Barbie sales fell 13% in the first quarter, adding to a much worse-than-expected slump for Mattel, the world’s largest toy company.
It was the second consecutive quarter of falling sales for the doll, which has been a key part of the firm’s product range for almost six decades.
Mattel said sales dropped by 15.4% to $735m (£574m) for the three months to 31 March.
That was the biggest slide since 2009 and short of the $801m forecast.
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, the network’s most valuable host, is leaving in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal that caused dozens of advertisers to flee his top-rated show.
21st Century Fox Inc., parent of the most-watched cable network, announced his exit in a one-sentence statement Wednesday. “After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel.”
O’Reilly is the channel’s top draw and has been the most recognizable face of Fox News for much of its 21 years, meaning his exit will test viewer loyalty. Up to now, the network has successfully weathered the loss of key figures including founder Roger Ailes, who was also accused of sexual harassment. Another top network personality, Megyn Kelly, left for NBC in January.
At a time when more traditional businesses are scrambling to adopt the efficiencies of leaner startups, help is on the way. WeWork is currently in the research phase of a new initiative through which it will revamp companies’ offices for them, remaking them in WeWork’s image and arming them with office-management technology and a cultural attaché.
Chief product officer David Fano and head of product research Joshua Emig unveiled the infant project at a breakfast event today inside a glossy wood-walled WeWork in lower Manhattan. They discussed how they’re planning to move WeWork beyond co-working spaces to help big companies manage their own offices. Initially these on-site services will only be for large companies with 50,000 to 60,000 square feet and at least 1,000 employees. The new offerings would include everything from building out interiors to managing guests, booking conference rooms, coordinating events, analyzing office data on space usage, and providing a human community manager to instill WeWork philosophies.
Prosecutors moved to throw out more than 21,000 drug convictions on Tuesday, five years after a chemist at the state drug lab was caught tampering with evidence and falsifying tests.
The state’s highest court had ordered district attorneys in seven counties to produce lists by Tuesday indicating how many of approximately 24,000 cases involving Annie Dookhan they would be unable or unwilling to prosecute if the defendants were granted new trials.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said Tuesday night that 21,587 cases had been recommended for dismissal. It said that would be the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history.
The cases would be formally dismissed by court action, expected Thursday, the ACLU said.
Boeing Co warned employees on Monday it planned another round of involuntary layoffs that would affect hundreds of engineers at its commercial airplanes unit, according to a source and a memo seen by Reuters.
The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales.
The additional layoffs are due to start June 23, according to the memo from John Hamilton, vice president of engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Burger King’s latest ad stunt—in which a TV spot was designed to hijack people’s Google Home devices by saying “OK, Google” and asking about the Whopper—turned into a game of cat and mouse on Wednesday, as Google blocked the ad from triggering the devices and BK quickly devised a workaround.
The saga began at noon Wednesday, as BK rolled out the 15-second spot on YouTube. In it, an actor playing a BK employee says to the camera, “OK, Google, what is the Whopper burger?” This triggered Google Homes in viewers’ houses to rattle off the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry about the Whopper.
America’s business leaders are rethinking how they network.
Gone are the days when execs both young and more veteran had the time to spend hours at a boozy lunch or on the golf course. Taking its place are a whole new set of networking activities — think “sweatworking” on a run or at a SoulCycle class, or going on a cultural retreat with business associates.
Leading the charge is a new generation of business leaders who value efficiency and multi-tasking more than ever before. Rather than devote a large chunk of time to a formal activity they wouldn’t necessarily enjoy otherwise, many execs are seeing the value in combining their hobbies with their business.
Never tell California the odds. Not only has the state recovered from its record-breaking drought, it did so in record time. According to a new NOAA study looking at 445 years of climate data, California had a 1 percent chance of breaking the drought in just two years.
You remember the drought, right? Between 2012 to 2015, California’s epic dry spell—its worst in recorded history—depleted reservoirs, melted mountain snow, and forced farmers and cities to recklessly suck up groundwater reserves. Things got so dire that, in 2014, governor Jerry Brown signed a state of emergency curtailing water use for cities and official business. Then came 2016’s El Niño, then 2017’s commute-clogging, weekend-ruining, and infrastructure-crippling onslaught of storms. These two years of successive soaking prompted Brown, barely a week ago, to announce that the state’s drought emergency had ended.
Whether you call them virtual restaurants, app-based establishments or headless concepts, it’s impossible to deny the recent rise of delivery-only food businesses around the country.
Restaurateurs are desperate to stem the profit-letting in their struggling sector (especially in the fast-casual world), and this new round of digital-driven establishments solves a variety of perennial industry problems. Add to this the growth of third-party delivery companies, consumers’ increasing comfort with mobile ordering and the recent explosion of meal-delivery kits like Blue Apron, and conditions seem ripe for this idea to blossom.
But first, what are these front-of-house-free restaurants?
The place the Rams called home for two decades is now suing the football team.
The city of St. Louis, Missouri — where the Rams were based for two decades before jilting it for Los Angeles last year — filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming the team and the NFL failed to use proper protocol when the Rams were relocated.
“In the years leading up to the Rams relocation request, Rams officials decided to move the team and confidentially determined that they would be interested in exploiting any opportunity to do so,” the complaint reads.
