Quick: What's one of the few global industries the U.S. still monopolizes? If you said "pornography," congratulations.

Nearly 90% of porn is American-made, and U.S. Internet porn sites generated $2.84 billion in revenue in 2006, according to Good magazine. Sex sells so much, in fact, that more than 260 new sex sites reportedly go online daily -- with about $89 spent every second on pornography.

For decades, Los Angeles County has been home to the U.S. porn industry. But that changed last November, when county voters approved a mandate requiring porn actors to wear condoms during filming. The new law was intended to combat the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases -- but it's having an unexpected side effect.

 

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspected mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombings who was killed in a shootout with police, received welfare benefits from the state of Massachusetts -- as did his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter, according to the Boston Herald.

 

The news is sure to anger many Americans who are already upset about the tragedy that left three dead and injured 260.

Exactly how long Tsarnaev and his family received public assistance wasn't clear. A spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Health and Human Services told the paper that the payments ended in 2012 when the family no longer met eligibility requirements. 

 

The new national health care law has always fueled debate over funding, but now it's the states that may potentially pass costs on to the federal government.

 

Washington state, which is coping with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, is considering pushing some of its employees out of the state health care plan and into exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. The book keepers in Olympia say their plan would save the state $120 million over the next two years. However, it would just dump costs onto the federal government, since some low-income, part-time state employees and education workers may qualify for federal aid.

 

While the health care law requires health insurance for employees working 30 hours a week or more, Washington already insures employees who work as little as 20 hours a week. Under a proposal still in the developmental stages, the state would change its policies and make deals with staffers working between 20 and 30 hours a week to pay them more, but drop their health care coverage. Those workers would then be eligible for health care through the federal plan, with minimal consequences for the state.

 

Between the fiscal cliff deal and the sequester hikes and cuts, is there anywhere the American consumer's finances aren't getting squeezed?

Surprisingly, it's at the pump. Over the past three weeks, the price of oil fell 9% to $89 a barrel. While a short supply of expendable income also may be tamping down demand for gas a bit, both the Department of Energy and AAA note that the average price of a gallon is down more than 33 cents from a year ago.

The average price for a gallon of regular gas is hovering around $3.55, but research firm Capital Economics told CNN it estimates that price will slide to nearly $3.40. That would save American consumers roughly $80 billion over the course of 2013, which is about the size of the sequestration cuts.

 

Comcast's (CMCSA) NBC, which is under pressure from advertisers to improve its ratings, is betting that viewers will tune into a high-endurance trivia quiz that runs 24 hours per day for 12 days straight.

Called "The Million Second Quiz," the show will air in the fall in prime time, live "from a gigantic hourglass-shaped structure in the heart of Manhattan" that will serve as the living quarters for the champions of "The Game." Exactly what that means isn't clear. But viewers at home will play along and will be able to appear on the show. The top prize for the winner is $10 million. An NBC spokesperson couldn't be immediately be reached.

The show promises to generate plenty of information on viewing habits, especially regarding social media use, that will interest advertisers.

 

A redesigned $100 bill with an interesting new feature will go into circulation on Oct. 8, more than two years behind schedule, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

Benjamin Franklin is still on the front of the bill, but he'll be joined by a blue security ribbon that's supposed to stymie counterfeiters. Officials have been trying for years to combat the high-quality fake $100 bills that are being produced in North Korea, Reuters reports. Those counterfeit bills, called supernotes, are extremely tough to detect.

The blue ribbon, woven into the fabric of the new bill, is supposed to change that. The Treasury Department has loaded the bill with other security features, including an image of a bell and a large "100" that will change color from copper to green when tilted, Reuters reports. The bill also has another security strip near Franklin's head that you can see when you hold it up to the light. 

An eight-story building in Bangladesh that housed several garment factories collapsed early Wednesday. At least 70 people died, and that toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble.

A fireman told Reuters about 2,000 people were in the building, in a suburb of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, when the upper stories began to fall onto the floors below.

Bangladesh is second only to China in garment exports. But as the The New York Times reports, the nation's garment and textile industry "has been beleaguered by safety concerns, angry protests over rock-bottom wages and other problems."

 

The austerity movement is finding out what happens when one's intellectual underpinnings are proved to be deeply flawed. First disbelief settles in, then the laughter. 

Viacom's (VIA) Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert took aim at a highly influential paper written by two Harvard professors, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, and afterward he interviewed the 28-year-old Ph.D. student who poked holes in their findings.