One Fund, many $ decisions

As One Fund Boston administrator Kenneth Feinberg makes the tough calls over how to divide up nearly $30 million between people with a wide range of injuries — from double amputations to damaged limbs to brain damage and shrapnel wounds — experts say they expect little legal wrangling.

The fund has applied for charitable status and is limited to donations, which gives the administrator more freedom to act as he sees fit, unlike the 9/11 Fund, which was an unlimited pool created by the federal government.

"I don't think anyone has the right to sue because they think (Feinberg) did it unfairly," said Michael Mone, a Boston lawyer who represented some of the victims. "A charity has the right to give what they desire."

To be eligible for the 9/11 Fund, victims of the Sept. 11 attacks had to give up their right to sue the airlines whose planes were hijacked. Of the more than 3,000 people killed, the families of fewer than 100 sued.

"In order to bring litigation, there has to be someone who bore some responsibility," Mone added. In the case of the Marathon bombings, one of the suspects is dead, and the other was a student without any known assets, and the attacks took place on public sidewalks, not inside buildings or aircraft as in the 9/11 attacks.

"Feinberg is very qualified to decide how the money can be distributed," Mone said. "He's always gotten praise about deciding who gets what. Ninety-nine percent of the people are going to look at the One Fund and say, 'That's where I'm going to get recovery.'"

Eric MacLeish, a Cambridge lawyer who founded the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund, said that fund distributed about $3 million to more than 100 families. An advisory committee made recommendations to the fund's board. Each case was assigned a number, so board members never knew who they were, MacLeish said.

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Chamber honors 3 Boston leaders

More than 1,600 business, government and community leaders attended the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce annual meeting last night at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and three of them were named to the Chamber's "Academy of Distinguished Bostonians."

This year's inductees — Gov. Deval Patrick; Anne Finucane, global strategy and marketing officer at Bank of America; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David McCullough — were selected for their achievements as leaders and their significant contributions to the Greater Boston economy and community, officials said.

The event's keynote speaker was acclaimed historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose work "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film "Lincoln."

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Google launching YouTube fee plan

Netflix, Hulu and even cable companies, beware: Internet giant Google has big plans for its Web video powerhouse YouTube.

Google reportedly is planning a subscription service that would charge viewers $2 or more per month for high-quality YouTube channels to raise money from sources other than advertising.

"Google clearly has Netflix in their sights," said Todd Van Hoosear of Fresh Ground, a Cambridge-based social media consulting firm. "That's their game: More professional-quality content on YouTube so that they can compete with all of these other players."

The move also demonstrates that ads aren't generating the amount of revenue Google had hoped for to accomplish that, Van Hoosear said.

"What Google is realizing is that people are willing to pay for high-quality content," he said. "As a consumer, this doesn't bother me, especially if it means I have fewer ads to watch."

The videos the average person makes are still going to be free on YouTube, said David Gerzof Richard, founder of BIGfish Communications and professor of social media and marketing at Emerson College. But viewers would have the option of paying to watch a show or movie someone has invested time and money to make. And the person who owns that content would get a share of the revenue, he said.

"I see this being the start of more well-curated, well-produced content," Gerzof Richard said. "At the end of the day, the consumer wins because now you have competing online destinations offering premium content. And you don't have to go through your cable company to access it."

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Oil rises toward $96 as China trade improves

BANGKOK — Oil prices rose Wednesday after an upswing in China's trade for April restored hopes that the world's second-largest economy was strengthening.

Benchmark crude for June delivery was up 10 cents to $95.72 per barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 54 cents to finish at $95.62 per barrel on Nymex on Tuesday.

China said its exports for April rose 14.7 percent over a year earlier while imports gained 16.8 percent. Both figures represented an acceleration of growth compared with March.

The figures suggest China's economic growth might be improving after an unexpected decline to 7.7 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter's 7.9 percent.

Later Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Department will release its weekly report on U.S. oil inventories. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect an increase in supplies of 1.9 million barrels in the week ended May 3. Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions said in a daily newsletter that he expects to see an additional 2 million barrels.

Brent crude, which is the benchmark for international oil varieties, fell 7 cents to $104.33 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

— Wholesale gasoline dropped 0.7 cent to $2.827 a gallon.

— Heating oil fell 0.4 cent to $2.924 a gallon.

— Natural gas fell 1.6 cent to $3.904 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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House set to OK bill to change overtime pay law

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House is poised to approve a bill that would give private sector workers the option of choosing paid time off instead of cash wages for working overtime.

The measure would allow employees who work more than 40 hours a week to save up their earned time off for use weeks or months later. GOP lawmakers say they want to give busy working parents at private firms the same flexibility that public sector workers have to take time off to spend with their children or care for aging parents.

Democrats and worker advocacy groups say it opens the door for employers to pressure workers not to take overtime pay. And they warn there is no guarantee workers would be able to take the extra time off when they want.

The bill is expected to pass Wednesday but has little chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. President Barack Obama has threatened a veto, saying the bill would not prevent employers from slashing overtime hours and doesn't offer enough protection for workers who may not want to receive compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay.

The measure is part of a broader Republican agenda aimed at expanding the party's political appeal by offering conservative ideas to help average Americans on issues like economic growth and job creation.

"It puts parents over politics," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. He said the bill "makes sense" to help working moms and dads and gives them more flexibility with their hours at work to take care of family needs.

The plan would change the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which requires covered employees to receive time-and-a-half pay for every hour over 40 within a work week. The proposal would allow workers to bank up to 160 hours of comp time per year that could be used to take time off for any reason.

The bill would let an employee decide to cash out comp time at any time and forbids employers from coercing workers to take comp time instead of cash.

But Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, No. 2 Democrat in the House, said it's not fair to compare the legislation to similar flexibility that is offered to public sector employees because there are "a lot more protections" for public sector employees.

Opponents say the reason public sector workers were given the option to take time off instead of overtime pay in 1985 was to save cash-strapped governments money. They say that's why business groups are lobbying in favor of the bill, not to protect workers.

Critics also say the bill lets employers decide whether to grant a specific request to use comp time, so workers have no guarantee of when they could use the time. Even if workers can collect their unused time as cash at the end of the year, opponents argue that essentially gives employers an interest-free loan from employees.

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Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

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China reports stronger April trade growth

BEIJING — China reported stronger April trade but analysts said export data were inflated and its shaky recovery might be weaker than it looks.

Exports rose 14.7 percent over a year earlier, up from March's 10 percent growth, customs data showed Wednesday. Imports gained 16.8 percent, up from the previous month's 14.1 percent.

That suggested the world's second-largest economy might be improving after an unexpected decline in growth to 7.7 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter's 7.9 percent.

Analysts say, however, that Chinese export data are unreliable, possibly due to companies submitting inflated prices for their goods to evade capital controls and bring money into the country.

"We believe the strong trade growth is not indicative of a growth recovery," said Zhiwei Zhang of Nomura in a report.

Chinese leaders are trying to nurture self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption instead of trade and investment, but consumer spending is growing slowly. That has forced Beijing to rely on state-led investment and bank lending to shore up the recovery, which analysts say could be vulnerable if exports or investment decline.

The weaker-than-expected first quarter numbers prompted the World Bank and private sector analysts to trim forecasts for full-year growth, though to still robust levels of about 8 percent.

Louis Kuijs and Tiffany Qiu of RBS said that after factoring out irregularities, they estimated China's exports rose only by about 5.7 percent in April, about 9 percentage points lower than the reported level.

In a positive sign for the economy, Kuijs and Qiu said they saw no obvious irregularities in import data and no reason to inflate the values of goods.

"Reasonable import growth suggests domestic demand has held up better so far," they said in a report.

Surveys by HSBC Corp. and a Chinese industry group showed China's manufacturing growth weakened in April. HSBC said new export orders fell for the first time this year.

China's export data have been under scrutiny since analysts pointed out last year that they failed to match up with its trading partners' lower figures for purchases of Chinese goods.

Wei Yao of Societe Generale cited the example of Taiwan, which reported a 2.7 percent decline in April imports from China while Beijing said exports to the island rose 49.2 percent — a gap of more than 50 percentage points.

"We continue to notice glaring discrepancies between China and its trade partners' data, and so again suggest caution in interpreting the report," Yao said in a commentary.

Last weekend, the Chinese foreign exchange regulator announced it will clamp down on "serious mismatches" between flows of money and goods to stop attempts to evade capital controls.

After that takes effect, "trade growth will likely slow," said Nomura's Zhang.

A Cabinet statement last month promised to improve the role of consumption as a driver of growth. It pledged changes in medical, pension and other policies but gave no details. Analysts say better funding for social programs will be required to free up household budgets for consumer spending.

April's stronger gains in imports compared with exports caused China's reported global trade surplus to narrow by about 1 percent, though to a still-wide $18.2 billion.

China runs a deficit with most of its trading partners, which supply oil, other raw materials and industrial components, and makes up for it by running large surpluses with its U.S. and European export markets.

China's exports to Europe, hurt by the continent's debt troubles, declined 6.5 percent to $25.9 billion and the surplus with the 27-nation European Union narrowed by 32 percent to $7.9 billion.

Trade with some European countries suffered even bigger declines. Germany's imports of Chinese goods fell 7.2 percent and France's by 6.7 percent.

Exports to the United States edged down by a fraction of 1 percent to $28.1 billion while the trade gap with the U.S. narrowed by 13 percent to $14.7 billion.

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General Administration of Customs of China (in Chinese): www.customs.gov.cn

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Bangladesh garment accident death toll passes 700

DHAKA, Bangladesh — The death toll from last month's collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh has passed 700, police said Tuesday, as survivors of the country's worst-ever industrial disaster protested for compensation.

The police control room overseeing the recovery operation said the toll reached 705 dead Tuesday afternoon as workers pulled more bodies out of the wreckage of the illegally built eight-story building that housed five garment factories.

The disaster is the worst ever in the garment sector, surpassing the 1911 garment disaster in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory, which killed 146 workers, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that killed 112, also in 2012.

Also Tuesday, hundreds of garment workers who survived the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza blocked a major highway near the accident site in a Dhaka suburb to demand wages and other benefits.

Local government administrator Yousuf Harun said they are working with a garment industry body to ensure the workers are paid.

No violence was reported, although traffic was disrupted for hours.

Officials say the building's owner illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install generators. Vibrations from garment machines and from the generators were thought to have contributed to the collapse.

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Internet sales tax bill faces tough sell in House

WASHINGTON — Traditional retailers and cash-strapped states face a tough sell in the House as they lobby Congress to limit tax-free shopping on the Internet.

The Senate voted 69 to 27 Monday to pass a bill that empowers states to collect sales taxes from Internet purchases. Under the bill, states could require out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes when they sell products over the Internet, in catalogs, and through radio and TV ads. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

Current law says states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the merchant has a physical presence in the state.

That means big retailers with stores all over the country like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target collect sales taxes when they sell goods over the Internet. But online retailers like eBay and Amazon don't have to collect sales taxes, except in states where they have offices or distribution centers.

"This bill is about fairness," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's main sponsor in the Senate. "It's about leveling the playing field between the brick and mortar and online companies and it's about collecting a tax that's already due. It's not about raising taxes."

The bill got bipartisan support in the Senate but faces opposition in the House, where some lawmakers regard it as a tax increase. Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, and the conservative Heritage Foundation oppose the bill, and many Republicans have been wary of crossing them.

Supporters say the bill is not a tax increase. In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file their state tax returns. However, states complain that few taxpayers comply.

"Obviously there's a lot of consumers out there that have been accustomed to not having to pay any taxes, believing that they don't have to pay any taxes," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., the bill's main sponsor in the House. "I totally understand that, and I think a lot of our members understand that. There's a lot of political difficulty getting through the fog of it looking like a tax increase."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has not commented publicly about the bill, giving supporters hope that he could be won over. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over the bill, has cited problems with the legislation but not rejected it outright.

"While it attempts to make tax collection simpler, it still has a long way to go," Goodlatte said in a statement. Without more uniformity in the bill, he said, "businesses would still be forced to wade through potentially hundreds of tax rates and a host of different tax codes and definitions."

Goodlatte said he's "open to considering legislation concerning this topic but these issues, along with others, would certainly have to be addressed."

Internet giant eBay led the fight against the bill in the Senate, along with lawmakers from states with no sales tax and several prominent anti-tax groups. The bill's opponents say it would put an expensive obligation on small businesses because they are not as equipped as national merchandisers to collect and remit sales taxes at the multitude of state rates.

Businesses with less than $1 million in online sales would be exempt. EBay wants to exempt businesses with up to $10 million in sales or fewer than 50 employees.

"The contentious debate in the Senate shows that a lot more work needs to be done to get the Internet sales tax issue right, including ensuring that small businesses using the Internet are protected from new burdens that harm their ability to compete and grow," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of global public policy.

Some states have sales taxes as high as 7 percent, plus city and county taxes that can push the combined rate even higher.

Many governors — Republicans and Democrats — have been lobbying the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales.

The issue is getting bigger for states as more people make purchases online. Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to government estimates.

States lost a total of $23 billion last year because they couldn't collect taxes on out-of-state sales, according to a study done for the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has lobbied for the bill. About half of that was lost from Internet sales; half from purchases made through catalogs, mail orders and telephone orders, the study said.

Supporters say the bill makes it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply. States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live. States must also establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don't have to send it to individual counties or cities.

Opponents worry the bill would give states too much power to reach across state lines to enforce their tax laws. States could audit out-of-state businesses, impose liens on their property and, ultimately, sue them in state court.

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

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Microsoft touching up Windows 8 to address gripes

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is retooling the latest version of its Windows operating system to address complaints and confusion that have been blamed for deepening a slump in personal computer sales.

The tune up announced Tuesday won't be released to consumers and businesses until later this year. The changes, part of a software package given the codename "Blue," are a tacit acknowledgment of the shortcomings in Windows 8, a radical overhaul of Microsoft Corp.'s ubiquitous operating system.

With the makeover it released last October, Microsoft hoped to play a more prominent role in the growing mobile device market while still maintaining its dominance in PCs. But Windows 8's design, which emphasizes interactive tiles and touch controls, seems to have befuddled as many people as it has impressed. One leading research firm, International Data Corp., says Windows 8 contributed to a 14 percent decline in worldwide PC sales during the first three months of the year — the biggest year-over-year drop ever.

Meanwhile, sales of smartphones and tablet computers are booming. The biggest beneficiaries have been Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone and iPad, and Samsung Electronics Co., which sells the most devices running on Google Inc.'s Android software. Google is also benefiting from Android's popularity through increased traffic to its services, creating more opportunities for the company to display ads.

By contrast, leading PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., which primarily sell Windows-powered machines, have been mired in a financial funk that has battered their stocks and raised questions about their futures.

Despite the troubling signs, Microsoft insists it's pleased with Windows 8's performance.

The company, which is based in Redmond, Wash., says more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses have been sold so far, up from about 60 million licenses in January. The licensing volume "is in the same general ballpark," as Microsoft's previous operating system — Windows 7 — at a similar juncture of its sales cycle, according to Tami Reller, who serves as the marketing and financial chief for Microsoft's Windows business.

In an interview, Reller said Microsoft still realized changes need to be made to make Windows 8 easier to navigate and capable of taking full advantage of technology improvements that have come out since October.

"Are there things that we can do to improve the experience? Absolutely," Reller said "There is a learning curve (to Windows 8) and we can work to address that."

For now, Microsoft isn't saying what kind of changes will be introduced with the release of Blue, which the company plans to anoint with a different name when the update is available. Microsoft also isn't saying whether it will charge existing owners of Windows 8 devices to get the fixes in Blue. The company plans to release Blue in time for the holiday season.

Reller said more details about Blue will be released before Microsoft holds a developers conference in San Francisco in late June. Some of Blue's features are expected to be previewed at that conference.

If Blue is meant to make people more comfortable, the changes may incorporate more of the elements from earlier versions of Windows.

A common complaint has centered on the lack of a "start" button in the Windows 8 menu.

Other critics have pined for an option that would allow the system to begin in a desktop mode suited for running applications designed for earlier versions of the operating system. Windows 8 currently starts off showing a mosaic of interactive tiles tailored for swiping through programs with a finger instead of using a computer mouse.

Blue also might make it easier to find a set of controls — known as "charms" in Windows 8's parlance — that currently must be pulled out from the right side of a display screen.

Besides responding to customer feedback, Blue also will improve Windows 8's ability to work on smaller tablets with 7- and 8-inch display screens, Reller said. She declined to say whether Microsoft intends to make smaller version of its own Surface tablets. In a conference call with analysts last month, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said the company was working with other manufacturers to make smaller tablets.

One thing that Blue won't fix: the relatively small selection of mobile applications tailored for Windows 8. Reller said the Windows 8 store now has more than 60,000 apps. By contrast, there are more than 800,000 apps available for Apple's mobile's devices and nearly that many for Android devices, too. In one of the most glaring omissions on Windows 8, Facebook Inc. still hasn't designed an app to make its online social network more accessible on that system. Facebook has about 750 million mobile users.

Microsoft's decision to tweak Windows 8 so soon after it went on sale may reinforce perceptions that the product is a flop.

Reller is trying to frame the changes as evidence that Microsoft is becoming more agile and nimble as it responds to a rapidly evolving technology market. Smartphones and tablet computers have been at the epicenter of the upheaval, diminishing the demand for PCs as more people and businesses opt for the convenience of increasingly powerful mobile devices.

The mobile computing movement is the main reason that Microsoft made the most dramatic redesign of its Windows operating system since 1995. Given how different that Windows 8 is from its predecessors, Reller said Microsoft always knew it might have to make some adjustments less than a year after the software came out.

"It had to be a very big change to take advantage of the mobile opportunity," she said.

Analysts say one reason Windows 8 got off to a slow start is because there weren't enough devices designed to take advantage of the system's touch-screen features. But that is about to change as HP, Dell and other PC makers prepare to roll out a wide variety of laptops and tablets with displays that respond to touch. More than 2,400 devices have now been certified to run on Windows 8, up from 2,000 in January, Reller said.

Most of the touch-screen laptops will sell at prices $50 to $250 below the first wave of comparable machines running on Windows 8, reductions that Microsoft hopes will prod more people to check out the system.

"As we look at Windows 8, it's important to remember a lot of its full potential won't be realized until there are more touch devices on the market," Reller said.

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New Android features outbaking Apple

If you paid $200 or more for the newest iPhone recently, here's a harsh truth: You've been had.

The iPhone 5 — released just seven months ago — is officially antiquated, with a slate of new Android and Windows Phone 8 devices leaving Apple looking several product cycles behind.

That reality came into stunning focus last week as Android's intuitive personal assistant, Google Now, launched for iOS as part of the Google app.

It met with an enthusiasm among Apple followers that would have been unheard of just months ago — simply because it's an Android product.

The anticipation for Google Now on iOS speaks volumes about Apple's brand, with company stock hovering at its lowest level in two years.

In releasing Google Now, there was a collective sense that Android did Apple a solid. I even jokingly tweeted that Apple should buy Android a beer.

But using the app on iOS reminded me how stifling Apple's platform can be.

While Google Now runs constantly in the background on Android — for instance, anticipating when you'll leave for work or what events you might enjoy attending — an iPhone user must make sure the app is open in order to use it.

That defeats the purpose of an unobtrusive, intuitive smartphone assistant.

The difference between now and when the
iPhone 5 was released last year is that Apple had a long winning streak on hardware and design. Now, Android has caught up.

Smartphones such as the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and even the lower-tier HTC First meet or surpass the iPhone 5 on basic performance.

Windows Phone's HTC 8X and Nokia Lumia 920 provide a similar marriage of solid hardware and operating system, which is why U.S. marketshare doubled to 6 percent last quarter.

Apple has a tenuous edge in apps and its iTunes-driven ecosystem. A rumored iWatch that will pair with the iPhone may buy Apple a bit more time to develop iOS 7, but the system had better be a stunner.

Nothing less than a complete overhaul from the currently static and uncustomizable platform will be competitive.

I knew I was choosing apps and ecosystem over lots of other features when I bought the iPhone 5. But now it feels like I paid $200 for a pretty-looking iTunes machine with a nice camera.

And I'm in the market for an upgrade.

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