Corporations & Media
Houston Chronicle | Sixty percent of employers recently surveyed by the Society for Human Resources Management said they run credit checks on at least some job applicants, compared with 42 percent in a somewhat similar survey in 2006.
LA Times | As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.
Chevrolet in the News | The recalled power steering motors are not considered a safety concern but may cause steering challenges at speeds under 15 MPH. Still, there have been 1,100 complaints that the cars lost their power steering assist. The complaints included 14 crashes and one injury.
Associated Press | Ever since his 1996 Toyota Camry shot up an interstate ramp, plowing into the back of an Oldsmobile in a horrific crash that killed three people, Koua Fong Lee insisted he had done everything he could to stop the car.
Geek O System | Cryptome, a whistleblower site that regularly leaks sensitive documents from governments and corporations, is in hot water again: this time, for publishing Microsoft’s “Global Criminal Compliance Handbook,” a comprehensive, 22-page guide running down the surveillance services M...
Guardian | The 167-page report by a cross-party select committee is withering about the conduct of the News of the World, with one MP saying its crimes "went to the heart of the British establishment, in which police, military royals and government ministers were hacked on a near industrial scal...
Reuters | Toyota Motor Corp's woes deepened ahead of its testimony to Congress on safety issues, as it revealed it faces a U.S. criminal probe into the handling of its massive recalls, while Japan voiced concern over the economic impact of the automakers' problems.
ABC | Before the words "whole grain" and "organic" became part of Americans' everyday vocabulary, Bob Moore knew the importance of healthful eating. In 1978, he started Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, as a small family-run business in Oregon selling stone mill-ground whole grains.
The Car Connection | In a regulatory filing submitted by GM this past week, the company has confirmed that Whitacre will now remain as CEO with an annual salary of $1.7 million plus more than $7 million worth of stock payable over the next couple of years.
Video | Russia Today looks into the claim by Alex Jones. His latest film “Fall of the Republic, the Presidency of Barack Obama,” criticizes Obama’s administration, but when he went to sell it on google’s shopping site, he was told he couldn’t. Jones says that google wants to dominate ...
The Wrap | Conan O'Brien is about to finalize a plan to hit the road in the next few months, performing a live show in several cities across the country, a person familiar with the plans told TheWrap. His representatives at William Morris Endeavor, which has a unit devoted to live apperanc...
Financial Times | During the important holiday quarter ending on January 31, net sales at Walmart's 3,400 plus US stores fell 0.5 per cent year-on-year to $71bn, while comparable store sales declined 2 per cent. Customer traffic also fell.
New York Times | Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security company of defrauding the government for years by filing bogus receipts, double billing for the same services and charging government agencies for strippers and prostitutes, according to court documen...
MSNBC | If Google wanted to create a quick buzz around its new social networking service, it's certainly accomplished that. Last week, when the Web giant automatically signed up millions of Gmail users for its new Buzz social network, much of the Internet was sent into a privacy tizzy.
Wikipedia | The Coca-Cola company therefore was not able to import the syrup needed to produce Coca-Cola in Germany. As a result, Max Keith, the man in charge of Coca-Cola's operations in Germany during the second World War, decided to create a new product for the German market using only ingred...
National Labor Committee | NFL jerseys have been sewn under illegal sweatshop conditions at the Chi Fung factory in San Salvador for at least the last four years. In 2006 and 2007, it appears that the NFL jerseys being sewn at Chi Fung were a subcontract order from another garment factory ...
Nieman Journalism Lab | On Tuesday, the Icelandic parliament is expected to introduce a measure aimed at making the country an international center for investigative journalism publishing, by passing the strongest combination of source protection, freedom of speech, and libel-tourism preven...
The CEO Game | It’s a three ring circus in Dubai, the debts are stacking up and causing Dubai to sell all kinds of properties all over the world. According to the Londonian newspaper Times, Dubai’s Royal Investment Capital has set to sale a long line of properties which can stretch around ...
The Age | University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt, one of Australia's top communications experts, said that to comply with Conroy's request Google "would have to install a filter along the lines of what they actually have in China".
Time | Turns out that Comcast, the media conglomerate with more than 47.1 million cable, Internet and telephone customers, has more to fret about than integrating a struggling brand (NBC) into its fold. Now the company has to deal with all the jokes about the new name for its core products.
Thresq | As a result, most studios have now imposed informal caps on the percentage of "first dollar gross" collectively payable to talent (excluding parties that put up cash to help finance the film) on a single picture or moved away from gross participation altogether towards a break-even posit...
Brainstorm Tech | Now that we’ve all seen the iPad and debated its design merits, let’s cut to the chase: This thing will rise or fall on content. If Steve Jobs can get a bunch of cool books and apps on the thing, we’ll want one. If not, we won’t.
ListVerse | Casinos are a psychological minefield. Their architectural design, as well as everything in it, has a methodical function devised to keep you, the player, inside spending your money. Some tactics they use are as conspicuous as the nose on your face, while others are guile and subtl...
Yahoo News | When Peter Boddeart's Lexus lurched forward and rear-ended another vehicle in Fauquier County, Va., earning him a police citation, he wrote to federal regulators imploring them to look into his case "before someone ends up seriously injured or killed."
Tech Dirt | NBC Universal management gets more and more ridiculous every time we come across anything they do. While they've left most of the more ridiculous statements to their chief lawyer, Rick Cotton (who is worried about the poor corn farmers harmed by movie file sharing), CEO Jeff Zucker ...
Consumerist | Love him or hate him, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), former employee of NBC, made Comcast's befuddled CEO Brian "Comcatastrophe" Roberts look like a complete tool during yesterday's hearing on the proposed Comcast/NBC mergepocalypse.
Computer World | Privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Security Agency (NSA) asking for details on the agency's purported partnership with Google Inc. on cybersecurity issues.
We Are Change | Last October members of We Are Change Chicago and We Are Change Ohio attended a signing by Byron Pitts of ‘60 Minutes’ who was promoting his new book Step Out On Nothing. He was also at Ground Zero on 9/11/01 where he covered the destruction of all three World Trade Center buildi...
Consumer Product Safety Commission | As part of its commitment to protecting the safety of children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced today that Mattel Inc., of El Segundo, Calif. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Fisher-Price Inc., of East Aurora, N.Y. have agreed to...
Consumerist | A shopper just told us that last night at a Best Buy in NYC, she was taken to a back room, then cuffed by police officers and taken to a precinct for "further investigation," because she tried to pay with an American Express gift card her father had bought for her.
Cnet | "I don't get upset and teed off at things in life, except computers that don't work right," was his segue into the Toyota comments.
Global Research | In late January, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General released a report that provided startling new details on illegal operations by the FBI's Communications Analysis Unit (CAU) and America's grifting telecoms.
China Daily | The Google incident has aroused a war of words between the US and China. Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state criticized China's cyber policies , calling them the "New Berlin Wall" that she accused of contravening international commitments to free expression.
Popular Science | Remember that groundbreaking Apple Super Bowl ad from 1984? The one where the woman throws a hammer at Big Brother, signifying a new era of freedom that would be ushered in with Macintosh? My, how times have changed. Here we are more than 25 years later and the despotic, all-kn...
East Bay Express | After my story "Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0" was published last month, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman promptly launched into damage-control mode — and for good reason
Times Online | A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.
Alternet | Bringing formerly taboo issues to TV, the former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler's show has caught on. Conspiracy theorists probably aren't surprised.
LA Times | Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to blame its widening sudden-acceleration problem on a gas pedal defect came under attack Friday, with the pedal manufacturer flatly denying that its products were at fault.
Wired | The company announced Friday that it has filed the Form S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the proposed public offering. The form says the stock would be issued “as soon as practicable.”
NPR | In terms of monitoring its employees, the list of things a corporation can't do is a short one — it's basically confined to eavesdropping on a personal oral conversation, Maltby said. "Anything else is open season."
Guardian | Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president
Defective by Design | DRM will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, block competing products (especially free software) censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users' computers without notice-- using the device's "always on" network connecti...
True Slant | A new poll finds that Fox is now the most trusted name in news. This is not, shall we say, an intuitive finding. And if you guessed there’s a catch: You’re right. “Most trusted,” in the context of this particular poll means a 49%/37% trust/don’t trust split — meaning Fox beats out CNN a...
Examiner | It has been a common complaint since the launch of the Xbox 360 and the addition of MS Points to Xbox Live - MS Points sold in batches that do not match up to the prices of content on Xbox Live.
Think Progress | In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. After taking a few sips of her drink, she later woke up in the barracks, “naked” and “severely beaten.” In an apparent attempt to cover up the incident...
Prison Planet | Beck and Fox News have hijacked the patriot movement and are leading conservatives and libertarians down a meaningless partisan rabbit hole in a clear attempt to neutralize genuine opposition to the big government agenda of the Obama administration.
The Register | Wikileaks encouraged supporters to continue to donate via direct bank transfer. Sunshine Press, the non-profit organisation behind the website, was aiming to collect enough to cover its $200,000 running costs by January 18. The normal site currently remains offline however.
Chem.info | Talks Wednesday on severance pay packages broke down and several workers angry with the company's offer locked up the director of Akers France, the director of the Fraisses plant and two human resources directors, said Akers spokeswoman Christine Baudelaire.
Engadget | The Detroit News is reporting that Tesla has closed on a $465 million low-cost loans from the Energy Department to work on its next electric vehicle, the Model S sedan.The funds will apparently be used by the company to build manufacturing plants in California.
Organic Consumers | Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modified organisms. Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These pet...