Hollywood stars routinely sport jeans on the red carpet. President Obama and White House staffers occasionally wear denim in the Oval Office.

But if you want to stay out of the local police blotter, don’t even think about wearing jeans into the clubhouse at posh Weston Golf Club.

What began on a Saturday night in September as an attempt by the Weston GC president to enforce the dress code among a large group of members and guests having drinks in the clubhouse bar escalated into a scene fit for reality television. The resulting verbal altercation was so intense police were called to defuse the situation.

The club’s directors conducted an investigation into alleged dress code violations with all the seriousness of a grand jury, eventually handing out three-month suspensions to 10 members. The uproar triggered such a backlash the president resigned.

The episode offers a window into the culture of private clubs, where decorum and etiquette are essential to a sense of sanctuary. Expectations of refinement and civility are codified in rules that govern seemingly every aspect of behavior, from dress, to language, to personal comportment.

An invitation-only club set on 104 wooded acres, Weston GC charges a $45,000 initiation fee — about the midrange for such clubs — and features a membership of wealthy, powerful executives. The club is so protective of its privacy that two years ago it hired a police detail to keep cyclists off the picturesque private road it shares with several dozen residential properties.

And like other private clubs, Weston GC has an extensive dress code policy, with a ban on denim at the top of the list of forbidden clothing. Whether $50 dungarees or $200 designer jeans, blue denim of any kind is forbidden. The one exception: female members can wear “neat, not torn, white denim.”

It’s unclear what kind of denim people in the group were wearing that September night, but as Stephen and Charlotte Weeple walked toward the clubhouse around 10:45 p.m, they were intercepted by club president Tom Ferry. The Weeples are not members but they and other guests were meeting Weston GC members for a nightcap in the clubhouse bar.

Ferry believed the Weeples were in violation of the dress code and used profane language to tell them jeans are not allowed on the grounds, according to a letter the couple wrote to the club’s directors.

Charlotte Weeple declined to comment, but in her letter to the board, obtained by The Boston Globe, she said she thought Ferry was joking until he called her derogatory names, igniting an animated shouting match between her husband and Ferry.

At 10:58, Weston police received a 911 call reporting a fist fight in progress.

“When I arrived, I observed two men . . . engaged in a loud, verbal argument,” patrolman Joseph Kozowyk wrote in his report, noting that “neither man had any signs of a physical altercation.”

The incident broke up when the Weeples left Weston GC without joining their friends inside.

Afterward, though, Charlotte Weeple complained to the club’s directors about her treatment and insisted that neither she nor her husband was wearing jeans. Moreover, Weeple bristled at the implication she did not know the rules of proper attire.

“Having grown up and spent much of my life in golf clubs around Scotland and officers’ clubs in the military, I am fully aware and respectful of dress code and etiquette,” Weeple wrote.

Within days of the incident Ferry volunteered to take a one-month suspension. But after a number of other members organized a petition calling for a clubwide meeting, Ferry resigned as president in early November. He issued a contrite statement to the Globe in which he apologized for his behavior that night.

“I am sorry that the ongoing discord over enforcement of the club’s policies has reached such an embarrassing level,” said Ferry, who is chief executive of Curaspan Health Group Inc., a Newton software company. “Most importantly I wish to repeat publicly the apology I gave to the people with whom I interacted outside of the club that night. It was wrong of me to have spoken that way, I have no excuse, and I sincerely regret having done so.”

Meanwhile, the Weston GC directors began their own investigation a week after the incident, having learned that others in the group the Weeples planned to join, including club members, also were wearing jeans that night. The board sought interviews with eight couples and subsequently suspended five couples for three months, for either wearing jeans or being involved in dress code violations.

The 10 members still owe club fees during their suspension.

In a letter they wrote to the club’s board, obtained by the Globe, the five couples said, “we are sorry and apologize if we did not adequately convey our remorse in our interviews.”

“One thing we can promise you is that this group does not lack integrity,” they added. “We are all parents of young children (15 in total) and you can be sure that conversations concerning the imperativeness of kindness, truthfulness, respect, honesty, humility and accountability fill our homes each day.”

All five couples declined interview requests or did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The club did hold a general membership meeting in early November, but by then Ferry had resigned and temperatures inside the clubhouse had cooled. The directors also have not made any changes to the club’s dress code, or their disciplinary measures, as a result of the meeting.

Through a spokeswoman, Weston GC acknowledged that “an effort to enforce club rules got out of hand” but defended the purpose of regulations on attire.

“The dress code is meant to encourage people to present themselves in ways that engender pride in the club,” said the spokeswoman, Karen Schwartzman.

The club’s directors conducted an investigation into alleged dress code violations with all the seriousness of a grand jury.

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Summary: Hollywood stars routinely sport jeans on the red carpet. President Obama and White House staffers occasionally don denim in the Oval Office. But if you want to stay out of the local police blotter, don’t even think about wearing dungarees into the clubhouse at posh Weston Golf Club.


Bob Bowlsby knows that something needs to change. In that sense, the Big 12 conference commissioner is just like every casual observer of college football.

Acknowledging that there's a problem is a good first step, but it's hardly a solution -- or even a blueprint for making things better. No one knows this better than the schools in the Big 12. The exclusion of its conference champions from college football's inaugural playoff is evidence that the Big 12 hasn't recovered from its leadership failure of years past.

The ghost of Dan Beebe is still haunting flyover country.

Dan Beebe didn't love all his children equally. That's the original sin that brought us all here.

More than three years after he was essentially forced to resign as Big 12 conference commissioner, it's impossible to overlook the preferential treatment Beebe gave the Texas Longhorns -- then and now the most revenue-rich college athletic program in the country.

Beebe's preferential treatment of Texas did not go overlooked by other members of the Big 12. As his tenure wore on after his hiring in 2007, some member institutions -- particularly Nebraska and Texas A&M -- grew tired of being in a conference where one school was more important than the other.

Beebe would never say this, of course. And naturally, there were other shortcomings of his leadership that serve as evidence Beebe came with an expiration date.

Take television money. As other conferences began building their own dedicated television networks, the Big 12 dragged its heels. Schools in the Big Ten were raking in around $15 million more than schools in the Big 12, thanks to better TV deals and the young-but-promising Big Ten Network.

Beebe could have worked to build the Big 12's own custom cable network. Instead, he let Texas enter in to its own agreement with ESPN that jumpstarted the Longhorn Network -- a cable operation providing 24-hour coverage of Texas Longhorns sports.

The move gave Texas an easy $15 million in its pocket -- along with unmatched exposure as the only college sports department with its own television network -- while the rest of the Big 12 sat idly by. The Longhorn Network effectively reduced the value of any television package the Big 12 might pursue, adversely affecting the already-slim TV revenues earned by the other 11 member schools.

Not to mention the Longhorn Network reeked of Beebe's Texas favoritism.

Even so, Beebe claims he was scapegoated by the Big 12 schools. Last year, he spoke at a panel hosted by the University of Texas -- the only school he did any favors for as Big 12 commish -- and painted a picture of unfair treatment by the rest of the league:

"I feel like the conference was driving over a cliff, and they turned the bus around and ran me over," Beebe said.

Beebe contended that he could have saved the Big 12 from further disarray by convincing schools to adopt a Grant of Rights. It's a deal that guarantees if a school did leave the Big 12, its media rights and the TV revenues generated would remain with the Big 12 until the period of coverage ended.

The Big 12 does have such an agreement in place, which runs the length of its current TV contracts and serves as a strong financial deterrent to any school leaving the conference.

But the Grant of Rights was not adopted until after Beebe was out of the league.

"It's sweet because hopefully [the Grant of Rights] will be what binds this conference together and I have a great love for the conference," he said. "But it's bitter because had we taken these actions previously we may have been able to avoid the problems that have occurred."

This outlook from Beebe is at once entirely correct and completely wrong. It's true because a grant of rights might have helped keep the league together, and without Beebe losing his job.

But it's absurd for Beebe to argue that merely suggesting the move is a virtue of his leadership. The gap between proposing an idea and bringing it to fruition is actually incredibly large, not razor-thin as Beebe wants to suggest.

If anything, Beebe's acknowledgement that he wanted to install a grant of rights but was unable to do so is the perfect example of his failed leadership. He couldn't run the Big 12 because he couldn't get the league to do the things necessary to its survival.

And so Beebe left the Big 12 in 2011 by "mutual agreement." He was replaced by interim commissioner Chuck Neinas, who managed the league competently and calmed the rough waters before ceding his position to Bob Bowlsby the following May.

If you think the damage inflicted by Dan Beebe is in the rear-view mirror, think again. Here's Bowlsby talking to The Oklahoman in October about the Big 12's television opportunities given that one of its member schools has its own dedicated network:

"The Longhorn Network is a boulder in the road. It really is. They did something that almost no other institution in the country could do because of the population in the state, and we’re looking at some way to try and morph that around a little bit."

On that same panel where Beebe implied he was unfairly blamed for the Big 12's misfortunes, Bowlsby said the league believed its smaller size was a strength. The Big 12 eventually stabilized at 10 teams after losing Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M while adding TCU and West Virginia.

Its on-field football product remained strong even with the loss of a conference championship game. The NCAA requires conferences to have 12 member institutions in order to play a championship game, which disqualified the Big 12.

Nevertheless, it found success. In addition to Texas and Oklahoma as the league's powerhouse programs, Baylor rose to national prominence, aided by the exposure of Robert Griffin III's Heisman Trophy win. Kansas State rose up from its recent doldrums to become a consistent Top 25 team. And this year, TCU asserted itself among college football's elite.

The money has been there for the Big 12, too. According to Forbes, the conference ranks fifth in the country -- trailing the other four major conferences -- with $262 million in revenue every year.

But when broken down on a per-school payout, the Big 12's $26 million in annual revenue is surpassed only by the Big Ten, where members made about half a million more than Big 12 schools in 2014.

And despite all that, the Big 12 has been turned upside down. Exclusion from the inaugural college football playoff has the conference and its members distraught about what that might mean for the future.

Playoff committee chairman Jeff Long acknowledged that the conference was ultimately hurt by the lack of a conference championship game. Where other conference champions had to beat a ranked opponent on a neutral field, TCU spent the weekend beating up on lowly Iowa State.

Bowlsby had already made a sneaky play to help his conference gain representation, refusing to crown a single Big 12 champion -- which would have rightly been Baylor's, given the league rules -- because doing so would have hurt TCU's chances of making the playoff, given that the Horned Frogs were positioned higher in the playoff rankings.

That gamble blew up in Bowlsby's face. TCU fell out, and an impressive win by Baylor over then-No. 9 Kansas State wasn't enough to push it into the top four. Four of the five major conferences have a team in college football's inaugural playoff. The Big 12 is the odd league out.

And so the message is this: Without a conference championship game, the Big 12 will be last in line for the national championship playoffs. Every year, the season will start with Big 12 schools at a disadvantage.

Previously content with its circumstances, the Big 12 is restless. A league known first and foremost for its football can't afford to handicap its members.

The task of solving the problem -- and fast -- falls on Bowlsby, whose tenure may be defined by what he does to rehabilitate the league. While member schools may not be ready to jump ship -- thank the Grant of Rights clause, which runs through 2025 along with the current TV deal with ESPN -- the Big 12 faces huge consequences if it can't appease the committee by reclaiming a conference title game, one way or another.

Think loss of branding strength, loss of TV appeal, reduced exposure, a future in which the best coaches jump ship for leagues where the national playoffs are easier to reach.

Bowslby has options. He can convince the NCAA to give the Big 12 a waiver that would allow a conference championship despite, giving its football teams a leg up without diluting the conference just for population's sake.

That appears to be Bowlsby's preference, and it sounds like he's working on other league commissioners to drum up support. But it's no sure thing, especially when supporting the Big 12 means increasing the competition for your own conference.

Or Bowlsby can add member schools that contribute to the conference's stature while elevating membership to the all-important 12 teams. The conference could once again live up to its name.

Adding schools will come with scrutiny, since the Big 12 doesn't want to cheapen its product -- both from an athletic and academic perspective. But inaction will cause its own damage, building upon the losses incurred under Beebe.

Three years after Dan Beebe, the Big 12 conference remains in a volatile state.

Does the Big 12 need to add more teams? That's a secondary concern. What it needs if a conference championship game. To get that, the Big 12 needs a great commissioner.

We'll soon find out if Bob Bowlsby is that leader. Until then, the ghost of Dan Beebe is watching.

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The Rock Thanks The Iron Sheik

Summary: Bob Bowlsby knows that something needs to change. In that sense, the Big 12 conference commissioner is just like every casual observer of college foot...


Imagine for a moment that, instead of the office cubicle you may be stuck in right now, you could move around to different kinds of spaces, depending on the day’s to-do list.

You might start out at your desk, then tote your laptop to a small enclave for an impromptu meeting with a few teammates. After lunch in a social hub, where you’d get the chance to chat with people from other departments, maybe you’d spend an hour or two at a bar-height workstation where you could stand instead of sit, then head to a designated quiet space to focus on a task.

“Being able to use different kinds of spaces really helps to get different kinds of work done efficiently,” notes Connor O’Brien, a finance analyst at global insurance giant Zurich. “We don’t really have that in our offices now.”

O’Brien, who works in Zurich’s North American headquarters in Schaumburg, Ill., near Chicago, was involved in the company’s novel effort to redesign its office space. Rather than rely on architects and designers to guess what kind office layout would help employees get the most work done with the least friction, the insurer turned to the 2,500 people in its present headquarters for answers.

“We’re a data-driven organization,” explains Jennifer Kyung, who’s in charge of the project. “So we wanted to eliminate as many biases as possible from the data.”

The company started with detailed surveys last year. Then it took the experiment one step further, building four different sample office spaces. Each pilot floor included a different combination of 22 features employees said they’d like to see, from flexible-sized conference rooms, to low-walled workstations that let in outside light, to a “social hub” where colleagues could meet for lunch, coffee, or just to hang out and talk.

Then, from early September into mid-December last year, 150 employees, including O’Brien, quit their cubicles and spent 12 weeks trying out the new spaces. The parts most people liked best, and found most useful, will be built into the new headquarters, which is scheduled to open about a mile down the road from Zurich’s current cube-filled building in the fall of 2016.

Kyung’s team is still analyzing the data from the 12-week trial, but some results are already clear. The pilot offices seem to have made collaboration easier. Christopher Zittnan, who does predictive analytics for Zurich, found that quick meetings with coworkers in enclaves designed for that purpose mean “you don’t lose your train of thought by dropping what you’re doing and going to someone else’s cube to talk to them,” he says. “It makes a big difference in how well you use your time,” and it reduces the need to write multiple emails to explain things that are often far easier to convey in a short conversation.

Almost everyone involved in the project was surprised how useful the social hub was. “It brought me and my team closer together,” recalls Conor O’Brien. “And I met people I wouldn’t have run into otherwise.”

Kelly Cada, a vice president who’s been at Zurich for 27 years, agrees, noting that the hub “brought people together, instead of sitting alone in their cubes, eating lunch at their desks.”

Not every company is willing or able to crowdsource the design of a new office space. Zurich used 30,000 square feet of existing space to house the four prototypes. “It’s costly,” notes Meg Osman, who leads a team from design firm Cannon Design that is working with Zurich on the project.

Still, the insurer expects employees’ enthusiasm, and increased productivity, to pay off once everyone has moved into the new building. Says Osman, “People have told us that they got so much more done in the new offices that they can in their current ones, they really hated to go back.”

Adds Kyung, “Usually, when you try to move large numbers of people from a familiar workplace to a new one, there’s a lot of anxiety. Instead, we’re finding there’s tremendous buzz.” At a time when employers are looking for ways to hold on to skilled employees, the move could turn out to be a pretty smart investment.

Summary: Employees at Zurich Insurance are crowdsourcing the design of their new offices.


37 years of computer history in three graphs, two blogs and a podcast

The chart above, one of three that Horace Dediu has posted on Asymco.com over the past two days, and which he discussed on his Critical Path podcast Wednesday, takes some explanation.

First, it’s on a log, not a linear scale, so every unit on the Y-axis represents an exponential increase in the number of units shipped. Second, it’s counting all units shipped — PCs, smartphones, tablets. Third, although Apple AAPL is the thread that runs throughout the 37 years of PC history represented here, there were many years when it was not among the top 5 PC vendors, as implied by the chart’s title.

But we’ll grant Dediu a little artistic license, because nobody has ever before displayed this information so clearly. Not only do his graphs (here and here) show the natural cycle of the PC industry — in which companies rise and fall in fairly predictable patterns — but it puts the lie to Wall Street’s consensus view about Apple’s future growth.

According to Thomson Reuters, analysts expect Apple’s 61%-per-annum increases over the past five years to slow to 12% in 2012 — which on a log chart is the equivalent of flatlining.

Bascially, they are projecting a future in which the company’s breakneck growth reverts to some kind of industry norm. But if you look at the patterns over nearly four decades of PC history, you can see these analysts are living in a fantasy world. In computing, according to Dediu …

“There’s no such thing as a steady state, where the company settles down to enjoy a long and comfortable life. Either it grows phenomenally quickly or it collapses phenomenally quickly. There is no in between.”

So when the Street projects 12% growth for Apple in 2012, it’s basically pulling its punches, according to Dediu, saying “let’s be conservative.”

“I just look at this chart,” he concludes, “and say, you know, to say ridiculous things like [iPhone sales] are going to double again next year doesn’t sound so ridiculous anymore.”

If you haven’t seen Dediu’s rise and fall graphs, check them out here and here and catch the podcast here. He’s also produced a YouTube video that puts the data into motion. We’ve copied a version below the fold.

Summary: 37 years of computer history in three graphs, two blogs and a podcast The chart above, one of three that Horace Dediu has posted on Asymco.com over the past two days, and which he discussed on his Critical Path podcast Wednesday, takes some explanation. First, it's on a log, not a linear scale, so every unit…


FORTUNE – Dear Annie: I’ll be getting a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering next spring, and I’m nervous about my chances of having a job offer in hand by then. With a lot of student loans to start paying off, I really have to be working right away. So I have two questions: First, my school is having a career fair next month, with recruiters from about 50 companies. A zillion other students have already signed up. Do you have any suggestions about how not to get lost in the crowd?

And second, I’ve had a couple of job interviews already, with two different companies where I think I’d really like to work. It’s been about a month now, and I haven’t heard anything back from either one. Does that mean they’re not interested, or what? — Dixie Chick

Dear Dixie: Not to add to your anxiety, but you’re right to be nervous about finding a job — and smart to have started looking already. As you probably know, a much-publicized Associated Press report a few months ago said that more than half (54%) of 2011 college grads were either unemployed or underemployed, meaning stuck in jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree, and the class of 2012 doesn’t seem to be faring much better. In September, unemployment among Americans ages 18 to 29 stood at 11.8%, well above the 7.8% average for the workforce as a whole.

MORE: The truth about Google’s horrible, no good, very bad day

On the bright side, however, employers expect to hire 13% more new grads in 2013 than in 2012, according to preliminary results from the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ annual survey of hiring managers. Moreover, your choice of major gives you an advantage. “Those most likely to increase their hiring of new college graduates include employers in chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing,” notes Marilyn Mackes, executive director at NACE, adding that demand will be particularly strong for new grads with business, computer science, and all types of engineering degrees — and that employers “are looking to college campuses to supply their hiring needs.”

Which brings us to your career fair. “The No. 1 way to make a career fair work for you is to make sure you go,” says Alison Doyle. “Often seniors are so busy that they skip it, which is a mistake. Juniors should go too, because companies often look for interns at these events.” Doyle, a longtime human resources executive and now About.com’s resident career expert, has written several books on job hunting, most recently Alison Doyle’s Job Search Guidebook.

Even if the list of employers scheduled to attend doesn’t wow you, she says, go anyway: “You never know who you’ll meet there, and who might be helpful to you down the road. A job fair is also a great place to practice presenting yourself to hiring managers.”

A few suggestions for making the most of the event:

1. Research the employers who interest you. Pay special attention to the careers section of each company’s website, and think about which opportunities there would best fit your strengths and interests.

2. Prepare your “elevator speech.” This is a 20-to-30-second sound bite that sums up your talents and skills. If you aren’t sure what those are, think back to successes you’ve had so far — including any leadership role you’ve played in an extracurricular activity (and yes, sports do count) — and analyze what helped you achieve them.

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3. Dress appropriately. If in doubt about what to wear, it’s safer to be overdressed than clad too casually. Clothes don’t make the man (or the woman), but wearing business attire will send a subtle message that you’re taking this event seriously.

4. Be enthusiastic. If you’re genuinely interested in an employer, end the conversation by saying so, and express your interest in exploring opportunities at the company. All else being equal, the most eager candidate often has an edge with employers, Doyle says.

5. Follow up after the fair is over. Don’t forget to ask for contact information from every recruiter you meet. Then, as soon as possible, send an email — or better yet, a handwritten note — briefly conveying why you believe you’d be the right hire. Ask when you might be able to meet again.

And speaking of following up, Doyle says, in response to your second question, that “it’s not at all unusual to interview with a company and hear nothing for several weeks afterward. Even for seasoned job seekers, getting hired these days is a long, drawn-out process. And big companies especially are interviewing on so many campuses that it takes them a long time to reach a decision. Some may be holding off on making offers because they aren’t quite sure yet what their staffing needs will be next spring.”

That’s why it’s important to stay in touch with them. “You don’t want to bombard them with messages, but you need to follow each interview with a thank-you and then ask if there is any more information they would like from you,” says Doyle. “Send a short note every couple of weeks, to make sure you’re not forgotten in the press of other applicants.”

MORE: Will Big Data decide the election?

While you’re waiting to hear back, she adds, don’t stop looking. “Keep going because, until you get a firm offer, you don’t know what else is out there that might interest you even more. If you pin all your hopes on one or two companies, and those offers don’t materialize, you’ll have to start looking all over again, which will put you behind [your competition]. You need to have lots of irons in the fire.” Good luck.

Talkback: Have you ever gotten a job through a career fair? If you’re a hiring manager, what impresses you most at these events? What do you look for in potential hires? Leave a comment below.

Summary: Graduating from college in the spring? The job market for the class of 2013 is super-competitive, but standing out from the crowd at a career fair can help.


The deck is stacked against children in foster care. No one knows that better than Marquis Cabrera, a former foster kid who beat the odds to graduate college. Now he’s trying to help other foster children achieve life success through his nonprofit social enterprise, Foster Skills.

A dozen trailblazers working in fields from medicine to robotics to social services are recognized in The Globe 100’s Innovators of 2013.

Cabrera moved from a rough Harlem housing project to his adoptive mom’s idyllic two-story house on a cul-de-sac, but he couldn’t escape the disconnect he felt after going through the foster care system. “There are many resources and programs for foster children, but they are fragmented and often leave kids feeling powerless,” said Cabrera, 24, who believes the key to unlocking the potential of foster children is to provide practical life skills and emotional stability.

The Northeastern University graduate deferred admission to law school to get Foster Skills up and running. In two years, the Boston organization has provided social support systems to hundreds of children in foster care. “Marquis is truly a superhero for his work in building and supporting families, and inspiring other young people to be change-makers as well,” said Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, a supporter of Cabrera’s efforts.

Summary: The deck is stacked against children in foster care. No one knows that better than Marquis Cabrera, a former foster kid who beat the odds to graduate college. Now he’s trying to help other foster children achieve life success through his nonprofit social enterprise, Foster Skills. Cabrera moved from a rough Harlem housing project to his adoptive mom’s idyllic two-story house on a cul-de-sac, but he couldn’t escape the disconnect he felt after going through the foster care system. Cabrera, 24, deferred admission to several law schools to get Foster Skills up and running. In two years, the Boston organization has provided social support systems to hundreds of children in foster care.


It's the second time the swimming star has been arrested over a DUI. (AAP)

US swimming star Michael Phelps has apologised on Twitter after he was caught driving under the influence for the second time this morning.

Phelps was pulled over by police at 1.40am today in his white Land Rover and failed a sobriety test, TMZ reported.

He was charged with DUI, excessive speeding and crossing double lane lines.

The swimmer pleaded for forgiveness in a series of tweets on social media.

The 18-time Olympic gold medallist has previously been arrested for a DUI in 2004 when he was charged with a similar offence when he was 19-years-old.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: US swimming star Michael Phelps has reportedly been arrested for driving under the influence in Maryland.


Tesla Motors TSLA on Friday voluntarily recalled its Roadster 2.0 and 2.5 models, after an incident in which an auxiliary cable chafed against a carbon fiber panel, causing a short, smoke and possible fire behind the vehicle’s right-front headlamp.

The recall affects around 36% all the cars Tesla has ever sold, based on disclosed data through June 30. Sounds huge, until you remember that Tesla is a lot more about hype (and “the future”) than it is about automotive production. That 36% only works out to 439 actual vehicles.

Per usual, bad news isn’t having much of an impact on Tesla stock. In fact, it’s up around 15 cents on a day in which the broader markets are taking a beating … Maybe shareholders don’t care about the recall, because they realize how small it really is.

Summary: Tesla Motors  on Friday voluntarily recalled its Roadster 2.0 and 2.5 models, after an incident in which an auxiliary cable chafed against a carbon fiber panel, causing a short, smoke and possible fire behind the vehicle's right-front headlamp. The recall affects around 36% all the cars Tesla has ever sold, based on disclosed data through June 30. Sounds huge,…


Derick, Israel David and Jill Dillard

updated 04/07/2015 AT 03:25 PM EDT

•originally published 04/07/2015 AT 12:35 PM EDT

First comes love, then comes marriage ...

Not one year after being the first of the Duggar girls to

welcomed baby Israel David on April 6.

Weighing in at 9 lbs., 10 oz., Jill and Derick's first child arrived at 11:49 p.m. Monday night.

Although the new parents had

for a home birth, baby Israel was born in a hospital. According to the Dillards, mom and baby are both doing well.

"We are so thankful for a healthy Mom and baby!" wrote Jill's parents on their official

page. "Love this sweet baby Israel! We are happy grandparents and we promise more pictures soon!"

Israel was born past his due date, but the

star was "planning on [him] coming late," she

– "No big deal," said Jill.

Jill Dillard and baby Israel David

A student midwife, Jill had set two due dates for herself – March 24 and April 5. "I have told myself, 'First-time moms often go a week and a half over, so don't get discouraged,' " she told PEOPLE one day prior to Israel's first due date, adding that she has told herself that from the beginning. "When everyone else is asking you, 'When are you going to have that baby?' The baby will come when the baby comes."

Jill has been open about her pregnancy every step of the way,

at each stage. As recently as April 4, Derick shared a photo of

in advance of Mother's Day.

Derick Dillard and baby Israel David

in November 2013, after Duggar patriarch

, 49, remotely introduced the couple. At the time of their first conversation, Derick had been doing missionary work in Japan; the two later met in Nepal.

in April 2014, and the rest is history.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

airs Tuesdays (9 p.m. ET) on TLC.

Summary: Israel David Dillard was born at 11:49 p.m. on April 6, weighing 9 lbs., 10 oz.


Fess up: You use the same password for multiple web accounts, don’t you?

It’s a bad practice, of course. One account becomes compromised and the rest—well, it’s a sudden game of dominos.

Yet who among us has the fortitude to remember scores of wildly divergent, convoluted passwords? Who has the self-discipline, the mental faculty, the unflagging commitment to security? Who, I dare say, follows the tenets of digital hygiene to a tee? Tell me, dear reader, which of you?

Fear not! Google GOOG has an answer for the rest of us incorrigible Internet users. The search giant has just released a Chrome browser extension called Password Alert that acts like a tripwire whenever you enter your Google credentials into an untrusted site—that is, anything other than accounts.google.com. (Or in the case of Google for Work—the company’s enterprise play—for sites not whitelisted by an administrator.)

For many, one’s email account password—and very often, Gmail account password—is the trump card to resetting other logins. (Forgot your password? Click here and we’ll send you a temporary one via email.) That makes it particularly valuable, a master key—and a prime target for social engineers, whose goal is to steal your information.

“Two percent of all emails to Gmail are phishing attempts,” says Justin Kosslyn, product manager at Google Ideas, describing the malicious traffic that flows through Google’s Gmail servers. “Gmail can fortunately filter most of them out, but millions upon millions of emails a day are trying to trick you into giving up your password.”

The new password tool was developed out of the company’s own learnings from conducting internal penetration tests, attempts to improve and assess security by hacking itself and its employees. In some cases, researchers found that a well-crafted, lookalike phishing site could be effective 45% of the time. On average, phishing sites duped people about 14% of the time.

“It works like a spellchecker,” Kosslyn says, explaining the mechanism. The tool triggers based on the length of the password being typed in, he says. Chrome stores a partial fingerprint of the password—a partial salted hash, to be technical, rather than the password itself—and if it detects that a Google password is being reused, the alarm sets off. “It’s able to use this math trick to determine whether there is a match,” he says.

Proud of its success rate, the team decided to take the product public. “It has caught real-world phishing attacks on Googlers,” Kosslyn says, “That’s one of things that made us very keen on open sourcing it and making it available for users as well.”

Another motive has to do with the team’s work with activists and political dissidents, such as Syrian expatriates in Turkey. “We hear all kinds of different stories about cyber security and the threats they face,” he says. In fact, Kosslyn’s team breaks these threats down into three areas: threats to servers, threats to connections, and threats to devices. This last piece is where Password Alert provides the most protection.

For some, including those with governmental adversaries, phishing can be a matter of life and death, he says. “Hence this launch.”

Indeed, as the latest Verizon report on data breach investigations reveals, phishing attacks are often a calling card for state-sponsored actors. “For two years running, more than two-thirds of incidents that comprise the Cyber-Espionage pattern have featured phishing,” the researchers write. The report also notes that nearly a quarter of recipients open phishing messages and 11% click on the attachments within.

Password Alert is the latest product out of Google Ideas, a 4-year-old “think tank” division of Google concerned with global initiatives. Previously, the arm has released Project Shield, which aims to use Google’s infrastructure “to provide protection for free expression online,” combating and withstanding distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. (Like the one China waged against GitHub earlier this month.)

Kosslyn assures Fortune that the tool does not inhibit a machine or browser’s performance. “We did a lot of optimization to make sure it doesn’t slow down your computer,” says. “As opposed to anti-virus software or downloading a new version of [Microsoft] Word in the background, this is negligible.” (Google, after all, takes load time very seriously.)

Although Password Alert is compatible only with the Chrome browser and Google logins for now, Kossyln says he would like to see the tool applied across the web and used with different services. “That’s the hope,” he says.

Summary: The free Chrome browser extension acts as a safety net, raising the alarm when it detects fishy activity.


Airbus Group EADSY dangled the prospect of a share buyback program in the fall after reporting its main commercial jet programs were on track and confirming full-year guidance Thursday.

Europe’s largest aerospace group, the biggest rival of Boeing Corp BA , said it was pushing ahead with a production increase for its new A350 jet and that its revamped A320neo remained on schedule. The A380 superjumbo will break even as planned this year, it said in a statement, as it posted in-line first quarter results.

After a boom in jet demand that accounts for the bulk of a roughly $1 trillion stockpile of orders on the European company’s books, Airbus and U.S. rival Boeing are increasingly focusing on how to achieve higher production goals.

Airbus’ flirtation with returning cash to shareholders may irritate companies such as European discount airline Ryanair Plc RYAOF , whose plans for starting long-haul flights to the U.S. fell foul, among other things, of the long time it would have to wait for suitable airplanes.

Airbus will ask shareholders at its annual meeting on May 27 for permission to buy back up to 10% of its share capital. Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said the company would come back to this issue in the autumn, once it has more clarity on divestments and production plans.

Shares in Airbus were up 1.3% at 0724 GMT, outperforming a 0.2% fall for leading European shares .

First-quarter revenue fell 5% to 12.08 billion euros ($13.4 billion) due to lower commercial plane deliveries that were partially offset by the impact of a weaker euro. Operating income before one-off items fell 7% to €651 million, roughly in line with analysts’ forecasts.

The results make for a rare blip in a pattern visible across most other sectors in this quarter’s reports, which has seen the weaker euro boost European companies’ earnings, often at the expense of their U.S. competitors. In Airbus’ case, the difference is largely explained by the long product delivery cycle.

Commercial jet deliveries are expected to be “backloaded” towards the later part of the year, Airbus said. It delivered just one A350 jet in the first quarter but this was in line with contracted delivery dates, Wilhelm said, confirming a target to deliver 15 of the widebodies this year.

Airbus logged 134 plane deliveries in the first quarter, compared with 141 in the year-ago period.

Free cash flow swung to a positive €452 million in the first quarter from a negative 2.034 billion, swelled by the sale of part of Airbus’s stake in Dassault Aviation.

Wilhelm said Airbus would be looking to sell more of its remaining stake in Dassault once a lock-up period expires towards the end of this year.

Dassault, for its part, was boosted Thursday by the news that Qatar had committed to buy 24 of its Rafale fighter jets in a deal worth an estimated €6.3 billion, according to Reuters.

Airbus said that based on its current view of production it would achieve breakeven in free cash flow in 2015 before mergers and acquisitions.

For 2015, Airbus also expects slightly higher deliveries and a higher order book. It sees higher revenue and a slight increase in core operating income before mergers and acquisitions.

Summary: Company repeats that its underperforming A380 superjumbo will break even this year.


05/19/2015 AT 12:55 PM EDT

has come to an end. We're all very sad about that, yes, but thankfully, the drama continues to live on in the hearts, minds and wardrobes of everyone it has touched.

A great example: The thriving community of

-related fan art is alive and well on DeviantArt. The show's aesthetic has provided a fertile ground for artists of all stripes to play with, and

is one such artist. Going by

, he playfully combines all kinds of pop culture touchstones with retro illustrations. Check out his

series, which positions the show's various stars as cover models from iconic magazines.

It was either this or the cover of

She looks a lot happier in those shades than she did with

Not pictured: Sally in therapy for 40-some-odd years.

Not pictured: How being married to Fred Armisen changed

No, we have no plans to ever stop wearing our Joan-inspired pen necklace, why do you ask?

Summary: Can you image Don Draper on the cover of Esquire? We can


On the 15th day of a strike that has now caused the loss of 185 games, major league baseball's club owners and players remained far apart yesterday in their dispute over compensation to teams that lose premium free agents.

Negotiators for the two sides met off and on for about two hours, then recessed with no further meetings on the schedule and no hope for a settlement in sight.

''Both sides are locked in,'' Kenneth E. Moffett, the Federal mediator, declared before returning to Washington, where he will wait for some sign from one side or the other that it is ready to offer a breakthrough proposal.

The latest collapse in the talks occurred as court action in Philadelphia permitted the owners to resume receiving their strike insurance at the rate of $100,000 per date and as the National Labor Relations Board postponed for a third time the hearing into the players' charges of unfair labor practices.

N.L.R.B. Hearing Now July 6

The N.L.R.B. hearing, before an administrative law judge, had originally been set to start June 15 but was postponed until June 22 and June 29. Now it is scheduled to begin July 6.

''Both parties have agreed to put it off,'' said Daniel Silverman, the New York regional director of the N.L.R.B. ''Absent any unusual circumstances, there will be no further postponement. I'm hopeful the hearing will be completed within one week.''

That kind of movement would be far more rapid than any the players and the owners have made in their negotiations. Rusty Staub, one of three players who sat on the players' bargaining team yesterday, said it was becoming ''more and more obvious to us that they must have some kind of timetable they're working on.''

''It's obvious with the discussions we have that they're not ready to settle this yet,'' Staub, the Mets' player representative, said at a news briefing at the Doral Inn, where the negotiations are being held. Grebey Issues Denial

Staub's charge of an owner timetable was the topic of the only question that Ray Grebey, the owners' chief negotiator, accepted at the briefing.

Grebey denied the charge, and asked: ''Who wants a strike? Do you know anybody who wants a strike?'' Some people on the players' side have expressed a belief that the owners wanted to prolong the strike so they could collect their $50 million in strike insurance. However, Steve Rogers of the Montreal Expos, a negotiating regular, said yesterday that he did not believe this was the case. ''When they're ready to bridge the gap on the main issues, whatever timetable they've set for themselves, they'll make a proposal,'' Rogers said.

With the failure of the Major League Umpires Association to block payment of the insurance coverage, all the companies involved in the first layer of $10 million in benefits prepared to begin making payments. An executive of Southern American, which has the secondlargest block of the first layer, said his company was prepared to make its first payment next Monday.

A lawyer for another insurance company said: ''Lloyd's, by paying early and escrowing money and using its own lawyers to oppose the umpires, was making a statement to all the companies that they better get in line and pay. At this point it looks like it's going to be a long strike.'' Players See Trivialities

The players felt the strike was growing longer because the owners' negotiators were intent on discussing what the players called trivial matters.

''Every time we try to discuss major issues,'' Staub said, ''we get off on these tangents that are very easily solvable once we get over the big hurdles of the major issues. When we try to broach those major issues, we get nowhere.''

As an example of the trivialities Staub referred to, he pointed to the topic of conversation that dominated yesterday's session - the statistical criteria that would be used to determine premium free agents.

''This isn't an issue that's a problem,'' Staub said. ''If they really want to talk about the top players, which is their stated objective, we could find those top players. That's an easy thing to solve. To have a whole day's work on something like that when we're not even broaching the major issues, it seems very trivial to us.''

The major issue, the players emphasized, is the level and the source of compensation. The owners want the compensation to come directly from the team that signs the premium free agent. The players, believing that such a system would be punitive and would therefore restrict free agents' movement and bargaining power, want the compensation to come from a pool of players created by teams that draft negotiating rights to premium free agents. Owners See Players' Switch

In a statement after yesterday's talks, Grebey addressed the players' complaint about alleged triviality, and viewed the matter in another light.

Acknowledging that most of yesterday's discussion centered on how premium free agents should be identified, he said: ''That initially was a major issue raised by the players association, a stumbling block to settlement. You've heard it characterized by the players union today as no longer an issue, as insignificant. You can judge for yourself whether that is progress. However, that was an issue when the strike started, and it was an issue when compensa tion went on the table.''

Kurt Bevacqua, a utility player with the Pittsburgh Pirates, attended his first bargaining session yesterday and regretted that he saw no signs of a settlement.

''As the strike goes on,'' he said, ''my feelings are getting to where I'm ready to sit out the whole season if I have to. When the strike first started, that was the last thing I wanted to do.''

---- Class A Game Set in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE, June 26 (AP) - The Wausau (Wis.) Timbers and the Burlington (Iowa) Bees have arranged to play a Class A baseball game at Milwaukee County Stadium July 15.

Al McFarland, general manager of the Timbers, said today that permission for the game had been granted by the American League and Milwaukee County. He said it would be played whether or not the strike of major league players was settled by then. The Milwaukee Brewers, the parent club of the Burlington team, are the main tenants of the stadium but, because of the All-Star Game break, were not scheduled to play July 15.

Plans for a minor league game in Cleveland were abandoned recently when players for the teams involved voted not to play there because of the strike.


A decade or so ago, when a handbag or a wallet showed signs of wear or looked dated, one simply threw it away or gave it to a thrift shop. But then one could buy a Gucci wallet for $25 or an Hermes handbag for $200. Now a leather Gucci wallet is $90 and the famous Grace Kelly bag is $1,450 at Hermes. With the prices of leather goods gone through the roof, one thinks twice about discarding what was originally a good handbag.

Craftsmen who do repairs report that they are busier then ever. Bags labeled Vuitton, Mark Cross, Bottega Veneta and other prestigious names are piled on their repair shelves.

The neighborhood shoe repairman may be asked to do a simple chore like restitching a strap, but more complicated work is best done by an expert. Although their numbers are dwindling, there are still shops around town with skilled craftsmen who do a variety of repairs.

Artbag Creations, 735 Madison Avenue (64th Street), 744-2720. This shop, which also sells handbags, has been the repair haven for the East Side's chic bags for 50 years. A typical customer was a woman who brought in a Bonnie Cashin bag to have a zipper added to the top. The fee quoted was $35; she had had her wallet stolen from the bag and after a moment's hesitation, she agreed the zipper was worth it. The shop will do almost any repair chore: change, lengthen or shorten handles, reline, add inner pockets and stitch rips.

In addition to repairs, the store does custom work: People bring in antique purse frames and have bags built around them. Recently, it used the fabric from a customer's bridal dress to make a bag for her daughter's wedding. Now that some species of alligator are off the endangered list, women are bringing in reptile bags that had been put away for years to be refurbished and polished. Repair prices range from $8.50 to replace a rivet or a ring up to $100 to reline a bag. Most jobs take about two weeks.

Modern Leather Goods Repair, 11 West 32d Street, 279-3263. This is the largest of the city's repair shops. It occupies 5,000 square feet and employs 25 workers, each a specialist. There is a woman who does hand-stitching, a zipper expert, a handle man, another man who does relining and renews corners, a lock expert and one who puts metal corners on luggage. The shop even does its own welding for frames and locks. It makes moneybags for banks and does a lot of repair work for department stores and luggage shops. The workshop has an impressive variety of leather for matching and shelf upon shelf of hardware. Prices range widely, depending on the job, from $5 for a simple rip on a wallet to $200 for an extensive refurbishing of a handbag or suitcase. Work takes about two weeks.

Superior Repair Center, 2 West 32d Street, 564-2267. This shop put zippers into Jerzy Kosinski's polo boots, sewed zippers into the pockets of Frank Sinatra's inaugural souvenir jacket and remade Brian Aherne's dog carrier to conform with airline regulations. It made a harness for an escape-artist magician and leather belts for generators at the South Street Seaport.

It will replace zippers on handbags and portfolios. For handbags it will reline, remake handles, turn short handles into shoulder length, add or remove chains and repair lock clasps. It resews camera cases, replaces straps and refurbishes musical instrument cases. Experts can obliterate a tear in leather by welding the tear with vinyl. Prices: $6 for a small rip on a wallet, $10.75 to replace a handbag chain, $35 to reline a petit-point bag, $25 to replace a clasp and sew beads back on an evening bag. The shop also does cleaning. Repairs take about 10 days; a rush job can be done in a day or two for $5 additional.

Kaye Leather Goods Repair, 10 West 32d Street, 564-8193. Jacob Dopter designed shoes in the Soviet Union, and with his wife, Valentina, took over this repair shop. Their work is mainly in handbags. They can replace zippers or handles, do new piping on Vuitton bags, shorten handles, reline bags and custom-make a bag. Prices range from $10 to replace a handle to $60 for a complicated relining. Most jobs take two to three days.

The Scarlet Leather, 96 Christopher Street, 255-1155. This shop's main business is custom-making leather clothes. It also does repairs of bags, wallets and belts made of soft leather. (Its machines are not capable of sewing on the heavy leather used in suitcases.) The staff will repair zippers, replace rivets on belts, stitch straps back on or add new ones. Prices range from $10 for restitching a strap to $50 for more complicated jobs like replacing a zipper.

Igor Barkagan, 474 Amsterdam Avenue (83d Street), 724-8715. This is a small one-man shop, chockablock with repair work in progress. When Mr. Barkagan was asked what repairs he could do, he answered, ''I do everything,'' adding that he had been at his craft for 40 years, first in his native Russia, then in Rome and finally in New York. He does, indeed, do all the usual repairs, plus others such as adding new corners to a bag that is ripped or badly worn. He replaces zippers ($19) and can add new rigid handles ($35). He says that the last is a complicated job; first the handle is made, then the lining ripped to insert it and the bag restitched in the same holes as the original sewing. One of his most expensive chores ($125) was completely rehabilitating a 50-year-old suitcase.

Hermes, in Bergdorf Goodman, 751-3181. Hermes leather things are among the most expensive in the world and their owners cherish them virtually forever. The shop repairs only its own merchandise and has a craftsman on hand who is expert at doing the careful handwork on bags that sometimes cost several thousand dollars. Repair prices match: $150 to replace a handle on the Kelly bag and $195 to add a shoulder strap. The charge to clean and polish a bag is $25. Most work takes four weeks.

Gucci, repair department, eighth floor, 2 East 54th Street, 826-2600. Gucci merchandise only. According to Aldo Gucci, who heads the leather goods empire, minor repairs on recent merchandise (shortening a belt, sewing a small rip) are free. A chore like adding a shoulder strap averages $25 to $30. Repairs can take three weeks. The customer is notified when work is completed.

La Bagagerie, 727 Madison Avenue (64th Street), 758-6570. The shop does simple repairs on its own recent merchandise on the premises free. More complicated work is sent out and there is a charge. (A new leather shoulder strap can cost between $20 and $40 and might take two weeks.)

Mark Cross, 645 Fifth Avenue (51st Street), 421-3000. Mark Cross merchandise only. Simple repairs on stitching or hardware are done in the store and there is no charge for items less than a year old. More involved work is sent out and there is a fee (about $20 to replace a zipper, $30 to reline a handbag). Allow about two weeks.

Illustrations: photo of leather repairers


Yet most homes priced at $100 million or more end up selling at a fraction of that price. The Versace mansion in Miami, also known as Casa Casuarina, was on the market this year for $125 million. It sold at auction for $41.5 million. The Candy Spelling Estate in Bel-Air, Calif., was listed for $150 million, but sold to heiress Petra Eccelstone for $85 million.

Here are some of the candidates, and their likelihood to break the $100-million mark next year.

• Copper Beech Farm, Greenwich, Conn. Asking Price: $140 million. Copper Beech is a stunning piece of land, with 50 acres and 4,000 feet of water frontage, in one of America's richest neighborhoods. But brokers say it's mainly a development play, since the house is not all that spectacular. The question is whether a developer would be able to spend $100 million, build homes on the site and still make enough of a return.

• Owlwood Estate in Holmby Hills, Calif. Unofficial Asking Price: $150 million. California seems to be the land of $100 million sales recently, and this home could be a contender. It's not officially listed, but brokers say the Tuscan estate, with 10 acres and a classic 12,000-square-foot mansion could well trade for nine figures.

• The de Guigne Estate, Hillsborough, Calif. List Price: $100 million. This 47-acre property has been owned by the same family—the de Guignes—for more than 150 years. The 16,000-square-foot home and grounds are just 20 minutes from San Francisco, making it ideal for a newly minted tech billionaire or foreign buyer interested in a foothold in the tech world.

(Read more: Lamborghini unveils the Huracan)

• Steve Cohen Duplex, New York City. List Price is $115 million.Embattled hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is selling this massive duplex at One Beacon Court in Manhattan. The apartment spans about 9,000 square feet with double-height windows and big views of the city. There are more and more sky-high duplexes coming on the market in the city, but brokers say Cohen's pad is a solid contender for a nine-figure sale.

• The Residence at River House, New York City. List Price $130 million. River House is an unusual offering, to say the least. It's a five story building that currently serves as a private club and would need a huge investment to turn into a new private residence. But it's a colossal 62,000 square feet and has a riverfront garden and 62-foot indoor swimming pool. Probably only a Middle East royal or a Russian oligarch would consider the purchase.

• Crespi Hicks Estate, Dallas. List Price $135 million. Private equity chief Tom Hicks is asking $135 million for his 25-acre estate in Dallas. It's a unique property, with more than 40,000 square feet of living space. But breaking the $100 million would be a big leap in the Dallas market.

—By CNBC's Robert Frank. Follow him on Twitter @robtfrank.

Summary: The $100 million sale seems to have become an annual rite of passage for the luxury real estate market following the financial crisis.


06/04/2015 AT 04:30 PM EDT

We just hope justice is eventually served to the perpetrator who's been stealing hard-earned money from

Clarkson stopped by BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge to sing a soulful rendition of Rihanna's hit "Bitch Better Have My Money," and she sang it with such raw conviction that we're pretty sure someone is seriously indebted to the singer.Â

While decidedly different from Rihanna's

in May, we're definitely feeling the way Clarkson, 33, interprets the song – sultry and slightly sweet.

Summary: Despite playing Clarkson's Rihanna cover on repeat for the past few hours, we're still not sure what "brap brap brap" means â¦Â


LENOX — In July 1940, as skies darkened over Europe, idealism was ablaze in the woods of Massachusetts. “The creation of a Music Center in America,” Serge Koussevitzky told a crowd gathered at Tanglewood, “becomes more significant in these days, than in any other time.”

The great Russian conductor — whose speech, complete with markings to aid his English pronunciation, is on view this summer at a Visitors Center exhibition — dreamed of a school where luminaries drawn from the entire field of classical music would transmit their knowledge to the next generation, thereby safeguarding the humanistic values he found in this music precisely at the moment they were being gravely threatened abroad.

Koussevitzky’s academy was to be a model of the classical world as it should be, a place insulated from commercial pressures, where living composers would be restored to a place of honor in a culture that too often valorized only the interpreters of masterpieces past. Having two major composers on his faculty the first summer — Aaron Copland and Paul Hindemith — seemed designed to underscore the point.

In subsequent decades, even as the BSO has at times embraced other rather less Koussevitzkian directions, the orchestra has labored to keep the Tanglewood Music Center by and large a preserve of its founder’s vision. This fact never feels more palpable than during the annual Festival of Contemporary Music (or FCM, in the insider’s shorthand), one week each summer that seems to invert familiar norms, a time when reigning conservatisms take a holiday, Ozawa Hall becomes a cheerful laboratory of the new, and freshly minted works are wolfed down by large and enthusiastic crowds. At one hybrid concert on Saturday night, a modest exodus from the hall took place, rather surreally, before a work by Brahms. “Too many triads,” joked one composer.

This year’s edition of FCM — curated by John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, and Oliver Knussen — has been packed with premieres of works commissioned, in a laudable and entirely fitting gesture, to celebrate the school’s 75th anniversary. It also brought a timely opportunity to honor the memory of the composer Gunther Schuller, a towering figure who died in June at 89, and who worked tirelessly, at times combatively, to uphold the founding mission of the Music Center in his numerous leadership roles between 1963 and 1985.

As it turned out, Thursday night’s Schuller memorial program did not proceed as planned, with both of the evening’s conductors forced to withdraw (Knussen due to a visa problem, and Stefan Asbury on account of the birth of his son). Fortunately, the young English conductor Jonathan Berman was able to step into the breach, leading persuasive performances of several challenging works including the premiere of Schuller’s brilliant “Magical Trumpets.”

This is a piece that Schuller had apparently written partly from the hospital but you would never guess given how thoroughly infused it is with a bright optimism and sly wit from its opening fortissimo blast. Scored for 12 trumpets in eight different keys, the work is a brief and at times jazzy stroll through a vast range of styles, with the trumpets using several types of mutes to conjure various rarefied sonorities. It’s not uncommon to approach a composer’s “late” works with expectations of gravitas, but here Schuller’s accumulated wisdom is voiced not through orotund pronouncements but with a winning, ageless exuberance also present in his recent “Dreamscape.” The performers, which included five BSO players, principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs among them, nailed the first performance. Berman, while the crowd vigorously applauded, held the score aloft.

Another Schuller tribute was meaningfully integrated below the surface of Gandolfi’s delightful new work “Carroll in Numberland,” a setting of Lewis Carroll poems (featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw) that brims with this poetry’s sense of playful effervescence. While composing this score, Gandolfi, at the point in the music where he learned of Schuller’s death, began working in references to Schuller’s signature tone row.

Gandolfi’s work appeared on a particularly rewarding Saturday program that included newly commissioned scores by Augusta Read Thomas, whose inventive strings-percussion octet was titled “Selene — Moon Chariot Rituals”; Steven Mackey, who delivered a delicately bewitching work called “Madrigal” for female voice and percussion; and Bright Sheng, whose “Deep Red” is a lavishly textured and absorbing marimba concerto in all but name (George Nickson was the formidable soloist). Also well-represented on that program was music of Andy Vores (“Fabrication 15: Amplification”) and Marti Epstein (a beautifully evocative Quartet from 2007, which featured the BSO’s Robert Sheena on English horn).

Highlights were numerous across four recent FCM programs (other festival concerts are being reviewed separately). Saturday evening, Yehudi Wyner’s “Sonnet: In the Arms of Sleep” was a wise, arresting setting of an Elizabeth Bishop poem (sung by Lucy Shelton), one that heeds the call of its own text, which begins “I am in need of music that would flow/ Over my fretful, feeling fingertips.” On Friday, John Harbison’s “Seven Poems of Lorine Niedecker” (with pianist Ursula Oppens and soprano Sarah Tuttle) deftly amplified the resonance of Niedecker’s richly allusive verse. Helen Grime’s ear-catching duo, “Embrace,” found new common ground in the typically disparate sound worlds of the trumpet and clarinet. And Shulamit Ran’s delicately tinted chamber work “Birkat Haderekh,” for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, glowed with a sense of gentle but firm supplication, its title rendered from the Hebrew as “Blessing for the Road.”

In addition to the Schuller premiere, Thursday night also included a challenging new work called “Megalith” by Charles Wuorinen, which placed pianist Peter Serkin in sharply etched, fractured dialogue with a large mixed ensemble, including groups of musicians in two balconies. Elliott Carter’s “A Sunbeam’s Architecture” featured tenor Nicholas Phan, who sensitively negotiated these lapidary settings of poems by E. E. Cummings, supported by another large ensemble bravely led by Berman on no rehearsal.

Over the course of the weekend, whenever Ozawa Hall was not crackling with the sound of the new, the action shifted to the Shed, where on Friday night Christoph von Dohnanyi led a forcefully articulated all-Beethoven program (including a debut by Vadim Gluzman as soloist in the Violin Concerto), and on Saturday, Michael Tilson Thomas led a strongly characterized account of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, with Emanuel Ax’s elegant Mozart, somewhat untidily supported, on the first half. On Monday night, Tilson Thomas will venture down to Ozawa Hall to close out FCM with a program honoring the guiding lights of the Music Center’s founding generation: Bernstein, Copland, and Lukas Foss.

At: Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall; Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

Summary: This year’s edition of the Tanglewood Music Center’s Festival of Contemporary Music celebrated the school’s 75th anniversary, and honored the memory of composer Gunther Schuller.


Forecasts for devastating storms fizzled out Tuesday, as snowfall failed to accumulate at record levels as predicted in many areas.

The economic impact will be similarly muted for businesses in the affected area, Planalytics' Evan Gold told CNBC on Tuesday.

Read MoreMeteorologists apologize for huge blizzard miss

"We think the economic impact of the storm is going to be relatively small, said Gold, senior vice president of the weather advisory firm.

"We're estimating at about $500 million, and that's simply based on the duration of the storm, the timing of the storm, and the population centers that are impacted," he said in a "Squawk Box" interview.

That compares with a $15 billion to $50 billion impact due to a polar vortex and significant snowfall early in 2014, he said.

The losers include restaurants and other food service companies that depend on workers coming in for lunch, Gold said. Meanwhile, food delivery services and on-demand entertainment companies may get a boost as workers and families ride out school and office closures.

Read More How to trade the historic blizzard

Retailers could also see some upside, since the storm arrived during one of the weakest shopping periods of the year, he said. Storm preparation buying gives retailers the opportunity to clear out winter inventory.

As for delivery and logistics companies like FedEx and UPS, Gold said this is not the first storm they have weathered. "They are as much about the preparation as anything else. Everything I've heard is they are operating as close to normal as possible today."

FedEx and UPS trucks may even have an easier time navigating the streets because so many schools and businesses are closed, he added.

Home improvement retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe's are unlikely to see much of an impact on sales, Budd Bugatch, managing director at Raymond James, told "Squawk Box."

"Overall, I don't get very excited at these kind of events for these retailers," he said.

Bugatch assesses a storm's impact on retailers in three phases.

In this case, the preparation phase was relatively short since forecasts came in over the weekend, he said. The storm itself creates a drag on retailers as stores shut down—about 400 for Home Depot and 300 for Lowe's in the affected areas, he added. "That might actually turn out in the final analysis to be the biggest impact here."

Read More Live: Blizzard less severe than feared, travel bans remain

The aftermath is where retailers tend to get a boost. Home Depot saw about $500 million in improved sales in the four quarters after Hurricane Sandy, he said. This week's storm is unlikely to have a significant impact.

In the airline space, FlightAware reported that more than 7,000 flights scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were canceled.

The cancellations have largely been limited to the Northeast because air carrier got ahead of the storm and flew their planes and crews out of the area, Daniel Baker, Flightaware CEO, told "Squawk Box." Consequently, few flights in other parts of the country were impacted due to grounded planes.

However, more cancellations could be coming early on Wednesday morning because airlines need to get planes back into the Northeast before they can begin service out of the Northeast, he said.

"If you're flying into the Northeast tomorrow morning, you've got a good shot. The airlines want to get back in business. If you've got an early morning flight out of the Northeast tomorrow morning, it's pretty dicey," Gold said.

Read MoreNYSE says 'business as usual' Tuesday

The National Weather Service had warned of "crippling snowfall amounts" and potentially "life-threatening" blizzard conditions. Its New York office reported snow of between 6 and 10 inches early Tuesday. Eastern Long Island north through Massachusetts and Maine were now expected to fare the worst, with 1 to 3 feet of snow.

CNBC's Katrina Bishop and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Summary: Record snowfall failed to accumulate in the Northeast as forecast, and the impact should be muted for businesses in the affected areas, analysts told CNBC.


WHEN: Today, Monday, March 30th

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with Patriarch Partners CEO Lynn Tilton where she discusses the SEC announcement of fraud charges against her company. Following is the video on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000367074.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

ROBERT FRANK: LYNN TILTON, THE CEO AND FOUNDER OF PATRIARCH PARTNERS AND ONE OF THE RICHEST SELF MADE WOMEN IN AMERICA HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH FRAUD BY THE SEC. THE SEC ENFORCEMENT DIVISION ALLEGING THAT TILTON AND PATRIARCH HAVE BREACHED THEIR FIDUCIARY DUTIES AND DEFRAUDED CLIENTS BY FAILING TO VALUE ASSETS USING PRESCRIBED METHODOLOGY. NOW THIS HAS TO DO WITH THE CLOs THAT SHE USES TO FINANCE HER COMPANIES AND THE DISCLOSURES THAT WERE MADE TO INVESTORS IN THOSE. IN ANTICIPATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT WE MET WITH LYNN TILTON, WE HAVE HER STATEMENT. SHE SAYS SHE IS GOING TO FIGHT THIS. THIS IS A FIGHT OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL. AND SHE SAID THAT EVERYTHING THAT SHE NEEDED TO DISCLOSE WAS DISCLOSED TO INVESTORS. LET'S TAKE A LISTEN TO WHAT SHE TOLD US.

LYNN TILTON: MY NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IS PROTECTING MY COMPANIES AND MY PEOPLE SO THAT I CAN MAXIMIZE VALUE FOR THE FUNDS. MY PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW I'M STANDING INFRONT OF THEM. MY PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THAT I'M FIGHTING FOR THEM. BUT I ALSO WANT TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE I CAN FIGHT FOR TRUTH WITHOUT ASSUMING THAT BECAUSE IT IS THE GOVERNMENT, THAT I'M GUILTY WITHOUT THE BATTLE. SO AS SOMEONE WHO HAS ALWAYS FOUGHT FOR TRUTH, AND PROTECTED HER INTEGRITY AND HER INTENT AND HAVE PREVAILED, I EXPECT TO DO THAT. ALL OF THESE SOPHISTICATED INVESTORS KNEW THE STRATEGY OF BUYING DEEPLY DISTRESSED COMPANIES. AND THEN WORKING TOWARDS THE RESTRUCTURE AND THE REVIVAL. AND ANYTIME YOU ARE DEALING WITH SOMETHING HIGH RISK, NOT EVERYTHING MAKES IT. BUT AS WAS MY EXPERIENCE FROM THE PREVIOUS FUNDS WHICH WERE HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, IT IS ALWAYS THAT GROUP OF WINNERS, THAT GROUP OF GREAT TURNAROUND STORIES THAT ACTUALLY ARE THE DRIVERS OF THE REPAYMENT OF THE NOTES.

ROBERT FRANK: OBVIOUSLY GUYS, LYNN TILTON, ONE OF THE HIGHEST PROFILE FEMALE EXECUTIVES AND SELF MADE BILLIONAIRES IN AMERICA. SHE AGAIN IS VOWING TO FIGHT THESE CHARGES BY THE SEC CHARGING HER WITH FRAUD. SHE IS NOT GOING TO SETTLE THIS RIGHT NOW, SO IT LOOKS LIKE THIS IS GOING TO DRAG OUT FOR SOME TIME. GUYS, BACK OVER TO YOU.

With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNBC World and CNBC HD , CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to approximately 371 million homes worldwide, including more than 100 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.

CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms. These include CNBC.com, the online destination for global business; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides real-time global market data and live access to CNBC global programming; and a suite of CNBC Mobile products including the CNBC Real-Time iPhone and iPad Apps.

Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/mediavillage/networks/cnbc/.

Summary: Breaking News: CNBC's Robert Frank Speaks with Patriarch Partners CEO Lynn Tilton


Kraft Foods Group products will benefit from its merger with H.J. Heinz in large part to the increased international exposure it will provide, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Wednesday.

"Domestically, these are all pantry brands. You're not going to see these brands at Whole Foods," Cramer said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "These are brands that carry much better internationally than domestic."

Cramer made his remarks after both companies announced they would merge. Once the merger is complete, Kraft shareholders will own 49 percent of the new company, with Heinz controlling the rest. The new company will be the third-largest food company in the U.S. and the fifth-largest in the world.

Kraft's stock soared at Wednesday's open, rising nearly 33 percent. Click here to see where the stock is trading now.

"Most countries, strictly developing countries, are well behind us in terms of natural and organic," Cramer added. "This is one of those dying companies that can be reinvigorated by going to where many countries, frankly, are not as interested in health [which are] the same countries that still drink Coca-Cola, so it's a brilliant move by all involved."

Read MoreBuffett's HJ Heinz to merge with Kraft Foods

Kraft had recently been under scrutiny after the company recalled more than 240,000 cases of its Macaroni & Cheese Dinners.

DISCLOSURE: Cramer's trust did not own stock in any of the companies mentioned in this article at the time of its publication.

Summary: CNBC's Jim Cramer explained why the food giant will benefit from its newly announced merger with H.J. Heinz.


WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. unemployment rate fell to a seven-year low in August as employers added a modest 173,000 jobs, a key piece of evidence for the Federal Reserve in deciding whether to raise interest rates from record lows later this month.

The jobless rate fell to 5.1 percent — a level the Fed says is consistent with a normal economy — from 5.3 percent in July, the government said Friday. It's the lowest unemployment rate since April 2008.

Though hiring in August was the slowest in five months, the government revised up its estimates of job growth for June and July by a combined 44,000. From June through August, a robust 221,000 jobs a month were added, up from a 189,000 average from March through May. Three years of solid hiring have put 8 million Americans to work.

Friday's report appeared neither so strong nor so weak as to tilt the Fed decisively toward either a rate hike or against one. But as the final report on the job market before the Fed meets Sept. 16-17, it's one of the most significant pieces of evidence it will weigh.

Investors appeared disappointed by the report, perhaps because it could encourage Fed officials to lift rates. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 260 points in late morning trading, while broader stock indexes also fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note edged down to 2.14 percent from 2.16 percent late Thursday.

Many economists think the Fed will decide in two weeks to raise its benchmark rate for the first time in nine years. At the same time, stock market turbulence, a persistently low inflation rate and a sharp slowdown in China have complicated the decision.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at the financial information firm Markit, said Friday's report provided "frustratingly little new insight into whether the Fed will start to raise rates."

"A bumper payrolls number would have sealed the case for higher interest rates in many people's minds, while a low number would have dealt a blow to any chances of tightening of policy at the next meeting," Williamson said.

Once the Fed begins raising borrowing rates, higher rates are likely to eventually ripple through the economy. Americans could face higher costs for mortgages and other loans, though the increases could be modest and gradual.

A key question is how a faltering China, slow growth in Europe and a strong dollar will affect the overall U.S. economy. The answer probably won't be clear for months.

Friday's jobs data was gathered before the U.S. stock market plunged in late August, after signs emerged that China's troubles were worsening.

Though unemployment and job growth have reached levels that Fed officials have said reflect a healthy economy, some economists point to signs that the job market still has room to heal.

One example is paychecks: Average hourly wages for all workers rose 8 cents to $25.09 in August, lifting the annual gain to 2.2 percent in August. That's far below the roughly 3.5 percent yearly gain typical of a strong economy. The sluggish wage growth suggests that employers still see many unemployed workers and don't have to offer higher pay to attract qualified applicants.

Nor have the steady job gains of the past three years encouraged more Americans to re-enter or join the job market. The proportion of Americans either working or looking for work remained at a 38-year low in August.

A stumbling global economy and stronger dollar, which makes U.S. exports costlier overseas, could slice a percentage point off U.S. growth through the second half of next year, according to economists at Goldman Sachs.

More so than other months, August's jobs totals typically undershoot the revisions that the government provides later. The government struggles to seasonally adjust the data for the millions of summer jobs that are eliminated throughout the month. August job gains have been revised higher by 79,000 over the past five years, Goldman Sachs estimates.

The report contained hints that international pressures that infected stock and commodity markets may have begun to weigh on employers. More than half of the jobs added last month came from sectors insulated from the global economy: Government, education and health services.

Their share of job creation nearly doubled from 27.1 percent in July, reflecting not just the start of the school year but also weaknesses in other sectors of the economy where foreign customers and capital matter more.

Public education accounted for more than 18 percent of the jobs added in August. Local school districts and state colleges added 31,900 workers.

Service sector companies, such as restaurants, retailers, banks and construction companies are expanding at the fastest pace in nearly a decade, according to a survey by the Institute for Supply Management.

But manufacturing firms have been stumbling amid the global headwinds. Manufacturers cut 17,000 jobs in August, the most since July 2013. Construction companies added just 3,000, even though home building and other construction have picked up.

Brian Petranick, chief executive of Right at Home, a provider of in-home care to the elderly and disabled with 410 outlets, plans to open 15 new franchises by the end of the year that will employ up to 1,500 people. Yet Petranick says his need to keep prices competitive limits how much more he can pay workers.

"We're not feeling a lot of pressure yet" to lift wages, he says.

Overall, the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits remains very low by historical standards — evidence that companies are still confident enough about customer demand to maintain their staff levels.

There are other signs that the U.S. job market remains solid. Americans overall have a brighter outlook: According to the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey, nearly 22 percent of Americans said jobs were plentiful in August. That matched the proportion who said jobs were hard to get — the first time since early 2008 that the two figures have been equal.

AP Economics Writers Josh Boak and Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.

Summary: WASHINGTON— The U.S. unemployment rate fell to a seven-year low in August as employers added a modest 173,000 jobs, a key piece of evidence for the Federal Reserve in deciding whether to raise interest rates from record lows later this month. It's the lowest unemployment rate since April 2008. But as the final report on the job market before the Fed meets Sept. 16-17,...


After years of sluggish growth following the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K. economy has finally come back into its own and is set to clock up a healthy 3 percent growth rate this year. However, house prices remain a concern, with a 10 percent surge over the past year stoking fears of a bubble.

Read MoreIs sterling punching above its weight?

As the economy recovers, many industry watchers have speculated that the central bank could raise interest rates from all-time lows of 0.5 percent in a bid to offset inflation. Consequently the pound jumped 13 percent since last July, and was trading around $1.6833 at the beginning of the session.

While manufacturing and service sector data in the U.K. is accelerating, analysts have underlines that retail sales growth remains weak. More importantly, annualized consumer price growth slowed to 1.6 percent in March from 1.7 percent in February, dampening rate hike expectations.

"The strong currency also puts further pressure on inflation and as long as the risk of a jump in inflation expectations is low, the BoE may prefer to keep monetary policy steady for the time being," Kathy Lien, managing director at BK Asset Management, said before the announcement.

She said the BoE could move to tame housing market inflation by scaling back its Help-to-Buy scheme and imposing mortgage restrictions, rather than tightening monetary policy.

Summary: The British pound slipped to a four-week low against the dollar on Wednesday morning after investors were left disappointed following the Bank of England's (BoE) inflation report.


Russia's rouble had held more or less steady in recent days against the U.S. dollar, despite the greenback's strengthening against other global currencies, as companies bought roubles to pay their local quarterly taxes. As the tax season ended, demand for roubles declined, whereas demand for foreign currency remained strong due to debt redemptions.

"The issue remains--uplifted debt redemptions in September, so with lower payments in October and November we think the rouble may see some correction," said Dmitry Polevoy, chief economist for Russia at ING Bank.

Officials also expected the rouble to strengthen.

"I think the rouble is oversold," said Russian Economy Minister Alexander Ulyukayev. "We expect it to strengthen somewhat."

However, he said investors would likely start to "doubt Russia's investment climate" further after prosecutors Friday said they were seeking to renationalize a controlling stake in oil company Bashneft, owned by conglomerate AFK Sistema. The main shareholder of Sistema, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, is under house arrest and under investigation on money-laundering charges.

Read MoreIt can get scary being a Russian oil billionaire

Russia's economy shows little sign of picking up. The economy ministry said the country's gross domestic product didn't grow in August year-over-year and declined by 0.4% from July. However, as the total cost of import declines amid a slowing economy and a recently introduced ban on food imports, Russia's trade surplus grew 17% in August to $16.6 billion, which could support the rouble somewhat.

Summary: Russia is considering weighing introducing temporary capital controls if the flow of money out of the country intensifies, Bloomberg reported.


That increase was due, in part, to several automakers boosting their diesel fleets over the past several years.

Audi, for example, brought out three new "oil-burners" for 2014, and another for the current model year. In 2013, Chevrolet launched its first diesel-powered passenger car in decades, a version of the Chevrolet Cruze. Also for the 2014 model year, Chrysler added the Ram EcoDiesel pickup, winning over new buyers and a number of prestigious awards.

More from The Detroit Bureau: List of 'safest' cars nearly doubles for 2015 2014 was the year of the recall: What's ahead? US taxpayers lost how much on auto bailout?

Though diesel fuel has traditionally been more expensive, it's usually only about 25 cents or 50 cents pricier, depending on the state. And because vehicles that run on diesel are more fuel efficient than traditional gasoline-powered cars, drivers were often willing to shell out the extra dough.

Now, however, there are a number of factors driving the larger gap between gas and diesel prices.

Local tax policies are one culprit, as some states charge more for diesel fuel to make up for higher road maintenance costs caused by heavy truck traffic. Another factor is that the U.S. now exports a significant portion of the diesel fuel it produces, causing domestic prices to rise from the competition.

Read MoreAll-electric cars: Ya, not so eco-friendly

And because diesel fuel is also used to heat homes, a severe cold snap can also push prices higher, Sullivan said.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the gap between gas and diesel fuel will continue to widen, and if so, for how long. As for whether sales of these vehicles will continue their downward trend, December's auto sales results—to be released Monday—should offer a clue.

Summary: Drivers who depend on diesel fuel were still paying an average of $3.21 a gallon as of Dec. 29.


If you were expecting Barra to rehash how GM engineers and executives created, and then failed to acknowledge, faulty ignition switches in 2.6 million vehicles, think again. Over the past year, the CEO has stood up, taken the bashing and focused on getting past the scandal.

Read MoreFind out how many cars were recalled in 2014

She started by creating a new office inside the company to oversee how it handles safety issues. After that, she announced that the automaker would start holding executives and employees accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.

"The message internally is we have to be quick, and be quick to respond in minimizing challenges," she said.

Although Barra said she can tell GM is a better company, there's yet to be any third-party data to back that claim—if it ever comes. The proof will be in vehicle reliability scores and the number of recalls the company issues in years to come.

Summary: Mary Barra, in describing 2014, told reporters: "I didn't expect it to unfold like it did. It was clearly a tragedy and troubling."


10/14/2015 AT 02:15 PM EDT

has any regrets, being a child star is not one of them.

"I was just totally in love with coming to work every day," the

star says in the current issue of PEOPLE of booking a role in the Nickelodeon film

After the film was released in 2000, Peck joined the cast of Nickelodeon's

and then, at 17, co-headlined smash-hit sitcom

Though he was exposed to Hollywood success at such a young age, Peck credits mother, Barbara, for keeping him grounded.

"My mom doesn't play," says the 28-year-old. "Even now, if I say something remotely fresh, she'll still call me on it."

ended after four seasons in 2007, Peck was "eager to be challenged in a different way." He tried a community college class but ultimately decided to continue acting.

He did voiceover work in three

sequels, bypassed the studio "gatekeepers" by producing his own content and amassing 8.8 million followers on the social media app Vine, worked opposite

"It's a dream," Peck says of working on the Fox sitcom. "John is so generous with his years of knowledge about this business. He tells me to always be 'classic.' "

Peck has seen a lot of his former child actors fade from the spotlight, and he's grateful he was provided with the tools to make it out the other side still acting.

"When you're a cute kid and maybe have some natural talent, it seems quite easy," he says of his chosen career. "But this takes an incredible amount of work and focus and dedication. You have to weather the times when you're not working. There's a lot of rejection. I understood that early on. I never let any of that deter me from my main focus – my passion."

airs Tuesdays (8 p.m. ET) on Fox.

Summary: "When you're a cute kid and maybe have some natural talent, it seems quite easy," Peck tells PEOPLE says of his chosen career. "But this takes an incredible amount of work"


"Pure electrics have been slow to catch on in the resale market," says Eric Ibara, director of residual consulting for Kelley Blue Book. Customers "have been willing to buy a new one, not a used electric vehicle."

Indeed, three electric cars—Leaf, Fiat 500e and Smart Fortwo electric—topped the list of models projected by KBB to have the highest depreciation among all cars and trucks for the 2014 model year.

(Read more: Most fuel-efficient automakers)

Tackling concerns about depreciation, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced in May that he would personally back the resale value of its Model S all-electric sedan for buyers who use Tesla's finance program. Tesla said that under the deal, resale value will be higher than BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus or Jaguar.

As bad as that sounds, there are some mitigating factors. In particular, many buyers are given sales incentives packages and don't pay anywhere near the list price. Some of the biggest discounts come on leases. And many electric cars qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, plus state or local incentives. Big discounts on news cars hurt residual values.

More from USA Today: Don't let IRS gobble your IRA with tax penalties What should happen to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac? Motley Fool: Betting on Tesla stock in 2014

Plug-in hybrid cars, those with backup gas engines, fair better, KBB reports. For instance, Porsche's new Panamera E-Hybrid has a predicted resale value of 37 percent, compared with 41 percent for the conventional model. Toyota's Plug-In Prius has a resale of 35 percent, only 2 percentage points less than for the conventional version.

Nissan officials note the electric car, or EV, revolution is still in its infancy. The market for used electric cars is yet to develop.

"We expect to see a similar adoption curve for used EVs as we have for new EVs, and we are just now reaching the point where there are used EVs on the market," says Erik Gottfried, director of marketing for Nissan Leaf. "EVs are one of the most active and fast-moving segments of the automotive market."

(Read more: Volt's weak sales raise questions about demand)

—By Chris Woodyard, USA Today.

Summary: Plug-in electric cars may be worth less compared to their original value over five years than conventionals. USA Today reports.


10/30/2015 AT 07:00 AM EDT

has been bombarded with questions and speculations about her

, "Used to Love You," but for the singer, the song says it all.

"It's funny when people try to go deeper into a song that's already, like so spilling my guts. What else can I say?" Stefani, 46, told PEOPLE as she arrived at the 2015 UCLA Neurosurgery Visionary Ball in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday.

"I've never put music out in real time where I'm really going through stuff. I only wrote that song a few weeks ago."

The No Doubt singer debuted the single during her

in New York City on Oct. 10. Naturally, many speculated that the song, and the emotional video behind it, was the result of her split from

Stefani did not say at the event whether

was the inspiration behind the song, much like her

earlier this week. But she did tell PEOPLE that "it's been amazing" to have so many people see the heart-wrenching video – "which wasn't even supposed to be the video" – and "understand it."

"That feels good to me. It's like comfort," she said. "And I love doing music and having that. It's like I'm giving you something and then you're giving me something."

The 46-year-old singer stunned on the red carpet at the event where she donned a striped, backless number with fishnet stockings and a slicked-back 'do.

She sported a big smile as she snapped solo pics and snaps alongside

Summary: For Gwen Stefani, her new song "Used to Love You" says it all


12/09/2015 AT 04:10 PM EST

is officially reporting for lifeguard/beach beauty duty.

movie, rising star Daddario, 29, is

and feeling what any of us would be feeling if we were sharing screen time with Johnson and Efron: all of the excitement.

"For me, Dwayne is as close to a god as you get on earth," Daddario tells PEOPLE of Johnson, with whom she worked on last summer's disaster pic

. "There is something so superhuman about him, even forgetting the fact that he's so incredibly good-looking and strong. He's just so kind and humble and generous and genuine. Working with him really inspires a great deal of confidence. Everybody tries to live up to his work ethic, so it makes a great work environment."

"Zac, I only met him once and thought he was the nicest guy," she says of Efron. "He was so nice and obviously incredibly handsome and seems down to earth. I look forward to getting to know him better."

While she can't reveal any major plot details, the New York native teases a "very funny and smart" big screen adaptation of the '90s TV series. Also, much like the sex appeal that was at the forefront of the show, there will be plenty of equal opportunity semi-nudity.

"Considering that Dwayne and Zac Efron are going to be in the movie, there's going to be as much pandering camera shots of their abs as there will be of the women," says Daddario, adding that she's hoping her wardrobe includes a bit more support than the eye-popping swimsuits worn by original cast members like

"From what I can tell, [the swimsuits] are going to be an homage to what existed [on the original show], but I have no idea what they're going to do with it. I'm sure there will be some support in there," she says.

Swimsuit support or no, Daddario is starting to prepare for the more revealing aspect of the wardrobe with proper nutrition and exercise.

"I'm starting to cut out wine and cheese to the best of my ability in order to prepare for it," she says. "I'm pretty consistently fit because I think it's an important part of my work, but I will ramp it up just because I have been enjoying myself a little bit too much."

Daddario's exercise of choice? Yoga.

"I love yoga. For some reason I find jogging incredibly boring but yoga is the only thing I've been able to consistently do over the years," she says. "I think it's because it also is sort of a mental exercise and calms you and refocuses you. So I find that that's great and sometimes someone will drag me to a spin class or on a hike. Now that I have a dog, I frequently have to take him out and get some exercise, which also gets me exercise."

is set to shoot sometime next year, likely in the South according to Daddario. In the meantime, you can catch the actress stirring things up with

and Finn Witrock on the next two new episodes of

Summary: Alexandra Daddario says she's really hoping for a supportive swimsuit in the upcoming Baywatch movie