Growth of key high-income economies, at a glance

WASHINGTON -- How badly did the U.S. economy fare during the first three months of the year? Worse than any of the other high-income economies in the Group of 7 nations.

Battered by a brutal winter, the economy shrank at an estimated 1 percent annual pace from January through March — and the government will likely downgrade that figure Wednesday.

Here's a best-to-worst roundup of first-quarter economic growth for the G-7 countries plus China:

JAPAN

A 6.7 percent annual gain from January through March, thanks to "Abenomics" — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's program of aggressive government spending and easy-money policies from the Bank of Japan. Still, economists doubt that the breakneck pace is sustainable, especially after Japan raised its sales tax in April.

CHINA

A 5.7 percent annual increase from January through March, well below China's double-digit growth of a few years ago. The slowdown in part reflects a government policy to shift away from growth dependent on exports and investments in factories, real estate and infrastructure and toward slower, steadier growth based on spending by Chinese consumers.

GERMANY

A 3.3 percent annual rise in the first three months of the year on strong consumer spending and business investment.

BRITAIN

A 3.3 percent annual gain, boosted by a recovery in construction spending.

CANADA

A 1.2 percent annual increase, the slowest growth since the end of 2012, on weaker business investment and government cutbacks.

FRANCE

A 0.1 percent annual gain, with consumer spending and business investment slowing.

ITALY

A 0.5 percent annual drop as Italian consumers and businesses continued to struggle in the wake of a recession in the eurozone — the 18 countries that use the euro currency.

UNITED STATES

A 1 percent annual decline as a frigid and icy winter kept consumers indoors and businesses let their inventories dwindle.

Sources: FactSet, IHS Global Insight, U.S. Commerce Department.

Meet The New Stars Of Campaign Ads: Mom And Dad

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hide captionSen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., talks with her father, former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu on Feb. 1. The two appear together in recent television ads for her re-election campaign.

Gerald Herbert/AP

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., talks with her father, former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu on Feb. 1. The two appear together in recent television ads for her re-election campaign.

Gerald Herbert/AP

It's the summer of a campaign year and once again the airwaves, the Internet, and likely your own Facebook and other social media feeds, are full of political ads.

In the primaries, we've already seen ads featuring cartoon turtles, gator wrestling, lots of dogs, horses, and of course guns – propped against pickup trucks or resting over shoulders.

And in one case, there's the candidate shooting a drone out of the sky. "I'm Matt Rosendale and this is how I look from a government drone," he says. "And this is what I think about it." A gunshot rings out.

Do we need to mention the one about castrating hogs?

But this year there's a hot new trend in TV spots: Candidates are turning to their moms and dads to help them make the pitch.

You might call it "Meet the Parents."

Some of these ads are pretty traditional: Music plays and old photos from decades long gone flash by. That's the case in one ad from Michelle Nunn, a Georgia Democrat and U.S. Senate hopeful. Her father Sam Nunn was a longtime U.S. senator who remains a much respected figure in the state.

"My dad was point guard for the Perry Panthers," she says. "I tried to follow in his footsteps"

He makes just a very brief cameo at the end: "And I think you've got a pretty good shot."

Using Mom or Dad in a campaign spot is hardly new, but there does seem to be a lot of it this year.

"Tom has a passion to serve our country. After Harvard, he gave up a great career to volunteer for the Army," says the mother of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Cotton in Arkansas, speaking in a TV spot. "They offered to make him a military lawyer, but Tom insisted on the infantry. Just like his dad."

The soft focus, the piano playing underneath – it's all pretty safe... and predictable. But then comes part two, in a separate ad from the Cotton campaign:

"You may have seen a TV ad with my mom," Cotton says in the spot. "It made her a celebrity, and it made my dad a little jealous." The candidate speaks from the back of a pickup truck, his dad in the background, working and looking a little annoyed.

"I been here the whole time," his father says. "Just messing with these cows...When you get through politicking, come on and give me a hand."

Marketing specialist and blogger Ann Handley says such ads embrace a popular approach in content marketing and branding: more narratives and fewer slogans.

"I think we're seeing stories more at the heart of these political videos, and I think it's because politicians are just like brands and companies," Handley said. "Organizations are really embracing the power of story and their ability to tell a true story well to the people they are trying to reach."

Handley's favorite ad this so far this cycle is one in which the mother of a candidate in Maine delivers the entire message using American sign language. The ad is completely silent. No music. No voice over — just the candidate and her mom and subtitles.

In Louisiana, incumbent U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, enlists her dad, Moon Landrieu, a former New Orleans mayor who is well known in his own right.

"I'm Mary Landrieu and I approve this message," the candidate says.

"Don't you say that at the end?" her father retorts.

"You can start with it. I'm not sure I'll want to approve it after this," she quips.

"Mary's always stubborn, but she got the oil and gas royalties for Louisiana," he tells viewers.

Vanderbilt University Professor John Geer, who studies campaign advertising, says this Landrieu ad – like the one with Tom Cotton's father – feels pretty natural.

"They seem to be enjoying it," he said. "I mean whether they are or not you can't be sure."

But he says it's a nice change from the gauzy perfection you often see in campaign spots. "Let's say you have the picture-perfect family that is set in the perfect home and all things perfect. That doesn't resonate with many Americans."

Perfection may be the ideal, but this is 2014, and The Waltons went off the air a long time ago.

"So that's why the ads with the parents kind of going back and forth with their children as candidates," Geer said. "Having their snarky moments, so to speak, works because that's the way Mom's relationship with the son or Dad's relationship with the daughter really is."

Geer does have one recommendation for voters: Enjoy these quirky, biographical ads now, because as the general election gets closer, the rough and tumble of the fall campaign likely means those good, old-fashioned attack ads will once again dominate.

Addressing Border Crisis, Politicians Find Invitation In Misperception

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

The House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing Tuesday to address the influx of unaccompanied immigrant children from Central America. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spoke at the proceedings, saying the situation at the border was "urgent."

Railroads give up attempts to keep crude oil shipment data secret

WASHINGTON -- Some information about large crude oil shipments by rail is becoming publicly available, in spite of industry efforts to keep those details confidential, since the federal government ordered railroads to begin sharing it with state and local officials.

Washington state gave its railroads, including BNSF, the largest hauler of crude oil by rail in North America, until Tuesday to seek a court order to block the release of the information. The data was requested by McClatchy and other news organizations under the state open records law.

On Tuesday, Washington was to release the information.

Other states, including California and Idaho, continue to review the information to determine what they’re legally allowed to make public.

Virginia, which originally sided with the railroads, last week reversed itself after seeking guidance from the state attorney general. The state Department of Emergency Management posted the information on its website.

Several derailments of trains carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region in the past year have raised concerns in cities and states across the continent. The spilled oil ignited massive fires in Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota and Virginia, often surprising local mayors, fire chiefs and police chiefs who were never told about the shipments.

After an April 30 derailment of a CSX crude oil train in Lynchburg, Va., the U.S. Department of Transportation gave the industry 30 days to begin providing basic details about the shipments, including routing, frequency and volume, to emergency responders.

However, the railroads insisted that states limit public release of the information, calling it security sensitive, and asked them to sign nondisclosure agreements. But neither the Transportation Department nor the railroads could identify a specific legal justification for keeping the information secret. A letter from BNSF to the California Office of Emergency Services cited “homeland security regulations” but didn’t elaborate.

Stephen Flynn, a transportation security expert at Northeastern University, said in an interview that he did not believe the documents released this week contained security- sensitive information. At least some of the information that’s been shared by the states was already available from other sources, including the railroads themselves.

Tacoma, Wash., for example, receives three trains of Bakken crude oil a week, each with 90 to 120 tank cars, according to a document released by state officials on Monday. It does not reveal what days or what times the cargo arrives, nor the route it takes.

A map on BNSF’s own website, though, identifies Tacoma as a destination for crude oil.

Florida also receives three trains of Bakken crude weekly. A smaller railroad, Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway, hauls the trains to a terminal in Walnut Hill in the state’s panhandle. A document released by the state division of emergency management shows that the shipments originate on BNSF in North Dakota.

Walnut Hill is also on the BNSF terminal map.

Underscoring the need to provide the information to emergency responders, one of the trains that was bound for Florida derailed last November near Aliceville, Ala. Though no one was killed or injured, the accident spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude and ignited a fire that could be seen for miles.

Company successfully tests space-tourism balloon

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- An Arizona company says it has successfully completed the first small-scale test flight of a high-altitude balloon and capsule being developed to let tourists float 20 miles above the earth.

World View Enterprises of Tucson said Tuesday that it launched the flight last week from Roswell, New Mexico.

CEO Jane Poynter said the system broke the world record for highest parafoil flight, lifting a payload to 120,000 feet.

"It went really, really, really well," Poynter said. "Actually, the guys hit the ball out of the park. We're thrilled."

The system uses a balloon similar to that used in 2012 to lift Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner 128,000 feet to make a world-record breaking 24-mile sky dive. That flight also launched from the Roswell airport.

Poynter said that last week's flight was the first testing all the components together. It used a balloon about third the size of that planned for passenger flight to lift a payload of about one-tenth of what will be used to carry passengers.

The company is still planning to begin its $75,000 per-person flights in 2016, she said. The balloons will lift a capsule carrying six passengers and two crew members 20 miles up, where they will float under a parafoil for about two hours before floating back down to earth. The capsule will be big enough for the passengers to walk around.

The selling point is the view of the Earth and seeing its curve, the company says. Other space-tourism ventures under development will rocket passengers the full 62 miles into space but on much shorter flights.

In filings with the Federal Aviation Administration, World View said it planned to launch its flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico. But Poynter Tuesday said that no final decision has been made on where to base the flights.

Spaceport is where Virgin Galactic plans to launch its first space-tourism flights at a cost of $200,000 per person. Development of Virgin's spacecraft has taken longer than originally planned, and it is unclear when the company, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, will make its first flight. The company's newest target date is the end of this year, but it has said that for each of the last several years.

"I don't think anyone anyone considers us in a race," Poynter said when asked if they might beat Virgin Galactic to passenger flight. "We don't consider us in competition because the experience is so completely different."

El-Sissi says he donates half his wealth to Egypt

CAIRO -- Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Tuesday he will donate half of his personal wealth and half of his salary to help the country's crippling economy, the improvement of which he said requires sacrifices from all Egyptians.

El-Sissi also said he asked the government to amend a newly drafted budget — the largest in Egypt's history at $115 billion — because it had a deficit he said was unacceptable. The draft budget kept Egypt's budget deficit hovering around 12 percent.

The budget had large sums dedicated to state subsidies on food and energy, as well as spending on pensions and social spending. El-Sissi said he asked his government to amend it, but didn't specify what will be changed.

He said tough measures will have to be taken to address the deficit and other economic challenges. Tourism revenues, a main foreign cash earner, have fallen drastically because of Egypt's political unrest.

"I found the deficit increasing, bringing our debts up to ($282 billion) only because this is the budget that won't stir public opinion," he said. "I couldn't approve it. ... How long can we continue to avoid confronting our challenges and problems?"

El-Sissi said Gulf aid to Egypt in the past months, estimated around $20 billion, won't last.

"I am telling you, there must be real sacrifices from every Egyptian," he said.

To set an example, el-Sissi said he will donate half of his personal wealth and half of his salary to the country. The monthly salary for the president is set at $6,000.

"This is too much for me. I am telling you I will do two things. I will only take half of this salary," he said. "There is something else I can do. I will give up half of what I own, included what I inherited from my father, for the sake of the country."

He appealed to wealthy Egyptians to do same, saying a bank account he would oversee would go to help Egypt's myriads of problems.

The size of El-Sissi's personal wealth was subject to speculation around the time of his nomination for elections when he was required to divulge it to the election commission confidentially.

A local newspaper published a report estimating his wealth at $4.2 million, including inheritance from his father. But the paper later retracted amid reports of criticism from the military for publishing it. El-Sissi's family is one of the best known makers of oriental-type furniture in Cairo's old district.

El-Sissi also said he will not accept or be able to meet demands from different sectors for wage increases and better working conditions.

Protests by workers and government officials were a main feature during the last three years in Egypt, as they joined in with the spirit of revolt against government policies and corrupt practices.

US condemns Beirut bombing, pledges support

BEIRUT: The United States Embassy Tuesday condemned the terrorist bombing that shook Beirut overnight, pledging full support for Lebanese security forces in the struggle against terrorism.

“The United States condemns this morning’s terrorist bombing in Tayyouneh. We wish a full recovery to those wounded in the attack,” the embassy tweeted. “The United States reaffirms its support for the Lebanese Army and Lebanese Internal Security Forces in their mission to uphold security."

On Monday before the bombing, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon David Hale had pledged his country's full support, assistance and partnership with the ISF and the Army.

“A stable Lebanon is more important than ever. Lebanon’s government and security institutions are working hard and effectively to counter terrorism and maintain the country’s stability. We stand by your side and offer our full support and assistance,” echoed a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in the same day.

Likewise, many Lebanese politicians have expressed condemnation of the terrorist attack that killed a General Security officer and wounded 20 near an Army checkpoint in Beirut’s southern suburb.

“[It is sad] that the series of explosions continues, stealing the lives of innocents and spreading chaos,” Culture Minister Raymond Areiji said. He called on all political parties to gather around the support of the official security forces against the terrorist threats.

“It is our fate to pay the price of the extremism hitting the region,” said Michel Musa, member of Speaker Nabih Berri’s Development and Liberation bloc, adding that he expecting other attacks to occur in the near future.

In this vein, MP Ibrahim Kanaan called for a separation between political conflicts and security threats.

“We must deal with the security tremors independently of the political crisis,” he said, referring to the presidential vacuum and the disruption of the country’s political institutions.