Once mostly the purview of children, Halloween has grown into a major consumer holiday that now includes 18 to 34 year-old millennials and older adults who seize the opportunity for a night of escapism.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handled 39 percent of U.S. container imports in 2002, but that figure fell to 32 percent by 2013, according to U.S. census data. They have lost business to competitors at a time when, overall, global trade is booming and imports are rising at all ports, including L.A. and Long Beach. And the ports are losing out to others that can handle larger vessels.

Corporate America usually hasn't viewed hot-button social issues as any of its business. Then came Indiana. The controversy over the state's religious rights measure signed into law recently has been striking for the parade of well-known businesses that not only joined in the opposition to the law but took the lead in voicing their disapproval.

Of all the issues the Obama administration is grappling with, a modest redesign of what food labels say about sweeteners might not have seemed among the more controversial. But ever since First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the plan last year, a lobbying frenzy has ensued.

More than 4,400 ships bring nearly $400bn worth of goods through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every year, a crucial link in the global supply chain of factories, warehouses, docks, highways and rail lines. Most blue-collar workers along the chain have seen their wages slashed with the quick rise of global trade. But the longshoremen who move the goods the shortest distance, between ship and shore, have shrewdly protected pay that trumps that of many white-collar managers.

The tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers arrive year-round by the ton, with peel-off stickers proclaiming "Product of Mexico."

This holiday season, Amazon's little helper is an orange, 320-pound robot called Kiva.

A Carson, Calif.-based company is trying to position itself at the perfect intersection of online DIY and the nation's aging fleet of personal vehicles. U.S. Auto Parts Network Inc. caters to do-it-yourselfers. It sells to people whose idea of the perfect weekend morning is getting some grease under the fingernails while working on their cars, trucks and SUVs.