot of people down," said one man, whose bib No. 17528 identified him as Frank Deruyter of North Carolina. He was not injured, but marathon workers were carrying one woman, who did not appear to be a runner, to the medical area as blood gushed from her leg.

Smoke rose from the blasts, fluttering through the national flags lining the route of the world's oldest and most prestigious marathon. TV helicopter footage showed blood staining the pavement in the popular shopping and tourist area known as the Back Bay.

Cherie Falgoust was waiting for her husband, who was running the race.

"I was expecting my husband any minute," she said. "I don't know what this building is ... it just blew. Just a big bomb, a loud boom, and then glass everywhere. Something hit my head. I don't know what it was. I just ducked."

Runners who had not finished the race were diverted straight down Commonwealth Avenue and into a family meeting area, according to an emergency plan that had been in place.

Flights out of Boston Logan Airport were briefly put on ground stop.

The Red Cross set up a place for family members and loved ones to connect. Find it at this link.

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.

Cellphone use has been difficult in the Boston area. There are conflicting reports as to whether cell service was shut down or networks were overwhelmed.

A law enforcement official, citing an intelligence briefing, said cellphone service had been shut down Monday in the Boston area to prevent any potential remote detonations of explosives.

But officials with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel said there had been no such requests.

Sprint spokeswoman Crystal Davis said: "Minus some mild call blocking on our Boston network due to increased traffic, our service is operating normally."

Audio from the police scanner at the time of the explosions:

The Associated Press contributed to this report

This story was updated at 3:45 p.m. to update injury numbers and add in President Obama's remarks; 3:09 p.m. to add in information about cellular carriers; and 6:30 p.m. to update injuries.

Today is tax day. Some of you are probably doing your best to get them done at the last minute, or have requested an extension. We suspect that, no matter when you did your taxes, it wasn't the most fun you've had this year.

Here's someone who has a different feeling about taxes -- tax preparer Bruce McFarland talks about why he actually enjoying doing them. Listen above.