Robert Siegel talks to Kalle Lasn, a co-founder of Adbusters Magazine. Lasn helped originate the idea for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In 2008, the railroad industry launched an ad campaign to make its benefits known. Perhaps you've heard trains can move a ton of freight 500 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Now the barge industry is hopping on the public relations train, saying "we're like railroads but better." Both are transportation sectors that previously worked hard to stay out of the public eye. But the barge industry, in particular, depends on government funding for river infrastructure — some of which is operating on borrowed time. With locks beginning to fail and the prospect of river slowdowns, barge companies are banding together in a push for help from the government.

The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday that MF Global's former chairman and CEO Jon S. Corzine ignored several internal warnings about the risks associated with taking on exposure to Europe before the company declared bankruptcy. Lynn Neary talks to Wall Street Journal reporter Julie Steinberg, one of the article's coauthors, for more.

The first votes of the 2012 Republican nominating contest will be cast four weeks from Tuesday in the Iowa caucuses. The air is crowded with ads and the campaigns are pulling together their ground operations.

President Obama was in Osawatomie, Kan., where he delivered an economic speech about the middle class. Osawatomie is the same city where, a century earlier, former President Teddy Roosevelt called for a "New Nationalism," in which he talked about the role of government. For more, Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Scott Horsley.

New California rules are meant to get school kids to drink fewer sugary drinks and more water. But many students don't want to drink out of public water fountains.

A pair of senators — one Democrat and one Republican — release a payroll tax plan they believe can find bipartisan support. It pays for the tax cut with a tax on millionaires, but it exempts those millionaires who actually are small business owners who create jobs.

Unionized businesses in Charlotte, N.C., have traditionally had to keep a low profile in this right-to-work state. But with the Democratic National Convention headed to town in 2012, having union ties could now be something to flaunt — and cash in on.