Solar energy has a red-hot future, Josh Brown of Ritholtz Wealth Management said Monday after a strong finish for First Solar stock.

"I'm long, and I'm not selling," he said, adding that he also holds a position in SunPower. "But ... the name that makes more sense than chasing First Solar here is TAN. That's an [exchange-traded fund] that owns the 22-most-levered-to-solar companies in the world. It's global. It's got Europe. It's got China and U.S."

On CNBC's "Fast Money," Brown said that the Guggenheim Solar ETF offered opportunity while de-emphasizing risk.

"That's now making all-time highs from when it launched," he said. "That's the one because you minimize single-stock risk, but you still play the theme. And again, this is for investors. If you want to trade the names, you certainly could."

(Read more: Bill Nygren's two new stock picks)

Brown said that the solar power had industrial growth factors behind it.

"Most people in America still, when they think of solar stocks, they think about, like, their neighbors' roofs," he said. "That is not what's happening here. This is now an industrial play. All of those stocks I just referenced are building power plants, and they're getting massive engineering contracts. This is not about selling shingles to your neighbor. And I'm talking globally."

Summary: "I'm long, and I'm not selling," Josh Brown says.


Selfies have become so abundant that they’re now classified into subgenres. Farmer selfies are “felfies.” Selifes of one’s butt are “belifes.” And now a new app lets bibliophiles share pictures of their bookshelves—or “shelfies”—while getting some free or discounted e-books and audio books in the process.

The app, called Shelfie, announced on Monday that they’ve added audiobooks to a bundling scheme that could increase the value of all those old paperbacks buried among your attic relics.

A tipsy barroom debate over the existence of free will led Shelfie founder Peter Hudson to wonder why he couldn’t get free electronic copies of the books he had already shelled out for in analog form. His foe in the debate asserted, but could not prove, that crucial evidence was on page 750 of a paper book he owned at home. “You’ve got to be able the get a digital copy, like you can with a CD. You just put it in your computer, iTunes rips it, you’ve got it on your iPod. That’s got to exist for books,” Hudson says of that revelation. “But it turns out it didn’t.”

After hundreds of soul-sucking cold calls and emails, Shelfie got its first publisher to sign on in 2013. Two years later, Shelfie has brokered deals with nearly 1,200 publishers—including industry bigwigs Macmillan and HarperCollins—and Hudson says that they now have e-book bundling deals for about 250,000 titles, which covers about 15% of the average bookshelf. As of Monday, Shelfie will also have audio book deals for 20,000 titles, including hits like Scholastic Audio’s Hunger Games and HarperCollins’ American Sniper by Chris Kyle.

Here’s how it works: Download the app and take a picture of your bookshelf. Wait as Shelfie’s in-house recognition technology reads your wrinkled old covers and identifies which books you own. Then review the deals they have for your “eligible books,” which were two out of about every 15 on my shelf. If you want to claim a deal, write your name on the copyright page to prove you own it, and then upload your evidence. Finally, receive an email that contains digital files compatible with the Kindle and other e-readers. Or, if you’re opting for an audio book, just listen through the Shelfie app.

About 30% of the time a publisher will offer a free digital version of your paper book. The rest of the time, they’re just really cheap deals, about 80% off what you’d pay buying the same ebook for your Kindle on Amazon, Hudson says. Some publishers have signed on simply because they believe that consumers are buying content these days, not the vessel that it’s in. But there are potential business upsides, too.

“By bundling, we hope we can make additional money on the same transaction,” says HarperCollins Chief Digital Officer Chantal Restivo-Alessi. They also hope to be making better relationships with consumers who don’t typically think very much about which company published whatever book they’re reading. They might be able to sell more books, too. Shelfie ran a pilot with about 20 independent booksellers and found that paper books that carried a sticker saying shoppers could get a free digital version through Shelfie saw a 180% spike in sales.

Most consumers, Restivo-Alessi says, aren’t ditching all their paper books for ebooks or refusing to go digital. “Consumers like a multiplicity of formats,” she says. And deals like this may help move book consumers toward that seamless, multi-platform world where they can read an e-book on the plane, switch to their paper book to indulge in some marginalia and then pick the story back up via audio when they get in their car for the Monday morning commute, before sneaking in a chapter during lunch on their smartphone.

The value of the Shelfie app is only as good as the deals it has brokered with publishers, which still don’t include major players like Penguin Random House. But Hudson says they’re adding more all the time and hopes that the social nature of the app will be another reason to draw users onto the platform. Users can see other people’s shelfies, follow people they like and get ideas for what to read next from people who own some of the same books they do.

“What we’ve done is build an Instagram-style feed,” says Hudson, asserting that the data they have about the spatial proximity of books on people’s shelves is actually better than the data Amazon uses to generate their “customers who bought this item also bought” recommendations. And if you’re just really proud of the books you’ve amassed over your lifetime, there’s really no better, more justified way to show them off.

Summary: 'Shelfie' doubles as a social media platform for bookworms


updated 04/26/2016 AT 04:00 PM EDT

•originally published 04/26/2016 AT 09:20 PM EDT

A lawsuit filed in Florida's Palm Beach County Courthouse seeking to block the return of an iPhone to the family of one of

in July may soon be dropped if both families give consent to allow a full investigation of the phone's data.

On July 24, longtime friends Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos set out on a boating excursion from Florida's Jupiter Inlet â something they'd done many times before growing up in coastal South Florida. But as night fell and a storm brewed, the boyâs families lost contact. Cohen and Stephanos, both 14, would never be seen again, despite a weeks-long search by the US Coast Guard and dozens of others who combed sea, air and land for clues to the boys' disappearance.

Eight months later, however, crewmembers aboard a Norwegian freighter spotted Stephanos' 19-foot Seacraft

about 100 miles off the Bermuda coast. Hidden inside the boatâs compartments were the boysâ tackle and other personal effects, including Stephanos' iPhone, which since has been airmailed back to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and quickly became the source of a potential legal battle.

Soon after the discovery, state investigators announced that, because the teens' disappearance is not considered a criminal case, the items would be returned to the families. The Cohen family, however, quickly challenged that decision, saying that all items, particularly Stephanosâs iPhone, should be held by law enforcement until a full forensics investigation can be completed. On Monday, Pamela Cohen filed a lawsuit with the Palm Beach County Court, naming Austinâs father, Blu Stephanos, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as defendants and seeking to block the return of the iPhone and other items found pending a forensics investigation. The complaint argued that because Perry's own phone was broken that day and he had sent messages to his family on Austin's iPhone, both families have a privacy interest in its contents. It also cited highly publicized issues with retrieving data from the iPhones of the suspects in the December 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

"Plaintiff believes the information on Austin's iPhone must be collected by technology experts who have the expertise required to extract such data without unnecessary risks of losing such information inadvertently or due to inexperience in such highly technical matters," the complaint reads. "It is now well known that multiple attempts at entering a security passcode on an iPhone will result in the destruction of information on the iPhone. This was the subject of great public awareness and litigation between the FBI and Apple in the wake of the horrific San Bernardino terrorist attacks."

Both boy's families took to social media to state their cases. Cohen plead with the Stephanos family to give their consent to allow the FFWCC to keep the phone in its custody until all potentially retrievable data including text messages, photos and GPS location information could be extracted and analyzed. Blu Stephanos posted assurances that his family was working with the phoneâs manufacturer and independent IT specialists to get the phone operational again and would share any relevant information retrieved with the Cohen family and the proper authorities.

Austin Stephanos (right) and Perry Cohen

Now, it looks as if there may be a quick resolution to the lawsuit.

"In the interest of cooperation and to help both families learn more details about what happened to our boys, we accept the offer of Blu Stephanos to share the contents of the iPhone with us and the FWC," Pamela Cohen said in a written statement released Tuesday. "Therefore we will be withdrawing our lawsuit as soon as FWC receives the written consents it needs from both families to put the iPhone in the hands of the best impartial iPhone extraction experts available, in a proper legal chain of custody."

Cohen also posted on Facebook a copy of her signed consent, which reads: "I hereby consent to the put the iPhone in the hands of the best impartial iPhone extraction experts available, in a proper legal chain of custody, and for the FWC to retain this iPhone and any information retrieved by such experts that may be helpful in determining what happened to my son, and to confidentially share that information with the families of both boys."

"They want to drop the case," Cohenâs attorney, Guy Bennett Rubin, told PEOPLE on Tuesday afternoon. âThey have signed a consent to the FWC and they've asked the other family to sign the exact same consent. As soon as we receive those consents, we will drop the case. We have no interest in litigation anything. Our only interest is in getting as much information as there is to find out what happened."

While awaiting a response from the Stephanos family, Rubin filed a motion with the Palm Beach County Court for an emergency hearing on the injunction requested in the lawsuit. Judge Gregory M. Keyser will preside.

Meanwhile, "One day at a time, one issue at a time," Rubin said when asked how his clients were coping with the loss of their son and the possibility of finally getting answers theyâve desperately prayed for. "They have a very successful business which is probably a welcome distraction but this is their priority. Mom, Pamela is just an incredibly strong and composed woman that I admire greatly. I donât see clients like this often. Sheâs very determined to speak for Perry because he can't."

Summary: If both families give consent for a full investigation, the lawsuit will be dropped


The Republican National Committee is meeting this week for the last time before the party gathers in July to nominate their presidential candidate. This is the final chance for the whole RNC to talk, as a group, about Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and how the party can move on from the fractious primary season.

The 168 members of the committee are meeting at the Diplomat Resort and Spa in Florida, which is advertised as “an elegant retreat from the realities of day to day existence,” reports CNN.

Cruz and John Kasich, both of whom currently trail Trump in the delegate count, showed up to personally woo the committee members, who are also delegates. Trump didn’t show up himself, but did send a team of representatives.

The RNC has been under a good deal of fire from Trump and his supporters recently, who call the nominating system “rigged.”

Although Trump leads in the delegate count, it is possible he could enter the Convention without the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot. If that happens, it could become a floor fight, a prospect for which the assembled committee members are likely trying to prepare at this meeting.

Summary: Trump may come up.


A dark silhouette of Prince’s face projected on the walls of his private memorial service Saturday included a haunting detail, one attendee revealed to the Daily News.

The computer projecting the image had its mouse arrow hovering over Prince’s cheek in a position that looked like a single teardrop, the mourner said.

“You couldn’t help but look at it,” Sylvia Amos said. “It was his nephew who noted that it looked like a teardrop.”

DR. DREW SAYS PRINCE'S DEATH MAY HAVE BEEN 'ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSE'

Amos, 67, said she’s still in shock the 57-year-old musical genius — a childhood friend who lived with her family as a teen — mysteriously died at his suburban Minneapolis estate Thursday.

“It’s still very unbelievable to me,” she told The News, confirming she attended the small Saturday service at Paisley Park with about 20 others.

“There were a lot of candles, because, as his sister said, he loved candles, and people were free to take the candles with them when it was over,” Amos said.

“There were a lot of tears, and a lot of hugs. But there was also a lot of sharing stories and memories, which created a lot of laughter — which that, too, would have been what Prince would have wanted,” she said.

Amos said Paisley Park staff served the Purple One’s favorite vegetarian dishes, including a pasta and beans recipe and sliced vegetables with hummus and guacamole.

SNL HONORS PRINCE IN SPECIAL TRIBUTE EPISODE

“We also danced to his music and we were all encouraged to get up and dance,” she said. “The song that closed out the memorial service was ‘Purple Rain,’ and everyone was kind of holding on to someone else, quietly listening with most of us having tears in our eyes.”

Speaking to “Entertainment Tonight,” drummer Sheila E. said it was “challenging” to listen to Prince’s music at a “very low soft volume” in that darkened room.

“Everyone just taking a moment, just sitting there, kind of going, ‘Wow,’ (in) disbelief,” she said. “It was very somber.”

Sheila E. has been tapped as musical director of a larger public tribute now in the early planning stages, a source confirmed to The News on Monday.

One possible venue is the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, though it doesn’t open until July, Sheila E. told the Star Tribune.

She also revealed plans to turn Prince's mansion into a museum.

“We’re hoping to make Paisley what (Prince wanted) it to be. (He) was working on it being a museum,” she told “Entertainment Tonight.” “He’s been gathering memorabilia and stuff from all the tours, like my drums and his motorcycle.”

Closer to home, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is co-hosting a Prince tribute event at Fort Greene Park on Friday.

"'If you feel like dancing' and 'u got the look,' join me at Fort Greene Park as we celebrate the life and music of Prince,” Adams said.

Prince’s cause of death has not yet been determined.

TMZ.com reported his private plane made an unscheduled landing in Moline, Ill., six days before he died because the singer needed an emergency “save shot” for an alleged Percocet overdose.

Air-traffic control chatter obtained by TMZ confirms paramedics were standing by to greet the plane when it touched down.

Prince’s longtime lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, expressed skepticism Monday over reports the singer was abusing hard drugs.

"Everybody who knows Prince knows he wasn't walking around drugged up,” McMillan said. "That's foolish.”

Summary: Around 20 friends and family of Prince bid the music superstar farewell in an emotional memorial service, according to a new report.


When you imagine a shark, you may think of a torpedo-shaped, streamlined creature with a prominent dorsal fin, a large mouth ringed by sharp, triangular teeth and a crescent-shaped tail. Jaws, basically.

Actually, the shark group of fish are widely varied. The Epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum) can walk on land, the frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) is flatter-bellied, adapted to hunt in the deep-sea, the Tasselled Wobbegong (Eurcrossorhinus dasypogon) is a carpet shark that resembles an old patterned rug and the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is eel-like with a long dagger-shaped snout.

These are just a handful of over 500 species of shark that we know about today, each well-adapted to its particular environment.

Yet in the past, there were many more: fossil records suggest more than 3,000 types of shark and their relatives existed at one time. And some of the ancestors of modern sharks were even weirder and more wonderful than those swimming today.

Their long history starts in the late Silurian period, about 450 million years ago. It was a time when sea levels were high and coral reefs began to form. The Earth's climate was warm and stable. Molluscs, crinoids and trilobites were some of the only living creatures on the Earth before scorpions and centipedes appeared on the land.

The teeth will grow on the inside of the mouth and move forward as they get bigger

Around this time, sharks too appeared, evidenced by the oldest known shark scales found in Siberian deposits.

Jawed and bony fish began to diversify, including the evolution of a group of fish called acanthodians, or "spiny sharks". These extinct fish looked like small sharks but had varying numbers of fins.

"It appears that sharks arose from within those," says Charlie Underwood of Birkbeck University of London, UK. "Where they end and sharks begin is quite up for debate. Certainly we know that some of these acanthodians have teeth that formed in a very similar way to sharks. The teeth will grow on the inside of the mouth and move forward as they get bigger, in a sort of conveyor belt. Among these are the earliest sharks."

Fast forward 50 million years to the Early Devonian, a warm and arid time on Earth when forests spread across the land, seed-bearing plants first appeared and the planet underwent great geological change.

Everything we think we know about shark evolution is from the teeth

This is when we have the first remains of shark teeth, from the Leonodus shark. These teeth are both small (4mm) and two-pronged, but they offer few clues as to what the Leonodus shark actually looked like. They are similar to the teeth of another shark called Xenacanthus that appeared millions of years later in the Late Devonian, leading to speculation that Leonodus, like Xenacanthus, lived in freshwater.

It may seem that teeth are not much to go by, but everything we think we know about shark evolution is from the teeth, says Lisa Whitenack of Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, US. From teeth, she says, we can learn about what environment the shark lived in, what they ate and how they are related to other sharks.

But we have to wait until 380 million years ago for the next clue to shark evolution. That comes from the braincase of Antarctilamna, a so-called lamnid shark from Antarctica. Its head, fin, spines and teeth suggest that it was eel-like.

Early sharks that seemed to have something that allowed them to thrive

There's a reason the Devonian period is referred to as the 'Age of Fishes'. It was the time when they diversified greatly. A skeleton of the now extinct shark Cladoselache, shows just how much. It was very different from its eel-like ancestors. It was a 2m-long, torpedo-shaped shark with equal-sized dorsal fins, a short stout spine in the front, five fill slits and large eyes. It took its prey tail-first, indicating it could easily outswim its meals.

At this time, a school-bus sized group of fish called Dunkleosteus, also swam the seas. These were giant, heavily-armoured fish and may have competed for similar prey. This could have been just the trigger sharks needed to evolve further. Other armour-plated fish existed too, but it was early sharks that seemed to have something that allowed them to thrive, while these other giants died out.

Enter the golden age of sharks, 360 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The largest predators of the sea at this time were the Chondrichthyans (cartilage fish). They had their skeletal jaws and tough scaly skin to thank for that. The enamel on their teeth was also frequently replaced.

You end up with the bottom lower jaw having a big circular blade sticking out

This group included rays (close relatives of sharks), skates and a bizarre branch called the chimaeras, which featured species such as ratfish, ghost sharks and spook fish. It was within this last group, the chimaeras, that extremely weird and wonderful sharks appeared, says Underwood. "By the Carboniferous period, the majority of shark-like things are on the chimaeras branch, rather than the branch towards modern sharks."

Prehistoric sharks certainly looked much stranger than the modern sharks we share the planet with today, even weirder than the Port Jackson, with its strange patterning and smoothed, numerous fins.

The Stethacanthus (above), for example, had an anvil-shaped dorsal fin on its back. "No one really knows what it used it for," says Christopher Bird, of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK and Shark Devocean blog. It is one of many evolutionary mysteries in the shark world.

Another was the spiral-shaped tooth structure, called a tooth whorl, of the Helicoprion (see below). These were dinner-plate sized and likely sat at the tip of the lower jaw. Some of these tooth spirals were 40cm across.

They could eat, crunch or suck prey into their mouths

"As they grow and move into the mouth position, rather than falling out, the teeth just stay stuck to each other," explains Underwood. "The shark doesn't lose teeth as they move outside the mouth. So you end up with the bottom lower jaw having a big circular blade sticking out and behind that... crushing teeth. It's a very strange arrangement."

These bizarre traits aside, ancient sharks actually had the same basic features as the sharks we know today.

More innovation occurred at the start of the Jurassic period, 213 million years ago, when 12 new groups evolved. Sharks with flexible jaws started to appear. This meant they could feed on things that were bigger than themselves, says Bird. "They were able to exploit the newly emerging habitats as the world was changing."

Their protruding jaws came to good use. They could eat, crunch or suck prey into their mouths. "Sharks in the Jurassic period often had teeth with a flat-ridged surface to make it easier to crunch on crunchy things," says Whitenack.

As environments changed, sharks evolved different features. A tail fin allowed sharks to swim faster for long distances to pursue prey. Most sharks evolved a mouth under their snout, although a few species have mouths at the front of their snouts such as the frilled shark and angel shark.

Sharks were certainly tenacious. The creatures that thrived during this period survived right into the Cretaceous, often defined by its end. Sixty-five million years ago most of the dinosaurs were wiped out. Many other animals died too but sharks lived on.

And why wouldn't they? They had already survived four other catastrophic mass extinctions. Their bodies were clearly well adapted to survive.

Some evolved the ability to glow in the dark

What's more, they could exploit the fact that so many other creatures were wiped out. It was during these "recovery stages following historic mass extinctions" that the biggest number of new species appeared, says Bird.

Following the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, for example, there was a second wave of deep-sea sharks. "The sharks are able to recolonise the water. We start seeing the cookie-cutter sharks and lantern sharks move in after this post-crisis event," says Bird.

These also exploited new habitats following extinction events. They even managed to survive during times when the ocean lost its oxygen - including one such event in the Cretaceous period, when many other, larger, species died out. As a refuge, sharks moved deeper underwater, says Bird. And while there, they had another cunning trick. Some evolved the ability to glow in the dark.

The end of the Cretaceous gave sharks the opportunity to flourish. Not all survivors were successful though, including one giant of the sea, once thought to be a direct relative of the great white shark.

About 16 million years ago the Carcharodon megalodon first appeared. It could grow up to 16.8m and weighed 25 tonnes. Its mouth would gape open an impressive 2m, showing its 15cm-long teeth, perfect for eating everything else big in the ocean. It made the great white shark look like a goldfish in comparison.

We don't know why the megalodon went extinct. One idea is that climate change disrupted the availability of prey. It was big, so needed to eat a lot. Any tiny change could therefore have threatened its survival. It's likely that many factors combined to cause this giant to disappear two million years ago.

Other survivors from the Cretaceous lived on to become the sharks we know today. Hammerhead sharks for example, are among the most recent to appear in the fossil record and are assumed to be one of the last modern shark orders to evolve.

Their t-shaped heads increase lift as the sharks swim through the water, allowing them to make sharp turns. It also helps them sense more of their environment.

And we now have greater insight into how their strange-shaped heads evolved. Genetic techniques allow us to peer back in time at the evolution of modern-day sharks. In one such experiment in 2010, scientists looked at the DNA of eight species of hammerhead to build a genetic family tree going back thousands, possibly even millions, of generations.

"Our study indicates the big hammerheads probably evolved into smaller hammerheads, and that smaller hammerheads evolved independently twice," said Andrew Martin of the University of Colorado at Boulder, at the time of the study.

"As the sharks became smaller, they may have begun investing more energy into reproductive activities instead of growth."

Recently, it has become clear that we may not even know how many sharks live in the ocean. An elusive shark called the megamouth (Megachasma pelagios), was only discovered several decades ago. In 1976 a US research vessel off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu hauled up a shark nearly 5m in length, with a great fleshy mouth surrounding broad jaws.

Their very survival is under threat

Since then, 49 have been found all over the world. Usually they are dead when caught but one living specimen has given scientists some idea of its environment and habits. Its soft cartilage and flabby tissue suggests a slow-steady swimmer that filter-feeds on shrimp, sea jellies and small crustaceans.

But despite new species still being discovered, the very survival of sharks is under threat. Many are endangered and their biggest threat? Us. Climate change, pollution and habitat destruction are all factors affecting their numbers.

The main threat to their survival is overfishing. Humans kill many species in large quantities for meat and fins. Several are now on a list that seeks to protect endangered species from international trade (the CITES list), and includes open-water predators such as basking, whale and great white sharks, which are caught in vast quantities for meat.

Even deep-sea sharks are vulnerable. Despite the incredible features they have evolved to help them succeed, their reproduction rate is slow. That means if any are killed, the knock-on effect is huge.

Deep-sea shark species can't recover, explains Bird. They don't have the potential to reproduce offspring quicker than they're being taken out. These sharks are often targeted for their liver oil. It contains a molecule called squalene, sought after by the cosmetics industry for its moisturising properties.

We're a new predator in the ocean

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now estimates that a quarter of sharks and rays are threatened with extinction. Although sharks have survived several mass extinctions, the rate at which their populations are being reduced by human activity is extreme and many species are not protected. In 2014, scientists said improved management of fisheries and trade is "urgently needed" to promote population recovery.

If their rate of decline continues, the future of sharks is uncertain. "We're a new predator in the ocean," says Bird. Sharks were once top predator but "we're decimating their populations. One day, they may not be able to bounce back and recover."

Summary: There are many strange sharks but their ancestors were even weirder and more wonderful than those swimming today


It’s a dark January afternoon in Penicuik, Midlothian, and George arrives at the town hall. If he didn’t have a place like this nearby, where he can go to talk to someone when he’s feeling like he can’t carry on, he wonders if he would be here today. George is 54 and regularly attends the Men’s Suicide, Harm, Awareness, Recovery and Empathy (Share) project, set up in 2009. The project provides group and one-to-one support, as well as financial and practical advice, and activities like cards and football. “It’s somewhere I feel safe just talking things out”, says George, who has made several suicide attempts since he was made homeless three years ago. “I’m in that grey area. If I’m feeling really low, I don’t want to call a helpline and talk to someone I don’t know, but I don’t want to go to the doctor and be given medication either. Here, I know everyone – and I know that everyone understands.”

Share is open seven days a week. “From the moment someone comes through the door,” says the project coordinator, John Murphy, “we give them a platform to be heard in a way they think matters, offering social and emotional support. By considering practical solutions we are able to deflect away from the ‘perfect storm’ – where emotional distresses cross with circumstances to create an environment where suicide becomes an option.”

Everyone who ever feels like I do needs somewhere like this

Murphy says demand is up. “About 60 men can be using the project at any one time, with numbers growing of late,” he says. “I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, and there’s a backdrop of more austerity creating further pressures.”

In the last decade, thanks in part to projects like this, Scotland has reduced the number of men killing themselves. In 2000, suicide rates for men were both considerably higher than the rest of the UK (31.2 deaths from suicide per 100,000 population compared with 16.9 in England, 20.6 in Wales and 18.6 in Northern Ireland) and higher than the rate for women (8.6 per 100,000). With overall suicide rates also much higher than the rest of the UK, in 2002 the Scottish executive embarked on a 10-year suicide prevention strategy, Choose Life, which targeted those groups most at risk: young people, people with mental health problems, those with a record of self-harm, drug-users and prisoners. A coordinator has been hired in all 32 local council areas in Scotland to identify and help these groups, working with health and social care, education, housing, policing and employment services. It also funded multi-professional training in suicide prevention and support for local initiatives like Share, some of which are aimed specifically at men.

Related: Scotland needs services that are dedicated to supporting suicidal people | Kirsty Keay

The approach appears to have had partial success. According to the Scottish Public Health Observatory, between 2000-02 and 2011-13, there was a 21% fall in male suicide rates (14% for women). This compares with a 39% increase in Northern Ireland and a much smaller reduction, of 6%, in England. Only Wales managed a bigger – 25% – reduction in male suicide.

Rory O’Connor, of the suicidal behaviour research laboratory at the University of Glasgow, feels proud of what has happened in this period and says that the World Health Organisation’s preventing suicide report of 2014 hailed Scotland’s coordinated approach as an example.

But despite the substantial fall in the male suicide rate in Scotland, latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2014, it was still significantly higher than in England at 20.2 per 100,000 compared with 16 per 100,000. Jane Powell, chief executive of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm), a charity dedicated to preventing male suicide in the UK, argues that innovative local projects like Share, which is funded by Choose Life, aren’t enough and that more needs to be done on a national level. “At what point do we take this issue seriously?” she asks. “To a degree, the Scottish government has: they have put money into it, and there is a result. But rates are still too high. Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK.”

“This is a major health issue: we can’t just offload it on to local initiatives and the voluntary sector. We need to have a grown-up solution here – an overarching national suicide prevention strategy that takes male suicide seriously. And the idea that men won’t seek help is wrong – they are desperate for help.”

Murphy agrees: “Certainly, Scottish ‘macho’ culture has prevented men from coming forward but it’s more about not knowing who to speak to and not wishing to be a burden than not actually wanting to talk. Our project has proved that given the right environment, effective listeners and the recognition that they may be unique, but they are not alone, men will talk – and feel a lot better for having done so.”

Back in Penicuik, Ged, 44, is the last to arrive. He is close to tears just talking. “That’s how I get sometimes. I’ve been like this since I was a kid, always up and down, anxiety, depression. I used to pretend I was out playing and just sit in my room. But when I feel like there’s no point in going on, this place is here. Nobody’s going to say to me, ‘Gie yerself a shake’. Everyone who ever feels like I do needs somewhere like this.”

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

Summary: Local schemes providing places where men feel safe to talk have helped in reducing the number of suicides, but campaigners say more still needs to be done


Bank of America and Citigroup should be getting the seven-year itch.

In about two months, the two banks will face a dubious milestone: It will have been seven years since shares in either traded above book value. That is something for BofA’s newly named finance chief, Paul Donofrio, to contemplate as he takes the reins from Bruce Thompson , who the bank just said would depart after four years in the role.

Bank of America and Citigroup should be getting the seven-year itch.

In about two months, the two banks will face a dubious milestone: It will have been seven years since shares in either traded above book value. That is something for BofA’s newly named finance chief, Paul Donofrio, to contemplate as he takes the reins from Bruce Thompson , who the bank just said would depart after four years in the role.

That neither banks’ shares have traded above book value—or net worth—is a stunning verdict from markets. In short, it means investors believe assets on their books aren’t worth their stated values, or liabilities are greater than stated, or that the firms will destroy value.

It could, of course, reflect a combination of all three, given the trials and tribulations that big banks have faced since the financial crisis. These have ranged from supersize legal charges to stricter regulatory and capital requirements to superlow interest rates and questions about the viability of universal-bank business models.

There may also be something simpler in the mix: that investors don’t believe the value of intangible assets on the banks’ balance sheets, namely goodwill that arose from deals mostly struck before the crisis.

Back then, banks were bulking up. But many of those deals proved to be of dubious value, and the mantra today from regulators and investors is for the banks to slim down.

BofA, for example, had $69.7 billion of goodwill at the end of the second quarter, equal to 30% of common equity, and Citi had $23 billion, equal to 11%. Goodwill represents the difference between the fair market value of an acquired asset and what a company paid for it.

Companies are required to test regularly the value of goodwill to see if expected future cash flows justify values on the books. But this is in many ways a subjective exercise.

At some point, though, the banks, and their auditors, should face up to reality. And today, the reality is that investors have effectively been saying for nearly seven years that they don’t think the banks are worth what they say they are.

Of course, it is impossible to say how much of this is linked to goodwill versus other factors. There is the fact, for example, that both BofA and Citi, especially the latter, have large deferred-tax assets. Given uncertainty over the ability of the firms to realize these, this too may weigh on share prices in relation to book value. And the banks would be hesitant anyway to impair the value of goodwill since this would result in big hits to profit and some capital measures.

Yet as they discovered during the financial crisis, ignoring an issue doesn’t make it go away. Both BofA and Citi have done a huge amount of work to clean up and strengthen their balance sheets. They shouldn’t shy away from more housekeeping—the tidier things are, the better they will eventually look in shareholders’ eyes.

Write to David Reilly at david.reilly@wsj.com

Summary: It has been nearly seven years since shares of Bank of America or Citigroup traded above book value


Home-sharing company Airbnb has emerged as an economic force by enabling people to turn extra space in their homes into cash. But what about traditional hotels?

It turns out, with a little bit of technology and a lot of trust, a few hotels in San Francisco are already starting to squeeze extra use—and revenue—out of their rooms by renting them out by the minute with the help of a startup named Recharge. The young company, lets customers use its mobile app to book empty rooms at partner hotels.

Recharge’s team created the service with business travelers in mind, who often need to take a break or catch up on work in between meetings. The idea is to appeal to customers who would normally balk at paying for an entire night when they only want a couple of hours of rest.

“People most commonly use Recharge as they use Starbucks,” co-founder Emmanuel Bamfo told Fortune, referring to people’s use of coffee shops as place to sit down, catch up on some work and use Wi-Fi when available. The idea is similar to short-term office rental services like Breather, which lets customers rent out private space, mostly in offices, for anywhere between 30 minutes to a full day to rest up or do some work.

So far, Recharge has partnered with several hotels in San Francisco including the Hyatt Regency, Stanford Court, and Park Central Hotel. To book a room, customers open the app, pick from the available nearby hotels. When they arrive, they check in at the front desk and head up to the room where they can shower, nap, make phone calls, and even use other hotel amenities like the gym.

When they’re done, they check out via the app. And if they try to cheat by clocking out before they actually leave, they risk being fined $250 if the hotel’s staff finds them in the room when they come to clean it. But Bamfo says that they’ve not had any problems with this so far.

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Recharge charges the same rate (66 cents per minute or $40 per hour) across all hotels and times to keep things simple, but it does plan to eventually experiment with variable pricing, according to Bamfo. Recharge splits the revenue with the hotel, letting it take most of the revenue, although Bamfo declined to share specifics.

“Obviously if I were staying overnight I think it would be expensive. However for the convenience and urgency that we needed it, it was amazing,” Jacob McDaniel, an entrepreneur from Kansas City who recently used Recharge during a brief business trip in San Francisco, told Fortune via email. McDaniel says he paid $38 for a 48-minute stay.

On the hotels’ side, Recharge provides them with an app for checking in guests, as well as managing how many rooms they want to make available through the service at any given time. Accepting guests through Recharge is also fairly low hassle for hotels as they already have cleaning staff, and in most cases, a room only requires a “light turn”—an industry term for a less thorough cleaning.

Bamfo and his co-founders, Will Johnson and Chris Lo, first came up with the idea about a year ago after they opened as sort of club house in San Francisco for drivers for Uber, Lyft, and other similar services. They quickly realized that the need for a comfortable location to take a break is pretty universal, so they eventually devised Recharge. The startup is currently focused on expanding its service in San Francisco and the Bay Area, but plans to extend it to new cities in the near future, says Bamfo.

Of course, Recharge’s model raises several questions. For one, “hotel by the minute” suggests that guests will use it for questionable activities, but is that the case?

For Simone Harms, general manager of Starwood’s Park Central Hotel in San Francisco, which currently works with Recharge, it was certainly a concern. To make sure that Recharge wouldn’t turn the hotel into a brothel or drug den, it initially ran a test in January during which its staff carefully observed Recharge guests, paying attention to their behavior, room conditions, and whether they brought suspicious guests.

Eventually, Park Central officially signed up for the service, and some of Starwood’s other properties are also working to implement Recharge. Today, Harms says that Park Central welcomes several Recharge guests daily, some of them regulars, a noticeable increase from the one or two guests per week it saw come through during the initial test.

Another question is whether Recharge is even financially worthwhile for hotels. It does have the potential of replacing full-night room bookings in some cases, though hotels also have the option of not making their rooms available past a certain time.

Then there’s Airbnb. In the last few years, the hotel industry has seen home-sharing company emerge as a threat since it provides an alternative to booking hotel rooms for travelers. In October, a Bank of America report concluded that Airbnb bookings represent about 1-2% of total U.S. hotel demand, which is very small but still “material,” according to the report.

But according to Harms, even though Airbnb is a competitor, services like Recharge won’t help hotels offset any drop in room bookings. Instead, it’s merely a way for hotels to put otherwise empty rooms to use now that smartphones make apps like Recharge possible. And given the low cost of the additional cleaning, Harms says she’s happy with the new business so far. Though Bamfo declined to disclose revenue figures, he said that Recharge aims to bring in at least $100,000 in additional annual revenue for each partner hotel.

Like Airbnb, Recharge is a marketplace, and will have to expand at least nationally, if not internationally, if it wants any chance to become more than just a San Francisco app. It also runs the risk of eventually competing against hotel chains’ own copycat apps, though Binary Capital managing partner Justin Caldbeck, whose fund led Recharge’s newly closed $2.3 million seed round, doesn’t believe that will be a problem.

“Consumers aren’t going to open the Starwood brand app, that’s not how they think,” Caldbeck told Fortune. “I think most consumers are thinking where do I want a hotel? They’re looking across multiple hotels for price and availability,” he said. “That’s why you see travel search engines.”

Along with Binary Capital, Recharge’s investors include Floodgate, Expansion VC, Eniac Ventures, Rick Marini, and Cyan and Scott Banister. Founded in 2015, Recharge is based in San Francisco.

Summary: Recharge lets business travelers book a hotel room by the minute to take a nap or shower.


One year after Apple announced plans to launch its home automation platform HomeKit, the company’s first certified products are now being shipped to customers around the world.

HomeKit puts Apple AAPL in the middle of an ever-growing, and increasingly competitive home automation market. Tech rival Google GOOGL is in the midst of building its own platform called Brillo, while Belkin’s WeMo system has created smart household appliances ranging from air conditioners to crock pots.

HomeKit works by using Siri (Apple’s digital assistant) to control and monitor homes using third-party gadgets, and in the past has been plagued by delays, rumors, and criticism from vendors.

However, that’s all changed now with manufacturers Insteon and Lutron ready to ship their HomeKit-certified products, and smart gadgets from Ecobee and Phillips Hue set to hit retail shelves in the near future.

Unlike other home automation services, Apple requires companies create products that are compatible with its mobile operating system in order to ensure compatibility and provide end-to-end encryption, which prevents the system from being hacked.

Over the past week, I’ve tested out Lutron’s $230 Caseta Wireless HomeKit system. The bundle includes a Smart Bridge, which acts as a wireless hub to connect the system to the Internet, along with two plug-in lamp dimmers and two stand-alone remotes for the dimmers. Although Lutron already makes smart devices for the home, users who want to use Siri to manage those products will have to purchase a new Smart Bridge.

The initial setup process for the system was simple and consisted of installing the Lutron app on my iPhone, plugging the Smart Bridge into my wireless router, and following a series of prompts within the app.

HomeKit is activated using the “Siri Integration” option in the app’s menu. Within the app’s setting page, you simply label your home, rooms and identify which items you’d like to control. A few minutes after you’ve saved the new settings, you can then start controlling your home through a series of commands.

Users simply have to push a small button on their iPhone, give an order, and watch as the request is immediately fulfilled. Automation solutions have long made it possible to turn lights off or on with other apps, but this will be the first time consumers will be able to wirelessly communicate with appliances using Apple’s iOS

In order to control appliances from outside the home, consumers will need to own a Apple TV (3rd generation or later) that shares the same iCloud account as their other iOS devices. For those without an Apple TV, users can still rely on the Lutron app (at least, that’s what I found, with my setup).

In its current state, HomeKit is far from the polished product one would expect to see from Apple. For instance, you need to follow a very specific HomeKit voice command protocol, laid out by Apple, in order for Siri to understand verbal requests.

A simple command of “turn off my lights” is recognized without issue. However, “control my lights” or any similar variations will result in an Internet search, because Siri can’t understand the instruction, which is disappointing.

If you’re already deeply invested in Apple’s other products, buying HomeKit accessories won’t hurt your bank account. The service’s functionality is a bit limited with iOS 8, but the release of iOS 9 this fall will bring more advanced commands and support for more accessories, such as motion sensors. For example, later in the year consumers will be able to use their Apple Watch to communicate with HomeKit devices, instead of relying solely on an iPhone (or iPad). Additionally, you’ll be able to trigger your thermostat based on multiple variables such as time and location, instead of just one variable as it is now.

HomeKit was meant to improve the user experience and offer a secure method for managing accessories and smartphone apps, but needs more work if it’s to successfully compete with other companies in the market.

Summary: The tech company's new smart home system isn’t reliable, and needs more time to reach its full potential.


A man died Thursday night after stepping into the path of a car on Interstate 80 in Vallejo, triggering a chain reaction crash.

A man died Thursday night after stepping into the path of a car on Interstate 80 in Vallejo, triggering a chain reaction crash.

Two motorcyclists die in Highway 113 crash

A Vacaville woman and a Stockton man died in a crash while riding motorcycles on Highway 113 in Solano County on Saturday evening, California Highway Patrol officials said.

The crash occurred at 6:50 p.m. on the northbound side of the highway near Hay Road in Dixon, said CHP Officer Ron Simmons.

The Solano County coroner’s office identified the motorcyclists as Malinda Everell-Kalis, 45, and Jamaal Abron, 29.

Details on the cause of the crash were not immediately available.

Lanes at the scene were blocked for nearly two hours, he said.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Rachel Swan contributed to this report.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: JennaJourno

Summary: A Vacaville woman and a Stockton man died in a crash while riding motorcycles on Highway 113 in Solano County on Saturday evening, California Highway Patrol officials said.  The crash occurred at 6:50 p.m. on the northbound side of the highway near Hay Road in Dixon, said CHP Officer Ron Simmons.  San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Rachel Swan contributed to this report.  Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.


In a note to clients Monday night, Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster laid out a provocative theory about what Apple’s growing cadre of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experts might be up to.

“As a starting point, we expect in the next two years Apple will add VR to the MFi Program (Made for iPhone), which should make it easier for third parties to build virtual reality headsets powered by the iPhone, much like Samsung’s Gear VR today. In the next 5-10 years, we expect Apple to release a mixed reality headset with the long term goal (15+ years) of replacing the iPhone.”

“Mixed reality (MR), according to Wikipedia, is the “merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time.”

As Munster sees it, screens as we know them today will slowly disappear and be replaced by holograms seamlessly overlaid with the real world through eyeglasses that cost $500 to $800, same as today’s iPhones.

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“We believe 10 years from now Generation Z will find reality inefficient,” Munster says. “Generation Z will see the benefits of mixed reality headsets that augment the world with real-time information as they need it and in their field of view, without needing to look at one piece of information at a time on a smartphone.”

Think Tom Cruise in Minority Report, only Gen Z will want a way to manipulate holographic data without their arms getting tired.

This is a market Apple aapl can’t ignore, according to Munster. “Given Apple’s business in screens (iPhones, iPads and Macs), Apple needs to have leadership in MR to stay relevant long term.”

Apple may already be late to the augmented reality (AR) party, despite the progress shown in Munster’s timeline:

According to LinkedIn, Apple has hired 141 Apple employees with backgrounds in AR compared with Microsoft’s 425 and Google’s 267.

But what Apple does better than Microsoft msft or Google googl is design products that put the user’s experience first. And Apple’s most prominent recent hire in the field is Doug Bowman, Director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech and author of the leading textbook on 3D interface design.

For more on Apple, watch:

It’s all a little too sci-fi for me. Munster, it must be noted, is the Apple analyst who was so sure, for so long, that Apple’s next big thing was going to be a TV. See here.

Summary: It's goggles for Generation Z.


It’s not easy to break into the ranks, but these six companies have done it.

Meet the newcomers to this year’s ranking of Fortune‘s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Ranging from hoteliers to consulting firms, these companies offer some sparkling benefits for employees along with stellar team building activities that have their workers raving.

From free lunches to free trips to Bermuda, these companies have worked hard to inspire and engage their workers.

Summary: They're here for a good reason.


Jaico Publishing House, one of the publishers in India, said it reprints a new edition of the book at least twice a year to meet growing demand.

"We were the first company to publish the book in India and there are now six other Indian publishers of the book, although we were first to take a chance on it," said Jaico's chief editor, R H Sharma, who dismissed any moral issues in publishing Mein Kampf.

"The initial print run of 2,000 copies in 2003 sold out immediately and we knew we had a best-seller on our hands. Since then the numbers have increased every year to around 15,000 copies until last year when we sold 10,000 copies over a six-month period in our Delhi shops," he added.

Senior academics cite the mutual influence of India and Hitler's Nazis on one another. Mahatma Gandhi corresponded with the Fuhrer, pro-Independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army allied with Hitler's Germany and Japan during the Second World War, and the Nazis drew on Hindu symbolism for their Swastika motif and ideas of Aryan supremacy.

Dr J Kuruvachira, Professor of Philosophy of Salesian College in Nagaland and who has cited Mein Kampf as a source of inspiration to the Hindu nationalist BJP, said he believed the book's popularity was due to political reasons.

"While it could be the case that management students are buying the book, my feeling is that it has more likely influenced some of the fascist organisations operating in India and nearby," he said.

India is not the only country where Mein Kampf is popular. It has been a best-seller in Croatia since it was first published in while in turkey it sold 100,000 in just two months in 2005. In Russia it has been reprinted three times since the de facto ban on the book was overturned in 1992.

In Germany the book's copyright is held by the state of Bavaria where its publication is banned until 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death.

In India, any book more than 25 years old is free of copyright, which has paved the way for six separate publishers to print the book.

Summary: Sales of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's autobiography and apologia for his anti-semitism, are soaring in India where business students regard the dictator as a management guru.


When Dassault Systemes started signing up companies for a “manufacturing network” last year, it had one idea in mind: let software eat the assembly line. Or, at the very least, let software begin to shift the manufacturing industry from one focused solely on a final product to one that equally emphasizes quick design and prototyping services.

To that end, it launched MySolidWorks in February. (The name, of course, refers to Dassault subsidiary company SolidWorks, the company that produces the eponymous computer-aided design software in use by many in the manufacturing sector.) On MySolidWorks, a virtual network of about 60 companies are listed that specialize in CNC milling, injection molding, 3D printing, and sheet metal manufacturing. All SolidWorks users have access to the network. The network is a do-over of a similar sort of network Dassault DASTY had set up about five years ago, but this time manufacturers and users share the same online platform. It’s Dassault’s bid to connect the roughly 2.5 million users of its CAD software—and those using the 3MF file format—with manufacturers who can accept users’ designs, quote them a price, and then manufacture and ship a product prototype.

“The goal here is to allow our users to use our software to design products, like in the auto, construction, and other industries,” says Andreas Kulik, director of product portfolio and business development at Dassault. “They use our products to design projects they’re working on, and then you get to manufacturing what the engineers design and testing it out, making sure it meets specifications.”

In other words: close the gap between design and manufacturing, especially advanced forms of it like 3D printing. Use software to shorten the time it takes between designing a prototype and manufacturing it, while attempting to save money in the process by having a large number of potential manufacturers from which to choose. Right now the listed manufacturers, which are Dassault customers with subscriptions, are limited to North America. However, Dassault plans to open up the manufacturing network on MySolidWorks internationally in Q4 of this year.

“It becomes kind of like the Yelp of manufacturing services, user-reviewed and -rated,” says Kulik. “We’re closing the bridge to: how can I find somebody who can build something for me at the right price?”

This is manufacturing as a service, says Kulik, which sounds like software as a service for a reason. Contract manufacturing has always been a service, but what’s changing the manufacturing industry now is the digitization of design. In a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, companies or individual customers who need a prototype manufacturing—and can’t do so in-house—can have a quote prepared outlining the exact production costs based on nothing more than a CAD design.

“This might not seem like a big deal if you buy a lot on Amazon, but I can tell you this doesn’t really exist very much in manufacturing,” says Robert Bodor, vice president and general manager of the Americas for Proto Labs. “This kind of instant feedback is very valuable.”

Indeed, so valuable that Proto Labs was chosen by Dassault as the launch partner when it debuted MySolidWorks in February. Based in Minnesota, the publicly-traded Proto Labs PRLB uses injection molding and other additive manufacturing processes to create custom prototypes and low-volume production parts. (The company recently made Fortune’s list of the 100 fastest-growing companies.) Using proprietary software algorithms, Proto Labs can receive a CAD file, evaluate the designed part in that file—the geometrics, the pathways cutting tools will have to make, and so on—and return precise manufacturing quotes to potential customers.

“We virtually manufacture the part in a matter of minutes to hours in a supercomputer cluster. Then we’re able to generate thousands of quotes a day for customers in a short period of time, and [you] get a quote that’s very precise because we’ve calculated what it’s going to cost to make that part,” says Bodor. “So we’ve cut a lot of manual labor out of quoting and the manufacturing design process.”

Embedding software into the manufacturing process allowed Proto Labs to generate quotes for more than 10,000 developers in the last quarter of 2014. Being listed on MySolidWorks—having access to potentially thousands more customers—the company now expects to push its annual revenues from roughly $210 million to $1 billion. Kulik thinks MySolidWorks can drive similar growth for other manufacturers listed on the platform, while simultaneously making it more convenient for individuals and companies to have product prototypes designed. Before any part heads to mass production, a quote from a MySolidWorks partner should be able to tell a user how much it costs and how long it takes to machine a certain part.

“The manufacturing network is a strategic initiative for us,” Kulik says. “We want to make users more productive; we don’t want users to experience barriers.”

Summary: How do you find a manufacturer to build the right prototype at the right price? Stick them in one place, send them CAD files, and let them virtually manufacture parts.


For years, robots at General Motors’ gm Lake Orion manufacturing plant, located 30 miles north of Detroit, have hustled on the factory floor. They lift the frames of vehicles (like the Buick Verano and soon the Chevrolet Bolt EV) with Herculean strength, melt together metals with powerful welding guns, and apply paint in ways that would make a graffiti artist proud.

It’s an impressive display of coordination, what with 800 robots on the floor. But a bot that suddenly breaks down could cause disaster down the line, halting production and wasting money as workers scramble to troubleshoot the issue.

Working with Japanese robotics manufacturer Fanuc fanuc , networking giant Cisco csco , and hardware maker Rockwell Automation rok , GM has installed in its Lake Orion plant a sort of “mother brain” to which all its robots can connect—and it’s all built on cloud computing.

The system ingests data flowing to and from robots as well as external devices, like conveyor-belt machines and temperature systems. It sends that information to a cloud network set up by Cisco. There, Fanuc runs algorithms tailored to the factory robots. The result? Insights that plant managers and Fanuc staff can tap to avoid mishaps—everything from detecting when a robot’s arm is about to fail to determining if there’s too much humidity in the room (which can adversely affect paint jobs).

Fanuc’s R-2000iC-210F-LVC automotive spot-welding robot.Courtesy of Fanuc

“The robot calls in and says, ‘I’ve got an issue in one of my motors in one of my joints,’ ” says Scott Whybrew, who directs global manufacturing engineering at GM. “Or it may say it’s about to get sick in a few seconds.”

The benefits of that visibility extend beyond near disasters. GM also uses the system to adjust planned maintenance schedules for the machines. “It gives us, as a robotics supplier, the ability to look over their shoulder and help and guide them,” says Rick Schneider, president of Fanuc America.

In the past GM’s workers discovered issues only during production downtime and when physically plugged into a factory robot. Now all they have to do is wait for an alert to show up.

“We can put the dollars to use for some other business objective,” Whybrew says, “instead of sitting there waiting for a robot to go down.”

A version of this article appears in the February 1, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline “One System to Rule Them All.”

Summary: The automaker wants to keep production lines running without interruption.


06/22/2016 AT 02:00 PM EDT

According to a new book,

's children learned of the music icon's tragic death in the worst way possible – by walking in on

The horrific scene is detailed in Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards'

, which is excerpted in PEOPLE's latest issue. The new book tells the inside story of Jackson's final hours on June 25, 2009, including the actions taken by Murray.

The authors write that after administering 25mg of Propofol to Jackson around 10:40 a.m. – the last of several doses of other powerful sedatives through the night – Murray told police he briefly left the singer's bedroom. Less than two hours later, at 12:05 p.m., Jackson's chef encountered Murray in a panic – rushing to get help from the star's assistant, Alberto Alvarez.

With a call in to emergency responders at 12:21 p.m., Alvarez and Murray then began to perform CPR,

details. The futile life-saving attempts were desperately made as

, at the time only age 7, was not present.

According to the book, Prince was standing at the doorway, a couple of paces inside, "gently weeping with a look of shock on his face at seeing his father stricken on the floor."

"Paris crumpled to her knees instantly, screaming 'Daddy' and beginning to cry hysterically," Langthorne and Richards detail.

Murray attempted to remove the children from the scene, screaming, "Don't let them see their dad like this," as Jackson laid splayed out on the bed with his mouth open and hands by his side.

A nanny rushed Paris and Prince away, taking them to a den ahead of the ambulance's 12:26 p.m. arrival. It was only later, at UCLA Medical Center, that Jackson was officially pronounced dead.

of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death. He was released in 2013 after serving half of his four-year jail sentence.

Jackson's children – who testified in court during Murray's trial – have since grown up, and remain close.

Paris, now 18, recently added a

to her body to honor her late father (one of several). The ink features the "Smooth Criminal" singer's

album cover art, which prominently includes Jackson's eyes.

Summary: In 83 Minutes, Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards detail the horrific morning Michael Jackson died – and how his kids witnessed it


The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “What leadership style should every entrepreneur try to adopt?” is written by Brett Brinton, CEO and co-founder of Zonar Systems.

There are two basic ways to lead. You can lead by leveraging the earned respect of your colleagues and employees, or you can lead by fear. This sentiment is not to be confused with Machiavelli’s “It is better to be feared than loved” tenant. First, love is not what you are looking for in a business environment, and secondly, it is fickle and can come and go. Respect is the path to successful long-term leadership.

Leading by respect comes when the four primary character principles of integrity, hard work, leading by example and doing the right thing, inspire your co-workers and employees to follow you. When you hear someone say, “He has my back, and I feel like I’m heard and part of the team. I will follow him happily into unchartered waters,” they are talking about a person who leads with respect. These colleagues can be asked to do a lot, and they will be on board to not only do it, but they will embrace being part of the ride.

Related: 3 Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring Your Friends

Contrast the above sentiment with a work environment of uncertainty or fear, where employees feel the need to fall in line or be cut out of the line. Fear-based leadership is the easy way out. It can be a more predictable style, but it is likely only going to work in the short term. Your troops will quickly lose morale and soon after you may be left with no one to lead. You also may be seen as someone that people will hesitate in picking to lead again.

So now that I’ve got you thinking about leading by the respect you’ve earned, the next step is to understand and harness the simple-yet-crucial principles that make a great leader. If you ask five people how to do this, you will get five different opinions. However, most of them will center on the following:

So, what is the right leadership style for you? It’s very simple. Chose to lead by respect and blaze your trail through your good character, and the leadership qualities within you will start to shine. Some aspects of your leadership style will be natural, and some may take work and personal development. When you have those qualities, instilling the principles of integrity, hard work, leading by example and doing the right thing becomes natural. Be patient and be prepared to analyze your situation. And choose when and where the above qualities of leadership will apply maximize your team’s success. The right leadership style you adopt will ultimately be YOUR leadership style.

Summary: It comes down to a few important principles.


‘We are at war,” said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls after the terror attacks in Belgium — even before ISIS claimed responsibility.

By “we,” he meant all of Europe: Brussels, site of the bombings that killed dozens and wounded hundreds more, is the seat of the European Union bureaucracy. Indeed, the subway bomb hit a station that serves multiple EU offices.

Yet Brussels is also, in the words of a former US counterterrorism expert, “the Ground Zero of European jihadism” — the home of the largest, most radicalized Muslim enclave. Belgium also has Europe’s highest proportion of citizens who’ve traveled to Syria and Iraq.

And Brussels’ Molenbeek ghetto is a safe haven for Islamist terrorists. It’s where last November’s deadly Paris attacks were likely planned — and where Salah Abdeslam, suspected mastermind of the Paris slaughter, was captured last Friday along with a huge weapons cache.

In the intervening four months, officials say, Abdeslam built a new, well-armed jihadi network. Yet Belgian security forces seemed woefully unprepared Tuesday, despite heightened terror alerts.

Even if Europe’s leaders now understand the situation, are they prepared to truly fight the war that Valls describes?

They certainly can’t look to Washington for effective leadership. President Obama gave a brief statement of support for the Belgian people Tuesday — then headed off to a baseball game in Havana, where he happily joined in the wave.

Yet no one doubts this nation is in the crosshairs, too.

Some take the threat seriously: The NYPD significantly upped its anti-terror forces after Paris, as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton noted Tuesday.

But Team Obama’s anti-ISIS approach still seems tentative. Just this week, the public learned that US ground forces in Iraq are larger than the Pentagon has admitted — yet the generals want even more, and warn that combat troops may yet prove necessary.

Nor will crushing ISIS end the threat: Other groups are sure to take up the jihadi flag.

The larger war has no end in sight — yet the West is still waking up to that bitter truth.

Summary: ‘We are at war,” said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls after the terror attacks in Belgium — even before ISIS claimed responsibility. By “we,” he meant all of Europe: Brussels, site of the bombin…


Demi Lovato once thought she wouldn't live to see her 21st birthday.

"I lived fast and I was going to die young," Lovato revealed in the July issue of American Airlines' in-flight magazine, American Way.

"I didn't think I would make it to 21," the singer said.

The "Really Don't Care" musician has battled drug and alcohol addictions, in addition to an eating disorder. She was also diagnosed as bipolar in 2011.

Demi Lovato is back on Twitter and Instagram

Her first stint in rehab took place in 2010, after an infamous brawl with a backup dancer while on tour with the Jonas Brothers.

"So now I'm in rehab," Lovato recalled of the three months in a treatment center, where she was treated for bulimia and depression. "And I thought, 'Oh great, now the world thinks I'm just another stereotype.'

"I thought, 'I'm not in treatment for a drug and alcohol problem,' " she said in the candid interview. "But once I started eating again, the other issues got worse. It was like whack-a-mole."

Shortly after, she started drinking, as well as abusing cocaine and Oxycontin.

Demi Lovato calls out Mariah in response to Ariana Grande meme

In January 2013, Lovato checked into another sober house and stayed there for a year, according to E! News.

She had her last alcoholic drink in January 2012 and regularly attends Alcoholic Anonymous meetings.

Summary: Demi Lovato once thought she wouldn't make it past age 21.


Mae ffermwyr Cymru yn chwilio am sicrwydd wedi'r penderfyniad i adael yr Undeb Ewropeaidd.

Mae'r ddau undeb ffermio yng Nghymru yn cynnal cyfarfodydd arbennig i ymgynghori ynglŷn â'u blaenoriaethau allweddol.

Mae'r diwydiant wedi elwa am ddegawdau o gymhorthdaliadau o Frwsel.

Yn 2014 , trosglwyddwyd £240m i ffermwyr Cymru mewn taliadau uniongyrchol yn unig.

Byddai nifer helaeth o ffermwyr wedi gwneud colled y flwyddyn honno hebddyn nhw.

Yn y cyfamser, rhwng 2014-2020, mae £957m i fod ar gael drwy gyfrwng y Rhaglen Datblygu Gwledig, sef system o grantiau a benthyciadau i gefnogi cymunedau gwledig. Bydd y taliadau yma yn parhau wrth i Brydain ddatgymalu o'r UE, ond mae 'na bryder ynglŷn â beth fydd yn digwydd wedyn.

Roedd Undeb Amaethwyr Cymru, yr FUW, yn siomedig gyda'r canlyniad ond yn galw am "amserlen synhwyrol" ar gyfer Brexit.

Meddai llywydd Undeb Amaethwyr Cymru, Glyn Roberts : "Mae cryn waith i'w wneud o ran newid trefniadau domestig a deddfwriaeth, gan gynnwys deddfwriaeth ddatganoledig Cymru, heb sôn am ddatrys ein hunain o gyllideb yr UE , trafod cytundebau masnach a delio â materion fel rheoli ffiniau."

Mae'r undeb wedi dweud eu bod hefyd wedi cysylltu â gwledydd fel Norwy a'r Swistir sydd heb fod yn aelodau o'r UE er mwyn deall sut mae modelau amaethyddol eraill yn gweithio.

Dywedodd Undeb Cenedlaethol yr Amaethwyr yng Nghymru ei fod yn bwysig nad oedd amaethyddiaeth yng Nghymru yn cael ei amharu'n fawr.

Dywedodd y Llywydd, Stephen James: "Ar flaen meddyliau y rhan fwyaf o ffermwyr fydd y cwestiynau deublyg o pa lefel o fynediad byddwn yn ei fwynhau i'r marchnadoedd Ewropeaidd a pha lefel o gymorth gaiff ffermwyr Cymru unwaith fydd y broses o dynnu'n ôl yn gyflawn ."

Summary: Y diwydiant amaethyddol yn chwilio am sicrwydd yn dilyn penderfyniad i adael yr UE.


returned to the air with his best

– and it's pretty epic.

In Fallon's telling, the music legend, who

, challenged him to ping pong at Susan Sarandon's

"He had kind of these Bambi, doe eyes," Fallon said, when he arrived in the room where Prince would be challenging him. And Prince swiftly beat him, with a winning shot that bounced off the very edge of the table.

Fallon, 41, also recounted seeing the musician at Madison Square Garden, where he invited Fallon up on stage to dance and then vanished, leaving the comedian to bop around alone, in front of thousands, as Questlove played drums.

"He's a legend, and we wish he were around to make more music and more stories," Fallon concluded. "We love him."

Summary: The Tonight Show host and Questlove recounted a crazy story about the music legend challenging him to ping pong


really stepped up in his divorce ... we found out he's buying a swanky house for his soon-to-be ex-wife and their twins.

TMZ obtained legal docs which show ... Dennis and

bought a $3.1 million house last month in Pacific Palisades. The seller was TV honcho John Nogawski. The title to the house is held by both Dennis and Kimberly.

Under the terms of the divorce settlement ... Kimberly and the 5-year-old kids are allowed exclusive occupancy of the house until the children turn 18. The settlement conditionally allows Kimberly to stay even longer.

Kimberly will be hobnobbing with neighbors such as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Bill Cosby.

One thing's for sure ... Dennis is a good divorcer.

Summary: Dennis Quaid really stepped up in his divorce ... we found out he's buying a swanky house for his soon-to-be ex-wife and their twins.TMZ obtained legal…


GE Capital is shedding 41 workers in its downtown Chicago office as part of the company's plan to exit financial services and focus on its industrial businesses.

The job cuts were among 600 layoffs that Illinois employers reported to the state last month under a law that requires two months of advance notice of mass layoffs.

GE announced last year that it planned to sell most of its GE Capital assets and has been reducing the size of the unit globally for the past 14 months. The sales process in the United States, including in Chicago, is largely completed, spokesman Ned Reynolds said.

The local layoffs began June 10 and will end Aug. 5, according to the monthly report from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, published Thursday.

GE Industrial Finance, one of the three GE Capital businesses being retained by GE, will continue to be based in Chicago, Reynolds said. GE is adding jobs in Chicago to GE Healthcare, which is moving its global headquarters to Chicago, and to GET Digital.

Also reporting layoffs last month was Lincolnshire-based Zebra Technologies, which will cut 66 workers as it moves its distribution operations from Vernon Hills to a third-party logistics firm in Dallas-Fort Worth, effective Aug. 19, spokeswoman Therese Van Ryne said.

All employees were offered severance packages, she said. Ten additional workers affected by the move are joining the new Zebra Repair Center in Buffalo Grove, she added.

Enjoy Life Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mondelez International that makes food free of common allergens, gave notice to 44 employees as it moves operations from two plants in Schiller Park to a new facility in Indiana.

The company, which will retain its corporate headquarters in Chicago, will begin the layoffs Aug. 13 and expects a few more in the coming months. Its Schiller Park workforce fluctuates between 90 and 130 nonunion workers.

Other companies that reported layoffs include:

•AutoMatch, a new car dealer, with 30 job cuts in Morton Grove.

•Cellular One, which is cutting 91 workers starting Aug. 5 in a dozen downstate locations.

•RAS Services, a Dallas-based janitorial services contractor, which lost a contract at Midway Airport that affects 84 workers. Most of those workers have been hired by another airport maintenance firm, according to a Service Employees International Union Local 1 spokeswoman.

The Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers with 75 or more full-time workers to give 60 days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff, which is defined as at least a third of its workforce, or at least 250 workers for a company of any size.

Chicago Tribune's Greg Trotter contributed.


Men apparently see much more that they like on Tinder than women do.

On the popular dating app, which has users swipe right to indicate they “like” a potential match and swipe left to say “nope,” men are almost three times as likely to swipe right than women are, the New York Times reports. Men do it 46% of the time, while women do it just 14% of the time.

MORE: The new dating game

The Times, citing an unnamed source, reports that Tinder now has close to 50 million active users. Co-founder and CEO Sean Rad touted its more realistic appeal to physical attraction over the algorithms that other dating sites say yield compatible matches, algorithms viewed skeptically by social scientists.

“When was the last time you walked into a bar and someone said, ‘Excuse me, can you fill out this form and we’ll match you up with people here?’” Rad said. “That’s not how we think about meeting new people in real life.”

Summary: More "likes" than "nopes"


From the “Happiest Place on Earth” to Silicon Valley and across the Heartland, America’s high-skilled workers are getting screwed.

Brutally, insidiously and comprehensively screwed.

Big Tech CEOs and their Washington lobbyists claim there’s a catastrophic “shortage” of American tech workers — as they’ve dubiously claimed for the last 25 years. What planet do they live on? Outside the Big Business/Big Government bubble, this is the reality America’s best and brightest face:

“Walt Disney World information-technology workers laid off”

“Intel to cut over 5,000 jobs”

“Cisco execs try to put best face on 6,000 layoffs”

“Cargill to outsource IT services; 900 jobs affected”

“Qualcomm lays off 4,500 workers while demanding more H-1Bs”

“Here’s the dirty little secret, America: Double-talking politicians from both parties on Capitol Hill bear the blame for facilitating the systemic replacement of US workers with temporary foreign guest workers.”

“Southern California Edison IT workers ‘beyond furious’ over H-1B replacements”

“Microsoft won’t lay off H-1B before US workers”

The plight of Disney employees — and of tens of thousands like them nationwide — is a nightmare.

Disney managers summoned hundreds of their American information-technology workers (called “cast members”) to mysterious meetings in October 2014.

The data-systems programmers and engineers had just completed an IT project; several proudly bore blue ID badges identifying them as Disney “Partners in Excellence.” Yet they were given a death sentence — and handed shovels to dig their own graves.

Before getting the boot, the employees would be forced to participate in “Knowledge Transfer” sessions with their younger, cheaper, less-skilled replacements imported from India. We reviewed two internal Disney documents informing workers about the elimination and outsourcing of their jobs to a “managed service provider.”

Supervisors warned: “If you do not cooperate, you will not get a severance or retention bonus.”

Photo: ShutterstockWhile these Disney tech workers struggled to complete their last, humiliating assignment and find new jobs, Disney CEO Bob Iger and his fellow co-chairs of a corporate front group called the Partnership for a New American Economy lobbied in Washington, DC, for increases in temporary worker visas — and baldly denied to Congress that they were sacking American workers in favor of cheap foreign labor.

At the center of the storm is H-1B, the foreign tech worker visa program that turns 25 years old this month. It was supposed to be a program for high-skilled guest workers to alleviate shortages in specialty fields. While H-1B boosters in the US hype the program as the “genius visa” for “braniacs,” the former commerce secretary of India, Kamal Nath, revealed the truth. H-1B, he said, “has become the outsourcing visa.”

Our review of the past quarter-century of data shows:

Yes, companies hire and fire workers all the time. But only in the case of H-1B and related foreign guest worker programs are American corporations and offshore outsourcing rackets explicitly aided and abetted by the US government — and routinely in violation of the basic principles of these programs. With no well-financed, high-powered interest group in Washington, DC, to advocate on their behalf, American technology workers have endured this systemic displacement and humiliation for at least two decades.

US Census Bureau data show that roughly 11.4 million of 15 million Americans with science, technology, engineering and math degrees aren’t working in so-called STEM fields. The crisis is not a lack of high-skilled workers, but a lack of high-skilled job openings. Employment site Bright.com found 4.08 American job candidates for every one electronics-engineering job listed as an H-1B position. Meanwhile, foreign guest workers account for one-third to one-half of all new IT hires.

Here’s the dirty little secret, America: Double-talking politicians from both parties on Capitol Hill bear the blame for facilitating the systemic replacement of US workers with temporary foreign guest workers.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) are co-sponsors of legislation to expand H-1B without any meaningful American worker protection reforms. One GOP-sponsored bill would raise the annual cap on H-1B foreign guest workers from 65,000 to 180,000. Another, fronted by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), allows annual H-1B limits to rise up to 245,000 per year in the future. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) would triple the H-1Bs issued every year. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) would quintuple the number.

So, who in Washington will stand up for our nation’s best and brightest workers? President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership stand on the side of high-tech billionaires. Bernie Sanders talks tough on H-1B but voted for the Gang of Eight bill that expanded the program. Among current GOP candidates, only Donald Trump, Rick Santorum and (just recently) Mike Huckabee have challenged the H-1B racket and its devastating impact on America’s high-skilled workers.

This near-unanimous sellout in both parties is great for the donorist class in Silicon Valley and DC but catastrophic for present and future generations of American high-skilled workers — who might as well be handed shovels along with their hard-earned diplomas.

Excerpted from “Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America’s Best & Brightest Workers,” Mercury Ink/Simon & Schuster, out this week.

Summary: From the “Happiest Place on Earth” to Silicon Valley and across the Heartland, America’s high-skilled workers are getting screwed. Brutally, insidiously and comprehensively screwed. Big Tech CEOs a…


told the jury Michael Jackson caused his own death.

* Chernoff says the evidence will show MJ swallowed 8, 2 mg pills of Lorazepam.

* And Chernoff says MJ self-injected a dose or Propofol that created a "perfect storm" that killed him.

* There was no way to save MJ. He died instantly.

* Chernoff told the jury what TMZ has reported for the last year -- that the centerpiece of the defense case is that Michael's death is on Michael -- not Dr. Murray.

* Chernoff also said MJ "had a problem" that no amount of determination could overcome, even with his talent, and without help he could not do the "This Is It" tour -- a tour that would score him more money than he had ever made on tour before.

* So, Chernoff says, Michael went doctor shopping.

* Dr. Murray is not a "celebrity doctor" -- he's a cardiologist who saves lives.

* The defense will put some of Dr. Murray's patients on the stand to show his level of care. He would buy prescriptions for people who couldn't afford it and would generally go well above the standard of care expected of a doctor -- which contradicts prosecutors who call him greedy and reckless. Murray seemed to tear up as he listened to Chernoff.

* Murray treated MJ for several problems, including toe fungus and a broken foot.

* Chernoff said Murray had no idea at the time that MJ had a much deeper problem

* MJ didn't have insomnia -- he had "an absolute, total and thorough inability to sleep."

* When Murray met with detectives 2 days after MJ's death, he thoroughly answered every question. It was no holds barred and they hid nothing. Chernoff said Murray told cops, "I don't know what killed Michael Jackson. I want to know also."

* Michael Jackson told Murray the only way he could sleep was with Propofol and he always took Propofol. MJ told Murray exactly how it was to be administered. He even had a nickname for the drug -- milk. MJ knew Lidocaine was essential in administering Propofol to prevent a burning sensation.

* MJ told Murray he would use Propofol with or without Murray, so Murray then agreed to provide Propofol.

* Dr. Murray provided Propofol for 2 months for MJ, and during that time the singer slept, woke up, and lived his life -- suggesting it wasn't negligent to administer the drug.

* The evidence is going to show is that Michael Jackson died when Dr. Murray stopped. Murray told cops he believed his role was to find a way to help MJ sleep normally, urging him to get off Propofol.

* In other words, Murray was trying to ween MJ off Propofol and give him other, more traditional sedatives. And, on June 22, 3 days before MJ died, Michael agreed to let Murray to try to get him off Propofol. And on that day Murray gave MJ half the Propofol he had been giving him. And it worked. MJ slept.

* On June 23, Murray gave MJ NO Propofol at all, giving him other drugs instead. And, on the day MJ died, the plan was not to give Propofol. It was to go to other sedatives. That's why in the recording,MJ pleads for the Propofol. That's why Murray gave him other drugs instead during the night.

* Chernoff says MJ had certain "personality traits." He kept various people in life separate from one another.

* Chernoff will present an addiction specialist, who will testify

* Things were so serious 5 days before Michael Jackson died, reps from AEG and others had a meeting at MJ's house and talked about "pulling the plug" on the tour. And subsequently MJ made it clear to Murray -- he needed to sleep or the tour would go down in flames.

* Chernoff insists Murray only gave MJ 25 milligrams of Propofol just before MJ died -- and that is not enough to kill him. Chernoff says MJ went to sleep, and Murray checked his pulse -- which was good.

Murray then sat and watched and left the room "only when I felt comfortable." This may be the key to the case -- did Murray abandon MJ by leaving the room?

* Chernoff says when Murray left the room "there was zero Propofol in his [Michael's] system." Of course, what Chernoff is arguing is that Michael then shot himself up with the fatal dose.

* Chernoff came back from break the defense will show the amounts that Dr. Murray's death could not cause Michael's death.

* The science will prove there had to be more Propofol delivered to MJ's system after Dr. Murray left the room.

*The defense says MJ's stomach content had 4 times the amount of Lorazepam than in his blood, which means Michael would had to swallow the drug himself, after Murray left the room.

Summary: Ed Chernoff -- Defense Attorney's Opening StatementUpdated 9/27/11 at 11:00 AM Dr. Conrad Murray's attorney Ed Chernoff told the jury Michael Jackson…


HONG KONG — With China expected to grow three times faster than the U.S. this year, it is no wonder that American companies are looking to China as they try to boost their profits.

All-American companies from Apple to Ford Motor to Nike to HJ Heinz to the Gap are expanding in mainland China. Last year American companies ponied up $3.6 billion in foreign direct investment in China, up sharply from the $2.9 billion invested in 2008, according to the U.S.-China Business Council.

Starbucks and Coca Cola both continue to view China as their top growth market–while Coke rival Pepsi has seen its profits dip in China in part because the company “has committed $1 billion over the next four years to build 14 new beverage production plants, in a move that will almost double its production capacity in the country,” according to Pacific Epoch, a China-focused equities and macroeconomics research firm based in Shanghai.

Wynn Resorts opened its second casino property in Macau this year and announced plans for a third, going toe-to-toe with rival Las Vegas Sands , which expects to open a new casino on Macau’s Cotai strip in 2011. And if you want to drink a Chinese-brewed beer at the gambling tables, Molson Coors recently announced its first joint-venture investment in China.

General Motors and Volkswagen have invested billions in China, starting more than a decade ago. Ford is rushing to catch up by adding production capacity and expanding its dealer network in China. Ford and its joint-venture partner, Chang’an Ford Mazda Automobile, plan to start producing next-generation Ford Focus models at a new, $490 million plant in Chongqingin 2012.

Ford’s sales may lag other large auto makers in China, but they are growing fast. Sales reached 153,000 in the first quarter–up 84% compared to the year-ago quarter, Pacific Epoch noted.

U.S. companies aren’t the only ones pouring money into China, which has recovered strongly from the global financial crisis. Foreign direct investment to China climbed 14% to nearly $39 billion in the first five months of the year, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced in June. In May alone foreign investment jumped 27% to $8.1 billion.

Much of the money was spent building or expanding factories. Nearly half of the investments so far this year–more than $18 billion–came in the manufacturing sector.

While the world’s biggest multinationals have long been active in China, smaller companies are turning East too. In a recent survey of mid-sized companies worldwide, HSBC found that 65% expected revenue from their international business to increase in the next two years, and that 65% said revenue from international operations had grown at the same pace or faster than domestic operations over the past year.

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Summary: American companies invest in China, chasing global growth.