BECKET — How perceptive of Walter Boudreau, the director of the Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec, to suggest that Ginette Laurin, the founding director of O Vertigo Danse, choreograph a piece to Steve Reich’s iconic composition “Drumming.” The resulting 1999 work, “La Vie Qui Bat (The Beat of Life)” — performed this week at Jacob’s Pillow, with Boudreau conducting — is, like its music, both repetitive and exultant, the continuously streaming movement a physical prose poem whose dynamics wax and wane.

Reminiscent of and in some ways the daughter of Lucinda Childs’s seminal 1979 “Dance” (which is set to a Philip Glass score), the nine dancers in “La Vie Qui Bat” are given a fairly small and simple vocabulary with which patterns and phrases are layered. A straightforward restlessness drives the work forward. In Childs’s piece, the dancers are coolly elegant, fleet denizens of the city; Laurin’s movement style is warmly weighted, casual, often pedestrian, the performers earthier country dwellers.

The hourlong work is rich in partnering, the duets just as often same-sex as the more usual male-female. The strong women catch and propel the men with equanimity. Gravity seems embraced, rather than a force to be reckoned with and triumphed over: Dancers push off into jumps or pitch themselves into lifts with deliberate thickness; landings are (relatively) heavy. Motifs include supported cabrioles and parallel tours en l’air, and many of the lifts are accented with flickering grasshopper-like legs. Sometimes the dancers etch out mysterious yet seemingly friendly gestures with their arms and hands, as if aliens welcoming us to their planet.

There are some softly whimsical moments. In one lovely duet the men move at first with a slow plushness, as if underwater. There is a rolling, seamless quality to their lifts, the two slipping over and under each other without palpable effort. Another section now conjures a dreamy windstorm, a group of women seeming to lean bravely against the current or arch back with it. Conversely, throughout the dance, there are no smooth transitions between phrases and groupings: Dancers enter and exit with a nonchalant swagger.

Maintaining fidelity to the church of minimalism, there is no narrative here: Occasionally a vague tension seems to build but the dancers shrug off the enigma mid-thought and move on. Although there are some costume changes — tops and pants are swapped out or taken off here and there, a dancer will enter barefoot, only to return again shod — the sartorial adjustments don’t signify a shift of mood in the performers or the onset of a plot, but there is something subtly wry about the whole business. Overall, a kind of geniality permeates “La Vie,” the dancers’ expressions serene beneath mops dyed a cheeky reddish-pink.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Becket 413-243-0745. http://www.jacobspillow.org

The 12 excellent musicians — one flutist, two vocalists, and nine percussionists — create a kind of living scenery from their setup on stage right. The players weave in and out, not only among each other’s meters, but also in and around the group as they switch instruments or positions.

What a treat this live music is, perhaps more so with a piece like “Drumming,” with its often barely perceptible tonal shifts: Crescendos build dramatically, but at a snail’s pace. Was it the music, therefore, or the dance that caused at least seven audience members to exit during the piece on opening night? Or was it simply unwillingness to commit their senses to the experience? I guess one viewer’s enjoyment is another’s eternity; for me, though unadorned, “La Vie” is absorbing, worth the effort of attentiveness, and deserving of, at the very least, an audience’s respectfulness.

Summary: BECKET — How perceptive of Walter Boudreau, the director of the Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec, to suggest that Ginette Laurin, the founding director of O Vertigo Danse, choreograph a piece to Steve Reich’s iconic composition “Drumming.” The resulting 1999 work, “La Vie Qui Bat (The Beat of Life)” — performed this week at Jacob’s Pillow, with Boudreau conducting — is, like its music, both repetitive and exultant, the continuously streaming movement a physical prose poem whose dynamics wax and wane.  Reminiscent of and in some ways the daughter of Lucinda Childs’s seminal 1979 “Dance,”  the nine dancers in “La Vie Qui Bat” are given a fairly small and simple vocabulary with which patterns and phrases are layered. A straightforward restlessness drives the work forward.


If that's the case then, why are European stocks cheaper than American stocks? To this strategist, they aren't.

"You're just looking at valuation, but I look at three different metrics, and I don't find that Europe is particularly attractively valued," he said. "Stocks in Europe are trading 36 percent above their average P/E, 44 percent higher than average EBITDA, and at a 60 percent premium in terms of price-to-cash flow. European companies are having a real problem generating cash flow. But that's not really why investors are buying—they're buying to get exposure to QE."

Andrew Burkly, head of portfolio strategy with Oppenheimer, agrees that in Europe, "the valuations are a little bit cheaper on an absolute basis, but Europe is getting a little expensive relative to its history."

Still, unlike Feygin, Burkly prefers Europe to the U.S. And Burkly is a bull on Japan, noting that Japanese stocks have seen positive earnings revision momentum, while valuations have stayed below historical norms.

"Right now, Japan is trading at a slight discount to the global aggregate even after a pretty big move it's had over the last six or nine months," Burkly said.

To the contrary, Feygin sees Japan as materially "the same story" as Europe.

"You are paying a fair amount, and you're hoping that QE will be effective," the strategist said. "And while I think QE has been effective, the trade is fairly extended, because QE is no longer news. Valuations have already been lifted to take advantage of it."

"We're starting to see the slower accounts allocate to these things," Feygin added. "The faster money's already come in before them."

Summary: American stocks currently look expensive. But those who attempt to find value by tapping into Europe and Japan may be getting an even worse deal.


Under the regulations, companies are responsible for multiple disclosures: The median total compensation of all employees; the total compensation of the respective CEO or equivalent; and the ratio between the two.

Read MorePay ratios: Who's getting named and shamed?

Ostensibly, the rule is meant to give shareholders a glimpse into the way companies pay executives. The SEC pledged that it has "sought to tailor the final rule to meet that purpose while avoiding unnecessary costs."

More practically, though, the move is also a political strike against Wall Street as part of post-financial crisis outrage. Multiple instances of CEOs raking in huge salaries as their companies teetered enraged populists like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and sparked a litany of punitive backlash measures.

A few years ago, NerdWallet found that CEO salaries typically were 550 times worker salaries and retirement plans were 239 times more generous. The pay-gap measure, then, is seen as a way to apply political pressure to companies to keep things more in line.

Read More9 CEOs paid 800 times more than their workers

The provision has plenty of doubters, however, and it passed a sharply divided SEC by a 3-2 party line vote.

Still, once companies have to start reporting the huge discrepancies between CEO pay and workers, there are sure to be fireworks, as indicated by the poll results.

The 10 highest-paid CEOs of S&P 500 companies:

Summary: Politicians may not like the new rule requiring disclosure of the gap between executive and employee pay, but voters sure do.


America wins out due to a number of factors, says the report.

One is that the country's been blessed with outstanding natural wind resources. From the Great Plains to the coasts, the U.S. crucially has millions of acres of open space with high wind levels.

This fact alone explains why America has increased its lead in wind power over Germany, which has a total area less than that of Montana. China has plenty of open space with perfectly good wind-generation capability.

Read MoreWhy Buffett, Apple and Google love the Mojave Desert

More stringent regulations on the building of wind farms in America may account for their success in generating power. Generally, projects can not be financed without an assurance of access to transmission features that deliver output to market. In addition, site choice is highly dependent on mitigation of environmental impacts.

In essence, American choices on where to build are usually safe, reliable ones—which means that U.S. wind projects installed since 2000 are of high quality. They are ready to operate more than 95 percent of the time when the wind is suitably strong.

The structure of government incentives has also encouraged production. The federal Production Tax Credit (PTC)—which expired at the end of 2013—could only be earned for kilowatt-hours produced and delivered during a 10-year period, which meant that capital investment itself was not rewarded.

The credit had been enacted in 1992 after years of developers making profits simply by completing projects, even without their wind farms operating at a high capacity.

Summary: A report reveals the U.S. has more wind powering its grid than any other country. That lead may fade due to expiring federal tax credits.


White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama used the call to condemn Russia for not following through on its agreements.

"It was an opportunity ... for the president to condemn the continuing failure of Russia and the separatists it backs to abide by the commitments to which they agreed," Earnest said.

The top U.S. military officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday the United States should "absolutely" consider providing lethal weapons to Ukraine.

Read MoreUkraine PM to Russia: 'Get out of our land'

He acknowledged that Russia could take Ukraine if it wanted. But Dempsey said the United States should look for opportunities to level the playing field between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists, in the unlikely event "the Russians are actually telling the truth" when they deny aiding their sympathizers in Ukraine.

Obama and the European leaders agreed that a major breach of the ceasefire pact would make a "strong reaction from the international community" necessary, the office of French President Francois Hollande said in a statement.

"Leaders will be ready to decide on further sanctions if the Minsk agreements are further violated," said a European Union statement that was echoed by one from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman.

The French statement also said the parties wanted to bolster the resources of monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a European rights and security watchdog.

European leaders on Monday said they agreed that the OSCE needed a broader role as observers of the ceasefire and removal of weapons.

On Tuesday, Kiev announced its highest casualty toll in several days, with three Ukrainian servicemen dead and nine wounded.

Later this week, Ukraine's parliament is expected to back Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's request for international peacekeepers to monitor the conflict. That idea, however, has faced a chilly reception in Europe.

Summary: Barack Obama and his European counterparts agreed to act quickly to impose more sanctions on Russia if Ukraine peace agreements not implemented.


TOKYO/MEXICO CITY, March 22 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor is finalising plans for its first passenger car assembly plant in Mexico that could be approved by its board as early as next month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

The plant would make the popular Corolla compact sedan and begin production in 2019. Based on recent investments by rivals, including Volkswagen, a new assembly plant would represent an investment of over $1 billion for Toyota.

A green light for the plant would signal an end to a 3-year expansion freeze imposed by the Japanese automaker's president Akio Toyoda, who has blamed aggressive expansion a decade ago for contributing to quality lapses and a 2009 recall crisis.

Toyoda last year asked planners scouting for a site in Mexico to hit 'pause' and review the rationale for the project, executives familiar with the matter said then. He urged executives to squeeze more production from existing factories.

Toyota is the last mass-market automaker without a major production hub in Mexico, which has lured car makers and suppliers through its low labour costs and tariff-free access to the United States, Toyota's largest single market. The Japanese firm has a plant in Mexico's Baja California that produces the Tacoma pickup truck, but it has no passenger car plant.

Last year, Mexican officials pitched half a dozen potential sites for a new plant, and Toyota executives have zeroed in on a site in the central state of Guanajuato, two people with knowledge of the deliberations said.

A delegation of Toyota executives recently spent a week in Guanajuato and remain in talks with local government officials over a potential plot of land that would give the automaker a big enough footprint to expand in the future, a source said.

"We are always evaluating our production capacity in Mexico, and in North America generally, to keep it in line with local market demand, but no such decision has been made at this time," Toyota spokesman Itsuki Kurosu told Reuters.

An official at Mexico's economy ministry had no immediate comment on Toyota's plans in the country. A spokesman for Guanajuato's economic development department declined to comment.

The Mexico plant would produce a new generation of the Corolla, which will also be made at a factory in Japan, people with knowledge of the company's plans said.

Toyota said it sold close to 340,000 Corollas last year in the United States alone.

Mazda Motor opened an assembly plant in Guanajuato early last year, which will also produce vehicles for Toyota under an agreement between the automakers. In June last year, Daimler and Nissan Motor announced plans to build a new small car joint-venture plant in Mexico at a cost of $1.4 billion.

The wave of new investment by automakers has brought hundreds of Japanese auto parts suppliers to Mexico over the past few years. Auto production in Mexico doubled to more than 3 million vehicles a year in the five years to 2014.

Toyota's Corolla plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi, which opened in 2011, was the automaker's most recent assembly plant to come on line in North America.

With production capacity in Mexico, Japanese automakers avoid the risk of a stronger yen cutting into profits on exports and minimize the risk of a disruption to sales from events like the labour dispute that slowed trade through the U.S. West Coast earlier this year.

(Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, Norihiko Shirouzu and Luis Rojas; Writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by William Mallard and Ian Geoghegan)

Summary: TOKYO/ MEXICO CITY, March 22- Toyota Motor is finalising plans for its first passenger car assembly plant in Mexico that could be approved by its board as early as next month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Toyoda last year asked planners scouting for a site in Mexico to hit' pause' and review the rationale for the project, executives familiar...


When it comes to "bill shock," a surprise medical expense can be particularly damaging.

Over the past two years, nearly one-third of privately insured Americans has received an unexpected medical bill where their health plan paid less than expected, according to a May survey from the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

For many, it's an expense that isn't so easy to handle. A 2014 Kaiser Family Foundation report estimated one in three consumers have difficulty paying their medical bills, and earlier this year, Bankrate.com found that only 38 percent of consumers had enough liquid assets to cover an unanticipated expense like an emergency room visit or $500 car repair.

Worse, whether you're disputing the charge or simply can't pay, medical debts are quick to reach collection status. One in five consumers have an unpaid medical debt on their credit report, according to a 2014 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau study. The average amount owed: $579. (Recent changes can mean such debts will have less of an impact on your credit score, but affected patients still have to deal with debt collectors.)

One of the best ways to avoid a surprise is to call your insurer ahead of a medical procedure or visit. (Check out the video above for other proactive measures.) Dig into plan specifics related to deductibles, coinsurance and maximum out-of-pocket costs, said Cheryl Fish-Parcham, private insurance program director for Families USA, a health-care advocacy group. "Deductibles can be very confusing to people," she said—there may be different figures for an individual versus his family, and for in- and out-of-network care.

Don't assume that because your doctor or hospital is in-network, that you're all clear. Some insurers have tiered-service networks, reimbursing some in-network providers more than others, said Fish-Parcham. Other times, surprise bills come from on-site service providers—say, those doing lab work or radiology during that hospital stay—who aren't in the network, even though the hospital itself is.

Summary: One in 3 insured consumers has had an unexpected medical bill in recent years, according to Consumer Reports. Here's how to prevent it.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Amgen Inc. has won federal approval for the second medicine in a new class of pricey biotech drugs that reduce artery-clogging cholesterol more than older statin drugs that have been used for decades.

The drug Repatha could eventually help millions of Americans who face increased risks of heart disease because they cannot control their cholesterol with existing drugs and methods. But concerns about the medication's price tag — $14,100 per year — and long-term benefits will likely limit its use in the near-term.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Thursday for two groups of patients who face the highest risk of heart disease:

— patients with extremely high levels of LDL, or bad cholesterol, due to inherited conditions

— patients with persistently high LDL levels and a history of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems

The drug is designed to be self-injected on a monthly or bi-monthly dosing schedule.

Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen priced the drug slightly below a similar drug Praluent, which costs $14,600 per year. Sanofi and partner Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. won FDA approval for that drug last month.

Analysts estimate between 8 million to 10 million patients are covered under the FDA-approved labeling for the drugs. But some experts worry the drugs could eventually be expanded for a much wider group of patients, driving up costs as the health care system absorbs a growing wave of retiring baby boomers.

With two competing products now on the market, employers and the companies that manage their medication costs will try to negotiate discounts.

Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefit manager, said in a statement it plans to "leverage this competition to achieve the best possible price for the patients and payers we represent." Neither Repatha nor Praluent are currently covered under Express Scripts' formulary, though the company plans to review them at a meeting next month.

The biologically-engineered drugs are considered the first major advance in managing cholesterol since the introduction of statin drugs more than 20 years ago, and analysts expect them to generate billions in sales.

But the prospect of introducing highly-expensive, injectable drugs for one of the most common medical conditions is drawing concerns. Especially since generic statin pills are now available for as little as a dime a day.

More than 73 million U.S. adults, or nearly one-third, have high LDL cholesterol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those patients have twice the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

The new drugs lower low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, cholesterol more powerfully and in a different way than statins. They block a substance called PCSK9, which interferes with the liver's ability to remove cholesterol from the blood. Adding the new drugs to older statins reduces LDL cholesterol by about 40 percent to 60 percent. Statins alone generally lower levels of the wax-like substance by about 25 to 35 percent.

Pfizer is working on its own PCSK9-blocking drug that is still in clinical testing.

Statistical analyses published earlier this year suggest patients taking PCSK9 drugs have half the risk of dying or suffering a heart problem as patients receiving statins or older drugs. But definitive studies about their life-saving benefits are still ongoing.

Pharmacy benefit managers have signaled they may limit coverage for the drugs until those studies are completed.

CVS Health said it will not cover the new cholesterol drugs under its formulary until they have been reviewed by an expert committee. CVS is the second-largest pharmacy benefit manager in the U.S. A company spokeswoman said in a statement that managing the medications' cost would require "adherence to existing statins, reserving the new drugs primarily for patients with rare conditions."

Deutsche Bank analyst Robyn Karnauskas expects Repatha to reach peak sales of about $3.5 billion by 2022. Credit Suisse analyst Vamil Divan estimates the entire PCSK9 class of drugs — including drugs from Sanofi and Pfizer — will reach global sales of $10 billion by 2019.

Summary: WASHINGTON— Amgen Inc. has won federal approval for the second medicine in a new class of pricey biotech drugs that reduce artery-clogging cholesterol more than older statin drugs that have been used for decades. Thousand Oaks, California- based Amgen priced the drug slightly below a similar drug Praluent, which costs $14,600 per year. Sanofi and partner...


"If we are right, then talk of this triggering a fresh wave of global "currency wars" is clearly overdone. Most currencies have still fallen substantially further against the US dollar. The idea that some additional, relatively limited moves in the renminbi-dollar rate will have a material impact on the economies of Europe or the US, let alone the rate decisions of the Fed, is frankly ludicrous," he added.

Currencies among the most severely hit were the Australian and New Zealand dollars which tumbled 1.3 percent and 1 percent against the greenback respectively. Japan's Yen also fell to a two-month low.

"The next couple of days will be watched closely. We believe PBoC will let the fix adjust further to market forces, albeit more gradually. Meanwhile, the central bank could also smooth the upside in onshore dollar-yuan (USD-CNY) spot to prevent it from overshooting and ensure market order. Eventually, USD-CNY should gradually settle at a new equilibrium level," head of global emerging markets FX research at HSBC, Paul Mackel said.

In Europe, stocks extended losses throughout the trading session, with the German DAX facing the brunt of the selling, falling 2 percent after the country's ZEW survey showed economic sentiment weakened from the previous month. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 traded around 1.5 percent lower.

"Some commentators have observed that if the market is allowed to determine the level of the Chinese currency, its recent behavior suggests it will try and push it lower. That may not be to the liking of the PBoC, who can intervene to push back," co-head of multi-asset at Henderson Global Investors, Bill McQuaker said.

However, if they were to fight the market and support the currency, why loosen the reins in the first place? Make no mistake, the days and weeks ahead will be interesting ones to watch, and may have real impact on asset prices," he said.

Summary: Investors around the world were taken by surprise on Tuesday after the PBoC devalued the yuan by almost 2 percent against the U.S. dollar.


Against such a backdrop, the US is releasing few details however. Satellite images released by the US and Nato allies have been commissioned from private sector companies, so as not to give away details of high-resolution imaging and tracking capabilities.

In private, officials are less guarded. "There is a stealth war being waged," said one senior Nato official. "Russia is covertly arming the rebels en masse to specifically make these ambiguous attacks possible. And it is accelerating."

Such is the flood of weaponry that anti-Kiev forces have a shortage of skilled technicians, drivers and engineers to operate it. In Lugansk and Donetsk last month, they distributed leaflets looking for tank drivers.

Read MoreRussia: MH17 probe should not be led by Ukraine

Some of the equipment in use has been captured from Ukrainian forces. Eastern Ukraine is the centre of the country's large armaments industry and some Ukraine military installations and arms caches have been over-run.

But such an explanation only accounts for a small number of arms, military experts say.

In addition, the markings on the tanks and armoured vehicles pictured in use by the rebels across social media are not consistent with those of the Ukrainian military.

Most are not marked at all – echoing the sudden appearance of unmarked vehicles in Crimea before Russia annexed the territory this year.

More from the Financial Times:

Obama pressed to act against Russia Anti-capitalists take too much for granted Hamas finds Arab outrage diluted

Much of the equipment also tallies with models known to be part of Russia's mothballed armoury of weapons. Russia has 2,000 spare T-64 tanks, for example, which have officially been earmarked for destruction – part of an 18,000 tank stockpile of equipment phased out in recent military reforms.

On June 27, Ukrainian forces, after over-running a rebel position near Artemivsk, captured a T-64BV battle tank, and with it, documentation. The serial numbering of the tank shows it was manufactured in Kharkov Tank Factory in 1987, Ukrainian military officials said, and was stationed in the Russian city of Budenovskiy with Russia's 205th infantry brigade until being recently taken out of service. The tank had been fitted with batteries and other parts recently made in St Petersburg, they added.

The means by which such equipment has reached rebel hands is less clearly documented but there is circumstantial evidence.

Read MoreUkraine accuses pro-Russian rebels of destroying evidence

Satellite imagery compiled by Nato intelligence services seems to show defunct Russian military equipment being shipped to Ukraine in convoys.

Snizhne – the town from where Ukraine's security service, the SBU, believes MH17 was shot down – is one of the first stopping points on what Nato intelligence officials say is one of the main routes for illicit arms into the country from Russia.

Nato images from late June, for example, show T-64 tanks being loaded on to transporters in Novocherkassk, about 50km from the Dolzhansky border crossing southeast of Snizhne, in what it has identified as a base – a previously little-used military site – for a logistical campaign to get heavy arms into Donetsk and Luhansk.

The questions that remain unanswered, however, concern exactly who is controlling such an operation.

Read MoreUS crude rallies as investors grapple with Ukraine tension

So far, Moscow has denied strenuously that it has supplied the anti-Kiev insurgents with weaponry. But the Kremlin has also skirted proposals for international observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to be sent to border crossings.

"Obviously, you can't just hand over these weapons systems without authorisation from high up," said Keir Giles, a Russia expert and director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre at Chatham House in London. "There has to be significant military and intelligence authority to make this happen. Nobody is going to be doing this without authority from an extremely high level."

Summary: Though barely a week has passed since MH17, an anti-aircraft campaign is still in full swing above the areas controlled by pro-Russian separatists.


An emotional video has captured the moment a father-to-be burst into tears after his wife gave him a positive pregnancy test, disguised inside an Apple Watch box, for his birthday.

Catie Leay from Wyoming in the United States told her husband “this is a gift that has been hiding in plain sight for a while, but I got you something that I wanted us to be able to share together”.

Her husband was asked to cover his eyes and not peak as she placed the box on his lap.

With permission, he opened his eyes and began to open the box.

“Oh, is this that watch? Really?” he said.

When he lifted the lid and found the pregnancy test he broke down in tears of joy.

"What? Are you serious? Are you serious?” he said.

The heart-warming video was uploaded onto Facebook by Ms Leay, and has now been shared more than 200,000 times.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: An emotional video has captured the moment a man burst into tears when he realised he wasn’t getting an Apple Watch for his birthday – but his real present was far better.


Aram Boghosian | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Shoppers wait outside Sears in Braintree, Mass., as Black Friday 2012 begins.

Bumping Black Friday one day earlier just wasn't enough.

Sears and Kmart announced Wednesday that they will kick off their Black Friday deals one week ahead of time for their "Shop Your Way" rewards customers to compensate for the shortened holiday calendar.

Sears' online shoppers will be able to buy 1,000 reduced items starting Friday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. Kmart's website will offer 100 items on Sunday, Nov. 24, at 1 a.m.

(Read more: Wal-Mart the latest to offer Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving)

"Giving early access to Black Friday doorbusters is the ultimate holiday shopping perk," said Imran Jooma, president of e-commerce at Sears Holdings, which owns both companies.

Summary: As the Black Friday creep continues, Sears and Kmart announced Wednesday that they will kick off their deals one week early.


An online gaming company based in Beijing was the highest bidder in an online auction of a steak lunch with Warren Buffett.

Da Lian Zeus Entertainment Company will donate $2,345,678 to share a meal with the billionaire investor.

That tops the $2.17 million winning bid last year but is roughly two-thirds of the record $3,456,789 paid by an anonymous bidder in 2012.

Bidders for the five-day auction on eBay had to be pre-qualified.

The winner, and up to seven others, will have the opportunity to share a lunch with Buffett at New York City's Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. Some winners, however, have preferred to meet with Buffett in his home town of Omaha.

Summary: Beijing-based Da Lian Zeus Entertainment Company was the top bidder in an online auction of a steak lunch with Warren Buffett.


The United States does not take a position on the rival territorial claims in the South China Sea, but says international law does not allow for sovereignty to be "manufactured" by building up underwater reefs.

Kerry said the United States had stated its concerns about the pace and scope of China's land reclamation in the sea.

"I urged China through Foreign Minister Wang to take actions that will join everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution," he said.

He said he believed he and Wang agreed the region needed "smart diplomacy" in order to conclude a code of conduct between the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations and China, "and not outposts and military strips" - an apparent reference to airstrips the United States believes China is building on reclaimed land.

Kerry said the United States and China had "a lot to accomplish together ... as two of the world's major powers and largest economies" and that millions of people around the world depended on them to ensure "high standards of behaviour and aspiration".

Wang said that while both countries had differences on the South China Sea, they were committed to freedom of navigation and peace and stability in the area and added that China hoped to continue a dialogue to improve understanding on the issue.

The South China Sea dispute is the latest source of friction between the world's two biggest economies, which have sparred over everything from trade and human rights to exchanges of accusations of hacking.

Despite this, they cooperate in many areas such as climate change, North Korea and Iran.

Recent satellite images have shown that since about March 2014, China has conducted reclamation work at seven sites in the Spratlys and is constructing a military-sized air strip on Fiery Cross Reef and possibly a second on another reef.

The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, has called for urgent action.

China rejects U.S. involvement in the dispute and has blamed the United States for stoking tension by encouraging countries to engage in "dangerous behavior". China has reiterated that the only way to address the issue is through bilateral talks.

On North Korea, Kerry said he was hopeful a potential nuclear deal with Iran could be a "message" for Pyongyang, but added that whether or not North Korea "is capable of internalizing that kind of message, that's still to be proven".

Kerry's trip is intended to prepare for annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue next month in Washington and President Xi Jinping's expected visit to Washington in September.

Summary: The United States and China clashed over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea on Saturday, as China's foreign minister asserted its right to reclaim reefs.


Verizon announced Tuesday it had closed its acquisition of AOL, saying the deal gives the telecommunications giant the opportunity to be a leader in technology and media, AOL's CEO, Tim Armstrong, said.

"We did start out with a number of discussions around a joint venture, but we quickly saw there was a vision that we both believed in where we could be the No. 1 global media technology company, and if we put our assets together, we thought we could make something very, very big out of this," Marni Walden, Verizon's president of product innovation and new businesses, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Tuesday.

Armstrong explained that being the No. 1 global media technology company would require the companies to leverage Verizon's network and AOL's strength in advertising and its position in the growing areas of video and mobile.

"There's what we call the 40-40 opportunity, which is $40 billion going to mobile and $40 billion going to video," he said, adding that AOL would layer content services over Verizon's network.

Read MoreFCC votes to give broadband subsidies to the poor

"Nobody owns the future of mobile right now and this is the most powerful combination of those two areas, of the Internet and mobile together," Armstrong told "Squawk on the Street."

Verizon announced last month it had reached an agreement to acquire AOL for $50 a share in a deal valued at about $4.4 billion. The telecommunications giant said at the time the acquisition would further its strategy to build out its LTE wireless video and streaming video strategy.

The company also said AOL would contribute to its "Internet of Things" platform, a technology that helps Web-enabled devices communicate and coordinate with one another.

AOL's advertising unit, which has outpaced revenue growth among its content brands, is also seen as a valuable asset. Its success fueled speculation that the company's ad technology platform was at the heart of Verizon's bid.

Read MoreFacebook's Cox unveils immersive future of mobile ads

In recent weeks, Armstrong and Verizon have sought to counter those reports, saying they would not spin off AOL's flagship news site, The Huffington Post.

"Why do I love HuffPost? It's because consumers love HuffPost," Walden said. "We think that's really critical. You've got to connect with the consumer. You've got to make sure that they want to come back, and HuffPost does that."

Summary: AOL's Tim Armstrong and Verizon's Marni Walden say the combined companies can be the No. 1 global media technology player.


Ray Lane may now be executive chairman of Hewlett-Packard HPQ , but it will not be a fulltime job.

During an interview this morning with CNBC, Lane said that he would maintain his “day job” as a managing partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He added that his passion remains venture capital, but that he would be available to new HP CEO Meg Whitman whenever she needed help or advice.

“My first love is helping start-ups,” Lane said. “But I cannot give Meg the time she needs and still be independent and therefore be non-executive chair. So it is a technical definition.”

Lane reportedly was offered the CEO job last year before (now deposed) Leo Apotheker, but turned it down. He did, however, agree to join the board as chairman if Apotheker was hired as CEO. When asked today by CNBC about board dysfunction under his leadership, Lane basically deflected the question by by blaming reporters for asking about older issues (e.g., pretexting) and saying that the board responsible for hiring Apotheker is not the exact same board that fired him. Moreover, Lane did not back down from the company’s recent strategic move away from consumer products.

As a venture capitalist, Lane currently focuses most of his efforts on capital-intensive cleantech companies. His investments include Ausra (solar), GreatPoint Energy (coal-to-gas), Fisker Automotive (hybrid autos) and Th!nk (electric cars). Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, he was president and chief operating officer of Oracle ORCL .

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Summary: Ray Lane may now be executive chairman of Hewlett-Packard , but it will not be a fulltime job. During an interview this morning with CNBC, Lane said that he would maintain his "day job" as a managing partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He added that his passion remains venture capital, but that he…


In Cramer's search for the next big company, he went off the tape to talk to the CEO of eHarmony. Christmas kicks off the biggest season of the year for online dating, which is a business that has transformed into a socially acceptable way of dating.

The No. 1 player in this space is IAC/InteractiveCorp, which owns Match.com and Okcupid.com. However, the most effective player is eHarmony. Studies show that eHarmony provides the best matches with the lowest divorce rates in the industry.

Cramer sat down with the company's CEO, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, to find out about how the company not only matches romantic couples but is now working to match people to jobs.

"I don't know very many great marriages where the person comes home every night and says 'I hate my job'. If you love your job you have a much better chance of loving your marriage," Warren said.

eHarmony used four elements to determine if someone has a great job. Do you have the same culture as the company? Do you have the tools to do the job? Do they have a great personality fit with who you'll report to, and are there 8 to 10 people to fit in with?

Cramer's also got a double-whammy stock up his sleeve. Paychex is a company that lets you take advantage of both the improving employment numbers in the U.S. as well as the inevitable rise in interest rates that will come next year.

Paychex is the No. 2 payroll processor and specializes in small- and medium-sized businesses. It also has a growing outsourced human resources division, and its stock sports a 3.3 percent yield.

Cramer thinks that this could be a terrific buying opportunity for the stock, as the company's earnings will get a boost when the Federal Reserve finally raises interest rates. To find out more, he spoke with Paychex CEO Martin Mucci.

The "Mad Money" host asked if Mucci has seen a reduction in hiring in the oil producing areas of the U.S., given the speed at which the price of oil has dropped.

"We haven't seen a slow down there, yet. The fastest small business employment has been Texas to North Dakota, right in the central part of the U.S., all around energy picking up the jobs in that area. It could happen but we haven't seen it. At this point it has still been the most positive area of the country," Mucci said.

In the Lightning Round, Cramer continued to spot Christmas stocking stuffer goodies when he gave his take on a few caller favorite stocks:

Exxon Mobil: "I want you to sell half on Monday and let the rest run because we just had the largest energy rally in basically history this week. So let's take half off."

KeyCorp: "The last quarter was not anything to write home about, candidly. I would have liked a better quarter. But it's fine, the bank stocks are going up and it's not my favorite. They did not have a good quarter, sadly."

Read MoreLightning Round: Sell half of this on Monday

Summary: It’s his annual appeal. "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer wants you to place a couple shares of this stock in the stockings.


Manan Vatsyayana | AFP | Getty Images

An attendant checks bottles on a production line at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Nilai on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur on November 3, 2014.

Coca-Cola said Thursday it plans to layoff about 1,600 to 1,800 employees globally in the next few months. The move is a part of the beverage giant's effort to cut $3 billion in costs, which was announced in October.

Shares for Coca-Cola rose nearly 1 percent in late morning trading after word of the move surfaced.

The job cuts stem from its initiative to redesign its operating model to "streamline and simplify our structure," the company said in a statement to CNBC.

Read MoreOrange juice getting squeezed from breakfast table

The world' largest soft drink company employs about 130,000 workers worldwide. The company has already started informing affected workers from its Atlanta corporate offices, its U.S. operations and international offices.

"We have committed that we will ensure fair, equitable and compassionate treatment of our people throughout the process," Coke said.

Summary: Coca-Cola says the cuts will help "streamline and simplify our structure."


Other vulnerable countries included Ecuador, Panama, Columbia and Mexico in the Americas, Indonesia in Asia Pacific and New Zealand, Israel and surprisingly, Italy, among advanced economies.

"Looking ahead, climatic perils could intensify in line with past trends as climate change gathers pace. Specifically we view it as possible that storms and floods will become more frequent and more severe as the average global temperature rises and weather patterns shift," Moritz Kraemer, S&P chief sovereign ratings officer, said in the report.

The ratings agency recommended that one way to mitigate the threat from natural disasters was greater investment by governments in catastrophe insurance.

"In the case of the five biggest earthquakes covered in the study, the rating impact would be a downgrade of about one notch if 50 percent of the damage were reinsured, compared with almost two notches for no insurance coverage at all," said S&P in the report.

Summary: How much do natural disasters like earthquakes or floods cost a country? Well, from a credit worthiness perspective, as much as a downgrade of two-and-a-half notches, according to S&P.


"We are all aware that certain multinationals pay little or no tax on the vast profits that they make here in Europe and this is absolutely unacceptable. That's why we need to ensure that profits generated in the EU are taxed at an appropriate level where the activity takes place," Moscovici told a press conference.

"In the end, it's other businesses—and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and ordinary citizens who have to pay the price of this tax avoidance, either through higher taxes or public spending cuts," the official added.

The European Commission launched an "action plan" on corporate taxation, one of the body's most highly-publicised bugbears and a priority for the body. In March, the Commission called for the automatic exchange of information on tax rulings between European countries.

Moscovici said on Friday he hoped a solid deal on such an exchange could be reached before the next ECOFIN meeting on October 6.

The commission also plans to re-launch its proposal for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), a single set of rules that companies operating in the EU could use to calculate their taxable profits.

The move could prove controversial, however, and some member states and business groups have already stated their opposition to a pan-European tax regime. In terms of domestic taxation, opponents see it as an attack on competition and autonomy.

Ireland, which for years has benefited from rock-bottom corporate tax rates that are a draw for multinationals, has strongly opposed the idea of tax harmonization.

Moscovici told the press conference on the matter Friday that CCCTB was a "very important tool if we want to address the issue of effective taxation."

Read MoreApple's EU tax problems: What you need to know

European regulators have launched "in-depth" investigations centered on Luxembourg's tax rulings for online retailer Amazon and Italian car finance group Fiat Finance and Trade. Additionally, coffee chain Starbucks' deal with the Netherlands, and Apple's Irish tax arrangements, have figured prominently in their deliberations.

Commission Vice President in charge of competition policy, Joaquín Almunia, has previously said that sweetheart deals could violate laws on state aid, given that the deals act like state subsidies.

"Under the EU's state aid rules, national authorities cannot take measures allowing certain companies to pay less tax than they should if the tax rules of the Member State were applied in a fair and non-discriminatory way," Almunia said.

Summary: The continent appears to have taken a step closer to a pan-European tax regime to combat tax avoidance by multinationals.


With its membership tumbling sharply and a long-running effort to organize foreign-owned makers still in limbo, the United Auto Workers union is looking at the possibility of raising its dues by 25 percent—its first hike since 1967.

While still considered the richest of America's unions, the UAW has faced increasing troubles in recent years, with membership declining, organizing efforts stalling and rising costs forcing it to slash expenses. Despite an estimated $1 billion in assets, there have been ongoing concerns about the UAW's long-term viability and its political clout.

As a result, the Detroit-based union would like to raise dues by as much as 25 percent, according to a report from the Reuters news service. For the average worker, that would amount to paying the equivalent of 2.5 hours wages a month, versus the current two hours.

Because dues vary depending on pay grade, however, if the increase is approved, a veteran line worker at one of the Big Three automakers would pay a total of about $70.32 a month, while a recently hired employee at a second-tier payscale would see a rise to about $39.45.

(Read more: Detroit eligible for bankruptcy protection: Judge)

The proposal is "only in the discussion phase," Jimmy Settles, the head of the union's Ford department, told Reuters, adding that "no decision has been made."

While dues rise with wages, it would be the first formal increase in the formula since 1967—when the union was at its peak in an industry overwhelmingly dominated by Detroit. UAW membership continued to grow even after Japanese makers such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda began to gain ground following the twin oil shocks of the 1970s.

The UAW hit its peak in 1979, with 1.5 million dues-paying members. Since then, it has nosedived, with only 382,500 members at the end of 2012—a nearly 75 percent decline. The ranks have shrunk 30 percent just since 2005, a result of a number of factors.

The UAW has offered repeated concessions to assist Detroit's Big Three—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—two of which went into bankruptcy in 2009. The domestic restructuring has seen the closure of scores of assembly and parts plants, while new rules meant to promote productivity have further trimmed the rank and file.

(More from The Detroit Bureau: Small cars, big price? Compact crossovers defy conventional wisdom)

Union membership has been tumbling nationwide, with only about one in nine U.S. workers represented by an organized labor group last year, according to federal figures. It remains to be seen if the UAW will feel any impact from the move by the Michigan Legislature to make it a right-to-work state.

Summary: Still considered America's richest union, it has had troubles in recent years, including slumping membership and stalled organizing efforts.


By Alicia Dennis and Aaron Couch

11/12/2015 AT 08:50 AM EST

had plenty of family support as she prepared to welcome her first child,

Jessa (Duggar) Seewald and Anna Duggar (inset)

Courtesy Ben Seewald; Kris Connor / Getty

, who provided Jessa with some special advice for how to induce labor, with Anna sharing what worked for her when she was pregnant with her third child with husband

"My sister-in-law Anna told me she walked stairs and that worked with her son Marcus. We walked up and down the stairs together 20 times until I was like, 'Okay, no more," Jessa says in this week's issue of PEOPLE.

Jessa, 23, took the advice from Anna, 27, two days after the first-time mom's original

, which was also her

"A couple of hours later, I started having hard contractions," Jessa says.

She and Ben, 20, welcomed their son, whom they announced Wednesday they had named

, with their son measuring 21.5-in. and weighing 9 lb., 11 oz.

Summary: Jessa tells PEOPLE that after taking her sister-in-law's advice, "I started having hard contractions"


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Summary: Before he decided to go into the real estate business, Trump said he considered going to film school.


Victoria Britt (left), Kirsten Salpini, and Nick Sulfaro in New Rep’s “The Snow Queen.”

WATERTOWN — First, a reassuring word to wary grown-ups: You’re in no danger of being subjected to the aural abuse of “Let It Go’’ if you venture to “The Snow Queen,’’ even though it’s a musical based on the same Hans Christian Andersen story that gave rise to Disney’s “Frozen’’ — and to silent pleas by parents to let us go, already.

But let’s not dwell on what’s absent in “The Snow Queen,’’ now receiving its New England premiere at New Repertory Theatre, when what’s present is pretty special.

Under the direction of Rick Lombardo, who co-created the pop-rock musical with Haddon Kime and Kirsten Brandt, “The Snow Queen’’ unfolds in a mysterious, quirky, timeless world of snow and ice that is given captivating, sometimes hypnotic form by Lombardo and his design team. Equally timeless, of course, are the themes of “The Snow Queen’’: remaining steadfast in friendship, conquering one’s fears, coming of age in the face of adversity — and not being thrown by encounters with talking flowers and other oddball characters. The easy-on-the-ears score features two dozen pop-rock songs with titles like “Never Give Up,’’ “Suddenly a Stranger,’’ and “The Real Reality.’’

As in any quest narrative worth its salt, self-knowledge is the true destination here. Young Gerda, played by the appealing Victoria Britt, sets out to rescue her friend Kai (an intense Nick Sulfaro) from the clutches of the title character, portrayed by New Rep mainstay Aimee Doherty. The actress once again rewards the company’s faith in her by creating a Snow Queen who compellingly blends regality, glamour, and chilly menace.

Convinced that children possess a special vision — a notion that this production, in its way, affirms — her frosty majesty puts a magic spell on Kai and orders him to solve “the Riddle of Eternity,’’ a task that involves counting and cataloging “all the snowflakes in the world.’’ Those snowflakes swirl atmospherically in “The Snow Queen,’’ thanks to projection designer Garrett Herzig, who also sends equations hurtling across a screen with enough force to trigger my mathphobia.

Meanwhile Gerda is facing her own array of challenges on her journey to the palace where Kai is being held captive. Among the factors that complicate her odyssey are a clingy Garden Witch who makes Gerda forget about Kai so she will live with her as a daughter; a band of robbers, including a knife-wielding girl (Jackie Theoharis) apparently determined to make Gerda her permanent playmate; and unending cold.

Maureen Keiller shoulders multiple roles — including the Witch, Lady Crow, and a wise Woman of the North — and deftly captures the essence of each. Also a strong asset is Maurice Emmanuel Parent, who is funny and touching as Old Crow and also plays a troll and a reindeer who carries Gerda a great distance.

“The Snow Queen’’ delivers a few knowing winks to the audience — at one point a pun is made on the nickname of Red Sox slugger David Ortiz — without going overboard. It’s billed as a family musical, but I think a couple of scenes may be too intense for very young children. New Rep says the show is appropriate for ages 8 and up, which strikes me as about right.

The steampunk aesthetic pervading “The Snow Queen’’ is perilously close to becoming a cliché at this point (Frances Nelson McSherry’s inventive costumes notwithstanding), and scenes with the robber girl quickly become tedious. But more typical of this production is the transfixing beauty of “Alone Together,’’ in which Gerda and Kai, though technically in different places at that moment, engage in a lovely duet. “The Snow Queen’’ is the first show that Lombardo, a former artistic director at New Rep, has helmed at the Watertown theater since he left six years ago. It’s a triumphant return.

Musical with book by Kirsten Brandt and Rick Lombardo. Music by

Haddon Kime. Lyrics by Brandt,

Kime, and Lombardo. Directed and choreographed by Lombardo.

Musical direction by Emily Intersimone. Presented by New Repertory Theatre. At Charles Mosesian Theater, Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, through Dec. 20. Tickets $30-$59. 617-923-8487, www.newrep.org

Summary: The pop-rock musical “The Snow Queen’’ is based on the same Hans Christian Andersen story that gave rise to Disney’s “Frozen,” but it’s pretty special on its own.


FORTUNE — Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase pose no threat to the economy. How do we know? Beats me.

Late Monday, the Federal Reserve said that the two giant banks had officially passed their annual stress tests. The actual tests, which are supposed to assess whether the nation’s biggest banks could survive another financial crisis, were conducted late last year. The results were initially released in March. Nearly all of the 18 big banks that were tested passed.

But for the first time this year, the Fed not only tested whether the banks had enough capital, but if their methods to determine how much capital they needed was good enough. Seems “high enough” was apparently not an acceptable answer. Goldman GS and JPMorgan JPM passed the first part of the test, but bombed the second part.

MORE: Goldman Sachs still earning its money in soon-to-be-banned ways

The weird thing, though, is that the Fed has never said what the issues were. I tried to find out at the time the test results initially came out. The best answer I could get for Goldman was that it was secretive on how it measured what assets it considered risky and what assets it deemed safe. The risky assets figure is a key input that the Fed uses to figure out how much capital you need to have.

For JPMorgan, the answer seemed to be London Whale, duh. And that actually seems like a pretty good answer because not knowing you are at risk of losing $6 billion might lead you to misjudge how much capital you need.

Still, who knows? All the Fed said on Monday was that the two banks had been asked to resubmit their plans due to “weakness identified in their capital planning process.” They did. And they now have passed.

And yet, it’s not clear our banks are any less risky. Take Goldman. Last quarter, the firm reported a $1.3 billion loss related to currencies, although that loss was offset elsewhere. Overall, the firm had a profit. Still, such a large loss in one line of business during this summer’s relatively small market hiccup could suggest why the government had an issue with the way Goldman was determining how risky its assets were. Again, if the Fed did, which I don’t know.

MORE: Bankers that did the deals that lead to JPMorgan’s $13 settlement doing just fine

Initially, the point of the stress tests were to reassure the public that our banks were healthy. The Fed would release a whole bunch of numbers proving banks were safe, and that would build confidence. And it worked at the height of the financial crisis.

It worked so well that Congress decided it would be good to do it every year. But what was once a big public display of numbers has morphed into something else. Now banks fail for reasons we don’t know, and then pass for resolving those unknown issues in ways we don’t know. Feel safer now?

Clarification: An earlier version of this story said that Goldman had a $1 billion trading loss in the third quarter. In fact, Goldman lost money in one area of trading. Overall, it made money. Also, an earlier version of this story said that Goldman failed its stress test. Actually, the Fed gave Goldman a temporary pass, and required the firm to resubmit its results before the end of the year.

Summary: Federal Reserve's big bank stress tests go secretive.


updated 01/07/2016 AT 12:25 PM EST

•originally published 01/07/2016 AT 10:55 AM EST

That's what you stand to collect – pre-taxes, of course – if you hit the Powerball jackpot Saturday night. That prize will be the largest in U.S. history,

Should you win, and opt for the lump-sum payout instead of the yearly annuity, your take-home will be $413.1 million. Again, that is the largest jackpot in Powerball history since a $564.1 million prize was split by players from North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico last February.

Of course, if you want some gloriously sour grapes lottery stories,

. And for the love of God, if you're in line to buy a ticket,

Summary: The jackpot rolled over to $675 million when no winner was drawn Wednesday night


David Shrigley, 45, was raised in Leicester. He studied at Glasgow School of Art, and became a cartoonist, contributing to this magazine between 2005 and 2009. A painter, ceramicist, photographer and sculptor, he had a retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in 2012 , and has written an opera and a self-help book, How Are You Feeling? He is a nominee for this year's Turner prize.

When were you happiest?Walking the dog on a beach in Dorset with my wife.

What is your greatest fear?Finding out I'm an arsehole (I'm under the impression that I'm not).

What is your earliest memory?Comparing a refuse truck outside our house with my toy refuse truck, aged three or four.

Which living person do you most admire and why?Peter Tatchell is a person very worthy of admiration, but few ever seem to acknowledge him as such.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?Lack of moderation.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?Not accepting social responsibility.

What was your most embarrassing moment?My trousers falling down at a disco.

What makes you unhappy?Nottingham Forest losing.

What would your super power be?Being a convincing bullshitter.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?I've become a habitual fleece-wearer.

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?Socialism.

What is your favourite word?"Snuggles."

What is your most unappealing habit?I pick my nose.

What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?"Your credit card has been declined."

Is it better to give or to receive?It's good to give people gifts but bad to give them diseases.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?Those cheesy-wotsit things from Marks & Spencer.

What do you owe your parents?The best old-age care money can buy.

What does love feel like?Like drinking too much Coca-Cola, but without the indigestion.

Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it?No. But I've said "I hate you" without meaning it many times.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?"Incompetent" and "unprofessional" when talking about others, though they could easily be applied to me.

What is the worst job you've done?I once had to look after a 12-year-old severely autistic boy 24/7 for a week. It was the worst in terms of stress, but in other ways one of the best.

What has been your biggest disappointment?I fear it has yet to come.

How do you relax?I wander the streets shooting at people with a pretend machine gun.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?More sunshine.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?Not having to have a proper job.

What song would you like played at your funeral?The theme tune to Countdown.

How would you like to be remembered?Inaccurately.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?Never try to carry more than three pints of beer at a time.

Summary: 'What would my super power be? Being a convincing bullshitter'


03/21/2016 AT 04:00 PM EDT

doesn't need a band, stage lights or microphone to give you goosebumps.

The singer, 22, proves it once again in an a cappella performance of "Dangerous Woman," released Monday.

Filmed on the set of Grande's music video for her new single – from her new album of the same title, out May 20 – the clip also finds the songstress showing off her sexy latex ensemble.

"To get into my 'Dangerous Woman' outfit they were like, 'Okay, time to lube you up!' and I was like, 'Excuse me?' and they were like, 'Yeah! We gotta lube you up to get you in!'" she said of the look on

on Tuesday. "I was like, 'Wait are you serious?' And there wasn't any latex prep bottle – it was literally full-on lube! It said on the bottle, full-out lube. So they lubed me up and put me in! It was the funniest thing in the whole world."

And the comedy continued during Grande's impromptu performance – after mimicking the song's epic guitar riff, Grande couldn't help but giggle.

Earlier this month, she managed to keep a straight face while

, even as the audience cracked up.

Duran asked Grande how her fellow divas have reacted to the spot-on impressions, which she

Grande said, "When I met

, she told me ... 'When I saw you, I peed!'"

Summary: The new clip gives fans a sneak peek of her costume in the song's music video


Sex and politics are both immensely complicated topics. Combine the two into sexual politics, and you have something approaching psychological string theory.

, CBS's now-concluding dramatic series starring

, 49, was the best series ever to tackle this tangled, inflammatory, of-the-moment topic.

When the series premiered in 2009, its premise – the wife of a philandering Chicago politician decides to rebuild her life while negotiating with all the fallout – drew comparisons both to the sex scandal that had forced New York Governor

out of office and, of course, to the endless triumphs and travails of

Seven seasons later, the show is set to end with Alicia becoming one of the name partners in an all-women, blue-chip firm, even as Hillary Clinton is considered a solid bet to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination.

And yet here, in the next-to-penultimate episode, we found Alicia being condescendingly congratulated by her future daughter-in-law for – as the future daughter-in-law said – standing by her ethically challenged husband, much as

Alicia responded with a slight, incredulous tensing of her brow. This was a typical Alicia response: She was sometimes not so much Alicia as Alice, puzzling out her Wonderland.

The show's grand narrative arc, arguably, was to follow Alicia's dawning realization that she could play tough and even risk losing that adjective "good," as well as that title "wife." (Or perhaps, ultimately, she'd rather not sacrifice either of those things...) But the drama was less about what Alicia would

than about 1) how she arrived at a decision and 2) how well she would finesse putting that decision into action. This was also the key to Margulies' alluring performance, despite the occasional scene that allowed Alicia to put down her rather full goblet of red wine and show some Big Emotion: What mattered was the thoughtfulness, the reckoning.

And what will her reckoning be at the conclusion of the show?

Heading into the finale, Alicia's new lover, Jason Crouse (

), reasoned that, with husband Peter Florrick facing yet another prison sentence, Alicia would do one of two things, both paradoxical: If Peter were convicted – by a jury that possibly felt he was a louse and didn't deserve Alicia–she would stand by his side and visit him every week in prison. If he were acquitted, on the other hand, Alicia would divorce him.

This is the sort of thing a heroine might do in Henry James novels. But not generally a heroine on CBS on a Sunday night.

But is Jason even right? Is everyone misreading everyone? This being

that's not out of the question.

may never have been a ratings smash, but it was glimmeringly smart. (Moreso than AMC's

? Yes, by quite a lot.) The intricacies of both the law and politics played out like an exquisitely choreographed mating ritual among influential people with money, intellect, ambition and superior grooming. (That extended even to the margins: There was never a sexier drug lord than Lemond Bishop, played by Mike Colter – even the name is sexy.) You wanted in.

Once in, you were likely to stay, if only to hear Christine Baranski's laugh, which somehow struck notes both of indulgent, friendly informality and cold, superior contempt.

did lose some of the quick, almost dizzying, overlapping volleys of dialogue, performances and intricate subplots. The season 5 death of Will Gardner (

) was a dramatic shock that came out of nowhere, a genuine story-telling coup, but it left Alicia in a state of dank, dark drift, like a pea-soup fog. (Do they have those in Chicago?) And the departure of

, who played investigator Kalinda Sharma, deprived the show of its most original character and its most original performance. Panjabi was the rare supporting player who owned the camera without doing anything so obvious or vulgar as stealing a scene.

Now they're all going. They'll all be gone. And they were so good. Excellent, really.

finale airs Sunday, May 8 (9 p.m. ET) on CBS.

Summary: The series finale will air on Sunday


05/18/2016 AT 04:00 PM EDT

's vice presidential short list – on Wednesday the presumptive GOP nominee instead unveiled a list of potential Supreme Court picks.

The list obtained by PEOPLE includes the following 11 judges: Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado, Raymond Gruender of Missouri, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas.

Trump said in a statement that he planned to use the list "as a guide" for choosing replacements for Justice Antonin Scalia, adding that the potential nominees are all "representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value."

It was an unusual move but Trump had been promising to release the list for months amid concerns from Republicans that he would not choose conservative jurists.

After Scalia's death in February, Trump joked about appointing his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry – a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia – to the Supreme Court, but her name did not make Wednesday's list.

One of Trump's would-be picks, Diane Sykes, is the ex-wife of Charles Sykes, a Wisconsin conservative radio host who headed up a mission to stop Trump from winning the state's primary in April.

Charles said his ex-wife would be an excellent choice but added that he doesn't put much stock in anything Trump says, "based on the way he has flip-flopped."

Summary: Donald Trump says his potential Supreme Court nominees are all "representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value"


Amazon plans to announce a cloud-based service for the Internet of things this week at its AWS Re:Invent trade show, according to sections of a memo Fortune has viewed. The document implies that the new AWS service will mimic similar offerings from Microsoft, IBM, Ayla Networks and others that target developers trying to build connected devices in that it will link the AWS cloud platform to silicon from specific vendors.

IBM and Microsoft have announced broad platforms and aggressive plans to support the Internet of things—billions of connected devices that collect data for consumer and industrial applications and typically pass it on to some sort of cloud for storage and analysis.

Amazon AMZN Web Services, on the other hand, has been fairly quiet on this topic, although many of its existing services—EC2 compute, Kinesis data ingestion, and S3 storage—are already used for these applications by companies like Ayla and others. The silence will lift this week at its annual AWS Re:Invent conference, where sources said the company will announce partnerships with chip companies and others, as well as services to support this huge opportunity.

What Amazon needs to do is knit together some of these disparate services, making them more easily consumable by developers, observers said. In short it needs to offer what Microsoft would call a “suite,” or what IBM calls its IoT Foundation. The resulting combination of services needs to have a few key capabilities, such as a way to get a lot of devices online and then manage them. The service also needs strong data gathering and analytics capabilities.

Part of this effort could revolve around a new to-be-announced analytics service, code-named Space Needle (as described in the Wall Street Journal) that will make sense of incoming data. As for device management and monitoring, Amazon purchased a company called 2lemetry back in March.

In a sense Amazon is playing catch up to some of the larger cloud players, as well as to a host of smaller startups that have been offering cloud services tied to development platforms for years. Ironically, many of the smaller players such as Ayla Networks, Particle (formerly Spark Labs), or Electric Imp, have been hosting their cloud offerings on AWS. If Amazon gets into this game, they may find themselves competing with a key partner.

As for the bigger players, IBM IBM announced a partnership with ARM in early September that aims to make it easy for developers building products around ARM’s mbed operating system to tie those devices into IBM’s special IoT cloud. Chip partners include Freescale, which makes development boards. And last week, in what looked like pre-emptive programming, Microsoft MSFT announced its long-touted Azure Internet of Things Suite. Chip partners for that effort include Texas Instruments TXN .

There is definitely heightened buzz around the notion that tons of connected tiny devices means a huge business opportunity. A new IDC Survey of 2,500 IoT “decision makers” across 15 countries found that nearly three-quarters of companies surveyed (73%) said they have IoT implementations running now, or will have within 12 months.

For many of these companies, these ideas start out in an engineer’s lab on a test board running in one of these clouds. The beauty of having a name-brand cloud provider that can scale up is that if the test is a success, the company can then build it and manufacture thousands or hundred of thousands of units without ever switching from a test cloud to a “real” one. This is why IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft are trying to build these tight links from their cloud platforms to the development boards that engineers use in testing environments.

An AWS spokesperson we reached out to said the company does not comment on rumors and speculation.

In the run-up to AWS Re:Invent, Amazon hasn’t been lazing around. Last week it announced a managed version of the Elasticsearch service that should make it easier for developers to incorporate search into their applications.

For more on how Amazon built its cloud, see the video.

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Summary: Coming at AWS Re:Invent, Amazon will unveil a new Internet of things service to help developers tie billions of devices into the cloud giant's infrastructure.


Target tgt dodged a bullet over Christmas.

The discount retailer reported a 34% increase in online sales during the holiday season, re-accelerating the pace of growth after it slowed down in preceding quarters.

Still, for the year, Target’s e-commerce rose only 31%, well below the 40% CEO Brian Cornell promised Wall Street a year ago. And that was despite spending about $1.4 billion in 2015 on tech.

So to make sure that online sales growth doesn’t slow again, Target is beefing up its tech spending even further. It plans to spend close to $1.8 billion this year on capital projects, with the bulk going to e-commerce and supply chain improvements, as well as in-store improvements, company executives said at Target’s annual meeting with Wall Street analysts. (Last year, the plan had been to spend about as much on tech as on things like new stores and remodeling.)

What’s more, Target will ramp that up even more, spending some $2 billion a year at least starting in 2017.

“So are we declaring victory?” Target CEO Brian Cornell said. “Not even close.” He added: “These are the building blocks of our future.”

Last year was the first in Target’s history it spent more on tech than on purely brick-and-mortar expenses like new stores and remodels. It hired a chief information officer, Mike McNamara, from British grocer Tesco, and this month poached a top Amazon veteran to assist with what Cornell calls the “unsexy” but essential parts of Target’s operations.

One of Cornell’s top priorities is to improve the sometimes clunky target.com site and continue beefing up the mobile shopping app. But there are more prosaic projects for Target, such as improving the reliability of the point-of-sale systems–last year, too many cash registers froze during checkout. (The company has actually pared many of its tech projects to focus on those it thinks will give most band.)

Target’s tech systems were built up at a time when merchandise moved from distribution center to stores. But nowadays, the tech needs to support co-ordinating product that moves between stores as well as with fulfillment centers, customers looking up inventory on a smartphone and the growing use of stores as a way to fill online orders.

And Target has a lot to show for its recent tech investments. The number of online orders Target shoppers picked up in stores grew 60% during the holidays, allowing the retailer to offer more convenience (especially in the last two days before Christmas when many would hesitate to order from Amazon.) What’s more, 40% of online orders picked up in store or shipped from a store were items that were out of stock at Target’s main distribution facilities.

The tech is also helping Target keep a better handle on merchandise levels. Operations chief John Mulligan told the Wall Street analysts that there were 40% fewer merchandise out-of-stocks during the holiday season.

“When you talk to our guests, the number-one pain point is that we’re out of stock,” Mulligan said.

The discount chain’s chief rival, Walmart, wmt saw its e-commerce rise a modest 8% during the holiday quarter, continuing a trend of smaller and smaller increases and raising fears its web sales were already plateauing, a worrisome development considering Amazon.com’s continued fast growth. amzn

So Target will keep ramping it up. Last year, comparable sales at Target rose 2.1% and it expects as much as 2.5% this year.

In front of a Wall Street audience, Target’s brass said it is aiming for 3% per year starting in 2017, a lofty goal in a tough retail climate. And that makes tech spending all the more important.

Summary: The retailer will spend $2 billion a year starting in 2017.


Fortune spoke to Mark McLaughlin, CEO, chairman, and president of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks panw , ahead of his keynote at this year’s RSA Conference, the world’s biggest cybersecurity confab. He chatted on a phone call from his hotel room in San Francisco.

The core of McLaughlin’s message, as he told Fortune on Monday, is the massive productivity gains promised in the digital age rest on a precarious foundation: Trust. For him, losing that trust is not an option. “People get very focused on ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’ events,” McLaughlin said, referring to the electronic doomsday scenarios often invoked by members of the national security set. “As bad, and more subtle, would be an increasing lack of trust in networks.”

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McLaughlin said he believes it would not take a cataclysmic meltdown to convince people that today’s connected computers are too unreliable and uncertain to be worth the effort. Just as easily slight problems could build up, forming one giant undeniable reason to steer clear of these networks. “It’s certainly possible to lose that trust even short of a catastrophic digital event,” he said. “What’s more concerning is the perception that the system doesn’t work the way we think its supposed to work.”

What if a hacker manipulated your bank account information, he asked. “That could take online banking down due to the perception it created.” And that’s to say nothing of the multitude of complications that could spark public mistrust in airlines or the critical infrastructure of basic utilities relying on computer networks.

For more on cyber threats, watch:

McLaughlin has three guidelines for how this problem should be tackled. First, automated protection: Cybersecurity professionals need to develop systems that take care of threats automatically. Second, threat intelligence sharing: Companies need to swap information about the attacks they face. (Palo Alto Networks is part of a consortium of cybersecurity firms—the Cyber Threat Alliance—that has teamed up to do so; read more about it in Fortune’s exclusive keynote preview with Intel intc Security lead Chris Young, who called for greater industry collaboration.) And third, education: “The government needs to teach its citizens, parents need to teach their children, and employers needs to teach their employees about hygiene in the digital age,” he said.

Along the lines of bettering cybersecurity instruction, McLaughlin mentioned that his wife and son happened to be visiting a cryptography exhibit that day at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, which Palo Alto Networks helped create. (His son’s favorite part is a large representation of key tumblers that shows how physical locks work, he said.)

“We’re very excited—as society should be—about massive productivity gains that occur with the digital age,” McLaughlin said, delivering good news before bad. “But it’s not a slam dunk.”

Cybersecurity ‘Bling’ Won’t Save Us: RSA President

“If we don’t figure out the security side of this—if people were to lose trust in the underlying infrastructure we all increasingly rely upon,” he added, “that would be a substantial step backward, and would have a potentially enormous impact.”

Get to know Mark McLaughlin through a quick Fortune Q&A:

How many RSA Conferences have you attended?

Lost count but more than 15.

What is your favorite part of RSA Conference, and why?

Talking with customers. They help ground you and those conversations ensure I’m not getting caught up in all the marketing speak.

Which talk or event this year are you most excited for?

I’m on a panel later this week with James Shira from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who is one of the most dynamic guys in this industry. Can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

Drink of choice at one of the many open bars?

Coffee, and lots of it.

Summary: Exclusive preview of the cybersecurity exec's keynote address.


06/01/2016 AT 04:15 PM EDT

A Burlesque dancer who goes by the name of

almost missed her flight on May 18. But it wasn't the

that caused her trouble – it was her outfit.

A JetBlue representative refused to let McMuffin board her flight unless she changed her clothes, McMuffin explained to PEOPLE, as her black and white cropped shorts were deemed too short by the flight's captain and onboard crew.

The 26-year-old says she felt "body-shamed" and "slut-shamed" after being told if she couldn't find new bottoms by the time the gate closed, she'd have to take another flight.

"The gate and onboard crew discussed the customer's clothing and determined that the burlesque shorts may offend other families on the flight," a JetBlue spokesperson said in a statement to PEOPLE. "While the customer was not denied boarding, the crewmembers politely asked if she could change."

McMuffin, who was also wearing a long-sleeved white sweater and thigh-high socks, says she was never told her outfit was offensive to other families until after JetBlue's statement was made.

"Customers were never brought into it," McMuffin tells PEOPLE. "So it feels a bit patronizing to the customers to assume they'd be offended. There was no problem and now there is a problem."

The Seattle native was traveling home from New York on the airline, with a layover in Boston's Logan Airport. And while her outfit didn't cause her any trouble on her first flight, it was flagged just five minutes before boarding her second flight.

@JetBlue I was told it was the pilot's choice. The pilot spoke to the flight team and it was decided I couldn't get on the plane as is.

@JetBlue Now I was fine on my previous flight. So I'm guessing these rules are subjective? I would hate to find out my favorite airline ...

@JetBlue Subscribes to such sexist ideals as preventing women from getting home because of how they dress. So maybe it's just this pilot.

@JetBlue And how does my outfit affect the pilot? She can't see me, I'll be sitting most of the flight. How do my clothes affect her job?

After asking about solutions with crew members – including tying a sweater around her waist or covering up with a blanket – McMuffin agreed to purchase a new pair of shorts at a neighboring kiosk.

@fuckityfuckity Yes. I was told to rebook or find something else so I bought and put on these. pic.twitter.com/RgdIkjApTD

Since news broke of the incident, McMuffin says the response she's received from the public has been "a mixed bag." "I've gotten a lot of support from my community, from strangers, and from men who tell me they would love to fly next to me," McMuffin says, laughing. "I've also gotten a lot of people calling me a slut, and a degenerate, and a waste of media time."

The negative comments only seem to emphasize McMuffin's feelings of "slut-shaming." "I have been called a lot of rude names. There are still plenty of people out there who get up in arms about how people are portraying their bodies in public and what people are wearing, and really making judgments about that person without ever having spoken to them," she explains.

JetBlue stands by their decision. "We support our crewmembers' discretion to make these difficult decisions, and we decided to reimburse the customer for the cost of the new shorts and offered a credit for future flight as a good will gesture," they said in a statement to PEOPLE.

But their response is not enough to make McMuffin – a previous repeat customer – want to book a flight again with them anytime soon. "If JetBlue issued me a proper apology, maybe I would," she says. "They issued me $162 credit – less than $200. Which coming from a national company and considering what a flight costs, is actually not much in the grand scheme of what they could afford to give me."

"It's like a bad relationship," she explains. "One bad thing could totally ruin it."

As for whether she's wear the shorts again? "Honestly, my trust in that outfit is a little shaken," McMuffin jokes. "I may never fly in those shorts again. But I'm definitely flying in that tiger sweater again."

This isn't the first time an airline has gotten strict about their dress code. Back in September 2011,

off an airline because his pants sagged too low.

Summary: The airline said Maggie McMuffin's shorts 'may offend other families on the flight'


This summer, millions of Americans will take to the roads. If you’re one of them you may think that means hours with nothing to nosh on but convenience store staples like chips and cookies. Not anymore. While convenience stores still have their fair share of less-than-optimal eats, many now stock a surprising selection of fresh and healthy choices. Next time you stop to refuel, test drive these light snacks.

Why start your day with a donut when you can get wholesome whole grain cereal? You may need to dig through the cereal display to find it, but it’s in there. Just be sure to read the label, as some varieties are more healthful than others. Look for brands that supply at least 4 grams of fiber and about 160 calories per cup (Cheerios are a safe bet that are almost always available). Mix with low-fat yogurt and a banana and you’ve got a wholesome breakfast you can take along for the drive.

Energy bars make a savvy snack to have on hand for times when you’re stuck in traffic and your stomach starts to growl. Yet they’re not all created equally. Many are low in fiber, high in calories and loaded with sugar. For maximum hunger control, aim for bars with a combo of at least 5 grams of fiber and 7 grams of protein and fewer than 170 calories such as Kellogg’s Special K Protein Meal Bar or Kashi Go Lean Protein & Fiber Bar.

Packed with vitamin E, monounsaturated fat and resveratrol (the compound responsible for the benefits of red wine), peanuts are a heart-healthy snack. But, if you’re not careful it’s easy to wolf down several servings before you know it. Enter in-shell peanuts. Shelling your own peanuts automatically slows you down, so you’ll be less likely to eat too many. About ½ cup supplies 7 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber and 20% of your daily vitamin E for a respectable 160 calories.

When you crave something cool and creamy, head to the refrigerator case instead of the ice cream case. There you’ll find low-fat yogurt (some stores even stock organic varieties). It will satisfy your taste buds while also delivering on the nutritional front. For about 140 calories or less, you’ll get one-quarter of your daily calcium and as much protein as you’d get from a large egg. Look on the label and you’ll see many brands are now fortified with vitamin D as well.

Squeezing in your 9 daily servings of produce when you’re on the road can be a major challenge. While fresh is best, it isn’t always possible. That’s when 100% veggie juice can help. One 12-ounce bottle provides the equivalent of 3 servings of vegetables for just 70 calories. It’s packed with vitamins A and C, heart-healthy potassium, and lycopene, a phytochemical cousin of beta-carotene. Each bottle also offers 3 grams of filling fiber.

Put down the peanut M&Ms and reach for a bag of trail mix instead. Its dried fruit and nuts provide the perfect mix of sweet, salty and crunchy – but with a healthful twist. You’ll not only slash fat and calories, you’ll get half the saturated fat you’d find in chocolate bars or M&Ms. Be sure to keep an eye on portions. Even though it’s good for you, trail mix is high in calories. Three tablespoons supply 140 calories and 9 grams of fat.

Single serve bags of baby carrots

You no longer need to stumble across a roadside stand to get your fill of fresh veggies. Conveniently packaged single-serve bags of baby carrots make it easy to sneak in a serving of produce. Precut, prewashed and easily portable, they make a smart alternative to other bagged snacks. One 2¼ ounce bag delivers 90 percent of your daily dose of vitamin A and 2 grams of fiber for only 25 calories.

Stores like 7-Eleven are making it easier for you to get your fruit fix. Now instead of gravitating toward the snack aisle, check out the fresh food case. There you’ll find juicy fruit cups made from pre-cut cantaloupe, honeydew, and grapes. Not only are they a calorie bargain, they’re rich in fiber and also supply healthful antioxidants like vitamins A and C and beta-carotene. They’re filling too. One 8-oz container provides roughly 2 servings of fruit for only about 100 calories. If you can’t find fresh cut fruit, look for fruit packed in water or extra-light syrup.

Part skim string cheese sticks

It’s hard to squeeze in your 3 daily servings of dairy when you’re cooped up in the car all day. Calcium-rich snacks like string cheese can help. Grab a couple of these and you’ll get as much calcium as you would from a glass of milk. What’s more, their protein (one piece supplies 7 grams) helps you focus and stay alert behind the wheel. For a balanced snack, pair them with a bag of baby carrots.

Most convenience stores offer single pieces of fresh fruit like bananas, oranges, and apples year round. You don’t have to look far to find them either—they are usually at the front of the store next to the cash register. If you don’t want to worry about washing an apple or trying to peel an orange while driving, reach for a banana. This sweet fruit is packaged in its own skin for easy clean up and nonsticky fingers. Bananas are a potassium powerhouse, delivering energy to help keep you going on that long drive.

This article originally appeared on CookingLight.com.

Summary: These light snacks are available for grabs at any convenience store


Does it make sense to save up and pay cash for your new car?

For years, most personal-finance experts have said, "Of course it does!" It seems like a no-brainer: Car loans add interest payments and fees to the principal, and those can add up to big bucks over the life of the loan.

But in today's environment, when interest rates are low and cheap financing deals are common, the answer is a little less clear. Does it still make sense to buy a car the old-fashioned way?

Personal-finance experts have long argued that paying cash is the best way to go when buying a new car or truck. By paying cash instead of taking out a loan, you'll avoid interest charges and financing fees, which can add thousands of dollars to a car's purchase price.

That's true even at today's low interest rates. On a loan of $30,000 with a 60-month term at 4 percent interest, the interest payments add up to $3,149.68 over the life of the loan. If there are fees associated with the loan, you might pay even more.

That extra $3,000-plus is a big part of why many advisers suggest paying cash for a car if you can. And there's another reason to consider the save-up-and-pay-cash approach: Simply put, it's a lot harder to overspend.

That's important, because the swift pace of technology has made it tempting to spend more for a more lavishly equipped model. And many consumers have been giving in to that temptation.

If it seems like cars and trucks have become more expensive in recent years, that's because they have. The average transaction price for a new "light vehicle" -- a car, SUV, or pickup truck -- in the U.S. has risen quite a bit. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for a light vehicle sold in the U.S. rose to $33,340 in June. That's up 2.5 percent from a year ago.

Some vehicles have risen even more sharply. Ford (

) said that the average transaction price for a new F-Series pickup was over $44,000 in June. Surprised? If so, it's easy to understand. After all, the base model F-150 starts at under $26,000. But Ford -- like just about every other automaker -- offers plenty of desirable options and packages that can add tens of thousands to the basic truck's sticker price.

That strategy has been great for

. But it has led many consumers to feel like new-car prices have outpaced inflation -- and like they

a loan to be able to afford a new car at all.

It has also led to financial innovations intended to help consumers "afford" ever-more-expensive cars and trucks, like longer-term auto loans. Longer loans help make monthly payments more affordable, but at an obvious cost: You'll be making those payments for five years or more.

Many people are happy to make the trade-off. The average term for a new-vehicle loan

, according to credit bureau Experian. That's over five years. And lots of loans are even longer: Experian reported that almost 30 percent of new-vehicle loans in the first quarter were between 73 and 84 months -- or six to seven years

Are all those people crazy?

When it comes to paying cash for a new car, the good reasons that experts have been giving us for years are still good reasons. But it's also true that low interest rates have made longer loans much more affordable. Many buyers who take longer loans aren't crazy at all -- they're just willing to pay extra over time for the convenience of being able to buy the car or truck they want, right now.

As always, the right advice is to choose an option that you can comfortably afford. If paying cash feels like the right way to go, there's nothing wrong with that. But a low-interest loan that gives you a manageable payment on a new car that you plan to keep for a long time is also a reasonable option. Just do the math before you sign.

Summary: 'Pay cash' was the experts' advice for years. But with cheap financing deals everywhere, is it still the right way to go?


It’s probably not a great idea to use China’s top web browsers. After slamming the security of the UC and Baidu mobile browsers, researchers from Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto have now identified serious problems with both the Windows and Android versions of Tencent’s widely-used QQ Browser.

According to the security researchers, Tencent’s browsers transmitted personal user information back to the company’s headquarters with either no protection at all, or poorly implemented encryption that could easily be broken.

The researchers theorized these could be deliberate backdoors, aimed at expanding state surveillance.

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Both versions sent back the addresses of visited pages, along with identifying data about the phones or computers being used for the surfing. The Android version of the QQ Browser also sent back search terms that the user typed into the address bar, again with poor security protection.

What’s more, the researchers said, there were holes in the software-update mechanisms for both browsers, making it possible for someone to send malware to the user’s device.

Why does all this matter? Firstly, the Android version of the QQ Browser is used by almost half of all Chinese mobile users. Here’s what the researchers said:

This insecure data transmission means that any in-path actor (such as a user’s ISP, a coffee shop WiFi network, or a malicious actor with network visibility across any of these type of access points) would be able to acquire this personal data by collecting traffic and performing any necessary decryption.

It’s not just random attackers that users of these Chinese browsers need to be concerned about. As Citizen Lab demonstrated last May, Edward Snowden’s leaks showed that similar vulnerabilities in the UC Browser (used by over half a billion people in China and India) were known to intelligence services, and used to spy on people.

For more on privacy and national security, watch:

Suspicious of the similarities between the security holes in the QQ, UC and Baidu browsers, the researchers said they asked Tencent whether there was a underlying reason. They received no answer, but Tencent did strengthen some of the browsers’ security mechanisms after being notified of them — though not to the satisfaction of the researchers.

In their paper, the researchers suggested the flaws could result from poor industry norms and/or pressure from the authorities, who want to be able to easily spy on citizens. After all, China has numerous regulations on tech firms, demanding that they aid authorities.

“It is reasonable to hypothesize that company officers put in place wide-reaching data gathering functionalities either at the request of, or to appease the preferences of, China’s security services,” they wrote. “More research is needed to evaluate this hypothesis.”

Summary: Security researchers have found serious vulnerabilities in yet more top Chinese web browsers, raising suspicions of deliberate backdoors.