From Bloomberg:
Etsy's IPO Is a Direct Challenge to Wall Street's Beliefs 
Etsy's initial public offering is about to question Wall Street's conscience: Will investors embrace a company that wants to do good while it does well?
For three years, Etsy has been what's called a certified B Corporation—a distinction given to companies that pass demanding standards of benefiting the community, environment, employees, consumers, and suppliers. At Etsy, this includes giving all employees 40 hours of paid volunteer time every year, paying employees more than 40 percent above the local living wage, and covering 80 percent of workers' health insurance premiums, according to the company's 2013 Values & Impact Annual Report. (More here)
How Greece Can Make It Through 2015 
Greece won’t exit the monetary union this year, in our judgment. The country’s near-term financing gap is small relative to the size of the financial aid it has received in the past, and the will to keep the union together remains strong. We expect Greece and its creditors to find a mutually acceptable list of reforms to unlock the funds needed to keep the beleaguered country afloat. Past experience suggests that agreement could be reached at the last possible moment — just before a repayment must be made to the International Monetary Fund. Still, as the timeline grows tighter, the risk is rising that European leaders might run out of patience and trigger a messy exit from the euro area. (Full article)
Jobless Rate Shows Faster U.S. Wage Growth ‘Around the Corner’
“More robust wage growth in the U.S. may be just around the corner,” according to Chris Haverland, a global asset-allocation strategist with Wells Fargo & Co.’s investment institute.
The attached chart illustrates how Haverland reached this conclusion, presented two days ago in a report. He compared the unemployment rate with the year-over-year percentage change in average hourly earnings, as compiled by the Labor Department. (More here)
Iran Nuclear Accord Hailed as Landmark After Marathon Talks
Iran and world powers took their biggest step toward ending a decade-old nuclear standoff, saying they agreed on the main outlines of an accord after more than a week of grueling talks. (Continue reading)
These Charts Show the Horrific Conditions That Forced California Into Water Rationing 
California's governor has taken the unprecedented step of ordering mandatory water restrictions as the state's epic drought enters a fourth year.
The restrictions are severe—a 25 percent reduction in water use and a ban on new homes unless they feature water-efficient irrigation, among others. However, they should come as little surprise to anyone who has watched this drought unfold. Here are four charts that offer a glimpse at California's predicament, which by some measures has been the worst drought in at least 1200 years. (More)
Crash-Testing Driverless Cars in a Robot City
A mother pushing a baby carriage jaywalks across a busy city street. Cutting between two parked cars and partially obscured by a bus, she edges her stroller into traffic before freezing as a speeding car bears down on her. Will the car stop in time? Or will it mow down mother and child? It doesn’t really matter: The mom is a robot, and the car is a driverless vehicle cruising down a fake street in a mock town. (Here)
What Physicists Are Looking for Now That They’ve Found the Higgs Boson 
The world’s most epic physics experiment will flip back on as early as Saturday. After a two-year tuneup, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will run at twice the power it needed in 2012 to find the Higgs boson, the long-theorized particle that confers mass onto matter.
As monumental as the Higgs discovery was — its theorists won the Nobel Prize in Physics the next year — physicists still have very little idea what’s going on in the universe, beyond the stuff we can see, touch, and smell. A big question concerns “dark matter,” what scientists call the stuff that makes up 80 percent of galaxies but that doesn’t interact with light, atoms, and molecules. They know it’s there, but it’s hiding from us. (Read more)
Oil Rigs Decline By Smallest Number in Almost Four Months
U.S. oil rigs fell by the smallest number in 15 weeks, a sign that America's oil-drilling crash may be nearing its end.
Drillers idled 11 oil rigs (excluding gas rigs), dropping the number to 802, Baker Hughes reported on Thursday. The rig count has dropped 50 percent since October, an unprecedented retreat, as the drop in oil prices has made production less profitable. The median forecast from a Bloomberg survey of 10 #RigCountGuesses on Twitter was for a decline of 19. (More here)
America's Got a New Superbug to Fight
Meet America’s latest superbug: Shigella sonnei. It’s a strain of bacteria that causes severe diarrhea in about half a million people in the U.S. each year. Most of the time, it's treated effectively with an antibiotic called Cipro. But that’s changing, and it’s bad news. (More)
Americans Can't Stand Their Bosses, and Bosses Admit They're Phoning it in
If you're miserable in the workplace, take solace in the fact that you've got a lot of company.
Half of all U.S. employees have at some point in their career quit their jobs to get away from their boss, according to a new Gallup study of 7,272 adults. If workers loathe their higher-ups, the feeling may be mutual. Gallup also found that managers weren't thrilled with their work situation, either. Just 35 percent of U.S. managers said they felt engaged on the job. Fifty-one percent said they weren't engaged, and 14 percent confessed that they actively tune out at work. (Read more)
Indiana Pizzeria Raises Over $160,000 After Receiving Criticism for Anti-Gay Comments
Supporters of an Indiana pizza restaurant that was thrust into the national spotlight after one of its owners said she wouldn’t cater a gay wedding have raised more than $230,000.
Donations for Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, have poured in to the website gofundme.com over the last 18 hours to help “relieve the financial loss endured by the proprietors’ stand for faith.” The site had collected 7,863 donations totaling $230,676 as of 4:23 p.m. Thursday in New York. (Read more)
Oil Extends Losses After Iran, World Powers Agree Outline Deal 
Oil extended losses after Iran and world powers said they reached an outline accord that keeps them on track to end a decade-long nuclear dispute.
Brent for May settlement declined $2.77 to $54.33 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange at 1:32 p.m. New York time. (More here)
