Business

In today's economy, many people in search of work can only find part-time jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics finds the number of 'involuntary' part-time workers has doubled since 2006. Host Michel Martin talks about what this means for the workplace and the economy, with The Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy.

Update at 10:50 a.m. ET: Boeing to resume deliveries of 787s

Boeing, which had delivered about 50 of its new passenger aircraft before battery failures in January grounded the plane, says it will resume deliveries to airline customers in early May, The Associated Press reports.

Boeing and the Federal Aviation Authority may be in for another day of tough questions as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its probe of batteries on the 787 Dreamliner. Two severe battery failures prompted the world-wide grounding of the fleet in January.

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DAVID GREENE, BYLINE: Hackers got into the Associated Press's Twitter account yesterday and sent out a fake tweet saying that the White House had been attacked. Though the tweet was discredited very quickly, it created a swift and panicked reaction on the stock market.

Here's NPR's Jim Zarroli.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The tweet said that a pair of bombs had gone off in the White House and President Obama was injured. Almost instantaneously, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 125 points.

People who measure risk and uncertainty ranked in the top spot of the survey by CareerCast.com. At the bottom of the list with reporters are flight attendants, roofers, mail carriers, meter readers, dish washers and lumber jacks.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The massive swath of Boston that has been closed for more than a week is getting closer to reopening. City officials yesterday brought victims of the marathon bombings and their relatives in for a private visit and allowed neighborhood residents back home for the first time in over a week. Businesses also began the process of cleaning up and preparing to reopen.

The hardest-hit shops and restaurants remain boarded up. As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, others are hoping to reopen today or tomorrow.

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How you like them apples? Apple is at the start of our business news.

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More online retailers would have to collect sales tax under a bill making its way through the U.S. Senate this week. The measure won strong bipartisan backing on a procedural vote Monday, and President Obama has said he would sign it.

The political battle over the bill pits online retailers against brick-and-mortar stores — and, in some cases, against other online sellers.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates met with South Korean President Park Geun-hye Monday, part of a visit to build business ties and boost nuclear energy plans. But it was the handshake they shared that created the biggest stir in Korean society, after Gates greeted Park with a smile — and his left hand jammed into his pants pocket.

Back in 2010, our own Jacob Goldstein called the cupcake craze a "bubble of historic proportions." He called it too early.

The following year, Crumbs Bake Shop went public, and Jacob began to doubt himself.

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We've reported on how cheap natural gas is revolutionizing the energy industry. It's plentiful, thanks to the drilling technique known as fracking. Well, that's also changing American manufacturing. Factories are turning to natural gas to replace oil and even biomass sources like woodchips. And here's an example, a paper mill in East Millinocket, Maine.

Jay field of Maine Public Radio has the story.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. This afternoon, investors watched even more closely than usual as Apple released its quarterly earnings. The numbers beat Wall Street's gloomy expectations. But for the first time in a decade, Apple's profits fell from the same period a year earlier. NPR technology correspondent Steve Henn joins us from Silicon Valley to talk about today's results. Hey there, Steve.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Hi.

Some 93 percent of Americans saw their mean net worth fall in the first two years of the post-recession recovery, while the remaining 7 percent increased net worth by nearly a third, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.

A Twitter account from The Associated Press was hacked Tuesday afternoon and the erroneous message — to be perfectly clear, it WAS NOT TRUE — sent stocks down sharply for a few moments.

The false message claimed there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Obama had been injured. Again, none of that happened.

A federal court has approved a settlement agreement between the Department of Justice and Anheuser-Busch InBev that will allow the mammoth beer company to complete its purchase of Grupo Modelo, a Mexico-based brewer that produces Corona, Pacifico and other beers.

The deal, which requires AB InBev to sell all of Modelo's U.S. business, clears the way for the $20.1 billion acquisition of the remaining portion of Modelo that AB InBev did not yet own. Terms of the deal were announced Friday.

Update at 5 p.m. ET:

Reuters reports that Apple has posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings of $43.6 billion, "reflecting strong sales of the iPad and iPhone." Wall Street had forecast revenue of $42.3 billion, the wire service says.

We pick up our original post here:

Investors are waiting, many not so eagerly, for a look at how Apple for the second quarter.

While sales of existing homes dipped in March because of a tighter inventory, sales of newly built homes rose 1.5 percent from February and were up a whopping 18.5 percent from March 2012, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development say.

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Now here's a change. Earlier this year, the worst drought conditions seen in the Midwest in decades threatened to close the Mississippi River to barge traffic. Now, communities along the river in Missouri and Illinois are bracing for flooding.

St. Louis Public Radio Maria Altman reports.

MARIA ALTMAN, BYLINE: The threat of flooding on the Mississippi River came on quickly after last week's storms dumped rain across the Midwest. The town of Clarksville, Missouri didn't even have time to erect its metal flood wall.

Last week, the New York Post ran a front page photo of two teenage runners under the headline "Bag Men," implying that they had something to do with the Boston Marathon backpack bombs.

It turns out those kids had nothing to do with the attacks. But they came to the public's attention after their images were scooped up and pored over by hundreds of online amateur sleuths.

David Greene has the Last Word in business.

The Senate voted Monday to advance a bill that would allow states to force online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes. Currently, states can only require brick and mortar stores to collect the sales tax. This greatly benefits online shoppers, who save by not paying the tax.

Some air travelers faced delays Monday as furloughs of air traffic controllers began taking effect.

If you:

1. Live in a state that charges sales tax

and

2. Buy something from an online store that does not charge you sales tax,

then you are supposed to:

3. Calculate the sales tax yourself and add it onto your annual state tax bill.

Not surprisingly, as we reported last week, almost no one actually does this.

Many airline passengers saw only moderate flight delays stemming from the first full day of furloughs for nearly 15,000 flight controllers and other Federal Aviation Administration workers, as industry analysts' worst fears did not materialize. But the reduced staffing was blamed for some slowdowns, and observers say it also increased the length of unrelated delays.

We'll be keeping an eye on possible delays today, and updating this post with new information.

Update at 6:45 p.m. ET. Delays Build, Many Tied To Weather:

There was a 0.6 percent dip in sales of existing homes in March from February, the National Association of Realtors reports, because the supply of homes for sale has tightened as the number of would-be buyers rises.

Its data suggest that sales ran at a 4.92 million annual rate last month, falling from a "downwardly revised" pace of 4.95 million the month before.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news begins with better batteries.

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GREENE: Engineers are starting to repair some of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner planes today. They are installing new batteries - ones that hopefully don't overheat.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now online streaming is playing a bigger and bigger role in news events. Many people listened and watched the Boston bombing coverage on their laptops. And on Friday as the manhunt came to a close, tens of thousands of people were listening to police dispatches live online. In the entertainment world, video streaming is also having a big impact.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now solar power has had its problems in recent decades. For years, solar panels were too expensive to compete. More recently, as we heard earlier in the business news, solar panels got so cheap that manufacturers ran into trouble. But solar energy had a signal achievement in March, and that is our last word in business today.

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