Paul Sakuma/AP

Don’t get me wrong: the electric-car startup is a success and has every right to boast. But for all its bravado, Tesla’s still getting plenty of help from Uncle Sam.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is felling it. And with good reason. His startup electric-car company reported its first quarterly profit. The stock has gone nuts—in a good way. Tesla just raised $1 billion in new cash, which enabled it to repay, nine years ahead of schedule, the $465 million loan it took from the Department of Energy. Overall, it’s a great success story that has defied the many haters and critics.On Wednesday Musk, a prototypical 21st-century CEO, took to Twitter to talk a little trash: “Tesla wired the funds to repay the DOE loan today.

Junji Kurokawa / AP Photo

Down 7.3% in stunning sell-off

It was only a matter of time. Japan’s stock market, which has soared nearly 50 percent in the past half year, took a hard fall on Thursday. Japan’s central bank has been engaged in an aggressive push to jump-start growth by flooding the economy with cheap money and devaluing the yen. That has worked wonders for the markets. But investors, processing a rise in interest rates and weakness from China (an important trading partner), sold stocks with abandon. The Nikkei 225 index fell 7.3 percent on the trading session.

Read it at CNBC

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$45 to go to the South Bronx.

A tour bus company in New York has announced that they will “cease all tours” to the Bronx after they inflamed residents by selling it as a “ghetto tour.” The company, “Real Bronx Tours,” catered to a European crowd, offering a $45 trip that included a visit to the South Bronx—where they assured customers they would remain a “safe distance” away from the people. The company told riders that the Bronx represents “one of the darkest chapters” of the city’s history. Angry Bronx residents say it's a false claim. “Those days are over, the Bronx is being rebuilt, it's rising again," said Bronx resident Bobby Sanabria.

Read it at The Associated Press

Charlie Riedel/AP

Tornado ripped through 13,000 structures.

The deadly tornado that barreled through suburbs of Oklahoma City Monday—killing 24—left an estimated $2 billion in damage, said Mayor Mick Cornett. With up to 200 mile per hour winds and an EF5 (the highest possible) rating, the twister ripped through 13,000 structures—including homes, schools, and hospitals. The Oklahoma Insurance Department worries that the damage may even exceed $2 billion. Visiting the destruction Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano assured Oklahomans that she would “stay until the recovery is complete.” President Obama is scheduled to visit on Sunday.

Read it at The Associated Press

by Michelle Caruso-Cabrera Although all the news about Chinese investment in the U.S. have focused on the deals that don't get done, Chinese investment in the U.S. is at an all-time high.The Chinese are making headlines around the word for hungrily acquiring energy and resource companies in countries such as Canada, Africa and Latin America.In the United States, the single largest Chinese investment to date is far more mundane: movie theaters.

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Genetically modified seeds were supposed to liberate corn farmers from using pesticide to combat rootworms. But as the insects adapt, farmers are having to adapt—by spraying their fields with chemicals.

It’s not just the cicadas. The Wall Street Journal reports there’s a more significant insect threat being posed to America: rootworms.The bugs, which have the capability to decimate corn and grain crops, have become a more manageable problem in recent years. That’s because companies like Monsanto have developed genetically modified seeds that produce rootworm-killing toxins—without harming humans. (Here’s Monsanto’s rootworm page.) Thanks to the widespread adoption of such seeds, farmers have been spraying their crops with insecticide less frequently.

The next frontier in the fight against hunger may be manufacturing food through 3-D printers.

by Christopher Mims Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology.

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The Federal Reserve chairman has been working like a dog to keep the economy moving, he told Congress today, but they’re not pulling their weight. He's absolutely right.

You’re doing it wrong!That was the gist of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s opening statement in front of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday morning. The Fed is doing its job, but Congress and the White House are being counterproductive.The economy is moving in the right direction, but not fast enough for anyone’s liking. Asset prices are getting a nice lift—in part from the underlying performance of the economy and in part from the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies.

eBooks are finally changing how we write, as well as how we read

Don't get me wrong--I love ebooks.  These days, I rarely read paper unless I have to.  But while ebooks are certainly more convenient, until recently, they haven't exactly been revolutionary.  It was a book on a screen.  You pressed a button to turn pages.  It was great for the consumer, but it was still basically the same old book.  That's starting to change.  The last few years have seen the rise of the Kindle Single, which has actually started to change the economics of the book market.

Introduced by Microsoft.

Cue parents complaining about lack of time children spend outdoors. On Tuesday Microsoft introduced its newest Xbox videogame console. Despite the Xbox having been a rare success in innovation for the company in the past decade, the market it enters today, filled with tablets and smartphones, is intensely competitive. Microsoft is hoping for a big success with Xbox, as its recent releases of consumer products like Windows 8 and Surface have tanked.

Read it at The New York Times