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President Barack Obama says he won’t accept failure in the country’s education system, or listen to “naysayers” who argue that some schools are beyond repair.

Obama told high school students in Miami on Friday that companies hire where the talent is and that the single most important thing businesses are looking for are skilled, educated workers.

Giving a bipartisan boost to his education agenda, Obama appeared with Florida’s former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush at Miami Central Senior High School. The president said that the status quo on education is unacceptable. A good education equals a good job, Obama said, and warned his audience: “You can’t even think about dropping out.”

Miami Central is one of hundreds of low-performing schools across the nation that have received federal turnaround money, and Obama used it as an example of how a school can succeed.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

Bridging partisan divides, President Barack Obama sought Friday to lift up his education reform agenda in the politically crucial state of Florida. Touring a low-performing school that is undergoing a turnaround of academic achievement, Obama paired up with the state’s former Republican governor, Jeb Bush, the brother of Obama’s White House predecessor.

The president was greeted in Miami by the state’s ardently conservative governor, Rick Scott, who just rejected billions in federal dollars for the president’s cherished high-speed rail initiative. From there, Obama headed to Miami Central Senior High School for another unlikely political pairing, with Jeb Bush, Florida’s popular GOP ex-governor. Bush has championed education and has found common ground with Obama even though the current president blamed Bush’s brother, President George W. Bush, for overseeing disastrous economic times.

“Education and education reform are not Democratic issues, not Republican issues,” presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters flying with the president to Florida. A major element of Obama’s trip was to show the bipartisan imagery of appearing with Jeb Bush, part of a broader outreach effort after Obama’s party took a pounding in the midterm congressional elections.

At the school, Obama and Bush toured a classroom where students built robots. Several of the students said they wanted to be engineers, to which Obama said: “I can say this because I’m a lawyer: We need more engineers. Few lawyers and investment bankers and more engineers.”

Miami Central Senior High is one of hundreds of low-performing schools across the nation that has received money from the Education Department aimed at bringing turnarounds. Obama aides said Bush recommended the school as an example of how gains can be made through reform.

Scott met Obama on the tarmac after the president arrived in Air Force One, a greeting role state and local politicians often play when the president arrives in town. It was notable Friday because of Scott’s ideological tussle with Obama over $2.4 billion intended to build a high-speed rail route between Tampa and Orlando. High-speed rail is one of the priorities Obama promotes as part of an agenda designed to boost U.S. competitiveness, but Scott dismissed the project as a boondoggle that Florida taxpayers would end up saddled with.

Just Friday morning the Florida Supreme Court sided with Scott on the issue, saying the governor had the authority to kill the rail line. It was a defeat for federal officials who will now send the money to other states.

Nonetheless, Obama and Scott shook hands and smiled after Obama walked down the stairs in sunny Miami. It was a quick greeting but one with some symbolism for a president navigating the new realities of divided government following the Republican takeover of the House in the November elections.

Obama’s bipartisan overture comes as the president and Democrats are in the midst of partisan warfare with Republicans over budget cuts. Obama he will need at least some GOP support if he’s to resolve that divide and pass any substantial legislation, including education reform, in the second half of his term.

One of his education imperatives this year is to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act, a signature initiative of former President George W. Bush.

Obama assailed the president during his own 2008 campaign and often refers to Bush’s eight years in office as a period of decline for middle-class Americans.

That frequent criticism didn’t sit well with Jeb Bush. In an interview last year, he said Obama’s tendency to blame his brother’s administration for problems, including the economic crisis, was “childish.”

“He apparently likes to act like he’s still campaigning, and he likes to blame George’s administration for everything,” he said at the time.

Education, however, is an area where Obama and Jeb Bush agree. Both support increasing the number of charter schools, tying teacher evaluations to student performance on standardized tests, and setting high standards and accountability. They also believe education is key to invigorating U.S. competitiveness.

Obama has called for fresh spending on education in the 2012 budget he unveiled last month, saying that improving America’s schools isn’t an area where the government can cut back, even as Congress looks for ways to reduce spending and bring down the nation’s mounting deficit.

The federal government has spent about $800,000 on Central Senior High School to help its efforts to turn itself around.

“America can no longer afford a collective shrug when disadvantaged students are trapped in inferior schools and cheated of a quality education for years on end,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in an opinion piece in the Miami Herald that previewed Friday’s trip.

Despite sharing the spotlight with Republicans early in the day, Obama will wrap up his trip to Miami on a partisan note. He’ll headline two fundraisers for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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A 5-month-old boy was laid to rest Monday at the first funeral for the victims of New Zealand’s devastating earthquake, as the confirmed death toll rose to 148 and the government considered a nationwide levy to help pay for reconstruction.

Dozens of family and friends gathered at a small chapel in the stricken city of Christchurch for Baxtor Gowland, who was sleeping peacefully at home when he was struck by masonry shaken loose by the magnitude 6.3 quake last Tuesday. He died in a hospital, the family said in a statement read to The Associated Press by the child’s great-uncle, Peter Croft.

Inside the chapel, a slideshow of the smiling infant’s photographs flashed on a screen, as Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” echoed throughout the room.

“We have all been thankful of the support and good wishes expressed from New Zealand and around the world,” Croft said, his voice shaking with emotion as he read the statement. “However, we would like to think that today is for family and friends so that we can farewell Baxtor with peace and dignity.”

Authorities have named just eight victims of last week’s disaster _ Gowland and another infant among them.

Superintendent David Cliff said Monday that the death toll had reached 148, based on the number of bodies recovered from the rubble. Officials say the task of identifying the dead is slow and difficult, and that unidentified bodies are included on a list of people considered missing, which currently numbers around 200.

Cliff said “grave fears” are held for about 50 of those counted as missing, signaling the final death toll could be around 200.

The multinational team of more than 600 rescuers scrabbling through wrecked buildings in the decimated central area of the city last pulled a survivor from the ruins at mid-afternoon Wednesday, making it six days without finding anyone alive.

Police have said up to 120 people may have been killed in the downtown CTV building, where dozens of foreign students, mostly Japanese and Chinese, from an international language school were believed trapped. And up to 22 people may be buried in rubble at Christchurch Cathedral, most of them believed to be tourists climbing the bell tower for its panoramic views of the southern New Zealand city.

Prime Minister John Key was meeting with his Cabinet on Monday to discuss an aid package for an estimated 50,000 people who will be out of work for months due to the closure of downtown.

Key said measures being considered include an extra levy on all householders under New Zealand’s compulsory quake insurance system to raise the estimated $4 billion needed to cover an insurance shortfall.

The package, to be announced later Monday, would also likely include wage subsidies and cash grants to Christchurch residents to ensure businesses have cash flow and can continue to operate.

Engineers and planners say the city’s decimated central area may be completely unusable for months to come and that at least a third of the buildings must be razed and rebuilt. The government has said that virtually all services conducted in the downtown area will have to operate from elsewhere during the rebuilding period.

Officials estimated that one in three of the central business district’s buildings were severely damaged in the quake and will have to be demolished.

“It’s quite clear that a lot of buildings are going to have to come out of the CBD, so where a building is condemned it will need to be taken down,” Key told TV One on Monday.

He said he expected much higher building code standards for new buildings so they will be able to withstand very strong earthquakes.

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Major uranium miner Cameco Corp., which signed two supply contracts last year with Chinese utilities, said Monday it would like to expand its relationship with the growing Asian market.

Chief executive Jerry Grandey says there were the 65 new uranium-powered reactors under construction worldwide at the beginning of the year and more than 25 of those are in China.

McDonald’s is reporting a 5.3 percent rise in January sales at locations open more than a year, giving credit to its McCafe hot chocolate, Chicken McNuggets and the addition of oatmeal to the menu.

U.S. sales growth was weaker than the rest of the world. U.S. sales rose 3.1 percent, Europe 7 percent and Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa 5.2 percent.

Sales at locations open at least a year is an important gauge because it measures revenue from the company’s existing restaurants rather than growth that came from opening new locations.

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Swedish truck maker AB Volvo reports a profit for the fourth quarter, bouncing back mainly from a jump in sales.

Friday’s report showed a net profit of 3.2 billion kronor ($500 million) in the quarter, compared with a previous loss of almost 2 billion kronor in the same three months a year ago.

Sales soared for the Goteborg-headquartered group in the period, reaching 73.4 billion kronor, up sharply from 59 instant payday loan.8 billion kronor a year earlier.

Volvo has around 90,000 full-time staff and also makes buses, engines and construction equipment. It sold its car division to U.S.-based Ford Motor Co. in 1999, which in turn sold it to China’s Geely Holding Group last year.

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Kellogg Co.’s fourth-quarter net income climbed 7 percent despite falling volumes as the world’s biggest cereal maker lowered costs and raised prices.

It was a difficult and disappointing year for Kellogg, which struggled with intense competition, lower cereal sales and major food recalls. But there were signs that 2011 may be better for Kellogg, and its shares rose in trading Thursday.

Kellogg, which makes Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts and other foods, is increasing its investment in new product development by 25 percent after scaling back during the recession. It also will spend more on auditing suppliers and testing raw materials to avoid a repeat of a major cereal recall and problems with its Eggo waffle distribution that hammered its results.

It is also increasing prices on some of its products to offset higher ingredient costs. The company already put some increases in place during 2010 but those are expected to continue through the year as the cost for corn and wheat soar.

Many businesses are deciding to boost prices to contend with higher costs. Whirlpool Corp. and Swedish rival Electrolux AB both said Wednesday that they were increasing prices because their raw material costs are on the rise. And consumer product makers Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. both said last week that they are likely to increase prices to cope with higher commodity costs.

Kellogg’s price increases also helped make up for softer sales volume during the period.

The company reported that its fourth-quarter revenue dipped 1 percent to $2.86 billion but that still topped the average forecast of analysts surveyed by FactSet for revenue of $2.85

Kellogg earned $189 million, or 51 cents per share, during the period, meeting analyst expectations. This compares with $176 million, or 46 cents per share, a year earlier.

“We lost some of our momentum in 2010, we’re trying to get that back,” said John Bryant, Kellogg’s new CEO.

Bryant, a 13-year Kellogg veteran, took over as CEO at the beginning of the year when former CEO David Mackay retired. Mackay, also Kellogg’s president and a board member, is staying through March to aid the transition.

Kellogg reaffirmed its outlook for 2011, saying it expects to earn $3.39 to $3.46 per share, including the anticipated effects of currency fluctuations. Analysts predict $3.47 per share for the year.

Shares of Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Mich., rose $1.60 _ roughly 3 percent _ to $51.96 by midday.

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A small St. Louis start-up company has been riding high since Best Buy included its products in a national rollout of health and fitness products to the big box retailer’s stores.

Yurbuds’ earphones are now being sold in 560 Best Buy stores alongside somewhat well-known brands in the fitness world such as Gaiam, GoFit and Polar.

“It’s a big step forward for the venture,” said Seth Burgett, the chief executive of Yurbuds. “It is very exciting for us.”

The company’s “Ironman Series” earphones, which retail for $49.99, have a large 4-foot by 5-foot display in many Best Buy stores that proclaims: “Earphones that won’t fall out cash advance in one hour.”

Yurbuds, a business that is a little more than a year old, has 12 employees and is housed at the Center for Emerging Technologies, a business incubator in midtown.

When the Post-Dispatch first profiled the firm in February, Yurbuds was making custom-fitted, rubber-tipped caps that go over earphones, which also are called earbuds. The $20 earbud attachments were designed for comfort and so they would not fall out.

Since then, Yurbuds has expanded into complete earphone sets. Burgett said he realized that consumers wanted a complete solution

China’s biggest electricity provider, State Grid, says it has invested $989 million to acquire seven Brazilian power companies and their transmission facilities.

A notice by State Grid on the website of the government agency that manages state assets says the investment includes a 30-year concession to operate the Brazilian power grids that can be renewed in 20-year contracts once it expires payday loan lenders.

The deal marks a further expansion of State Grid into overseas markets following a similar investment in the Philippines.

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Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan won the backing of lawmakers in the first votes on his 6 billion-euro budget ($8 billion) to tackle what he called the “worst crisis in our history.”

Lawmakers late yesterday passed an initial series of votes on the budget in parliament in Dublin. Lenihan said the spending and tax plan for 2011 was the first step to get Ireland “back firmly on our own feet.”

The government is under pressure to pass the legislation to secure an 85 billion-euro bailout as the fiscal squeeze threatens to prolong a slump that has seen the economy shrink 11 percent over the past three years. The budget, the fourth since October 2008, adds to austerity measures of about 14 billion euros as the government seeks to reduce the country’s deficit.

“The Irish situation is pretty drastic,” Charles Dumas, research director at London-based Lombard Street Research Ltd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “They won’t get the deficit improvement they’re hoping for because they are hammering the economy.”

Lenihan said he’ll cut the salaries of government ministers by 10,000 euros and cap state salaries at 250,000 euros. Internet gambling will be taxed, child benefit payments will be cut by 10 euros per child.

Under the budget changes, a married couple with two children earning a combined 92,000 euros will lose 2,830 euros a year, or 4 percent of their income. A single person earning 52,000 euros loses 1,295 euros, also 4 percent of their income quick cash.

‘Everybody Pays’

“Over the next four years, further reductions in social welfare spending are unavoidable if we are to reduce the budget deficit,” Lenihan said in his budget speech to lawmakers. “Everybody pays, and those who can pay most, will pay most.”

The government faces at least three more votes, including a separate ballot on cuts in welfare payments before the budget is approved.

Cowen has said he will hold national elections as early as February, once he’s secured support for the budget. His Fianna Fail party is set to lose power after 14 years, and Fine Gael and Labor will probably form the next government, opinion polls show.

Both parties have said they’ll seek to re-open the aid deal that Ireland agreed with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund on Nov. 28. Ireland sought help after its borrowing costs soared on investor concern the cost of rescuing lenders including Anglo Irish Bank Corp. would swamp the state.

The budget “needed to have credibility,” said Eoin Fahy, an economist at Kleinwort Benson Investors in Dublin. “It seems to have met that objective although the banking system and the political system remain the great unknowns.”

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The biggest slump in copper inventories in six years is compounding shortages as prices head toward record highs, making the metal a top pick for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley.

Demand will outpace supply by 367,500 metric tons next year, enough for wires, pipes and appliances in about 1.8 million U.S. homes, according to the median forecast of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Stockpiles may drop to an all-time low of less than one week’s usage, said Michael Widmer, a London-based metals analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Global exchange inventories have dropped 22 percent this year, heading for the largest slide since 2004, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Prices advanced 34 percent since June 30 even as the International Monetary Fund predicted slower world growth, U.S. unemployment stuck near its highest level in more than a quarter century and China, which uses two in every five tons of copper, curbed lending and raised interest rates. Now, banks from Credit Suisse Group to Barclays Capital are predicting higher prices, with the median in the Bloomberg survey at a record average of $8,542 a ton for 2011, 15 percent more than this year.

“Copper is the most attractive” of the base metals, said Ian Henderson, who manages about $8 billion in assets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, including shares of Freeport- McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. and BHP Billiton Ltd., the second and third-biggest miners. “I don’t expect any decline in copper demand in 2011 and there is little in the way of new mines coming on stream.”

Smart Phones

Prices climbed 18 percent this year, reaching $8,725 a ton on the London Metal Exchange today. That compares with a 6.5 percent advance in the MSCI World Index of equities, a 6.9 percent return on Treasuries and a 16 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Index of 24 raw-material futures. Prices reached a record $8,966 a ton on Nov. 11.

Demand for the metal, used in everything from smart phones to brake pads, will increase 4.2 percent next year, compared with a 2.6 percent gain in production, Barclays Capital said in a report Nov. 11. Supplies fell 363,000 tons short of demand in the first eight months of this year, the Lisbon-based International Copper Study Group said in a report Nov. 23.

Mining companies have failed to keep pace with demand because new reserves are getting harder to find and the quality of ore is declining, meaning less metal is extracted from each ton of earth. Average grades declined to about 1.1 percent this year from 1.6 percent in 1990, according to Guildford, England- based researcher Brook Hunt, a Wood Mackenzie company.

Biggest Mine

Production at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, will drop as much as 10 percent in the 12 months ending in June because of lower grades, Melbourne-based BHP Billiton, the largest shareholder, said in a statement Aug. 25.

Freeport-McMoRan, the largest listed producer, said Oct. 21 that its copper sales from North America would drop to 1.1 billion pounds this year from 1.2 billion pounds in 2009. Sales from Indonesia will probably decline to 1.2 billion pounds from 1.4 billion, the Phoenix-based company said.

“The major copper reserves that are being produced today come from 100 year-old mines, with few exceptions,” Freeport Chairman James R. Moffett said in a conference call on Nov. 17.

Analysts’ forecasts for shortages may not yet be reflected in futures markets. Copper for delivery in December 2011 traded at $8,555 on Dec. 3 on the LME, 1.9 percent below than the benchmark contract for delivery in three months.

Goldman predicts prices of $11,000 by then and buying the December 2011 contract is one of its seven recommendations in commodities, according to a report Dec. 1.

Banking Bailout

The forecast gains could be stunted by slowing growth. Prices slumped 7.7 percent in three days last month on concern China’s steps to control inflation may curb demand for metals and that Ireland would need a banking bailout.

Prices now may also be skewed by who owns metal. One unidentified company held 50 percent to 79 percent of the LME’s deliverable stockpiles as of Dec. 1, bourse data show. Buyers that day paid the largest premium in two years for immediate supply, relative to the three-month contract. Deliverable inventories total 324,375 tons, the exchange said Dec. 6.

Record prices could encourage users to substitute cheaper materials. Global consumption may be 100,000 tons less than expected in 2011, and 250,000 tons below predictions in 2012, because of replacement by plastics in plumbing and aluminum alloys in air-conditioners, Credit Suisse said Oct. 20.

Hybrid Cars

Substitution may take out 3 percent of demand this year and next, according to London-based Rio Tinto Group. New uses in electric and hybrid cars should make up for some of that, Andrew Harding, chief executive officer of Rio’s copper business, said Nov. 26. The average North American car contains about 23 kilograms (51 pounds), while an electric car uses about 75 kilograms, he said.

The tripling of prices since December 2008 is also spurring use of scrap metal, alleviating shortages signaled by this year’s 22 percent drop in stockpiles monitored by exchanges in London, Shanghai and New York. The supply of metal from wires and electronic goods jumped 25 percent in the first eight months, the International Copper Study Group reported in November.

The biggest threats to higher prices are China tightening its monetary policy and a worsening European debt crisis, said Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Widmer, whose March prediction for this year’s average price is accurate to within 2 percent.

China Economy

China may raise bank reserve requirements to counter capital inflows and a possible jump in lending at the start of 2011, Li Daokui, an adviser to the central bank, said Dec. 3. The bank pushed the one-year lending rate to 5.56 percent in October, the first increase since 2007.

Still, manufacturing grew at a faster pace for a fourth straight month in November, according to the nation’s logistics federation. China’s economy will expand 9 percent in 2011, compared with 10 percent this year, according to the median of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would still be more than three times the speed of the U.S., the second-biggest copper user, the survey shows.

Consumption in China, India, Brazil and the Middle East will expand at an average annual rate of 7 percent per capita through 2015, according to Barclays Capital.

“Where is all the new copper going to come from?” said Tom Patton, chief executive officer of Quaterra Resources Inc., a Vancouver-based company developing mines in North America. “New deposits take 10 to 15 years to start up.”

Higher Demand

Aurubis AG, Europe’s largest smelter, is also predicting higher demand next year.

“We presently see a very positive order flow for next year,” Bernd Drouven, chief executive officer of the Hamburg- based company, said by e-mail. “Every copper price dip is recognized by customers as an opportunity for new orders.”

Demand from Asia helped Santiago-based Codelco, the biggest producer, increase the surcharge on sales to China next year by 35 percent, more than the 23 percent increase for Europe, industry officials said last month. Buyers pay the fee on top of the price of LME copper for immediate delivery.

The gain is driving shares of mining companies. Freeport- McMoRan climbed 36 percent in New York trading this year, beating the 9.8 percent gain the S&P 500 Index.

Demand may also be boosted if JPMorgan, BlackRock Inc. and ETF Securities Ltd. start exchange-traded products backed by the metal. Such funds could hold as much as 250,000 tons, Aurubis said in a report Nov. 15. Similar products backed by gold accumulated 2,098 tons since they started in 2003, equal to nine years of U.S. mine output.

“The real story is metals and we’ve dubbed this the metals decade,” Mari Kooi, chief executive officer of Wolf Asset Management International LLC, said at the Bloomberg Link Hedge Fund and Investor Briefing in New York on Dec. 2. “What we have is a set up of shortages in the metals.”

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