DealBook: E-Mails Show Alarm at S.&P. as Mortgage Crisis Exploded

10:17 p.m. | Updated The executive at Standard & Poor’s was clear: “This market is a wildly spinning top which is going to end badly.”That sober assessment of certain mortgage-related investments, delivered to colleagues in a confidential memo in December 2006, is now part of a trove of internal e-mails and documents that have come to light in a federal suit against S.& P., the nation’s largest...

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Scientists identify remains as those of King Richard III

LONDON -- More than 500 years after his death in battle, scientists announced Monday that they had definitively identified a...

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Robert De Niro cements place in Hollywood movies

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Double Oscar winner Robert De Niro cemented his place in acting history on Monday by placing his hands and feet in concrete in front of Hollywood‘s historic Chinese Theatre.De Niro, 69, gave a short thank you speech with a few punchlines of his own.“(Actor) Joe Pesci always said I’d end up with my feet in cement. I don’t think this is what he had in mind,” said De Niro, referring...

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.How I feared chemo, afraidIt would change me.It did.Something dissolved inside me.Tears began a slow drip;I cried at the news storyOf a lost boy found in the...

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Frequent Flier: An Unhappy Meal and an Aborted Business Trip - Frequent Flier

I WAS going to go into academics, but then decided to serve the marketing machine by going into public relations. A lot of my travel involves conferences, speaking engagements and, of course, pitching new business and meeting with existing clients. Jason Schlossberg, a partner in the public relations agency Kwittken & Company, in Kyoto, Japan, last year. He still looks forward to...

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Ravens win Super Bowl XLVII over the 49ers, 34-31

Ravens 34, 49ers 31 (final)The Baltimore Ravens have defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.It's the second championship...

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Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family

Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was “very rare” for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.“This is the first time I’ve heard of it happening in our little town,” Beavers told ABCNews.com.The...

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Beyonce brings electricity at Super Bowl halftime

Lights out? Blame Beyonce‘s electrifying performance.If naysayers still doubted Beyonce‘s singing’s talents — even after her national anthem performance this week at a press conference — the singer proved she is an exceptional performer at the Super Bowl halftime show.Beyonce opened and closed the performance belting songs, and in between she danced hard and heavy — and better than most contemporary...

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Phys EdGretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.The researchers...

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Advertising: Super Bowl Commercials Relied on Outdated Ad Tactics

A mother-in-law joke was the focus of a spot for Century 21. The commercials that CBS broadcast nationally during the game were, by and large, disappointing. They represented a missed opportunity for marketers and agencies to demonstrate that they had at least some understanding of how contemporary consumers think and behave. Alas, the so-called creative minds of Madison Avenue chose once...

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