ESPN apologizes for comments by commentator after NBA player announces he's gay.

Honda recalls almost 46,000 Fits in North America.

Chrysler sees profit tumble on poorly executed product launches.

Alibaba and Sina form alliance of China online businesses.

Apple files for new technology that tells whether to text or call friends.

Asos prepares marketing drive to grow global brand.

BP reviews safety after oil leak in North Sea.

Best Buy sells Europe unit back to Carphone Warehouse.

BlackBerry CEO questions future of tablets (which brand doesn't have).Continue reading...

Samsung appoints co-CEOs.

Wall Street Journal was subject of Justice Department investigation tied to News Corp. hacking scandals.

Nike is propelled by basketball shoes and ties to NFL.

Adidas brings girls together in new worldwide social-media program.

Apple's next iPhone may be unlockable by fingerprint.

Beechcraft is dealt a new setback by Pentagon in Afghan contract.

BuzzFeed plans to launch a business section.

Chrysler plans to launch an all-new version of the Chrysler 200.Continue reading...

The elite Yellow Pages. The Who's Who of the rich and famous. A modern take on ye olde Social Register. Call it what you want, but the NYIndex: The Wall Street Journal's Empirical Guide to Power, Fame and Infamy delves deeper into the pockets of NYC's elite than ever before. 

WSJ introduced its NYIndex as so: “Power is the most coveted and volatile currency in New York—and, often, the most misunderstood. It's a city where almost anything can be purchased at any hour, but not power.”  

Attaching “stock” and “value” to people is nothing new. Forbes has been doing it for years, beginning with its old school Social Register, which the New York Times described in 1997 as the, “slightly oblong black book with the orange lettering, which lists addresses, phone numbers, club memberships and yacht names of its approximately 30,000 families. It has been helping blue bloods keep in touch for more than 100 years.”Continue reading...

Disney sees higher TV ad revenues drive quarter and considers ESPN exit from U.K. sports coverage.

Dell seeks to transform brand, going private in $24 billion buyout under founder Michael Dell, as Microsoft gambles on involvement.

U.S. Postal Service plans to cut Saturday mail as Hallmark fights the cuts.

Apple loses right to iPhone brand in Brazil.

Arby's launches "fan of the week" promo via Facebook.

Lance Armstrong reportedly under investigation for obstruction and other serious crimes.

BP is hit by new $34 billion claim from U.S. state governments over Gulf spill.Continue reading...

The one percent is alive, well and being targeted by The Wall Street Journal with a new magazine insert: WSJ Money, a spin-off of WSJ Magazine, which calls itself "the world's largest luxury magazine."

"It's for people who are voyeuristically interested in the high end, and are at the high end," Mike Miller, a Journal senior deputy managing editor overseeing the magazine, told Adweek. 

Scheduled to debut March 9 and publish quarterly, the glossy will focus on personal finance and be distributed in the Journal's weekend edition in the U.S., which has a current circulation of 2.3 million. The edit/ad plan is to publish 50 pages per issue: 30 for editorial and 20 for ads.

The announcement follows the recent launches of Bloomberg Pursuits and Dujour, which joined Departures and ForbesLife in the category.Continue reading...

Passengers stuck inside the plane trapped in the melting tarmac at Washington’s National Airport last July or who happened to be nearby the gent who stripped naked at the Portland International Airport last April to protest the TSA screening process, you might not think that air travel has gotten better recently. 

But the Wall Street Journal’s annual Middle Seat airline scorecard wrapping up airlines' 2012 performance is now out and it showed some improvements industrywide. The percentage of planes pulling in within 15 minutes of when they were supposed to went up to 79 from 76 the year before. Flights cancelled went down to 1.4% from 2.1% in 2011. Fewer bags were lost. Of course, it helped that fewer planes were flying last year, which eased congestion at the gate.

One airline in particular was likely doing the most celebrating: Delta. It had been the worst-ranked airline in 2010 but took a few measures in the past two years to get back to the top. “Careful study of when and where cancellations are most likely, and adjusting spare aircraft availability to keep flights moving if there is a breakdown helped, as did a rebuilt baggage system at its Atlanta hub to reduce lost luggage,” the Journal reports.Continue reading...

Apple joins Google in $500M+ bid for Kodak patents; smacked by USPTO as 'Steve Jobs Patent' for iPhones and iPads deemed invalid and Siri secrets revealed.

Diageo seen as unlikely to bid for Beam following UK report that drinks giant talked to Suntory about joint bid.

Barnes & Noble cuts Nook price from $99 to $79.

Michael Bloomberg weighs making bid for The Financial Times, which includes the paper and a half-interest in The Economist. 

Caribou Coffee celebrates 20th anniversary.

Carlos Slim brings Telcel brand to U.S. for Mexico calls.

CVS Caremark reportedly aims to acquire drug-store chain in Brazil.

Chili's begins soft rollout of new menu items.

Darden Restaurants looks to retool value proposition for its Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants.Continue reading...

After a tumultuous year for News Corporation which has seen the company rocked by an ethics scandal, Rupert Murdoch has named longtime lieutenant Robert Thomson head of global publishing as his company prepares to separate its entertainment and news/book publishing assets into Fox Group and News Corporation, respectively.

As part of the move, News Corp. is folding its digital magazine app that was its Greg Clayman-headed iPadazine, The Daily, which will cease publishing on Dec. 15. While it will no longer exist as an iPad app, The Daily brand will survive as a news channel on properties such as NYPost.com. Now Clayman will oversee digital for News Corp. as part of the executive shuffle involved with separating the company.

First announced on June 28th, the pending company split will group News International's UK titles, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, the Australian and other News Ltd papers and its HarperCollins book publishing entity under the News Corporation umbrella, while the entertainment properties will fall under the Fox Group. Thomson will run News Corporation while Chase Carey will serve as President and COO of Fox Group with James Murdoch as Deputy COO.

“This is an incredibly exciting time, for me personally, and for our companies’ ambitious futures,” stated Murdoch. “The challenges we face in the publishing and media industries are great, but the opportunities are greater.”Continue reading...