Sign Of A Dual-Track Economy Pt. 32964321 (WMT, TIF)

KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded Now Available for Nintendo DS
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Square Enix, Inc., the publisher of SQUARE ENIX® interactive entertainment products in North America, announced that KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded for the Nintendo DS™ family of hand-held systems has shipped to North American Retailers today. The latest installment to one of the most beloved Video Game series of all time, KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded invites players to embark on all-new adventures through the worlds of Disney. A continuation of Sora's j...

Wal-Mart To Open Retail Location In Brooklyn?
NEW YORK (CBS 2) - Wal-Mart may soon be coming to Brooklyn, but the retailer’s potential move is not popular with some local merchants who fear the competition. “They are a monster that is going to eat us up,” Mark Tanis said. Tanis, who manages the “Shopper’s World” store in East New York, said bringing a Wal-Mart to Brooklyn would put his store out of business. “A jacket I’m selling for $24.99, they could easily come and sell that for $15,&...

Sears expects 4Q, full-year earnings to top Street
Sears Holdings Corp. expects its fourth-quarter and full-year adjusted earnings to top Wall Street's expectations. The results would be welcomed at the struggling retailer, which saw its third-quarter loss nearly double in part because of weak appliance and clothing sales at its namesake stores. Its shares rose $3.40, or 4.8 percent, to $74 in pre-market trading. The Edward Lampert-led company, which runs Sears and Kmart stores, predicted on Tuesday that earnings for the year ending Jan. 29 will...

Holiday surprises help Sears and Tiffany
By Brad Dorfman Chicago (Reuters) - The holiday shopping season still delivered a few surprises on Tuesday, both naughty and nice, showing that the U.S. Economic Recovery is not strong enough to lift all Retailers. Talbots Inc (TLB.N) said its loss... Is Wal-Mart pulling a Circuit City on Best Buy? A shopper walks down Fifth Avenue holding Tiffany & Co shopping bags in New York October 8, 2009. Chicago (Reuters) - The holiday shopping season still delivered a few surprises on Tuesday, bot...

Its Disgusting: Should Maxims Olivia Munn Issue Be Stocked In Titty Mag Section?
Fox 411: Maxim, the bawdy men’s magazine, isn’t exactly known for the modesty of its cover subjects. But at least one observer says that the February issue featuring “Perfect Couples” star Olivia Munn wearing little more than a pair of verrrry transparent lace panties is going a bit too far. “It’s disgusting,” Dan Gainor, Vice President of Business & Culture at the Media Research Center, tells FOX411.“Maxim has moved their magazine from tawdry to full-o

Holiday surprises help Sears and Tiffany
By Brad Dorfman Chicago | Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:51am EST Chicago (Reuters) - The holiday shopping season still delivered a few surprises on Tuesday, both naughty and nice, showing that the U.S. economic recovery is not strong enough to lift all Retailers. Talbots Inc (TLB.N) said its loss in its fiscal Fourth Quarter would be deeper than its previous worst-case forecast, as it had to slash prices in the last two weeks of December into January because women were avoiding its clothes. Sears Holdi...

Wal-Mart Refuses to Attend City Council Hearing
Walmart has rolled out a new website intended to persuade New Yorkers that the notorious mom-and-pop killing chain will be good for the city. The website features testimonials from government officials and ordinary folk like New Jersey's John Bond, who writes, "As a shopper, I say that unions destroy companies. I go to union stores and there is no one to help you. Go to non-union stores and there are workers all over the place. Do you have any idea how many jobs New York City Walmarts would cr...

Oakland County company an innovator in wireless charging
That's right. No cords. Battery management has become a critical concern for consumers as phone technology continues to outpace innovations in battery technology. Phone screens are getting bigger and brighter and Wireless Networks are getting faster, leading us to download more data -- all of which drains our batteries faster and faster. "The battery life is not improving, but the devices can do more and more," said Beth Harrison Meyer, vice president ...

Tomorrow Protest the Ground Zero Mosque at the NYC Council of Despots
Protest THE Ground Zero Mosque TOMORROW NYC COUNCIL HEARINGS BANNING Wal-Mart 49-51 CHAMBERS STREET 12:45PM Tomorrow the NYC Council is meeting to continue its left-fascist government ban on Wal-Mart in NYC, despite the overwhelming poll numbers showing that New Yorkers and Small Business people want it. These elected officials are pushing for the Ground Zero mosque while banning jobs and cheap prices from the oppressed New Yorker, despite the overwhelming poll numbers showing that New Yorke...

McDonnell outlines new scaled-back, retail-only ABC plan
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell will unveil a proposal Wednesday to close 332 state-owned liquor stores and replace them with 1,000 private retail outlets -- a scaled-back version of a plan he's pushed for months to end Virginia's monopoly on the sale of distilled spirits. Under the proposal, the state is expected to reap at least $200 million upfront for the sale of new liquor licenses and $13.1 million more than it now collects each year in profits and taxes at Alcoholic Beverage Control stores, acco...

Why Barnes & Noble Is Thumping Borders
Some corporate battles go on for years, with titans vying for dominance in endurance races where the lead can routinely change hands: Apple v. Microsoft. Dell v. HP. Boeing v. Airbus. [See 20 companies that cratered in 2010.] But other battles are more like a war of attrition, an all-or-nothing fight with the spoils going to the last man standing. That may be the kind of struggle that Borders Group and its main rival, Barnes & Noble, are locked into. The book business, of course, is rapidl...

Holiday retail sales up 4 percent: ShopperTrak
NEW YORK | Mon Jan 10, 2011 12:21pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Retail Sales rose 4 percent during the 2010 Holiday Season, and should rise 2.2 percent in the First Quarter of 2011, research firm ShopperTrak said on Monday. Foot traffic for November and December, the most important part of the year for Retailers, was flat, ShopperTrak said on Monday at the National Retail Federation conference in New York. ShopperTrak expects foot traffic -- customers in stores -- to be up 2.8 percent in th...

Wealthy Treated Themselves During The Holidays
NEW YORK — The rich treated themselves like royalty this Holiday Season. That spun the holidays into gold for Tiffany & Co. and other high-end Retailers. Wealthier shoppers traded up to more expensive gold and diamond jewelry from silver charms at Tiffany. At Saks and Neiman Marcus, designer clothing and handbags were the hot holiday items. The strong reports are a big improvement from six months ago, when wealthy Americans got spooked by a Stock Market slide and cut back spending. It shows ...

When flash mobs go bad
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual act for a brief time and then disperse. Flash mobs are usually organized via Social Media or e-mails. Flash mob folklore says the first successful flash mob occurred in June 2003 in Manhattan and was staged by Bill Wasik, then senior editor of Harper's Magazine. At Wasik's behest, more than 100 people converged upon the ninth-floor rug department of Macy's Department Store, gathering around an expensiv...

Virus kills hordes of crickets raised for reptiles
A virus has killed millions of crickets that are raised to feed pet reptiles and zoo animals, putting some producers out of business and disrupting supplies to pet shops across North America. The cricket paralysis virus killed 60 million of the insects at an operation in Canada, forced a Florida farmer to declare Bankruptcy and prompted a Michigan grower to close until spring. The virus led Elizabeth Payne to declare Bankruptcy in June, and a bank foreclosed on her property in Leesburg, Fla., in...

Nissan Announces Senior Leadership Changes In Americas Region
FRANKLIN, Tenn., Jan. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Nissan Americas today announced senior leadership appointments in Nissan Latin America & the Caribbean and Corporate Communications for Nissan Americas. All changes are effective April 1. Kenneth Ramirez has been named director, Nissan Latin America & the Caribbean and Paula Angelo is appointed director, Corporate Communications, Nissan Americas.   Ramirez, 42, will be responsible for Nissan's sales in Latin America, which cover 37 mark...

Stronger earnings reports push stocks higher
(01-11) 10:17 PST NEW YORK, (AP) -- Strong financial reports from Alcoa and Sears helped push stock prices higher Tuesday. Alcoa Inc. easily beat the forecasts of Wall Street analysts when it reported earnings late Monday. The aluminum maker said it expects demand for its products to jump 12 percent this year, including gains of up to 11 percent in sales to automakers. Two major Retailers raised their earnings forecasts. Sears Holdings Corp. said it expects to earn up to $1.88 per share this y...

Is it lights out for light bulbs?
One congressman's fight to replace incandescents with energy-saving alternatives is meeting with a little unexpected resistance. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) is steamed about government intrusion. "Washington is making too many decisions," he said recently. Rush Limbaugh is fuming too: "These ... SOBs are trying to take over every aspect of our lives," he raged. So is it Health Care that has them riled up? Taxes? Nope. They're p.o.ed about light bulbs. In 2007, Congress passed new bulb stan...

France our biggest ally, declares Obama: President's blow to Special Relationship with Britain...
The President risked offending British Troops in Afghanistan by saying that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a ‘stronger friend’ than David Cameron. The remarks, during a White House appearance with Mr Sarkozy, will reinforce the widely-held view in British diplomatic circles that Mr Obama has less interest in the Special Relationship than any other recent American leader. The comments follow a pattern of coldness towards the UK. When Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, Mr Obama snub...

Chinese vice premier backs UK austerity drive
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang has backed Britain's Austerity drive to tackle its huge Deficit, in another vote of confidence in a European recovery as his three-nation tour neared an end. Li, widely tipped to be the next premier, praised the "ambitious plans" to help Economic Recovery unveiled by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, ahead of the end of his European trip in Britain on Wednesday. "The British Coalition Government, in a continued effort to counter the Financial Crisis, ha...

Obama official encouraged by auto recovery
Ford Chief Technical Officer Paul Mascarenas, center, shows off the automaker's electric car battery to Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Ron Bloom, President Obama's Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011. An Obama Administration official who oversaw the restructuring of the Auto Industry says he's encouraged that U.S. automakers are returning to profitability despite tough economic conditions. Treasury official Ron Blo...

Europe launches new era of economic coordination
Europe on Wednesday opens a crucial chapter in its efforts to end the Deficits and Debts plaguing the euro, with national budgets in the future to come under EU scrutiny before coming into effect. Drawing from the costly lessons of the Eurozone debt crisis, now endangering Portugal and Spain, the European Union agreed on a series of steps in the past several months to reassure nervous markets. Among them is the first ever "European semester," a programme kicking off Wednesday to coordinate econo...

G-Deeps O Billo Song on NyooTV
Originally from Khanna in Punjab, American bred G-Deep will be releasing his maiden album, O Billo this month. His live performances of the songs from the album have received rave responses from audiences all over North America. After a very successful launch in North America, the young and talented musician is currently in India for the promotion of his album. G-Deep will be touring fifteen major cities of the Indian sub continent, starting Ahmedabad in Gujarat, where the rockstar swept the audiences of

GM to pursue pay linked to quality
DETROIT, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. automaker General Motors said it would attempt to tie factory- and office-worker pay to car quality measures. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the company's North American President Mark Reuss said, "I want to make sure we pay people for superior results. Period," The Detroit News reported Tuesday. "When we're not performing, I'm not going to be paid out and neither is anyone else," he said. In a reaction, United Auto Workers President Bob ...

Germany grows record 3.6% in 2010
The German Economy posted record growth of 3.6 percent last year, provisional figures released Wednesday by the national statistics office showed, while the Deficit grew to 3.5 percent. The Economy, Europe's biggest, had contracted by 4.7 percent in 2009 during Germany' worst post-war Recession, before rebounding to post the strongest growth since its reunification in October 1990. "We grew by twice the European Union average," Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle noted in a statement. It added tha...