NPR News

The calendar says it's Friday the 13th — the only one we encounter this year.

When you read stories of insider trading — resulting in multimillion-dollar profits — by crafty people like hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam or arbitrageur Ivan Boesky, it seems like the average investor is at a constant and insurmountable disadvantage.

After all, these are the guys who got caught. What about all the slicksters who don't get nabbed? And all the big dog investors who don't have day jobs and watch the stock tickers like vultures? And what about the automated algorithm-driven trading programs designed to squeeze an advantage out of trades-by-the-nanosecond?

Federal probes into overzealous selling of prescription medicines have landed two of America's most prominent corporations in some hot legal water.

Securities filings by Google and Johnson & Johnson earlier this week hinted at the depth of that water. The Wall Street Journal, in two separate stories, provides more details on the companies' alleged missteps.

The "Situation Room photo" and the things that clever folks are doing with it have taken on lives of their own since the White House released the image of President Obama and his top advisors anxiously monitoring events on the day U.S. commandos killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

As Know Your Meme says, it's "a photoshopping trend."

Federal engineers got the OK to open a massive spillway that would flood hundreds of thousands of acres in Louisiana to try to protect heavily populated Baton Rouge and New Orleans from the bulging Mississippi River.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it will open the Morganza Spillway when the river's flow rate reaches a certain point, expected Saturday.