Morning Edition

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Well, for kids and parents listening to our show today, let's leave you with a little good food for thought. Our last word in business is: Hello Kitty. That's what some lucky travelers in Asia might be saying if they board an airplane decorated, inside and out, with the famous Japanese character.

The Labor Department announced unemployment figures for April on Friday. The jobless rate fell to 8.1 percent, from 8.2 percent in March. There have been conflicting signals about the strength of the economy, and the way voters interpret those signals could have a major impact on the presidential race.

As school budgets continue to get squeezed, administrators, parents and students are having to do more fundraising. And now the fight to raise funds has come head-to-head with the fight against childhood obesity. Stephanie Armour, of Bloomberg Businessweek, talks to David Greene about the move to ban bake sales.

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NPR's business news begins with Facebook frenzy.

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GREENE: The world's largest social networking site is going public later this month. And yesterday it set a price range for its stock. It plans to sell share shares for between $28 and $35 each, using the ticker symbol FB. The share sale is expected to raise as much as $12 billion, making it one of the largest initial public offerings ever.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

Video game fans hear this often. EA Sports, it's in the game. Well, now America's largest game publisher is trying to stay in the game. EA, Electronic Arts, built a gaming empire with a strategy straight out of Hollywood - big names and big budgets. But the market is changing. For one thing, more players now prefer games you can play online. And so the Silicon Valley company has been forced to change as well. KQED's Aarti Shahani reports.

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