Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/lindsay-lohan-and-kristen-stewart-unexpected-bff-alert/
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Saturday, March 30, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Deep freeze: Home sales to barely budge this spring
The U.S. housing market will see no surge at the start of spring, as fewer buyers signed contracts to purchase existing homes in February. An industry index of so-called pending home sales fell 0.4 percent from January but is up 8.4 percent from February of 2012.
While the number of for-sale listings increased more than the seasonal norm, realtors still say a lack of supply is keeping many potential buyers from desired deals. Pending home sales are a one to two month forward indicator of closed sales.
"Only new home construction can genuinely help relieve the inventory shortage, and housing starts need to rise at least 50 percent from current levels," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors in a release. "Most local home builders are small businesses and simply don't have access to capital on Wall Street. Clearer regulatory rules, applied to construction loans for smaller community banks and credit unions, could bring many small-sized builders back into the market."
Sales of newly built homes fell nearly five percent in February, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Inventories did rise, but only slightly, as the nation's home builders struggle with labor and land shortages, as well as higher costs for materials.
Pending home sales fell 2.5 percent month-to-month in the Northeast, rose 0.4 percent in the Midwest, fell 0.3 percent in the South and rose 0.1 percent in the West, according to the Realtors.
"The volume of home sales appears to be leveling off with the constrained inventory conditions, and the leveling of the index means little change is likely in the pace of sales over the next couple months," Yun added.
A better sign for March, after two weeks of declines, mortgage applications to purchase a home jumped 7 percent during the past week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. This as interest rates fell slightly, due to concerns over the banking crisis in Cyprus.
"The rebound in mortgage applications is a small piece of a brighter housing outlook," says Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans. "Interest rates are still at record lows despite their upward trend, and consumers are taking advantage of record home affordability. Look for more buyers to enter the market this spring and a more robust housing recovery to occur."
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Thursday, March 28, 2013
No NASCAR penalties issued after California race
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? NASCAR Chairman Brian France said Tuesday the contact between Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin as they battled for the win at California over the weekend was just the kind of throwback racing he expects out of his drivers and the new Gen-6 car.
"I have said repeatedly, every minute, that contact, especially late in the race when you are going for a win, that's not only going to happen ? that's expected," France said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "Both of them did exactly what I think you would do when you really, really want to win. Getting some contact, trying to race extra hard to win the race, that's what we're about."
Hamlin suffered a compressed fracture of the L1 vertebra in his lower back, and Joe Gibbs Racing said Tuesday night he'll be out a minimum of six weeks.
France, who spoke to AP hours before JGR announced Hamlin would not require surgery but needed time to heal, did not think anything was done intentionally by Logano to harm Hamlin.
"Injuries can happen throughout any race on any lap, and fortunately they are seldom," France said. "That's just part of racing."
NASCAR announced Tuesday no penalties were warranted after California ? not against Tony Stewart for scuffling with Logano after the race, and series officials saw nothing to indicate Logano or Hamlin were trying to intentionally wreck each other as they raced for the win. In addition, NASCAR officials have given no thought to policing blocking, which is what Logano did to Stewart on the final restart to trigger the post-race confrontation.
"There are no conversations internally inside of NASCAR to look at blocking as a violation or a penalty as some other forms of motorsports do," Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said. "As good as the racing has been, as exciting as it's been, I don't know that we need to jump in the middle and screw it up."
Stewart parked his car near Logano's and angrily approached him after Sunday's race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. There was some shoving, but crew members intervened before any punches landed. Logano threw a water bottle at Stewart.
Darby said the incident didn't escalate to a level where NASCAR had to take action.
"A few years ago we backed away from micromanaging drivers' emotions, you would hope in today's world that if somebody didn't win a race, they would be upset about it," Darby said. "I don't know that we've actually got a rule book that describes every push in the chest or kick in the shin. If two guys get into a hell of a fight, we're going to have to react. But a couple of guys blowing off some steam and slapping at the air is not going to get anybody in a whole lot of trouble."
France noted that drivers are encouraged to show their emotion and settle disputes ? which is all Stewart was doing on Sunday.
"We have no problem, and frankly encourage drivers to go up to one another to discuss whatever they think they need to that happened in the race," France said. "And then every once in a while there will be some emotions, and that's what happened Sunday and crews stepped in between them and we don't think it rose to some level of anything."
France said NASCAR will intervene when feuds go too far and when emotions run too high.
"We're not going to allow a boxing match to take place every time they have a disagreement," France said. "But on the other hand, we're not going to prevent the emotional exchanges that occur after a race. Everyone has the right to walk up to someone and say, 'What the? What happened there? What did you do that for?' And they explain themselves and usually work it out."
It remains to be seen where the Logano and Hamlin feud goes from here, although Sunday was viewed as a racing incident.
The two former teammates have feuded since the closing laps of the season-opening Daytona 500 and it escalated after contact from Hamlin sent Logano spinning into the wall two races ago at Bristol. Logano angrily confronted Hamlin after the race before being pulled away by crew members.
The two moved their feud to Twitter for at least the second time this season and then came Sunday's race.
They were racing side-by-side on the last lap for the win when they banged into each other. Both cars spun and Hamlin's hit head-on into an inside wall not protected with energy-absorbing SAFER barriers.
He spent Sunday night in a Southern California hospital, where he was diagnosed with an L1 compression fracture in his lower back. He saw Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates on Tuesday, and Petty determined the driver will not need surgery but needed a minimum of six weeks to heal.
NASCAR is off this weekend, so Hamlin could miss only five races if the healing process meets Petty's estimate. But the next five weeks include stops at Martinsville Speedway and Richmond International Raceway, where the Virginia-raised driver has a combined six Sprint Cup victories.
Hamlin also races in his annual charity event at RIR, and will now have to sit that out, too.
Darby did not think Logano intentionally wrecked Hamlin.
"It was the last lap of the race, and the last time they were both going to see turns three and four. They were side-by-side. If somebody was of the mindset to retaliate, they probably would have been lined up nose-to-tail and somebody would have drove into the other car and spun him around," Darby said. "In this case, that is so far from the opposite, that it never even crossed anybody's mind that I'm aware of that paid attention to the race."
Meanwhile, NASCAR is still going over data from Hamlin's accident and will need to meet with officials from the University of Nebraska, home to the engineering school's Midwest Roadside Safety experts, and IndyCar before making any recommendations on whether a SAFER barrier should be installed where Hamlin hit.
When NASCAR first began installing SAFER barriers following the 2001 death of Dale Earnhardt, the priority were locations where cars frequently hit the wall. Officials at Nebraska also make recommendations not to install the barriers at certain points at a facility because of various issues, including the potential for a car to sling-shot back into traffic after impact.
Track officials usually follow the recommendations.
Tom Gideon, senior director of safety research and development at NASCAR, said where Hamlin hit was not an area that cars frequently make impact.
"Each point on the track we look at the application and you don't want to put (barriers) in places where the angle of impact may not be appropriate for a SAFER barrier," Gideon said. "We also look at the possibility of impact and the frequency of impact, and when you look at the frequency of impact, especially at oval tracks, it's reasonable to think they are going to be with outside walls."
NASCAR doesn't race at Auto Club Speedway again this season, but IndyCar's October finale is scheduled at the track. IndyCar officials said the series is working with NASCAR, Nebraska and the Fontana track officials to study the accident and see if "any changes need be addressed prior to our race at Fontana."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-nascar-penalties-issued-california-race-190726619--spt.html
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Gridcase's Reactor Is A $149 iPhone 5 Case With A Battery-Boosting Built In Hand-Crank (Or It Will Be If It Gets Crowdfunded)
One of the criticisms Android fans like to level at the iPhone is its non-get-at-able battery -- meaning you can't carry a spare (or rip the battery out to hard reset). So here's a bit of kit that proposes to help iPhone owners who have run out of juice. Gridcase's Reactor case for the iPhone 5 will include a crank for manually charging the battery to eke a little more juice out of your device.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Spk1wfZb0Ds/
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Tuesday, March 19, 2013
American gets back art taken by Nazis during WWII
PARIS (AP) ? France has given an American an art collection that Nazis took from his grandfather during World War II.
Tom Selldorff was a 6-year-old Austrian living in Vienna when he last saw the paintings in the 1930s, including masterpieces by Alessandro Longhi and Sebastiano Ricci. Selldorff later moved to the U.S., and he's now 84.
On Tuesday, France gave the six paintings to Selldorff as part of its ongoing effort to return hundreds of looted artworks that Jewish owners lost during the war, and that still hang in the Louvre and other museums.
"I'm extremely grateful," said Selldorff. "These paintings were in this fog of war. (It) was not easy. It took a long time."
Selldorff wants to leave them to his children, in honor of his grandfather's love of art.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/american-gets-back-art-taken-nazis-during-wwii-153557750.html
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Study Reveals Portrait of American Family Life Among Piles ... - KCET
There's no doubt Americans are big time consumers. And Californians may well be the clutter champs. Researchers at UCLA spent years visiting people's homes. And somewhere under all those knickknacks, photographs, and half-empty shampoo bottles, they came up with a real picture of how we live, and it's captured in the book "Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century."
TRANSCRIPT
Val Zavala/Correspondent: High-end magazines filled with classy photos of professionally-staged layouts of lovely homes. But there's none of that in this book: ?Life at Home in the 21st Century? is the anti-"Architectural Digest"; not "house beautiful" but "house bountiful.? It?s where typical, middle-class families live. Homes where cats jump on tables and laundry is stored in a shower stall.
Dr. Jeanne Arnold/UCLA Ethnoarchaeologist: This is the first study that offers a truly unvarnished, unstaged look at American homes.
Zavala: Professor Jeanne Arnold is an ethnoarchaeologist, the lead "ologist? of a dozen other UCLA archeologists, psychologists, and anthropologists who collaborated for ten, long years researching the book.
Ethnoarchaeology is the study of the social organization of present day societies on the basis of material culture. And are we ever a material culture! 32 Los Angeles-area families participated in the landmark study offering up their homes for the sake of science.
Dr. Arnold: We were interested in two-earner families that had school-aged children in the 8 to 12 bracket with either a second or third child in the family.
Zavala: The better to research hectic lives of how people really live. No staging allowed.
Dr. Arnold: Our society has the most material possessions per household in global history, so we're at the apex of the group of people that desperately needs rituals for cleansing.
Zavala: The direct result of rituals for acquiring. New things come with every holiday, birthday and anniversary. So families end up with huge amounts of stuff on counters, shelves, dining tables, stuff in garages, home offices, floors, refrigerator doors, stuff stacked on top of other stuff!
Zavala: So what kinds of things, what objects did you discover were accumulating between the front door and the back door of these people's homes?
Dr. Arnold: Toy! Toys! Toys! The United States has 3.1% of the world's children and purchases 40% of the world's toys.
Zavala: The field work alone took four years starting in 2001. Two videographers shot in each home for up to 18 hours a day: two weekdays, two weekend days. Families were instructed to ignore the cameras. A third researcher counted visible objects in each room.
Family photos on display: an average of 85. Home offices: typically, over 2,000 non-paper items. Garages: 50 to 700 objects. Refrigerator doors hold an average of 52 doodads. And remember, that?s just visible objects.
The researchers also kept track of where everyone was and what they were doing every ten minutes. Saliva samples were taken three times a day to determine what's called "cortisol levels,? an indicator of stress. Past studies about material culture allowed people to self-report information, resulting in that old research bugaboo, human error.
Dr. Arnold: We're not good at portraying what we really do. About 50 percent of families will claim that they eat together all the time. Families are actually eating together the same meal in the same room about one-in-six meals, one-in-six dinners.
Zavala: The participating families, numbered 1 to 32, are totally anonymous. But tonight, this family, who no doubt looks familiar, is revealing their identity.
Aaron Spicker: Hi, I?m Aaron, this is Sarah.
Merrill Spicker: Hi, I?m Merrill, and this is Kimberly.
Aaron: And we?re the most uncluttered family that is in the study, number 28. Oh, that?s not good.
Aaron [looking at book]: Remember the Barbie buckets?
Merrill: That could be ours.
Aaron: It is ours. ?Kitchen interior during meal preparation, Los Angeles.?
Zavala: Photos of their home are throughout the book.
Merrill: Could be worse.
Aaron: It?s not worse! It?s worse now. We need to put some storage in there.
Zavala: The Spickers, like all the families, shot and narrated their own video tour. Even the kids did it.
Sarah Spicker [in home video]: I?m Sarah. I?m the one who?s filming! This is my living room.
Zavala: After describing the messiest parts of the house, the adults gave a saliva sample.
Dr. Arnold: Some of those mothers clearly had much higher cortisol levels, and the fathers almost never had higher cortisol levels.
Aaron [in home video]: Something I can?t stand anymore, and I?m having a problem with all the closets in the house.
Zavala: Aaron Spicker recently shot new footage and sent it to Professor Arnold.
Aaron [in home video]: Take three here, with a little bit better lighting.
Dr. Arnold: This is what he described as the jungle of the girl's bathroom. His girls are now teens.
Zavala: I?ve just counted 35 products or objects on this small bathroom counter.
Dr. Arnold: You're fast. When these girls were a bit younger, this bathroom was pretty tidy.
Aaron [in home video]: This is the home office. This is where I spend most of my time.
Dr. Arnold: So here's the office for family 28. Now this seems more notably packed with stuff.
Aaron: In all fairness, it's fuller, like I am. I'm fuller, but there's actually a system to the madness. It looks fairly chaotic, but everything has a place for a reason.
Aaron [looking at book]: Oh wait! That's our garage. I missed that one. That fridge is gone, but we have a fridge in the garage.
Aaron: I actually have a goal of getting one car back into the garage.
Dr. Arnold: 75 percent of Angelenos are parking their cars in the streets or in the driveways and they're using their garages as storage units.
Zavala: So basically, the old junk and the Christmas ornaments are getting shelter and your $35,000 car is out in the elements?
Dr. Arnold: Precisely! Precisely.
Aaron [looking at book]: Can you imagine a house without photos in it?
Merrill: No, because you're Mr. Photo.
Aaron: I struggle a bit with figuring out how a person wouldn't have the images of their family and maybe closest friends or whatever they like around them.
Dr. Arnold: Sometimes there are whole armies of framed photographs on cabinet tops. We'll find them in the bathrooms. We?ll find them everywhere. In Italy and in Sweden, we had sister projects going on. And there was much less personalizing that really stands out.
Zavala: And a favorite place Americans personalize is on the family fridge.
Dr. Arnold: So this is the Family 28 garage, starting with the old kitchen refrigerator that's happily still covered with magnets and pictures and all kinds of other stuff.
Aaron [to Merrill]: Sweetheart, you gotta learn how to close the fridge so that it doesn?t leak cold air.
Zavala: When the Spickers remodeled their kitchen, they got a new stainless steel refrigerator, so no more clutter on the fridge door, something Aaron and Merrill miss.
Aaron: There's something valuable there that reminds you because you go there every day, every morning, every night, you're pretty much there.
Merrill [in home video]: Sarah?s coming with me to help.
Merrill: Yeah, I actually miss that we have the stainless and we don't have the pictures. So it wasn't like, ?Oh! Now we have this clean fridge.? It?s like, ?Now we don?t have a place to put our pictures.?
Dr. Arnold: I can tell you quite a lot about a family from their fridge. ?A tolerance for clutter? I would say is the best way of characterizing it.
Merrill: I keep saying I?m going to clean out my closet, and I just add to it and I haven't de-cluttered it or gotten rid of stuff. I just don't have the time.
Aaron [in home video]: Franklin can count by twos and what Sarah?
Sarah: Tie his shoes.
Aaron : We're blessed to kind of see the world in a way that the things we value we not necessarily ?things,? despite the clutter.
Zavala: In the nearly nine years since they were studied, the Spickers still have the same furniture -- from an antique china cabinet to a modern display unit.
Aaron [looking at book]: There?s your non-dusty Barbies.
Merrill: My dad.
Zavala: Except for that kitchen remodel, it's essentially the same place. But another family changed everything!
Dr. Arnold: They completely remodeled their house after the study. So, no other household has done anything like this.
Zavala: amazingly different!
Rhonda Voo: Hi! I?m Rhonda.
Eric Alan: I?m Alan.
Voo: And we?re family number 1.
Alan: Come on in.
Eric Alan: Why did we do this? Because I was screaming that we had to get rid of all this crap.
Rhonda Voo: We did this because we saw ourselves on film in this study, and we thought, ?Why are we living like this??
Alan: That?s true.
Zavala: The home of Rhonda Voo, Eric Alan, and their three daughters was once a lot like the Spickers? -- colorful walls full of family photos, a magnet-mania fridge, jam-packed shelves, and a tower of toys: 165 beanie babies, 22 Barbie, 56 miscellaneous dolls, 3 porcelain ones and 1, count ?em 1, troll doll. But the dolls? days were numbered.
Dr. Arnold: You know, people will rehab their kitchen or they'll paint their house but the house stayed the same. This was a real overhaul in their very way of being.
Alan: I guess we did do a big turnaround, didn't we?
Voo: Yeah.
Zavala: A few years after the study, Rhonda and Eric had it with the clutter.
Alan [looking at book]: Okay, that?s not us. That?s somebody else?s crazy messy house.
Voo: Oh, here?s a little bit more of the photo wall.
Alan: I remember at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I bought some plastic, round box, and I was so excited about it. And I said, ?We can put all of our pictures in this box.? But then, it was in that closet and I would open up the closet and the box would fall out on me. It was like living in a yard sale.
Zavala: They moved out for a year and-a-half of construction, keeping only the front facade the same.
Dr. Arnold: The whole back of the home is this ultra-modern wall of windows looking out onto the backyard space with this pristine living room and their bedroom is up above here.
Alan: Not only do I not miss the stuff that's gone, I don't even remember the stuff we used to have. We got the book the first time, and I?m looking at the pictures and I?m like ?We don't have that. We don't have that. Rhonda, look! The only things left in the picture we have are the kids themselves.?
Voo: Yeah, everything is gone.
Alan [looking at book]: Oh, that?s a nice one.
Voo: Yeah, that?s that wall that?s right there. All those photos that I love and kind of miss, but I don?t want to put back up again.
When we decided to move back into the house, I looked at every single object one-by-one and said, ?Is this good enough to be back in the house??
Zavala: Clearly, very little made the cut.
Voo [looking at book]: There?s the fridge!
Zavala: The family that once had 97 items on their refrigerator door now has a hidden dishwasher and fridge. The family photos are off the wall and in the computer. The toy tower stands only in videos of when the girls were little.
Dr. Arnold: There was a real generosity of spirit, I think, that we saw in the families who chose to participate.
Zavala: Would you, knowing your house, have allowed all these ?ologists? to come in, as you did these people?s?
Dr. Arnold: I don't think so. I think I?m just too private of a person.
Girls [in home video]: That?s the end of our play!
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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
casca news: CASCA: Job postings/Offres d'emploi
(English follows)
Les offres d'emploi suivantes viennent d'?tre ajout?es ? notre banque.
-Women and Gender Studies - Assistant Professor (Limited-Term)
Wilfrid Laurier University
-Sociology - 2 Assistant Professors
McMaster University
-Postdoctoral Fellowship/Bourse postdoctorale, Chair in Taiwan studies
l'Universit? d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa
-LECTURER, MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
-Religion and Culture - 2 Instructor Positions
University of Saskatchewan
-Curator - HBC Museum Collection
The Manitoba Museum
-Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology - Assistant Professor
(Sociological Theory)
University of Windsor
-Indigenous Studies - Lecturer/Assistant Professor (Integrative Science)
Cape Breton University
-Memorial University-Tenure Track Position - Gender Studies
Consultez-les ou voyez toute la liste en visitant notre site Web:
www.cas-sca.ca
Merci
**********
The following job postings have just been added to our job page:
-Women and Gender Studies - Assistant Professor (Limited-Term)
Wilfrid Laurier University
-Sociology - 2 Assistant Professors
McMaster University
-Postdoctoral Fellowship/Bourse postdoctorale, Chair in Taiwan studies
l'Universit? d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa
-LECTURER, MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
-Religion and Culture - 2 Instructor Positions
University of Saskatchewan
-Curator - HBC Museum Collection
The Manitoba Museum
-Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology - Assistant Professor
(Sociological Theory)
University of Windsor
-Indigenous Studies - Lecturer/Assistant Professor (Integrative Science)
Cape Breton University
-Memorial University-Tenure Track Position - Gender Studies
See them and others on our website:
www.cas-sca.ca
Thank you
Source: http://casca-news.blogspot.com/2013/03/casca-job-postingsoffres-demploi_11.html
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Not just Big Gulps: NYC sugary drink ban hits coffee
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader once said: "If God hadn't meant for us to eat sugar, he wouldn't have invented dentists."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn't share Ralph Nader's higher-power (if tongue-in-cheek) rationale for a sweet tooth, as residents of the city's five boroughs have learned. The sour taste from that lesson begins Tuesday.
That's when the ban on sales of sugar-laced drinks larger than 16 ounces ? a ban he championed for months and got approved by the city board of health ? goes into effect.
The regulation has drawn national attention and the wrath of many New Yorkers ? polls show up to 60 percent disapprove of the ban ? and of people who don't even live in the Big Apple.
Red from New York wrote on nytimes.com: "What is next, no neckties because they are a known choking hazard? No white shirts, they require toxic bleaching? No dry cleaning, it spreads dangerous solvents?"
Of course, there are those who say they support the ban, even in New York.
Cee from New York wrote at nytimes.com: "You are what you eat ... given the alarming percentage of Americans who are overweight and the impact that has on our healthcare system and cost, we should be happy that there are those out there trying to address the public health problem."
So which drinks will actually cause city consumers to suffer the sugar blues? What places will be forced to stop selling those super-sized Slurpees?
And does a tall-half-skinny-half-1-percent-extra-hot-split-quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte with whip from Starbucks have to be pried from someone's lukewarm ? and likely sugar free ? dead hand? That all depends.
The ban hits sugary drinks like sodas that come in more than a 16-ounce container. Those super-sized, 32-ounce drinks and beyond will no longer be sold in most places.
The big sugar drink ban applies to restaurants, fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King, movie and stage theaters, delis and office cafeterias.
However, sugar lovers take note: There are some sweet spots still left open. Those are convenience stores, drug stores and supermarkets. They can keep selling any kind of sugary drink in the larger sizes.
So, while a delicatessen or a Dunkin Donuts can't sell a sugary drink larger than 16 ounces, a Duane Reade pharmacy down the street can sell a 20-ounce drink ... a 26-ounce ... a 32-ounce ... a 64-ounce ... or a 120-ounce, if they have it.
And anyone who buys a 16-ounce drink from a place that's banned from selling larger sizes will be allowed to refill their cup, depending on the place where they get it, and won't be forbidden from buying more than one drink.
Two key exceptions to the ban are diet sodas or fruit juices. Those can still be sold anywhere at any size. Also exempt from the ban are any alcoholic beverages.
Where the ban gets somewhat complicated is at coffee shops. Coffee drinks that are 16 ounces in size or smaller are unaffected.
But cups of java that are larger than 16 ounces can only be served if the barista adds no more than three to five packets of sugar to it. The number of packets depends on the size of the cup. The smaller the size the fewer packets can be put in.
Once a consumer has the drink in their own hands, however, they can go sweetly crazy and add as much sugar as they want.
Coffee lovers who need their sugar fix handed to them in large amounts might want to think about adding milk to their brew instead of having it black. That's because the ban does not apply to coffee concoctions that are more than 50 percent milk. The city considers milk a source of nutrition, even if it's drowned in sugar.
One other note, baristas can add as much of those sugar substitutes like Equal, Splenda and Sweet 'n Low to a cup, as they are not restricted by the new law for any size of coffee.
Sellers of the big drinks will have a three month grace period after Tuesday to get used to the law. But city officials have said they plan to start enforcing the ban immediately, and at least handing out warnings to violators. They could face up to $200 in fines after the grace period ends.
There's no fine for anyone buying the banned drinks, at least not yet.
Complaints about the ban have come from more than just potential customers. Makers and sellers of sodas and sweet drinks, including Coca-Cola and McDonald's, have attacked it as "misguided" and "arbitrary." A soft drink industry-sponsored group spent more than $1 million on a public-relations campaign in a losing cause against the ban.
The $61 billion a year soft drink industry has teamed up with various groups, including the National Association of Theatre Owners and the National Restaurant Association in a lawsuit against the ban, even after a local judge dismissed a legal challenge to the measure in January.
Bloomberg has billed the law as both a health and fiscal initiative to stop diabetes and obesity. New York City spends an estimated $4 billion each year on medical care for overweight people, Bloomberg has said.
And Bloomberg is no stranger to outlawing personal behaviors he didn't like, taking on salt and continuing his fight against cigarettes. He's pushed for food manufacturers to lower their products' salt content. In 2010, he announced that about 30 companies, like Kraft and Goya, had signed up to reduce salt in foods by 25 percent within five years, as a way of lowering consumers' blood pressure.
Last year, he signed a law making it illegal to smoke in the city's 1,700 parks and on the city's 14 miles of public beaches. Smoking is also prohibited in pedestrian plazas like Times Square.
Other cities have done the same about smoking. In states including California, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Utah and New Jersey, municipalities impose laws that prohibit city parks, or specifically named city parks, to allow smoking.
Whether other cities and states follow in New York's footsteps on a wide ranging sugar drink ban is uncertain. Most seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, though one other city moved in that direction even before the Big Apple.
Trying to decrease Boston's rising obesity rates, Mayor Thomas Menino issued an executive order in 2011 banning the sale and advertising of sugar-loaded drinks from city-owned buildings and city-sponsored events.
San Francisco and Los Angeles are among several cities that have also curtailed sugary drink sales on municipal property as well as banning sugary drinks and candy from public school vending machines since 2010.
More recently, several candidates for the Washington D.C. council have said they favor enacting a similar soda ban like New York's.
Americans consume on average more than 200 calories each day from sugary drinks ? four times what they consumed in 1965 and medical evidence indicates that the rising thirst for the so called "liquid candy" has been a major contributor to the obesity and diabetes epidemics.
But getting a consensus on whether a partial ban on sugary drinks is the right thing to do may be as difficult as ?agreeing on how much sugar people like in their coffee.
Related content:
Despite Obesity Rise, Calories Trending Downward
? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/new-york-city-sugary-drink-ban-wont-affect-just-big-1C8781253
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Saturday, March 9, 2013
Report: Navistar's Shares Soar on CEO Switch | RV Business
Navistar International on Thursday (March 7) tapped insider and former General Motors exec Troy Clarke as the truck and engine maker?s next CEO, revealed plans to split its CEO and chairman roles and posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results.
Fox Business reported that Wall Street cheered the major moves, sending shares of the automotive company racing 27% higher in late afternoon trading.
Navistar said Clarke, the company?s COO since January 2010, will replace interim CEO Lewis Campbell on April 15.
?Today I am pleased to announce our turnaround is firmly underway and our return to profitability is clearly in sight,? Campbell said in a statement. ?Troy is the right executive to lead the company forward at this time, and I am confident Navistar will continue to build on its momentum.?
Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn, who owns a stake in Navistar, also praised the selection of Clarke.
?We are behind Troy 100% in his efforts to build Navistar into a focused, competitive and profitable truck and engine manufacturer,? Icahn said in a statement.
While Clarke, 57, will remain Navistar?s president, the company?s board has decided to split up the CEO and chairman titles, selecting current director James Keyes to serve as non-executive chairman.
?I want to thank Lewis for his guidance and leadership during this period,? Clarke said. ?Working together, we have implemented a number of important actions to set Navistar on the right path, and the company now has a strong platform to build upon going forward.?
Clarke joined Navistar after a 35-year stint at GM, where he served as president of GM North America and president of the auto maker?s Mexican business.
Meanwhile, Navistar revealed a lighter-than-expected loss for the fiscal first quarter.
The company said it lost $123 million, or $1.53 a share, last quarter, compared with a loss of $153 million, or $2.19 a share, a year earlier. Analysts had called for a deeper loss of $1.76 a share.
Revenue slid 12% to $2.64 billion, trailing the Street?s view of $2.81 billion.
Source: http://www.rvbusiness.com/2013/03/report-navistar-shares-soar-on-ceo-change/
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Thursday, March 7, 2013
Vatican-style secrecy wins out over US-style transparency as US conclave briefings nixed
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's penchant for secrecy has won out over American-style transparency.
The U.S. cardinals in Rome for the conclave to elect the next pope cancelled their popular daily press briefings Wednesday after some details of the secret proceedings under way ahead of the election were purportedly leaked to Italian newspapers.
The Vatican denied it had exerted any pressure on the American cardinals to keep quiet. But the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, made clear that the Holy See considered this week's pre-conclave meetings, in which cardinals are discussing the problems of the church, to be secret and part of a solemn process to choose a pope.
"The College (of Cardinals) as a whole has decided to maintain a line of an increasing degree of reserve," he said.
The spokeswoman for the U.S. cardinals, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, said Wednesday's briefing was cancelled after concern was expressed by other cardinals Wednesday morning "about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers."
She said as a precaution, all interviews had been cancelled.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Walsh said Italy's La Stampa newspaper had on Monday and Tuesday reported details of comments individual cardinals made in the closed-door meetings that were cited as a violation of their oath of secrecy. That prompted the decision to observe a media blackout.
She dismissed speculation that the Vatican and cardinals from other countries simply didn't appreciate the openness of the Americans, saying: "I don't think anyone was angry at the Americans, they were angry at La Stampa."
"In true old-style Catholic school teacher fashion, someone talks and everybody stays after school," Walsh said. She added that the Americans had been assured that the Vatican was pleased with their briefings.
Italian newspapers and international media, including The Associated Press, have reported on the unique briefings the Americans were providing, and how they contrasted with the near-silence from other cardinals and the comparatively sedate Vatican briefings.
In a press conference Tuesday, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Texas and Sean O'Malley of Boston held a lively and informative 30-minute chat with some 100 reporters and two dozen television crews from around the globe.
They revealed no details of their closed-door discussions. But they nevertheless provided journalists with insight about the process from two people actually involved.
"We're trying to help people have a greater understanding of what the process is and the procedures and background information," O'Malley told reporters. "Right now that's about all we can share with you but we're happy to try to do it."
The Americans were the only cardinals who were holding daily briefings; other individual cardinals have given occasional interviews to individual media.
Separately Wednesday, the Vatican said only one voting-age cardinal remained absent, Vietnamese Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man. Lombardi said he was expected Thursday, meaning a date for the start of the conclave could be decided then.
_____
Associated Press reporter Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.
_____
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vatican-style-secrecy-wins-over-us-style-transparency-151426948.html
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Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Holder: Drone strikes in US only in 'extraordinary circumstance'
US Air Force via Reuters
A Predator drone is shown in an undated photo from the Air Force.
Michael Reynolds / EPA
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addresses the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26.
By Michael IsikoffNational Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The Obama administration has "no intention" of carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists in the United States, but could use them in response to ?an extraordinary circumstance? such as the 9/11 terror attacks, according to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by NBC News.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who received the March 4 letter from Holder, called the attorney general?s refusal to rule out drone strikes in the U.S. ?more than frightening.??
The letter from Holder surfaced just as the Senate Intelligence Committee was voting 12-3 to approve White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be CIA director. The vote came after the White House agreed to share additional classified memos on targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens overseas.
Paul had threatened to hold up Brennan's confirmation on the floor of the Senate if the administration did not clarify whether targeted drone strikes could be used inside the U.S.
In his letter, Holder called the question of drone strikes inside the U.S. "entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur and we hope no president will ever have to confront. ? As a policy matter, moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat."
But Holder then appeared to leave the door open to such strikes in extreme circumstances.
Read the full letter
"It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could? conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001."?
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Chavez dies shortly after expelling US military attaches
Even as he lay dying, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez picked a fight with the US. El Universal of Caracas said "Chavez died" in a banner headline Tuesday.
A Google Translation of the paper said: "Hugo Chavez died after a long battle against cancer, a disease that was treated in Havana since mid-2011. The President had traveled to Cuba, in this final stage the December 8, 2012, two months after his fourth election, to be operated for the fourth time."
Venezuelan TV said Chavez died at 4:25 p.m.
The Associated Press reported the country had expelled two US military attach?s, claiming they met with military officers to destabilize the country. The Los Angeles Times and CBS reported he had died shortly after the expulsions.
?We completely reject the Venezuelan government?s claim that the United States is involved in any type of conspiracy to destabilize the Venezuelan government,? State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch said, ?Hugo Ch?vez?s presidency was characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees.?
El Trajajadores of the Communist Party in Havana commented: ?He died a good man. Let us raise a requiem for Chavez and then think what Jos? Mart? wrote one day: ?The tomb is the route, and not the end.??
Chavez, who returned from Cuba in February with no notice after being treated for cancer, has long been the face of leftist opposition to the US in South America, though his biggest fights were with former President George Bush.
The 58-year-old Chavez had not appeared in public since his return, and his inauguration to a fourth term as president was delayed. Little information had been released on his condition.
On Monday night, CNN reported Information Minister Ernesto Villegas saying on national television that the President was having problems breathing ?related to the state of his depressed immune system.?
According to Wikipedia, Chavez announced on June 30, 2011 that he was recovering from an operation ?to remove an abcessed tumor with cancerous cells. He required a second operation in December 2012.?.
Chavez was seen as a leader of a ?Pink Tide? of 12 leftist and socialist leaders elected in Latin America since 1998. In addition, his friendship with the Castros in Cuba was seen as a slap in the face to Washington.
Venezuela?s oil revenue made it possible for him to help Cuba after the collapse of the Russian empire. Havana will be watching events in Caracas closely.
Foreign Affairs said Chavez was so weak that he had to be ?sedated before takeoff, and the plane flew at a low altitude to avoid compromising his delicate health and an ongoing respiratory problem. Upon his return, he was taken to the military hospital in Caracas. When he was safely in his room, messages went out on his Twitter account, thanking Cuba, Fidel and Raul Castro, Ch?vez? and to the people of Venezuela, "We have arrived again to Venezuela. Thank God. Thanks to my beloved country. Here we will continue treatment."
The country?s constitution calls for a special election to elect a successor if Chavez dies
Latin America as a whole is in much better shape than in the past, and there is no need for the US to support dictators to stop the spread of Russian communism.
Reuters says the Institute of International Finance reports the region ?outpaced other emerging market regions as a magnet for foreign capital in 2011 and 2012??
BBC Chavez Obituary
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Tuesday, March 5, 2013
'Free play' is vital to children's healthy development, says Boston College psychologist
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 4-Mar-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rosanne Pellegrini
rosanne.pellegrini@bc.edu
Boston College
Free to learn, new book by Peter Gray
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (March 4, 2013) The importance of playcrucial for children's healthy psychological development and ability to thrive in lifeis woefully underestimated by parents and educators, according to Peter Gray, a Boston College developmental psychologist and author of the new book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, March 2013: www.FreeToLearnBook.com).
"Playing with other children, away from adults, is how children learn to make their own decisions, control their emotions and impulses, see from others' perspectives, negotiate differences with others, and make friends," says Gray, an expert on the evolution of play and its vital role in child development. "In short, play is how children learn to take control of their lives."
All children are born with an innate curiosity, playfulness, sociability and deep desire to learn, but at some point after they enter school, what was once fun and engaging begins to feel forced, he explains. And, anxiety and stress levels among youths are at an all-time high: they are bogged down with homework, over-scheduled with extracurricular activities, deprived of free play, and faced with the pressures of getting into a top college.
"How did we come to the conclusion that the best way to educate students is to force them into a setting where they are bored, unhappy and anxious?" Gray asks. "Our compulsory education system features forced lessons, standardized tests, and seems specially designed to crush a child's innate and biological drives for learning." The traditional "coercive" school model, he adds, was originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.
Free to Learn outlines the difference between structured play (Little League) and free play (a pickup game of baseball) and emphasizes the need for the latter in society worldwide.
Among reasons he outlines for the disappearance of free, unstructured play: a decline in families knowing their neighbors and a rise in parents' fearing dangers to children who are not under adult supervision, which Gray says comes partly from exaggerated media reports; increased time in school, at homework and in adult-directed activities outside of school; and most significantly, a rise in the societal attitude that childhood is a time for rsum building and that free play is wasted time.
He presents scientific evidence that self-directed learning and free play permit children to realize their optimum abilities to learn, grow, and develop naturally and positively. Gray also shows how the hunter-gatherer waywhere children spend their days in mixed-age groups, engaging in self-directed play and explorationleads to the development of socially, intellectually, and emotionally healthy adults.
His book offers the less examined path, according to its publisher, "and perhaps the key to repairing our broken education systemreturning joy, fun, and excitement to learning and education through the power of play and self-directed learning and exploration."
But schools, Gray notes, aren't only to blame for the decline in playdue to parental fears, outdoor play has declined significantly in recent decades. He cites a direct correlation between the decline of play and the rise in emotional and social disorders among young people, and outlines what parents and communities can do to promote and reinstitute play in children's lives.
"I present compelling evidence that over the past 50 yearsas children's opportunities for free play and exploration have declinedthere has been a dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and suicide in young people, who have not had the opportunity that free play provides to find meaning and joy in life."
Free to Learnwhich suggests that it's time to stop asking what's wrong with our children, and start asking what's wrong with the systemhas earned acclaim from prominent psychologists, anthropologist and evolutionary biologists.
"Peter Gray is one of the world's experts on the evolution of childhood play, and applies his encyclopedic knowledge of psychology, and his humane voice, to the pressing issue of educational reform," according to Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology and author of How the Mind Works.
Boston College Professor Peter Gray
A professor of psychology at BC for more than 40 years, in 2002 Gray retired from his position as full professor and assumed that of research professor. He is the author of Psychology, a widely-used psychology textbook, has published numerous scholarly articles on the role of play in education, and writes a blog, "Freedom to Learn," for Psychology Today magazine.
Initially motivated by his son's struggles in a structured school environment, Gray altered his professional focus to study education from a biological perspective. He frequently speaks on play and education at national conferences and university colloquia.
###
Media contact to arrange an interview with BC Professor Peter Gray:
Dori Gelb, associate publicist
Basic Books (a member of the Perseus Books Group)
212-340-8136
dori.gelb@perseusbooks.com
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 4-Mar-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Rosanne Pellegrini
rosanne.pellegrini@bc.edu
Boston College
Free to learn, new book by Peter Gray
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (March 4, 2013) The importance of playcrucial for children's healthy psychological development and ability to thrive in lifeis woefully underestimated by parents and educators, according to Peter Gray, a Boston College developmental psychologist and author of the new book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, March 2013: www.FreeToLearnBook.com).
"Playing with other children, away from adults, is how children learn to make their own decisions, control their emotions and impulses, see from others' perspectives, negotiate differences with others, and make friends," says Gray, an expert on the evolution of play and its vital role in child development. "In short, play is how children learn to take control of their lives."
All children are born with an innate curiosity, playfulness, sociability and deep desire to learn, but at some point after they enter school, what was once fun and engaging begins to feel forced, he explains. And, anxiety and stress levels among youths are at an all-time high: they are bogged down with homework, over-scheduled with extracurricular activities, deprived of free play, and faced with the pressures of getting into a top college.
"How did we come to the conclusion that the best way to educate students is to force them into a setting where they are bored, unhappy and anxious?" Gray asks. "Our compulsory education system features forced lessons, standardized tests, and seems specially designed to crush a child's innate and biological drives for learning." The traditional "coercive" school model, he adds, was originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.
Free to Learn outlines the difference between structured play (Little League) and free play (a pickup game of baseball) and emphasizes the need for the latter in society worldwide.
Among reasons he outlines for the disappearance of free, unstructured play: a decline in families knowing their neighbors and a rise in parents' fearing dangers to children who are not under adult supervision, which Gray says comes partly from exaggerated media reports; increased time in school, at homework and in adult-directed activities outside of school; and most significantly, a rise in the societal attitude that childhood is a time for rsum building and that free play is wasted time.
He presents scientific evidence that self-directed learning and free play permit children to realize their optimum abilities to learn, grow, and develop naturally and positively. Gray also shows how the hunter-gatherer waywhere children spend their days in mixed-age groups, engaging in self-directed play and explorationleads to the development of socially, intellectually, and emotionally healthy adults.
His book offers the less examined path, according to its publisher, "and perhaps the key to repairing our broken education systemreturning joy, fun, and excitement to learning and education through the power of play and self-directed learning and exploration."
But schools, Gray notes, aren't only to blame for the decline in playdue to parental fears, outdoor play has declined significantly in recent decades. He cites a direct correlation between the decline of play and the rise in emotional and social disorders among young people, and outlines what parents and communities can do to promote and reinstitute play in children's lives.
"I present compelling evidence that over the past 50 yearsas children's opportunities for free play and exploration have declinedthere has been a dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, and suicide in young people, who have not had the opportunity that free play provides to find meaning and joy in life."
Free to Learnwhich suggests that it's time to stop asking what's wrong with our children, and start asking what's wrong with the systemhas earned acclaim from prominent psychologists, anthropologist and evolutionary biologists.
"Peter Gray is one of the world's experts on the evolution of childhood play, and applies his encyclopedic knowledge of psychology, and his humane voice, to the pressing issue of educational reform," according to Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology and author of How the Mind Works.
Boston College Professor Peter Gray
A professor of psychology at BC for more than 40 years, in 2002 Gray retired from his position as full professor and assumed that of research professor. He is the author of Psychology, a widely-used psychology textbook, has published numerous scholarly articles on the role of play in education, and writes a blog, "Freedom to Learn," for Psychology Today magazine.
Initially motivated by his son's struggles in a structured school environment, Gray altered his professional focus to study education from a biological perspective. He frequently speaks on play and education at national conferences and university colloquia.
###
Media contact to arrange an interview with BC Professor Peter Gray:
Dori Gelb, associate publicist
Basic Books (a member of the Perseus Books Group)
212-340-8136
dori.gelb@perseusbooks.com
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bc-pi030413.php
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
Struggling Groupon ousts CEO Andrew Mason
FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2009 file photo, Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, poses for a photo in Chicago. The struggling online deals company said Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, after the market closed that it ousted Mason as CEO and will look for a new chief. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Greenm, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2009 file photo, Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, poses for a photo in Chicago. The struggling online deals company said Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, after the market closed that it ousted Mason as CEO and will look for a new chief. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Greenm, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Struggling online deals pioneer Groupon has fired its quirky founder and CEO, Andrew Mason, amid worries that people are tiring of the restaurant, spa and Botox deals that Groupon built its business on.
In a refreshingly candid memo to staff, Mason admitted he "failed at this part of the journey" and said Groupon's employees "deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I'm getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance."
Groupon Inc.'s stock jumped more than 4 percent in extended trading following Thursday's announcement, which had been anticipated for months. Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky and Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis were appointed to the Office of the Chief Executive while a replacement is found.
Mason, known for an eccentric character that didn't fit the mold of a buttoned-down CEO, made no qualms about what had happened.
"I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding ? I was fired today," wrote Mason, 32. "If you're wondering why. you haven't been paying attention."
He referred to controversy over its accounting practices, "two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price." The stock fell another 24 percent Thursday before the announcement and closed at $4.53, 77 percent below the $20 it started trading at when Groupon went public in November 2011.
"The events of the last year and a half speak for themselves," he wrote. "As CEO, I am accountable."
Mason, a Northwestern University graduate and former punk band keyboardist, founded Groupon in 2008, pioneering the daily deals business. The idea is that if enough people sign up for a discount ? for restaurant meals, manicures or weekend getaways ? offering the deals will be worthwhile for businesses, especially if customers bring friends or come back. Groupon makes money by taking a cut from those deals. By 2010, Groupon was available in 25 countries, and some people saw online deals as the next big thing in retailing.
But analysts have been questioning the long-term viability of such a business, not just at Groupon but also at the long list of copycats, which include LivingSocial, Google Offers and Amazon Local.
While the business is easy to set up, it is difficult to sustain and to stand out. Companies must make both their customers and the businesses that offer the deals happy. Many merchants have become reluctant to offer deals because of how little they were getting in payments and repeat business once the promotions ended. And to keep growing, companies need to make more from each subscriber, rather than simply add more addresses to email deals lists. Investors had been worried that instead of buying more, people were suffering from fatigue over the frequent emails.
LivingSocial, Groupon's closest competitor, laid off 9 percent of its workforce late last year. To diversify its business, Groupon has expanded into product sales, payments services and other areas, but there have been worries that those efforts haven't been paying off.
Groupon, which is based in Chicago, also has faced scrutiny about its high marketing expenses and enormous employee base. Its staff has ballooned to more than 11,000, more than that of other Internet darlings such as Twitter, Facebook or Zynga Inc., the other fallen star of the latest swath of Internet IPOs.
Groupon's IPO was one of the most highly anticipated ? and controversial ? among the social media and Internet companies that began publicly trading in the past year and a half. It faced regulatory scrutiny for reporting as revenue the total amount its customers spent on deals, not just the money it got to keep. After federal regulators questioned the practice, Groupon submitted new documents that showed that net revenue in the first half of 2011 was about half of what it originally reported.
Though it made a profit in the second quarter of last year ? its only profitable quarter as a public company ? investors have been more focused on its slowing revenue growth. In 2012, its first full year as a public company, Groupon's revenue increased 45 percent to $2.33 billion. But that's much slower than the five-fold growth in 2011 and 22-fold increase in 2010, compared with the previous years.
Thursday's announcement came one day after more disappointing news on revenue. The company said revenue in the current quarter would be in the range of $560 million to $610 million, below analyst expectations of $647 million.
Mason's ouster has been "fairly widely expected" given the company's performance, said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. He was more surprised by the fact that "it took them this long."
"The question is whether this as a business model can last," Gartenberg said. "It's easy to replicate and under a lot of pressure. The question is where the company goes from here.... Clearly something wasn't working, isn't working."
Groupon said Mason was not available for interviews.
The company did not disclose details about any severance package he might have received, though it will be required to do so by next week. In a regulatory filing last year, Groupon said Mason is potentially entitled to $4,344.36 in total compensation if he is fired "without cause or for good reason." The bulk of that amount is for health coverage, as Mason voluntarily reduced his base salary to $756.72 in 2011, from $180,000.
Much of Mason's wealth comes from Groupon's stock. He owns 7 percent, or about 46 million shares, according to FactSet. Based on Thursday's closing price, that's worth more than $208 million.
Benchmark Capital analyst Daniel Kurnos said that with Mason's ouster, the board made the decision to try to "get the ship moving in the right direction."
"There was always a sense that Groupon had a lot of good ideas but no real focus," he said.
Can a new CEO answer all of Groupon's problems? Kurnos doesn't believe so. But he said a new CEO could perhaps get Groupon more focused and steer it toward more traditional businesses. For example, Groupon Goods, which sells products rather than restaurant or spa deals, has been performing well. With its deals, Groupon's challenge is to balance pleasing merchants who sell the deals with pleasing the customers who buy them, he added.
"A lot of people want to say that the daily deals business is a zero," he said. "I don't think that's true."
In a statement, Groupon's Leonsis said that the company "will continue to invest in growth, and we are confident that with our deep management team and market-leading position, the company is well positioned for the future."
Gartenberg called the way the announcement came out "refreshingly honest."
"There was no pretense that he is leaving to pursue other interests or spending more time with his family," he said.
Groupon's stock hasn't traded above $10 since last July and hit its lowest point, $2.60, in November. Until Wednesday's earnings report, the stock had been crawling back up, but the results disappointed investors who sent it tumbling once again.
After the announcement of Mason's ouster, the stock gained 19 cents to $4.72 in after-hours trading. The modest 4.2 percent gain, compared with the 24 percent drop earlier in the day, is a sign that investors will need more than the CEO's firing to start believing in Groupon again.
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