Some good news out of the Queen City: Bank bonuses are rebounding.

In Charlotte, the nation's No. 2 bank town after New York, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are preparing to pay bigger annual bonuses to many of their 34,000 local employees, the Charlotte Observer reports.

The levels won't reach the peaks hit during boom times a few years back, but they should be up significantly over last year. Wells Fargo's total pool for bonus and commission pay is up about 66 percent over last year, the newspaper reports.

While politically sensitive nowadays, the payouts are a critical part of personal income - and consumer spending - in Charlotte. The bonuses help drive the city, funding charitable giving, the real estate market, retail and other aspects of the economy.

To a lesser extent, the fatter bonuses could provide an economic boost to this region's economy, where Wells Fargo's Wachovia and Bank of America also employ thousands of people.

Conventinal engineers are a useless defense against foreign competition.

That's the warning from author Daniel Pink, this morning's featured speaker at the 25th annual Emerging Issues Forum at the Raleigh Convention Center. Pink said the nation's future depends on producing a cadre of scientists and engineers who think creatively like painters and novelists.

Pink -- whose writing has run in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review and Fast Company -- said the mass-produced scientist-technician who performs routine repetitive tasks can easily be outsourced with cheaper foreign labor.

Pink advocated for a right-brain/left-brain synthesis in education by a renewed emphasis on the performing arts, fine arts and liberal arts. In fact, much of Pink's hour-long speech on the future of civilization sounded a lot like a Renaissance philosophy of the Humanities that embraces all branches of learning.

"There's a notion out there that if we only train armies of scientists and engineers, we're going to be okay," Pink said. "We're reducing kids into vending machines who spit out the right answers."

Shares of PPD fell this morning after the drug-research company reported weaker sales and profit.

The Wilmington-based company employs about 1,400 people in the Triangle and is one of the largest contract-research organizations in a region full of them.

Fourth-quarter revenue fell slightly to $357.4 million, PPD reported late Monday. Net income fell 60 percent to $18.99 million.

Adrienne is on the road today, but reports that the Raleigh team of bakers from Swank Cake Design competing on last night's "Ultimate Cake Off" on TLC did not win the $10,000 prize money.

Here's what Adrienne said: "Wayne Steinkopf did not win. He won the skills test, which was decorating a dog bowl with fondant, but he lost the taste test which cost him 30 minutes in working time. Still, he did finish his 8-foot cake, which had a rotating agility ring. The judges didn't think most of his dogs looked realistic enough (the winner's dogs looked REALLY realistic) and that is what I think did him in. But overall, I do think he had the best looking cake. He has a clean style and the cake was colorful, but not overdone."

Undefeated Green Hope is third among 4-A schools in the N.C. media high school girls basketball poll. Northern Durham holds the No. 7 spot. Athens Drive and Clayton are among the schools getting votes, but not breaking into the top 10.

Enloe is No. 8 and Millbrook is No. 9 in this week's North Carolina high school basketball poll. Apex is getting some votes.

Biogen Idec reported stronger fourth-quarter profit, bolstered partly by rising sales of its Tysabri medicine for multiple sclerosis.

The Massachusetts company makes Tysabri and other drugs at its campus in Research Triangle Park, where it employs about 850 people. About half of those make drugs and the rest handle patient services and support.

Net income of $305.6 million beat expectation of Wall Street analysts. Revenue rose to $1.13 billion, up 5.4 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.

Linebackers coach Andy McCollum has been considering an opportunity to leave N.C. State and join Georgia Tech's staff.

N.C. State athletics director Lee Fowler confirmed Tuesday morning that McCollum has interviewed for the job and said McCollum hadn't made up his mind as of Monday afternoon.

Good news this morning for the Triangle Veterinary Emergency Clinic and the folks of Morreene Road: NCDOT has changed its mind.

According to City Councilman Mike Woodard, highway department engineers met this morning and decided the clinic will not have to add a turn lane in front of its planned new clinic at Morreene Road and Linden Terrace -- thus removing the need to move a city sewer line and saving the clinic around  $250,000.

As reported in last Saturday's Durham News, residents near the clinic site -- former Mariner's Cove restaurant location -- want the clinic to move in and renovate the warehouse eyesore in their midst. After learning that DOT's requirements for the turn lane and sewer move jeopardized the clinic's plan, they mounted a campaign to convince DOT to reconsider and enlist city and state officials on their side.

Martin Marietta Materials reported Tuesday that sales and profit declined in the fourth quarter as demand for the company's construction materials continued to be hurt by the recession, which has reduced state budgets for road work and curtailed overall construction activity.

The Raleigh company, which produces rock, gravel and other materials, had net sales for the three months that ended Dec. 31 of $327.8 million, down 21 percent from the same quarter in the prior year.

The company reported a loss per diluted share of 7 cents for the quarter, compared with earnings per diluted share of 60 cents for the same quarter in the prior year.

For the year, Martin Marietta sales were down 19.5 percent from 2008.

"The infrastructure construction market, which represented 55 percent of 2009 shipments, was weakened as state budgets were negatively impacted by the prolonged recession and further exacerbated by the expiration of the federal highway bill in September 2009," said Ward Nye, Martin Marietta's president and CEO.