v.20 n.6 – Released February 29, 2016
While most people watching Sunday night’s Oscars knew host Chris Rock would come up with a hilarious, cutting response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy—and weren’t disappointed—no one expected that he would engineer the night’s biggest, and sweetest, brand spotlight for one of the most high-profile Girl Scout cookie sales in history.
An hour and a half into the ceremony, Rock explained that because of his Oscar hosting duties, “I’ve been away from my two daughters at a very important time in their life. I have missed most of Girl Scout cookie season.” After explaining that his younger daughter, Zahra, lamented coming in second during her troop’s cookie sales, he told the audience, “I want you to reach into your millionaire pockets, and I want you to buy some of my daughter’s Girl Scout cookies.”
U.S. banks are now being questioned in the FIFA corruption scandal that has rocked the sports world.
Citigroup (C) said in a recent securities filing that it has been slapped with a subpoena from U.S. officials investigating alleged “bribery, corruption and money laundering” at FIFA.
Anti-money laundering laws require banks to alert authorities about shady transactions like the ones at the heart of the FIFA scandal. Senior FIFA officials used various U.S. banks — including Citi, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) — to transfer and receive $150 million in bribes and kickbacks, authorities alleged last year.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said it would develop drone regulations allowing some unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to fly over people, an authorization eagerly sought by a range of industries including real estate and agriculture.
The U.S. aviation regulatory agency, under pressure from Congress and industry to accommodate commercial drones, said it established a rule-making committee that would recommend a new regulatory framework by April 1.
A jury in the US state of Missouri has ordered Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $72m (£51m) to the family of a woman who claimed her death was linked to use of the company’s Baby Powder talc.
Jackie Fox from Birmingham, Alabama died of ovarian cancer last year, aged 62, having used the talc for decades.
Her family argued that the firm knew of talc risks and failed to warn users.
Viewers might have wondered if PBS was rethinking its commitment to children’s programming after it allowed HBO to snap up Sesame Street last summer. But today the network announced a big play to keep kids watching its shows around the clock.
Later this year, the network will launch a free, 24-hour network for children’s programming called PBS Kids. This will let children watch during prime time and other hours when PBS doesn’t air kid-centric content.
The channel will be available as a digital subchannel on PBS stations nationwide (joining other PBS digital subchannels like Create and World). The network will also stream it online at pbskids.org and via the PBS Kids Video app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, as well as Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Android TV and Xbox One. The livestream will join the on-demand full episodes and clips that are currently available on the app and online.
After exiting the smartphone market dramatically by selling its mobile making division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion back in 2013, Nokia has hinted it is looking to return to the phone business by a different route — taking advantage of a clause in its sale agreement that allows it to use the Nokia brand on handsets again starting from this year.
The company has a history of radical reinventions. But returning to a market where it excelled for so long is something it views as an “opportunity” given the residual brand recognition of Nokia and handsets, CEO Rajeev Suri said today. He was speaking at a Nokia press and analyst briefing in Barcelona this evening, ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show which kicks off tomorrow.
Are you searching high and low for tax deductions? In the run up to April 15, you aren’t the only one. Unfortunately, it is too late to date checks December 31, 2015! Since taxes are annual, you must think about last year, 2015. Still, if your facts are right and you feel adventurous, here are some unusual deductions taxpayers managed to get approved. Admittedly, some had to take the IRS to court to get their deduction approved.
Cosmetic surgery costs are usually non-deductible, but an exotic dancer named Chesty Love tested this rule. If you want bigger tips, you go bigger, she reasoned. So she decided to go way bigger, shelling out for breast implants that would bloat her bra size to 56-FF. When she wrote off the bill, the IRS said it was nondeductible cosmetic surgery. But in Hess v. Commissioner,the Tax Court allowed tax benefits, allowing her to claim the implants as depreciable assets, a type of stage prop.
One of the perks of Silicon Valley work culture is a stocked kitchen. But as convenient as free cereal and peaches may be, they are no substitute for getting paid enough to buy groceries.
At least, that’s how former Yelp employee Talia Jane felt. On Friday, she wrote a blog post on Medium addressed to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman that detailed her low pay and struggle to afford both her rent and groceries in the pricey San Francisco Bay Area. A few hours later, she was fired.
Incumbent companies don’t take kindly to upstarts threatening to change the way an industry works. Whether you’re Uber or Lyft undercutting taxi companies or Airbnb pulling guests away from hotels, someone is going to be upset about having to compete with an idea that seemed to come out of left field.
The situation is no different for private “dark pool” trading venue IEX, which expects to find out March 21 whether the Securities and Exchange Commission will grant it approval to become a public stock exchange. Billing itself as the good guy stock market where high-frequency traders don’t have an unfair advantage, IEX has predictably caught more than a little flak from heavyweight competitors Nasdaq, NYSE and BATS.
Dispatches From The Front 