When flash mobs go bad

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 ...

Wealthy treated themselves during the holidays
NEW YORK (AP) — 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....

Union Square retail scene makes a comeback
Union Square enjoyed a banner year for new retail leases in 2010, following a period when San Francisco's chichi shopping district was pockmarked by numerous vacant storefronts amid trophy brands like Hermes, Gucci, Tiffany and Chanel. About a dozen Retailers signed leases in 2010, including several in the final days of December, and about 10 stores opened their doors during the year. It's a far cry from 2009, when only a handful of new leases were signed in the area, brokers said. In 2010, U...

What Went Wrong at Borders
Let me start with an unequivocal declaration: I hope Borders finds the means to avoid Bankruptcy, or worse, liquidation. The immediate consequence of a Borders default on what it owes publishers would be a cash short-fall of millions of dollars. Even the most profitable publishers have limited leeway to deal with months of unpaid bills. The irony is that the surge in E-book sales across many platforms, the popularity of reading devices and tablets, some effective re-tooling at Barnes & Noble...

Rachel Zoe Debuts Fashion Line, Talks About Pregnancy (PHOTO)
WWD's new Style section caught up with Rachel Zoe, the "Mother of Invention," an apt title since the celebrity stylist-slash-designer will soon be a mom: Beneath her white tuxedo jacket and black shift dress is her seven-month bump -- which on someone else could pass for a big lunch. If the physical evidence is hard to find, Zoe isn't shy about her impending Motherhood. She initiates the conversation during a phone interview last week, though she stops short of divulging if it's a boy or a gi...

Shoppers to spend more, stay thrifty: Deloitte
By Phil Wahba NEW YORK | Sun Jan 9, 2011 4:15pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shoppers will continue to spend more this year, spurred by a slowly improving Job Market and an uptick in income, but enough shoppers are still struggling with their finances that any increase will be modest, a retail industry expert said. Consumers returned to stores en masse in 2010 and gave Retailers their best Holiday Season since before the Recession. But December sales at top Retailers such as Macy's Inc and Kohl's...

Sign Of A Dual-Track Economy Pt. 32964321 (WMT, TIF)
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Check out Tiffany's earnings from this morning. The high-end jewelry company basically knocked the lights out all around the world: Japan, Europe, North America, etc. It had a particularly strong Holiday Season It's also hiking its estimates for the full year. Of course this comes after several Retailers reported fairly mediocre earnings, and as our Chart Of The Day noted yesterday shares of companies like Wal-Mart have been monster losers on ...

Shoppers to spend more, stay thrifty: Deloitte
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shoppers will continue to spend more this year, spurred by a slowly improving Job Market and an uptick in income, but enough shoppers are still struggling with their finances that any increase will be modest, a retail industry expert said. Consumers returned to stores en masse in 2010 and gave Retailers their best Holiday Season since before the Recession. But December sales at top Retailers such as Macy's Inc and Kohl's Corp disappointed Wall Street as shoppers proved to b...

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...

Shoppers to spend more, stay thrifty: Deloitte
By Phil Wahba NEW YORK | Sun Jan 9, 2011 4:15pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shoppers will continue to spend more this year, spurred by a slowly improving Job Market and an uptick in income, but enough shoppers are still struggling with their finances that any increase will be modest, a retail industry expert said. Consumers returned to stores en masse in 2010 and gave Retailers their best Holiday Season since before the Recession. But December sales at top Retailers such as Macy's Inc and Kohl's...

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...

Overstock.com #4 in Customer Service, as Ranked by the National Retail Federation and American Express
SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) today announced that the company has earned the #4 spot in Customer Service rankings among all U.S. Retailers, according to rankings published in the 2011 NRF Foundation/American Express Customer Service Survey.  Source: NRF Foundation. "We're very happy that Overstock.com has been recognized for it's fantastic customer service," said Katherine Mance, Executive Director, NRF Foundation. "Today's consumers have...

Connecting the Crazy Dots: Assange, Recruiting Kids, The Tucson Massacre and General American Bloodthirstiness
No charges were filed. When Julian Assange's Wikileaks, in conjunction with several large media organizations including the New York Times, the UK Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, released leaked cables that showed both the pettiness and the Bullying of the US State Department, there were immediate howls from members of Congress and from the right-wing Talk Radio and TV crowd for his summary execution. The more sedate called for his arrest, trial and execution. Now his lawyer in ...

Jealous Liberal Radio Hosts Join Chris Matthews in Blaming Conservative Talk Radio for Giffords Shooting
Chris Matthews, joined by two liberal Talk Radio hosts on Tuesday's Hardball, essentially blamed the likes of conservative hosts like Mark Levin for creating the climate of hate that led to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords as the envious MSNBC host proclaimed: "People like Mark Levin, Michael Savage...every time you listen to them are furious, furious at the left with anger that's just builds and builds in their voice and by the time they go to commercial, they're just in some...

Rush Limbaugh: Jarred Loughren Has The Support Of The Democrat Party
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik continued his attacks on Conservatives by suggesting that he has “no doubt” that “Talk Radio had to do” with the Tucson shooting. Dupnik couldn’t be more wrong, and I suspect his comments are motivated more by a desire to silence political opponents than anything else, but even so Rush Limbaugh isn’t helping his own cause much with comments like these: “What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major...

Bucks-Hawks postponed; North braces for storm
With much of Atlanta snowed in two days after a harsh winter storm slammed the South, the Hawks postponed their game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night. In preparation for a similar pounding in the Northeast, several sporting events scheduled for Wednesday have been scratched. The New Jersey Institute of Technology has put off their men's and women's Basketball games against Texas-Pan American because a grim forecast is calling for up to 15 inches of snow with ice and whipping winds. T...

The Arizona Republic Chastises Sheriff Dupnik For His Partisan, Vitriolic, Comments
It appears that The Arizona Republic is appropriately embarrassed by Tucson's liberal, highly partisan Democratic sheriff, Clarence Dupnik: ... Dupnik used the opportunities to blame Arizona's lax, new Gun Laws and, again, the angry "Rhetoric" of Talk Radio. The shootings were spurred, he suggested, by "the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates." Dupnik took up his cause again on Monday. And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enoug...

Earliest Known Winery Found in Armenian Cave
Like this Story? Share it: Archaeologists uncovered a wine press dating back 6,000 years in a cave in southern Armenia. (AP/Gregory Areshian, Natl. Geo.) (CBS/AP) The earliest known winery has been uncovered in a cave in the mountains of Armenia. A vat to press the grapes, fermentation jars, and even a cup and drinking bowl dating to about 6,000 years ago were discovered in the cave complex by an international team of researchers. While older evidence of wine drinking has been found, this is ...

McDonnell wants to privatize ABC retail operation
Gov. Bob McDonnell is pursuing a new liquor privatization plan that he hopes will be easier to swallow. McDonnell proposes that the state retain control of the wholesale operation and privatize the retail portion to reap a $200 million to $400 million Windfall for transportation, under a plan to be crafted into Legislation for the General Assembly session that starts Wednesday. Annual revenue to the state's general fund from liquor sales - budgeted at $324 million in the Fiscal Year that b...

New Department Store Oedipus
...

Union Square retail scene makes a comeback
Union Square enjoyed a banner year for new retail leases in 2010, following a period when San Francisco's chichi shopping district was pockmarked by numerous vacant storefronts amid trophy brands like Hermes, Gucci, Tiffany and Chanel. About a dozen Retailers signed leases in 2010, including several in the final days of December, and about 10 stores opened their doors during the year. It's a far cry from 2009, when only a handful of new leases were signed in the area, brokers said. In 2010, U...

Retired Navy man collects scores of tiny timepieces
NORFOLK Time figures large in Roland Campbell's life. He spent 30 years in the Navy in some interesting places. He's been retired about as long. He lives in a house with an address that he gives as if it were a clock - on such and such street at "half past noon." So, it's a small surprise that time is a tiny thing to him, too. Little enough to fit in the palm of his hand. "This was the first one," Campbell said, reaching into a corner curio in his living room and taking out a...

Flexible Scheduling Makes Dollars and Sense
Flexible Scheduling Makes Dollars and Sense Tuesday, 01/11/2011 - 11:34 am by Joan Williams | Post a Comment Offering scheduling that fits employees’ needs will help companies be more competitive. Sunday’s New York Times reported that Accounting firms lead Corporate America in offering workplace flexibility. Employees can reduce their hours, take the summer off, take off a few years and then return to their prior jobs… whatever they need. And the firms are committed to ensur...

Gunman's Grammar Conspiracy Connection
(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - A nation is trying to understand the shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz. that left 14 wounded, including a congresswoman in critical condition, and six others dead, including a Federal Judge, a congressional aide and a 9-year-old girl. As investigators look into the life of alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner they are noticing his strange obsession with grammar and its ties to a Milwaukee man's Conspiracy Theory website. In early coverage of Saturday's shooting of Rep. Gabri...

Woman killed in illegal alien DUI crash laid to rest in Milwaukee
On Friday, Corrie Damske was laid to rest at Mount Olivet Cemetery following a Funeral Mass at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church. She was killed on New Year’s Day when an Illegal Alien driving in the wrong direction on I-94 allegedly crashed into her vehicle, Damske died at the scene. Another woman, Susan Roedel, was also hit as she drove home from work. She was in the car next to Damske’s, and was injured but is expected to make a full recovery. The driver, Leopoldo Salas-Gayton,...