A stock slump last year squeezed trucking executive Jerry Moyes, who had borrowed heavily against his shares in the company he founded.

The chief executive of Swift Transportation Co. , one of the largest trucking firms in the U.S., not only faced demands for more loan collateral but ran up against company limits on the extent of his borrowing.

Three times, Swift’s board stepped in to give the CEO more time to deal with his margin loans. Mr. Moyes also got some potential relief via a stronger share price as the board approved a stock buyback plan, Swift’s first since going public six years ago.

Now Mr. Moyes is calling for an even larger buyback, in one of a chain of events at the trucking firm that shows the complications a board can face as it grapples with how much to let top executives borrow against their stakes in a company.

Mr. Moyes has pledged more than $600 million of his holdings in Swift—a quarter of the outstanding shares—as collateral for loans or in complex loan-like contracts, according to securities filings. The trucking company’s stock tumbled 52% in 2015. The fall triggered margin calls—demands to make up shortfalls in the value of collateral—which Mr. Moyes sometimes dealt with by pledging more Swift shares.

His use of his Swift stock as margin-loan collateral has exceeded limits set by the board, regulatory filings show. As those limits gradually kicked in, directors gave Mr. Moyes additional time to meet them, which could be done by moves such as reducing his personal debts or using collateral other than Swift shares.

In November and January, Swift spent $100 million on share repurchases. Then on Tuesday, a day after Swift disclosed earnings, Mr. Moyes said he wanted the company to spend $200 million more buying back shares. Swift’s stock surged 22%.

At current prices, a buyback of that size would retire about 9% of the stock, supporting its price and easing pressure on Mr. Moyes’s margin loans. Despite Tuesday’s price jump, Swift’s stock remains down by 40% from a year ago. Swift officials say the buyback plan is unrelated to Mr. Moyes’s stock pledges.

Swift isn’t the only company whose executives have struggled with loans against their shares after price drops cut their collateral’s value. During the late-2008 market meltdown, Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. , sold 20% of his stake in the companies to satisfy debts. Aubrey McClendon, founder and former CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp., was forced to unload 94% of his stake. Last year, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. CEO J. Michael Pearson had to sell about $100 million of his shares in the company as its once-soaring shares slumped.

Though corporations may permit executives and directors to borrow against company shares they own, many limit or ban the practice. Such borrowing is unpopular among some institutional investors, who say it can undermine the long-term incentive of stock ownership by generating quick cash, and can insulate executives from poor company performance. Also, if the stock price falls, holders of pledged shares could be forced to sell rapidly, hurting the price even more.

Institutional Shareholder Services, the proxy-advisory firm, has objected to the Swift board’s willingness to let top executives pledge shares they own. “The directors, in a certain sense, they do have an obligation to implement an unwinding strategy that is not going to be detrimental to shareholders,” said Carol Bowie, ISS’s head of Americas research. “On the other hand, this has been going on for a while, and investors do have a legitimate question here about what took them so long.”

Mr. Moyes, who owns a controlling stake in the company he founded 50 years ago, declined to comment. Swift said the CEO has been working under the board’s leadership to reduce his shares pledged for margin loans. “In bringing about this reduction, the Board and Mr. Moyes are mindful of the need to ensure that any reduction occur in an orderly fashion,” a written company statement said.

Richard Dozer, Swift’s chairman, added that “the $100 million share repurchase plan that we, as a Board of Directors, authorized in September of 2015 had absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Moyes stock pledging, or margin calls.” A company spokesman said several large shareholders had urged Swift last summer to consider share repurchases.

Swift’s board is unusually small, just six members. To analysts of corporate governance, board size matters: While too-large boards can be unwieldy, too-small boards can turn into echo chambers and foster an eagerness among directors to get along in the face of tough decisions.

The Phoenix-based company has just four independent directors, as defined by New York Stock Exchange rules, Swift’s securities filings say. And one of those deemed independent, Mr. Dozer, spent years helping run a business that was partly owned by Mr. Moyes, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Mr. Dozer was the baseball team’s president from 1995 until 2006, and Mr. Moyes was a minority owner from 1996 until last year.

Mr. Dozer said the board has been “working in concert to reduce the number of shares Jerry has pledged on margin loans.” Swift’s regulatory filings “adequately explain the transactions and timelines,” he said.

Another independent director, Glenn Brown, said, “All the decisions that the board makes are in the best interests of the shareholders.”

The son of a trucker, Mr. Moyes, 71 years old, is a pioneer of the modern trucking business. He built Swift from a single truck in Phoenix into a coast-to-coast giant with 18,000 trucks and $4 billion in annual revenue.

Mr. Moyes resigned as CEO in 2005 after a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission of civil insider-trading allegations, in which he didn’t admit any wrongdoing. Two years later, he took Swift private in a $2.6 billion leveraged buyout.

Mr. Moyes has often used his stake in Swift—which he took public again in 2010—to help fund other pursuits, analysts say. “Jerry’s always got a bunch of money collateralized,” said Art Hatfield, an analyst at brokerage firm Raymond James. “Ever since he’s been involved with the company, he’s pledged his stock. He’s got so many different business interests going on that he’s always used Swift stocks as collateral against loans to his other ventures.”

In addition to Swift and the Diamondbacks, Mr. Moyes’s ventures in the Phoenix area have included a charter airline, a steel fabricator and a marina that offers boat tours of Lake Powell. He was a minority owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball team and was majority owner of the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, in a group that included hockey great Wayne Gretzky, before the team filed for bankruptcy and was sold back to the league in 2009.

Mr. Moyes and his family owned 60.3 million Swift shares as of Oct. 31 and had pledged at least 37 million of them either as margin-loan collateral or in loan-like arrangements, according to regulatory filings.

When Swift went public for the second time, it had a policy barring directors and senior officers from pledging more than 20% of their family holdings in Swift stock for margin loans.

In 2013, the board revised the limits, lowering the cap to 15% as of July 2014 and to 10% as of July 2015.

In June 2015, Mr. Moyes told Swift’s chairman he was trying to reduce the amount of his pledged shares to meet the 10% cap but needed until November “to do so in an orderly fashion,” according to an SEC filing.

The board amended its rules so the 10% limit wouldn’t take effect until Dec. 1, 2015.

Overcapacity and weak demand have squeezed trucking companies over the past year. In September, Swift warned it would miss its earnings targets for 2015 and announced its first stock-buyback plan since it went public for the second time in 2010. Swift said shortly afterward it would halt the expansion of its truck fleet.

In October, Mr. Moyes told the board he hadn’t reduced his borrowings as promised. Owing to a drop in the stock price, he had pledged additional shares to meet margin calls, according to an SEC filing. More than 15% of his holdings were now pledged, he said, and he needed more time to comply with the board’s limits.

Independent directors met and sanctioned Mr. Moyes, saying he would forfeit two months of salary and his 2015 bonus. They asked him to reduce the portion of his shares pledged as collateral to 15% or less by Nov. 4, according to an SEC filing.

As for the 10% limit, the board delayed imposing that for another year—until the end of 2016—“so that the margin positions could be reduced in an orderly fashion,” according to the filing.

On Christmas Eve, Swift said that “as a result of recent volatility” in the stock, Mr. Moyes had once again increased the amount of his Swift stock pledged on margin loans, exceeding the 15% limit. The board waived the 15% restriction, giving him until the end of 2016 to reduce his position, according to SEC filings.

According to SEC filings, Mr. Moyes has pledged some eight million shares of Swift as collateral for margin loans, as well as more than 29 million shares in complex transactions typically called “variable prepaid forward contracts” with Citigroup Inc.

These loan-like agreements gave the CEO cash upfront in exchange for his pledge to deliver some of his shares or cash in the future. For example, on Oct. 30, Mr. Moyes pledged 3.3 million shares to Citigroup and received $48.3 million in cash. Citigroup declined to comment.

The CEO’s total shares pledged either on margin loans or in the Citigroup contracts amount to more than 60% of his family’s Swift holdings. But Swift’s board counts only shares used for margin loans against its pledging limits for executives.

After reporting quarterly results this week, Mr. Moyes on Tuesday called for a $200 million stock buyback and said he would seek board approval in February. “I believe that the share repurchase at these ridiculous low prices can make a lot of sense,” he told investors on a conference call.

He said that the first share buyback had added four cents to per-share annual earnings and that a second, larger one would add 8 to 10 cents a share. The company said in a written statement that its “business performance continues to be strong as evidenced by the seven-percent increase in revenue and eight-percent increase in adjusted earnings per share in 2015.”

The new buyback proposal puts Swift out of step with a consolidation trend in the trucking industry, which has seen many of the largest companies seek to build revenue by acquiring competitors. In the call with analysts, Mr. Moyes said Swift had a chance in the past year to acquire another company for about $500 million but concluded that a share buyback would raise earnings more than an acquisition, with less risk.

Some analysts agree, saying repurchasing shares was a better use of Swift’s capital than taking a risk with an acquisition. “People agree with the move regardless of Moyes’s financial situation,” said Mr. Hatfield of Raymond James.

Other investors, among them the Teamsters, said the limits put in place by the company don’t go far enough because they don’t apply to the arrangements with Citigroup. Mr. Moyes is “using Swift as his personal bank,” said Carin Zelenko, director of the capital-strategies department for the Teamsters union, which holds a stake in Swift. The board’s limit on the pledging of shares “was only addressing part of the problem, and now we see they can’t even hold him to that,” she said.

Swift said Mr. Moyes’s arrangements with Citigroup aren’t margin loans, and the company’s treatment of them is consistent with policies in place since Swift’s IPO in 2010.

—Paul Page contributed to this article.

Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com, Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com and Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com

Summary: At Swift Transportation, the CEO’s margin debt on company stock bumps up against limits, and the board keeps adjusting them


TOKYO—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pro-growth policy is losing momentum as a higher tax burden keeps consumers' wallets closed, an economic adviser to Mr. Abe said on Monday, warning that it would be a mistake to raise the sales tax again next year, as is currently planned.

"The effects of Abenomics are weakening compared with last year," Etsuro Honda said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, in which he also said the Bank of Japan would need to take more action to achieve its inflation goal if the current situation continues.

The government's move to raise the national sales-tax rate to 8% from 5% on April 1 has cut consumers' real purchasing power, dealing a blow to domestic demand, an outcome the government shouldn't repeat next year, he said.

"Abenomics and the sales-tax increase are policies facing in opposite directions. If you step on the gas and hit the brakes at the same time, you know what will happen? The car will go into a spin."

Proponents of the tax increase, including Finance Minister Taro Aso, say borrowing costs would jump, choking off economic growth, should a government saddled with huge public debt signals that it is easing up on efforts to overhaul its finances. Opponents argue that raising the tax in a hurry would cut tax revenue and make fiscal overhauls more difficult, by derailing an economic recovery sparked by Abenomics.

Mr. Honda expressed displeasure at last week's comment by BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda suggesting the central-bank chief wants the government to follow through with a plan to lift the consumption tax to 10% in October next year. The law stipulates that the government should steer tax policy in that direction as long as the economy is on an "upturn."

"I want the governor of the Bank of Japan to focus exclusively on monetary policy," Mr. Honda said. "What the government should do with the consumption-tax rate, and when, is a matter to be decided by the government, and I want him to leave that job to the government."

Mr. Honda, a longtime friend of Mr. Abe's and one of the architects of the Abenomics policy mix of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural overhauls, said the best option would be for the government to postpone the two-percentage-point increase by 1½ years. That would give the economy time to realize higher wage increases, something essential to make sustainable economic growth take hold, he said.

Mr. Honda's remarks underline a heightening sense of caution among those who are close to Mr. Abe. Koichi Hamada, a Yale University professor emeritus and another adviser to the prime minister, suggested in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in August that he wants the government to go more slowly in raising the tax rate.

The launch of Abenomics after Mr. Abe took office in late 2012 initially raised high hopes for the Japanese economy, driving Tokyo stock markets up nearly 60% in 2013. But optimism toward his policies has recently faded as evidence emerged that an additional annual sales-tax burden of some $80 billion took a greater toll on the economy than had generally been expected. Abenomics' primary goal to end over a decade of deflation by spurring 2% price growth through monetary easing by the BOJ is coming under stronger scrutiny.

Data released on Monday showed that the economy contracted an annualized 7.1% in the quarter through June, worse than the initial reading.

"Everything buckled—consumption, capital spending, housing investment and infrastructure. This is very bad," Mr. Honda said. A quick summer rebound in growth hoped for by officials has yet to materialize, with other data signaling continued stagnation in consumption in July and August.

Mr. Honda rejected the view of many government and BOJ officials that weakening consumption is largely because of households taking a rest following a buying binge ahead of the tax change, and partly because of rainy summer weather.

"The negative income effects are here to stay permanently," Mr. Honda said. "Unless you do something to overcome them, you can't get over the sales-tax impact."

While there is no need for the central bank to act immediately, "looking objectively at the current circumstances, I see a high possibility of macroeconomic conditions eventually reaching a point" where the BOJ will have to ramp up easing measures, he said.

In contrast, fiscal policy is hard to mobilize because a shortage of construction workers makes expanding infrastructure spending difficult, he said. The only viable option left for the government to produce a quick impact is "simple cash handouts," but it would be challenging to justify the move because "that could raise fundamental questions over why we are raising taxes in the first place," he said.

While Messrs. Honda and Kuroda are sharply at odds on tax policy, both play down concerns that a weaker yen against the dollar will hurt Japan's economy by lifting the cost of living for Japanese.

"Even if the yen weakens a little more, that will be no problem at all" for the economy, given its effect of boosting the value of what Japan earns through exports and foreign investment in yen terms, Mr. Honda said, adding that a further weakening wouldn't strike him as strange. Still, Mr. Honda said a dollar above ¥120 would be "too high."

Write to Takashi Nakamichi at takashi.nakamichi@wsj.com

Summary: Shinzo Abe's pro-growth policies are losing momentum, an economic adviser to Mr. Abe said Monday, warning that it would be a mistake to raise the sales tax again next year, as is currently planned.


Barr named WageWorks, which provides spending accounts for health insurance consumers, and online financial advisors Financial Engines, as Internet companies with appealing cash flow. And he said Google's purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion served as example of an accurate valuation.

"We think there are pockets of exuberance in the markets where there are extended valuations," Barr said. "But a bubble? 1999 was a bubble, and this is nothing like 1999."

On the other hand, Olstein Capital CEO Robert Olstein sees similarities to that watershed year.

"The music has changed, the dance is the same," he said Thursday on "Squawk Box." "It's going to end badly."

Mark Mahaney, RBC Capital Markets managing director, is considerably more bullish on big-name Internet stocks. His top tech picks were Amazon, Priceline and Netflix.

"Facebook already proved you could monetize social interactions, and they'd already proved mobile," he told CNBC. "And they're growing triple digits, and they're accelerating. Nobody else in the group has those kinds of fundamentals and that kind of upside."

Summary: "We think there are pockets of exuberance in the markets where there are extended valuations," Needham Growth Fund's John Barr says.


04/11/2016 AT 10:30 AM EDT

with a very special candle – the same one used by his dad

shared a sweet belated message on Instagram for her son Israel, who turned 1 on Wednesday.

"Happy belated birthday to our sweet Israel! (We did not have wifi on his birthday)," explained the TLC star, who is currently on a

in Central America with Derrick and Israel.

Also celebrating Israel's birthday with the happy parents in Central America was Derrick's mom Cathy Dillard.

"We loved having Grandma C here for Israel's birthday. She even brought Derick's first birthday candle for Israel to use!" Jill added.

Jill, 24, and Derrick, 27, also took to their

to share how their baby boy rang in the milestone birthday.

"Israel, it's hard to believe you are already a year old! On Sunday you got to try cake and ice cream for the first time with a bunch of your friends watching you (you smeared it all over your legs! lol)," wrote Jill. "You are a handsome little fella, and here in Central America you stand out a little with your blonde hair and blue eyes."

The family started the celebration on Sunday at church with some friends, and later enjoyed a piÃ±ata and a party.

"Israel, momma and papa love you so much and pray your first birthday is just the beginning of many more happy ones to come! XOXOXO," concluded Jill.

Summary: Jill (Duggar) Dillard and husband Derrick's son Israel turned 1 on Wednesday


04/20/2016 AT 10:05 AM EDT

might be a style and health guru, but can she dance?

Paltrow's dancing skills were put to the test when she stopped by

for a round of "Toddlerography."

Decked out in black, skintight aerobic gear complete with sweatbands, Paltrow and host

prepared themselves to dance alongside a group of choreographers so tough they "made Beyonce cry" – toddlers.

"Just don't look her in the eye," Paltrow said as the first miniature instructor walked in.

The duo did their best to keep up with the toddler's dynamic dance moves. While one youngster tested some spins, another made Paltrow and Corden stretch their limbs for high kicks and splits.

But nothing proved to be quite as challenging – or hilarious – than when the toddlers made them attempt body rolls and hip thrusts.

By the end, everyone was ready for a drink – of apple juice, that is.

"That was intense," said Corden as Paltrow nodded her head in agreement.

Watch the hilarious video above.

Summary: "Just don't look her in the eye," Gwyneth Paltrow warned as the first miniature instructor walked in


Jaxon Strong was born with microhydranencephaly a form of microcephaly -- a birth defect that affects the brain and that has recently made headlines due to links to the Zika virus.

Jaxon's parents run a popular Facebook page where they bring awareness to Jaxon and his condition.

SEE ALSO: This woman is allergic to standing up

Amid growing concerns over the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, Jaxon's father gave reassuring words to families who may be faced with the condition. "Everyone's freaking out saying microcephaly is a death sentence, and it's not. Even if you had to go through it, your child can survive. Your child can live a good-quality life," he told Redbookmag.com.

Jaxon's parents discovered something was wrong with Jaxon at his 17-week ultrasound. "They warned us we could lose the pregnancy, give birth to a stillborn child, have all types of complications. They didn't expect him to make it, and if they did, they seriously doubted his quality of life. We were absolutely distraught," Brandon said.

See more of Jaxon below:

Parents of 'miracle baby' with microcephaly speak out amid Zika scare

Despite doctor's initial concerns, Jaxon is thriving according to his dad: "He's only getting stronger, and his health is improving. He's babbling, he loves to laugh, he loves to snuggle. He has an amazing personality. He'll look into our eyes and start smiling, giggling."

Although Jaxon has significant struggles, his parents say they see growth every day. He recently started using a pacifier -- a sign that he may no longer need his feeding tube.

Learn more about Jaxon here.

More on the Zika virus and microcephaly:

More on AOL.com: 2-year-old twins drown in koi pond behind family home Video of baby alligator breaking out of egg goes viral Firefighter hailed hero after giving his oxygen mask to elderly woman

Summary: The parents of Jaxon, a toddler born with microcephaly, saying despite his condition, their son is a blessing.


No one answered the door to the city's historic Dennis T. Sullivan Memorial Home when reporters knocked on the door in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008. The home usually serves as the Fire Chief's residence but the new planning director, John Rahim, is the current occupant. Sources say Rahim and his boyfriend, Lance Corey Farber, got into a fight and Farber lit the bed on fire Friday night. Farber fled but was later arrested in another county. Photo by Paul Chinn / San Francisco Chronicle

No one answered the door to the city's historic Dennis T. Sullivan Memorial Home when reporters knocked on the door in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2008. The home usually serves as the Fire

Landmark fire chief's residence is vandalized

San Francisco's historic fire chief's residence was trashed Friday night in what authorities said Saturday was a case of suspected arson and vandalism linked to the boyfriend of the city's new Planning Department chief, who is temporarily living in the home.

Planning Department Director John Rahaim, who just started the job last month after being appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, was not home at the time of the incident, police said.

About 30 firefighters and a cadre of high-ranking city officials, including the police and fire chiefs and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, rushed to the Bush Street landmark to find a bizarre scene that included a bed burning inside the home, overturned furniture, and a can of crushed tomatoes smeared on the floors and walls, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Rahaim's boyfriend, Lance Farber, 47, fled the scene after setting a mattress on fire at about 8:50 p.m. and causing $10,000 worth of vandalism damage, police said.

He was arrested in San Mateo County about an hour later on suspicion of driving under the influence. He was booked in the San Francisco County Jail Friday night on one count of arson of an inhabited dwelling and one count of felony vandalism, police said.

"This is a difficult time for John Rahaim, and the mayor is fully supportive of him," Newsom's spokesman Nathan Ballard said Saturday. "There's broad consensus that John Rahaim is doing a good job as planning director, and this incident has nothing to do with his on-the-job performance. It's a personal matter."

The Dennis T. Sullivan Memorial Fire Chief's Home, built in 1923, is an official San Francisco landmark. Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White does not live in the home at 870 Bush St., and the three-story dwelling is occasionally used for high-ranking city employees who have relocated to the city and are in need of transitional housing.

Hayes-White said the agreement to have Rahaim live in the house was negotiated by the mayor's office and using the home as temporary housing for city officials is not something she wants to see continued.

"The scene was in disarray. It was very disturbing," Hayes-White said.

Rahaim, 52, and Farber recently moved into the home after moving from Seattle, where Rahaim ran that city's planning department, city officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said.

Rahaim was not home Friday when he received a telephone call from Farber, who threatened to set fire to the fire chief's residence, Police Sgt. Steve Mannina said.

"He said, 'I'm going to burn the house,' " Mannina said.

Rahaim immediately called 911, and authorities arrived to find the garage door open, the home vandalized and a small mattress fire burning, Mannina said.

The inside of the home looked "like there was a huge frat party," said sources familiar with the investigation, who asked to be unnamed because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Tables were overturned, antique furniture that was part of the historic residence was broken, pictures were knocked off the wall, and crushed tomatoes were smeared on the rugs and walls, sources said.

Though the fire was limited to a mattress, box spring and comforter inside an upstairs bedroom, the whole home reeked of smoke, sources said.

Although neighbors said firefighters dragged the mattress outside Friday, by Saturday afternoon the only signs that a fire had occurred were charred white feathers billowing in the doorway of the old brick-front home.

The home was designed to look like a firehouse, and San Francisco was the first city in the country to build a separate residence for its fire chief, according to the San Francisco Fire Department Museum Web site. A bronze plaque outside the home honors Fire Chief Engineer Dennis Sullivan, who was killed in the 1906 earthquake.

"It was packed out here with firefighters," said 59-year-old Daisy McArthur, who lives across the street residence.

McArthur was standing outside the home when Rahaim arrived on the scene Friday evening, about 25 minutes after firefighters showed up.

"He was distraught," she said. "Shocked."

Mannina said police broadcast information about Farber having allegedly fled the scene of the fire. San Mateo County sheriff's deputies pulled Farber over on Millbrae Avenue near Highway 101 on suspicion of driving under the influence, he said.

"After they arrested him, they put two and two together that he was wanted on the other crime," Mannina said.

Ballard said Rahaim obtained a restraining order against Farber after the Friday evening incident.

Summary: San Francisco's historic fire chief's residence was trashed Friday night in what authorities said Saturday was a case of suspected arson and vandalism linked to the boyfriend of the city's new Planning Department chief, who is temporarily living in the home.  About 30 firefighters and a cadre of high-ranking city officials, including the police and fire chiefs and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, rushed to the Bush Street landmark to find a bizarre scene that included a bed burning inside the home, overturned furniture, and a can of crushed tomatoes smeared on the floors and walls, sources familiar with the investigation said.  Rahaim's boyfriend, Lance Farber, 47, fled the scene after setting a mattress on fire at about 8:50 p.m. and causing $10,000 worth of vandalism damage, police said.  Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White does not live in the home at 870 Bush St., and the three-story dwelling is occasionally used for high-ranking city employees who have relocated to the city and are in need of transitional housing.  Hayes-White said the agreement to have Rahaim live in the house was negotiated by the mayor's office and using the home as temporary housing for city officials is not something she wants to see continued.  Rahaim immediately called 911, and authorities arrived to find the garage door open, the home vandalized and a small mattress fire burning, Mannina said.


Anyone who works for a major news website or publisher knows that social referrals—that is, links that are shared on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter—have become a crucial source of incoming traffic, and have been vying with search as a source of new readers for some time. Now, according to new numbers from the traffic-analytics service Parse.ly, Facebook is no longer just vying with Google but has overtaken it by a significant amount.

Parse.ly’s chief technical officer Andrew Montalenti said in an interview with Fortune that the company’s latest estimates show that social-media sources (of which Facebook FB is by far the largest) accounted for about 43% of the traffic to the Parse.ly network of media sites, while Google accounted for just 38%.

The company’s clients include more than 400 major news and media outlets, including traditional publishers such as Wired, The Atlantic, Reuters and The Daily Telegraph, as well as a large group of digital-only outlets such as Mashable, The Next Web, and Business Insider. Collectively, the network accounts for about 6 billion pageviews and more than one billion unique visitors per month.

This isn’t the first time that Facebook has edged past Google in the traffic-referral race, Montalenti said. The social network (which is No. 10 on Fortune’s 2015 Fastest Growing Companies list) took the top spot by a small amount last October, but this month’s lead is far more dramatic—and the Parse.ly CTO said that from the company’s data, it’s clear that search has hit a kind of plateau and isn’t really growing any more as a referral source for media. Meanwhile, Facebook’s influence has “shown it’s on a continued growth trajectory.”

That trajectory has been fairly dramatic: According to Parse.ly, as recently as January of last year, Facebook accounted for just 20% of all the traffic from documented sources to the company’s network of media sites, and now it is more than double that. Montalenti said this doesn’t mean Facebook accounts for 43% of all traffic, but just the sources that Parse.ly is able to get data on.

Tony Haile, CEO of the traffic-analytics firm Chartbeat, said that his company’s data shows a similar theme: although Google has a much broader range of sites it sends traffic to via search, the larger news and media sites have become much more reliant on Facebook. “When we look at all the sites over our network, a third have more Facebook traffic than Google,” he said. “But when we only look at the largest 20%, about half of them have more traffic from Facebook than Google.”

Although there’s no question that social sharing has become a much more important source of traffic in its own right, the Parse.ly CTO said that a change in Google’s referral practices may also have played a role. While the search company used to show publishers what keywords were used to direct the most traffic to their articles, in most cases it doesn’t provide that kind of data any more. The company says this is for security reasons, but Montalenti says it could also be because Google doesn’t want publishers to game its algorithm.

Whatever the reasoning, that lack of insight into what kind of traffic is coming from Google and why could have helped contribute to a lack of interest in SEO and growing interest in using social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter TWTR . Facebook has also been trying to court media companies and get them to host more of their content on the site, Montalenti noted, through efforts such as the Instant Articles project it announced earlier this year.

The only problem with that shift, the Parse.ly CTO says, is that Facebook is almost as impenetrable as Google when it comes to trying to figure out why one article did well and another didn’t. And that makes it difficult for publishers to build a coherent social-media strategy.

“There’s a lot of effort among media companies being placed on specific social channels like Twitter, but our data shows that Twitter is basically a distant traffic source,” says Montalenti. “That’s unfortunate because Facebook is a lot less transparent around things like how the algorithm functions. There’s a lot more useful data from Twitter about their content, but FB is more like a black box in terms of how it operates. And yet it’s this huge and growing traffic source.”

You can follow Mathew Ingram on Twitter at @mathewi, and read all of his posts here or via his RSS feed. And please subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.

Summary: Traffic analytics firm Parse.ly says its latest figures show the giant social network now accounts for more of the traffic to news sites than Google.


For reasons that continue to defy understanding, book trailers have become a thing in recent years. But here’s one for Modern Romance that actually makes sense, because Aziz Ansari, who co-authored the book with sociologist Eric Klinenberg, is an actor and comedian who has appeared in real trailers for other entertainment items in the past.

The amusing video shows a series of extremely eligible bachelors—possibly from the 1980s—talking about their desire to find love and companionship. And yes, Monroe, even though this video is roughly as pixelated as candids of the Loch Ness Monster, we did notice that you have incredibly blue eyes.

After a minute of being tortured with clips of men who have assuredly found their perfect mates by now, Ansari pops on screen to explain why his book is different from many other romance self-help tomes (Spoiler: He and Klinenberg used “data” and “science”). A graphic also lists Ansari’s interests as “pizza, having fun and talking” in case you were wondering whether he was a human.

Modern Romance hits shelves on June 16. Read an excerpt in which Ansari explains why everything you thought you knew about love is wrong here.

Summary: Most of it looks like it was shot in the 80's


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Ellen DeGeneres' Gap Kids clothing line, GapKids X ED, is all about encouraging children to embrace what makes them unique. But its that "empowerment" aspect of the brand's campaigns that had many confused the most recent photos posted to GapKids' Twitter account on Saturday.

One photo showed two white children doing acrobatic moves while a third older white child leans her arm on the black child seen in the ad. Many people on Twitter took issue with the tweet that reads "meet the kids who are proving that girls can do anything."

READ MORE: This Clothing Ad Was Banned for Sexualizing "Vulnerable" Children

Not only is GapKids being called out for only using one "token" child of color; some also pointed out that the brand was presenting black girls as a mere "arm rest" or support, unlike the other white girls who can "do anything."

Filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry resurfaced a past GapKids campaign photo that featured a similarly designed shot, only this one with a black child using a white child as an armrest, igniting further debate.

As seen in a short video tweeted by GapKids, there were plenty of other photos taken during the shoot, most of which show the black girl being more than just being an armrest.

Regardless of Gaps intent (Mic has reached out for comment), it's apparent that the photos have started a heated debate — something that could've been avoided with a more diverse cast of children, different photo choices and a marketing team that caught the blunder before it went viral.

What do you think? Much ado about nothing? Or does Gap deserve further scrutiny?

RELATED: Ellen DeGeneres through the years

Ellen DeGeneres' Gap Kids ad is being called out for racist undertones

If These Walls Could Talk 2, An Hbo Films Trilogy Examining The Lesbian Experience In America In Three Different Decades, Debuts Sunday, March 5 At 9:00 P.M. (Et). Pictured: Ellen Degeneres (Who Also Executive Produces) In The Story Entitled '2000.' (Photo By Getty Images)

PASADENA, : Ellen DeGeneres (C), a nominee for an Emmy in the category of Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in 'Ellen,' stands with her mother (R) and her girlfriend Ann Hache as they arrive at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, CA, 14 September. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is organizing the 49th Emmys Award. AFP PHOTO/Kim KULISH (Photo credit should read KIM KULISH/AFP/Getty Images)

If These Walls Could Talk 2, An Hbo Films Trilogy Examining The Lesbian Experience In America In Three Different Decades, Debuts Sunday, March 5 At 9:00 P.M. (Et). Pictured, From Left: Sharon Stone And Ellen Degeneres (Who Also Executive Produces) With Anne Heche, Writer And Director Of The Story Entitled '2000.' (Photo By Getty Images)

Anne Heche, Sharon Stone and Ellen DeGeneres in 'If These Walls Could Talk 2.' Anne Heche wrote and directed the story entitled '2000.' Photo credit: Lorey Sebastian HBO

Host Ellen Degeneres at the 53rd Annual Prime-Time Emmy Awards held at the Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles, CA., Nov. 4, 2001. (photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

399574 88: Actress Ellen DeGeneres speaks during the 28th Annual Peoples Choice Awards at the Pasadena Civic Center January 13, 2002 in Pasadena, CA. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CA - SEPTEMBER 2: Talk show host Ellen Degeneres appears on 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' at the NBC Studios on September 2, 2003 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES - SEPTEMBER 21: Actress Ellen DeGeneres and guest attend the 55th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium September 21, 2003 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

WESTWOOD, CA - APRIL 3: Actor David Spade and comedian Ellen DeGeneres pose backstage during Nickelodeon's 17th Annual Kids' Choice Awards at Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA, April 3, 2004 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES - JUNE 16: Television show host Ellen Degeneres runs with the Olympic Torch in Los Angeles during U.S. segment of the ATHENS 2004 Olypic Torch Relay June 16, 2004 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 5: Actress Ellen DeGeneres arrives at the 11th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Exposition Center on February 5, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

NEW YORK - MAY 20: Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres (L) and actress Portia De Rossi arrive at the 32nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Radio City Music Hall May 20, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Peter Kramer/Getty Images)

NEW YORK - MAY 20: Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres accepts an award for best talk show at the 32nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Radio City Music Hall May 20, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD , CA - APRIL 28: Actress Portia de Rossi and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres arrive at the 33rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards held at the Kodak Theatre on April 28, 2006 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

NEW YORK - AUGUST 26: TV personality Ellen Degeneres participates in a charity tennis shoot out on Arthur Ashe Kid's Day at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on August 26, 2006 in New York City. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD - FEBRUARY 25: Host Ellen DeGeneres wears an oscar onstage during the 79th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre on February 25, 2007 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS - NOVEMBER 20: Talk show host/comedian Ellen DeGeneres (C) performs with dancers during a taping of 'Ellen's Even Bigger Really Big Show' during The Comedy Festival at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace November 20, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 06: Ellen Degeneres (R) reads to Venus Williams (L) at Venus Williams' book signing during day eight of the 2010 U.S. Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 6, 2010 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images for USTA)

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 09: Ellen Degeneres walks the runway at the Richie Rich Spring 2011 fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at The Studio at Lincoln Center on September 9, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for IMG)

UNIVERSAL CITY, CA - JULY 22: TV Personality Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi arrive at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards at Gibson Amphitheatre on July 22, 2012 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 04: Comedienne/talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on September 4, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 10: TV personality Ellen DeGeneres (L) and singer Beyonce speak onstage at the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on February 10, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 22: American TV personality Ellen DeGeneres arrives at Sydney Airport on March 22, 2013 in Sydney, Australia. DeGeneres is in Australia to film segments for her TV show, 'Ellen'. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

VAN NUYS, CA - NOVEMBER 22: Television personality and comedian Ellen DeGeneres (L) launches the 'Duracell Power a Smile Program' at the Van Nuys Airport on November 22, 2013 in Van Nuys, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 08: TV personality Ellen DeGeneres (R) and actor/singer Justin Timberlake attend The 40th Annual People's Choice Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on January 8, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for The People's Choice Awards)

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 08: TV personality Ellen DeGeneres (L) and Actress Drew Barrymore attend The 40th Annual People's Choice Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on January 8, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images for The People's Choice Awards)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: Host Ellen DeGeneres speaks onstage during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

'JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE: AFTER THE OSCARS(r)' SPECIAL - The 9th annual 'Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the Oscars(r)' Special airs Sunday, March 2 after the late local news ET/CT and at 10:00 p.m., PT on ABC. Broadcasting from Disney's El Capitan Theater located on Hollywood Boulevard in the heart of L.A.'s star-studded Walk of Fame, the studio is just steps away from Dolby Theater, home to the Academy Awards(r). (Photo by Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images) PORTIA DE ROSSI, ELLEN DEGENERES, JIMMY KIMMEL

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: Host Ellen DeGeneres speaks onstage during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: Host Ellen DeGeneres onstage during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: HANDOUT â EDITORIAL USE ONLY - In this handout photo provided by Ellen DeGeneres, host Ellen DeGeneres poses for a selfie taken by Bradley Cooper with (clockwise from L-R) Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong'o, Angelina Jolie, Peter Nyong'o Jr. and Bradley Cooper during the 86th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo credit Ellen DeGeneres/Twitter via Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 14: Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres are seen on February 14, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: Actors Portia de Rossi (L) and Ellen DeGeneres attends the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014 in West Hollywood, California.(Photo by Mark Sullivan/WireImage)

NEW YORK NY - JUNE 19: Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi sighting on June 19, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Josiah Kamau/BuzzFoto/FilmMagic)

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 07: TV personality Ellen DeGeneres (L) and actress Portia de Rossi attend The 41st Annual People's Choice Awards at Nokia Theatre LA Live on January 7, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for The People's Choice Awards)

Summary: Ellen DeGeneres' Gap Kids clothing line is in hot water after an ad showed a white child leaning her arm on a black child seen in the ad.


The war may be over -- but NY Knicks superfan

couldn't help but take one last shot at

... and it was pretty hilarious.

Lee and Rapaport had been

over how to fix the problems in New York City -- Rapaport called Lee a "s**t stain" and Lee said Michael was "stupid."

they spoke on the phone and squashed the beef for good.

In fact, when we saw Michael out in NYC Monday ... he was PRAISING Spike as the biggest Knicks fan in the world -- even bigger than he is -- but dropped one last zinger at the famous director.

All in good fun though ... right?

Summary: The war may be over -- but NY Knicks superfan Michael Rapaport couldn't help but take one last shot at Spike Lee ... and it was pretty hilarious. Lee…


Every year in America, over 30,000 people are killed in road or highway accidents.

You may not find that number shocking, but there was a time when traffic deaths were considered a tragic scourge. In the 1930s, for instance, the authorities of Washington, D.C. would hoist a skull and crossbones to note each local traffic fatality.

But over the decades, that sense of gravity faded, and traffic deaths have come to seem like background noise. To take a recent example, the deaths of two Amtrak rail workers in an early April accident was fairly big news, and the company launched an internal investigation. Meanwhile, around 100 highway workers die in road work zone collisions every year, making up around 2% of all workplace fatalities—and it’s rarely discussed. We seem to assume that trains are inherently safe, and take it equally for granted that roads are deadly.

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Some critics say transportation authorities helped cultivate that blasé attitude by celebrating declines in fatality rates, allowing them to deliver ‘good’ news most years, even as auto crashes remained a leading cause of death in the U.S. It became a widespread (though often implicit) assumption that there is a balance to be struck between safety and efficiency—that, in essence, a working road system involves some inevitable amount of death.

Now, a movement called Vision Zero is working to overturn that way of thinking. The idea, which originated in Sweden in the 1990s, is to measure traffic fatalities not against percentages or trendlines, but against the very simple goal of eliminating them altogether. Anything short of that, the thinking goes, is a failure, with no number of deaths outweighing potential benefits in transportation efficiency.

Vision Zero also involves a big shift in thinking about responsibility in traffic collisions. As one of the architects of the movement has put it, “the accident is not the major problem”—blame for collisions is thought to lie more with poor planning than with individual driver error. That principle encourages planners to obsess about details like blind turns, confusing intersections, and dangerous on ramps.

Since implementing Vision Zero, Sweden’s rate of traffic fatalities has dropped by half, and is now around one fourth of the U.S. rate. That success has helped the idea catch on with U.S. cities in recent years, and some version of Vision Zero has been adopted by Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston, among others.

New York’s Vision Zero project strikes a characteristic tone of emotional gravity: “Each fatal crash that is averted,” reads the city’s Year Two report, “Means that there are families and friend that will not have to feel the pain and grief that comes with the death of a loved one.” New York says its 2015 traffic fatality rate is the lowest since 1910.

In New York and nationwide, of course, recent reductions come at the end of a long downward trend. Through the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. traffic death rates were as high as 26 per 100,000 people, and in the past decade that’s dropped to a little over 10. That has been thanks in large part to better drunk driving enforcement, and to improved vehicle safety, with airbags and crumple zones preventing more passenger and driver deaths.

But the death rate for pedestrians, who don’t benefit from safety features like airbags, has declined much less, and helping cars coexist with pedestrians and cyclists is a major focus of Vision Zero. In Sweden, that has meant things like protected bike lanes, and lowering urban speed limits from around 30 miles per hour, where a collision with a pedestrian has an 80% mortality rate, to below 20 miles per hour, where that rate is closer to 10%.

For more on building smarter cities, watch:

The shift to prioritize pedestrian safety over driver convenience coincides with U.S. trends towards more people living in dense, walkable urban areas. And despite Vision Zero’s humanistic rhetoric, making a city safer for pedestrians could have serious long-term economic impacts, by keeping more residents healthy and working, lowering medical costs, and maybe even attracting more of the creative urban types who now drive the economy.

There may be another factor in the growing appeal of an aggressive approach to traffic safety. For the last half-decade, boosters of autonomous vehicles have said that they’ll improve traffic safety by taking human fallibility out of the equation. That ambitious goal could still be many years away—but the idea alone makes it harder to take the grim tally of traffic deaths for granted.

Summary: A new attitude towards traffic safety, with its roots in Sweden, is taking hold in the U.S.


MILAN—About 700 people are thought to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa in the past few days, the United Nations’ refugee agency said Sunday, further highlighting the perils of the world’s deadliest migration route.

That figure is “a conservative estimate,” with most of the deaths the result of three large shipwrecks, said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Carlotta Sami. Most of the...

Summary: About 700 people are thought to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa in the past few days, further highlighting the perils of the world’s deadliest migration route.


The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a major immigration reform on Tuesday, allowing spouses of individuals on the H-1B visa (known as H-4 dependent spouses) to apply for work permits.

The new rules were announced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Leon Rodriguez and will take effect on May 26 this year, according to a government release.

“Allowing the spouses of these visa holders to legally work in the United States makes perfect sense,” Rodriguez said, adding that the move would incentivize highly skilled workers and their families to stay in the country long enough to acquire green cards.

The reforms, announced as part of President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, were met with relief in countries like India, which sends a large number of workers into the U.S. tech industry while their spouses are unable to legally work.

“I miss my job, I miss my financial independence,” said software engineer Swapnil Gupta, who moved to the U.S. in 2011 with her husband, according to Reuters.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to what I love doing,” she added, calling the new regulations a “great relief.”

Read next: Why Congress Is Feuding With Obama Over the Homeland Security Budget

Listen to the most important stories of the day.

Summary: The reforms will take effect from May 26.


1996-09-15 04:00:00 PDT Los Angeles -- A black hood covered his face. He wore a black skirt. His head was slumped against a leather strap chained to the headboard of the king-size bed in the sparsely furnished living room.

Kevin Gilbert, 29, was dead. That much his manager could see peering in at the front door that morning last May.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office sees four or five such deaths a year -- "autoerotic asphyxiation," caused when people go one small step too far in depriving their brains of oxygen while they reach orgasm. It was a death without dignity, a random fall through the cracks of a secret life.

Gilbert was a prodigy musician from San Mateo who could play any instrument; colleagues invariably called him "the most talented musician I ever met." To the rest of the world, though, his only real claim to fame lies in the credits to "Tuesday Night Music Club," the 1993 debut album by Sheryl Crow.

"I saw something in Entertainment magazine that said Kevin Gilbert, the piano player on Sheryl Crow's record, had died," said songwriter David Baerwald, a member of the Tuesday club of the album's name. He paused, sadly shaking his head. "He hated that Sheryl Crow record and that's all he's going to be known for. The piano player? Roll over, Kevin Gilbert."

When Gilbert first brought his girlfriend Sheryl to informal Tuesday night songwriting sessions with his friends, he played a pivotal role in shaping an $85 million megahit. For her, the album brought three Grammys, stardom and an industry buzz that makes her forthcoming CD one of the most eagerly anticipated releases this fall. But for him, it was hardly a triumph. "I don't know if I can ever forgive her," he wrote in his journal. "I don't hate her -- I'm just soooo disappointed."

In a way it's a classic Hollywood tale: Gifted boy artist meets girl artist, mentors her to success and is left in the dust -- equal parts "Sunset Boulevard," "A Star Is Born" and "All About Eve." By any measure, Gilbert's career was a fitful tumble of brilliance and happenstance, a series of near misses and one hit that wasn't his. And his Tuesday night cohorts describe Crow -- who refused to be interviewed for this story -- as a marginally talented singer who exploited his skills and theirs in a ruthless grab for success.

But this wasn't a movie, and so the real story is inevitably messier and more complex. As the circumstances of his death suggest, Gilbert had a dark side, a hidden face making him an enigma to his friends. There was a history of antidepressants, a string of journal entries registering acute self-loathing and doubt. Once, he wrote about feeling intimidated when meeting a well-known session musician at a concert. "I suck," he wrote, circling the words for emphasis.

He had a promising start. As a South Bay teenager, Gilbert was given the run of Sunnyvale's Sensa Sound studio after hours; there, he recorded tracks with his progressive rock group, Giraffe. In 1988 he won the U.S. and worldwide finals of a talent contest run by the Yamaha piano company. One of the judges -- Pat Leonard, a producer for Madonna -- invited Gilbert to make a record in Los Angeles.

That album, "Toy Matinee," sold nearly 200,000 copies in 1991, thanks in part to an MTV video featuring actress Rosanna Arquette (whom Gilbert had dated). Gilbert put together a road version that included his then current girlfriend on background vocals and second keyboard -- Sheryl Crow.

Making that album, Gilbert, at 21, met another record producer, Bill Bottrell, who became a kind of father figure. Bottrell brought him to sessions for Madonna and Michael Jackson; before long, Gilbert had sublet the space adjacent to Bottrell's Pasadena studio, Toad Hall. From there he set about recording his solo debut.

Drawing on all his perfectionist instincts, along with his ingrained self-doubts, Gilbert didn't just work on his record; he suffered over it, recording and rerecording, polishing, tweaking, rethinking, redoing.

"It was a long process," said Bottrell, who used to hear Gilbert thumping away through the common wall. "He sat over there endless nights."

In August 1992, Bottrell convened Gilbert and other musicians at Toad Hall with the simple agenda of collaborating for the fun of it every Tuesday night. "We were all good, not to be immodest," Baerwald said. "We were also all cynical, embittered by the process of pop music. We were trying to find some joy in music again."

A party atmosphere predominated -- "Bill would sift through (the music) the next morning while we were all nursing hangovers," drummer Brian MacLeod recalled. Then Bottrell introduced a project he thought might force a little focus onto the freewheeling, chaotic sessions.

Crow had finished an album for A&M Records, but despite the $500,000 spent on it, nobody at the label was thrilled with the results. Hoping for a quick fix, A&M hired Gilbert to remix the album, which was, in the immutable illogic of the record industry, already scheduled for release. Crow's manager asked Bottrell to step in as well.

On Crow's first Tuesday night with the club, Baerwald showed up with musical sidekick David Ricketts (from the 1986 David and David album), both of them high on LSD, with the first verse already written to a song, "Leaving Las Vegas." Baerwald picked up a guitar, Ricketts the bass, and the band fell together to pick up where it had left off.

Baerwald "couldn't function," said Bottrell. "Sheryl started to get drunk. I was looking for that moment when the good take would happen."

For most of that year, Bottrell and his Tuesday crew -- now working all week long -- scrupulously fashioned and reshaped Crow's album. Because everything was a collaboration, songwriting credits were equally shared. "Everybody was equal," said Baerwald, "except Sheryl. She wasn't one of us. We helped her make a record."

Gilbert's name wound up on seven of the 11 songs; he sang and played keyboards, guitar, bass and drums.

His relationship with Crow was kept separate and even a secret from the group. "I'd see long conversations in the parking lot," Baerwald said.

"Kevin challenged her," MacLeod said. "He was trying to get her to be honest and sing from her heart."

Unsure of herself, professionally in over her head, Crow went home with Gilbert after sessions and listened to him rant about the industry's failings. "She had Kevin filling her with doubts," Bottrell said.

When he wasn't with Crow or the club, Gilbert struggled with his solo album, playing most of the instruments on his supple but powerful pop-rock tracks -- polished productions that showed the gleam of countless studio hours. A proposed deal with a major label fell apart, so he made do with a tiny custom label.

After nearly a year of working together, all for one and one for all, the Tuesday Night musicians were shocked to learn they didn't figure into any more of Crow's plans. Bottrell got the news when he met her to hand over the finished master in a Sunset Strip coffee shop. Although there had been much talk of hitting the road together to promote the record -- bassist Dan Schwartz even bought a new bass for the tour -- "she essentially told me to get lost," Bottrell said.

"I add Sheryl Crow to a long list of people in Hollywood who told me they were my friend until they got what they wanted from me," Schwartz said.

As Crow's relationship with Gilbert deteriorated -- apparently she turned her attentions to an executive at the record label, Baerwald said -- an increasingly bitter Gilbert threw himself deeper into his own album.

"I think I'm a tinge jealous over her upcoming release," he wrote in his journal. "It's probably going to be huge so I have to prepare myself mentally for that. If she gets what she wants after behaving this way, she'll be absolutely intolerable."

For Gilbert, the final straw came when Crow sang "Leaving Las Vegas" on the David Letterman show. Afterward, when Letterman asked her if the song was autobiographical, a flustered Crow blurted out, "Yes."

"I've never been to Las Vegas," continued Crow, who nobody remembers having contributed greatly to the writing of the song. "I wrote it about Los Angeles. It's really metaphorical."

The next day, she and Gilbert exchanged angry words over the phone. He wasn't the only one furious. Author John O'Brien -- who wrote the novel that inspired both Baerwald's early song lyrics and the movie starring Nicolas Cage -- was still grumbling about Crow's gaffe to his literary agent on the day he blew his brains out, a scant few weeks before the movie deal was complete.

As Crow's album soared on the charts (her nod to Gilbert in the liner notes says, "I owe you big for two years of musical and emotional support. Thanks"), Gilbert's solo album, a masterful but underpromoted effort titled "Thud," disappeared almost immediately on release. At the same time, ironically, a tape he recorded for the Led Zeppelin tribute album, dropped from the disc at the last minute, exploded on Los Angeles radio, leaving his label ineptly scrambling to capitalize.

Despite its new prominence, the Tuesday Night Music Club never could quite regroup. The members did play one guest appearance with Crow at an out-of-town club, but the record company made it clear they would not be included in the more prestigious Hollywood show.

Gilbert threw himself into other projects: helping Baerwald produce a solo album by Susannah Hoffs of the Bangles, working with Bottrell on an album by Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes (the Tuesday night gang dubbed her "the anti- Sheryl"), writing and recording scores for TV shows under a pseudonym. He even produced a movie soundtrack song for which Crow sang vocals -- a version of Steve Miller's "The Joker" -- although they were never in the studio at the same time.

In November 1994, Gilbert met playwright Cintra Wilson at a party in San Francisco; two months later she moved to Los Angeles to live with him. "He was massively depressed over the whole Sheryl debacle," Wilson said. "I was a basket case. We were perfect for each other."

Despite the tension with Crow, most of the Tuesday Night Music Club attended the Grammy Awards in March 1995. To show irreverence, Wilson rented 19th century funeral regalia for Gilbert and her to wear: a morning coat and top hat for him, ostrich plumes and a bustle for her. Crow sat in the row in front of them. "They were not on good terms," Wilson said. "She was tensely gracious. It was a furtive, tense, real glitzy night."

Crow picked up three awards, including Record of the Year for "All I Wanna Do," a Tuesday Night instrumental with lyrics borrowed from verses in a little-known volume by a poet in Vermont. A week later, Gilbert was still wearing his Grammy medallion around his neck like a badge of valor.

From there, he set out to recapture the creative anarchy he felt was the authentic legacy of the club. He and MacLeod produced some startling recordings, far removed from anything either of them had ever done.

They were scary, dense, pop-industrial recordings, with Gilbert whispering ominous, almost threatening processed vocals. "They gave me nightmares," Bottrell said. Gilbert envisioned a new band, Kaviar, clad in fetish rubber gear. He pulled other musicians into the plan. At the same time, Gilbert could toss off simple, beautiful, sentimental tunes. In Baerwald's last memory of Gilbert, the pianist was noodling around on the keyboard, plaintively singing Randy Newman's "Marie." Baerwald had briefly dozed off. "I woke up crying," he said. Bottrell, who played perhaps the largest role in Gilbert's career, doesn't think he ever really knew him. "There were tremendous areas of his life I was not privy to," he said. "There were motives I could never quite figure out."

But Bottrell's wife, Elizabeth, remembers sensing a powerful mood of peace and reconciliation in a phone conversation with Gilbert the afternoon before he died. They talked about attending an industry dinner together; Gilbert kidded her about wearing rubber. They never spoke again.

On an afternoon this summer, several hundred of Gilbert's friends and associates gathered for a memorial service at the Bottrells' Glendale home. Wilson, dressed in white, sat next to MacLeod as Crow walked up to say hello. "I barked at her," Wilson recalled. Wilson knew the titles of the album's songs well enough. "Run, baby, run," she yelped at Crow, who fled in tears.

Although Crow is reluctant to discuss Gilbert, she has been openly vocal in interviews about the rift over the album with the Tuesday Night Music Club. "There were guys in the group who were feeling bitter about the record doing so well," she recently told Billboard magazine. "Maybe I should have called it something else."

Later this month, she will release her follow-up album, titled, not insignificantly, perhaps even defiantly, "Sheryl Crow" -- a two- word title that speaks volumes. Clearly, this singer wants to prove that she's an act and a talent all her own -- not the smoke-and-mirrors creation of a savvy, multitalented backup band.

She did mention Gilbert to a Dutch journalist in an interview last month. "I wasn't surprised by his death," Crow told Edwin Ammerlaan of Orr Magazine. "Kevin was one of the most self-destructive people I've ever met. I don't want to go into this too much, but it wasn't a nice story."

Summary: The Los Angeles County coroner's office sees four or five such deaths a year -- "autoerotic asphyxiation," caused when people go one small step too far in depriving their brains of oxygen while they reach orgasm.  Gilbert was a prodigy musician from San Mateo who could play any instrument; colleagues invariably called him "the most talented musician I ever met."  To the rest of the world, though, his only real claim to fame lies in the credits to "Tuesday Night Music Club," the 1993 debut album by Sheryl Crow.  When Gilbert first brought his girlfriend Sheryl to informal Tuesday night songwriting sessions with his friends, he played a pivotal role in shaping an $85 million megahit.  [...] the album brought three Grammys, stardom and an industry buzz that makes her forthcoming CD one of the most eagerly anticipated releases this fall.  [...] it's a classic Hollywood tale:  Gifted boy artist meets girl artist, mentors her to success and is left in the dust -- equal parts "Sunset Boulevard," "A Star Is Born" and "All About Eve."  There was a history of antidepressants, a string of journal entries registering acute self-loathing and doubt.  Gilbert put together a road version that included his then current girlfriend on background vocals and second keyboard --  Making that album, Gilbert, at 21, met another record producer, Bill Bottrell, who became a kind of father figure.  Drawing on all his perfectionist instincts, along with his ingrained self-doubts, Gilbert didn't just work on his record; he suffered over it, recording and rerecording, polishing, tweaking, rethinking, redoing.  For most of that year, Bottrell and his Tuesday crew -- now working all week long -- scrupulously fashioned and reshaped Crow's album.  Because everything was a collaboration, songwriting credits were equally shared.  When he wasn't with Crow or the club, Gilbert struggled with his solo album, playing most of the instruments on his supple but powerful pop-rock tracks -- polished productions that showed the gleam of countless studio hours.  Bottrell got the news when he met her to hand over the finished master in a Sunset Strip coffee shop.  Author John O'Brien -- who wrote the novel that inspired both Baerwald's early song lyrics and the movie starring Nicolas Cage -- was still grumbling about Crow's gaffe to his literary agent on the day he blew his brains out, a scant few weeks before the movie deal was complete.  [...] ironically, a tape he recorded for the Led Zeppelin tribute album, dropped from the disc at the last minute, exploded on Los Angeles radio, leaving his label ineptly scrambling to capitalize.  The members did play one guest appearance with Crow at an out-of-town club, but the record company made it clear they would not be included in the more prestigious Hollywood show.  Gilbert threw himself into other projects: helping Baerwald produce a solo album by Susannah Hoffs of the Bangles, working with Bottrell on an album by Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes (the Tuesday night gang dubbed her "the anti- Sheryl"), writing and recording scores for TV shows under a pseudonym.  To show irreverence, Wilson rented 19th century funeral regalia for Gilbert and her to wear: a morning coat and top hat for him, ostrich plumes and a bustle for her.  Crow picked up three awards, including Record of the Year for "All I Wanna Do," a Tuesday Night instrumental with lyrics borrowed from verses in a little-known volume by a poet in Vermont.  Clearly, this singer wants to prove that she's an act and a talent all her own -- not the smoke-and-mirrors creation of a savvy, multitalented backup band.


Argentina has agreed to pay $217 million to two energy companies in long-standing arbitration cases stemming from its 2001/02 economic crisis, part of the center-right government’s efforts to lure back foreign investors.

The country will pay damages to Britain’s BG Group, now owned by Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A , and U.S. firm El Paso Energy EP-C , now owned by Kinder Morgan, the Argentine finance ministry said in a statement late on Friday.

Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis Is About to Get Worse

“Both agreements put an end to the claims and level the way to re-establishing direct investments, particularly from companies coming from the associated countries (Britain and the United States) and in the energy sector,” the ministry said.

The World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) had found in favor of both companies in 2014.

Last month, Argentina returned to global debt markets and paid off ‘holdout’ creditors, 14 years after a massive sovereign debt default that triggered an exit of investors and a wave of litigation.

South America’s ‘Lithium Triangle’ Is Investing Hot Spot

New business-friendly President Mauricio Macri hopes closing that painful chapter in the country’s history will bring down borrowing costs across Latin America’s third-largest economy and attract the investment needed to kick-start growth.

The government is keen to move towards energy self-suffiency and Macri has promised to increase investment in the oil sector, particularly in renewable energy and the sprawling Vaca Muerta shale formation in Patagonia.

The payment will be via dollar-denominated bonds, the government said.

Summary: This has been in the making since Argentina's 2001 economic crisis.


John Gruber and Joshua Topolsky, two of the best reporters in the business, were riffing on the air last week about what Apple would have done to Mark Gurman if WWDC were a spy movie and Apple a truly evil corporation.

Something terrible. Cut brake line. Bullet in the back of the head. Murder.

Young Mark Gurman, as Gruber calls him, took it as the compliment it was. At 21, a rising senior at the University of Michigan, he’s no longer the teen blogging phenom I profiled three year ago. He’s not much of a secret either. When Techmeme last month began listing authors by how frequently they are linked to from news and social media sites, Gurman topped the list, ahead of reporters at the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and Re/Code. He’s become a one-stop shopping site for mainstream media trying to keep up with Apple news. His work was cited in more than two dozen posts on Fortune.com in May alone.

“He’s been kicking ass on secret Apple stuff,” says Gruber, whose WWDC walkup podcast was a 130-minute conversation with Gurman. “I think he’s done a better job than anyone who’s ever tried to do it.”

There’s no magic to it. Gurman has good sources in both the developer community and within Apple, and he works them relentlessly. I confess that I was skeptical in January when he reported on 9to5Mac that four ports would be replaced with one in Apple’s next MacBook. I should have known.

But it’s at WWDC that Gurman’s shoe-leather reporting shines brightest, and he’s worked this year’s event harder than ever. If you want to know what’s coming Monday — or at least what’s expected — you might as well start with the round-up Gurman published Friday. It’s the post everybody else is linking to, including Wall Street analysts.

I caught up to Gurman on Saturday at his parents’ home in Los Angeles where, lacking an invitation from Apple, he will watch Monday’s keynote remotely. He’s got one more year in Michigan, where he’s taking a lot of technical courses — software design, server structure, data analysis — at the School of Information. To carve out more time for coursework he cut back this year on day-to-day rumors to focus on the big scoops. After graduation he’s thinking about business school — he likes Stanford — and relocation to San Francisco or New York.

He’s cagy about what comes next. Perhaps a start-up. Perhaps television, where someone like Gurman who knows what he’s talking about would be a welcome relief from today’s talking heads.

“I like the spotlight,” he says. “I feel like I’m capable of bigger things than just writing about Apple.”

Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.

Summary: If there are no secrets at Monday's WWDC keynote, Apple knows whom to blame.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Alexander Skarsgard showed off his muscular legs while pantsless on stage at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif.

The 39-year-old actor hit the stage to present the award for Best Movie with Samuel L. Jackson on Saturday night and looked incredibly dapper in a suit, but opted to not put on his suit pants.

SEE ALSO: Rebel Wilson and Adam DeVine shared an R-rated kiss at the MTV Movie Awards

Why did he decide to present in just his tighty-whities? Well, the star alluded to Zac Efron's shirtless stunt from the award show a few years back and decided that, instead of trying to one-up Efron by also going shirtless, he would go the opposite route: Leave his shirt on and take off his pants.

See photos of Alexander Skarsgard in his underwear on stage:

Alexander Skarsgard hits the MTV Movie Awards stage without his pants

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson speak onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Alexander Skarsgard walks onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Alexander Skarsgard speaks onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson speak onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson speak onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Alexander Skarsgard walks onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Actor Alexander Skarsgard attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson speak onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Actor Alexander Skarsgard attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Alexander Skarsgard speaks onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Alexander Skarsgard (L) and Samuel L. Jackson speak onstage during the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

He called his own stunt "a bit more classy" and "sophisticated" than Efron's which, we have to admit, is subject to your own interpretation.

Regardless, we aren't complaining about Skarsgard's joke -- it was quite the sight for sore eyes.

See photos from the 2016 MTV Movie Awards red carpet:

Alexander Skarsgard hits the MTV Movie Awards stage without his pants

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Charlize Theron attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Model Kendall Jenner arrives at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Jessica Chastain attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Rebel Wilson arrives at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Rapper/actor Common attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (L-R) Actress Anna Kendrick, actress Rebel Wilson and actor Adam DeVine attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Chris Pratt attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Actress Amy Poehler attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick Brown/MTV1415/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: TV personality Farrah Abraham attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Model Cara Delevingne arrives at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Brittany Snow attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Actress Melissa McCarthy attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Emilia Clarke attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Holland Roden attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Seth Rogen attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Jessica Chastain attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Model Gigi Hadid attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Blake Anderson (L) and Rachael Finley attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Lizzy Caplan attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Aldis Hodge attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Miles Teller attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Andy Samberg (L) and Jorma Taccone attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Dylan Sprayberry and Ellery Sprayberry attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Producer Dany Garcia (L) and Simone Alexandra Johnson attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (L-R) Actors O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, recording artist Common, actors Neil Brown Jr. and Aldis Hodge attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Host Dwayne Johnson (L) and Simone Alexandra Johnson attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS, SPECIAL RATES APPLY) Host Kevin Hart attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/MTV1415/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Singer/actor Travis Mills attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: TV personality Liz Hernandez attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Chrissie Fit attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Chloe Bridges attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Kat Graham attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personality Meghan Rienks attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actors Jordan Peele (L) and Keegan-Michael Key attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Dr. Drew Pinsky attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: DJ Yella of N.W.A attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Recording artist Mac Lethal attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (L-R) Actresses Chrissie Fit, Brittany Snow and Kelley Jakle attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Vanessa Marano attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Singer Mike Posner attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Radio personality Nessa attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actresses Laura Marano (L) and Vanessa Marano attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Jillian Rose Reed attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personality Baddie Winkle attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Carrie Keagan attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Adam DeVine attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Singer Marty Shannon attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Musician Andrea Whitt a/k/a Boho Bunnie attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Ashley Rickards attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: TV personality Kailyn Lowry (R) and Jo Rivera attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: (L-R) TV personality Egypt Criss with rappers Sandra 'Pepa' Denton, Deidra Muriel Roper, aka DJ Spinderella, and Cheryl 'Salt' James of Salt-N-Pepa attend the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Neil Brown Jr. attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress/recording artist Ta'Rhonda Jones attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Hannah Hart attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Recording artist Jon Cozart attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Singer Halsey attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Comedienne Grace Helbig attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Nargis Fakhri attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Molly Tarlov attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Rapper Chanel West Coast attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Katie Stevens attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Brett Davern attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actress Stef Dawson attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personality Matthew Espinosa attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Comedian Lilly Singh attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Comedian Lil Rel Howery attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personality Liza Koshy attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personality Sierra Furtado attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Comedian Brandon Wardell attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Actor Michael J. Willett attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for MTV)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Keltie Knight attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: Internet personalities Joshua Holz (L) and Daniel Lara attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 09: TV personality Renee Bargh attends the 2016 MTV Movie Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 9, 2016 in Burbank, California. MTV Movie Awards airs April 10, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

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Summary: Alexander Skarsgard took the stage at the MTV Movie Awards in his underwear with Samuel L. Jackson on Saturday.