BEIJING (Reuters) - China will try Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai, on charges of murdering a British man, state media said on Thursday in the latest turn in a scandal that has rocked the government in Beijing and could bring Gu the death penalty.

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Your family might still be enjoying a summer diet of backyard barbeques and trips to Dairy Queen, but pretty soon kids will be back in school. And they could be facing a much different school lunch than they used to. Here to talk with us in today's Mid-day Extra about the latest changes to school lunches is Sandra Ford, president of the School Nutrition Association.

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Durable goods orders are out this morning. Those are sales of big ticket items like computers and equipment. It's seen as a way to measure for how much companies are investing in future growth. In word: They're not. Durable goods orders were down more than a percent in June. After markets close today, we'll get earnings from a few companies: Starbucks, Amazon.com... And Facebook. It's the social network's first earnings report since it started selling stock in May. Been burned by the Facebook IPO or putting your retirement into Zynga stock? Then why not get out of stocks -- here's another investment idea for you that's sure to pan out: Balloon Boy. You remember...mylar balloon... Specifically, you can own a piece of the Balloon Boy balloon. The man who owns it -- bought it on eBay -- is carving it up a embedding it in trading cards. There's no telling how that little piece of history could appreciate in value. We think of cars as using a lot of oil... But what about tires? Turns out, one standard car tire contains roughly seven gallons of oil. Now Goodyear Tire and Rubber is working on an alternative. A tire made with soybean oil. Thousands of farmers from across the country will gather in Milan, Tennessee, today to learn about farming without a plow. If you hadn't heard yet, or gotten a celebratory greeting card, it's "No-Till Field Day." Yes, it's not a terribly popular holiday. But this year's drought could change that. The Olympic Games get under way officially tomorrow. And I guess you could call it the Olympics 2.0. There's been a big technology and social media push this year. Finally, one more item from what you might call our "bizarre entrepreneurship" desk: The maker of Bratz dolls is suing Lady Gaga for $10 million for stalling the production of a Lady Gaga doll. MGA Entertainment signed a deal with Gaga to make a doll in her likeness it would sing and don some of Gaga's signature crazy outfits. What's the hang-up? Apparently Gaga wants to hold the doll until her new album is released next year she also wants a few changes -- including having the doll's face redone to look more like a "supermodel."

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Jeff Horwich: Later today, the Obama administration will announce a new initiative against health care fraud. They’re trying something new this time: Teaming up with private insurers. Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall-Genzer joins us now live, from Washington. Good morning, Nancy. Nancy Marshall-Genzer: Good morning, Jeff. Horwich: Nancy, what do you know about what the administration is going to do? Marshall-Genzer: Jeff, the headline here is that the administration is going to work with insurance companies to ferret out fraud. Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are spearheading this. And their plan is for federal investigators and private insurers to look at claims data for Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. This is a rare instance where the government and private sector are working together. Horwich: And what types of fraud will they be looking for? Marshall-Genzer: They’re looking for patterns. For example, if a doctor billed for more than 24 hours in a day. I talked with Vivian Ho about this. She’s a healthcare economist at Rice University. She says investigators also compare healthcare providers in a given area. Vivian Ho: So if there is one particular provider that’s providing a much higher rate of expensive diagnostic tests, say 400 or 500 percent more of those diagnostic tests than other providers in the area, then that’s a signal that there’s something suspicious going on. Horwich: How big a problem is fraud? Marshall-Genzer: Ho says the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services estimates that as much as $70 billion of the claims it pays out every year are fraudulent. Ho also says, for every dollar the government spends investigating fraud it gets $17 back.

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Orders jumped 1.6 percent as demand for aircraft gained, according to the Commerce Department. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast orders to climb 0.4 percent after a previously reported 1.3 percent-gain in May. Excluding transportation, however, orders dropped 1.1 percent, logging the biggest slide since January. But pending home sales slipped 1.4 in June to 99.3, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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The euro and European stocks rose sharply Thursday after Mario Draghi, president of the E.C.B., said in London that the bank would "do whatever it takes to preserve the euro." His comments were interpreted by some to mean that the E.C.B. might resume intervening in bond markets to keep borrowing costs for Spain and Italy under control.

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When Richard Nixon severed the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold in 1971, he presented the move as a "temporary" emergency measure. I hope nobody out there believes Nixon ever intended to restore gold's link to the dollar after revoking it....For years, successive secretaries of the Treasury from Rubin to Geithner have notoriously managed to keep a straight face when parroting the mantra of a "strong dollar policy" while simultaneously and knowingly engaging in monetary policies yielding the exact opposite result. But promoting the illusion of strength in the deeply impaired fiat

We've noted the unfortunate fact that President Obama has used the espionage act to go after whistleblowers, rather than actual spies. Similarly, we've been quite concerned that people have tried to paint organizations like Wikileaks as being criminal operations or guilty of violating the Espionage Act as well. While there may be many reasons to not like Wikileaks or Julian Assange, that does not mean that they're guilty of criminal activities in publishing classified information they obtain.

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TOPIC 1: Principal Forgiveness Proponents of principal forgiveness (for certain underwater homeowners) believe that such government-sponsored programs may help stabilize housing markets while reducing overall losses to mortgage investors and taxpayers. Opponents are mostly concerned that all underwater homeowners (9 out of 10 of whom are keeping up with mortgage payments, according to recent Zillow [...]

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Leaders of the G20 group of leading Western and developing nations launched the campaign three years ago, aiming to claw back billions in lost tax revenue at a time when many governments are trying to cut huge budget deficits. Saint-Amans said his gut feeling was that before the G20's initiative at its 2009 London summit, people could hide their wealth in offshore havens without any risk of legal reprisals.

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China Investment Corp., which posted a 4.3% loss on its global portfolio last year, has significantly reduced its holdings of public securities and accelerated a push into longer-term investments as the $482 billion sovereign-wealth fund seeks to shield itself from short-term market swings. CIC said in its 2011 annual report released Wednesday that public equities made up 25% of its global portfolio at the end of last year, down from 48% at the end of 2010. Long-term assets--which include direct investments in nonpublic companies and private equity--and hedge funds together accounted for

Home sales in the Hamptons, the Long Island beach retreat for summering Manhattanites, jumped to a five-year high as both the priciest mansions and entry-level properties attracted buyers.

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Last week, I agreed to do an interview on OilPrice.Com. The initial interview was conducted over the phone, with follow-up emails. The interview first appeared on OilPrice and is repeated below. Introduction: As markets continue to yo-yo and commentators deliver mixed forecasts, investors are faced with some tough decisions and have a number of important questions that need answering. On a daily basis we are asked what’s happening with oil prices alongside questions on China’s slowdown,

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Jeff Horwich: When I first sat down this morning, European stocks were heading for another lousy day. But then a bolt out of the blue: the head of the European Central Bank said the ECB will do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro. Mario Draghi's comments were like a cortisone shot of confidence for investors. For more on what muscle the ECB can really bring to bear here, Marketplace London bureau chief Stephen Beard is with me live. Hello, Stephen. Stephen Beard: Hello Jeff. Horwich: What specifically did Draghi say that markets are so excited about? Beard: Well not a lot really. He hinted at a new, more activist role for the European Central Bank in combatting the crisis. The markets got excited because investors now believe the only institution that can really stop this crisis in its tracks is the European Central Bank. It's the only body with the firepower to stop the speculation against Italian and Spanish government bonds and against the euro itself. Horwich: So this is not a sure thing, but if the ECB stepped in, what precisely could it actually do? Beard: It could behave more like the Fed and print more money, pump a lot more cash into these government bond markets. That would certainly bring down borrowing costs in Spain and Italy. The ECB could give the bailout fund a banking license so that the fund could borrow really huge sums of money to do the same thing, to buy directly large quantities of Spanish and Italian government bonds. The ECB could in theory do these things, but it won't be easy. Horwich: Right. What obstacles might be in the way? Beard: Germany, in a word. The Germans don't really like this. They fear that this would let the Southern Europeans off the hook. It would relax the pressure on the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks to reform their economies and get their public finances into shape. The Germans say without radical, even painful reform in these countries, the problem will reemerge and the crisis will resume at a later date. Horwich: Marketplace's Stephen Beard, thank you very much. Beard: OK Jeff.

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Aldous Huxley imagined a world in which the Status Quo satisfies its lust for power by "suggesting people into loving their servitude." Yesterday I discussed the Convergence of Marx, Orwell and Kafka as a means of understanding the global crisis. It's not just financial fraud on a vast scale, or debt or leverage or derivatives or a hundred other arcane mechanisms of parasitic predation; it's the partnership of a mindlessly expansive Central State with Monopoly Capital and the media machine that serves them. I considered including Aldous Huxley in the convergence, as he too anticipated the essential nature of modern life. But perhaps his insights are more complementary than convergent, for he understood the media and State's capacity to not only present a deranged and

ECB President Mario Draghi commented in a speech today that the ECB was "ready to do whatever it takes" within its mandate to preserve the single currency. I have to ask, is that even news? Apparently it it to the stock market which has gapped up over a percent. Bond yields in Spain also reacted to the non-news. Yield on the 10-year Spanish bond fell all the way (drum roll please) to 6.95%. Is that really anything to be giddy about? Let's take a look at additional Draghi comments as

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly fell in June as fewer properties came on the market, an industry group said on Thursday, pointing to weak home resales in July.

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(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, posted lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday as its oil and gas output sagged and its chemicals business struggled.

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