Business

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

The retailer Lululemon has turned pricey yoga clothes into fashion. But now, some of its yoga pants have revealed problems for the company. As NPR's Wendy Kaufman explains, the pants are, well, see-through.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Inhale all the way over to your left wrist.

J.C. Penney's latest turnaround idea is an old one — the store within a store. But signing a deal is the easy part. Making it work for both parties is the hard part.

Update at 2:03 p.m. ET. Rates Unchanged:

Following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve said in a policy statement today that it is continuing with its "highly accommodative stance of monetary policy."

That means that it will stay the course with its aggressive stimulus, buying $85 billion of bonds a month.

When you read the words of Clotaire Rapaille, a "French-born psychiatrist-turned-marketer" quoted in yesterday's interesting Slate article about the marketing of cars to women, it's hard not to read them in a voice that's sultry and French and not entirely serious, as if he's some kind of sales expert crossed with Pepe Le Pew (despite the fact that this doubtless has no basis in reality).

The future doesn't look so bright for China-based Suntech, one of the world's largest makers of solar panels: On Wednesday, it was forced into bankruptcy after missing a $541 million payment to bondholders.

Say you buy a textbook in another country, where textbooks are cheap. Then you bring the book back to the U.S. and sell it at a profit. Did you break the law?

No, you didn't. In a ruling that came down yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a student who had his friends and relatives buy textbooks in Thailand which he later re-sold in the U.S. on eBay.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with some books for resale.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: Start reading now. The Supreme Court has ruled that buying books overseas and reselling them in the United States does not violate copyright law. Yesterday's six/three decision comes as a relief to companies like eBay and Costco that resell all sorts of foreign goods.

NPR's Dan Bobkoff reports.

Twinkies, Ho Hos and Ding Dongs will go to a pair of private equity firms. Wonder Bread will be sold to snack food maker Flowers Food. The Beefsteak brand of bread will go to a Mexican company.

For more on the housing industry, Steve Inskeep talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Cypriot politicians are busy trying to come up with an alternative plan to raise the cash needed to stave off a collapse of its banking sector after they unanimously rejected an international bailout package that would have imposed a levy on the nation's savings accounts.

Here's a quick look at some of Wednesday's developments: