Did you ever wonder what is what like growing up the son of James Bond?

Meet Carl Colby, son of the late C.I.A. director William Colby, who has attempted to piece together his father’s life from his career beginnings as an OSS officer in Nazi-occupied Europe to becoming the 10th Director of Central Intelligence from 1973 to 1976 in the powerful documentary “The Man Nobody Knew.”

“Two weeks after I was born we left for Sweden, then we left for Italy, and I came back to the United States really for the first time as a twelve year old. I spoke better Italian and French than I did English back when I was young. So it was an odd, foreign country to me, but it was supposed to be my home,” Colby told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column of his own childhood. “Only gradually did I understand really that not everybody works for the government.”

“The Man Nobody Knew” offers a look at the elder Colby's mysterious life, complete with interviews from former wife Barbara Colby, former senator Bob Kerrey and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The movie touches on several dramatic milestones, from joining forces with the Vatican to defeat the Communist Party in Italy in the 1950s to the unraveling of the Vietnam War and the assassination of the country’s president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963.

It also shows how much times have changed.

“When my father was director of the C.I.A., he left his home phone number in the directory, in a directory that anyone can call up and talk to him,” Colby continued. “Unfortunately, a couple of people did call. One person said to my younger sister, ‘We’re gonna kill your father.’ And then one day someone called and my mother answered, and they said “All the arrangements have been made,’ and she said ‘Arrangements for what?’ and they stated “Your husband’s burial.’ She said, ‘What are you talking about?”’and they just said ‘All the arrangements have been made,' and then just hung up. So you’ve a sense that he had enemies, but to be honest with you, he was so cool under fire. I never feared for my life because he never projected that.”

And although Colby’s death in 1996 from a boating accident was ruled caused by a heart attack, (Colby was found underwater), his son thinks it may not have been accidental.

“In a lot of ways I think he was done. He lost his mission after he resigned or was fired by President Ford [in 1976]. He reverted to being, maybe what he once was in his late 20s, a kind of liberal lawyer. He bought new clothes, bought a sports bar and sort of just started a whole new life,” Colby explained. “They said he had a heart attack or a stroke, but it’s also the best way to hide anything to just throw somebody into the water because after a few hours there’s no sign of anything. But I think he had had enough of this world. He never wanted to grow old.”

In putting together his documentary, Carl Colby also wanted to answer one simple question.

“Are we important? A child asking a parent if we were important, if were a family, or if we just a cover for him,” Colby said. “Was there real affection? Or was it just a smoke screen? He divorced my mother so we know how he really felt about her. I spent a lot of time thinking about that question – and I think the answer is 'no.' We weren’t ever a real family.”

“The Man Nobody Knew” is currently playing in New York and opens in Los Angeles on October 14.

Summary: Son of CIA Director William Colby Wonders if Family Was Just Dad's Cover in New Documentary


I. Cannes: The Slow Drive to Triumph

Stuck in traffic in a black sedan on his way to the Palais des Festivals for the Cannes International Film Festival premiere of his new movie, 'Bad Education,' Pedro Almodóvar seemed, as he often does, both anxious and curious. He fidgeted, he fussed. When he rolled down the window, the paparazzi, who were walking three-deep alongside the slow-moving car, screamed at him: 'Pedro! Pedro!' and cut off his view of the street, where his image was plastered on walls and where fans waited to mob him. He strained to see past all this. He was intrigued by what one woman in the crowd was wearing, by the relationship -- which was what, exactly? -- between two men eating ice cream. He was looking for details, a hint of narrative, the movie.

They recognized him instantly, the photographers and fans, through the rolled-down window: the trademark salt-and-pepper pouf of his hair rose like a corona surrounding his head. He was dressed tonight in a custom-designed Christian Dior tuxedo and was wearing dark sunglasses and looked, as he idled in traffic, like a teenager who had dressed up for a party he couldn't wait to get to, or maybe not. He is in his 50's now but has the bouncy effervescence of a child. It's one of the character traits, but only one, that has played a part in making him arguably the most original and daring filmmaker working today.

In his work, Almodóvar is steeped in what came before him, but he's also unrestrained by it. He has always been interested in a mix of the traditional and the transgressive. In Almodóvar's films, there is the real, the concrete, but it is always heightened by intense visual effects (saturated colors, stunning clothes and objects) and especially by extreme characters who act in extraordinary ways. In a dreamy, almost childlike manner, he depicts gender and sexuality as fluid: in Almodóvar's world, women were once men; men pose as women; transsexuals can be fathers or mothers. Almodóvar presides over his shifting characters like a benevolent priest: he accepts and forgives nearly all of them, no matter how terrible their sins. A kidnapper or rapist or pedophile can have a pure heart; of course, the seemingly innocent can also be guilty. ''The cinema is my work and what gives meaning to my life,'' he said to me as the sedan went nowhere fast. ''In film, my hope is to meld reality and fantasy -- and everything goes into that ideal.''

Growing up in Spain, Almodóvar experienced a cross-section of influences: from the Spanish masters (Velázquez, Goya) to Pop Art (Warhol); from the surrealist films of Luis Bunuel to American movies of the 1950's and 60's: Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies, Douglas Sirk melodramas. ''Bad Education,'' with its labyrinth-like construction and doomed characters, was inspired, Almodóvar explained, by noirish movies like ''Laura'' and ''Out of the Past,'' and the lead actor in the film, the young Mexican star Gael García Bernal, is, to Almodóvar's mind, a great femme fatale like Barbara Stanwyck or Veronica Lake: beautiful and deadly.

At the dark heart of ''Bad Education'' is the sexual molestation of a young boy by a priest. The incident, which is depicted with grace and sadness, triggers a series of events that unfold over decades. The abused boy grows up to be a drug-addicted, would-be (but ill-fated) transsexual writer. His younger brother, an actor, hopes to sell a film director on the idea of making a movie about his brother's relationship with the pedophile priest. As the plot unfolds, fact intersects with fiction, identities shift and emotional bargains are negotiated at great psychological cost. Bernal plays no fewer than three interlocking characters. Like Almodóvar's previous two films, ''All About My Mother'' (which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2000) and ''Talk to Her'' (which won an Academy Award for best screenplay in 2003), ''Bad Education'' is filled with beautiful and startling imagery: a child's face is split by a drop of blood; a young boy sings a version of ''Moon River'' (Holly Golightly's song in ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'') in a moment of reverie. But the movie, which will be shown as the New York Film Festival's centerpiece entry on Oct. 9 and 10 and is scheduled to open theatrically in New York and Los Angeles in November, is ultimately more concerned with redemption than with beauty -- which may be its most transgressive aspect.

Summary: Pedro Almodóvar has sanctified society's transgressors, rescued Spanish surrealism and liberated international cinema.


As work crews fan out across Neverland Ranch, the sprawling, 2,600-acre property that once was Michael Jackson's home, speculation is soaring that the estate could soon become "Foreverland" — a Graceland-style permanent memorial to the King of Pop.

A "person familiar with the situation" told the Associated Press Wednesday that billionaire Thomas Barrack, CEO of the private equity firm that owns Neverland in a joint venture with Jackson, sought an exemption to bury the singer at the ranch — but it's a complicated process that couldn't be done in time for a burial this week.

And now, the family of Michael Jackson has released an official statement on the rumors regarding an alleged public memorial to be held at Neverland.

"Contrary to previous news reports, the Jackson family is officially stating that there will be no public or private viewing at Neverland. Plans are underway regarding a public memorial for Michael Jackson, and we will announce those plans shortly."

PHOTOS: Five famous celebrity death memorial destinations.

Officials from the California Highway Patrol, meanwhile, confirmed that a meeting took place on Tuesday with several members of Jackson's family to discuss plans regarding funeral services. The same source told the AP that no public memorial is being planned at Neverland and that Jackson's funeral and burial will more likely take place in Los Angeles.

But activity has increased noticeably at Neverland, in the hills of Santa Barbara County, 120 miles north of Los Angeles, with reports of more than a dozen vehicles and groups of gardeners spotted on the property. Despite reports that a service at Neverland has fizzled, a state official told FOX News that preparations are underway since thousands are expected to come to area this weekend, making it very congested.

"There's no place for a bus to turn around, and in some places, it couldn't pull over to even allow a car to pass in the other direction," said the official who requested anonymity.

Six days after Jackson's sudden death, the arrival of construction crews and even tour buses at Neverland are fueling rumors that Jackson's family plans to make it a memorial to the King of Pop similar to Graceland, the white-columned Memphis, Tenn., estate of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Owen Blicksilver, a spokesman for Colony Capital, which purchased an estimated $24 million outstanding loan on Neverland in May 2008, told FOXNews.com in an e-mail that "no decisions have been made" about the future of the property.

In 1987, Jackson purchased the property, named Sycamore Valley Ranch at the time, for a reported $19.5 million. He renamed it Neverland Ranch, after the fictional land of Peter Pan. The sprawling estate once featured amusement-park rides, a zoo and two independent railway lines. It reportedly cost up to $10 million a year to maintain.

It's unclear whether Jackson can be buried at the ranch. According to The Associated Press, California's health and safety code makes interring uncremated remains outside of a cemetery a misdemeanor. Cremated remains, meanwhile, can be kept only in a home or private mausoleum outside a cemetery.

Barrack called Neverland a "mythical sanctuary to Michael" shortly after the entertainer's death, and many industry insiders feel Jackson's legacy would draw huge crowds to the property, perhaps eclipsing the 600,000 tourists who flock to Graceland every year.

"Neverland could be an amazing experience, because that was Michael Jackson's vision from the ground up," said Roger Brooks, CEO of Destination Development International, a tourism consulting firm.

"It was really his dream. Granted, Neverland is clouded by accusations and some of the negativity surrounding Jackson, but at the end of the day, it embodies Jackson the way he wanted to be seen."

Brooks said the biggest hurdles in transforming the ranch into a tourism behemoth would be local traffic and the approval of neighbors.

"That could be a problem, it's a very residential area," Brooks said.

"But if some place was going to say, 'Hey, that's Michael Jackson,' it just makes sense it would be Neverland … It would be as big as Graceland, if not bigger."

Jackson's worldwide appeal is another factor that could lead to huge dividends if a permanent memorial were to be constructed at the site.

"It would be a major draw," Brooks said. "I think that Michael Jackson is even a bigger star than Elvis. If anything, he's just as big a star. He's the Elvis of our time."

"Maybe it'll happen for Michael, but Elvis was never accused of sleeping with kids," entertainment attorney Steve Gordon told FOXNews.com. "If you have kids, would you feel comfortable going to Neverland Ranch?"

Gordon said Jackson's popularity in the U.S. — particularly when compared to Jackson's appeal in Europe — never recovered following his acquittal in 2005 on charges that he had molested a 13-year-old boy at the property. Jackson's lasting image in that regard remains to be seen, he said.

"These wild waters have to settle before we find out what the legacy of Michael Jackson will be," Gordon continued. "Maybe they should open up a Neverland Ranch in London."

Summary: As work crews fan out across Neverland Ranch, the sprawling, 2,600-acre property that once was Michael Jackson's home, speculation is soaring that Neverland could soon become Foreverland -- a Graceland-style permanent memorial to the King of Pop.


Barry Hughes: Metastatic. Photograph: Barry W Hughes

"The internet is essentially stupid," declared Jörg Colberg this week. Colberg's photography site Conscientious is one of the key places to find out about new photography online, so there were an audible intake of breath as he said it. He delivered a manifesto for change at this year's PhotoIreland festival, describing the internet as a great adventure, but one that still exists for many as "a drive-by culture".

Colberg took on the ethics of online ownership, the difficulty of finding rigorous thinking and writing about photography, and the impossibility of making sense of the overload of digital images now floating in cyberspace – 90 million a day on Instagram alone. He said the web requires all of us not just to be aware of the misuse of images and the cavalier attitude to ownership, but to actively intervene each time we spotted the same.

It was one of the most provocative talks in the opening programme of PhotoIreland in Dublin. And in a deft bit of programming by director Ángel Luis González, Colberg was followed by Andy Adams, the man behind FlakPhoto.com and a champion of all things online. He had me onside mostly, talking about the possibilities of the web for sharing, marketing and discussing photography – but the questions posed by Colberg undercut the all-round positivity of his presentation. Quoting from Jason Evans's essay Online Photographic Thinking, Adams insisted the web offered a new way of thinking both for photographers and their public. He name-checked Marshall McLuhan's essay, The Medium is the Message but not The Medium is the Massage, the cult book which suggested that new mediums lull us into passivity rather than make us more aware.

Elsewhere at the festival I hosted a conversation with photographer Cristina de Middel on life before and after The Afronauts, her phenomenally successful self-published photo book. She gave the audience a tantalising glimpse of her new project, a mischievous take on Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. De Middel said she was more influenced by comics and films than photography books. She also said photography had not yet discovered its ability to tell stories and create fictions, which is her aim as an artist. De Middel also regaled us with tales of how certain intrepid photobook collectors tracked her down and turned up on her doorstep offering wads of cash for a copy of The Afronauts – a book that now changes hands for£1,200.

On a quick tour of the exhibitions, I was taken by Shane Lynam's Contours, which "creates a fictional greenbelt around the city" that suggests the original optimistic vision behind the planning of Parisian suburbs. Linda Brownlee's series, Achill, conjures the stillness of the island in County Mayo and the singular sense of belonging felt by local teenagers. Barry Hughes offers a very different take on landscape with his project Metastatic, a conceptual exploration of environment and dread though an old John Wayne film, The Conqueror. It was shot in Snow Canyon State Park in Utah, close to a nuclear test site. (The fact that the director Dick Powell, stars and 91 crew members later died of cancer led some to believe that nuclear fallout was the cause.) Hughed gives an interesting visual meditation on anxiety and contamination.

Landscape loomed large at PhotoIreland. Kevin Griffin's Omey Island – Last Man Standing centred on Pascal Whelen, the last resident of the the tiny island of Omey off the coast of Galway, while Robert Ellis's New Line looked at the space inhabited by an alternative community in the west of Ireland.

A word, too, for Paul Gaffney's palpably silent landscapes, We Make the Path by Walking, which reflect his state of mind while travelling 3,500 kilometres on foot through rural Spain, Portugal and France. Muted colours add to the Sebaldian mystery of crossroads, thickets and open fields.

Dublin-based photographer Yvette Monahan took a well-deserved Portfiolio Award for her series The Time of Dreaming the World Awake. Monahan describes her images of Bugarach, a so-called magic mountain in the south of France, as "a portrait of place, a landscape of possibility". It was here, according to esoteric readings of Mayan prophecies, that a new Arcadia would arise following the end of the world on 21 December 2012. The mountain drew apocalyptic believers from all over, and must have been a nexus of disappointmentwhen 21 December came and went. "Despite this," Monahan notes, "I realised how attractive it was to believe in the possibility of an idyll, even if it only existed in my mind." Her photographs illuminate that idyll, and are a testament to a peculiar kind of collective wishful thinking that holds sway in our age of anxiety.

Peckham in south London is the venue for this weekend's Copeland Book Market which brings together 46 small independent publishers dealing in photography and art. There will be talks, stalls and dancing over the weekend in the Bold Tendencies space. Highlights include tonight's publication launch by Dutch duo of WassinkLundgren, a Friday night after-party hosted by Preston Is My Paris and friends. Friday evening also sees the launch of Jeremy Deller's book, It's A Kind of English Magic, which features a book signing and limited edition LP by the artist, a live performance by the Melodian's Steel Orchestra and a record store run by Vinyl Factory. Among the publishers promoting their wares are Art Licks, GOST Books, MELK, Morel Books, Nobody and Trolley Books. Thursday and Friday: 5- 9pm; Saturday and Sunday: 1- 7pm.

Summary: Sean O'Hagan: Competing talks at PhotoIreland festival called the internet both 'essentially stupid', and the best possible marketplace for images


The Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon on display at the British Museum. Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Best-read lists on websites are disconcertingly revealing things. In a week where the Guardian's list might have been dominated by, say, Michael Jackson's demise or the demonstrations in Iran, one small element of our arts coverage persistently ranked in the top-two best-read pieces on the site: a poll that asked, simply, "Is it time to return the Parthenon marbles?" No fewer than 380,000 people clicked on it, and an unprecedented 129,974 felt strongly enough to vote - an overwhelming 94.8% voting yes, and a puny 5.2% voting no.

Now, the Parthenon marbles aren't exactly breaking news: Lord Elgin began removing them from Greece in 1801. True, the new Parthenon museum had just opened, with its pointed gaps where the missing marbles ought to go - but still. The opening of even the snazziest of museums can't usually compete with one of the biggest celebrity exits in the obituaries calendar. Or the biggest demonstration in Iran since the fall of the Shah.

In short, it went viral. It appeared on Flickr, on digg, on twitpic (a picture-sharing version of Twitter), on Greek tourist websites, on a Christian forum and on dedicated Elginist sites such as Elginism.com. Some 6,000 page views were generated by the passing on of just one email link. But by far the largest number - 40,000 - came from Facebook, where various campaigns steered viewers towards doing the right thing.

Most respondents were, unsurprisingly, Greek: Greece usually accounts for 0.4% of the Guardian's monthly traffic, but more than half of respondents to the poll were from Athens (second place went to London, at 6%. That's how much we care). The Athenian respondents felt so strongly about exercising their democratic rights that they visited the page an average of twice each. They did invent the concept, after all.

Summary: Guardian poll on whether to return the art treasure got 129,974 responses


The London version of Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci will be displayed alongside its Louvre counterpart at the National Gallery. Photograph: David Levene

The National Gallery and the Louvre have announced perhaps their most important collaboration ever, agreeing to lend each other one of their most important paintings with the aim, they say, of illuminating Leonardo da Vinci's painting career as never before.

Neither of the works has been lent before and, in all likelihood, never will be again.

The Louvre will send its version of Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks across the Channel so it can hang alongside the London version for the first time. It will be part of the National Gallery's major Leonardo show in November.

In return, London will lend The Burlington House Cartoon – Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and John the Baptist so it can hang alongside the newly cleaned and restored Paris version, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.

Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, called it an "extraordinary collaboration" and said they were "delighted and very grateful". He added: "I am quite sure that the experience of seeing these masterpieces juxtaposed will be one that none of us will ever forget or that will ever be repeated. I am delighted that such a rich context for these comparisons will be provided at each venue."

His counterpart at the Louvre, Henri Loyrette, said it achieved two "historical juxtapositions long desired by generations of art historians and which are certain to offer a source of considerable fascination for today's museum visitors as well".

Uniting the Virgins will cast light on what was going on in Leonardo's mind in terms of his artistic ambition and aims.

The Louvre version is the first, commissioned by the Milanese Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception for its new chapel at San Francesco Grande around 1482/3. The Louvre painting would have been the central panel of the altarpiece, if a row over the price had not led to it being sold to a third party.

It is an extraordinary painting. In terms of the landscape, nothing quite like it had been painted before.

The London version is the intended replacement. For a long time it was thought to be more the work of assistants than Leonardo until recent research proved it was mostly or even entirely the work of the painter himself.

The loans will provide a highlight for what was always going to be a major, once-only exhibition. The National Gallery exhibition brings together the largest ever number of paintings from Leonardo's career in Milan and includes the loan of the Saint Jerome from the Vatican and The Lady with an Ermine from Krakow. As things stand, there will be nine.

Organisers have already said they will restrict visitor numbers in order to make the experience as pleasurable as possible.

The announcement is also some good news for the National Gallery after a vandal sprayed red aerosol paint on one of its Poussin's. It raised questions about whether galleries would want to lend their Leonardo's but a gallery spokeswoman said all the paintings were still coming to London.

Summary: Collaboration part of show in November with Paris version of Virgin of the Rocks to be displayed alongside London's


Francesco Guardi's Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon.

A Francesco Guardi painting of the Rialto Bridge and a busy Grand Canal under a dramatic and luminous blue sky has had a temporary export bar placed on it by the arts minister, Ed Vaizey.

The work set an auction record for a painting of Venice when it was sold in July for £26.7m to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby's in London.

Before that the painting – Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon – had been passed down through various members of the Guinness family including, recently, a former arts minister, the late Paul Channon.

It is regarded as an extremely important example of Guardi's work. The export bar allows time for someone to come up with the money to keep the painting in Britain.

The work certainly has a wow factor. Simon Swynfen Jervis, who sits on the reviewing committee which decides on export licences for such important works, said: "This noble painting represents Francesco Guardi on a grand scale, emulating Canaletto and Bellotto.

"Whether it was patterns of patronage or his own inclination which later impelled him towards a smaller scale and lighter touch, this View of the Rialto demonstrates that in 1768 he could impress as well as delight."

The reviewing committee decided that the export decision should be deferred because of the "outstanding aesthetic importance" of the work together with its significance to the study of Guardi's development, Venetian view painting and Grand Tour patronage and taste.

The price the painting fetched at Sotheby's in the summer surpassed its pre-sale estimate of £15m-£25m. Before then it had been sold only once. It was first acquired in 1768 by a young English grand tourist called Chaloner Arcedeckne and it stayed in his family until it was sold to Sir Edward Guinness, the chief executive and then chairman of the brewing company.

Summary: Sotheby's sale to anonymous bidder of work formerly in Guinness family fetched record price for depiction of Italian city


But, only three weeks after his family signed up, the incentives program closed to new applicants. The program was controversial in part because all residents had to pay for it through a levy on electricity bills, whether they were solar users or not — a figure that could add up to around AUD$100 ($93) per year. A similar controversy has risen over generous benefits in Germany.

As prices for solar panels have fallen worldwide to around 50 cents per watt in countries like the United States, and controversies over who benefits have come to the forefront, other regions in Australia as well as countries like Germany and Italy have pulled back on their solar energy incentive programs.

But the picture for solar hopefuls isn't entirely cloudy. If you’re thinking of converting to solar, some governments continue to offer programs to reduce the cost — albeit less generous ones — and some companies offer leasing programs to pay off the units long-term.

Part of the rationale for reducing the benefits is that prices for residential solar power systems have dropped dramatically, with the cost of production for solar hours decreasing 80% over the last four years.

Darren Gladman, policy manager for the Melbourne-based Clean Energy Council, said in October the average price was AUD$3,567 ($3,327) for a 1.5-kilowatt system, the typical size needed to power a small, two-person home. Four years ago, the same 1.5-kilowat system might have cost up to AUD$30,000 ($27,996), making it necessary for the government to both give rebates of about AUD$8,000 ($7,466) to make the purchase of the system more affordable and to institute the levy, or tariff, for all residents.

Falling prices didn’t just reduce the lucrative incentives for people to equip their homes with solar panels. The price slump also has driven many solar panel companies out of business, including American company Solyndra in September 2011. Despite receiving $535m in federal loan guarantees from the US Energy Department, the company closed. In Germany, Q-Cells, Solon and Conergy have all filed for insolvency.

Gladman, however, said this solar slump applies mainly to manufacturers, not installers like those in Australia that import products. For solar-energy hopefuls, that means there’s more competition—and better pricing—for installing systems. And with many governments still offering incentives for solar use, it could still be worthwhile to examine whether solar is a good—and cost-saving—alternative.

A Lease on Solar Life

Brokerage companies like Solar Choice make it easy to find an installer that meets the needs of different homeowners. They provide information on company ratings and comparison price quotes. In Australia, there are approximately 4,500 solar installation companies. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, there are 6,100 solar businesses in the US.

And others are entering the market. California-based solar giant SunPower plans to launch a leasing program in Australia in January 2014, the company’s chief executive Tom Werner said. This will allow consumers to purchase solar systems with no up-front cost in the form of a long-term repayable loan of up to $35,000. Ostensibly, the loan is repaid monthly using the money saved on energy bills.

In the US, SunPower currently has 20,000 customers on a similar leasing program, Werner said.

Most federal energy departments and environmental councils offer free online solar guides on topics like energy audits, local codes for installation and available incentive program applications.

Programs that subsidize green energy tend to spark debate over how much and whether to subsidize. Generous benefits over the last five years helped spur the installation of in-home solar power systems, but at great cost. For instance, Down Under, their number has grown to one million today from 8,000 households in 2007. But the program cost the government more than AUD$1 bn ($933.2m).

“(Solar) is an expensive way to make electricity and that’s the problem at the moment,” Ford said. “As price continues to decrease, it makes green energy a more attractive option.”

Follow BBC Capital on Twitter @BBC_Capital or follow us and join the conversation about this or any other Capital story on Facebook: BBC Capital on Facebook.

Homeowners must consider many logistical issues to determine if going solar is worthwhile. Among them:

Summary: Generous plans that help homeowners pay for green electricity are rolling back worldwide, but so are prices. Here's how to go solar now.


NEW YORK — Butterball apparently has a big fat mystery on its hands: The company says it doesn’t know why some of its turkeys wouldn’t plump up in time for Thanksgiving this year.

Chief executive Rod Brenneman said in an interview that it’s the first time it happened and that the company is investigating what went wrong. Butterball had announced last week that it will have a limited supply of large, fresh turkeys that are 16 pounds or heavier for the holidays.

‘‘It’s a really good question. We don’t have an answer yet,’’ Brenneman said when asked about the cause. But he noted that turkeys are ‘‘biological creatures’’ subject to a variety of factors.

‘‘For whatever reason, they just didn’t gain quite as well this year,’’ he said.

Like many other turkey producers, Butterball feeds its birds antibiotics to prevent and treat illnesses, which can occur from living in cramped quarters. The use of antibiotics, which also promote growth in livestock, has been the subject of concern that it could lead to antibiotic-resistant germs.

Summary: NEW YORK — Butterball apparently has big fat mystery on its hands: The company says it doesn’t know why some of its turkeys wouldn’t plump up in time for Thanksgiving this year. CEO Rod Brenneman says in an interview with the AP that it’s the first time it happened and that the company is investigating what went wrong. Butterball had announced last week that it will have a limited supply of large, fresh turkeys that are 16 pounds or heavier for the holidays. ‘‘It’s a really good question. We don’t have an answer yet,’’ Brenneman said when asked about the cause. But he noted that turkeys are ‘‘biological creatures’’ subject to a variety of factors. ‘‘For whatever reason, they just didn’t gain quite as well this year,’’ he said.


Justin Bieber's night of drinking and drag racing in Miami ended in charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest.

As Sabrina Cohen knows all too well, it could have been much, much worse.

In 1992 Cohen, then 14, hopped into the backseat of her friend's car on Miami Beach. She thought she was going to a party, but the driver had other plans. He started drag racing on Alton Road and crashed into a tree around Alton and 58th Street. While the other passengers sustained minor injuries, the impact of the crash shattered Cohen's spine and paralyzed her legs.

"I understand the consequences of what comes with having too much fun," Cohen, 36, tells ThePostGame, "Or just thinking you can do anything."

Bieber was arrested early Thursday morning at Pine Tree Drive and 27th Street. That's just minutes from the spot where Cohen's accident took place on Halloween in 1992. It's one of the city's prettiest streets, but also one of the most curvaceous.

"You could take your car for a little bit more of a ride as opposed to just driving straight," Cohen says about Pine Tree Drive, which becomes Alton Road.

In the wake of Bieber's arrest, Cohen says it's easy to ignore the story or blame the incident on Bieber's youth. But Cohen says Bieber's troubles should serve as a lesson. Often teenagers know the right decision in their gut but are pressured to do something else by friends or society, she says. Cohen, for example, wasn't wearing a seat belt when she hopped in that car because she didn't want to seem out of place.

Teenagers should be trusted to make the correct call, Cohen believes, because they have the capability to make proper judgements in situations like these.

"If they're in a bad situation or feeling pressure, [I'd say] to just trust themselves and be concerned with their own safety rather than looking good around other people," she says.

Cohen has traveled across the country educating young people on the dangers of reckless driving. She's also started the Sabrina Cohen Foundation For Stem Cell Research, which has raised $150,000 to date.

Cohen's newest project is a rehab and fitness center in Miami Beach that caters to people who are suffering from medical conditions. She hopes it will allow disabled men and women to get involved in sports and other physical activities.

"We might do it a little differently," Cohen says, "But that doesn’t mean we have to be secluded from it."

Obviously there are several key distinctions between Bieber's incident and other drag racing stories -- Bieber is a global sensation, he was reportedly drinking and this is far from his first offense. Still, Cohen says this is an issue that shouldn't be ignored.

"The truth is teenagers of all ages and all income levels have access to driving and partying and going out," Cohen says. "Unfortunately it's until something happens that other people take the issue seriously."

To learn more about Sabrina Cohen or her foundation, see here.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY:Wrestler 'Uses The Force'

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Summary:
Justin Bieber's night of drinking and drag racing in Miami ended in charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest.
As Sabrina Cohen knows all too we...


The Winter Olympic program has never been a static thing. Many events have come and gone since the first Winter Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. At least one sport, curling, has even come, then gone, then come back onto the Olympic roster.

It was the introduction of snowboarding, though, during the 1998 Nagano Olympics that really launched current round of growth in the Winter Olympic program. Ten new events were added to the 2002 Salt Lake City program, eight new events debuted in the 2006 Turin Olympics, and one (ski cross) in Vancouver in 2010.

And while most these additions had little to do with snowboarding, in many cases they reflected the same tendency to appeal to a younger, more action-oriented audience than in Olympics past. New events like team pursuit speed skating, ski cross and sprint distances in otherwise yawn-worthy cross country skiing -- to many TV viewers, anyway -- were an attempt to inject old sports with new energy.

But even compared with the recent past, 2014 in Sochi is going to be a bumper year for medals. A total of 98 events will be contested -- the most of any Winter Olympics in history -- and 12 of those are new to the program. Out of those 12, four new events are in snowboarding and four are ski events -- including slopestyle and halfpipe -- originally popularized for snowboard. This is no accident.

“Such events provide great entertainment for the spectators and add further youthful appeal to our already action-packed lineup of Olympic winter sports,” said IOC president Jacques Rogge when announcing the new events’ inclusion in July 2011.

In short, the IOC took a look at the popularity of the Winter X Games and took the hint.

This Winter X Games staple has skiers performing tricks on a course packed with features like ramps, rails and other jibs -- essentially a "skate park on snow," in the words of Sochi hopeful Tom Wallisch. Skiers are scored on the following criteria: the execution and style of their moves, the difficulty and risk of their program, variety, amplitude and progression.

X Games champ Nick Goepper, only 19, will be the one to watch in the men’s event, having clinched his Olympic berth in just the second of five qualifying events. On the women's side, freeskier Devin Logan, 20, has a good shot at medaling in both ski slopestyle and ski halfpipe.

In this timed mixed-gender event, each team comprises women's and men's singles sleds and a doubles sled, according to the U.S. Luge Association. All the sleds begin at the same starting point, but follow each other in sequence -- with the gates opening up for each sled after the previous sledder in the team reaches the end of the course and touches a pad overhanging the track. The U.S. relay team will be selected from those lugers with the best individual and doubles performances during the Olympics.

This event will take place on the same 635-meter course that’s being used for ski slopestyle, which includes three jib areas and three jumps. Two-time halfpipe gold medalist Shaun White is hoping to add a slopestyle medal to his Olympic trophy case -- if he makes the team. Although he dominated the event in the Winter X Games from 2003 to 2006, White hasn't medaled in slopestyle since 2009 in either the X Games or the Winter Dew Tour.

Snowboarders race to the finish line down parallel slalom courses with triangular flags in this new Olympic event. A more tightly spaced -- and hence more technical -- version of the equivalent giant slalom event, introduced to the Olympic program in 2002, this tournament-style competition will have boarders going head to head, beginning with a round of sixteen. Each matchup will consist of two runs, with boarders switching courses for the second run to cancel out any variation in the courses.

Like snowboard halfpipe -- a signature board event that’s been in the Olympics since 1998 -- the skiing version of this event involves doing tricks and aerials on a sloped pipe that's 180 meters long, 20 meters wide and 7 meters deep, according to the International Ski Federation. Performing tricks with names like "alley-oop flatspin 540 critical" and "switch leftside 720 Japan," skiers are judged on execution, difficulty, amplitude, variety and progression -- a measure of new and uncommon tricks or variations. Keep an eye out for freeskiers Maddie Bowman in the women’s event and David Wise in the men's, both of whom recently clinched a spot on the Olympic roster and are reigning X Games champs.

The inclusion of this event in the Winter Olympics was a long time coming for elite female ski jumpers, who had lobbied for its addition for more than a decade before it finally made it into the list in April 2011. Female jumpers had been told in the past that the event was medically inappropriate for women, according to non-profit Women's Ski Jumping USA. Until now, ski jumping was the only event -- besides Nordic combined, which includes cross country skiing and ski jumping -- not to allow women to participate in the Winter or Summer Games, according to the organization. The 19-year-old phenom Sarah Hendrickson, sidelined by an injury in August, will be the one to watch if she recovers in time to make the team. Another top contender is Lindsey Van, who won the event's first-ever gold at the 2009 world championships.

Biathlon -- a mixture of cross-country skiing and marksmanship—has roots in winter military warfare, according to the U.S. Biathlon team website. In the mixed relay event, a team of two women and two men race in sequence, making transitions in a handover zone. The women complete the first two legs on a 6km course and the two men finish on a 7.5km course. Each biathlete has two bouts of shooting -- one lying prone, and one standing, and must hit all five targets or else do a penalty loop for each target missed. The sport is typically dominated by Germany, Northern European countries, and former Soviet republics.

Like the gymnastics team competition, this event provides an opportunity for participating countries to show off their prowess in a single sport across disciplines—and genders. Each team has one male skater, one female skater, one skating pair and one ice dance couple. Points are awarded according to placement in each discipline—one point for 10th place and 10 points for first -- and tallied at the end; the highest score wins. The event made its quasi-Olympic debut in 2012 at the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. The U.S. is expected to be a strong contender for the gold with world-champion ice dancing duo Meryl Davis and Charlie White (pictured) likely to be on the team.

For the complete list of the New Olympic Sports To Debut In Sochi, go to TheActiveTimes.com.

More Stories from The Active Times: -- 32 Tropical Island Getaways -- 10 Wintertime Adventures in Yellowstone -- 8 Ways You're Wasting Time at The Gym -- The 50 Best Ski Resorts in North America

VIDEO OF THE DAY:NFL Stars Sing National Anthem

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Summary:
By Mark Lebetkin
TheActiveTimes.com
The Winter Olympic program has never been a static thing. Many events have come and gone since the first Winter Ga...


Lake Street Dive is blowing up. The Boston-born pop quartet will release its new “Bad Self Portraits” on the Northampton-based Signature Sounds label onFeb. 18, and will then play a sold-out show at the Sinclair in Cambridge on Feb. 21. This all follows the group’s TV debut this month on “The Colbert Report” and, back in September, a critically lauded performance in the “Another Day, Another Time” concert at The Town Hall in New York to promote the Coen Brothers’ new film, “Inside Llewyn Davis.” A film of the concert is now playing on the Showtime cable network.

But the biggest spur to the 10-year-old band’s current surge — including all of the above and more sold-out shows that extend into the next three months, with another in Boston, at Royale, on April 6 — has been a YouTube video of Lake Street Dive’s on-the-street performance of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” The clip has gone viral, with more than 1.4 million views.

Like every “overnight success,” this one has been slow in coming. They convened as undergraduates at New England Conservatory in spring 2004, knowing they wanted to make music together but not quite sure what that should be. Earnest jazz students wanting to push the envelope, they considered combining country music and free improvisation. Eventually, traveling on the road together, they gravitated toward the music of artists they all enjoyed listening to — Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan. Perhaps this accounts for their singular blend of Motown, British Invasion, and other strands of pop, jazz, and R&B.

It’s not hard to see Lake Street Dive’s appeal in that “I Want You Back” video. Shot on a street in Brighton, bathed in white-hot sunlight, the band takes a slow turn through the Jackson 5 hit — Bridget Kearney laying down a languid statement of the melody on her stand-up bass; drummer Mike Calabrese keeping the beat with brushes, snare, and cymbal; Mike “McDuck” Olson playing soft trumpet obligattos. It’s breezy and casual — shot with a handheld camera by their friend Greg Liszt (of the Deadly Gentlemen and Crooked Still) on the sidewalk outside his house. At the center is lead singer Rachael Price’s rich alto and charismatic delivery, with a touch of luscious vibrato, supported by Kearney andCalabrese’s spot-on backing harmonies.

Boston jazz fans have been aware of Price’s singing for a while. She’s recorded with a trio, and at clubs like Scullers you could always sense the ease with which she tore through standards, her eagerness to accelerate into the curve of the next tricky harmony or lyric.

The singer and songwriter Miss Tess has often sung with Price in the vintage swing band the Sweet and Lowdown. The two have been friends since a Craigslist ad made them roommates in 2005, when Tess moved to Boston to attend Berklee. “I’ve always known Rachael was a world-class singer,” says Tess, citing her friend’s technique and the “velvety depth” of her voice. Upon hearing her new roommate sing, Tess says, her first thought was “Oh, I just moved in with Sarah Vaughan.”

Moving out of the shadow of NEC, the band flexed their muscles as songwriters with a talent for original hooks and sharp, funny lyrics. In 2005, Kearney (who until recently also played in the neo-bluegrass band Joy Kills Sorrow), won a $5,000 John Lennon Songwriting Contest award, which also included the manufacturing cost of 1,000 CDs. That bankrolled their first album, “. . . in this episode,” which featured Kearney’s prize-winning song “Sometimes When I’m Drunk and You’re Wearing My Favorite Shirt.”

Over the first few albums (including 2007’s “Promises, Promises” and their 2011 self-titled Signature Sounds debut) the band stuck mostly with the spare instrumentation of voice, trumpet, acoustic bass, and drums, with a few bits of guitar or piano. They built a loyal Boston audience at clubs like Toad and the Lizard Lounge. (All but Olson have since moved to Brooklyn, N.Y.)

Then came “I Want You Back.” Originally posted in spring 2012 as a promotional video for the band’s six-song covers EP “Fun Machine,” the clip was getting respectable if not outrageous traffic. But in October, while the band was in the studio recording “Bad Self Portraits,” “some nameless, faceless champion of the band,” as Kearney says, posted the video on Reddit. Literally overnight it scored hundreds of thousands of views. The video led to gigs.

“We spent all of 2013 hitting the road super hard,” says Kearney, “playing in front of a bunch of people. One of those people in particular told T Bone Burnett.” Burnett, the music producer for “Inside Llewyn Davis,” booked them for “Another Day, Another Time.”

On “Bad Self Portraits” you could say the Lake Street Dive’s songs and sound are the same, only bigger. There’s more guitar (thanks to Olson’s late adoption of the instrument), piano, and some overdubbed horns. And the group vocals in particular pop, with a diverse range of perfectly deployed “Woo-ooh!’’s.

“I remember on our first albums, thinking why don’t these background vocals sound good?” says Kearney. “After some time, I realized it was that we weren’t singing them well.” The band buckled down, working on dynamics and articulation. They also benefited from the coaching of “Bad Self Portraits” producer Sam Kassirer (“our first full-on producer,” says Kearney).

For his part, Kassirer says the band surprised him with its range of reference — everything from the expected jazz and soul to Beck and the Beatles. As an example he points to “Rental Love,” the Beatles-esque ballad from the new album, which includes two piano tracks and two drum tracks.

“Often there’s a give-and-take in bands between raw talent and trained musicianship,” says Kassirer. “This is the first band I’ve worked with who have 100 percent of both. That allows for a lot of things in terms of exploring musical ideas and executing them.”

For now, the band is working it. A couple of nights after Colbert, they play the sold-out Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River. They come out with all four voices blasting a five-note “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!,” setting up Price’s tear through the opening verse of Calabrese’s girl-group-style “Stop Your Crying.” Throughout the set, the Motown influence is evident. At times the band sounds like a soul revue, with its own built-in backing chorus. And there again is that knack for the offbeat cover arrangement, in this case George Michael’s “Faith,” set to a New Orleans second-line groove.

Lake Street Dive seem to be on their way. They signed their first manager in 2012 as well as a tour manger. “We’ve got a sound man, a nice van,” says Kearney. “Things are looking up.”

Summary: Lake Street Dive is blowing up. The Boston-born pop quartet will release its new “Bad Self Portraits” on the Northampton-based Signature Sounds label on Feb. 18, then play a sold-out show at the Sinclair in Cambridge on Feb. 21. This all follows the group’s TV debut this month on “The Colbert Report” and, back in September, a critically lauded performance in the “Another Day, Another Time” concert at New York’s Town Hall to promote the Coen Brothers’ new film “Inside Llewyn Davis.” A film of the concert is now playing on Showtime. But the biggest spur to the 10-year-old band’s current surge has been a YouTube video of their on-the-street performance of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”


A woman lies in the gutter, her face and head bloodied, her belongings scattered. Her body is impossibly twisted, as if it's broken. There's something terrifying about this nocturnal vision - it is every woman's nightmare of the dangers that streets might hold after dark - and yet Juan del Gado's photograph also feels fake. Like a latter-day Weegee, del Gado constructs crime-scene images that unsettle both through the violence they allude to and the artifice their lush colouring and theatrical lighting reveals.

Each of the four artists in this exhibition themed around the night creates work that blends threat, drama, enigma and terror. Rut Blees Luxemburg's photographs show cityscapes that suggest violence: streets bathed in saffron light, traversed by streams of liquid that could be blood; a deserted road innocuous by day but menacing in the dead of night. In Christopher Stewart's work, lonely figures stand on the edge of something (the Irish border, a Finnish forest), the tension of their position heightened by the darkness that surrounds them. Sophy Rickett, meanwhile, documents nocturnal scenes - a wood, an owl in flight - in ways that make them magical. What this show captures so well is the weird beauty of night vision, the fear and wonder, a fear that never really fades.

 Until September 1. Details: 0131-622 6200.

Summary: Stills Gallery, Edinburgh Rating: ****


06/06/2014 at 09:10 AM EDT

Jane Fonda (center), with her sons, Simone Garity (far left) and actor Troy Garity

The American Film Institute's celebration of Jane Fonda was like a Who's Who of Hollywood women.

were among the actresses saluting the 76-year-old Oscar winner, who accepted AFI's 42nd Life Achievement Award Thursday at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

Guests at the private ceremony – which is set to air as a special on TNT June 14 – included Chelsea Handler, Melanie Griffith, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Gay Harden, Rosario Dawson, activist Eve Ensler and Disney president Anne Sweeney.

Tomlin described Fonda as "an evolutionary agent for our species. She is a role model for the American modern woman," immediately correcting herself to broaden the scope to all women.

Celebrants lauded Fonda for her political activism and dedication to gender equality, which she translated to the screen in such films as 1978's

Wanda Sykes, who wore a

costume and was carried onstage by a man dressed as a winged angel, called Fonda "my hero."

Diaz cited her as "a beautiful example of navigating a career in Hollywood." Field admitted she's been "trying like crazy" to follow in Fonda's footsteps.

Bullock told Fonda, "you live the life so many of us dream of." Streep, who said she still does Fonda's workout videos, described her as "a big sister [who] walked me into moviemaking."

costar Jeff Daniels feted her with his guitar, singing a song with the refrain, "abs, buns and thighs."

Peter Fonda, who wore sunglasses perhaps to hide his emotions, choked up as he said, "Nobody has dreamed bigger and nobody has worked harder than my sister, Jane."

The honoree herself got misty eyed when her son, Troy Garity, spoke from the stage. "In film, in fitness, in politics, in family, Mom, you have succeeded," he said. The evening also included clips from Fonda's films and interviews with the actress.

Michael Douglas presented Fonda with her award, and she said she was "so happy to add another woman's name to the list." Previous recipients of AFI's highest honor include Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman, Mel Brooks, Bette Davis and Fonda's father, Henry Fonda.

A resplendent Jane Fonda, who thanked Vera Wang for her custom-made black and white gown, said that as she reflects on her career and the many creative geniuses she worked with, she wishes she would have asked more questions.

"Stay curious," she said. "Stay interested. It's much more important to be interested than interesting."

Summary: Bullock, Meryl Streep, Sally Field, Lily Tomlin and Cameron Diaz were among those saluting the AFI honoree


When you think of sports, your mind probably doesn’t jump to salad. Then again, sports lessons have a funny way of infiltrating all sorts of parts of life.

Three brothers from Maryland who grew up playing lacrosse—two of them professionally—have used the knowledge they have gained from the sport to start a salad dressing company. (Lettuce is lacrosse slang for long, flowing hair coming out the back of a helmet—no rare sight on a college lacrosse pitch.)

When the Vetter brothers were younger, their mother, Teresa Vetter, came up with a tasty lemon-garlic dressing to get the boys to eat salad. “The only thing anyone asked for at our tailgates was for us to bring the dressing,” says Greg Vetter, 31, the oldest brother.

The next logical step? In 2009, after all the Vetter men had graduated from college, Greg called his mother, “asking if she would go into business with me if I got us into Whole Foods. She responded by saying, ‘That’s never going to happen.'”

In February 2009, Greg, armed with a Tupperware container of salad and the original lemon garlic dressing, walked into the Whole Foods WFM in Annapolis, Md. and presented his product. He had no bottling, no assembly line, no outside help. Despite this, Greg emerged with an order for his salad dressing from that single Whole Foods location.

Tessemae’s All Natural was born, but Greg, who soon brought in his brothers Brian and Matt, says the company would have floundered without the drive he developed as an athlete. Greg and his brothers had little business knowledge, but sports had given them the gift of an underdog mentality. The Vetters also knew what they lacked, so in November 2013, they brought in outside consultant Mike McDevitt, founder and CEO of Tandem Legal Group (but not a lawyer by trade), to help out. For $350,000, McDevitt bought an initial 3.5% ownership stake in the company (he now owns 15%). “That was an investment in Greg Vetter,” McDevitt says. Now, with fast growth, McDevitt has high hopes. “I see $100 million [in sales] as a goal in the very near future. All these stores are asking for this product, but we want to make sure they fit our brand.”

McDevitt’s firm was not the only company hungry to join Tessemae’s, but it was the best fit. Tessemae’s says it has rejected other investors along the way. “I had to learn the Tesse way before I could improve the Tesse way,” McDevitt says.

The Vetters, and the company, by extension, value collaboration and teamwork. In other words, Tessemae’s functions a bit like a sports team: “They had a big order to go out for their raspberry vinaigrette,” McDevitt says, “and they had their entire team on the [assembly] line doing everything they could. The CEOs were dipping the bottle into the wax.” They finished 10 minutes before their deadline; one of the brothers came over with a bucket of vinaigrette and dumped it on Greg’s head.

Even high-stakes lacrosse games are meant to be fun, the brothers reason; why not apply the same mentality to their business? Tessemae’s calls its headquarters in Essex, Md.—which consists of an office complex and 36,000-square-foot fully automated assembly line—the Tree Fort. Why? Todd Fletcher, executive VP of marketing, says, “Back in the day, [a tree house] is where you went to let your imagination run wild. This is your home base. It is raw, pure energy, but not in an intimidating way. It is motivating, more than anything else.”

Fletcher’s formal title, by the way, is a bit of an anomaly: Oliver Ginsburg is director of customer happiness and (self-proclaimed) “guru of the Internet.” The youngest brother, Matt, is the company’s “doctor super chef” and (again, self proclaimed) “Dr. Dre of salad dressing.”

The little company is thriving. It has 24 dressings and two varieties of mayonnaise, two hot sauces, a teriyaki sauce, a garlic spread, a ketchup, and a seafood marinade. Last year, only the firm’s fifth on the market, Tessemae’s brought in $4.1 million in revenue, up 342% over 2012, which was in turn up 247% over 2011’s $890,000.

To keep growing, the brothers will have to find more magic. Robert Goldin of food-market research firm Technomic warns that the salad dressing market “is very, very crowded.”

But Tessemae’s has help from a recent health kick in America. Not only are unique exercise trends exploding (see: CrossFit, American Ninja Warrior, Tough Mudder, and others), but food label trends are pointing in the healthier direction. Just look at a Tessemae’s bottle to see how carefully the company is aligning itself with that push: you’ll see terms like “sugar free,” “gluten-free,” and “certified Earth Kosher.” (EarthKosher is a company that provides Kosher certification.)

Tessemae’s products are gluten free and certified non-GMO. The sales of food and drink items that bear these terms, according to Nielsen, have increased in the United States over the past four years. (Sales of non-GMO products, for example, have gone up an average of 23.8% every year.) Tessemae’s also makes its dressing according to organic standards (those items are up an average of 13.2% over the past four years), but it does not label the products as such because doing so, the Vetters say, would lead stores to raise the prices more than the brothers would like.

Tessemae’s believes it will keep growing thanks to its secret weapon: the recipe originator herself, Teresa. Their mother is the company’s “official taste tester” and has absolute veto power over every new flavor. Twice now, the brothers acknowledge, they have gone against her suggestions, and both of those flavors—poppy-seed grapefruit and oil-free Italian—bombed. But if Mom was worried, she doesn’t let on anymore. “They do it all on their own now.”

Summary: In a crowded corner of the food industry, Tessemae's Salad Dressing is growing fast.


Kris Jenner (left) and Kourtney Kardashian

When it comes to nude pregnancy pics,

bear quite the family resemblance, as you can see in

photos Kardashian posted yesterday to Instagram.

"I got it from my mama," the reality star, 35, wrote in the caption.

Indeed she did. Her photo, on the right, was taken during her first pregnancy, with son Mason, in 2009. (She has since had a daughter, Penelope, and is now

Jenner's photo is from 1987, when she was pregnant with

Rob. She posted the pic to her blog in 2012 in honor of Rob's 25th birthday.

It could be time soon for Kardashian to belly up for another revealing pic!

Summary: "I got it from my mama," the reality star writes of the two throwback photos


Rashard Mendenhall may be the first man ever who can say that in the span of one year he went from starting on an NFL team to writing for an HBO show.

The 26-year-old former Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals running back wrote in a Huffington Post blog post that since retiring from the NFL in March he has moved to Los Angeles and become a member of the Writers Guild of America, West. Mendenhall, who was on two AFC championship teams with the Steelers and earned a Super Bowl ring in 2009, says he is working on an HBO show that will air next summer:

"A year ago, a writing career was just a tiny seed of thought as I prepared for my sixth NFL season. And as I write this now, it has already begun to sprout. Through this experience I've learned that you can will your dreams into existence."

In addition to the two Super Bowl appearances, Mendenhall made headlines during his NFL career for a questionable tweet about 9/11 and a 2012 suspension after he failed to show up for a game.

In six NFL seasons, Mendenhall rushed for 37 touchdowns and 4,236 yards. He was the Steelers' first-round pick in 2008. His best season was 2012 when he ran for 1,273 yards and 13 touchdowns.

When he retired in March he wrote, "The truth is, I don't really think my walking away is that big of deal. For me it's saying, 'Football was pretty cool, but I don't want to play anymore. I want to travel the world and write!'"

Shortly after his Huffington Post article about his HBO show was published, Mendenhall sent out this tweet:

We don't need no labels! Thanks for all the love and support

— Rashard Mendenhall (@R_Mendenhall) August 27, 2014

First 10 Running Backs Picked In 2008 NFL Draft

First 10 Running Backs Picked In 2008 NFL Draft

First round, fourth overall, Raiders.

First round, 13th overall, Panthers.

First round, 22nd overall, Cowboys.

First round, 23rd overall, Steelers.

First round, 24th overall, Titans.

Second round, 44th overall, Bears.

Second round, 55th overall, Ravens.

Third round, 64th overall, Lions.

Third round, 69th overall, Chargers.

Third round, 73rd overall, Chiefs.

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This Chevy Truck Is A Tailgating Machine

One Third Of WrestleMania VI Competitors Dead

One Third Of WrestleMania VI Competitors Dead

Ultimate Warrior foreshadowed his death on 'Raw' just a day after WrestleMania XXX: "Every man's heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe their final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others and makes them believe deeper in something that's larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized by the storytellers -- by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him, and make the running the man did live forever."

Savage was 58 when he died of a heart attack in 2011. At WrestleMania VI, Savage and Sensational Sherri Martel lost a mixed tag-team match to Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire.

Andre was 46 when he died of heart failure in 1993. At WrestleMania VI, Andre and Haku lost the WWE tag-team championship to Ax and Smash of Demolition.

'Ravishing Rick' was 40 when he died of heart failure related to an overdose in 1999. At WrestleMania VI, Rude defeated Jimmy Snuka.

Known as Mr. Perfect, Hennig was 44 when he died from "acute cocaine intoxication" in 2003. At WrestleMania VI, Hennig lost to Brutus Beefcake.

Known as Earthquake, Tenta was 42 when he died in 2006 from bladder cancer that spread to his lungs. At WrestleMania VI, he defeated Hercules.

Known as Hercules, Fernandez was 47 when he died in 2004 from heart disease. At WrestleMania VI, he lost to Earthquake.

Known as Bad News Brown, Coage, an Olympic bronze medalist in judo, was 63 when he died in 2007 of a heart attack. At WrestleMania VI, he had a double countout in his match against Roddy Piper.

"Sensational Sherri" was 49 when she died of an overdose in 2007. At WrestleMania VI, she and Randy Savage lost a mixed tag-team match to Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire.

Bravo was 44 when he was gunned down in 1993, a murder that some believe was linked his alleged involvement in a cigarette smuggling ring. At WrestleMania VI, he lost to Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

Known as Big Boss Man, Traylor was 41 when he died of a heart attack in 2004. At WrestleMania VI, he defeated Akeem.

Known as Juanita Wright, Sapphire was 61 when she died of a heart attack in 1996. At WrestleMania VI, she and Dusty Rhodes won a mixed tag-team match against Randy Savage and Sensational Sherri.

Summary: Rashard Mendenhall may be the first man ever who can say that in the span of one year he went from starting on an NFL team to writing for an HBO show....


For generations of small children since the nineteenth century, seeing the dinosaurs of the Natural History Museum in London was one of the shared cultural experiences of growing up in Britain. Then admission charges were introduced to our flagship museums.

One of the welcome legacies of New Labour's first term in office was the abolition of those charges last year. Dozens of museums were once again opened up to the whole of the public, not just the affluent middle classes. The number of visitors to venues such as the Natural History or the Imperial War Museum, with its stunning new Holocaust installation, has consequently risen by 70 per cent.

Now the 'commercialist' tendency within the museum world - led by the Natural History - is threatening to reintroduce charges unless the Government increases further the compensation they receive for allowing free entry. Not only do they overlook the huge income stream from museum shops and cafés that new visitors bring. They also overlook the - terribly Victorian - belief that knowledge, and its acquisition, should be free to all. If the current managers of the Natural History Museum cannot guarantee access for all in return for a Government subsidy of almost £40 million a year, they should make way for managers who can.

Summary: Museum entry should remain free.


My wonder is the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank (LCC/GLC Architects Department 1964). It opened my eyes to modern art when I was still a child, with its unforgettable show of kinetic art, and I've been going back ever since, partly for the art, but always for the building. I love its drama and unpredictability - its hidden terraces, its spiky rooflights, its quirky one-up-one-down staircases. Together they create a mad modernist Gormenghast that somehow brings out the best in the art it celebrates.

Again and again curators find new ways to inflect its spaces to deliver something fresh, sometimes intimate and subtle, sometimes grandly theatrical. Every new exhibition is a riff on the gallery's classic journey, from the hush and concentration of the downstairs rooms to the effortless, high-ceilinged drama of the upper galleries. It's exciting and mysterious - qualities rare enough in any context but miraculous in early 1960s UK civic architecture. It's one of the great, eccentric treasures of London.

My blunder is another London landmark, the NatWest Tower (Richard Seifert 1981). Who on earth thought it was a good idea to design a very tall building with a groundplan based on a corporate logo? Presumably only someone with a corporate helicopter to fly over and admire it. The rest of us have had to live with its dull, arrogant profile looming over the City skyline. We should give thanks that Norman Foster's fine Gherkin is rising alongside to upstage it once and for all.

· Roly Keating is controller of BBC4.

Summary: Wonder: Hayward Gallery, London  Blunder: NatWest Tower, London


Metropolitan Police handout photo of CCTV footage showing Peter Bellwood at the Royal Library in Copenhagen

A prolific art thief who admitted stealing dozens of rare antique maps worth tens of thousands of pounds was sentenced to four and a half years in jail today.

Former landscape gardener Peter Bellwood, 52, of Magazine Farm Way, Prettygale, Colchester, was jailed at Swansea crown court after admitting six identical charges of theft of antique maps at a previous appearance there in October.

He had used a sharp knife to "razor" 50 irreplaceable maps during six visits to the National Library of Wales over six months in 2000 and netted £70,000 by selling the antiques to collectors. He was so sought-after that his mug-shot was included on the Metropolitan Police's online "most wanted" list earlier this year.

Bellwood's activities remained undetected for more than a year and only came to light when the alarm was raised in Denmark, where he is wanted for numerous alleged thefts at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.

The Danish library knows that Bellwood first visited on January 29 2001 - records show he signed in under his own name. He appears to have allayed suspicion early on by handing in a 500 Kroner note, worth £46, which he claimed to have found "lying around".

But within two days he allegedly succeeded in razoring maps from a series of old atlases and rare 16th century Dutch travel books - a haul valued at £100,000. None of the stolen items have yet been recovered.

After he was caught red-handed on its CCTV in the act of razoring rare prints, the library posted his photo on its internet site, alerting libraries across Europe to his exploits. The internet alert led the National Library of Wales to discover its own losses.

As news of the thefts flashed around the world, libraries with rare collections checked their records to see whether they had had a visit from Bellwood.

In Holland, authorities at the Royal Library discovered 55 maps missing from a variety of atlases. While it transpired that Bellwood was not the thief in their case, the man they did suspect was British and was found to have also visited Finland and Sweden.

Officials ran checks at the Royal Library in Stockholm and found that Bellwood and another UK national were both frequent visitors. They then discovered that 40 maps from at least six atlases were missing. Visits by both men were made from August 2000 to January 2001.

Despite Bellwood's criminal career being brought to a halt in Britain, and the possibility of facing criminal proceedings in Denmark, much of what he stole could be lost forever. With strong black-market demand for rare maps and prints around the world, and many illicit collectors, the chance of recovering the maps seems remote.

The court heard that a desperate Bellwood had stolen the maps to fuel a gambling addiction that was out of control.

Summary: A prolific art thief who admitted stealing dozens of rare antique maps worth tens of thousands of pounds was sentenced to four and a half years in jail at Swansea crown court today.


This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com.

One of the richest men in Russia, Alisher Usmanov, has come forward as the anonymous buyer of James Watson’s Nobel medal, which was sold for more than $4 million at an auction at Christie’s in New York last week.

Usmanov, who is worth an estimated $15.9 billion, has now revealed he will return the piece to Watson who shared the 1962 Nobel prize in medicine for discovering the structure of DNA, alongside Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins.

This was the first time a living recipient of the Nobel Prize has sold their medal. Watson told the Financial Times in November that he had been spurned by the scientific community and made to feel like an “unperson” since he gave an interview in 2007 in which he suggested that black people were inherently less intelligent than white people.

Watson has said he needs the money but would also give some of the proceeds to different research institutions and charities and that he hopes to re-enter public life as a result.

“A situation in which an outstanding scientist sells a medal recognizing his achievements is unacceptable,” Usmanov said in a statement.

“It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research,” Usmanov added, “and the medal will stay with the person who deserved it.”

Read more: The mortification of James Watson

Summary: The medal belonged to U.S. scientist James Watson who co-discovered DNA.


Starbucks posted a huge 82% jump in quarterly profits Thursday as the coffee giant recorded a huge gain tied to a recent acquisition in Japan. Here are the most important points from the fiscal first-quarter earnings report.

What you need to know: Though the profit growth was largely helped by the acquisition-related item (more on that in a minute), Starbucks also reported fairly solid sales at its stores. Same-store sales in the Americas climbed 5% while also gaining abroad from more customers. The growth was stronger than expected, analysts had expected a 4.8% in the Americas, according to a poll by Consensus Metrix. In China and Asia Pacific, same store sales increased 8%. That growth in customer traffic and sales are important as the results were for the key holiday season ending December 28.

Starbucks SBUX has been lauded for a handful of savvy moves that has kept it trendy among food and beverage aficionados. The company pushing into the high-end coffee market, adding more food to its menu, and testing sodas and alcohol in some stores – all in a bid to move beyond its roots in basic coffee. Analysts mostly praise these moves, saying they see a clear path for Starbucks to continue growing revenue from existing stores. One notable blip, however, was the announcement earlier this month that Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead, who previously served as CFO, was taking an unpaid leave of absence beginning in March. JPMorgan called that news a “surprise” to Wall Street, especially after Alstead played a high profile role in the company’s analyst day presentation in December.

The big number: The coffee company’s profits were lifted by a $390.6 million gain related to the acquisition of Starbucks Japan that the company didn’t already own. But even excluding that gain and other items, adjusted profit climbed 16% to 80 cents a share. That’s right on the money with what Starbucks had predicted last year when it saw earnings between 79 cents to 81 cents. Total revenue exceeded expectations, climbing 13% to more than $4.8 billion.

What you might have missed: Starbucks’ outlook for the second quarter was a little lighter than expected, with adjusted profit between 64 cents to 65 cents a share versus the 68 cents that analysts expected.

Starbucks also showed some promise from its early push into mobile payments. The coffee company said its shoppers loaded a record $1.6 billion on Starbucks cards during the quarter, a huge 17% jump from last year. That indicates that the company’s investments in mobile have paid off, and it is showing up in sales. Transactions at comparable stores were up 2% for Starbucks-owned stores opened at least 13 months. That’s an increase by nearly 9% in the U.S. from a year ago, and the growth is an acceleration from the prior quarter.

Learn more of the latest news about Starbucks from Fortune’s video team:

Summary: Traffic, transactions rise at the coffee giant's stores and help boost revenue 13%.


Pfizer PFE shelled out big bucks–$17 billion to be exact–to buy the much smaller drugmaker Hospira. A big reason for the rather expensive acquisition is to gain access to the company’s biosimilar portfolio, a relatively new and burgeoning part of the pharma industry.

If you live in the U.S., there’s probably a good reason you haven’t heard of biosimilars. They don’t actually exist on American shores, yet. But they are gaining steam overseas and could account for $4.8 billion in European sales this year, according to estimates by FirstWord. Drug makers are hoping to bring them to the U.S. market, where sales would likely be even higher.

Biosimilars are less costly imitations of drugs known as biologics, which are used to treat a range of diseases including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and anemia. But they are different from generics in that they are not exact copies.

“If creating a generic drug is like designing a tricycle, then a biosimilar is like building a spaceship, in terms of complexity and size,” said Asthika Goonewardene, a senior healthcare analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Biologic drugs are made using living cells that treat disease, usually by genetically modifying cells. They are big and very complex molecules, often 200 to 1,000 times the size of more common small-molecule drugs. For example, aspirin, part of a common category of medicine known as small-molecule drugs, is made of up only 21 atoms. While the biologic drug Enbrel, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and plaque psoriasis, consists of more than 20,000 atoms.

As a result of their complex makeup, biologics are highly sensitive to manufacturing and handling conditions, and many of those production details are highly-guarded intellectual property of the company that develops the initial drug. Creating imitations is, therefore, very difficult.

Producing generic small-molecule drugs is relatively simple–it’s like following a recipe with standard ingredients. Biosimilars are much more challenging because living cells are highly sensitive to their environments, and manufacturers have to create their own, unique process to coax these cells to produce an identical outcome to an existing treatment.

Biosimilars could be compared to snowflakes. The molecular makeup of each biosimilar treatment will look unique, like individual snowflakes, even though they all have similar outcomes. This is the result of differing manufacturing processes.

That makes drug approvals challenging. Generics are approved based on matching chemical structure, but that doesn’t work for biosimilars. Each new biosimilar has to run clinical trials to prove the outcome matches that of the biologic its imitating even though it looks structurally different, according to recently announced guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration.

“We’re still in the very nascent stages of the biosimilar story,” said Goonewardene. “It’s in a state of flux right now, and that’s why it’s interesting.”

The opportunities for biosimilars are huge for both manufacturers and consumers. Many leading biologic medicines, worth more than $81 billion global annual sales, will lose their patent protections by 2020, according to data from Visiongain.

Much like generics, biosimilars can help cut drug costs, though the savings are smaller because of their complexity as well as regulatory challenges of getting FDA approvals. Biosimilars cost about $75 million to $250 million to reach the approval stage, versus around $2 million to $3 million for a generic small-molecule medicine, according to biologics-maker Sandoz, a Novartis company.

The United States may reap the benefits of biosimilars sooner rather than later. Last month, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee recommended Sandoz’s biosimilar filgrastim for approval. It’s a stand-in for Amgen’s AMGN Neupogen, which is used to boost immunity for patients undergoing chemotherapy. Sandoz’s biosimilar, to be marketed under the name Zarxio, could receive the FDA’s seal of approval as soon as this year.

Summary: Biosimilars are capturing big pharma's attention. You should pay attention to them too.


The location of the earthquake in relation to the Iwate coast, where a tsunami warning was issued.

A 10cm-high wave has hit the shore in northeastern Japan this morning after a magnitude 6.8 quake prompted a tsunami warning.

The tremor struck at 8.06 am in the Pacific, some 210km east of Miyako at a depth of 10km.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or casualties following the quake and minor tsunami, local media said.

It was earlier reported that the quake was a magnitude 6.9 but this was later revised.

Local authorities in Iwate issued evacuation advisories to more than 19,000 people after the quake, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said.

There was no damage to any of nuclear reactors in the region as they have been off-line since 2011, NHK said.

Large areas of the coastline covered by the advisory were damaged by the 2011 quake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear accident in Fukushima.

Japan is hit by around a fifth of the world's powerful quakes every year and sits at the conjunction of several tectonic plates.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: A strong earthquake registering a magnitude 6.9 has been recorded off the coast of Japan.


Barnes & Noble has unveiled plans to raise up to $775 million in a spinoff of the company’s college bookstore assets in a move that will create a separate, publicly traded company.

The plan will separate Barnes & Noble Education from the legacy Barnes & Noble BKS retail and Nook digital businesses. Barnes & Noble last summer had disclosed plans to spin off the Nook Media business, though that business will still be owned by the parent company after the college business spin off. Barnes & Noble has faced challenges in both the physical and digital worlds: Amazon.com AMZN and other Internet sellers have made significant inroads selling books, and the B&N’s Nook devices, while well received when they first debuted, have fallen out of favor as consumers bought more iPads and Kindles.

The separation, Barnes & Noble said, is intended to be a tax-free distribution to current Barnes & Noble shareholders and is expected to be completed by the end of August.

As of November 1, Barnes & Noble operated 714 stores nationwide on college and university campuses, reaching 23% of the total U.S. college student enrollment population. Total sales for fiscal 2014 were $1.75 billion, while same-store sales for the business slipped 2.7%. Net earnings for the latest year totaled $35.1 million, up from $30.2 million the prior year.

“We have a talented College management team in place, led by CEO Max Roberts, and we will continue to invest and innovate to support the mission of our campus partners, expanding to new colleges and universities, students and faculty and increasing our presence in the growing market for digital educational content and services,” said Michael P. Huseby, Barnes & Noble CEO.

The separation is intended to allow investors to assess each business more clearly as a stand-alone company.

Summary: Plan will separate Barnes & Noble Education from the legacy book retail and Nook digital businesses.


On April 20, 2010 — two days before Earth Day — the BP offshore oil rig “The Deepwater Horizon” exploded, killing 11 workers and disgorging 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the next three months, inflicting environmental damage that has been incalculable and ongoing.

Margaret Brown’s documentary “The Great Invisible,” winner of the 2014 SXSW Film Festival Jury Award for best documentary, revisits the disaster, reminding us of the largest oil spill in history, providing eyewitness accounts and little known details and challenging our intransigent dependency on fossil fuel.

The film will be aired on Monday at 10 p.m. as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. It will also screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Thursday at 7 p.m. as a presentation of Ceres, a nonprofit organization advocating for sustainability leadership. Brown will be on hand for a discussion after the screening, along with Ceres president Mindy Lubber.

For more information go to www.pbs.org/independentlens/great-invisible/ and www.coolidge.org/content/ceres-presents-great-invisible.

The site of a key battle in the Revolutionary War, the home of abolitionists and radical thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau, Concord has long nurtured dissidence and idealism. Kris Kaczor’s “Divide in Concord” documents the latest manifestation of this spirit of rebellion, featuring a cause that might not muster quite the same weightiness but confronts an issue of worldwide concern. Jean Hill, an 84-year-old Concord native, has taken on a crusade to ban single-serve plastic water bottles. Like Minutemen facing down Redcoats, Jean battles local merchants and the bottled water industry in her fight to make Concord bottle-free.

The DocYard presents “Divide in Concord” at the Brattle Theatre on Monday at 7 p.m. A question-and-answer session with the director and producer David Regos follows.

For more information go to www.brattlefilm.org/2015/04/20/divide-in-concord.

After watching the two documentaries above you might well be eager to learn “How to Change the World,” which is also the title of Jerry Rothwell’s documentary about the origins of Greenpeace 45 years ago as the crazy dream of a bunch of Vancouver hippies, journalists, and scientists. It screens on Wednesday as part of the newportFILM program at 7 p.m. at the Jane Pickens Theatre, 49 Touro St., Newport, R.I. It will be followed by a discussion with Emily Hunter, an environmental writer whose late father Robert Hunter was the first president of Greenpeace and whose mother Bobbi Hunter was the first woman known to block a harpoonist and save a whale.

For more information go to www.newportfilm.com/film-events/films/how-change-world.

After all these intense, Earth Day-related documentaries you might want to just kick back with “Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter,” Greg Vander Veer’s documentary about Martha Hill, a Juilliard Dance Division director and unsung champion of contemporary dance. It screens Saturday at 7 p.m., as well as April 26 at noon and 3 p.m. and May 3 at 3 p.m., at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave. The director will attend Saturday’s screening.

For more information go to www.icaboston.org.

Summary: Margaret Brown’s documentary “The Great Invisible,” winner of the 2014 SXSW Film Festival Jury Award for best documentary, revisits the BP disaster of 2010, reminding us of the largest oil spill in history.


As far as leaks go, this was an ironic one. Yesterday, a data firm got hold of Twitter’s TWTR first-quarter earnings report about an hour before its official release, and the bad news about Twitter, the company, leaked—on Twitter, the platform.

But by the end of the day, the early release was the least of Twitter’s problems. The company’s quarterly revenue of $436 million represented 74% growth over last year, but was significantly lower than the $457 million expected by analysts, and below Twitter’s own guidance of a $440 to $450 million range. Twitter has now lowered its guidance for 2015 annual revenue from $2.3 billion down to the range of $2.170 — $2.2 billion.

The bad news naturally led to a stock slip on Tuesday — actually, more like a crash. Twitter’s share price dropped from $48.73, at 3:26 p.m., down to $40.31 only 20 minutes later. It closed the day back up just a touch, at $42.27. In the process, Twitter’s cofounders lost a great deal of their wealth, at least on paper. Ev Williams, who owns 7.5% of the company, lost nearly $525 million, according to Bloomberg. Jack Dorsey, whose stake is just under 5% and who now runs Square, lost some $220 million.

In a conversation with Bloomberg, Williams said he is still bullish on the company’s stock. (Williams now runs the blogging platform Medium, which he cofounded with Biz Stone.) “I have the utmost faith in the long-term business of Twitter,” he said. “It’s easy to get caught up in the ups and downs of the stock market, but the team and the business they’re building right now, I’m very optimistic and feel good about.”

To be sure, it’s not all bad news at the blue bird. Twitter’s live-video app Periscope has appeared to make gains over rival and South By Southwest hit Meerkat, and this month Twitter acquired TellApart, an ad-tech company that allows retailers to targets shoppers with ads on their phones.

Summary: Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey said goodbye to a combined $745 million in value.


Stock indexes mostly drifted between tiny losses and gains, but the small moves were enough to nudge the S&P 500 to its second record high in two days. Utilities stocks were among the biggest gainers as investors weighed a mix of US economic data and earnings news. The Fed said New York factory activity rose slightly in May, suggesting that manufacturers are beginning to adapt to the challenges caused by a stronger dollar, lower oil prices, and restrained consumer spending. But US industrial output fell for the fifth straight month in April. Investors are gauging how well the economy is doing as they try to anticipate when the Fed will raise short-term interest rates for the first time in more than six years. Many economists anticipate the central bank won’t increase rates before September.

Summary: Stock indexes mostly drifting between tiny losses and gains, but the small moves were enough to nudge the S&P 500 to its second record high in two days. Utilities stocks were among the biggest gainers as investors weighed a mix of US economic data and earnings news.


Four cancer charities deceived donors and spent more than $187 million on personal expenses, according to a complaint filed this week by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general from all 50 states. If the allegations are true, it would be one of the biggest charity fraud cases in American history.

The FTC says that donors were told in telemarking calls and mail solicitations that money would be used for medicine and transporting patients to chemotherapy, according to the Associated Press. Instead, the money was allegedly spent on personal indulgences, like gym memberships, luxury cruises and online dating site subscriptions. All four charities—the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society—were created and led by James Reynolds Sr. with the help of his now-ex-wife and son.

Never before have the FTC and the attorneys general across all states taken joint action against a charity. They filed a suit against the organizations in the United States District Court for Arizona, naming Reynolds and several of his relatives and associates as defendants. The complaint claims that less than 3% of donations to the charities were spent on cancer patients from 2008 to 2012.

Two of the organizations, the Children’s Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society, will settle the charges out of court and be dissolved, according to the FTC.

Though the other charities’ websites were down Tuesday morning, a long post on the Breast Cancer Society’s website allegedly written by Reynolds’ son, James T. Reynolds II, said increased government scrutiny led to the charity’s undoing.

Summary: A suit claims that the man behind the charities and his family spent $187 million on personal expenses


LOS ANGELES, May 10— Charles E. Hurwitz, chairman and chief executive officer of MCO Holdings Inc., an expanding oil and gas company, appeared today to have outmaneuvered Cook International Inc. in taking control of the Simplicity Pattern Company.

Two companies controlled by Mr. Hurwitz - MCO and the Federated Development Company - announced that they had agreed to acquire 33 percent of Simplicity's stock for $48 million in separate transactions with the ailing NCC Energy Ltd. of London and a major NCC investor, Waltons Bonds Ltd. of New South Wales, Australia.

According to the MCO announcement, Mr. Hurwitz also replaced Graham Ferguson Lacey, chairman of NCC, as chairman and chief executive officer of Simplicity. Confirmation of this could not be obtained; Harold Cooper, Simplicity's vice chairman and chief operating officer, did not return phone calls, Previous Transactions

Last week Cook International increased its ownership in NCC to 48 percent of the company's ordinary shares, the British equivalent of common shares, from 11 percent. That, in turn, appeared to give Cook power over Simplicity's business operations. Joseph W. McCleary, Cook's president, indicated in a published report that he was considering removing Mr. Lacey from his NCC post.

But now NCC is selling its entire Simplicity holding to the Hurwitz group. By gaining a large stake in Simplicity, Mr. Hurwitz adds his name to a long list of investors who have been attracted to the country's leading maker of sewing patterns during the last two years. Most, however, have eventually departed.

They included the Devon Group Ltd., an investment company controlled by the family of John L. Loeb Sr., the Wall Street financier; Victor Posner, chairman of the Sharon Steel Corporation and investor in several public companies, and Carl Icahn, a Wall Street arbitrager. Seen as Merger Candidate

The sewing pattern business has reached a plateau as more women have joined the work force outside the home, but Simplicity has been considered a potential merger candidate because of its balance sheet. The company has a relatively large amount of cash and no longterm debt.

Simplicity, with headquarters in New York, reported that it had $82.9 million of cash on hand on Jan. 31, 1981, the latest figure available. Adding short-term securities, accounts receivable and inventories, which together with cash constitute current assets, the total was more than eight times the amount of current liabilities.

Most retailing companies average about twice as much cash and other current assets as current liabilities, which consist of bills coming due. That relationship, commonly known as the current ratio, is a benchmark for assessing financial strength. When the ratio climbs higher than 4 to 1, analysts regard it as a sign of stagnant management. Simplicity, long criticized for not using its money to diversify into more promising markets, said earlier this year that it was planning some oil and gas acquisitions in the United States and mineral and energy investments in Australia. Details of Purchases

Those would likely have been through NCC Energy and its Australian partner, Waltons Bonds. In March, however, Simplicity said it was delaying its planned merger with NCC.

According to MCO, it and Federated will acquire 2.75 million Simplicity common shares, or 20 percent, at $10.50 a share from NCC Energy. ''It is anticipated that MCO will ultimately acquire'' Federated's share of the purchase, the company said.

In addition, MCO said it would acquire 1,826,100 Simplicity common shares, or an additional 13 percent, from Waltons Bonds, also for $10.50 a share. Simplicity's stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, closed today at 8 5/8, down 7/8.

It was unclear what role Mr. Cooper, who was demoted to vice chairman of Simplicity when Mr. Lacey became chairman and chief executive officer, had played in the bid from Mr. Hurwitz. It is also unclear what his future will be with Simplicity.

At Cook International, a pest control and insurance brokerage concern, Mr. McCleary did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. His secretary said he was busy in important telephone conversations. Corporate Background

An MCO spokesman, Howard Bressler, said Mr. Hurwitz was in meetings with Simplicity officials and his lawyers at the Manhattan firm of Kramer, Levin, Nessen, Kamin & Soll and was not available to answer questions.

Mr. Hurwitz, who is 42 years old and lives in Houston, has headed Federated Development for several years. In 1977 he bought a large stake in the McCulloch Oil Corporation, based in Los Angeles, and became its chairman and chief executive officer in 1980.

The company's name was changed to MCO Holdings the same year. Last year MCO earned $19.1 million, or $1.47 a share, on $173.3 million in revenues. Federated controls 46 percent of MCO.