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. 

 

Getting fired isn't supposed to be pleasant, but employers always hit upon fancy-footed ways to dance around the painful truth. 

Companies traditionally have lowered the boom on employees with terms ranging from "streamlining" to "right-sizing," as well as the venerable pink slip. But now one bank has found what's possibly the most depressing term for losing one's job: getting "demised."

HSBC (HBC) on Tuesday said it's cutting 1,100 jobs, but instead of saying so in plain terms, the bank coined a new way of expressing the firings. "The bank will be demising the roles of 942 relationship managers," the company said in a press release.

If that seems, well, rather a grim term, you're right. "Demise" means to "die, decease" or to "pass by descent or bequest," according to Merriam-Webster. 

 

Ford (F),  Procter & Gamble (PG) and Whirlpool (WHR)  are among the latest Fortune 500 companies to benefit from having strong U.S. earnings offset weaknesses in the rest of the world.

Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, reported $2.7 billion profit in North America, its highest level in more than a decade, thanks to the surging popularity of the Ford Fusion.

Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble bragged in its earnings release that it "held or grew value" in the U.S. among businesses representing two-thirds of its sales. Chief financial officer Jon Moeller noted "broad strength across the U.S." in an interview with CNBC.

Appliance maker Whirlpool reported that operating profit in North America surged 44% in the quarter to $218 million, as it benefited from cost-cutting and increased sales of more expensive products. 

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong was finding his legal situation growing more complicated as the U.S. government laid out its case against him on Tuesday. 

The Justice Department filed a formal complaint that alleges Armstrong violated his contract with the U.S. Postal Service and was "unjustly enriched" after cheating to win the Tour de France, The Associated Press reports. 

For Armstrong, the case could prove extremely costly because the government said it would seek triple damages. The Postal Service shelled out about $40 million to sponsor Armstrong's teams for six of his seven victories, and the filing said the USPS paid Armstrong $17 million. 

 

Winter is ending, so we're told. And soon we can anticipate warmer days, more outdoor activities and summer fruits and vegetables. But with the warmer weather comes a hazard that seems to get more serious as time passes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year one out of six people in the U.S. -- 48 million people -- suffers from a food-borne illness. Of that number, 128,000 people are hospitalized and about 3,000 die from their ailments.

That takes a financial toll as well. According to a 2010 report by the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University, acute food-borne illnesses costs the U.S. about $152 billion annually in health care expenses, workplace absences, insurance claims and other economic losses. And that study estimates more than one-quarter of those costs -- or about $39 billion dollars each year -- are linked to "food-borne illnesses associated with fresh, canned and processed produce."