Tuesday morning headlines

Dow 14,000: It went over the magic mark in early trading, and then retreated, and then went over again, and at last check was just a shade under 14,000 (such see-sawing is pretty normal in these milestones). When it finally happens, there will be the usual hoopla, although traders tend not to pay much attention to round numbers.

Murdoch closing in: The Dow Jones board meets tonight on whether to support the company's sale to News Corp. That still leaves the Bancroft family, which controls 64 percent of DJ voting stock and has been divided for months on whether to support the purchase. There's no telling when or how the Bancrofts will finally weigh in. (NYT)

Opening skirmish: Contract talks between Hollywood writers and their employers opened on Monday with predictable rancor. The Writers Guild wants to double the rate of compensation writers receive from DVD sales, and it wants union pay and benefits for writers working in reality television. It's also looking for more pay when shows are downloaded from the Internet. But the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers basically told the union to get lost, calling the demands unreasonable and Draconian. The producers acknowledge that yes, the media landscape has changed, but there’s no way of knowing how much revenue will be generated by having content on cell phones and iPods. (LAT)

AT&T raises rates: We're talking several dollars a month more for a la carte features like caller ID and call waiting. The move could prompt more folks to sign up for bundles of services, which would have them saving money only if they used all the services (most of us don't). Bundling is exactly what AT&T and other carriers are looking for. From the LAT:

Phone companies say the rate increases reflect their increasing costs, which they had not been able to pass on to consumers under decades of regulated pricing. But consumer groups complained that competition was failing to keep prices down, as promised, after the state Public Utilities Commission's decision in August to end rate regulation. "It's open season on telephone rates, so the companies are jacking prices up," said Regina Costa, an analyst with the Utility Reform Network in San Francisco. Since January, the phone companies' rates for certain features have soared as much as 350% for those who don't buy bundled services.

FDA inspection woes: Not that this will come as a shock, but Congressional investigators say that the Food and Drug Administration can only do a limited job in ensuring the U.S. food supply. The FDA is trying to reorganize its field operations, but the Congressional report says some of its measure may backfire. From the WSJ:

Committee staff reviewed the system extensively and found that a shrinking inspection staff examines less than 1% of all imported food. A typical inspector in the FDA's San Francisco office examines nearly 1,000 food entries a day -- roughly one every 30 seconds, the committee report found. The agency, it says, allows importers to take possession of their high-risk goods and arrange for testing by a private laboratory. Before melamine-contaminated pet food killed and sickened thousands of pets, the FDA had never inspected those ingredients from China.

Not enough tellers: Banks looking to expand their branch networks are having a tough time finding job candidates out of high school with enough basic math skills to do the job. Community colleges are creating programs to train tellers, and some banks are targeting retirees, homemakers and college students. From the WSJ:

"People don't know how to count back change," says J.J. Sanchez, a College of Southern Nevada official who is working with local banks to launch a new teller-training program. "I hear that from everybody. It is a lost art." The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted five years ago that the number of tellers would drop 12% this decade, from almost 500,000 in 2000. Instead, despite the advent of new, labor-saving technologies, the number of tellers rose to 603,000 last year and is expected to edge up in the years ahead. The time when bankers' hours denoted a short workday are long gone: Branches are now often staying open into the evening and weekends. Tellers, who generally have a high-school education, are being positioned to interact more with customers and nudge them toward newer financial services.

ESPN in a tizzy: Here the sports network was planning saturation coverage of David Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy debut against Chelsea - cameras placed in every possible crack and crevice of the Home Depot Center in Carson - and now Beckham's start is in doubt because of an ankle injury. Ouch. (ESPN)

Lacter on radio: This morning's business chat with KPCC's Steve Julian covers the supermarket and shipping contract talks, IHOP's purchase of Applebees, and L.A.'s largest publicly held companies.