05/27/2014 at 11:25 AM EDT

, but they sealed the deal with the sweetest, simple gesture: a kiss.

by the couple, they lock lips amidst a wall of flowers as their pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr., looks on. In another, the

hold hands while walking down the aisle as a married couple to the cheers of their guests.

West and Kardashian swapped intimate, soft-spoken vows as their family and friends looked on. The ceremony, which included Andrea Bocelli singing as Kardashian walked the aisle, was "beautiful" and "so romantic," longtime family friend Malika Haqq told PEOPLE. (Get all the wedding and reception details – plus more exclusive photos – in this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.)

, they are finally enjoying some quiet downtime.

As PEOPLE reported Monday, their

flew back home with grandmother, Kris Jenner, leaving West and Kardashian to enjoy a

Summary: In new photos, the couple walks down the aisle hand-in-hand as their guests cheer


08/25/2014 AT 05:15 PM EDT

is off rescuing his onscreen loved ones from the bad guys, his real-life family is in the capable hands of his Oscar-winning mother-in-law,

"It's always a balance," Neeson, 62, tells PEOPLE, of raising his two sons, Michael, 19, and Daniel, 17, as a busy actor and single dad.

Fortunately, Neeson says, "I have a great support team [and] if I'm away on a project, my mother-in-law moves in."

Redgrave, 77, has been heavily involved in raising her grandchildren, especially after her daughter, Neeson's late wife, Natasha Richardson,

after a tragic skiing accident in 2009.

But adjusting their lifestyle is nothing new for his sons. The

actor says his children have been working around his schedule since birth.

"One of them was born on location, so they're used to Dad being away for long periods of time," Neeson says. "So far, it's worked out okay â¦ they're not damaged."

Which is a good thing because Neeson has no intention of slowing down. "Iâm very fortunate to get to play these characters at this stage of my life," he says. "I love doing it, and Iâll keep doing it as long as they keep sending me these scripts."

Summary: The 62-year-old single dad gets a little help from his mother-in-law, actress Vanessa Redgrave


FORTUNE — The perks of an Amazon Prime membership just keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Amazon AMZN — which announced just last month that it is teaming with the U.S. Postal Service to begin making Sunday deliveries — late Sunday unveiled a further augmenting of the company’s two-day delivery service: 30-minute delivery via unmanned, autonomous drone aircraft.

During a segment airing on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed to correspondent Charlie Rose the latest development out of Amazon’s R&D lab, two small “octocopter” unmanned aerial systems (UAS) designed to pick up and carry packages directly from Amazon’s sprawling network of fulfillment centers directly to customers’ doorsteps within 30 minutes of the user placing an order. The service — called “Amazon Prime Air” — could debut as soon as 2015, though it will likely take a bit longer to iron out the technical challenges, Bezos said.

“The hardest challenge in making this happen is going to be demonstrating, to the standards of the FAA, that this is a safe thing to do,” Bezos told Rose during the segment. “I don’t want anybody to think this is just around the corner, this is years of additional work from this point.”

MORE: Chinese authorities conduct unannounced ‘inspections’ of Bloomberg News bureaus

The reality is not so simple, however. Right now even small UAS like the ones being developed by Amazon cannot be operated outside of line of sight of the operator, and the FAA has yet to say what would have to change for that requirement to be lifted. Further even these small UAS — which can weigh as little as five to 10 pounds — have a limited battery life in the half-hour range, with 45 minutes to an hour being at the very high end. That battery life is further reduced as the payload grows heavier, creating a difficult technical challenge that continues to hamstring small UAS applications.

Then there’s the larger questions of safety and reliability that will have to be addressed first by the FAA and then demonstrated by small UAS manufacturers, including Amazon, which is opting (at least for the time being) to develop its UAS fleet itself within Amazon’s R&D labs. There are several prototypes in the lab beyond the one demonstrated on 60 minutes, a company rep told Fortune via email, so the future might end up looking quite a bit different than the one Bezos unveiled to the world last night.

An optimistic estimate is more like four to five years, Bezos said, which should grant both the Federal Aviation Administration and Amazon time to figure out just exactly how such a system would safely work. Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Congress mandated that the FAA open up U.S. national airspace to small drone traffic, including for civilian and commercial operators. (Right now only specially authorized government and academic institutions can fly UAS in the national airspace, and commercial use of UAS is prohibited.)

MORE: Why Amazon is goosing Prime memberships

However, few within the aerospace community are confident that the FAA will meet that deadline. Ensuring safety is both a regulatory and technical challenge, and FAA authorities have yet to provide guidelines on how commercial drone operators will be certified, policed, and audited for safety, not to mention how other issues of responsibility like liability and insurance (there will be lots and lots of insurance) will be resolved. That puts UAS developers at a disadvantage as they wait to see what kinds of drones will be allowed to fly in this new drone-enabled airspace.

But according to Bezos, Amazon’s R&D team is pressing ahead with plans to reduce delivery times for members of its $79-per-year program to just half an hour, at least in selected areas that are near enough a fulfillment center to allow for it. A short video screened by Bezos during the 60 Minutes segment shows packages snaking their way through one of the company’s labyrinthine warehouses — one of the nearly 100 that Amazon has scattered across the map — before being deposited in special standardized yellow containers and sped along a conveyor belt until one comes to rest underneath the belly of a waiting Amazon octocopter. The drone latches onto the container and whisks it skyward, traversing an idyllic countryside before depositing it gently outside the recipient’s house.

In reality the transition to drones as commercial tools might not be quite so seamless and easy, but Bezos is convinced that services like Amazon Prime Air are the future. “It will work, and it will happen, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Summary: With Amazon Prime Air, your purchases could soon be hovering in a sky above you -- but technological and political hurdles will likely get in the way.


Raiderettes – $1.25M, Raiders – 0

Eight months after they sued the Oakland Raiders for failing to pay the minimum wage, two former cheerleaders are set to receive a chunk of a $1.25 million settlement with the team that was filed in Alameda Superior Court in California on Thursday.

The cheerleaders, who go by Lacy T. and Sarah G., claimed in January that the team broke state minimum wage laws, withheld wages for months, and refused to reimburse the cheerleaders for their business expenses.

The plaintiffs won their first victory in July, when the team agreed to pay the cheerleaders $9 an hour, plus overtime, instead of a flat $125 per game. The cheerleaders typically work about 350 hours each year.

The settlement finalized Thursday, which must be approved by the court, will cover cheerleaders who have worked for the team since the 2010-2011 season and will award them back pay worth $2,500 to $6,000 for each season worked. Lacy T. and Sarah G. will receive an additional $10,000 each for bringing the case.

Nearly 500 fast-food workers and their supporters were arrested Thursday as industry-wide strikes hit 150 locations across the U.S. Even a U.S. Congresswoman, Gwen Moore, a Democrat in Wisconsin, was handcuffed during a protest in Milwaukee.

“I take great pride in supporting Milwaukee workers as they risk arrest in pursuit of a brighter tomorrow for their families,” Moore said in a statement after the arrest.

The nationwide strike was the seventh coordinated effort since the movement, backed by the Service Employees International Union, launched in New York City in November 2012.

Going into Thursday’s strikes, the workers had planned to deploy civil disobedience tactics as they protested the industry’s wages and called for a $15 an hour minimum wage and union representation. The strategy stemmed from the workers’ first-ever convention, held in Chicago in July, when 1,300 attendees promised to do “whatever it takes” to achieve their goals.

The arrests Thursday took place across the country—from New York to Detroit to Chicago to Little Rock to Las Vegas. In New York City’s Time Square, 19 fast-food workers were arrested for blocking traffic.

Rob Green, the executive director of the National Council of Chain Restaurants,

that the activities were being “coordinated, financed, and facilitated by labor unions—desperate for new membership dues,” and that they “accomplish absolutely nothing.”

Indiana still a “right to work” state

“Right to work” advocates notched a big win at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on Wednesday, when a three-judge panel upheld the state’s law that prohibits workers from being forced to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment—a policy that’s seen as choking off organized labor’s life source.

Federal law requires that unions represent all workers in any given bargaining unit. Instituting a “right to work” law, in essence, allows workers to benefit from union membership without having to pay for it. The so-called free rider problem is considered a huge threat to unions nationwide.

is especially notable because when the state passed the legislation in 2012, it was the first state to do so in a decade and prompted others to consider similar measures. There are currently 24 “right to work” states in the U.S., according to the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, which advocates for “right to work” policies.

Connecticut is the only other state that demands employers provide their workers with sick days. Several cities have adopted such policies, including New York, Portland, San Diego, and Seattle.

California’s policy will allow a worker to accrue an hour of paid leave for every 30 hours they work, earning at least three sick days (or 24 hours) for the year. The legislation will likely affect a large swath of the country’s most populous state.

that an estimated 44% of Californians do not have access to paid sick days.

Summary: The cheerleaders claimed that the team broke state minimum wage laws and withheld wages for months. That and other news from the world of worker pay.


Aerial view of Auschwitz, discovered only a year ago

For £10 you can view "as though in a time machine" a 3D photograph which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives had it been publicised when it was taken at 11am on August 23 1944, at a time when Hungarian Jews were being murdered below.

The photograph, taken by an RAF reconnaissance pilot and released yesterday, reveals what Auschwitz concentration camp looked like in its climactic frenzy of killing, during which at least 437,000 Hungarian Jewish men, women and children were added to the death toll.

It shows smoke billowing out of a mass burial pit.

At the time the Nazi authorities, knowing their defeat in the second world war was in sight, had ordered a steep increase in the tempo of extermination. Crematoriums were overwhelmed and temporary burial pits were fired. Those due to be taken to the gas ovens had to queue for a day in woodland near one crematorium, so the ashes of earlier victims fell on them as they waited. The resolution of the possibly unique aerial image is so good that inmates can be seen on roll call.

It was discovered only a year ago during the digitisation of 5m reconnaissance photographs in the aerial reconnaissance archive at Keele University, part of the Kew-based National Archives.

All the images will be posted from Monday at evidenceincamera.co.uk. Among them are photos of the D-day landings, allied bomb devastation in the German city of Cologne and the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck.

Yesterday Allan Williams, the reconnaissance archive's head of digitisation, said the Auschwitz image was "extremely moving. To the best of my knowledge, my colleagues and others around the world, there are no other reconnaissance pictures of Auschwitz from that time. To our knowledge, they have not been published anywhere."

The British public knew little about the death camps and liberating them was not an allied war priority. Gassings continued at Auschwitz for five months after the picture was taken. The camp was not liberated and the extent of atrocities not disclosed until January 27 1945. The first traumatic newsreels of the camps, were screened later that year.

The significance of the Auschwitz image appears to have been missed because technology had outstripped its operators. The RAF's photographers fired their cameras as fast as machine guns, bringing home millions of images - too many to inspect properly. "It is a fascinating issue as to why the photo operators did not know what was going on," Mr Williams said. "I think the answer is that their orders were to look single-mindedly for military data. They did not have time to think what else was happening."

For £10, the archive will send you stereo pictures of one of its images, with free stereo spectacles.

"This means you can be transported - as though in a time machine - to the thick of a war," it says.

· Footage of the first Pathé News cinema newsreel of Belsen camp can be downloaded at britishpathe.com

Summary: For £10 you can view 'as though in a time machine' a 3D photograph which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives had it been publicised when it was taken at 11am on August 23 1944, at a time when Hungarian Jews were being murdered below.


Last year Grayson Perry won the Turner prize for his scratchy, ugly vandalisms of perfectly good vases. Perry uses a medium he has obvious contempt for, and is rewarded as if his crass reduction of thousands of years of beauty and imagination to a cliche of middle-class domesticity were somehow profound. If his Turner prize and the popular acclaim for his works in the Turner show is anything to go by, clay is a medium stultified for most of us by its association with pretty vases and teapots. We want ugly vases! Political teapots!

The exhibition A Secret History of Clay: From Gauguin to Gormley, at Tate Liverpool, is timely. If we find Perry's eyesores clever, we must be very ignorant about the history of one of humanity's characteristic ways of shaping the world. Take Bernard Palissy's glazed ceramics, which glisten in a case at the Victoria and Albert Museum, sinister in their overripe beauty. This 16th-century French potter and scientist is the Caravaggio of clay, a student of nature at its most heady and macabre. His dishes are laden with three-dimensional flora and fauna, shaped and painted uncannily to resemble real life. At the bottom of a bowl, a snake wraps around itself. On a plate, lizards lurk. I find it very difficult to think of these bizarre things - fired more than 400 years ago - as staid, boring, dusty old antiques.

Yet the story this exhibition tells is more than a disappointment. It is a mystery. Why has most modern art in this particular medium been so dismal?

Abstract expressionist vases, futurist jugs and the porcelain urinal that Marcel Duchamp said was a work of art - Tate Liverpool has it all. But few of these things are more than curios and eccentricities, cliches, false starts, blind alleys. Something was wrong with the way modern artists looked at clay all along, from the 1900s to today.

The first modernist painters had a hard target in sight: 19th-century painting that aggressively insisted on pictures, figures, narrative and sentiment. It was crying out to be pulverised by cubists, futurists and suprematists. But clay, by contrast, is a soft, yielding substance that easily shifts its shape. People have always made quirky, magical, unexpected things with it. There never was an authoritarian ceramics establishment to attack. Not even in the 19th century.

Victorian houses were full of bone-china bottles covered with swirling blue-and-red flowers taken from Turkish designs, glittering lustre vessels with gold abstract foliage, and Pugin and William Morris tiles decorated with monsters and hinting at Arthurian dreamworlds. A tea set designed by Henry Cole in 1846 has a pure, white simplicity that any modern sculptor can admire; but then of course, this is a pale reflection of the minimalism that flourished in China millennia ago.

If minimal beauty is not to your taste, then how about some florid, kitsch visual mayhem? There is no history of ceramics, in the sense that there is a history of western painting and sculpture - no obvious movement forwards. It can be impossible to guess if a piece of porcelain is 20th century or hundreds of years older. Not only is there no progressive history of clay, there is no stable aesthetic either. Excessive, outrageous colour and monstrous prodigies of form can be as gorgeous as restrained decorum - and are as frequent in the historical record.

Bernard Palissy is in no sense tasteful or polite: his wittily grotesque creations obey no rule. He was not only a craftsman but a scientific researcher, obsessed with discovering a new white enamel. His book Discourses Admirables (1580) is a key document of the scientific revolution, attacking the antiquated hierarchy of knowledge upheld by the Sorbonne. A Protestant, he died in the Bastille.

I stress Palissy simply because he is so impossible to place in some dreary hidebound past. Historically, pottery has been associated with scientific discovery and industrial innovation. It was always on the side of mass-production, curiosity, the new - from the European adoption of porcelain to Josiah Wedgwood's factory. At the Museo delle Porcellane in the Boboli Gardens in Florence is a dish made in Dresden in the 18th century. It bears an image of the iron bridge at Coalbrookdale. Ceramics are on the side of modernity.

Modern art fell flat on its face when it tried to "subvert" something so wild and innovative. Modernist pots are interesting - sometimes. There seem to be two recurring tropes in modernist work in clay: decoration and collapse. The decorative tendency consists in adding an expressionist - or abstract, or whatever style you want - design to an object whose form is essentially unaltered: say, a vase with spirals instead of flowers. Then there is the aesthetic of collapse, especially prevalent since the second world war. The thesis here is that a modern pot is a melted pot, a broken pot. So you get jagged, ragged, lumpen exercises in anti-form, and frankly they are just that - exercises. Is this really a serious contribution to the history of making things? No, because there is no dreary conservative formalism to be against. There is nothing oppressive about a vase.

There are, in the Tate Liverpool show, exceptions to what is mostly a failed marriage of modernism and craft. One is a bit embarrassing, from Mussolini's Italy where, as in Lenin's Russia, art and craft became one. Abstract futurist designs entered everyday life in ways that are still visible in Italy today. The great thing about Lucio Fontana and Tullio d'Albisola is that they were creating new forms and new possibilities for ceramics rather than simply grafting a modern style on an old pot. In Russia, the extraordinary suprematist designs of Kasimir Malevich enforced the aesthetic of revolution on St Petersburg's porcelain factories, to productive effect.

Aside from these totalitarian glories, there are only two truly great artist-potters of the modern era. Gauguin shaped clay as mystically as he carved wood; the Tahitian primitivism of his earthenware is personal, revealed, unique. But even his work looks conventional compared to what Picasso did with a kiln.

Picasso, in craft as in art, vindicates modernism and suggests how little its promise has been fulfilled since his death in 1973. He does, absolutely, act as if pottery as we know it was stifled by bourgeois convention, and sets out to reinvent it - from scratch. Picasso does everything you want a modernist potter to do. He releases new forms, new shapes, new colours and graphics into the world. You could even get overexcited and say this was his true art - if you didn't know he was a genius in everything else as well. The examples of his work in this show lift your heart and clean your mind; they are at once ancient and unprecedented.

Picasso was not a very domesticated person. He lived in chateaux, surrounded by luxury, but because he never stopped working, there was never a bourgeois moment. This shows in his ceramics. There is a similarity in their praise of work to the Victorian socialist crafts of Morris and co - and in fact Picasso became a potter in the years after the second world war when he was a member of the French Communist Party. But far from asserting worthy craft values, his creations in clay have an unquenchable movement and bounce; it's as if he were still moulding wet earth before your eyes, so mobile are these pieces. Monsters, fauns, bulls all leap into life, dance out of the fluid substance. Handles are horns, bases are feet. Picasso is loyal to the traditional utility of ceramics, making everyday objects, and yet revealing in them the potential for life to be so much more mytho logical, erotic and hungry than industrial society would have it.

They are his Mediterranean swan song, these artefacts, recalling as they do everything from Athenian red figure vases to Andalusian Islamic lustrewares. Picasso does not fall into the trap of contempt for an ancient medium; rather, he revives the power of ancient clay just as his paintings praise African art. At the same time, the freedom and spontaneity of the way he flung these things together - perhaps most flaunted in the designs he painted quickly and joyously on hundreds of plates - may be his way of competing with the American "action" painters, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, showing that Picasso could improvise better than anyone.

Picasso makes this exhibition worthwhile, but his genius has no children. The best use of ceramics in contemporary art is in the work of Jeff Koons. Everything Koons does, or commissions some Austrian artisan to do, is ridiculous. The history of pottery, however, includes many things that are ridiculous. In this art there is a licence for the absurd, the silly, the rococo. Koons's Puppy Vase (1998) both satirises and indulges our appetite for domestic fancies with warmth and pathos. If only there were more works that had his respect for the culture of the everyday.

· A Secret History of Clay: From Gauguin to Gormley is at Tate Liverpool until August 30. Details: 0151-702 7400.

Summary: The Victorians had teapots; the modernists had broken vases; we have Grayson Perry's cliches. Since the 16th century it's been nearly all downhill for artistry in clay, argues Jonathan Jones


FORTUNE — In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama introduced the myRA (pronounced My-R-A, like I-R-A, not Myra, like your great aunt). It’s yet another retirement account to add to the likes of 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, and SIMPLEs — only this one is geared to the roughly half of all workers who don’t have access to employer-sponsored retirement accounts (though it will also be available to households earning less than $191,000 a year who want to supplement their 401(k)s.)

Workers at companies that decide to offer myRAs will be able to open an account with just $25, then contribute as little as $5 per paycheck. The money will be invested in the same government bond fund used for the federal employees’ Thrift Savings Plan, which means investors will never lose principal. On the flipside, they likely won’t gain much either (the 10-year average annual return on this investment is 3.6%). And like Roths, contributions are made with after-tax money and can be withdrawn at any time, tax and penalty free.

There are a lot of good things about these new accounts, says Dallas Salisbury, president and CEO of the Employee Benefits Research Institute. They’re fee-free; therefore, solving the problems that small savers have when they open an IRA only to have much of their balance eaten up by expenses. And, like 401(k)s, contributions will be made through payroll deductions — which means that you can make a good decision to save, one time, and it will happen over and over again.

They also provide an entrée for smaller savers to the world of big financial services firms. Once accounts reach $15,000, they’ll be transferred to Roth IRAs. “Essentially in a few years, the government will be delivering a bunch of customers with moderate nest eggs to private sector financial firms – at which point they’ll think it might be worthwhile to have the accounts,” says Bill Gale, director of the Retirement Security Project at The Brookings Institution.

Perhaps the best thing, though, is that they give us a shot of creating a larger culture of saving — and a greater number of savers — in America. “One of the iron clad rules of retirement savings is: Whenever you started, you should have started sooner,” Gale says. That’s not an easy thing to get people to do. Saving is not natural for human beings. Our lizard brains are still wired to kill it and eat it; delaying gratification is not in our DNA. But, where saving money is not pleasurable (for most), having money saved is quite pleasurable. Once you see a pot of money sitting in your account you can take satisfaction in it. You feel more confident, more independent, more free.

MyRAs open the door to that experience for more people. But in order for them to be successful, they’re going to need to take a page from modern-day 401(k)s, too. In 2006, the Pension Protection Act enabled companies to automatically enroll their employees to their 401(k) plans; those who didn’t want to participate, had to opt out. This has been hugely successful. Survey after survey shows that auto-enrollment routinely boosts participation rates into the 80% range, sometimes higher.

Making that happen in the new myRAs, however, will require congressional approval — something the president has tried, and failed, to garner for IRAs before. According to the White House Fact Sheet on the myRA, “The President’s budget will propose to establish automatic enrollment in IRAs (or “auto-IRAs”) for employees without access to a workplace savings plan, in keeping with a plan that he has proposed in every budget since he took office. Employers that do not provide any employer-sponsored savings plan would be required to connect their employees with a payroll deduction IRA.”

Is it likelier to succeed this time around? “Most advocates on both sides of the issue think it’s a modest but good idea,” says Karen Friedman Executive Vice President of the Pension Rights Center. Fingers crossed, she’s right.

Summary: Under the president's plan, myRA retirement accounts would be available to U.S. workers who don’t have access to a 401(k) plan.


Massachusetts single-family home sales fell 6.6 percent in August on a year-to-year comparison basis, and tougher mortgage standards and buyers getting cold feet may be factors, the Warren Group reported Tuesday.

Median prices for Bay State homes continued to rise. On a year-to-year comparison basis, the median price for a single-family home rose 2 percent to $349,000. The median sales price has increased each month year-over-year since October 2012. As for condos, the median price rose 1.6 percent to $325,000 in August.

A total of 5,417 single-family homes sold in Massachusetts in August, down from 5,797 homes sold in August 2013, the Warren Group said in a press release. (A total of 5,688 single-family homes statewide were sold in July 2014, the Warren Group reported previously.)

There were also 2,101 condos sold in August 2014, down 15.3 percent from the same month a year ago; this marked the highest percentage decrease of condo sales since December 2011, said the Warren Group, a Boston-based firm that tracks local real estate data and publishes Banker & Tradesman.

“Home sales volume has been a bit disappointing all summer,” Warren Group chief executive Timothy M. Warren Jr said in a statement. “As reported in this week’s Banker & Tradesman, there is a discrepancy between the increase in pending sales and the number of closed sales transactions. It could be due to tough mortgage underwriting standards or cold feet after a rushed offer.”

Using a different method to measure housing activity, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors also issued a monthly report Tuesday on the local residential real estate market.

According to the association’s press release, this was the 23rd straight month for price increases in the Bay State and the seventh month showing year over-year-sales decreases.

“From a statewide perspective, the market is favorable for sellers as supply remains low, and new listings to the market dipped slightly in August,” association president Peter Ruffini said in a statement. “However, some market areas are showing inventory increases with prices leveling off. In both cases, lower interest rates continue to be good news for buyers.”

As of August, there were 23,057 single-family homes up for sale in Massachusetts, down 6.5 percent from the inventory for sale in August 2013, the association said.

Summary: Massachusetts single-family home sales fell 6.6 percent in August, and tougher mortgage standards and buyers getting cold feet may be factors, the Warren Group reported.


Stand back: There’s a new queen of sass in town. Imelda May has built her audience gradually, helped by a tour with Jeff Beck and a performance with him at the Grammys, but she’s ready to bust out on her own now. This album debuted at No. 1 in her native Ireland, and it has the muscle to catch on here. May’s retro rockabilly is more punked up this time, as when she blasts into the edgy title track with her twangmeister husband, guitarist Darrel Higham. He lacks the sheer brilliance of rockabilly axmen like James Burton and Danny Gatton, but gets the job done with the right riffs on every song. May writes most of the tunes, and lets fly on the blistering “Wild Woman,” the high-velocity “Hellfire Club,” and the self-explanatory “I Wanna Dance.” The album includes a couple of slower, jazzy tracks for variety, as well as some lyrics not heard in Jerry Lee Lewis’s heyday: “I love you even though you’re always on eBay,” for example. Go, Imelda! (Out Tuesday)

Summary: Rockabilly upstart and Jeff Beck collaborator Imelda May shows she’s ready for the spotlight with her sassy new album, “Tribal.”


Updated OCT 14, 2014 2:47p ET

In case you missed it, this sounds more like the Vontaze Burfict we've all come to know and dread around these parts.

According to ESPN's Ed Werder, the NFL is reviewing tape of the Cincinnati Bengals-Carolina Panthers' 37-37 tie on Sunday in which the Panthers believe Burfict was intentionally trying to injure quarterback Cam Newton and tight end Greg Olsen by twisting their ankles after each scored a touchdown. Both players had offseason ankle surgery.

Burfict was a frequently uncoachable penalty machine during his three seasons at Arizona State and developed such a poor reputation that he went undrafted upon leaving school after his junior season. But he's been a standout defender for the Bengals and was rewarded prior to this season with a three-year contract extension that could pay him up to $20 million.

The 2014 season isn't off to a great start for Burfict. He suffered concussions in the first two games of the season and missed the next two before returning for Sunday's gave vs. Carolina. He had 10 tackles against the Panthers but was also called for two personal foul penalties -- though not on either of the end-zone tackles against Newton and Olsen -- and one illegal contact penalty.

Olsen told reporters in Carolina that Burfict's actions were pre-meditated and warranted a fine and a suspension -- especially considering his history. His aggressive play resulted in some $59,000 in fines last season for three separate incidents. According to FOXSportsOhio.com, he was called for 14 penalties last season -- including nine personal fouls -- after just three penalties as a rookie in 2012.

Burfict declined comment Monday, but Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis dismissed claims that there was any malicious intent.

"I don't have any comment," said Lewis. "Ankle wrenching. Sounds like the WWF."

"Football is a high-speed game and things happen -- helmet-to-helmet collisions, late hits, tackles out of bounds. In the heat of the moment stuff like that happens," said Olsen. "But I think when play's over, two players are laying in the end zone and you happen to have their legs and you start cranking, I think that's a whole different animal."

Summary: Panthers believe Bengals linebacker intentionally tried to injure Cam Newton, Greg Olsen.


PHOENIX -- It was a quick -- and we do mean quick -- interlude of basketball anarchy near the midway point in a preseason event blessed with very little importance.

Thursday's Spurs-Suns date was so drenched in ho-hum potential that coach Gregg Popovich and most of his San Antonio crew stayed home. According to one report, the Spurs were even going into battle with the third-string equipment manager.

So the Suns' 121-90 triumph -- which included something of a public-address apology from team owner Robert Sarver due to the lack of competitive intrigue -- isn't exactly something to crow about.

"In the exhibition season, you're not worried about other teams," Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said. "You're just figuring out things you need to work on, find your rotations, so it doesn't matter who they put out there."

But speaking of rotations, it certainly can matter -- in the name of entertainment and provoking daydreams of future lineups -- which combinations the Suns put out there. With that in mind, let's hustle back to the previously-referred-to anarchy, which occurred over the last 3:12 of the opening half.

"Is that all they played?" asked Hornacek, the mastermind behind this intentional snubbing of position-defined hoop convention.

For the Spurs, who were competing without five of their top seven players, it probably seemed like an eternity.

By the way, considerable credit is due Hornacek, who last week promised/threatened to roll out a three-point-guard lineup at least once in this preseason calendar.

And with Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Danny Green and a few junior-varsity Spurs still available to be victimized, Hornacek closed the second quarter by summoning Goran Dragic off the Phoenix bench to join Eric Bledsoe and Isaiah Thomas.

Perhaps it's best defined as an unleashing.

"We saw that it could work," Hornacek said.

That was an appropriately undersized statement.

Anyway, leading 49-45, Bledsoe opened the subsequent Suns storm with a point-blank bucket off a feed from Thomas. Marcus Morris pitched in by converting a slick, through-the-key bounce pass from Bledsoe into another layup.

Then Bledsoe knocked in a 3-pointer, followed by Dragic's 14-footer and a buzzer-beating, half-ending layup by the Dragon on Thomas' fourth assist of the half.

It should be pointed out that the Spurs managed only a deuce of their own in this span and trailed, 60-49, at intermission.

Although all of their damage wasn't unloaded as a cold-blooded, three-man gang, the Bledsoe-Dragic-Thomas lobby finished the half with 34 points and 11 assists.

Thomas, who's listed at 5-foot-9, also contributed four rebounds and a steal.

"If you can do that," Hornacek said in regard to surviving on the boards with size limitations, "we can get away with a lineup like that.

"When we got the ball, it was off to the races."

And the races were more like chase scenes.

Returning to the standard (well, for them) two point-guard lineup in the third quarter, the Suns punched out San Antonio by scoring another 32 points.

For the record, the Suns' blistering pace wouldn't have happened without a corresponding hike in on-ball pressure and early rotations on defense.

"You have to scramble a little bit," Hornacek said. "We have to be a scrappy team. We have to use our speed. We have to use our quickness."

On a night when the only thing that counted was the fun quotient, put a big check mark in the using speed and quickness boxes.

Over an entire game of work, Phoenix's PG3 combined to score 51 points (making 21 of 32 shots from the field), hand out 17 of the team's 27 assists and record six steals.

Dragic provided 20 points, Bledsoe added 16 and Thomas -- who knocked in 4 of 5 shots from 3-point range -- had 15. The Morris twins didn't exactly slouch around the building, either, making 13 of 21 shots and combining for 31 points.

But the fuel that fired most imaginations Thursday was seeing three card-carrying PGs on the floor at the same time.

"We definitely were having fun out there," Bledsoe said.

When asked for a personal review of how this lineup -- which included starting center Miles Plumlee for ballast -- performed, the guy who represented the "Blade" in last season's DragonBlade alignment didn't hesitate:

"Like we expected," Bledsoe said. "I thought we were small, but everybody got in and rebounded, we pushed the tempo and the lead went up."

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Summary: Check out the results as coach Jeff Hornacek used a trio of point guards -- Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe and Isaiah Thomas -- at the end of the first half.


Steward Health Care System has agreed to keep the struggling Quincy Medical Center open as late as Feb. 4 to comply with a state law that requires hospitals to give 90 days’ notice and hold a public hearing before closing.

Additionally, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office said Tuesday it has offered to negotiate with Steward Health Care System over its plans to close the Quincy Medical Center despite an agreement the health care firm had with the attorney general’s office to keep the hospital open through at least 2017.

When Steward bought Quincy Medical Center out of bankruptcy in 2011, it agreed to keep the hospital open for at least 6½ years and give 18 months’ notice if it had to close.

In a letter to the for-profit health care company, the attorney general applauded “positive developments” made by Steward, such as postponing the planned closing date from Dec. 31 to Feb. 4. Although Coakley’s office said it disagreed with Steward’s plans to close the hospital, the letter said the attorney general would not immediately file suit against the company and would “evaluate” Steward’s claims that its agreement with the state needs to be amended because of the hospital’s continuing financial losses.

“Although we do not agree with many of your contentions, this office is willing to discuss your contentions prior to pressing our contractual rights in court,” the letter said.

The Feb. 4 closing date was set after discussions between Steward and the Department of Public Health, which oversees hospitals. A letter sent by Steward to the department on Monday said if patient demand were to dry up before February, it would seek the department’s permission to close the hospital as early as December. By that point, the letter said, Steward will have opened freestanding urgent-care centers to serve Quincy residents.

Steward did not provide details on how it will proceed with closing, such as when it may shut down certain departments, or on its negotiations with state officials. In a statement, Steward said it anticipated patient volume would drop “significantly” by the end of the year, and said it would remain open until February “as need be.” Steward said a public hearing is set for Dec. 2.

“We will be winding down operations in consultation with the Department of Public Health to ensure patient safety throughout this process,” said Brooke Thurston, a spokeswoman for the company.

Steward said this month that it wanted to close Quincy Medical Center at the end of 2014 because the high number of competing hospitals made it impossible to earn a profit. The shutdown will displace at least 545 employees.

Summary: Steward Health Care System has agreed to keep the struggling Quincy Medical Center open until Feb. 4 to comply with a state law that requires hospitals to give 90 days’ notice and hold a public hearing before closing a facility.


PARIS — France’s economic recovery will be much more fragile this year than originally thought, and the government will not be able to meet targets for reducing the deficit for at least another two years amid sputtering growth, the French Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The news had added significance with the nomination of Pierre Moscovici, a former French finance minister, to a top economics oversight role in the European Commission. Moscovici is seen as representing a departure from the strict deficit-reduction discipline that the European Commission has advocated — and that France has blamed for stifling growth.

The French economy will expand at a tepid 0.4 percent pace in 2014, well below the 1.7 percent rate the government forecast earlier this year, said Michel Sapin, the new finance minister. The public deficit, he added, will remain at around 4.4 percent of gross domestic product, up from 4.2 percent last year. That is well above the 3.8 percent target that the government had beentargeting in an effort to gradually bring France’s finances into line with the euro monetary union’s fiscal rules.

The forecast came as France stepped up a campaign to push against austerity policies that the government says have delayed a recovery from Europe’s long-running debt crisis — not only in France but across the 18-member euro monetary union.

Sapin amplified that message Wednesday, saying France would “not take measures that would exacerbate the slowdown in growth that we already know.’’

Summary: PARIS — France’s economic recovery will be much more fragile this year than originally thought, and the government will not be able to meet targets for reducing the deficit for at least another two years amid sputtering growth, the French Finance Ministry announced Wednesday.


The Microhoo deal is still far from over, but you can bet every one of Yahoo’s 14,300 employees are wondering what the $44.6 billion bid from Microsoft means for them.

The fate of Yahoo’s top executives — co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo and president Susan Decker — remains unclear. Will Microsoft clean house or try to retain some of Yahoo’s (YHOO) higher-ups? More importantly, will top Yahoos even want a corner office in Redmond?

Whatever happens under a new regime, Yang, Filo and Decker will be provided for financially, to say the least. Based on Microsoft’s (MSFT) bid to buy Yahoo at $31 a share (a 62 percent premium to the share price when the offer was made last Friday), here’s how the three head Yahoos would fare, according to executive compensation research firm Equilar and Securities and Exchange Commission filings:

But don’t expect any “golden parachutes” for these Yahoos — according to research firm Equilar and company records, there’s no evidence Yahoo would give its execs cash severance benefits in the event of a take-over. However, the company does have an agreement with Decker stating that some of her previously vested options will remain exercisable for an additional three years if she leaves the company.

As for majority of Yahoo’s employees — the non-billionaires — it’s not clear how they would fare under a Microsoft acquisition. The struggling search engine (and I mean Yahoo) had already said it would lay off 1,000, or 7 percent, of its workforce sometime this month. It’s likely Microsoft would make more cuts should the deal go through.

Summary: By Michal Lev-Ram The Microhoo deal is still far from over, but you can bet every one of Yahoo's 14,300 employees are wondering what the $44.6 billion bid from Microsoft means for them. The fate of Yahoo's top executives -- co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo and president Susan Decker -- remains unclear. Will Microsoft…


FORTUNE — The technology press loves a good narrative. And among the most beloved narratives is a good horserace. Two rivals striving to better each other with new products or new features. The archetypal tech rivalry, between Microsoft and Apple not only lasted for decades, it helped make Silicon Valley what it is today.

During the rise of the smartphone, the great horserace between mobile operating-system makers has been chronicled in great detail. Early leaders like Nokia NOK and Blackberry BBRY gave up the lead to Apple’s AAPL iPhone and Google’s GOOG Android. Microsoft MSFT , meanwhile, struggled mightily just to stay in this race. As that story has grown stale and a little muddled — Android has the bigger market share but Apple has the bigger profits, so who’s really winning? — a new narrative is emerging in the smartphone space. It goes like this: Apple revolutionized and dominated smartphones for five years before iPhone fatigue set in. Now it faces a new contender: Samsung.

But this horserace isn’t about just market share and profits, it’s about capturing consumer love. Samsung may have gained a lot of ground in the mobile market, but it still has a ways to go before its brand can rival Apple. (Unlike Google’s Android, Samsung is an established manufacturer with a consumer brand it spends heavily to support.)

The rise of Samsung as a rival to Apple has been coming for a couple of years, as Samsung emerged as the most successful manufacturer of Android phones. Ad platform Millennial Media tracked mobile-ad impressions from Android-phone manufacturers and found that Samsung devices rose to 46% of total impressions last fall from 23% a year earlier. By that measure, Samsung was stealing share from HTC, Motorola, and LG.

Much of Samsung’s popularity has centered around the Galaxy S series, which has shipped more than 100 million units since the first Galaxy S launched in June 2010. Top Android phones like the Galaxy line have been improving in speed and features. When the iPhone 5 launched last year, many reviewers felt that even though it remained the best smartphone on the market, its competitive edge had eroded.

MORE: 50 greatest business rivalries of all time

This month saw the introduction of the Galaxy S4, which won’t arrive until May but has already received mostly positive “hands-on” reviews. Some speed and performance benchmarks rate it twice as fast as the Galaxy S3 as well as the iPhone 5. Since the S4’s introduction, much of the discussion among tech blogs and financial analysts has centered around this new horse Samsung as it charges on Apple’s heels. Google searches on the Galaxy S4 have already become as frequent as those for the iPhone 5.

Suddenly, many people are taking a closer look at Samsung, which of course is really Samsung Electronics, the flagship subsidiary of the Korean conglomerate active in everything from hotels to life insurance to shipbuilding. Last year, Samsung Electronics made $181 billion (or 201 trillion won) in revenues and $26 billion in operating profit. Apple, by contrast, had $156 billion in revenues and $55 billion in operating profit in its last fiscal year.

A little less than half of Samsung Electronics’ revenues come from its mobility division, which brought in $25 billion in revenues in the most recent quarter, a 58% rise from a year earlier. Mobility is the engine for the company’s overall growth. In the past year, the division has gone from 36% of Samsung Electronics’ revenues to 49%. The mobile division, which also includes tablets and phones like the Note, accounts for 62% of the company’s operating profit.

Samsung’s ascent is remarkable given its humble image even a dozen years ago. The company struggled against onetime electronics giants like Sony SNE , the premier brand in consumer electronics in the ’80s and ’90s. In contrast to Sony, Samsung had a distinctly un-Japanese spirit of scrappy gumption — its Chairman once burned an entire inventory of defective cell phones in front of the 2,000 factory workers who built them.

Starting off as a maker of cheap air conditioners and low-end TVs, Samsung expanded into chip production until it became the largest maker in DRAM chips as well as an innovator in flash memory chips. Overt the past decade, the company has pushed aggressively into large-screen TVs, flat-panel displays and cell phones — becoming a leading if not the leading manufacturer in each market.

Samsung’s DNA has always been deep in engineering. In a market where there are multiple companies making Android devices, it was that engineering prowess that pushed its smartphones to the head of the pack. In the past decade, Samsung has put an equally strong emphasis on design, which has made it a more prominent brand in the U.S. than any Japanese competitor.

MORE: The ebb and flow of Apple’s billions

Today, it’s not Japanese companies but Apple that is the consumer electronics brand to beat. In recent months, a number of things have taken some of the shine off Apple’s brand: Mishaps like the Apple Maps brouhaha, growing frustration with iCloud, reshuffling of longtime top execs, and the erosion of the iPhone’s competitive edge. A flagging stock price, sagging profit margins, and investor grumpiness around dividends have added to Apple’s public-image troubles.

Not missing its chance, Samsung is stepping in to make Apple’s moment of weakness its own strength. Samsung has shrewdly positioned itself as the Apple alternative, with Galaxy S3 commercials that mock the cultish Apple fanboys who have annoyed so many people over the years. Samsung is nimbly anticipating Apple’s moves: Apple is working on a smart watch? So is Samsung. Apple is producing lower-priced phones and tablets? Get in line, right behind Samsung.

Apple isn’t helping its case either. The company used to hurl snide rebuffs at competitors that stung. But its reply to Samsung’s new rivalry is a page touting the allure of the iPhone brand, and inaccurate comments from a top executive about flaws in the Galaxy S4. That error prompted former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée to declare, “Apple has lost control of the narrative; the company has let others define its story.”

Samsung still has its challenges in trying to beat Apple for consumers’ loyalty. Apple has, for now, one strong advantage over Samsung — its distinct brand, which it has built up for decades. Even with its recent troubles, Apple’s brand is substantially more developed than Samsung’s. Interbrand ranked Samsung the No. 9 brand in the world, up from No. 19 three years earlier, but Apple is still ranked No. 2, behind only Coca-Cola KO .

Being the anti-Apple won’t work for Samsung much longer. The company needs to be seen as more than the maker of the best-engineered Android phone. When brands are most powerful, people attach to them as an expression of their own identities. Judging from the ham-fisted, surreal press event (Tap-dancing kids! Opera gloves! Sideways Mini Coopers!) to introduce the Galaxy S4, Samsung is still struggling to define that image.

It’s not just us in the tech press, consumers in general enjoy a good horserace, especially when they can feel like they’ve picked the winning horse. But what exactly defines this new rival that is threatening to take the lead from Apple? Answering that question is Samsung’s next challenge.

Want more competition, contempt, and all-out conflict? Check out Fortune’s ebook Rivalry, available now, free to subscribers on our tablet apps. Download it for the iPad here.

Summary: Korean electronics giant Samsung is nipping at Apple's heels, yes, but it is still missing one crucial element.


New York's transit riders have another date with destiny on July 1. Law as well as prudence require the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to start its fiscal year with a balanced budget, although it is now $500 million in the red. If state and city subsidies can't shrink the deficit, fares would have to leap from 60 to 95 cents, with proportionate increases on commuter trains. Even that extraordinary increase would do little for the reliability and comfort of transit. Still other revenues are needed to buy new cars and buses and to rebuild the deteriorating system.

Why then has there been no Government rescue plan that would hold the fare at a tolerable level? Because in New York, as in Boston, Chicago and other cities with faltering transit, politicians refuse to decide how to spread the burden among passengers, taxpayers at large and businesses dependent on sound transportation.

A New York subway ride now costs about $1.05, of which passengers pay more than half. Costs will keep rising and the M.T.A.'s desire to borrow $5 billion for capital improvements will put even more pressure on the fare.

Mayor Koch, though legally responsible for capital investments, opposes any borrowing that affects the fare until he is promised more state subsidies for operations. Governor Carey contends he can't afford more subsidy and has failed to produce a workable tax. The Legislature won't face new taxes until the courts rule on a challenge to last year's - a dubious tax on oil companies that cannot be passed on to customers.

With everyone waiting for everyone else, the M.T.A. was allowed to drift toward the new day of reckoning. Not until late May did the Governor and Mayor agree on what they called a ''fair fare'': passengers were to pay no more than half the M.T.A.'s costs and future increases were to be no greater than inflation. Even then, both ran for cover, asking a panel of financial experts to devise a rescue plan in seven days. After the briefest look, the panel, too, ducked; it wanted much more time and refused to trust the M.T.A. management to hold down future costs.

But as the Legislature's Democratic leaders were quick to point out, politicians cannot escape making the fateful transit decisions. Only by threatening independent action did they force the Governor's panel to spit out some hasty recommendations: a still higher version of the contested oil tax, a regional sales tax and a new control board to oversee the M.T.A.

The Governor and the Mayor continue to hide behind their panel. But the city's top representatives in Albany - Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink and Senate minority leader Manfred Ohrenstein - now openly resent the Governor's many delays and refusal to grasp that no new tax can pass until the oil tax issue is resolved. They want Mr. Carey to join them in firmly promising a $100 million subsidy from the 1982 state budget and whatever taxes are needed to replace or supplement the oil levy in the fall. That would reduce the prospective deficit to $150 million, to be covered by a 15-cent fare increase next month.

But Mayor Koch wants to see the total bill before agreeing to anything; Mr. Carey wants long-term capital, too. Their experts won't certify either until the M.T.A. is saddled with new overseers. So now what?

It is once again too late for anything except crisis action. The M.T.A. ought to raise the fare by 15 cents at once and simultaneously post notice that 25 cents more will be added by, say, Oct. 1 unless the remaining deficit and capital improvements are reliably financed. For a change, the deadline would then work against the politicians instead of the transit system.

If the Governor, the Mayor and the Legislature will not soon commit new subsidies, taxes and a capital plan, their responsibility for a $1 fare will be clear. And if they refuse to entrust the money to the present M.T.A. management, they will have three months to find new managers, to replace the existing directors or to impose the recommended ''control board,'' administrative monster though it promises to be.

Transit riders should feel fortunate that some legislators are ready to assume the burden of decision. But they cannot deliver their reluctant upstate colleagues unless the Governor finally takes charge. The avoidance in this crisis has been shameful. The damage to New York could soon be irreparable.


MERIDEN IN the Town Crier room of the Yale Motor Inn, before an audience of about 300 men and women from around the state, Michael McGarry, a Hartford businessman, was giving an unusual lesson in marketing.

''If you want to get a message through, like 'Mike McGarry is for lower taxes,' you have to get it through eight times,'' said Mr. McGarry. ''Studies show you're getting 1,800 messages a day. If you don't believe it, go out with a watch and count. You're being attacked 1,800 times,'' he said, describing how to attack the public eight more.

The audience was made up of potential Republican candidates for Mayor and First Selectman in the 156 towns and 21 cities that will hold elections on Nov. 3, and they listened carefully. The turnout was unusually large, and the Republicans, who control fewer than 70 of the state's municipalities, are hoping to make gains this fall with the help of President Reagan's popularity.

''When we do this, and build our base,'' said Ralph E. Capecelatro, state Republican chairman, ''we insure we will have a Republican Governor and Senator and at least four Republican Congressmen in 1982.''

Mr. Capecelatro, who is the First Selectman of Orange, was beaming about the size of the gathering. With a Republican in the White House and the Republican economic program having cleared Congress, he said, this is a good time to be a Republican. ''I think we'll do better than we did during the time of Watergate. A few years ago, people weren't willing to be identified as a Republican.''

Indeed, even some Democrats have noticed a change. James M. Fitzgerald, Mr. Capecelatro's counterpart in the Democratic Party, said that because of the national situation, ''I think the Republicans are going to be far more aggressive, more determined in areas where they have been lackadaisical.'' Mr. Fitzgerald added, however, that he did not think that national political questions would ''spill over'' into contests at the municipal level.

The potential candidates were briefed on national issues and state politics, but more time was spent on the mechanics of getting elected. The Republican State Central Committee is concerned about organizing campaigns because it believes the town officials of the early 80's will be the candidates for state offices for the remainder of the century. In addition, grassroots organizations will form the basis of later races for statewide and Federal offices.

The advice given to the potential candidates, in lectures and booklets, offered a glimpse of some basic election problems and strategies.

''When you finish a campaign brochure at the printer, take it home and sleep on it,'' said Mr. McGarry, who is running for mayor of Hartford again this year. ''In every single piece I've ever printed, and I must have done 700, I've found a typo. It's really embarrassing if you've spelled your name wrong, or put in the wrong ZIP code, and I've done both,'' he said.

Exploiting the advantages of improved technology was touched on by Jan Majewski, who this year ran the computer analyses of redistricting proposals for the Republicans in the General Assembly. Mr. Majewski noted that census data was now so detailed that in each of 35,000 census units in the state, information was available showing, for example, a breakdown of age, sex, race, and such factors as whether a family owned its home or rents how large the rent bill was and even how much plumbing was in the house.

''This is invaluable for targeting, to find out which part of your town has the highest unregistered population of people who own their own homes, just waiting to be Republicans,'' he said.

Some of the strategy, it was said, depended on the energy of the individual running for office. According to Larry Bettencourt, First Selectman of Waterford, who sat on a panel that discussed election advice in medium-sized towns, ''It's up to the candidate.''

People want to look at my bald head, to see if I wear false teeth, if I've walked far enough for my shoes to have holes,'' he said. ''Most of the people will not ask questions about issues.''

Mr. Bettencourt said he won his first election by unseating a Democrat who had held power for 14 years. In the course of the campaign, he said, he knocked on 2,442 doors. ''I'll never forget one man, who said, 'I'm of the other persuasion, but I've lived in this town 10 years, and nobody has ever asked for my vote before.' '' Mr. Bettencourt said he believed that he won that Democrat's vote.

Political paraphernalia was also available. Barker Specialty, a Meriden manufacturer, distributed catalogues and samples from previous campaigns, everything from a rubber jar grip with the names of each member of the Democratic ticket in Wallingford, to pocket mirrors with a picture of Ronald Reagan on the flip side. Buttons and bumper stickers reading ''Kiss me I'm Republican,'' cocktail stirrers decorated with Republican elephants, and badges, showing an elephant kicking a donkey, and a legend that said, ''Republicans on the move,'' were also available.

The Republican handbook on winning elections noted, however, that potholders, emery boards and matchbooks were of questionable value in attracing votes and advised against using them.

The handbook also offered the following: ''Use bulk-rate pre-canceled stamps. They cost the same as bulkrate postage, but are lick-on stamps similar to first-class stamps. They look like first-class and are more likely to be opened.''

''Generally speaking, always start door-to-door campaigns in strong Repulican areas. It builds the confidence of the candidate early on.''

In press releases: ''Be sure every name is properly spelled and use lots of names; people like to see their own names in the paper.'' In letters: ''Use a salutation. Dear Friend, Dear Contributor, Dear Neighbor. Stay away from salutations like 'Dear Americans of Italian Descent.' ''

''Phone right up to the last moment possible - many races are decided by under 10 votes.''


By John Leonard THE FISH IS RED. The Story of the Secret War Against Castro. By Warren Hinckle and William Turner. Illustrated. 373 pages. Harper & Row. $15.50.

THIS should have been a better book. Warren Hinckle, who edited Ramparts and Scanlan's, and William Turner, who has written at length of his disenchantment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, want to tell the whole story of our relations with Fidel Castro from the Cuban revolution of 1959 until Watergate. It is an ugly story that can't be told too often - most of today's college students weren't around at the time of the Bay of Pigs, and the Bay of Pigs was the least of it - but it needs to be told with a decent respect for the rules of evidence and the niceties of the English language. Coherence would also help.

Briefly, the Central Intelligence Agency declared war on Cuba in 1959, without bothering to consult Congress or the rest of us. That war took the form of an abortive invasion, intermittent bombings, persistent sabotage, deliberate provocation and various attempts to assassinate Mr. Castro and his brother, Raul. It was waged by Cuban exiles trained here and abroad by the C.I.A., mercenaries and Mafia hitmen hired by the C.I.A., and Agency personnel themselves, including the egregious E. Howard Hunt. It was abetted by the executive branch of our Government, a number of big businesses, a consortium of Las Vegas gambling interests an d the syndicate. Howard Hughes and H.L. Hunt had parts to play, as we ll as Sam (Momo) Giancana, Life magazine and the Moonies. Silence Equals Approval

It was, of course, illegal, violating everything from the Neutrality Act to Florida state law to Federal Aviation Administration regulations to the C.I.A.'s own Charter. And the American public was lied to about it, from the beginning until now.

This much has been reported, however belatedly, by the press and confirmed, in large measure, by the Senate Intelligence Committee. How much did the President know, whoever he was, and when did he know it? Mr. Hinckle and Mr. Turner would like to believe that every President from Eisenhower on was aware of and approved aspects of ''the secret war,'' with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, who wanted nothing to do with a Cuba he thought belonged to the Kennedy brothers. Silence was construed as approval, so long as everything was ''plausibly deniable.''

By their own account, however, it is impossible to tell who knew what when. On certain matters Robert Kennedy was misinformed and Allen Dulles kept in the dark; Richard Helms wouldn't mention the Mafia to John A. McCone. Did Richard Nixon have an inkling of the plot to kill Mr. Castro in Chile in 1971? There were so many C.I.A. case officers running so many independent operations, with so many private armies and so many Cuban splinter groups, that Mr. Castro himself may be the only one capable of grasping the big picture.

''The Fish Is Red'' doesn't help by jumping back and forth in time, by stuffing too many unrelated facts into fat paragraphs with a single footnote, by digressing on the likes of Robert Maheu, by giddy guesswork and blind assertion. We could use fewer references to Naugahyde and potshots at Charles Colson, and more information on when Meyer Lansky offered $1 million for Castro's head and how Howard Hughes ended up with $6 billion in noncompetitive C.I.A. contracts. If Mr. Nixon actually offered to send Henry Kissinger out to Nevada to hold Mr. Hughes's hand during a nuclear test, it's worth a footnote.

Where ''The Fish Is Red'' is genuinely useful is in its portrayal of the C.I.A.'s creation of a kind of permanent paramilitary subculture, trained to smuggle and kill. When Cuba is off-limits, according to whichever phase of the Presidential moon, this subculture seems to busy itself by invading Haiti, smuggling drugs and burgling the Watergate. And where ''The Fish Is Red'' is genuinely irresponsible is in its blithe assertion that this subculture, consisting primarily of anti-Castro Cubans, with C.I.A. connivance, murdered John F. Kennedy - and may even, with the assistance of organized crime, have had some unspecified connection with Arthur Bremer and Sirhan Sirhan, not to mention Mr. Nixon's real-estate dealings.

Who knows? But the evidence is thin, back in the land of the two Oswalds. Could a subculture incapable, even with Mafia help, of getting Castro after so many tries get Kennedy so easily? Are those members of that subculture whom the authors choose to believe really reliable, considering what we have been told about their braggadocio and their susceptibility to preposterous rumor? The guesswork, dressed up in neon, with cinematic fades, knowing nudges and sinister shrugs, deflects our attention from the distasteful story of the secret war itself. A Misplaced Taco

The prose contributes to the giddiness. Agents do not move; they ''slither.'' Life magazine doesn't seek to unite ''American jingoism,'' but to ''congeal'' it. ''The Secret War compromised the Democratic system it deigned to secure.'' (Surely they mean ''pretended,'' not ''deigned.'') Manuel Ray is ''tossed aside like an old taco.'' (Wrong country.) A reporter is blessed with ''a maniac charm.'' (Manic?) Lockheed gets a contract ''by plying generals with liquor and the end products of concupiscence.'' (Venereal disease?)

The language, like the guesswork, tends to distract and to trivialize. It is easy to think of the Secret War - botulin toxin in the cigars, hypodermic needles in the fountain pens, LSD on the darts, a depilatory to get rid of the charismatic beards, counterfeit pesos and a second coming of Jesus Christ -as farce. It wasn't a farce in Iran in 1953, in Guatemala in 1954, in Chile in 1973. It shouldn't be written about by cowboys.


HARTFORD WITH $325 million in commercial office construction under way and more in prospect, business and civic leaders here are beginning to think about giving two of the city's most important public spaces a much-needed facelift.

The Bushnell Park Foundation, established last spring, is seeking to raise much of the $2 million needed to restore that park, which lies between the business district and the State Capitol, by 1986, the 350th anniversary of Hartford's founding. And Riverfront Recapture Inc., organized in April, hopes to collect from $300,000 to $500,000 to restore public access to the Connecticut River, now walled off by 45-foot-high flood-control dikes and eight lanes of Interstate highway.

Both efforts depend on a partnership between the large, affluent corporations here and the city government. ''In this city, there is quite a bit of precedent for this public-private partnership,'' Sanford Parisky, the vice president of the Bushnell Park Foundation, said, citing the restoration of the Old State House and the creation of the Civic Center with its shopping mall. Mr. Parisky is also the director of the Downtown Council, a corporate-sponsored group set up in 1974 to promote the city.

Although it is trying to raise a greater amount of money, the Bushnell Park effort faces an easier task than the Riverfront group. The park is well known and much used - according to Mr. Parisky, 750,000 visitors are drawn to its 37 acres by concerts and other events each year. The foundation's program envisions a detailed set of small projects with a predictable price tag and completion date.

By contrast, the riverfront, 1,300 acres along 6.6 miles of Hartford's eastern boundary, is all but invisible and unused, and reuniting it with the rest of the city depends on such major undertakings as redesigning I-91 and I-84, which intersect there. ''It extends out to the end of the century,'' said C. Roderick O'Neil, chairman of the finance committee for the Travelers Insurance Companies and the chairman of the Riverfront action group.

''It's obvious to us that there is a lot of deferred maintenance,'' said Mr. Parisky, gesturing through his office window at Bushnell Park. A survey completed by the city and the Downtown Council last year identified 22 repair and improvement projects in the park. Its reflecting pool, for example, no longer retains water and has become a garbage-strewn, silt-filled puddle. The brownstone railings at one of the park's memorial entrances are shattered, and statues and fountains are defaced or inoperable. The plantings, which once numbered 157 species of trees and shrubs, need to be restored.

In face of these needs, Hartford's city government has been able to apply little financial support. Victor Jarm, who is the city's director of parks and recreation and serves on the foundation's board, said that the park's maintenance budget was about $30,000, enough, essentially, to mow the lawns.

As for capital improvements, he said: ''This year, $50,000 has been set aside for improving the lighting plus $12,000 to repair a fountain. But in the past several years the emphasis has been on neighborhood parks, so very little has been spent on capital projects in the downtown parks.''

To fill the gap, the foundation will enlist the support of corporate and business interests with facilities surrounding the park. The foundation's board includes representatives of the Southern New England Telephone Company, the Travelers, the Connecticut General Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, law firms and the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Once updated cost estimates for the repair projects are prepared and the foundation calculates what kind of endowment will be needed to maintain the improvements, Mr. Parisky said, local corporations and individuals will be approached for the necessary funds. The idea will not be to replace government spending on the park, he said, but to ''make it more attractive for the city to match what might not otherwise be doable.''

The foundation's work, he said, ''renews the original compact that created the park,'' recalling that the 1853 referendum to buy the land for Bushnell Park, the first such municipal purchase in the country, was an early form of public-private partnership for urban development.

Mr. O'Neil, who grew up in Illinois and lived in New York before moving to Hartford four years ago, described his involvement with the waterfront project in more personal terms. ''It was quite a shock to see the lack of access to the waterfront in the East, compared to Chicago and Lake Michigan,'' he said. In Hartford, he said, ''from ground level, you really don't even know the river is there. I know what a waterfront could be - and what this one isn't.''

In May 1980, the Downtown Council, the city government and three conservation groups sponsored a conference at the Old State House on ways to reunite the city with its waterfront. The government responded by issuing planning guidelines for the riverfront. And while Hartford officials were eager to participate in a comprehensive plan for the area, Mr. O'Neil said, they decided ''it would be very hard for the city to take the lead.'' A resolution adopted by the City Council last February endorsed the formation of an ''urban waterfront action group.''


ONE opinion that has been held here too long to be lightly dismissed is that if God had intended man to run He would have given him four legs, or at least made him late for a bus. To be sure, speed afoot might have been useful to some of the young ladies pursued by Jack the Ripper, but unnecessary running is a crime against nature. This goes for the joggers who clutter our country roads and infest our parks, and young men like Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett who perform publicly in their underwear.

By breaking the world record every few days, those two Limeys are making a mockery of the mile race, which has been traditionally the core and kernel of any track meet. Mention the Millrose Games, and the discussion automatically turns to the Wanamaker Mile; as early as the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the 1,500 meters was described by the French sporting paper, ''L'Equipe,'' as the ''bombe atomique'' of the Games.

Incidentally, when the bombe went off, little Josie Barthels of Luxembourg was catapulted to the front and the victory so transported him that upon climbing to the winner's stand he buried his face in the bosom of a big American kid named McMillan, who had finished second, and blubblered wetly about ''My leetle country.''

Today a world record endures for a week or less and the guy who breaks it can call his shot in advance, as Ovett did the other day in Koblenz, West Germany.

Still, slapping the event around with consummate disrespect hasn't made it unpopular with the masses. More than 22,000 buffs, considerably more than Oberwerth Stadium can handle, saw Ovett chip a piece off Coe's shiny new standard. Nearly 50,000 saw Coe on Friday.

It doesn't seem possible that 27 years have passed since Roger Bannister broke what I have decided to nickname the ''four-minute barrier,'' yet it was May 6, 1954, when he did the deed.

Since man dropped out of a tree and took off with a saber-toothed tiger on his heels, no pedestrian had traveled 5,280 feet in four minutes. In 1864 one Charles Lawes of Great Britain had gone the distance in 4 minutes 56 seconds, and 90 years later Sweden's Gunder Hagg had lowered the record of 4:01.4.

May 6, 1954, five days after Determine won the Kentucky Derby, was gray and drizzly at Oxford but Bannister knew that if he waited for ideal weather in that blessed plot, that earth, that realm, that England, hardening of the arteries could set in first. So he ran, and the stopwatches read, 3:59.4.

A month later John Landy did 3:58 flat and took the record to Australia but in the Empire Games that August Bannister beat Landy in 3:58.8 with the Aussie also under four minutes. John's time was 3:59.6. The floodgates were open. Britain's Derek Ibbotson was the next to break the record, then came Herb Elliott of Australia, Peter Snell of New Zealand, France's Michel Jazy, Jim Ryun of the United States who lowered the mark twice, Filbert Bayi of Tanzania and John Walker, New Zealand.

Walker made 3:49.4 in 1975. That stood for five years, and then along came Coe and Ovett to exchange the record five times, three times in the last two weeks. Coe broke Walker's record and Ovett broke Coe's. On Aug. 19 this year Coe took it back with a mile in 3:48.53 in Zurich, and exactly seven days later Ovett did 3:48.40.

Ovett held the record for two days. On Friday in Brussels, Coe snatched it back with a mile in 3:47.30.

Ovett's record was 13 one-hundredths under Coe's best previous effort. Coe's latest clocking, though, was more than a second below Ovett's.

Until recently, human timers worked events like this, hoping that each of them would hit his watch at the starting gun and hit it again at the exact moment the winner reached the tape. They measured time in tenths of a second and when they were lucky several timers got the same time down to a fraction.

Now an electric timer does the work, depending on the starting gun to activate the gismo and the winner to break a beam at the finish. This presumably accurate device splits times down to hundredths instead of tenths and can spot a winner that no human eye could detect.

No doubt this is a step forward, if anybody cares. When it comes to the difference between 3:48.53 and 3:48.40, the attention span here is measured in thousands of a second.

Much more interesting than the numbers is the mental attitude involved. It doesn't make sense that scores of milers since 1954 have been faster than all the milers who preceded them in human history. It is obvious now that the barrier was psychological rather than physical.

For a millennium or two, nobody ran a mile in four minutes for the excellent reason that it was impossible. (To be sure, Glenn Cunningham says now that he broke four minutes in practice in high school and he and his coach kept it a secret, but that's no part of recorded history.) Then Roger Bannister showed that it was not impossible, and it was like divine revelation. Suddenly it got to be like this:

Jesse Abramson, covering a Boston track meet for The New York Herald Tribune, was in a taxi with a colleague and they were discussing runners and their times. The cabbie spoke up:

''Anything that starts with four,'' he said, ''is slow.''

Illustrations: Photo of Sebastian Coe


WASHINGTON, May 12— Attorney General William French Smith found his finances under scrutiny today because of an oil and gas drilling tax shelter in which he invested $33,000. The investment made him eligible for $99,000 in Federal income tax deductions.

A spokesman for Mr. Smith said today, after The Washington Post reported the investment this morning, that Mr. Smith would ''take a second look'' at his participation in the venture.

Thomas P. DeCair, a Justice Department spokesman, said Mr. Smith wanted to reassure himself of the propriety of the venture, in which he and 33 other limited partners stand to receive $4 in Federal tax deductions for each dollar they invested last year and a $2 deduction for each dollar invested this year.

Mr. Smith invested $16,500 in late 1981 in Yale-Quay Energy Partners, which is drilling for oil in Payne County, Okla., and another $16,500 by March 31 of this year. Because the partners have guaranteed a minimum amount in royalties for the two years to the owner of the land where the oil well is, they are risking much more than their initial investment. This ''at risk'' amount, which totals $66,000 for 1981 and $33,000 this year for each partner, is deductible. Timing of Investment Questioned

Mr. Smith's participation in Yale-Quay came under scrutiny after The Post article said that the deduction would be at least twice the amount permitted under Internal Revenue Service rules.

However, Leon Levine, a spokesman for the revenue service, said today that the rules pertaining to such a partnership focused on whether an investor who pays a year's royalties in advance in December can then deduct the entire amount for that tax year.

The revenue service has maintained that only one-twelfth of the payment, for the month of December, may be deducted. Court Has Ruled Against I.R.S.

However, this I.R.S. position has been challenged successfully in court. ''The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has told us we were wrong,'' Mr. Levine said. ''To date, we haven't appealed.''

Mr. Levine said Federal law prohibited him from commenting on Mr. Smith's specific tax situation. To avoid conflict of interest in his duties as head of the Department of Justice, Mr. Smith placed his stocks and bonds in a blind trust. Mr. Smith's tax returns are prepared and signed by a trustee to prevent any possible conflict with the revenue service, Mr. DeCair said.

He said the Yale-Quay partnership and some other investments were not in the blind trust because ''the odds of a small, limited partnership coming into a conflict of interest are minimal.'' Investment Suggested by Friends

Francis Wheat, a fellow investor in Yale-Quay and a member of Mr. Smith's law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles, said Tuesday that he and Mr. Smith decided to invest in the gas and oil venture at the suggestion of Norman Trenton, ''an old friend starting in business for himself.''

''We had great confidence in his integrity,'' Mr. Wheat said. For advice on the tax implications of the investment, Mr. Wheat said, ''We relied completely on the firm of Meserve, Mumper & Hughes. Our own firm had nothing to do with it.''

Yale-Quay is operated by Mr. Trenton and Donovan M. Essex, both former executives of Montgomery Ward. Mr. Trenton said they raised $1.1 million from investors who were required to submit statements showing that they were aware of the risks involved in the venture and that their net worths were more than $200,000, not including their homes and personal belongings.

A certificate naming the investors was filed with the recorder's office in Los Angeles County on Dec. 31, the last day of the tax year. Tax Opion Cites Risk

John Deacon, head of the corporate department at the Meserve, Mumper & Hughes, which prepared a tax opinion on the investment, said the cash put up by each investor was deductible as an intangible drilling cost. In addition, he said, each partner was personally at risk for three times the amount invested in the first year. This amount, $49,500 each, represented the minimum annual royalties promised to the owner of the 198 acres of land where the oil drilling is taking place.

Yale-Quay sank its first well in February, but no oil has been discovered yet, Mr. Trenton said. Mr. Deacon said Yale-Quay hoped that oil revenue would eventually cover the royalty payments, but if not, ''the limited partners have to dig into their pockets and pay them off personally.''

''This is consistent with the new rules of the 1976 Tax Reform Act,'' Mr. Deacon said. ''In order for any investor to deduct, he has to be 'at risk.' ''

''The minimum investment is a fairly large number,'' Mr. Deacon said, referring to the $33,000 required from each partner. ''This is not suitable for widows and orphans. The point is that we've designed a program in such a way that, as an additional inducement, they get tax advantages up front as deductions.''

''I wouldn't want anyone to think the Attorney General had an unfair advantage,'' Mr. Deacon said. ''He bellied up to the bar and took the risk along with any other investor.''


Meghan Trainor in The Peanuts Movie

07/28/2015 AT 09:30 AM EDT

joins Charlie Brown and the rest of the original

crew to do what she does best: spread confidence through the power of dance.

The "All About That Bass" singer, 21, is recording a new song for

, titled "Better When I'm Dancin' ", that's all about letting go of your insecurities and embracing your true self on the dance floor. Trainor spoke to PEOPLE about what it feels like to officially join the

They wanted a song about confidence and knew I was good at writing those. I feel better when I'm onstage dancing and having fun, so I wrote about that!

Isn't it so cute? They sent me the first version and I said, "Don't touch it, it's perfect." It's the background on my phone!

My grandma always had it on; she always had a lot of cartoons on. I was super-duper young, but I do remember when the show was on – it was huge!

I like Charlie's sister [Sally Brown]. She's a cutie. I also like the new girl – no one knows about [her] yet, but I do! I can't wait for everyone to meet her.

Charlie, because I felt so bad for him in some parts. I'm probably the person that would go make sure he's all right. We would be best friends.

hits theaters Nov. 6, 2015.

Summary: Meghan Trainor's new song is all about being confident and letting go of your insecurities on the dance floor


"We need flexibility but we also have to be careful and deliberate," Obama said of the proposed campaign.

The military actions could include U.S. boots on the ground in limited capacities—including hostage rescue missions—the White House said. But Obama emphasized that the military forces now there largely serve in bases, and do not have a combat mission.

The president said his legislation would repeal the 2002 authorization of force for the invasion of Iraq, and sets a limit on this campaign's authorization for three years. "I do not believe America's interests are served by endless war or by remaining on a perpetual war footing," he said.

Read MoreNewsweek Twitter page hacked by ISIS supporters

Still, Obama said the resolution should not be seen as a timetable for mission completion, but rather that the issue should be revisited by Congress at the beginning of the next president's term.

The draft resolution cites ISIS' responsibility for the killing of American citizens—including the recent death of aid worker Kayla Mueller—as one of the justifications for use of force.

Obama said he was optimistic the resolution would receive bipartisan support, and that it could "grow even stronger with the thoughtful and dignified debate that this moment demands."

Read MoreObama in September: 'Systematic campaign' against ISIS

Touting what is largely a stalemate in Iraq, a failed ISIS offensive in Syria and reports of militants' "sinking morale," Obama expressed confidence that the campaign would eventually eradicate the group.

"Our coalition is strong, our cause is just and our mission will succeed," the president said at the conclusion of his speech. "And long after the terrorists we face today are destroyed and forgotten, America will continue to stand free, and tall, and strong."

Summary: While seeking authorization for the use of force against ISIS, Obama stressed he was not asking for another ground war in the region.


When I was a lad, my summer camp took us to a farm. We were mostly city kids with a few suburban nerds like me thrown in. We petted the goats. We took a look at the cows being milked by huge machines. Some of us even got to ride on a pony. And then, for the piece the resistance, they took us all back behind the barn to watch a chicken get its head cut off. Why? You tell me.

The farmer explained to us that even after its head was cut off, the chicken wouldn’t know its basic status, and would continue to run around for a while. He seemed to feel this was interesting, if not amusing. So he lined the chicken up on a very scary, very scarred block, and chopped its head off.

Boom! There was a mighty fountain of blood and, as foretold, the surprised chicken hopped to its feet and began to run around the yard. Some people laughed to see such sport. Others simply watched in amazement. After a while the erstwhile chicken stopped running, stood still for a while, then simply tipped over onto one side and, after twitching for a couple of seconds, lay still. Its body had finally recognized its true condition. An organism can live without a brain for only so long.

Which brings me to our economy. About 18 months ago, it seems to have lost its head. Who chopped it off is a matter of conjecture, although all those sharp financial instruments invented by Wall Street were certainly on the scene. One thing is for sure, though. The poor thing is still running around the farmyard without one.

Every day I get to work and see a bunch of news stories from august business magazines, Web sites and papers, tracking various developments, and several dozen chattering analysts reports, all of this activity attesting to the fact that the bloody victim is still racing around as if its head were still on its shoulders. Right now, at this writing, I believe it may be possible that we’re in the phase where the thing is just standing there in shocked stasis, preparing to keel over. It certainly feels that way.

On the bright side, history shows us that it is possible for a chicken to live a long time without its head, as long as a tiny portion of its autonomic system remains intact. It’s never really healthy again, but it can hang around a long time in that condition. So maybe all is not lost.

There is no record, however, of a chicken in this extreme state having its head actually replaced. Who knows, though? If some of our best minds put their heads to the task, maybe it can be done.

We can always, I suppose, enjoy the audacity of hope.

Summary: When I was a lad, my summer camp took us to a farm. We were mostly city kids with a few suburban nerds like me thrown in. We petted the goats. We took a look at the cows being milked by huge machines. Some of us even got to ride on a pony. And then, for…


The best place to start a search is MissingMoney.com, said Pitman. "It's free to search, free to claim," she said. (Not all states participate, but the site lists contact information and links to the state-run databases of the 11 that don't.) NAUPA's site, Unclaimed.org, also lists other databases that may yield results, she said, like the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s $280 million in forgotten pensions from closed or taken-over plans.

State laws vary regarding how quickly unclaimed funds end up in the state fund, so it's worth checking regularly. There's no statute of limitations—even heirs can collect assets, with the right proof of ownership, said Pitman.

Read MoreDo you fit these special Social Security cases?

Still, it's better to keep tabs so funds don't linger too long with the state. At some point, again depending on the state, property such as safe deposit box contents, stock shares and other tangible property can be traded or sold for cash, said Joyce. (In Arizona, for example, the state is required to hold such items for three years before liquidation, he said.)

"Sometimes that actually works out tremendously for people, depending on the market conditions," he said. But it could also mean that forgotten stock is much less valuable, or that an heir would receive cash rather than a family heirloom.

"The key here is to prevent [missing money] from happening," said Pitman. Simple fixes include forwarding your mail when moving, and reaching out to individual companies you do business with to update your address. Open your mail—what you think is another promotional offer or privacy policy update could be a request to re-establish contact on a dormant account, said Joyce.

Read MoreHow employers can boost retirement savings

Keep good records of where all your assets are located, said Dustin Obhas, a certified financial planner based in Beverly Hills, California. That's important for both online-only assets like e-savings accounts or a PayPal account (for which heirs would need an account number and login details), and physical assets like old stock certificates or a safe deposit box (for which they need to know the actual location).

"That way you're not leaving it up to your kids to go hunting through your house," he said. "Go through an inventory of everything you have so they're aware."

Listing beneficiaries on insurance policies, retirement accounts and other assets is another way to prevent loss, said Obhas. "It's an easy way to say, 'If something were to happen to me, this is who I want it to go to,'" he said.

Summary: State unclaimed property funds have swelled to nearly $42 billion. Make sure you're not leaving cash on the table.


It added that several members of the ALP TV production company involved in shooting the adventure show "Dropped" for private TV station TF1 were among the dead.

TF1 issued a statement expressing sadness and solidarity for the families of the victims. "Dropped" involves contestants being left in the wilderness and having to use their skills to find their way back to civilization.

Read MoreOne LaGuardia runway reopened after plane accident shut down airport

Arthaud, 57, was one of the first women to carve a place for herself in the world of sailing and in 1990 secured the record for the fastest solitary crossing of the North Atlantic, according to her publisher's site.

Muffat, 25, won 400 meters freestyle gold at the 2012 London Olympics. Vastine, 28, won bronze at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

"I am sad for my friends, I'm shaking, I'm horrified, I can't find the words," Tweeted Sylvain Wiltord, ex-footballer for English Premier League club Arsenal and fellow cast member.

The victims included the helicopters' two pilots, Cesar Angulo, La Rioja's security chief, told reporters earlier.

"There were no survivors, according to the information we have," Angulo said.

Argentina's official news agency Telam said one of the helicopters belonged to the provincial government and the other to organizers of a survival competition that had been held for three years near the village of Villa Castelli.

Summary: Eight French nationals including French sports stars were among 10 killed in a helicopter collision, while filming a French reality TV show.


The earnings release will most likely make or break Cramer's investments; it is that important. He also recommended listening to the company's quarterly conference calls, or reading the transcripts, to gain further insight directly from company executives.

"There is no better source of information than these calls," added the "Mad Money" host.

It all comes down to doing your research. Additionally, check out the company's sector and try to figure out of this is a good time in the business cycle to own the stock. Then compare it to the competition.

However to have a meaningful and diversified portfolio, Cramer said that you need to start with $10,000.

But what if you don't have $10,000 or want to put the time into doing the homework? Don't worry, Cramer has you covered.

---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Make these changes now Cramer: This precious metal is a must Cramer: Forget sectors! The right way to diversify ----------------------------------------------------------

In that circumstance, Cramer recommends that you invest into an index fund. Specifically, a cheap index fund with low fees that mirrors the S&P 500. Cramer's fave is the Vanguard 500 index fund.

Just keep in mind that if you invest in an index fund, you will never beat the market, because the point is that an index fund is the market.

That means your performance returns will also mirror the market, which is why Cramer always prefers picking your own stocks.

Whether you choose to pick your own stocks or to invest in an index fund, the first step is to know your options and do your research. By taking a step in investing, the goal is to remove the shackles of living paycheck to paycheck, so you can lay back and watch the dough pile up with peace of mind.

Summary: Professor Cramer heads back to the classroom to review the basics of investing, and where to start.


"This was an artist dealing with strong emotional issues. Her choreography gives it a very strong sense, like all art, of being distilled.

She is taking circumstances all of us have encountered and making them more vivid as a way of drawing attention to them and helping us to understand them.

She has demonstrated real advances in her work. She has moved from relatively simple subjects and structures to much more involved work.

We feel it has moved into a new realm in terms of dealing with the emotional lives of a very wide range of people . . . and she presents this in ways that will strike a chord in all of us.

Video has been around for 30 years but this generation has taken it off the television screen into a larger scale and given it a weight and an importance it has never previously had.

It provides a very direct means of communicating in a world in which we constantly see films and television."

Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery and chairman of the Turner Prize jury

Summary: Turner Prize winner: Gillian Wearing's arresting image


A research firm believes crude oil prices could erase half of their losses from their peak last year, as the commodity continues a strong comeback.

"We think a 50 percent retracement [to $76.6] during the current bull could be achieved pretty easily," wrote Bespoke Investment Group in a recent note to clients. That moves implies a 30 percent gain from here.

Technical analysts often draw 'Fibonacci retracement' levels to create a road-map for trading using past price levels for a security. The Fibonacci numerical sequence is named for a mathematician from Italy who found these values in the 13th century as naturally recurring in nature.

Summary: A research firm believes crude oil prices could erase half of their losses from the peak last year.