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2016

10.0

Billionaire hedge fund pioneer Leon Cooperman told CNBC on Tuesday the insider charges against him are "totally unjustified," and the amount of money the government is wasting prosecuting his firm is "shocking." "Information is not a crime. We deal in information. We call on companies," he said. "What I look for is insight, not insider information." in a "Squawk Box" interview, the Omega Advisors chairman and CEO said he has two jobs now: make money for his investors and convince a jury he's not guilty of the charges being brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Thankfully, despite this mild distraction, we're doing well. Our Omega credit fund is up 13 [or] 14 percent this year. Our equity-only fund is up about 7 percent this year, which is in line with S&P. And our all-weather, do everything fund is up about 5 percent," Cooperman said. Omega has about $5.4 billion in assets under management, with what it says is a significant amount of personal general partner capital invested. Cooperman said he was encouraged to fight the government by fellow billionaire and Omega investor Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot. "[Ken Langone] called me up two [or] two and a half months ago ... and said look: 'I've known you for 40 years. I've been an investor with you for over a decade. I know what you stand for," Cooperman said. Cooperman recalled Langone claiming the best $30 million he ever spent was defending himself against then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Cooperman added that Langone also said: "'You've done nothing wrong. Don't give these guys a dime.'" Fighting the charges is going to cost "substantially more" than agreeing to a settlement, Cooperman said. "I could have settled ... for less than half what I give of what I give to charity annually." In statement released to CNBC before his appearance, Cooperman said he acted "appropriately and lawfully" and won't let his legacy be "destroyed unfairly." Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Cooperman of buying into Atlas Pipeline Partners ahead of a deal, allegedly using his status as one of its largest shareholders to acquire nonpublic information about an upcoming transaction. In his "Squawk Box" appearance, Cooperman also made the case for why he believes Donald Trump is not presidential, and argued for why he sees the stock market as fully valued.

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2019

12.0

Shared Destiny. Shared Responsibility. The city and health care provider want to provide resources to teenagers. Story at a glance A groundbreaking partnership between the city of Los Angeles and Planned Parenthood is paving the way for a new model of teen health care. Starting in 2020, L.A. will open 50 wellness centers in city high schools, providing teens with advice and support for mental and physical health, as well as resources for reproductive care.  The partnership is expected to run the city at least $12 million during the first year, modeled after external Planned Parenthood institutions that rely largely on government funding.  Originally reported by the Los Angeles Times, the public health initiative is “designed to bring much-needed health and wellness care to underserved teenagers.” The centers are available for up to 20 hours a week and professionally staffed. Plush decorations will help them feel like relaxing spaces to help teens feel safe.  According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 55 percent of teenagers, both female and male, engage in sexual intercourse before the age of 18. At the high school Planned Parenthood centers, teens who are sexually active will have access to birth control options and condoms, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and infections (STD/I), and various types of testing.  Currently, there are 34 centers open and operating, with Planned Parenthood running five of them. They hope to eventually operate all of the clinics.  High rates of teen vaping and e-cigarette use and rising depression statistics point to issues with teen health. Los Angeles and Planned Parenthood are specifically working to combat STIs within school walls, but they are open to providing resources for other needs if there is a demand for it.  Teen accessibility to Planned Parenthood has long been contested, however, and some critics oppose the city’s partnership. Speaking to The Washington Post, Sister Paula Vandegaer of Volunteers for Life, a pro-life group, is opposed to the Planned Parenthood partnership because “it ‘pushes sexuality beyond where they should without reference to families,’” adding that regular in-school nurses are sufficient. A Stanford-led study discovered that youths see higher rates of antidepressant prescriptions in the wake of a shooting. A Stanford-led study discovered that youths see higher rates of antidepressant prescriptions in the wake of a shooting. The Prairie state joins a growing list of states suing JUUL for its marketing practices. The Prairie state joins a growing list of states suing JUUL for its marketing practices. At least two products are being tested — and the results appear positive. At least two products are being tested — and the results appear positive. America is changing fast! Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed and engaged.

abortion

Roe v. Wade

(abortion , abortions , planned parenthood , parenthood , reproductive , antiabortion , clinics , roe , planned , pregnancy)

2016

9.0

The White House on Friday afternoon issued a correction removing "Israel" from a transcript describing the location of a speech President Obama delivered in Jerusalem.  The initial transcript of Obama's speech at former Israeli President Shimon Peres's memorial service said the speech was delivered at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Israel. The White House released its initial transcript just before 8 a.m. on Friday. Then shortly after 4:30 p.m., the White House released a "corrected" transcript that struck out "Israel." Israel declared Jerusalem its capital in 1950, but the U.S. and other countries do not recognize it as such and maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. Obama led a U.S. delegation to Peres's service on Friday that included Secretary of State John KerryJohn Forbes KerryA lesson of the Trump, Tlaib, Omar, Netanyahu affair Trump's winning weapon: Time The Memo: O'Rourke looks to hit reset button MORE and former President Bill ClintonWilliam (Bill) Jefferson Clinton3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Buckingham Palace: Any suggestion Prince Andrew was involved in Epstein scandal 'abhorrent' The magic of majority rule in elections MORE. Obama was one of several speakers to eulogize the former Israeli leader. "The last of the founding generation is now gone," Obama said during his speech, saying the former leader longed for "an Israel that is secure in a just and lasting peace with its neighbors." "And so now this work is in the hand of Israel’s next generation, in the hands of Israel's next generation and its friends," Obama said. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

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2017

10.0

A recent poll of adult Americans revealed a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic structure of the United States government under the Constitution. Nearly a third of respondents could not name one of the three single branches. Such widespread ignorance is no small matter. Let me put it in plain terms: People in power want more power. Power without limitations is dangerous. So there must be limits on power and they must be enforced. Think of a 3-year-old. If a parent tells a 3-year-old that he can’t eat in the living room except when the football game is on, the no-eating-in-the-living-room rule is no longer a rule — the living room is going to be a sticky mess.  The same applies with our nation’s rules as outlined in the Constitution. Those in power at any particular time are put there as fiduciaries. The people are the trustees. The trust is self-government. We entrust Donald Trump or Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Obama's high school basketball jersey sells for 0,000 at auction Dirty little wars and the law: Did Osama bin Laden win? MORE or Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellTrump faces crucial decisions on economy, guns Are Democrats turning Trump-like? House Democrat calls for gun control: Cities can ban plastic straws but 'we can't ban assault weapons?' MORE with our own power to govern ourselves — we pass the baton to them to make decisions on our behalf. This works to our benefit only if we can take the baton back or if we pass it on with specific rules on how to twirl it, toss it and catch it.   Put another way, the system is set up so the three branches of government can boss each other around. The president can veto a law passed by the legislature or simply refuse to enforce it. Congress can pass laws that override laws made by executive branch agencies — or even decisions by courts. Congress can also vote to impeach the president or federal judges. Judges can declare a statute or a presidential decision unconstitutional. And so on.  Bottom line? There is no king anymore, folks. In England, the monarch’s power derives from God. In America, no one has a divine right to govern. The Constitution lays out the structure for how the people will govern themselves. To the extent that there is a boss, it is the Constitution, which forces all individuals in power to answer ultimately to the people. The constitutional system is only as good as the boss who enforces it. In America, “we the people” are the boss. But today this system of self-governance is under immense strain. Candidate Trump threatened to challenge the election results if Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonTop Sanders adviser: Warren isn't competing for 'same pool of voters' Anti-Trump vets join Steyer group in pressing Democrats to impeach Trump Republicans plot comeback in New Jersey MORE won the 2016 presidential race. As president, he has questioned the integrity and validity of the federal courts, tried to interfere with investigations into Russian intervention in the election, and pushed the limits of the Emoluments Clause, which forbids the president to receive gifts from foreign governments. What are we the people going to do about this? To begin with, we need to understand a few things: First, having a cop on the block matters. A law is meaningful only if it is enforceable. If elected leaders are allowed to violate the Constitution with no consequences, the Constitution will wither and die. We the people must be that cop. Second, there is a big difference between policy and politics. Each branch of government makes decisions based on policy rationales — empirical evidence plus normative goals and values. Politics is a different animal altogether. To politicize an issue is to associate it with an ideological (and often emotional) bias that is fiercely guarded by clusters of people. When an issue is politicized, ideological bias drives policy, regardless of the facts. This is very, very troubling.  Take climate change. The scientific consensus is that the Earth is warming, and that there is a 95 percent or higher probability that the warming is caused primarily by humans. Responsible lawmakers on both sides of the aisle may debate whether trying to halt this trend is, as a policy matter, worth the impacts of environmental regulation on industry, which may be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Different policy responses can be reached without ignoring or denying established, empirical facts. Political ideologues, by contrast, ignore facts and science in their single-minded quest to win. Third, once a new tool appears in the government’s “toolbox,” it can be picked up for use at any time. When a president gets something constitutionally wrong or pushes existing boundaries while technically staying within the law, his actions set a precedent. Consider waterboarding — the controversial tactic used during the George W. Bush presidency. President Obama banned it. President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE has contemplated bringing it back. The tool is in the box. Fourth, “strict constructionism” is a myth. The Constitution is relatively short. And it is old. There is no way to apply it in modern times without interpreting it in some way. Therefore, people who purport to interpret it based on the document’s “plain language” perform an act of interpretation just as so-called activist judges do. The difference is that, by claiming to apply a “plain meaning,” certain judges may be able to avoid revealing why they are in fact choosing one reading over another. This theoretical debate matters a great deal when it comes to lifelong appointments to the Supreme Court. Fifth, the Constitution applies only to the government. When the government hands off power to private military contractors or to private prisons, the Constitution does not apply. Facebook faces no First Amendment claims for kicking off offensive users, for example. As the lines between government and corporate America blur, the Constitution’s relevance fades. We must be mindful about privatizing government. Sixth, American values are not laid out in the Constitution. Many of our daily national policy debates assume there is common ground — somewhere — about adherence to “American values.” These values might include honor, transparency, hard work, innovation, opportunity, freedom, justice and tradition. But these values are, for the most part, not written into law — and adherence to values is not enforceable in court. This legal tidbit comes as a surprise to many people who assume the Constitution is always there to protect them. Voters need to know what the Constitution can do and cannot do. Our collective freedoms and rights require accountable leadership, regardless of which party is in power. Otherwise, government as we know it may not survive into the next generation. Kimberly Wehle is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, former assistant United States attorney and associate independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation and the author of the forthcoming book “The Outsourced Constitution: How Public Power in Private Hands Erodes Democracy.” View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

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2017

7.0

The 10,000 hour rule is the most spoken of rule in the field of learning. It's the idea that you must spend at least 10,000 hours on deliberate practice to become world class at your field. First developed by Anders Ericsson, this idea was later popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers. " But what if you didn't want to be an expert or world class? There are a couple of reasons for that: It's a large time sink and huge commitment to be world class. Fortunately, there's other research that suggests it takes much less than that to be just reasonably good — in fact, as little as 20 hours. In his TED talk, Josh Kaufman, author of "The Personal MBA, " shares how he can learn anything from scratch. In his opinion, there are only four elements for rapid skill acquisition. Let's see how he does it. The first order of business in learning is to establish your goals. For the beginner, the impetus to learn a new skill is often to achieve a specific task: it could be to play a specific song or to learn enough calculus to finish the assigned math homework. Deconstructing a skill into smaller bundles allows you to focus on what helps you arrive at your desired outcome. Take what you need, and leave the others for another day. The learning curve is set up in such a way that beginners can derive gains quickly at the start. To take advantage of this, study and understand the core principles behind that specific skill. Know the 80/20 and exploit it. One of Josh Kaufman's discoveries when he was learning the ukulele was that most of the pop songs involved just four chords: G, D, E-minor and C. By mastering these four chords, he was able to play most of the pop songs in the past five decades. Not too shabby for a few hours of work. It's crazy to know that learning has become a new form of procrastination. The act of acquiring information becomes more important than the actual act of mastery. We believe that we must know all there is before we begin, lest we make mistakes or be inefficient in our learning. Just how much information do we really need to rapidly acquire a skill? Kaufman explains that all we really need is enough information to self-correct. That means we need the ability to recognise our own mistakes, and then make adjustments when this inevitably occurs. Over time, we become mistake free. Rinse and repeat, and we eventually get to our desired level of proficiency. This is the primary reason why people aren't able to learn a skill. Forget 10,000 hours; optimizing for 20 is hard enough. Willpower isn't to be trusted. It ebbs and flows, giving us inspiration at one moment and leaving us at the next. When it comes to getting work done, we give ourselves plenty of excuses. Focusing on mastering our behaviour is a bad idea. Better, instead, to focus on improving our environment and make it conducive for practice. Remove the distractions that prevent us from sitting down and practice. It's a simple idea but difficult to put into practice. For example, you first need to have a ukulele to practice on before you learn how to play it. There are tools that you must first have before beginning. Josh Kaufman's ukulele didn't come with strings attached. He also had to tune it, and get the scores for the songs he wanted to learn. These are all relatively small obstacles, but they add up psychologically when it comes to actual practice. Your mind will come up with all sorts of excuses to remain comfortable. Don't give it that opportunity. 20 hours is very doable. It's 45 minutes of practice everyday, for less than a month. It's far more doable than 10,000 hours anyway, which is about the equivalent of holding a full-time job for 5 years. The problem? Starting is often the hardest part. That's why no matter how simple something can be, there will be resistance. There are all sorts of excuses you can give yourself when you begin learning any skill. Most will quit before they even really begin. The most important takeaway from Josh Kaufman is this — the major barrier to skill acquisition isn't intellectual; it's emotional. There is a frustration period when we first start out because we are grossly incompetent. We feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel scared. But that's what happens when we begin learning any skill. That's what happens when we actually do something new. The key is to recognize and own that feeling. Then do it anyway.

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2019

9.0

At one point, Chief Keenan put 300 people on the case, and he was the one who took the confession from the killer, David Berkowitz, who had slain six young people. John L. Keenan, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives who oversaw the manhunt leading to the August 1977 arrest of David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” serial killer, died on Thursday in Mineola, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 99. His death, at NYU Winthrop Hospital, resulted from congestive heart failure, his grandson Kevin Brennan said. Mr. Berkowitz had terrified the city in a yearlong string of nighttime shootings. Chief Keenan obtained his confession hours after he was captured without a struggle outside his apartment building in Yonkers. As he told it, Mr. Berkowitz said, “I know you. You’re detective — Chief Keenan.” “And I said, ‘Yeah? Who are you?’ “He said, ‘I’m the Son of Sam.’” So ended a nightmarish time during which Mr. Berkowitz, a chubby, curly-haired, 24-year-old postal worker without a criminal record, had wielded a .44 caliber handgun to kill six young people, all but one of them women, and wound seven others. Mr. Berkowitz came upon his victims, usually a couple sitting in a car, on darkened streets and secluded areas in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. In rambling letters to the Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin, he taunted the police. He signed his notes “Son of Sam,” a reference to his belief that he was commanded to kill by a demon lurking in a dog owned by a Yonkers man named Sam Carr. Chief Keenan assembled a 30-member homicide task force when it first became evident that several murders had followed a similar pattern: nighttime ambushes with the same kind of gun. Shortly before Mr. Berkowitz’s arrest, Chief Keenan had expanded his force to 75 detectives and 225 other members of the department, patrolling in uniform or civilian clothes. Detectives had consulted psychiatrists and psychologists in an effort to develop a portrait of the killer, but their theories varied. Police sketches were circulated based on statements from a small number of witnesses to the shootings, but they proved of little use since the shootings occurred at night. Ultimately, a summons issued to Mr. Berkowitz’s car, which had been parked in Brooklyn’s Bath Beach neighborhood near the scene of what became his last murder, in late July 1977, was instrumental to the police in identifying him. The case capped Chief Keenan’s police career. He retired in January 1978 after more than 30 years on the force. John Lavelle Keenan was born on Dec. 18, 1919, in County Durham, England, a son of John and Sabina (Lavelle) Keenan, who were of Irish descent but had lived in England. They had settled in New York, where his father was a steamfitter, but his mother briefly returned to England for his birth. He graduated from St. Michael’s High School (now Xaverian) in Brooklyn. His parents couldn’t afford to send him to college, so he joined the Police Department in 1941. Drafted a year later into the Army, he took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge while in a Counter Intelligence Corps unit of the Fourth Infantry Division. He fought alongside J.D. Salinger, who was writing what became “The Catcher in the Rye” during lulls in combat and became a lifelong friend. After being discharged from the Army as a lieutenant at the war’s end, he returned to the Police Department and rose in its ranks while obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology. He was chief of inspectional services, a unit mainly devoted to uncovering police corruption, before being named chief of detectives. In November 1977, Chief Keenan announced that he would assign female detectives to the elite homicide unit. He said the move was “more than just a trend of women’s lib” and that women in other detective assignments had shown a high degree of “tenacity and inquisitiveness — qualities that are especially important in homicide work.” After retiring from the police, Mr. Keenan, who lived in Rockville Centre, N.Y., was vice president for operations of the New York Racing Association, which oversees the state’s tracks. He is survived by his wife, Sara Keenan; his daughter Joan Brennan; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Two other daughters, Mary Ellen Keenan Carey and Sara Keenan, died before him. Mr. Berkowitz, who pleaded guilty to six murders, was sentenced to 25 years to life for each of them in June 1978 and remains in prison. When Chief Keenan was honored at a retirement party at Antun’s restaurant in Queens in the summer of 1978, Mr. Salinger came down from his home in rural New Hampshire, where he zealously guarded his privacy, to join in the tribute. Departing from the focus on police work, which had attracted some 300 officers to the party, Mr. Salinger told the crowd that Chief Keenan had been “a great comfort,” especially in a foxhole.

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2019

8.0

ZURICH (Reuters) - Smash-and-grab thieves have stolen jewelry designed by Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger, famous for creating the nightmarish creature in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi film Alien. Police in the eastern canton of the Grisons, where Giger was born, said pieces worth nearly 18,000 Swiss francs ($18,450) were taken from the shop window of a gallery in the provincial capital of Chur before dawn on Thursday. They posted pictures here showing a wristwatch emblazoned with skulls and rings featuring protruding tongues and goggle-wearing figures. Giger, who died in 2014, was awarded an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects in 1980. Exploring the relationship between the human body and the machine, he created “biomechanical” images of humans fused with industrial parts. Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Hugh Lawson

art

artists

(art , museum , artists , exhibition , paintings , artist , painting , gallery , museums , works)

2016

12.0

Need a break from the hunt for Hatchimals or from eyeball-detonating Christmas displays? Here’s our guide to eight affordable shows for eight holiday theater tastes, from I-can’t-get-enough-tinsel traditionalists to Santa-is-for-suckers holiday haters. WHAT IT IS The Classical Theater of Harlem brings back its Christmas musical, about three generations of a Harlem family healing after a tragedy, to the Apollo, where it had its premiere last year. A visit from Grandma helps cheer things up. Set in Harlem’s pregentrification 1980s, the show features original music and reimagined Christmas carols in the spirit of pop, gospel and jazz. WHAT OUR CRITIC SAID When it had its premiere last year, we called it a “good-looking, high-energy show” that was “packed with vocal talent and propelled by a terrific five-piece band.” TICKETS apollotheater.org/firstnoel WHAT IT IS The New York stint for this holiday musical sketch comedy show, which has run for over 13 years in Los Angeles, features guys in holiday-mom drag and goofball skits about Christmas lights and regifting. (Think of it as a Kids in the Hall holiday special.) There are also nostalgic nods to classic Rankin and Bass animated holiday specials like “Frosty the Snowman.” It’s good for kids 13 and over who can handle salty situations. TICKETS santasia.com WHAT IT IS If your taste is more experimental than established, check out this new movement-theater work from the Mason Holdings theater company and the writer and performer Tracy Weller. Set in an artfully cluttered attic, the piece is about a woman of indeterminate age who revisits Christmases of her past. A preshow party includes Christmas cookies, glasses of glögg and a visit from Santa. TICKETS mason.holdings WHAT IT IS This family-friendly stage version of the beloved animated television special from 1965 features Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang searching for the real meaning of Christmas by dancing and waxing philosophical about the existence of Santa. Expect Vince Guaraldi’s music (“Christmas Time Is Here”) and original choreography. For children 3 and older. TICKETS secrettheatre.com WHAT IT IS This “Home Alone” parody features sock puppets, a four-person choir in ugly Christmas sweaters and cute handmade toys manipulated and projected onto a screen. Although the company Recent Cutbacks built this 55-minute show for adults, it’s about a puppet boy beating back a pair of idiot burglars, so children 8 and older will get a kick out of it too. TICKETS recentcutbacks.com WHAT IT IS The haunted-house designer Timothy Haskell and the company Psycho Clan bring their immersive theater acumen to a bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Over three floors you’ll explore a distorted holiday landscape that looks as if a gaudy Christmas lawn display had exploded. Take photos with the Santa of your choice (hunky, Elvis, Mrs. Claus or the Jewish Santa Hanukklaus); smooch in a mistletoe grotto; and practice figure eights on a faux ice skating rink on the roof. WHAT OUR CRITIC SAID A review of one of Mr. Haskell’s haunted houses praised him for “mini-dramas and sleights of hand with the panache of a seasoned magician.” TICKETS santastical.com WHAT IT IS A new family musical about a sad Christmas tree named Douglas Fir who turns his back on the holiday after being stripped of his ornaments on Dec. 26. The news release finishes the tale: “Determined to remain a decorated Christmas tree, Douglas heads back home to Mistletoe Mountain and Miss Balsam’s Finishing School for Christmas Trees to get the diploma he never received.” The production, by the Narrows Community Theater of Brooklyn, features music by Debra Barsha, who wrote the score for the Keith Haring bio-musical “Radiant Baby,” and book and lyrics by Ms. Barsha and Tim Sulka. TICKETS mostmiserablemusical.com (members of the miliary and their families receive free admission, with military ID) WHAT IT IS This adaptation of Charles Dickens’s holiday ghost tale returns to the parlor of the landmark Merchant’s House Museum. Surrounded by period furnishings and flickering candles, the actor John Kevin Jones plays Dickens, who narrates his story of Tiny Tim and Scrooge. At select performances you can throw back some mulled wine in the kitchen. TICKETS dickens2016.bpt.me An article on Tuesday about eight affordable theater shows with holiday themes misstated the website for “The Most Miserable Christmas Tree” at the Fort Hamilton Army Base Theater in Brooklyn. It is mostmiserablemusical.com.

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2016

1.0

Photo courtesy of World Red Eye Cultural Exchanges. When Jason Odio was 18, South Beach was his playground. His dad was a local club owner and restauranteur, and Jason worked those connections to get in as a young promoter with Opium Group—the reigning nightlife promotion company of the early to mid 2000s. Every week, Odio brought friends and fashionable faces to Mansion, SET, and other megaclubs owned by the Group—and he says it was nothing short of "incredible." "I had access to the best clubs on the beach. It was an amazing time for me," Odio explains. "But I yearned for more substance. I started to enjoy the culinary scene and more music-driven stuff [over bottle service culture], and I think those were signs of my maturing." Odio isn't the only one feeling these growing pangs. Over the last three years, nightlife in Miami has been shifting—moving away from over-the-top VIP blowouts and towards smaller, more intimate hangouts. Just having a megaclub with major EDM DJs, flashy dancers, and high-end lasers is no longer enough to keep a business afloat in this city; in 2014, nightlife kingpin Cy Waits' attempt to bring his Vegas style to South Beach with a club called Adore failed after four months. Mansion—one of South Beach's most iconic VIP playhouses, closed its door for good in September 2015, just two years after it was voted the 47th Best Club in the World by DJ Mag. Mansion's shuttering prompted one anonymous insider to declare to Miami.com that "bottle service [in Miami] is dead." Opium Group, which at its peak owned Mansion, SET, Cameo, Opium Garden, Prive and Mokai nightclubs, doesn't even exist anymore; it was purchased by a new company called Icon Management in August 2015. (Mansion re-opened as Icon Nightclub on January 9, 2016.) This toppling of the old-guard suggests that most locals— and many tourists—are ready for something different. What was once considered the top of the nightlife pyramid is now a fading relic of the city's fist-pumping past. The void left by these fallen giants is quickly being filled by a bevy of smaller hotspots, like dancefloor-equipped finger food joint Coyo Taco and late-night lounge Libertine (both opened in 2015), as well as hip-hop hangout Sidebar and upscale dive the Corner, among others. "I think the big club is seeing the end of its days," says Jake Jefferson, a promoter who's been throwing parties with the Poplife crew for eight years. Until Grand Central was shut down by developers in late September, Poplife made the 2,000-capacity club their home, helping to throw annual Mad Decent, HARD, and Fool's Gold parties during Miami Music Week in late March, as well as numerous live band and DJ events throughout the year. "People are looking for dancefloors now," Jefferson continues, referring to the glitzy clubs' tendency to block off space for VIPs tables. "Bigger clubs are going to have to start creating more GA room, because it's not that cool anymore to buy bottles and get a table. Smaller places give the opportunity for everybody to mingle, and you can have more of an intimate experience with a DJ that you're actually there to see." Ditching traditional nightclubs for more intimate experiences isn't a trend exclusive to Miami. Last year, the Independent noted that the number of nightclubs in the UK shrunk from 3,144 in 2005 to 1,733 in 2015. There is "a fundamental shift in the way a new generation chooses to spend its entertainment budget," wrote the Independent's Ian Burrell, citing streaming services like Spotify and dating apps like Tinder as replacing nightclubs as the go-to places for discovering new music and scoring dates. But the changing face of nightlife in Miami is spurred by a phenomenon specific to the city: the gentrification of mainland neighborhoods like Brickell, Downtown, Wynwood, and Midtown. It used to be only the island of South Beach that raged from dusk to dawn, even during internationally-recognized festivals like Winter Music Conference, Miami Music Week, and Art Basel Miami Beach. But over the last ten years—thanks in large part to younger promotion companies such as Poplife and SAFE who saw potential in downtown's less-visited streets—it's become increasingly trendy to carouse on the mainland side of the bridge. And according to Mic.com and Miami's Ocean Drive magazine, these evolving neighborhoods—which developers are already dropping billions into building luxury high rise condos in—are helping to attract larger numbers of young creatives from all over the country, who are choosing to chase their dreams in Miami over hubs like New York City and Los Angeles. Nightclub owners are fueling Miami's shift in geography too. At a recent panel held at the Perez Art Museum, Opium Group's former owner Eric Milon said the future of Miami's nightlife isn't the beach but across the bridge. "I think it's Wynwood, I think it's midtown, I think it's the design district, I think it's Little River," Milon said during the panel, referring to neighborhoods with rising cultural cache. "I think more people are going to come [from] all over the world and they're going to plant their seeds." Milon is a partner in Coyo Taco, a small restaurant serving beer and tacos with a cozy dancefloor in the back that fits 100 people at the most—a far cry from Mansion's 2,500 capacity and million-dollar setups. Jason Odio left Opium Group a few years ago, and invested in Little Havana's "resurgent" main street Calle Ocho. Now 30, he's found success with Sidebar, a dimly-lit bar with a backyard and no frills that's played host to the A$AP Mob and LA's the Do Over since it opened in 2014. It's only a 25-minute drive from South Beach, but atmospherically, the laidback Sidebar is light-years away, often without cover and full of stylish, weed-smoking sneaker heads instead of buttoned-up professionals. Libertine is another club that shares Sidebar's all-inclusive attitude. The cozy, 180-capacity lounge opened in 2015 and gives patrons a place to dance to everything from indie electro to deep house and 2000s-era hip-hop. Though it serves plenty of bottles and operates under the liquor license of massive neighboring Club Space, Libertine puts local DJs in the spotlight and gives them reign to play to their own tastes instead of the charts. "There is something very genuine and substance-oriented to [our approach]," says Libertine's program director Michelle Leshem. "It's nice to see the passion behind music, mixology, and experiences being valued." Libertine shares a block with fellow late-night favorite the Corner, one of downtown's first attempts at an intimate mixology bar operating since November of 2011. The dimly-lit afterparty favorite has sandwiches on the menu, and is the kind of place that puts fresh fruit and house-made bitters in your glass. Two blocks north, the old owners of Grand Central opened an upscale bar on January 14, 2016 called 1306, its 40-person capacity a drastic change from Grand Central's 2,000 headcount. (1306 has a larger 400-capacity space in the back, but it's only open for special events.) Even back in the classic nightlife district of South Beach, the cocktail has become king. South Beach's latest hang, Craft Social Club , made it very clear it's "not a nightclub" when it announced in October 2014 that it would be opening on New Year's Eve. Their private VIP tables are outfitted not with bottles, but with personal bartenders whipping up table-side craft concoctions. By cracking the mainland code, Miami has discovered what NYC and LA have always had: diversity. "Everyone's like 'Finally, there's a cool small bar or a club that's not the megaclub which was my only option," Jefferson says. "Miami getting a beer garden is like, 'Wow! There's a beer garden.' Some things that may be played out in other places is refreshing here, and I think [these businesses] are well received because of that." While the budding experimentation in Miami's nightlife scene is promising, some locals worry that "intimate resto-lounges" might just become the next tired new trend. "Miami will always beat a dead horse faster than anybody else will," remarks Adam Gersten, the man behind Gramps, a dive bar and beer garden in the Wynwood Art District known for cheap drinks and low-key hangs like Tuesday trivia nights. Gersten opened the bar about four years ago, frustrated by the lack of live music venues and casual watering holes. Even though he admits that anything is better than the practical nonexistence of no-frills bars and gastropubs that came before, Gersten fears that members of the conservative old guard could just be replicating the South Beach mentality on a smaller scale. "The club people are saying 'Well fuck, people hate our old world. How can we lizard into this [trendy cocktail culture] and chameleon [our] vibes?'" he says. For Gersten, community is what gives a business a sense of authenticity, and he remains skeptical that Miami can evolve beyond its shallow reputation with a rash of cocktail joints and smaller music venues. If you walk into an intimate lounge owned by a megaclub tycoon, maybe nothing has changed. But in the same breath, Gersten wonders if that's the right way to measure authenticity in the first place. "What's authentic and what's not is kind of intangible," he says. "I think more people are giving [new venues] a shot, and I think that's cool. I think that's especially cool when it's locals." Above all, that the scene continue being driven by locals and for locals seems tantamount. Miami will always be a tourist destination, but its culture should be defined less by the fantasies of outsiders and more by the needs of the people who call it home. That more people are choosing to call it home is a symptom of the work that's already been done, and that more of the faces behind the institutions big and small are local is key. They may build expensive cocktail lounges or musty dive bars, glowing party mansions or dim-lit dance halls. In the end, it doesn't really matter. It's the people's prerogative, and the people are choosing to have a choice. Follow Kat Bein on Twitter

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2019

7.0

Twitter's big website redesign is here — and there's nothing you can do about it. Almost a year after the company began testing it, "new Twitter" is being turned on for all users. And unlike in earlier versions of the redesign, you no longer have the option to switch back to "legacy Twitter." That alone is probably enough to send some users into a panic. Still, the redesign should be familiar enough to mobile users, as its added features basically make twitter.com much more like the Twitter app. And no, sorry, there's still no way to edit tweets. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that while it will take a few days for the design to change for everyone on Twitter.com, there will be no going back. If you haven't seen the earlier test versions of the new design, the most jarring change will be getting used to the fact that almost nothing is in the same place as before. The site's main navigation is now on the left side of the page, where you can move between your timeline, notifications, and direct messages. The trending section has moved to the righthand column; the Moments tab is no more.  The redesign also adds Bookmarks to the website  for the first time, alongside Explore, the personalized section where you can browse popular trends and other recommendations.  Twitter's redesigned website has a few different color schemes, including a dark mode. Another big change is to direct messages, which no longer pop up in a tiny window on top of your timeline. Instead, your inbox has its own section of the site — although, bafflingly, you still can't search your messages.  There's also the "sparkle" button, which lets you toggle between the regular reverse chronological timeline and "Home," where the algorithm curates your tweets. If you use multiple Twitter accounts, you can switch between them without logging out and back in each time. Dark mode, 2019's most popular feature, is still around. Whew. Twitter users aren't exactly known for handling change particularly well; they once revolted over the addition of a single blue dot. And reactions to early versions of the redesign have been mixed.  So the fact that the new look will no longer be optional is likely to garner some heated reactions, to say the least.  Better buckle up; the only way to opt out of this ride is to quit Twitter altogether.  

social media

Twitter

(tweets , twitter , twitters , timeline , users , feature , twttr , tweet , replies , algorithmic)

2020

1.0

(Reuters) - Australian electricity and gas retailer Origin Energy (ORG.AX) said on Friday quarterly revenue from its Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) project fell 3%, hurt by weaker prices. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices have been under pressure as the market is grappling with oversupply since several large scale projects came online last year. LNG from Origin’s share at the APLNG project was sold at an average price of $9.38 per metric million British thermal unit (mmBtu) in the three months ended Dec. 31, lower than $10.59 a year earlier, the company said. While weaker prices dented revenue from APLNG for the quarter, the biggest LNG producer in eastern Australia posted a record output of 67.6 petajoules (PJ), up 7% from a year earlier. Origin, which owns a 37.5% stake in APLNG, increased its fiscal 2020 production guidance for the project to around 690 PJ to 710 PJ in November, compared to its earlier forecast of 680 PJ to 700 PJ. [nL3N27Z4LE] Meanwhile, in light of the recent bushfires in the country, Origin CEO Frank Calabria said, “Despite the challenges posed by bushfires in recent weeks, our power stations are operating well and supplying the market as needed.” The company’s energy markets business, which has been hit by stiff competition, posted a drop in volumes for the December quarter. The company also said its unit at Mortlake Power Station in Victoria had returned to service in late December. APLNG brought in revenue of A$716.5 million ($490 million) in the quarter, compared with A$740.9 million a year earlier. (reut.rs/3aVphVN) APLNG is a joint venture between Origin, ConocoPhillips (COP.N) and China’s Sinopec (600028.SS). Reporting by Shreya Mariam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shinjini Ganguli

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2016

12.0

Five paragraphs into the Wall Street Journal’s article about how Carl Icahn, a legendary investor worth about $20 billion, will serve as a special advisor to Donald Trump on regulatory matters, things get interesting. “The position isn’t an official government job,” the Journal reports. “Mr. Icahn won’t get paid and won’t have to give up his current business dealings.” Of course, even if Icahn did get paid, the salary would be peanuts compared with his net worth. More to the point, the monetary value of getting to influence federal regulatory policy when you already have $20 billion in outstanding investments is enormous. Back in August, for example, Icahn was complaining to the media about a particular obscure Environmental Protection Agency rule that was hurting a refining company he owns. Complaining to the media about regulatory decisions you don’t like is, of course, as American as apple pie. So is hiring a lobbyist or three to press your case. But to have an active businessman formally in a position to do the regulatory work is a fairly open invitation to corruption. And that’s the kind of thing that past administrations have tried to avoid. But since Donald Trump himself is tied up in unprecedented conflicts of interest, that apparently lowers the bar for the rest of his team too.

business

investment

(icahn , icahns , cvr , mr icahn , cvr energy , rin , carl icahn , biofuels , refiners , carl)

2019

2.0

It’s 2 p.m. on a regular summer Monday afternoon, and every store and shop on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles is packed with young people who don’t seem to mind that they have to put on a pair of pants to go shopping. They’re browsing through racks with coffees in hand, standing in lines for the dressing room, cheerfully chatting with sales staff, and actually making purchases on full-priced items. Outside of Glossier, a long line has formed: “I’m addicted to our face mist,” says a young sales associate dressed in pink. She’s rewarding those who’ve finally made it to the front of the line with a quick spritz from a bottle she wields like an outlaw with a pistol. “I have three of them,” she chirps. “You’ll definitely want at least one!” The employee is enthusiastic and enlightened — evangelical, even. There’s not a speck of the chilly apathy of the stereotypical shopgirl: too good to be there, biding her time until something better comes along. Nor does she seem bogged down with an uninspiring workplace, a shit paycheck, or a lack of meaningful responsibilities. Not here, nor at any of the kinds of stores along Melrose. This woman is a new kind of retail worker. A few miles away in Santa Monica, on another busy shopping street, I meet sales manager Rachel Reyes inside a Sweaty Betty, a London-based luxury sportswear brand. “People love their leggings,” Rachel tells me. Dressed to slay in gray and plum spandex, she rattles off the many types of leggings — the versatile Powers, the bum-sculpting Zero Gravities — and how they fit into the layout of the store, which is strategically laid out to boost sales. “People really like specific leggings, and if they’re organized by type, some customers will come in and just buy all of them at once. That’s typical of this neighborhood, and our customer.” She grabs two legs on opposite racks and hands me one in each hand to feel. She points to the pair in my left hand. “This is a linen blend. You feel how soft that is? We’re a higher price-point than Lululemon, and we’re known for our fabrics and patterns. This one here is an Italian technical fabric. You can’t get this fabric anywhere else. We’re one of the only places that sell it in the States.” The throngs of shoppers belies everything we know about what’s happening in the world of brick-and-mortar retail that’s struggled to stay relevant as online shopping has become more convenient and reliable. Department stores are closing. Big box stores are on shaky legs. Past shopping institutions like Claire’s, The Gap, and Nine West closed thousands of stores nationwide. In cities, once-vibrant shopping areas like Bleecker Street in the West Village or Los Angeles’ Westside Pavilion are getting turned into condos. Empty malls litter the American suburbs like vacated conch shells. This has led to a real human cost. Retail sales workers account for the most popular occupation in America; one in ten people are employed in a retail position. But this year alone, more than 92,000 retail jobs have been cut, with more coming on the horizon. According to Andrew Challenger of outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, retailers have been the number one job cutter in the past few years. And yet. Amid the rubble of what’s been billed a retail apocalypse, the shops on Melrose are emblematic of a new future: stores that are more intimate, more engaging, and more experiential. It’s a future where shopping is not just about acquiring a good product, but more essentially, about acquiring a good time. That means they need workers that are educated, cultured, and energetic. To work at Sweaty Betty, Rachel was required to take five “product breakfasts” meant to educate her on the what’s, why’s, and how’s of the company. Hosted in different places around the city, these workshops lasted up to an hour and a half (Sweaty Betty confirmed that workers are compensated for their time spent at these breakfasts, and receive extra clothing allowances for doing well in product quizzes.). But Rachel's secret sauce — her most valuable skill, and the reason that she so easily found a home at Sweaty Betty — was years in the making. She went to a competitive humanities magnet high school focused on social justice and activism. Her entire junior year was devoted to studying race, class, and gender. She completed her undergraduate at Mills College in Oakland, and remembers that one of the first workshops offered to the incoming class was a discussion about the differences between race and ethnicity. There, she earned a degree in art history, and went on to intern and work at a handful of international museums, earning minimum wages. But that was then. Today, she is the manager of the store. “There has been a gradual increase in the number of college-educated students who are working retail jobs,” notes research and policy analyst Edgar Ortiz from the Fair Workweek LA campaign of worker-rights advocacy group LAANE, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. While Ortiz clarified that the reasons for the increase could be attributable to increased tuition hikes and student debt, it's a fact that the sensitivities that are demanded of “woke workers” — the thing that makes Rachel so valuable — are oftentimes only proliferated within higher socioeconomic environments like colleges. Ortiz notes that modern companies are placing more importance on soft skills like improved customer-to-retailer interaction, and a nuanced understanding of how to talk about consumerism in 2019...a topic that is loaded with cultural landmines, and opportunities to offend. It takes a special kind of person to navigate it with ease, to make what could be a battlefield feel like a candy shop. “We’re selling leggings, sure, but we’re also teaching our customers how to be feminist,” Rachel explains to me in her store’s break room, as she leans over to toss a stray piece of litter into the garbage. Above a work chart and an explanation of benefits hangs a small sign: ‘We will fit you, you don’t have to fit us.’ I ask her to spell out what that means. “We’re trained to talk to customers and restructure the conversation about bodies,” Rachel elaborates. “A customer might say ‘I don’t like the way I look.’ We’ll respond with ‘Well, how does your body feel in it?’” Even the compression leggings she showed me earlier has been tweaked for this generation. “We tell people that our leggings are sculpting. They're never slimming.” This is peak Millennial-speak, and one of the main differences between next-gen stores and traditional ones. The lifestyle is worth so much more than the lifestyle product. Sweaty Betty’s leggings may be great, but its philosophy that fitness doesn't have to be a super-serious endeavor, but is rather just a fun and chill thing to do, is what compels people to spend $135 on a pair of spandex tubes. This kind of sensitive sensibility comes at a cost. “Customers are also coming in with much higher expectations of what level of service they’re going to receive,” said Roy Samaan, the former senior researcher and policy analyst at LAANE's Fair Workweek LA campaign (Samaan left his position earlier this year). “The amount of knowledge and depth that you’re expected to have to move those types of products is kind of staggering.” That often means hiring workers who already know the deal. Haley Dresser was a concept store lead for sustainable basics retailer Everlane when the brand first began experimenting with opening actual stores. She remembered the one non-negotiable among the new sales floor hires: “They were people that loved the brand. That was the biggest thing. They knew the Everlane mission without having to look at the website or ask any questions about it. They could spit out why they loved the brand right away. That’s what we were really looking for.” Like employees at Sweaty Betty, Everlane’s first sales staff were asked to prove their knowledge: “We required people to do some homework at home and take a test,” remembered Dresser. When contacted, an Everlane representative clarified that while new retail employees are not required to do homework or take a test, they are expected to understand the product and brand, and that information is a key part of training. Other next-gen brands have similar programs. At disruptive eyeglasses company Warby Parker, in-store sales associates not only had to know how to read prescriptions and talk about new collections, but also know how to sell them in woke vernacular. “In training, they give us specific do’s and don’ts about what wording to use to avoid being exclusionary. They didn’t want us using ‘hipster,’ which might alienate some people,” said Gena Basha, a former Warby Parker sales adviser. Warby Parker confirmed that they also do workshops, “homework,” and tests as part of its training. To be hired as a retail worker today, you need to have read the right articles and watched the right YouTube videos, have gone to the right schools with the right sort of campus culture, and have grown up in the right neighborhoods with the right kind of drinking buddies. But despite this jacking up of expectations and experience, retail workers' compensation — characterized by low wages and insufficient hours — are not keeping up. Part-time wages at Rachel’s Sweaty Betty location range from $13 - $15 an hour (minimum wage in California is $11, and the industry standard for hourly retail wage earners in December of 2018 was $19.26/hour). Sweaty Betty confirmed this was standard, and wages in its Los Angeles locations go up to $16/hour. Working 40 hours a week would mean a yearly salary of $27,000 - $31,200. But only full-time employees like Rachel are guaranteed 40 hours a week; part-time workers are allotted much less, and oftentimes have to split a set number of hours among everyone. While reporting this story, three part-time retail workers at Rachel's store only had 38 hours available between them each week, the equivalent of just $530 total. Equally split up between the three, that’s just $9,200 a year per person. Both Gena and Haley said their respective retailers paid sales staff similar wages that they described as competitive. But these wages are unlikely to increase quicker than inflation. According to PayScale, which measure American salaries and compensation, retail wages are growing at a rate of 1.6%, well under the 2% rate of inflation that's been consistent for some time. “There’s a paradox. We’re expecting more of our retail workers but we’re not giving them more,” said Samaan. However, national retail wage increases have recently accelerated, hitting 4.6% this past October. According to Bloomberg, it’s the fastest that paychecks have grown in almost 20 years. The work, too, at these new retailers is undeniably more fulfilling than simple cashier jobs, and it’s optimistic to believe that they’ll make up for legions of workers displaced by traditional store closures (a phenomenon that some financial experts believe will save retail). But it’s not a one-for-one replacement. Not even close. “These new start-up retail brands like Glossier are really boutique fashion brands that have a small number of high-skilled jobs,” says Challenger, who helps transition displaced workers after mass layoffs and firings. “Traditional brick and mortar retail jobs are not coming back. They’re going away permanently. These types of start-up companies aren’t going to make it up.” Even among traditional retailers, these wage increases disproportionately affect higher earners. “Many of these wage increases that people are noting haven’t reached traditional frontline floor staff who are the most likely to still be earning low wages and involuntarily working part-time,” adds Ortiz. “Those workers stand to benefit the most from these gains, but aren’t getting them.” What’s more, many of these new retailers’ business models prioritize rapid short-term growth over longevity. For its sales floor, this can mean higher turnover and less job security. The effect is a self-selecting workforce consisting of already privileged people who consider the job as a gig — not a pathway to a career. “Overall, most [Warby Parker] employees were similar to my profile,” remembers Gena, who worked at Warby Parker while she looked for full-time work in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles after graduating college, and needed supplemental income in addition to what her parents were helping her out with. "[The culture] self-selectively draws in employees." Warby Parker confirmed that their part-time sales staff is predominantly educated, under 30, and are looking for flexible, temporary work. But what if part-time work is what workers want? Rachel disagrees. “My staff absolutely wants more hours,” Rachel tells me. “My workers have children, and go to school. It’s created a lot of problems. I think that [Sweaty Betty] could be making more money if people went full time, because they could take more classes, and be out in the community more,” she says. At the end of the day, she believes that a full-time salary and benefits produce more invested workers. More invested workers means more experience, more expertise, more productivity, and more revenue. To Rachel, that sounds like a better business plan. A sixth-generation Angeleno, Rachel was raised in a working-class, culturally Mexican household. Her father did manual labor and her mother was a county secretary. They raised her and her siblings to get an education to avoid having to work tough service jobs. Petite and pretty, Rachel has got big eyes, a clear voice, and the kind of fiery gumption you’d expect from a modern-day Disney princess. But she’s far less interested in dreaming about her rags-to-riches story than she is in demanding that she shouldn’t need a fairytale miracle to move on up in the world. “Retail is a career,” Rachel tells me, her voice rising with annoyance. “ I’ve had conversations with customers that leave me feeling badly about myself. People view this job as a punch-in, punch-out thing. None of us are dumb, but people think you don’t need to know anything to work here.” In many ways, Rachel is lucky. Her high school and college didn't only enmesh her in a culture of millenial-flavored progressivism that helps her move product, but also give her the tools to understand the function of her job in society at large. Her parents allow her to live with them, which subsidizes her rent, beyond providing her emotional and physical support whenever she needs it. She’s also an active member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and she's learned how to organize, advocate, and lead a team. But she knows that she’s still in a shit situation: “I’m not getting compensated for the amount of work I do. If I did, I wouldn’t be in debt. We work the rest of our lives to pay off that debt. We’re a permanent working class. A permanent poor class.“ Rachel and other young, independent, culturally literate women may be among the few workers who can ride actually experience the retail renaissance, despite their debts, stagnant wages, and an unpredictable economy. But the large majority of those displaced by shrinking retail jobs are not Rachels. And as automation accelerates and displaces more low-skilled jobs, this gap will only increase. “Big box retailers are hiring in distribution centers and warehouses and logistics,” says Challenger, describing a rapidly growing and hugely controversial industry based on treating humans like machines until actual machines can replace them. “But retail jobs seem to be going away permanently. Brick and mortar jobs are not coming back. It’s a difficult problem, and a big one.” In the meantime, Rachel still believes that work, not miracles, is the solution. The skills she learned at Sweaty Betty attracted the attention of a traditional luxury brand looking to reach a younger demographic. Her new job placed her within a traditional department store where she’s noticed that employees are treated as replaceable. But at the end of the day, it’s her bigger paycheck that has Rachel feeling optimistic. “We talk a big game about empowering women,” she tells me. “And the easiest way to empower people? Jobs and money.”

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2016

4.0

Lamar Odom hitting the bottle again is taking such a toll on Khloe Kardashian, she pulled the plug on taping "Kocktails with Khloe" this week ... TMZ has learned. We're told Khloe told production she was too sick to shoot Thursday, but it's not because of the flu. Sources close to production tell us she's stressed out worrying about Lamar Odom's drinking. We're told she's been an emotional wreck. TMZ broke the story ... LO is refusing to get treatment for addiction as Khloe insists he try something, even an outpatient program. We're told they've been fighting about it all week. Our sources say enough was enough and Khloe just needed a break.

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2016

6.0

Monsanto earnings fell short of expectations for its fiscal third quarter as talks with German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer and other unnamed parties continue. Last month, Monsanto rejected a $62 billion bid from Bayer, and during a conference call Wednesday, the company reiterated that the Bayer proposal was "financially inadequate." "Over the past several weeks, with the support of our board and advisors, I have personally been in discussions with Bayer's management regarding this proposal, along with others regarding other strategic alternatives," Hugh Grant, chairman and CEO of Monsanto, said on the call. "We have said we remain open and we believe our efforts and continued constructive dialogue could allow our joint teams to explore potential next steps," he said. Those talks could be complicated by headwinds the industry is facing, which weighed on Monsanto's results in the latest quarter. "While any value discussion is more complex given the fact that the industry is running at a low point in the ag cycle, we recognize the potential value these types of combinations create as they accelerate innovation and increase choice for farmers across a broader set of crops, geographies and production practices," Grant said. For the fiscal third quarter, Monsanto reported diluted earnings per share from ongoing business operations of $2.17 per share, down 14 percent from $2.51 per share a year ago. The Street had looked for adjusted earnings of $2.40 per share. The adjusted results exclude items such as a restructuring charges, environmental and litigation matters and a net charge of $219 million for tax matters related to an Argentine business. Revenue was $4.19 billion, down about 9 percent from $4.58 billion a year ago. Some expect the weak results could help push Monsanto into a deal. "The combination of weak results and a weaker-than-expected outlook suggests a more conciliatory tone will be taken to merger proposals," said Jefferies analyst Laurence Alexander in a note to clients Wednesday. "We expect a modestly better proposal (e.g. break-up fee, antitrust tactics) before Monsanto's annual meeting." The next annual meeting is in January. Hopes for a new proposal for the St. Louis-based company pushed the shares up Wednesday, with the stock rising 2.4 percent or $2.43, to $103.52. For the full-year outlook, Monsanto expects to be at the low end of its ongoing full-year guidance range of $4.40 to $5.10 a share. The company said it remains on track to deliver $165 million to $210 million in savings from its restructuring actions this fiscal year, primarily benefiting operating expenses. Beyond fiscal 2016, the company said it continues "to target a mid-teens compounded annual growth rate in earnings per share from fiscal year 2017, now advancing to fiscal year 2021 from fiscal year 2019." In the latest period, the company faced several challenges, but it does see the business cycle starting to turn. "We encountered several headwinds in the quarter," said Monsanto CFO Pierre Courduroux. "These included the expected absence of last year's Scotts licensing agreements and the anticipated glyphosate pricing declines." Glyphosate is an active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide and among the company's most popular ag productivity products. Other challenges included "Roundup Ready Xtend-related costs and lower soybean volumes — amplified by the delayed EU import approval — as well as lower cotton gross profit in India arising from pricing regulations and declines in planted acres," Courduroux said. Roundup is used for weed control in agriculture, industrial and other applications and the company sells seeds with biotech traits that enable crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton to be tolerant of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides. Management was more bullish on its outlook in South America, saying it believes corn acres in Argentina could increase greater than 20 percent. "Given our historic share in Argentina corn, this bodes well for the season ahead and beyond. In Brazil, we also see the outlook improving. We expect that acres planted to corn will increase in the mid-single digits," said Brett Begemann, president and chief operating officer. Correction: This version corrects that Monsanto's fiscal third-quarter diluted earnings per share from ongoing business operations were down 14 percent and that revenue was $4.58 billion a year earlier.

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(bayer , monsanto , bayers , seeds , monsantos , basf , bayer said , baumann , seed , syngenta)