FORTUNE — It has now been three weeks since Facebook FB went public. Or, put another way, it has now been three weeks since any company went public. Anywhere. Even diamond retailers and auto racing leagues couldn’t get out.

This is the IPO chill I first expressed concern about shortly after Facebook priced, and it seems to have come to pass. The only question now is whether or not the social network is to blame, or if it’s a reflection of Europe-centric macro issues.

Most market participants I speak with side with the latter. For example, yesterday I spent some time on the phone with Tom Kloet, CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange (which is in the process of being acquired by Maple Group). He said that while TSX is trying to learn from the Facebook experience – particularly the technical issues faced by Nasdaq – he believes the recent lack of new issues is tied to broader economic uncertainties.

“You have lots of questions about Europe, concerns about the U.S. jobs market and the U.S. elections coming up,” Kloet said. “I think those factors are what most companies are thinking about in terms of new or secondary public listings, rather than about Facebook.”

Fair enough, although weren’t most of those same issues in play a month ago?

Isn’t it possible that traditional IPO buyers are backing off, worried that their implicit pops are no longer as likely? Again, this isn’t just a social or consumer tech issue. It’s expanded to enterprise, retail, healthcare, etc. After one or two weeks, maybe it was coincidence, particularly given the Memorial Day weekend. But with an empty IPO calendar for next week – and far more companies pulling registrations than filing new ones – it’s becoming an actual trend.

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Summary: Baby, it's cold outside.


Bourgeois invasion: artist who gave Tate Modern legs brings new work to Britain

Ten new works by Louise Bourgeois, one of the most prolific and influential artists in the world today, will go on show in Britain this autumn.

Bourgeois, born in Paris and now living in New York, was the first artist commissioned to fill the Turbine Hall for the opening of Tate Modern in 2000, for which she created a giant steel spider entitled I Do, I Undo, I Redo.

The new works by the artist, aged 95, who takes inspiration from her childhood, will be unveiled in an exhibition at the Hauser & Wirth Colnaghi gallery, London, in October.

The show, which will go on display in the gallery's dramatic main room with its dark red silk walls, coincides with Bourgeois' first major UK retrospective, to be held at Tate Modern.

This will showcase more than 200 of Bourgeois' works, spanning the full range of mediums she has used: from latex to marble, tapestry to old underwear. It will include her seminal sculpture The Destruction of the Father, which has never been shown in the UK before. Alongside her larger works, such as her famous "cells" (cages constructed to contain installation pieces), will be cabinets containing her smaller, handmade figurines.

Hauser & Wirth will show six bronzes, two sculptures in fabric, a selection of works on paper and two huge vitrine works (sculptures encased in glass cabinets), which evoke Bourgeois' family business of tapestry restoration, and will feature the motif of the hand, which occurs again and again in her work. Gregor Muir, director of H&W, says: "Her pieces are timeless, brilliant and penetrating in the way she works her life into artistic form. She is one of the few living artists who straddle both modern and contemporary art."

Celebrities take on global warming

Can stars save the planet? A batch of celeb-fronted eco-documentaries is about to hit our screens. Leonardo DiCaprio has co-produced and co-written 11th Hour, in which he follows in Al Gore's footsteps to summon the great and good of the science world to discuss global warming. Meanwhile, Starbucks is promoting a film called Arctic Tale. With a script co-written by Al Gore's daughter Kristin, the film - narrated by hip-hop's Queen Latifah - follows the adventures of Nanu, a young polar bear cub, and Seela, a baby walrus. The soundtrack, including tracks by the Shins and Ben Harper, will be played at Starbucks shops. A spokesman for the chain says: "This is not about trying to drive more coffee business. We want to build awareness about the issue of climate change."

Will Okonedo do the Twist?

Filming starts next week on a new BBC production of Oliver Twist, to air in autumn, with Timothy Spall as Fagin. Still awaiting confirmation are Thomas Turgoose, the young star of Shane Meadows' film This is England, for the role of the Artful Dodger, and Sophie Okonedo, star of Hotel Rwanda, for Nancy.

Sweeney Todd cast eat all the pies

The smell of freshly baked pies will welcome visitors to the recently reopened Royal Festival Hall in the next few days. Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel and the rest of the cast of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd - in which the notorious "demon barber" serves up his victims in pies - will be gobbling more than two dozen similar "mystery" pies each night, made by local restaurant Canteen.

"I have a punishing workout regime. Every day, I do three minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette."Anthony Hopkins

Summary: Francesca Martin: Bourgeois invasion: artist who gave Tate Modern legs brings new work to Britain | Celebrities take on global warming | Will Okonedo do the Twist? | Sweeney Todd cast eat all the pies | Say what?


It is a freezing afternoon with 13 shopping days to go before Christmas, and the gift shop at the V&A is bustling. The tills are ringing up posters and aprons, bracelets and brooches. In one corner, a pair of splendidly coiffed matrons pretend to be scandalised by an embroidered motto that reads "Folk Art, Let's Dance". A young girl gazes longingly at a pair of butterfly wellies. The surrounding galleries seem hushed, gloomy - and, yes, a bit empty. Over the past few years, museum shops have transformed themselves beyond recognition. Some of us might carry a little torch for the gift shop of old, a place to blow all your pocket money on a pen full of glitter, a plastic pendant and a rude postcard at the end of the school trip. But today's visitors are greeted by an altogether different proposition: a sophisticated retail experience involving paint-your-own-robot T-shirts, animatronic dinosaurs and replica crossbows. Galleries, schmalleries: these shops alone are worth the trip.

It is almost 20 years since the V&A was lambasted for branding itself as "an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached", and it's hard to imagine the same campaign (devised by the Saatchis, inevitably) causing such a stir today. Sarah Sevier, head of buying and product development at V&A Enterprises, admits that some shoppers - a tiny minority, of course - never get as far as the exhibits.

"We know that we have a customer base that may not go to the rest of the museum," she says. "We don't compare ourselves with other gallery shops. In terms of our positioning, we're looking more towards the high street, following seasonal changes and fashion trends."

Sharon Heal, editor of Museums Journal, agrees that the gallery shopping experience has expanded hugely. "If you tried, you could tick off your entire present list in the South Kensington museums. The nature of the museum visit has changed since free admission. People can now pop in for 10 or 15 minutes and come back time and time again."

National museums and art galleries are under greater pressure than ever from the government to generate their own income, and the need to focus on retail has produced some imaginative ideas. Products are often created in collaboration with artists; at their best (or worst, depending on your point of view), they blur the line between the shop and the gallery it serves. Selling everything from Rokeby Venus washbags to Canaletto ties, Andy Warhol oven gloves to Van Gogh earrings, the gallery shop is where the endless romance between art and commerce is joyfully (and affordably) consummated.

The financial contribution these shops make is considerable. The Tate - like the British Museum, the National Gallery and many others - has a separate company dedicated to creating a profit from the building's shops and cafes. Everything these companies make is covenanted back to their charitable parent museums, thus avoiding corporation tax. These contributions do not yet compare with public subsidy - the Tate's various shops accounted for 12% of its income last year - but the cash comes, crucially, without strings, and can be spent as gallery bosses see fit.

Of course, some artists are more suited to the checkout than others. Gilbert and George, for instance, adore merchandising; they collaborated enthusiastically with the Tate shop to market their 2007 exhibition.

"They're very mischievous," says Celia Clear, chief executive of Tate Enterprises. "We went to them not knowing whether they would want to do anything, and found that they already had masses of ideas. We had to hone them down until they were affordable - and not too rude." This led to one of the year's merchandising must-haves, the Gilbert and George swearbox, along with collapsible wooden puppets, Rubik's cubes and sliding puzzles.

Louise Bourgeois and Peter Blake proved keen collaborators, with Blake helping the Tate shop create a make-your-own collage kit. But not everyone wishes to be so intensively marketed. "The older generation of artists just want their work to be seen as art," says Clear. "They don't want to see it on a fridge magnet or a bag. In any case, some of them don't want to be seen as designers."

Nor would you catch the Tate selling a Mark Rothko beach towel. When the artist is dead, it becomes a question of finding something that is both in the spirit of the work and approved by the estate. (In the case of Rothko, this means simply selling prints and books.)

The biggest sellers at the major shops are usually the ones that reflect whichever blockbuster exhibition is on at the time. At the British Museum, replica terracotta warriors (£20 each) are flying off the shelves, thanks to the First Emperor exhibition. But the exhibition cycle can be problematic for retailers, as the hottest buy often has the shortest shelf-life. "Typically, you've only got 12 weeks to sell it," says Clear. "People can absolutely adore something on Sunday night, and then on Monday morning, it's a dead duck. A Millais scarf would have a has-been feeling the day after the exhibition."

So who is buying this stuff? According to Sevier, the V&A's shoppers break down into three broad categories. The first is the one-time visitor, looking for a souvenir. Then you have the frequent shopper: "They know our exhibition programmes well," Sevier says. "They're looking for seasonal variation, they have good general awareness of the V&A, and they like to spend money." Finally, there are the more expert patrons, who may even be involved in the museum business; they come to buy specific designer products or artistic works. Shoppers also vary according to the season, and the galleries adjust their merchandise accordingly. At Tate Modern, for instance, the summer collection is pitched more towards tourists who have come to admire the building as much as the art.

Museum shopkeepers don't like to be accused of frivolity, and make much of their dedication to authenticity and educational value. "It's not just pens, pencils and rubbers; we shouldn't be classed that way," says Kate Channing, the British Museum Company's director of retail. "What we're doing is mirroring the fantastic wealth of the collections. If you took a magnifying glass to our replica Rosetta stone, you would be able to decipher the three scripts that unlocked the hieroglyphs. We pay a lot of attention to detail."

Speaking of fantastic wealth, the British Museum offers one or two gifts that would test the most capacious wallet. Best is a bronze head of Aphrodite, cast from a genuine Victorian mould, a snip at £1,950. But the most consistent sellers everywhere are the books and the good old-fashioned exhibition catalogues - a reassuring reminder that people do still go to galleries to look at the pictures.

Summary: Our museums and galleries are busier than ever this holiday season. But is anyone actually looking at the art? Paul Arendt on the rise and rise of the gallery shop


Ilya Repin's Manifesto of October 17th, 1905, 1911. Photograph: State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

More than a blockbuster, this exhibition explores the relationship between French and Russian art during the 19th and early 20th century, and includes works from the major state museums in both Moscow and St Petersburg: killer Gauguins and impressionist works, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, culminating with Malevich's Suprematist abstractions.

· Royal Academy, London, Jan 26-April 18 (0870 848 8484).

With subjects ranging from his memories of a Canadian adolescence, skiing, drugs, road trips, movies, and life in Trinidad - where Scottish-born Doig now lives - and a technical breadth that keeps his art always on the move, this is the first mid-career survey of this influential and fascinating painter.

· Tate Britain, London, Feb 5-April 27 (020-7887 8888).

The visual-arts high-point of the city's year as European capital of culture, the biennial's previous four editions have been, by international standards, lacklustre affairs. The theme explores the artistic imagination, under the title Made Up. Other concurrent city-wide exhibitions include the lively Independents Biennial, the John Moores painting prize exhibition and the New Contemporaries show of student and graduate work.

· Various venues, Liverpool, Sept 20-Nov 30 (0151-709 7444).

Rothko at Tate Modern/Francis Bacon at Tate Britain

Francis Bacon said some disparaging things about Mark Rothko, but also realised that the American's fields of colour would make great backgrounds to his tortured figures. Between Bacon's ebullient miserabilism and Rothko's aspirations to the tragic, London should be fun, fun, fun next autumn.

· Mark Rothko, Tate Modern, London, Sept 26-Feb 1; Francis Bacon, Tate Britain, London, Oct 1-Jan 11 (020-7887 8888).

Van Eyck to Titian: the Renaissance Portrait

Produced in conjunction with the Prado in Madrid, this exhibition brings together around 70 paintings from both northern and southern renaissance Europe, along with relevant sculptures, prints and medals. The show includes Van Eyck and Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Dürer, Holbein and Boticcelli, Cranach and Titian.

· National Gallery, London, Oct 15-Jan 18 (020-7747 2885).

Summary: The next twelve months feature a wealth of artistic high points, from Van Eyck portraits at the National Gallery to the eagerly-awaited From Russia exhibition at the Royal Academy


FORTUNE — Forget its softer side, Sears just wants to be cheap and trendy.

On April 14, Sears SHLD will launch its new Now + Here shops in Sears stores and online, which the Chicago-based retailer touts as “fast fashion” shops that will keep customers “on the pulse of fashion at affordable prices,” according to its release. It will offer “fashion tops, bottoms, cardigans and vests” — yes, even vests.

It’s no secret that Sears needs a revenue infusion. For the 2013 fiscal year, it recorded a net loss of $1.4 billion. In the fourth quarter alone, the retailer lost $358 million, which is actually an improvement over the $489 million it lost in the fourth quarter of 2012. But going after the 18- to 34-year-old woman is a curious move for a retailer that’s likely better known for its appliances and tools than its fashion sense.

MORE: Brookstone’s bankruptcy woes don’t mean the mall’s dead

Then again, who wouldn’t try to win even a fraction of the global fast fashion market — known for its ultra-trendy looks, near-disposable quality, and modest price tags? The fast fashion market has more than tripled in size since before the recession, according to Euromonitor, which measures the market by specialty apparel and footwear sales. In 2007, fast fashion sales totaled $41.6 billion. Last year they reached $124 billion.

European powerhouses H&M and Zara — which have perfected the process of identifying clothing trends and delivering them to consumers quickly and cheaply — dominate the global fast fashion scene. In 2007, Sweden’s H&M owned 1.3% of the specialty retail and footwear market; now it has the largest market share — 1.6% — as its sales increased 62% in the past five years to $18.3 billion in 2013, Euromonitor says. Likewise, Spanish retailer Zara increased its market share from 0.9% to 1.2% in the five-year span, with sales surging 60% to $12.9 billion last year.

As a more traditional retailer trying to catch up, Sears is certainly not alone. For instance, when teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch ANF announced in February that its fourth-quarter same-store sales shrank 8%, CEO Mike Jeffries emphasized that the company would focus on improving its women’s fashions and increasing style differentiation, all at a lower cost.

What’s fueled the current fast fashion frenzy is the more discerning, penny-pinched consumer, who’s now shopping for apparel the way she shops for everything else: based on immediate need. As the recession constricted consumers’ discretionary spending, and as the global reach of the Internet accelerated fashion trends, the everyday shopper started buying clothing that she could wear now instead of shopping for the coming season, says Marshal Cohen, a chief industry analyst at The NPD Group. “I don’t care who you are, no one is buying a swimsuit in February anymore,” he says.

The increasing immediacy of fashion is a challenge for traditional retailers that typically decide what they’ll hang on their racks six to nine months ahead of time. Fast fashion retailers, meanwhile, have programmed their supply chains to work six to 10 weeks in advance, which allows them to follow trends more closely.

MORE: In battling German unions, will Amazon emulate Wal-Mart?

Succeeding in fast fashion isn’t easy; it depends on three things, says Ashma Kunde, a retail analyst for Euromonitor: quickly bringing clothes to market, identifying and capitalizing on trends, and affordability. Sears promises its Now + Here apparel will range from $20 to $42, but whether it can deliver on speed and style remains to be seen. Sears has been working to speed up its supply chain for some time now, according to Nick Grayston, president of apparel at Sears. Positive responses to a test run of Now + Here’s monthly deliveries last fall prompted the larger roll-out of the shops, Grayston said in an email, adding that the company’s roster of designers and buyers in San Francisco and New York will be able to “quickly assess market trends to get them into the hands of our members while they’re still hot.”

Also looming over Sears’ fast fashion launch is how the store will coax teens and twenty- and thirtysomethings through its doors in a crowded U.S. market. Forever 21 is the U.S.’s longest fast fashion resident, Kunde says, but H&M, Zara, and newcomers like online retailer ASOS have upped the competition. “What’s going to make [Sears] stand out?” Kunde says. “The market’s at the point where you can’t rely on the basics anymore because everyone’s doing that.” Grayston, for his part, says that Sears’ shop-in-shop concept has helped attract a new type of customer since it enhances the shopping experience with signage, fixtures, and mannequins that communicate “a distinct brand point of view.”

Luckily for Sears, in addition to being frugal and demanding, today’s fast fashion consumers are tremendously disloyal. They care about what the clothes look like, not which stores sell them. “If you have a really great product at the right time, it’ll spread like wildfire. All it takes is a couple of wins,” Cohen says. But that theory comes with a flip side: As quickly as fast fashion brands enter the market, he says, they can disappear.

Summary: The struggling retailer is introducing its Now + Here shop in stores and online in an attempt to capture a piece of the growing fast fashion market.


Today’s the day that co-founder and inventor of the PageRank algorithm takes back the reigns of Google, replacing Eric Schmidt who reigned over a successful decade of expansion.

In a surprise announcement at January’s earnings call, Google GOOG announced that CEO Eric Schmidt would be stepping down and Larry Page would be replacing him.

Although, Eric Schmidt’s role as “Adult Supervisor” has been joked about, the stability he brought to the company did hold some intrinsic value. Not only is he leaving as the most popular Tech CEO with his employees, he was a grounding force for Google’s more outlandish founders.

In comments to NPR, Inside the Plex author Stephen Levy says that things at Google are going to get wilder.

“I think Larry will do things differently,” Levy says. “But in a way, Larry’s values have always been the core values of Google. Even while Eric was CEO, it was Larry whose obsession with speed and scale and ambition and artificial intelligence — those were the things that Google engineers held up as ideals there. Eric’s job was to sit back with a rudder and steer that ambition and those huge goals and sometimes audacious projects that Larry would set Google on. So it will be interesting to see what happens when Eric’s hand doesn’t really reach over to Larry’s shoulder and say, ‘Maybe, Larry, not now,’ which has happened a lot over the years.”

Page has been seen as the “geek visionary” of Google since its inception, coming up with many of the company’s most creative ideas. Levy says that trend will continue, along with even bigger, bolder projects.

“We’ll expect more of what they call ‘moon shots’ from Google. These are things that most outsiders would say is beyond what Google should be doing,”

Colin W. Gillis at BCG Partners thinks this may hurt Google’s share price. His thinking is that Page will be less focused on the bottom line, and investments will take priority over profits. His five concerns with a Page-led Google are:

Therefore, Gillis/BCG has a HOLD rating on Google.

For an idea of what Larry Page thinks about, have a listen (the video and audio aren’t synched very well) of Larry Page’s hour long talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.

Summary: Today's the day that co-founder and inventor of the PageRank algorithm takes back the reigns of Google, replacing Eric Schmidt who reigned over a successful decade of expansion. In a surprise announcement at January's earnings call, Google announced that CEO Eric Schmidt would be stepping down and Larry Page would be replacing him. Today's the…


FORTUNE — Two iconic companies will share the Wall Street stage as they go public this fall, and despite coming from vastly different eras and industries, both could end up with strong showings in their IPOs, thanks to a healthy appetite and short memories.

Chrysler and Twitter both will benefit from the strength of other initial stock offerings in their sectors over the last year or so and the overall IPO market’s strength.

“Whether there is uncertainty in Europe or Fed tapering, all that matters is whether returns are positive in the IPO market — and they are now. Strong post-IPO returns are the key factor,” says Kathleen R. Smith, a principal with IPO investment advisor Renaissance Capital. The firm’s data shows some recent IPOs are up 50%, with the average above 25%.

The U.S. IPO market may be bouncing back to levels last seen in 2007, with a stream of about 110 offerings lined up in biotech, technology, and consumer goods. That doesn’t count the 75 or so deals like Twitter that will use the JOBS Act to get into the public market.

MORE: The IPO market is on fire!

“Barring an external shock, the IPO market is likely to be strong this fall. There’s plenty of money around and the specter of the Facebook (FB) and Zynga (ZNGA) IPO debacles is fading,” says Erik Gordon, a business professor at University of Michigan.

The IPO market is benefiting from an increased appetite for risk, says Josef Schuster, who heads an IPO research firm that manages an index fund based on 100 recent IPOs. The First Trust U.S.IPO Fund ETF FPX is up 33.4% so far this year, vs. 30.2% for small growth funds tracked by Morningstar and 24% to 25% growth for mid-sized funds.

Some of the market is fueled by the smaller IPOs coming out under streamlined and “secret” share registration allowed under the JOBS Act of 2012. Under the JOBS Act, companies with less than $1 billion in revenues are allowed to submit their going-public paperwork confidentially, an approach used by about two-thirds of eligible companies, according to a Latham & Watkins analysis posted on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website. The law includes other accommodations for smaller faster growing companies, such as only disclosing two years of audited financial results, instead of three years that’s generally required. About half of them are technology companies, with energy, health care, and real estate also plentiful, Latham reported. Some 85% of them had revenue of $250 million or less.

The second quarter was the most active one for IPOs since the financial crisis, and by mid-August, the total U.S. IPOs had already exceeded the 2012 total, Renaissance Capital reported.

Overall, tech firms — along with Noodles and Co. ndls and Sprouts Farmers Market sfm , a natural grocery store chain — have shown the biggest first-day returns this year, according to Renaissance Capital’s IPO data.

Most investors will compare Chrysler not to Twitter but to it its peers in the auto sector that went public in the last two years, says Renaissance’s Smith. Those are supplier Delphi Automotive DLPH , which went public in November 2011 and whose shares up up 50% year to date, and GM gm , whose shares are up 27% year to date.

Twitter will be measured against Facebook, whose stock is up 17% from its starting gate, and LinkedIn, which is up 455% since its debut in May 2011. LinkedIn lnkd had one of the biggest first-day bounces of all IPOs, a 109.4% gain.

MORE: CEOs appear powerless in debt limit fight

“It’s sort of new economy and old economy,” University of Michigan’s Gordon says. Yet he believes Twitter and Chrysler’s market valuations after their IPOs could be fairly close to each other — both at roughly $10 billion to $12 billion.

Many other IPOs in the pipeline follow that dichotomy: Hilton Hotels, Claire’s shops, and RE/Max are old-school companies going public. Tech security firm Fire Eye and Chegg, which provides e-textbook rentals and online homework assistance, are among the new economy offerings.

Both Twitter and Chrysler have strong consumer brands — Twitter’s blue bird logo is widely recognized, and the social media service is used in many countries. Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” ad campaign has driven home its mix of muscle, polish, and grit. Its cars are sold mainly in the U.S., though.

Yet the companies are “polar opposites,” Gordon noted, with Twitter barely seven years old and Chrysler founded before the Great Depression.

“Chrysler is old, in an industry better known for bankruptcies and bailouts than for excitement, and whose coolest product was introduced a decade ago. Buying the Twitter IPO is betting on the future. Buying the Chrysler IPO is betting that Fiat will buy you out for a modest profit in a year or two,” he says.

Summary: Both Chrysler and Twitter could end up with strong showings in their IPOs, thanks to healthy appetites and short memories.


01/29/2015 AT 06:30 PM EST

is back and better than ever.

In her new single "I Bet," the singer lays her emotions on the table, singing about navigating a broken relationship.

"I bet you start loving me / As soon as I start loving someone else / Somebody better than you / I bet you start needing me / As soon as you see me with someone else / Somebody other than you," she sings on the hook.

"As a songwriter, I always pull from my life experiences as well as the experiences shared by others," the singer told PEOPLE. (She demurred to say whether the Harmony Samuels-produced tune is specifically about her

with Future, the father of her baby boy.) "It is important to me that my music feels real."

Since releasing her self-titled album

nearly two years ago, life has changed drastically for the new mom, 29, who gave birth to

"As soon as I had my son, everything changed," she says about choosing to name her upcoming album

after her mother. "I am now experiencing what [my mother] must have when I was young. [Becoming a mom] has inspired my creative process â¦ and given me clarity both with songwriting as well as musicality for the album."

Having baby Future is "the best thing that has happened to me," adds the singer, who often posts

of her little boy on Instagram.

"I play music for him all the time â¦ anything from nursery rhymes to my music," she says. "One of the greatest joys is when I'm singing to him. No matter what he's doing, he literally stops everything and smiles."

The singer's also been showing off her

, but advises new moms to not "overthink the process."

"Enjoy the six-week period you have where you are not allowed to workout," she says. "As soon as you hit that mark,

, but find your pace, have a healthy diet plan â¦ and drink tons of water."

Watch an exclusive video of the acoustic version of "I Bet" above, and get the single

Summary: "I always pull from my life experiences," she tells PEOPLE about her songwriting process


Warren Buffett, who claims to eat like a six year-old, should love this.

KFC, owned by Yum Brands Inc. YUM is planning to serve its customers coffee in a cup they can eat.

The fast food chain will soon debut edible cups at all its U.K. franchises, the New York Times reported.

The cups will be made from wafers lined with heat-resistant white chocolate and wrapped in sugar paper, and will be introduced to KFC along with Starbucks SBUX brand Seattle’s Best Coffee.

“This type of edible packaging is definitely aligned with the global consumer mind-set in terms of sustainability and simplifying their life,” Shilpa Rosenberry, a senior director for global consumer strategy at consulting firm Daymon Worldwide, told the Times.

The new so-called Scoff-ee Cup was made in partnership with the Robin Collective, which calls itself a “purveyor of curious events and experimental food.” According to designer Brandy Wright, they’ve also been dosed with ambient smells such as freshly cut grass, coconut sun cream and wild flowers to make them, er, even more delicious by evoking memories of happy summer days.

So if you’re the kind of person who likes their coffee to taste like you licked it off the lawn after squeezing some Factor 20 into it (and let’s face it, we’re talking about a country that gave us the deep-fried Mars bar, so the target group might be bigger than you think), then this is really is your lucky day.

Summary: The cups will be made out of wafer lined with white chocolate and wrapped in sugar paper.


Fortune’s curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.

* Sony SNE , Sharp, and Panasonic’s combined losses for the fiscal year will total a whopping $17 billion. The Wall Street Journal explores why this Japanese tech trifecta is losing consumers. (The Wall Street Journal)

* Why Facebook’s recent claim of 845 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users may not be entirely accurate. (The New York Times/DealBook)

* Amazon AMZN lowered the prices for its Amazon S3 services. (Amazon Web Services)

* Predictions for the iPad 3 are picking up. Chief among them: a display with double the resolution as the iPad 2, powered by a significantly faster processor. (PCWorld)

* Just as it does in many Best Buy and Target stores, Apple AAPL is reportedly considering having mini-Apple Store-like setups in Sam’s Club locations. (9 to 5 Mac)

* An in-depth look at the popular mobile app Instagram. (Gizmodo)

Don’t miss the latest tech news. Sign up now to get Today in Tech emailed every morning.

Summary: Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day. * Sony , Sharp, and Panasonic's combined losses for the fiscal year will total a whopping $17 billion. The Wall Street Journal explores why this Japanese tech trifecta is losing consumers. (The Wall Street…


There’s been plenty of chatter over the past few years about the potential pitfalls for entrepreneurs taking seed money from VCs. This includes a recent and very thorough overview of the issues by Elad Gil which I’d highly recommend reading (including the so called “party round” where everyone takes a piece but no one takes the lead).

I’ve noticed something recently that’s a bit of the flip side of the same problem that everyone is talking about, but that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: An increasing number of Series A pitches where a company has at least one venture investor in its seed, the business is very clearly doing well and where the entrepreneur is simply not pursuing their existing institutional investors for money

(note: please give me a little credit here for knowing the difference between an entrepreneur not pursuing money from their existing investors and their being told by their investors that they’re not interested; I’m talking about cases where it’s either pretty clear that the business is seeing excellent traction or where we’ve actually been able to confirm that they’re trying to go around their existing investors).

You could call this the VC seed signaling problem.

A venture capitalist throws some money around into a bunch of different seed rounds assuming they’re buying optionality for their Series A. But by essentially ignoring these seed companies, some investors are showing them that perhaps they’re not the value-added investor that they claimed to be.

I’ve heard a variation of this theme a number of times in the past few months. Entrepreneurs completely disappointed with the lack of attention they’ve received from their seed investors and, as a result, choosing to either try to keep them out of their Series A rounds or minimize their participation. Most have received pro-rata rights as part of their seed investment, so sometimes this becomes a negotiation – again, clearly evidence that these entrepreneurs are indeed telling the truth on this subject as their seed investors try to negotiate for more participation in the Series A.

I find this pretty amusing. At Foundry we view seed investing the same way we view all of our investing – we believe that we’re in this business to add value to the entrepreneurs and companies we back regardless of the capital we have invested (great post from Brad here explaining this in more detail). Clearly that view is not held across our industry.

Seth Levine (@sether) is a managing director with Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group

Summary: There’s been plenty of chatter over the past few years about the potential pitfalls for entrepreneurs taking seed money from VCs. This includes a recent and very thorough overview of the issues by Elad Gil which I’d highly recommend reading (including the so called “party round” where everyone takes a piece but no one takes the lead).…


05/12/2015 AT 12:45 PM EDT

turned a minor workout debacle into a major body-positive moment.

after she forgot her gym clothes while paying a visit to fitness guru Tracy Anderson for a Monday sweat session.

"Late to @tracyandersonmethod & forgot my workout clothes so had to snag a size large bra and size small pants (wrong in myriad ways)," the 28-year-old captioned a shot of herself wearing a borrowed black sports bra and some funky printed leggings.

"But do we soldier on? Yes, yes we do because we want to be a strong & happy lady," she wrote in the post.

Dunham has been dedicated to her

. And for the star, exercise is much more than looking good.

on Instagram last month, writing, "Promised myself I would not let exercise be the first thing to go by the wayside when I got busy with

Season 5 and here is why: it has helped with my anxiety in ways I never dreamed possible."

"It ain't about the a--, it's about the brain," she added.

, Dunham has become a dedicated

mixes a high-cardio dance and toning program with a balanced diet (that is not one-size-fits-all) to develop the enviably toned bodies of her loyal clients.

"Have a real conversation about where you're at with your health. You need to find exercises with some sort of strategy behind them, a strategy for how you want your body to look and perform," Anderson

before the New Year. "Get real with yourself."

Summary: "Had to snag a size large bra and size small pants," the actress wrote on Instagram


Apple still isn’t ready to sell a television.

The consumer electronics giant quietly put aside its plans to build a TV after years of research, according to a Wall Street Journal report Monday. The company tried to develop a unique high-end television with sci-fi features, but executives ultimately didn’t believe they could take on TV market leader Samsung and shelved the efforts.

Instead, Apple has reportedly refocused on its Apple TV set-top-box for streaming video, which it debuted in 2007. It is expected to unveil a new version at its World Wide Developer Conference next month, which may include various bundles of TV channels that customers can access over the Internet. Apple AAPL was the exclusive launch partner for Time Warner streaming service, HBO Now, which launched last month.

Investor Carl Icahn, however, believes the company will introduce a television set in 2016, and will enter the electric car market in 2020, according to the an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. He publicized the letter Monday in which he argued that Apple’s shares are significantly undervalued.

Specifically, Icahn said that expected Apple to sell 55-inch and 65-inch ultra-high-definition sets. He predicted it would sell 10 million units and generate $15 billion in the 2016 fiscal year.

“We view television’s role in the living room as a strategically compelling bolt-on to the Apple ecosystem,” Icahn said in his letter.

In the last few months, there have been rumors that Apple is working on a car. But other than some listings for intriguing job openings, there has been nothing conclusive.

For more about Apple and television, watch this Fortune video:

Summary: The tech giant is said to have shelved plans to build a television.


05/20/2015 AT 03:55 PM EDT

When it comes to parenting, Jennifer Closson Aprea knows that it's better to laugh than to cry.

Earlier this month, the Huntington Beach, California, mom uploaded a video of herself perfectly lip-syncing her 4-year-old daughter's

"Being four is rough, especially at bedtime. Being a parent of a 4-year-old at bedtime is arguably rougher," she wrote in the

. "Sometimes you just need to act silly and laugh to get through the rough moments."

Parents everywhere will recognize the bedtime meltdown that ended with the credit, "This tantrum brought to you by sheer exhaustion and an invisible scratch on her leg."

After the video went viral – it now has over 2 million views – some (easily indignant) parts of the Internet took offense at her making light of her daughter's wailing. The mother of two posted this sweet tribute to her daughter on her business's Facebook page in response.

Sharing this picture of my sweet girl tonight. When a silly video of one of her typical four year old tantrums go viral...

Aprea even went so far as to allow her daughter to get her revenge and lip-sync her own (less piercing) Mommy tantrum.

Summary: "Being four is rough, especially at bedtime. Being a parent of a 4-year-old at bedtime is arguably rougher," Jennifer Closson Aprea says


HOPEDALE, Mass., April 25— The only thing typical about this Cadillac of company-owned mill towns is that, like more than half of the state's communities, it has relatively quietly, and with relatively little pain, put into effect the stringent financial controls required to meet new limitations on taxing and spending.

For some of the state's 351 cities and towns, the requirement of a statewide referendum that property taxes decrease in stages until they equal no more than 2 1/2 percent of fair market value has caused deep strains and cries of civic anguish.

Statewide surveys indicate that the consequences of the referendum may include as many as 20,000 layoffs by July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year, including 9,000 teachers, 1,400 firefighters and 1,300 police officers. Gov. Edward J. King has called those estimates ''saber-rattling,'' but in the town of Milton, local officials are talking about closing two of three fire stations. Quincy may have to dismiss 500 of its 1,600 school employees. Cambridge may have to eliminate 30 of its 195 police officers.

But in Hopedale and about 200 other communities, the reductions have already been made for the next fiscal year, without major incident or difficulty.

''Now that we've done it and it's over, it wasn't all that bad and maybe it was the best thing that could have happened to us,'' said Bernard Stock, who serves as Water Commissioner, Sewer Commissioner, Federal training program director and administrative coordinator of this community of 3,900 residents about 35 miles southwest of Boston.

In Hopedale, the restrictions on property taxes will lead to a 15 percent reduction in spending next year from this year's level of $3.1 million, about 25 percent less than what a ''business as usual'' increased budget for next year would have been.

Some items in the town budget were cut only slightly. School expenses, for example, were reduced 11 percent. Many items were substantially reduced and a handful were eliminated, such as the full-time fire department and the parks department.

Some amenities were eliminated, such as the summer band concerts for which the town paid $1,680 a year. Others were made selfsupporting, like the publication of the annual list of residents, now available for $1 a copy instead of being free. Some functions were turned over to civic organizations. 34 Jobs Eliminated

But 34 of the town's 134 jobs were eliminated, either by attrition or by layoffs of long-time employees. ''You can't say we've done it entirely without pain, because many of the people let go were very good and sincere and loyal employees who had worked here all their lives,'' Mr. Stock said.

''There were things we were doing because people liked them or because no one questioned them and because there was never any reason not to do them,'' he said. ''Then all of a sudden the town meeting had to make a choice of what they really considered important. We never had to do that before.''

In Massachusetts even more than in other states, the rapidly rising cost of local government has been financed mainly through local property taxes. Spending by local governments is 12 percent above the national average, while property taxes account for 81 percent more of per-capita income than the national average, according to Barbara Anderson, chairman of the citizens group that put the measure on the ballot last fall. She said her conclusions were made on the basis of a study of taxes in 1979 done by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a business group.

She said that, after more than a decade of steadily increasing spending at a time of slow economic growth, the overall tax burden on state residents had risen to 23 percent above the national average. From 1960 to 1970 it was at or just above the national average.

Census information bears out her statements. In per capita taxation in 1978-79, Massachusetts ranked second, behind Alaska, at $545.97, and the national average was $295.07. New York, for example, ranked fifth, with per-capita tax of $481.89 in that period. If taxes are figured per $1000 of personal income, the national average for that period is $38, the Massachusetts average $69, and the New York average $58. Spending Was Out of Hand

In Massachusetts, the problem was compounded as local government came increasingly to operate under rules that critics say encouraged spending, eliminated fiscal controls and strengthened the hand of special interest groups while weakening the ability of taxpayers to resist their demands. In many cases voters were forbidden by law to say no to increased spending.

That pattern appears to be ending now as the state's communities for the first time in memory are forced to work within a budget, rather than being allowed to raise the tax rate to cover whatever they wanted to spend.

But the new 2 1/2 percent tax level mandated by law will still leave property taxes here well over the national rate of 1 1/2 percent.

The effects of spending reductions have been hard to accept in Hopedale in part because of the town's history as a paternalistically run community. It was owned outright for more than 120 years by the Draper family, manufacturers of textile machinery, who set a pattern of spending whatever needed to be spent to produce the best factory town in the nation. Town Loses Its Factory

Much of that was eliminated years ago, the family sold the business in 1975 and the factory was closed last year. But people here had come to expect low-cost, high-quality community services.

But now cuts have had to be made. The school system will have 80 employees next year, he said, down from 104 this year. Class sizes will increase from 22 to about 30. Junior varsity sports and postseason games have been eliminated. Two of the system's four school buses have been sold and pupils living closer than two miles to schools will be responsible for their own transportation.

Donald Hayes, the superintendent of Hopedale's 775-pupil school system, said the town is ''on the road to the end of an independent small quality school system.'' Local Schools Preferred

Hopedale residents have repeatedly turned down proposals to merge their tiny school system with those of nearby towns into a more costefficient regional system because they value the sense of community a school system creates.

For the nine members of Hopedale's spit-and-polish, full-time professional fire department, the plans to shift to a hybrid department of volunteers and professionals are hard to accept.

The annual town meeting earlier this month voted for the change by secret ballot after hearing arguments that the department was a luxury the town could no longer afford. Nearby towns, many of them much larger, have similar hybrid systems with no apparent ill effects. The change would save Hopedale about $61,000, about 2 percent of its current budget.

''It's like a kick in the pants after 31 years of devoted duty,'' said Herbert Durgin, chief of the department, who is to be laid off along with three or four other firefighters in July.

Illustrations: photo of Bernard Stock photo of textile factory


ALMOST since the moment of its founding, 10 years ago, Speculum Musicae has enjoyed a reputation as a shield and buckler for the branch of contemporary music known as the academic avant-garde. The group has dedicated itself not only to performing the best works available of this generally difficult genre, but also, more importantly, to performing them with a virtuosity that few other new-music ensembles even approach.

Last night's concert at Alice Tully Hall, the first of three to be given there this season, showed that Speculum Musicae has lost none of its dedication or its virtuosity. With a composer's name or a date changed here or there, the program was one that might well have been presented a decade ago or more. No one is going to accuse Speculum Musicae of trendiness or bandwagon-jumping.

There was, for instance, Irving Fine's Fantasia for String Trio (1957), a fairly conventional but on the whole elegant work in a Neo-Classic mold that has worn better than many a more celebrated piece of its period. It held attention better, at any rate, than Paul Alan Levi's ''The Truth,'' a 1975 piece in which a soprano, Sheila Schonbrun, declaimed verses by Randall Jarrell about a boy whose mother has lied to him about the death of his father in the war. Predictably couched in an angular Expressionist idiom that offered no surprises, musically or dramatically, the work rose at best to little gushes of anguish but did not add much to the rather prosaic text itself.

Donald Palma conducted in the staid style that the music seemed to require. Mr. Levy made some attempt to forge instrumental drama out of an opposition between the chamber ensemble and a harpsichord that was supposed, we were told, to represent the boy's feeble struggles to assert himself in the callous adult world. It was a fine argument for the abolition of program notes.

No explanatory notes accompanied Earl Kim's Monologues for Violin, Cello and Piano (1967), perhaps because the music was too transparent for words. The three instruments, positioned in a triangle and widely separated, each played fragmentary solo passages, never overlapping or touching a unison until the work's final moments. The result, while possibly of some stereophonic interest on a recording, was timid and emotionally attenuated music whose point was not at all clear.

The evening's novelties were chamber-orchestra versions of Ligeti's ''Melodien'' (1971) and Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra (1909). Neither work made quite the impression it can in its full orchestration, but in both performances the essence of the music came through clearly.

The Ligeti, conducted by Joseph Passaro, was one of the works in which the Hungarian composer broke with the Serial orthodoxy of the time, in favor of drones, slowly evolving melodic lines and juxtaposed but independent melodies. In spite of its cleverly interlocked metrical schemes, the effect is of immobility.

Hearing the Schoenberg on the same program forced one to recognize how well the Viennese composer had anticipated Ligeti's static effects, particularly in the third of the Five Pieces, ''Summer Morning by the Lake.'' Schoenberg's method was basically chordal in this piece, while Ligeti's was contrapuntal, but both achieved a motionless, shimmering quality that some young composers today are finding attractive.

The Schoenberg arrangement, for 12 players, was made by Felix Greissle in collaboration with the composer. David Gilbert conducted it with expansive gestures and a vigor that made one wish he had the full orchestra of the original Opus 16 at his disposal. The Program SPECULUM MUSICAE, At Alice Tully Hall. Melodien .......................................Ligeti Fantasia for String Trio ..................Irving Fine The Truth ..............................Paul Alan Levi Five Pieces for Orchestra (Op. 16) .........Schoenberg Monologues for Violin, Cello and Piano .......Earl Kim


-------------------------------------------------------------------- Kate Moody is the author of ''Growing Up on Television.'' John J. O'Connor is on vacation. By KATE MOODY

For all the recent changes in telecommunications technology, most notably cable, not much has been done to structure the new media or to ensure innovative programming for the young. ''Five years ago cable promised us a rose garden - in terms of children's programming,'' said Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, at its first national symposium on children and television this past spring. ''We still consider it a promise - with lots of potential and problems.''

One of the problems was pointed out in the keynote address at the symposium by Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Conn.) and a member of the House subcommittee on telecommunications: ''We are seeing the beginning of a telecommunications goldrush in which many private businessmen are more interested in maximizing profits than in serving individuals.'' Referring to children, he said, ''They are being written off (because) they have no money, no clout and they don't vote.''

In recent months, hearings before the Federal Communications Commission on children and television have been halted, millions in funding to public broadcasting -long an oasis of commercial-free programming for children - has been slashed, and the only daily commercial network program for young children, ''Captain Kangaroo,'' has been cut from 60 to 30 minutes.

Part of the promise of cable is that it can provide a diversity of programming and services to young audiences in a way that broadcast television never has. With their multiplicity of channels, cable operators are not constricted, as broadcasters are, by a need to serve the largest audience with the largest buying power. Without the burden of having to appeal to a mass audience, cable can provide a variety of non-commercial services.

There have been a few notable efforts to shape the medium to meet the needs of children. For instance, Sun Prairie, Wis., has mandated by city ordinance a children's cable televison channel. To date, it is the only community in the country to have done so. There, 8- to 13-year-olds are involved in all aspects of producing and programming for their own channel, which is called ''Kids 4.'' The existence of such a channel results not only in television programs but in new educational processes. In one major project, the children organized a study of the history of their town, which had never before been presented in an easily accessible form. They researched and drew a map of historical places, which was then published in the local newspaper. They presented a public performance of historical moments and recorded it on video-tape, and now they are editing the material into a one-hour video production, ''Historical Moments in Sun Prairie.''

Another model community cable project, the Miami Valley Cable TV Council, in southwestern Ohio, has developed a low-budget, two-way cable television system whereby viewers in two communities can respond on the screen to what they are watching on television. The council, acting as a consortium for several surrounding towns, inaugurated an ''institutional loop'' phase of service with an interactive program involving eight area colleges and seven local schools. During a ''teleconference,'' a panel of college representatives at the community-access studio in Miami Valley discussed college life. Return signals from participating high schools enabled students to appear on screen to ask questions. The teleconference utilizes an institutional loop (a special cable) strung among government buildings, the schools and the access center.

The council petitioned the board of trustees to allocate a healtheducation channel for the interconnected communities. Regular use of this channel began early this year with the debut of the ''Discover Health'' series. Funded by the Inter-Agency Council on Health (I-ACHE), the series already includes ''Look Before You Eat,'' a program about diet; ''Growing Up Young,'' about teen-age sexuality; ''Woman-Child,'' about teen pregnancy, and ''Lupus and Its Treatment.''

ACT, based in Newtonville, Mass., has spoken up on behalf of the children of Boston and its suburbs, asking Mayor Kevin White and the city's cable commission to provide the following services and programming for young viewers:

* Children's channels with quality, age-specific programs offered at hours when children typically watch television;

* Locally produced shows for children, which could offer school plays, local sports, government activities, arts and cultural events, including programs for racial and linguistic minorities and the handicapped;

* Access channels to give adolescents as well as preteen-ager youngsters an outlet for expressing themselves;

* Commercial-free service to children in which neither productmessages nor host/sellers are used;

* Lock-out systems that permit parents the option of barring from their home certain programs they may deem inappropriate;


H0 By PETER G. DAVIS

Has the musical theater ever produced a body of work more resilient and indestructible than the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas? If more proof were needed to substantiate this claim, we now have before us the original-cast recording of the New York Shakespeare Festival's ''The Pirates of Penzance,'' a production that is no doubt sending G&S purists into paroxysms of fury (Elektra VE 601, two disks). Pop singers and a rock band, indeed. Worse yet, this soupedup edition has been packing audiences into the Uris Theater all winter long. What ever happened to the hallowed Savoyard traditions handed down from generation to generation?

In point of fact, the United States has never been much bothered by Gilbert and Sullivan traditions, ever since the ''Pinafore'' craze of 1879, when innumerable versions of that operetta were playing the length and breadth of the land. And, come to think of it, perhaps this is a good thing, too. Consider that bastion of G&S convention, the D'Oyly Carte Company, which has reverently preserved every bit of original business laid down by W.S. Gilbert a century ago, from the patter singer's raised left eyebrow to the tenor's dulcet expressions of modified rapture. The D'Oyly Carte productions have become so mummified in recent years that most Britishers have become completely soured on the subject of G&S. The company is apparently even threatened with extinction through lack of audience support. These operettas can withstand almost anything, it seems, except the stifling weight of their own traditions.

So for American Gilbert and Sullivan fans, Broadway's ''The Pirates of Penzance'' should hardly come as a jolt. A season rarely passes in New York without one company or another offering a revamped G&S operetta, aiming to bring it into line with contemporary tastes. A few months ago, for example, the Village Light Opera staged a space-age ''Princess Ida'' - a rather silly idea, perhaps, but no serious violence was perpetrated on the music or dialogue to undercut Gilbert's keen wit or Sullivan's ever fresh music. Much the same is true of the current ''Pirates,'' although there are several unsettling aural elements about the show that are emphasized on disk without the production's high-powered visual attractions to distract the ear. First, though, the good news.

Surely the smartest decision on the producers' part was to trust the strength of the operetta's basic material. Minor adjustments in the text, a few transpositions in key and two musical numbers inserted from other G&S works hardly amount to major tampering. This is still ''The Pirates of Penzance'' in all its important essentials, without updated dialogue, tricked-out melodic lines or reharmonizations (anyone remember ''The Hot Mikado'' of 1939?). There is even a nice musicological touch in the restoration of the original finale, which has probably gone unheard since the official world premiere in New York on New Year's Eve of 1879.

The first jarring note for ''Pirates'' aficionados will most likely be the sound of the orchestra, a 20-piece ensemble of winds, brass, percussion and keyboards. William Elliott's instrumentation necessarily replaces the graciously genteel Victorian sheen of Sullivan's orchestra with the raucous aggressiveness of a modern rock band. True, the hard, glassy glare of this stringless combination poses the threat of aural fatigue, but for this listener, who has heard too many ''authentic'' G&S performances played on ghastly upright pianos and Hammond organs, the notion of hearing Sullivan's music expressed in such a special context is not to be dismissed out of hand. Besides, Mr. Elliott's arrangements are so ingenious, so imaginative, so responsive to mood and so inherently musical, that objections simply evaporate before his virtuosity. Needless to say, the instruments sound infinitely better on disk without the tinny overamplification of the Uris Theater's sound system.

But now we reach the fatal flaw -the singers. The general level of vocal achievement on this ''Pirates of Penzance'' is about what might be expected from a high school G&S society. Part of the operetta's charm is its parody of grand-opera conventions, and the roles were written for real voices - in an ideal world only a cast of Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Placido Domingo and Nicolai Ghiaurov at their best could convey the effects that Sullivan was hoping for when he wrote out these operatic parts. The present Broadway cast can almost make one forget their vocal limitations when cavorting on stage, but not when they have to rely on voice alone to project the music. This is especially true of Kevin Kline as the Pirate King, a heady, swash-buckling physical presence in the theater, but reduced on disk to a pallid nonentity.

Even worse is Linda Ronstadt as Mabel. Possibly in the interest of vocal self-preservation, Miss Ronstadt gingerly mews her way through the music in live performance as any teen-ager with a pretty but untrained voice might do. In the recording studio, she has obviously decided to deliver the goods more generously, but this only accents the yawning gap between her low chesty pop voice and the disembodied falsetto she must resort to in this kind of music. She is constantly forced into making awkward gear changes from one production method to the other, and the effect is painfully embarrassing.


The heat was on Larry Christiansen in the 14th round of the United States Championship in South Bend, Ind. If he was to retain any chance to become one of the three qualifiers for the Interzonal competitions for world championship aspirants, he would have to defeat Samuel Reshevsky.

At 69, the grand old man of American chess had resisted all of his opponents' efforts to make him show his age: Lubomir Kavalek had pressed him to the wall in the 10th round, but Reshevsky held firm; Lev Alburt had tortured him for 69 moves in the eighth round, but he grimly drew a pawn-down end game. And there he was in the 14th round leading Christiansen by a half-point - and playing the white pieces as well.

Christiansen, at 24 the sharpest gambit player in American chess, chose the aggressive Benoni Defense, 2 . . .P-B4, in the hope of introducing complications that Reshevsky could not handle. There was no need to worry about 8 PxP because either 8 . . .PxP; 9 P-K5, PxP; 10 QxQ, RxQ; 11 NxP, N-Q4! or 8 . . .BxP; 9 0-0, N-B3; 10 B-B4, Q-N3!; 11 R-N1, QR-Q1 would give Black a good game.

Reshevsky could well afford to play 14 P-KR3, BxN; 14 QxB since an attempted refutation with 14 . . .N/3xQP? would have been put down by 15 NxN, NxN; 16 B-QN5!, winning the exchange by threatening both 17 BxR and 17 B-B6.

Reshevsky's bid to stymie Christiansen's attempted queenside attack with 21 P-QN4 was based on the consideration that 21 . . .PxNP; 22 RxP, PQR4; 23 R/4-N1, P-N5; 24 N-N5 would concede White active piece play in return for Black's protected passed QNP.

With 22 . . .PxP!?, Christiansen broke up his solid queenside pawn formation for the sake of obtaining dynamic piece play after 23 NxP, N-N4, a positional sacrifice that Reshevsky took him up on with 24 BxN, BxB; 25 BxP.

While Reshevsky's minor pieces were committed to the queenside, Christiansen thrust 26 . . .P-KR4 to set up the threat of 27 . . .P-R5 and 28 . . .Q-B5. Reshevsky should now have defended by 27 Q-KB3, QxQ; 28 PxQ, but Black's positional superiority would then have been worth at least the gambited pawn.

Instead, Reshevsky erred with 27 P-N3?!, P-R5; 28 P-B4?, overlooking that after 28 . . .PxP! he could not capture the bishop without permitting mate in two. The result, after 29 R-KB1, BxP, was that the old man had lost two pawns. Worse yet, the white king postion was ruined and Christiansen soon threw his entire force at it.

It didn't matter that Reshevsky retook his pawn with 34 NxP because he had to retreat his knight with 36 N-Q4 to guard his king, thus permitting Christiansen to restore his lead in material by 36 . . .RxNP. Naturally, on 37 N-B3, Q-B3, it was impossible to play 38 NxR? because of 38 . . .Q-B7mate.

The final breakthrough of Christiansen's attack came with 42 . . .PN5!, after which 43 PxP, RxN!; 44 RxR (44 QxR, R-R7ch; 45 K-N1, B-Q5ch; 46 R-K3, BxRch; 47 QxB, R-R8ch!; 48 KxR, QxRch; 49 Q-N1; Q-R6ch forces mate), R-R7ch; 45 K-B1, R-B7ch!; 46 K-N1, RxR would have left White a piece down and helpless.

Reshevsky's 43 NxB (there was nothing else) was crushed by Christiansen's 43 . . .PxPch; 44 K-N1 (44 KxP, Q-N4ch; 45 K-R2, Q-N7mate), P-R7ch; 45 K-R1, P-N7ch!; 46 KxP, P-R8/Qch; 47 RxQ, R-B7ch. Seeing that 48 K-N3 allows 48 . . .Q-B5mate and that 48 K-N1 allows 48 . . .RxRch; 49 KxR, Q-R5ch; 50 Q-R3, QxQch; 51 K-N1, Q-R7mate, Reshevsky gave up. White Black Resh'vsky Christ'sen 1 P-Q4 N-KB3 2 N-KB3 P-B4 3 P-Q5 P-KN3 4 P-B4 B-N2 5 N-B3 0-0 6 P-K4 P-Q3 7 B-K2 P-K3 8 0-0 R-K1 9 N-Q2 N-R3 10 R-K1 N-B2 11 B-B1 P-N3 12 N-B3 PxP 13 BPxP B-N5 14 P-KR3 BxN 15 QxB N-Q2 16 B-B4 N-K4 17 Q-N3 B-B3 18 P-QR4 P-QR3 19 Q-K3 R-N1 20 QR-N1 P-QN4 21 P-QN4 P-B5 22 Q-Q2 PxP 23 NxP N-N4 24 BxN BxB 25 BxP Q-B3 26 Q-Q3 P-KR4 27 P-N3 P-R5 28 P-B4 PxP 29 R-KB1 BxP 30 BxN PxB 31 N-B3 Q-N4 32 K-N2 B-K4 33 QR-K1 K-N2 34 NxP R-KR1 35 R-KR1 R-R5 36 N-Q4 RxNP 37 N-B3 Q-B3 38 KR-B1 R-KB5 39 R-K2 P-N4 40 Q-B2 R-N1 41 Q-Q3 R-KR1 42 R/2-K1 P-N5 43 NxB PxPch 44 K-N1 P-R7ch 45 K-R1 P-N7ch 46 KxP P-R8/Qch 47 RxQ R-B7ch Resigns Christiansen/Black r pk p q pb p pr Q NpP K RR Reshevsky/White 8/23/81 Position after 42 R/2-K1

Summary: By ROBERT BYRNE   The heat was on Larry Christiansen in the 14th round of the United States Championship in South Bend, Ind. If he was to retain any chance to become one of the three qualifiers for the Interzonal competitions for world championship aspirants, he would have to defeat Samuel Reshevsky.   At 69, the grand old man of American chess had resisted all of his opponents' efforts to make him show his age: Lubomir Kavalek had pressed him to the wall in the 10th round, but Reshevsky held firm; Lev Alburt had tortured him for 69 moves in the eighth round, but he grimly drew a pawn-down end game. And there he was in the 14th round leading Christiansen by a half-point - and playing the white pieces as well.


Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy for the presidency Tuesday, is rich. Exactly how rich has been the subject of decades of debate and even a lawsuit.

“The real number is $10 billion,” Trump told Bloomberg at a June 3 meeting in his Fifth Avenue office, leaning over his paper-strewn desk. Or is it $8.7 billion, as stated in a document Trump published in conjunction with his announcement? Even at the lower figure, that would make him the 54th richest person in the US, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

A billion here; a billion there. The fact that estimates of Trump’s fortune can vary that widely underscores how hard it is to determine just how much he’s worth. His own assessment for the Trump brand name, which is stamped on hotels, neckwear, cologne and bottled water and allows him to collect licensing fees, is in the billions. Trump is bullish on Trump futures.

“Ninety-nine million views,” he said, knocking over an employee’s computer monitor as he pointed to a YouTube video of rapper Mac Miller’s platinum-certified track, “Donald Trump,” playing on it. “Now that’s a brand.”

Unlike some other candidates, Trump has never filled out the personal financial disclosure form before. It could be fall before he files, if he applies for routinely granted deadline extensions.

As a celebrity property developer and promoter, Trump has no peers. He tends to describe all of his assets in superlatives: the greatest building, the finest golf course, the best locations. He also doesn’t publicly delineate between what he owns outright and properties he manages, making components of his fortune hard to pin down.

Most of his signature property, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, is comprised of condominium units and common elements—hallways, elevators—that have been sold and no longer hold value for Trump.

He owns the rights to the building’s commercial spaces, including twelve floors of offices and a three-story Gucci store at the building’s base. Those spaces are valued at about $400 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg using estimates of revenue, profit and capitalization rates.

He also owns the building’s 30,000 square-foot penthouse apartment. While the home could fetch a premium for its size and location, a buyer would probably want to renovate the gilded space.

Trump took out a $100 million mortgage on the tower in 2012, according to New York City property records.

Developers in locales as far flung as South Korea, Turkey, Panama, and Hawaii have paid Trump fees to put his name on buildings he neither constructed nor owns, with an aim to sell condos and hotel rooms for higher prices. The income supplements Trump’s other operations to fund new acquisitions and pay down debt. It’s unclear what sum, if any, these licensing rights could capture on the open market.

Another complication in this murky net worth exercise: Trump holds the leaseholds, but not the deeds, for at least two New York City properties. He purchased a 100-year leasehold in 1979 for 6 East 57th Street, which houses a Niketown store, according to property records. The agreement also granted him the air rights above the store, which he used to build Trump Tower, located right around the corner.

He paid an annual rent of $125,000 for the building through 2008. The following year, it jumped to six percent of the property’s fair market value, leaving room for Trump to negotiate his rent, said Charles McDowell, owner of London-based Charles McDowell Property Consultants. A 100-year-leasehold would sell for at least a 10 percent discount to its value, McDowell said.

“Rents have skyrocketed on the street, and this old lease is most likely less than $500 per square foot right now, even given renewals,” Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of retail brokerage at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, said. The leasehold has a value of at least $450 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Trump also has a leasehold agreement at 40 Wall Street, a 1.3 million-square-foot office tower in New York’s financial district. He purchased the lease, which expires in 2059, for $10 million in 1995, property records show. He could extend the lease through 2194.

Office space in the building rents for an average of about $45 per square foot, according to listings on its website. The leasehold is worth about $500 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. He secured a $160 million mortgage on the property in 2010, records show.

Trump’s resorts and 20 golf courses in the US, Scotland, and Puerto Rico are also difficult to value. Golf courses have a variety of revenue models, said Larry Hirsh, president of Golf Property Analysts, an appraisal and consulting firm. Some are designed to help sell nearby real estate and may operate at a loss.

They derive revenue from a mixture of greens fees, memberships and food and drink, each with different profit margins. Based on data compiled by Bloomberg, Trump’s courses could be worth more than $450 million.

“The Trump name has come to mean something in golf,” Hirsh said. “He’s done a lot for the sport.”

There’s more: Trump owns 30 percent of two buildings majority-owned by Vornado Realty Trust — at 555 California Street in San Francisco and 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York—that are worth a combined $640 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Clinton, Bush

Other big projects are probably worth less. He’s retained the rights to the commercial spaces at Trump Tower in Chicago, and opted in 2014 to expand its hotel lobby into what were originally meant to be revenue-generating retail spaces. And New York condominium buildings—Palace, Parc, Place and Plaza—hold little to no value after their units were sold.

Trump has 30 days after an announcement to file a listing of his assets—and liabilities—with the Federal Election Commission. He can seek two 45-day extensions, and those are granted routinely. That means it will be mid-October before Trump reaches the put-up or shut-up moment on giving the public a peek at his personal finances.

If he runs, Trump will be among the few candidates who have never disclosed their finances. Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Perry have all either been federal office holders or candidates before. Others, including Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Scott Walker, have released some financial information voluntarily or under state laws.

Even if Trump does complete a federal personal financial disclosure form, he won’t have to disclose everything about his finances: None of his homes, cars, boats and other personal property must be listed, unless they produce income. He also won’t have to show his tax returns or any assets that are held by his adult children.


One of "New York's finest" working at a gay pride parade has been filmed shaking his fine ass when the spirit of the joyous event overcame him.

Hundreds of members of the New York Police Department were patrolling the march through Lower Manhattan on Sunday when one marcher turned his attention to one of the uniformed men.

In a video that has been viewed millions of times around the world, the man struts his way up to the officer shaking his booty before the grinning cop lets down his guard and starts grinding away.

"The cop was standing there all stoic," Paige Ponzeka, the woman who filmed the dance, told BuzzFeed News.

"As soon as Aaron started dancing with him, grinding up against him, the cop tried to stay still but then he just got super into it."

Marcher Aaron Santis said he had tried all day to get police to dance with him before finally getting lucky.

"It was such a fun moment. He was such a good sport and I'm so glad he decided to dance," he said.

The unknown policeman seemed to enjoy the bumping and grinding and even accepted a kiss from the lively Mr Santis.

Do you have any news photos or videos?


LENOX — If pipe organs could have pipe dreams, then you could imagine that Serge Koussevitzky’s instrument at Tanglewood is suffering one long nightmare during the 75th anniversary it shares this year with the late maestro’s better-known legacy: the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer school he founded for young professionals.

Michael Gandolfi’s “Ascending Light,” a major organ work commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and given its premiere at Symphony Hall last spring, is absent from the orchestra’s glittering summer schedule, in which many Boston programs are repeated — even though Gandolfi attended the Tanglewood Music Center in 1986, and has headed its composition program for almost two decades. And the Music Shed’s sole concert dedicated to the organ this season will feature an electronic instrument: sheer anathema to windblown traditionalists.

In fact, it was the inferior tone of a pre-digital electric instrument that prompted Koussevitzky to acquire a pipe organ in the first place. It arrived just in time for the Music Center’s 1940 debut.

Possibly because of the high cost of retuning it after a Berkshires winter, the instrument is seldom played and few people are even aware of its existence. The pipes are shrouded by the stage’s acoustical reflecting panels; the console is parked backstage.

The instrument made a rare appearance in daylight on June 29, but only for a private audience. Five busloads from the Organ Historical Society’s national convention in Springfield were treated to a sampling of solo works by the BSO’s regular Boston instrumentalist, James David Christie, who heads the organ programs at Oberlin and Wellesley colleges.

If tradition holds the pipe organ to be “the king of instruments,” then Tanglewood’s surely qualifies as a princeling: the godchild, so to speak, of E. Power Biggs, the English-born Bostonian who became one of the world’s most-renowned classical performers after the First World War.

Biggs (1906-77) had played so many guest appearances with the BSO that he styled himself the ensemble’s “official” organist. As Craig R. Whitney, formerly of The New York Times, wrote in “All the Stops,” his 1993 book about American pipe organs, when Biggs heard about Koussevitzky’s disgust with plug-in electric instruments in 1939, he took the maestro to hear an experimental instrument that the Boston company Aeolian-Skinner had built to Biggs’s specifications.

On his European concert tours, he had reveled in the lighter, clearer, more romantic tone of German organs. That’s what Biggs got, and what Koussevitzky wanted.

“Fine,” said the autocratic maestro after the audition, “send it up to Tanglewood.”

That specific organ already had a home in a Cambridge museum. But with financial support from the Carnegie Foundation and Biggs serving as voicing consultant, Aeolian-Skinner had its new Opus 1002 ready for the first TMC season. For its initial performances that year, Biggs selected five Bach favorites — the Fantasia and Fugue in G to open, the mighty Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor to close — plus works by Vivaldi, Handel, Brahms, and one contemporary composer, Hindemith. The ubiquitous Saint-Saens “Organ” Symphony, which had so dismayed Koussevitzky on an electric, didn’t make the cut.

Tony Fogg, the BSO artistic administrator, was asked the other day why Gandolfi’s new piece wasn’t on the BSO summer schedule. “It’s too small,” he explained, referring to the resident organ.

Two keyboards, four divisions, 27 stops, 24 registers, 33 ranks, and 1,734 pipes aren’t big enough? But for context, when Aeolian-Skinner installed its Opus 1134 at Symphony Hall in 1949, it boasted four manuals, six divisions, 66 stops, 59 registers, 80 ranks, and 4,662 pipes — much more scope for Gandolfi to play with.

Not coincidentally, Biggs’s hand is visible this season in the program the BSO presents on Friday, conducted by Stéphane Denève and featuring international concert star Cameron Carpenter. During a European tour, Biggs was much taken by Francis Poulenc’s just-released Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani (1938). It hadn’t been performed in the United States, so Biggs rounded up financing for its American premiere in a free concert at Harvard.

Carpenter will be featured in that work and the Saint-Saens symphony, playing on his year-old Marshall & Ogletree International Touring Organ. (He will also present a short solo recital after the main concert.) The instrument uses Linux-driven computer hardware to blend digital samples from Carpenter’s favorite cathedral and theater organs, emulating literally thousands of stops. Instead of pipes, the instrument employs loudspeakers.

With it, Carpenter recently told an interviewer for the Champaign-Urbana, Ill., newspaper the News-Gazette, “I can keep what’s best in the pipe organ — its sounds, its spatial dynamics, its emotional impact — and dispense with what I would argue holds it back: its immobility.”

And so, Koussevitzky’s dream for Tanglewood — in which a much smaller instrument played a supporting role 75 years ago — moves resoundingly (you might say) into the future.

At: Koussevitzky Music Shed, Tanglewood, Friday at 8:30 p.m.

Summary: The Aeolian-Skinner organ built for Tanglewood and introduced in 1940 is not being celebrated during this anniversary season, but the ideals behind it remain.


The scene following a plane crash at Blackbushe Airport in Britain.

08/01/2015 AT 10:25 AM EDT

Members of Osama bin Laden's family were killed Friday when their plane crashed near a British airport, exploding in a "ball of flames,"

All four on board – the pilot and three passengers – were killed in the crash near Blackbushe Aiport in Hampshire, England, around 3 p.m. local time, police said, according to the BBC.

The plane was arriving from Milan, Italy, when it went down. Witnesses described a "huge bang," a "ball of flames" and "several explosions" to the BBC. No one on the ground was injured.

The identities of the victims were not immediately released by British authorities, but Saudi Arabian officials confirmed it was members of the bin Laden family.

According to an English translation from the BBC, the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud, "paid his condolences to the family and relatives of Mohammed bin Laden...for the great loss they have suffered," in

The plane crashed near the runway while trying to land, officials for Blackbushe Airport said in a statement to the BBC.

The Saudi government said it was working with British authorities to retrieve the bodies for burial as soon as possible, according to the BBC.

The plane was reportedly owned by a bin Laden aviation firm, according to the BBC. The family is very large – including the former al-Qaeda leader,

– and has previously disowned Osama.

Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating,

Summary: The plane crashed while trying to land, the airport said in a statement


Jackman and his 1970s soccer teammates

08/14/2015 AT 11:10 AM EDT

Even as a schoolboy, he knew how to strike a pose!

of his schoolboy soccer team Thursday. And while it's not that easy to pick out the future Golden Globe, Tony and Emmy winner, it should come as no surprise that he's the one preening the most for the camera.

Yes, that's a young Hugh in the front row, second from the left, puffing his chest out for the team portrait.

"#THROWBACKTHURSDAY .... Is all I have to say about mini-me," Jackman, 46, wrote in the caption of the '70s flashback.

Jackman is a bit of a #TBT aficionado, regularly posting pics from his past. Recent highlights include

(in which the ageless actor looks essentially the same as he does today) and

with his father and brother.

Summary: The Australian actor posts an adorable pic of his schoolboy soccer team


08/14/2015 AT 11:35 PM EDT

, there's no hard feelings when it comes to her husband Jim's exes.

"I don't get when I read about how I'm jealous of Jimmy talking to other women," King Edmonds, 30, tells PEOPLE. "Especially his ex-wife Alison because that couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm literally friendly with all of Jimmy's ex-girlfriends that I've met."

Edmonds also had a close relationship with Jim's late wife LeAnn before she

And despite reports that her marriage to the former MLB player is currently on the rocks, the reality star says the couple is doing better than ever.

"People will say what ever they want," she says. "Things are really good. We've become stronger than we were before."

And the same goes for her relationship with Jim's two young children, Landon and Sutton, with his ex-wife.

"They are awesome," says King Edmonds of her stepchildren. "I love them so much and they call my parents Honey and Big Pappi. They love my parents. We're just kind of a family in that way when we have the kids."

But she admits that their blended family wasn't always so cohesive.

"It took a while to get there and it was hard at first but now it's awesome."

Summary: The reality star says reports of jealousy over her husband's exes couldn't be farther from the truth


When I started at CNBC in 2001, the Australian dollar got down to 48 U.S. cents. It was fondly known as the "Aussie Peso." As you might imagine, going to the U.S. on a vacation was a pricey affair for foreign tourists. My parents visited New York that year and stayed in a dive off Times Square because it was affordable. Yes, it might have been in the heart of the action, but probably also had a questionable clientele coming and going at all hours of the night.

By contrast, for a few years between 2011 and 2013, the Australian dollar was so strong – more than one American dollar – that Waikiki Beach was chock-full of Aussie accents cutting through the tropical air like glass: "Wayne, you forgot your thongs!"*

Rapid dollar strengthening during the financial crisis in 2008 caused all manner of problems around the world, the least of which were the concerns of tourists, but now as the dollar is going through another period of marked muscle-gaining, I wonder how much international tourists will decide that the good ole US of A is not their vacation destination of choice for now.

And it's not just travel. Shares of some U.S. companies that normally benefit from foreign shoppers are hurting: Tiffany & Co is down 20% over the past 3 months. Ralph Lauren is down 27%.

But because I like to think glass-half-full, here's the silver lining: if you've had enough of scraping ice off your windshield and are daydreaming about sipping Mai Tais by the pool, your stronger dollar may mean a better deal at domestic resorts. Why? If foreign tourists stay away from US resorts, and more Americans instead go overseas armed with their almighty bucks, resorts here at home may cut prices to lure you in. At least, that's what I'm hoping!

*(Thongs in Aussie are flip-flops!)

Summary: A strong dollar means great deals ahead for U.S. vacationers.


Twitter stock is down 27 percent this year, but CNBC "Fast Money" trader Steve Grasso thinks it's headed higher.

Twitter shares popped Thursday after the social media company announced it will make its analytics available to the masses.

In early afternoon trading Friday, Twitter's price was $49.38.

"If you don't have the stomach for a lot of volatility use $46.55 as your stop," Grasso said.

Read More The top candidate for the new US tech chief is...

For traders with a bit more appetite for risk, Grasso said, "Here is what I'm looking for, $52 to the upside and then the next stop will be $57. I'm pretty confident it will get there if momentum stays intact."

Grasso is long on Twitter and has been since the company's IPO in November.

Summary: "Fast Money" trader Steve Grasso says now is the time to buy Twitter. The stock is down 27 percent this year, but he thinks it's headed higher.


If there's no deal, that would likely trigger additional sanctions from Congress. Last year, Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., co-authored a sanctions bill that has been held up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., under pressure from the White House.

In January, however, when the 114th Congress is sworn in, Reid will be replaced by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. A Republican staffer said Wednesday of the proposed sanctions, "that bill will definitely be on the agenda."

Read MoreVenezuela official tours Middle East, Russia to talk oil

The Kirk-Menendez bill has 60 co-sponsors, and because of the makeup of the incoming Senate and the fact that preventing Iran from having nuclear capabilities is a popular bipartisan issue, those 60 are likely to grow to a veto-proof 67 quickly.

That could mean a sharp increase in the price of oil.

Summary: The deadline for Iran's nuclear talks is Nov. 24. Oil traders and analysts are starting to prepare for the day after.


Just weeks after settling a dispute with New York City's mayor over limiting new drivers, Uber is once again making headlines but this time in Asia, where the controversial ride-sharing app is facing fresh legal accusations.

Hong Kong police arrested five Uber drivers on Tuesday; one year after the firm began operations in the city. Chief inspector Bruce Hung Hin-kau told reporters that the arrested drivers were charged with not possessing hire-car permits and third party risk insurance, both vital for driving a private car for reward in the city. Computers and documents were also taken away from Uber offices. Two interns were taken into custody but have since been released.

Uber's North Asia spokesman Harold Li told CNBC that the company ensures all rides are covered by insurance. "We stand by our driver-partners 100 percent and welcome the opportunity to work closely with the authorities towards updated regulations that put the safety and interests of riders and drivers first," he said in an e-mailed statement.

Tuesday's events are the latest in a series of enquiries surrounding Uber's blurry legal status in the region.

Read MoreReport claims Uber posting huge losses

Australia confirmed this week that 29 drivers were facing charges of operating an illegal taxi service. Meanwhile, five drivers were detained in Jakarta in June after local taxi organizations complained that Uber was operating without a taxi license. In May, Chinese officials raided the firm's Chengdu office on "suspicions of unlicensed operations," a month following a similar search of Uber's Guangzhou office.

Globally, the firm's legal status varies. It's currently banned in countries including South Korea, Spain, Germany, and Thailand. Last month, it won a rare victory when an Ontario court cleared the firm of improper licensing charges and said there was no evidence it operated as a taxi broker.


An unheralded clockmaker named John Harrison would go down in history—and be immortalized in the best seller "Longitude" by Dava Sobel—for solving what was considered the greatest technological puzzle of his time with the H4 timekeeper. It was the forerunner of chronometers, which, by the 19th century, were providing many ships with the vital information of longitude.

Where did Harrison's advance lead? An exponential increase in the speed of global expansion by sea, Cook said (and, we might add, to its more complex by-product, centuries of imperialism). Harrison was voted the 39th most important Briton of all time in a BBC poll, so Steve Jobs might have him beat there when the American version of the poll is next conducted. The Longitude Prize paid millions in today's money (though Harrison was paid in grants rather than a lump sum over time as he worked to improve his design), even better than the $1 million paid out to Netflix prizewinners. Netflix's prize, it may also be noted, did not come into being through an Act of Parliament but a whim of CEO Reed Hastings.

Zoom ahead to the era of electrical horology, which began in the 19th century and allowed for time distribution—organizations and citizens of a nation could work in sync, whether it be a train network or utility grid. Next came atomic clocks of the 20th century, which had a profound effect on science and navigation.

(Note to Tim Cook and the rest of Silicon Valley's wearable wannabes: There is an atomic clock at the heart of every GPS satellite, and atomic clocks play a role in synchronization of data networks across the Internet, which enables the speeds society now relies on.)

All of this is what leads British Museum's Cook to conclude that "The Apple Watch may currently be the most 'advanced' timepiece ... at least in its context as a wearable electronic device, but whether it will have similarly significant effects on the development of society remains to be seen!"

You could say that's one Cook on one side of the Atlantic playing nice with another Cook, even when unleashing the full sweep of his horological wisdom.

Summary: Apple CEO Tim Cook claims Apple Watch is 'the most advanced timepiece ever created.' Watchmaking experts disagree. We wind back the history.


Katy Perry's company has hit a roadblock in carving out its "Left Shark" empire. (Tweet this)

A trademark examiner quashed attempts to register a design for the shark, which became an Internet sensation after the singer's Super Bowl performance in February, The Hollywood Reporter wrote this week. Apparently, Perry's company couldn't prove that a drawing evoked images of the seemingly clumsy blue shark that danced behind the pop star.

Read MoreKaty Perry is finally cashing in on #LeftShark

Perry's company said it wanted to make "costumes" and "figurines," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The examiner pointed out differences between the drawing of Left Shark and a photo of the Super Bowl performance.

Summary: Attempts to register a design for the "Left Shark" Internet sensation were quashed by a trademark examiner.


* Fighting escalates in Yemen

* U.S. rig count drops to lowest since 2010 -Baker Hughes

* Brent premium to U.S. crude slips back below $8/bbl

(Rewrites throughout, updates prices, changes byline, moves dateline from previous LONDON)

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - Oil futures seesawed in volatile trading on Monday as the conflict in Yemen and falling U.S. rig counts lent support, while ample global supply kept market participants cautious after prices reached 2015 peaks last week.

Saudi-led aircraft pounded Iran-allied Houthi militiamen and rebel army units in Yemen on Monday as a humanitarian crisis worsened.

While Yemen is not a major oil producer, Gulf producers ship oil along the Gulf of Aden on Yemen's southern coast and through the narrow straits of Bab el-Mandeb, between Yemen and Djibouti. The conflict raises the specter of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The number of active U.S. oil-drilling rigs has fallen for a record 20 weeks in a row to its lowest since 2010, according to data from oil services company Baker Hughes, fueling expectations production will drop.

But U.S. commercial crude inventories have risen for 15 straight weeks to a record 489 million barrels.

"While the situation in Yemen and the falling U.S. rig count have supported, some caution remains because we have not seen evidence the cuts in drilling have translated into lower inventories," said Gene McGillian, senior analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.

Brent June crude was down 15 cents at $65.13 a barrel at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT), having swung from $64.40 to $65.61.

U.S. June crude was up 30 cents at $57.45, having traded from $56.71 to $57.89.

Brent's premium to U.S. crude <CL-LCO1=R> pushed to $8.33 a barrel on Monday, but fell below $7 after it did not reach Friday's $8.43 a barrel peak.

Another sign of ample supply was news that Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told officials in Beijing that the kingdom is ready to supply China with additional oil if required.

"Sustaining the recent oil price rally requires firmer demand and a tangible supply response," analysts at Barclays said in a research note.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch raised their oil forecast for Brent and U.S. crude, while voicing some caution about ample supply.

"The market seems to have found a spot price low, and we lift our end of 2Q15 targets for WTI and Brent to $59 and $63 a barrel," they said in a note. "We revise up our 2016 Brent forecasts to $62 from $58, but remain bearish relative to the forward due to the big oil overhang."

(Additional reporting by Himanshu Ojha in London and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Dale Hudson, David Goodman and Ted Botha)

Summary: NEW YORK, April 27- Oil futures seesawed in volatile trading on Monday as the conflict in Yemen and falling U.S. rig counts lent support, while ample global supply kept market participants cautious after prices reached 2015 peaks last week. Saudi-led aircraft pounded Iran- allied Houthi militiamen and rebel army units in Yemen on Monday as a humanitarian crisis...


"The market had expected this change right after the government released data on the trade deficit," a money market dealer at a Vietnamese bank in Ho Chi Minh City said.

The previous depreciation was on Jan. 7, when the central bank also weakened the dong by 1 percent to help stabilise the foreign exchange market.

The State Bank of Vietnam said in a statement that recent pressure on the dollar/dong rate was "psychological" and "in market expectations", saying its latest move was to help meet socio-economic targets and cope with negative impacts from global markets.

"The (market) expectation is more depreciation as the dong is down just 2 percent while other currencies in the region have fallen 4-5 percent now," he said.

Read MoreWhy Vietnam's positives aren't boosting stocks

Last December, central bank Governor Nguyen Van Binh said it would keep the dong depreciation to less than 2 percent for the whole of 2015.

After Thursday's adjustment, the dong fell to 21,650/21,730 per dollar on the interbank market, from 21,620/21,670 the previous day.

Vietnam's January-April exports rose 8.2 percent to an estimated $50.1 billion, while imports surged 19.9 percent.

The government has projected annual export growth of 10 percent for the whole of 2015, slowing from a rise of 13.7 percent last year.

Summary: Vietnam devalued the dong currency again this year to support exports and curb import demand which has left it with a trade deficit.


11/01/2015 AT 05:30 PM EST

Chipotle has closed 43 of its restaurants in Oregon and Washington after 22 cases of E. coli surfaced and were reportedly linked to the popular burrito chain.

According to a news release from the

, although no deaths have occurred due to the outbreak, eight of the cases have resulted in hospitalization. The statement also said that "local and state health officials in Washington and Oregon are investigating" the outbreak to determine exact source of contamination.

In a statement obtained by PEOPLE from Chipotle's company spokesperson Chris Arnold, the outbreak has been tied to just six of the company's restaurants in the area, but they closed a total of 43 restaurants just to be safe.

"The safety and wellbeing of our customers is always our highest priority," Arnold said. "After being notified by health department officials in the Seattle and Portland, Oregon, areas that they were investigating approximately 20 cases of E. coli, including people who ate at six of our restaurants in those areas, we immediately closed all of our restaurants in the area out of an abundance of caution, even though the vast majority of these restaurants have no reported problems.

"We are working with health department officials to determine the cause of this issue. We offer our deepest sympathies to those who have been affected by this situation."

that a total of 43 local Chipotle restaurants have been closed and that the "reopening schedule will be driven by progress of the investigation."

, most strains of E. coli are harmless, but others can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, respiratory illness and pneumonia, among other illnesses.

"Anyone who thinks they may have become ill from eating at a Chipotle restaurant in the past three weeks should consult their healthcare provider," State Epidemiologist Dr. Scott Lindquist said in the Washington State Department of Health's statement. "The elderly and very young children are more likely to become severely ill from this kind of E. coli infection."

Summary: Eight of the 22 cases have resulted in hospitalization so far, and no deaths have occurred