Renee Montagne talks with Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa about what can be done to regulate for-profit colleges' alleged abusive recruitment policies and high dropout rates. Harkin heads the committee that conducted a two-year investigation into the colleges — and issued a scathing report Monday.
There has been much grousing on social media about NBC tape-delaying marquee Olympic events until its prime-time broadcast. Twitter users say it's a "stone-age" model, but NBC says it needs to protect its $1.8 billion investment. So far, ratings are up.
A construction worker carries lumber while working on new homes in San Mateo, Calif., in March. Homebuilding is at its highest level in nearly four years.
Housing, the sector that led us into the recession, now looks to be one of the brighter spots in the economy. Homebuilding is at its highest level in nearly four years. More homes are selling, and at higher prices.
The question, of course, is whether this is a solid enough foundation to sustain a full housing recovery.
Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says housing woes are largely behind us.
Spotting a con artist isn't usually this easy. Allen Stanford was recently sentenced to 110 years in a $7-billion fraud, but a new book suggests the Ponzi business continues to thrive.
Ponzi schemes get a lot of attention when big ones go bust. Bernie Madoff, of course, got a ton of attention when his $20-billion con collapsed in late 2008. So did Allen Stanford, who was recently sentenced to 110 years in prison for scamming investors out of more than $7 billion over two decades.
Calls continue for boycotts of Chick-fil-A, while supporters are organizing a national "buycott." But Chick-fil-A is far from the only business to incorporate political or religious values into their business — or to stumble or jump into the culture wars in the process.
Originally published on Mon July 30, 2012 11:52 am
It's a diagnosis nobody in grad school would ever expect.
Arijit Guha, who's working on a doctorate at Arizona State, felt sick after coming back from a trip to India in early 2011. His severe stomach pain, which he thought was probably from a bug he caught on the journey, turned out to be caused by colon cancer. He was 30.
August is supposedly a quiet month on Wall Street, in Washington, D.C., and for business and finance generally. Except sometimes it isn't — and it's always the run-up to September, which can be pretty eventful in itself (think 2008 and the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Bros.).
So this week is shaping up to bring August in like a lion, with several potentially significant economic developments already on the calendar.
The public transport authority received complaints about train etiquette. New billboards poke fun at bad manners, featuring Frenchmen with giant animal heads: a donkey spitting out gum, a frog leaping the turnstile, a chicken clucking loudly on her cellphone.
Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S (left) and Apple's iPhone 4 are displayed at the headquarters of South Korean mobile carrier KT. Apple claims some of Samsung's designs violate its patents.
An epic battle between the two biggest smartphone makers begins Monday in a federal district court in San Jose, Calif., where computing giant Apple is asking for more than $2.5 billion from rival phone maker Samsung for patent violations.
The suit would be the most expensive patent violation in history, and it's just one front in Apple's war against phones running Google's Android operating system.
As the federal debt balloons, reducing it would seem more and more pressing. Yet policymakers remain far apart. Debt, deficit and budget rhetoric is often accompanied by numbers cherry-picked to support a particular political view.
But a new book by Wall Street Journal economics writer David Wessel lays out the numbers that both political parties face.
The late Apple chief Steve Jobs vowed before he died to destroy Android and that fight continues after his death. Apple is trying to keep Samsung's Android phones and tablets out of the U.S., charging that Samsung is violating Apple's patents. Apple has taken this fight global. Guest host David Greene talks to NPR's Laura Sydell about Monday's case.
Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey is an American classic with a distinctive black-labeled bottle that kind of looks like the typeface on an old wanted poster. Patrick Wensink wrote a novel called Broken Piano for President with a cover that was clearly inspired, maybe a little too much, by Jack Daniel's.
The longtime spokesman of the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has died.
The Atlanta-based company released a statement Friday announcing the death of Don Perry, 60.
"Don was a member of our Chick-fil-A family for nearly 29 years. For many of you in the media, he was the spokesperson for Chick-fil-A. He was a well-respected and well-liked media executive in the Atlanta and University of Georgia communities, and we will all miss him."
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. The government said today that the U.S. economy continued to slow during the second quarter of the year. The overall U.S. growth rate fell to just 1.5 percent, as consumers cut back on purchases and spending by businesses, which has been a source of economic strength, also fell. NPR's Jim Zarroli tells us more.
Protesters from the Human Rights Campaign chant against Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy's anti-gay marriage stance in front of a Chick-fil-A food truck in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A has long stood by its Bible-based roots, keeping stores closed on Sundays and donating millions to Christian causes. But when its president, Dan Cathy, went public to defend his company's stance against gay marriage, he set off a considerable controversy that has everyone from politicians to puppets weighing in.
