China has turned to the World Trade Organization to help block U.S. tariffs on 22 types of Chinese products, including solar panels, pipes for oil wells, coated paper and steel wheel hubs.

The Chinese appeal to the WTO takes aim at the U.S. Commerce Department, which has recently imposed stiff duties on Chinese products. The department has cited Chinese subsidies, especially those funneled through state-owned enterprises, that it says give Chinese firms an edge over American competitors.

LOMA LA LATA, Argentina — In a desertlike stretch of scrub grass and red buttes, oil companies are punching holes in the ground in search of what might be one of the biggest recent discoveries in the Americas: enough gas and oil to make a country known for beef and the tango an important energy player.

The juice maker Pom poked a big stick in the eye of the Federal Trade Commission this week.

The FTC and the marketer of pomegranate juice have been locked in a legal battle since the agency accused the company of over-hyping the health benefits of its juice and related products. Earlier this week, an administrative court judge slammed Pom for failing to back up claims in some of its advertisements, specifically about the products’ ability to treat or prevent heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.

It’s a mortgage problem that is likely to intensify as home-owning baby boomers by the millions shift into retirement: Although they may have significant financial assets tucked away in retirement accounts, their diminished monthly incomes may not be sufficient to meet some lenders’ hyper-strict underwriting rules.

— How French theorist Roland Barthes gave us the modern TV recap.

— Can trees deter crime?

— Eurobonds, how do they work?

— Five signs that China might already been in recession.

Mitt Romney explains Keynesian budgeting:

Halperin: You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically. Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

Why are we talking about Bain Capital again?

The answer, it seems, is that the two presidential campaigns want it that way. The Romney campaign wants us talking about Bain Capital LLC because Mitt Romney says his time leading the firm prepared him for the presidency.

Early explorers wrote about the masses of grapes weighing down vines along the Virginia shores. Captain John Smith wrote that early colonists in Jamestown made 20 gallons of wine from the grapes. In the early 1600s, winemaking was a requirement for the men of Williamsburg because the British were so intent on fostering a wine industry in the colonies.

It’s lunchtime in downtown Washington. How do you know where to go for a delicious meal at a fair price? Or better yet, how to avoid a bad one? An economist can help.

The city’s dining scene still falls short of the quality of Chicago or San Francisco, much less New York or Los Angeles. Nonetheless, it is possible to eat very well here, provided that one understands where the quality is distributed. As a longtime economist who has written a blog and a book on the economics of food, I have been studying and indeed living the economics of our local dining scene for more than two decades.

Is your business successful? How do you know?

If you’re like most business owners, your days are filled by efforts to make your company successful. Those tasks might be focused on making a great product, generating sales, or building customer relationships. And you might be great at those things.

The roadshow for the upcoming Facebook IPO, together with the heightened public scrutiny into Facebook's inner workings, has opened our eyes to the ways the Internet business as we know it looks a lot like the entertainment industry.