Business

U.S. Economy's 3rd-Quarter Growth Beats Projections

11:13am December 20, 2013

The economy grew by 4.1 percent in the third quarter of the year, significantly higher than the earlier projection of 3.6 percent. The upward revision comes mostly thanks to stronger consumer spending, and it's the strongest showing in almost two years.

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A lettuce thinner created by an agricultural tech startup uses cameras and sensors to thin lettuce rows. Salinas, Calif., has hired a venture capital fund to help it attract other high-tech agricultural companies to the area.

National

A City Turns To Lettuce Fields To Grow High-Tech Startups

8:46pm December 19, 2013

by Aarti Shahani

Salinas, Calif., is just an hour from Silicon Valley, but production at many local lettuce farms is decidedly low-tech. City officials here decided it's time for an upgrade — and have hired a venture capital firm to help Salinas transition into a high-tech agricultural hub.

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Senate Follows House, Passes Budget Deal

12:08pm December 19, 2013

Congress has approved the bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. It temporarily ends months of partisan gridlock over spending.

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Even If FCC Relaxes Rules, Delta Won't Allow In-Flight Calls

12:08pm December 19, 2013

by Kathy Lohr

Delta CEO Richard Anderson says frequent flyers believe voice calls in the cabin would disrupt travel. So the airline announced it will ban in-flight calls even if the FCC changes the rules.

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Millions Of Credit Cards Affected By Data Breach At Target

12:08pm December 19, 2013

The retailer acknowledged early Thursday that there was a massive security breach of its customers' credit and debit card accounts. It started the day before Thanksgiving and extended at least to Dec. 15 — the heart of the holiday shopping season.

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Manny Cardenas, seen here with his 5-year-old daughter Zoe, has earned $16 an hour as a part-time security guard at Google.

What It's Like To Live On Low Pay In A Land Of Plenty

1:11pm December 18, 2013

by Laura Sydell

Employees at Silicon Valley companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook are highly paid and enjoy a wide range of perks on the job. The security guards who watch over their workplaces earn around $16 an hour, a tough wage to get by on in the high-priced San Francisco Bay Area.

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A 'Tale Of Two Cities' As Detroit Looks To 2014

8:13am December 18, 2013

by Sarah Hulett

It became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. Its former mayor was sentenced to 28 years in prison. And a TV personality compared it to Chernobyl. But a new year is on the horizon, and for some parts of Detroit, things are looking up. Really.

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Economy

Fed's Final 2013 Meeting Could Indicate Course For Early 2014

8:02am December 18, 2013

Federal Reserve officials end a two-day meeting on Wednesday amid signs that the U.S. economy is slowly mending. David Greene talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about the Fed's last meeting of the year.

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Health & Safety

GlaxoSmithKline To Stop Paying Doctors To Promote Its Drugs

12:31am December 18, 2013

by Yuki Noguchi

GlaxoSmithKline says it will stop paying doctors to speak on its behalf at conferences and will also stop paying for doctors to attend conferences where marketing takes place. The company is also changing the way it compensates its global sales force. Some of the changes will go into effect by early 2015, others will take a bit longer.

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Protesters in San Francisco block a Google bus, which shuttles employees from the city to its location in Silicon Valley.

Economy

In A Divided San Francisco, Private Tech Buses Drive Tension

12:31am December 18, 2013

by Casey Miner

Some of the most heated protests in San Francisco have been over big, sleek buses — private shuttles that Silicon Valley tech companies like Google and Facebook use to get their city-living employees to work. They've become a symbol of the city's changing socioeconomic landscape.

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