REI will be sacrificing one of its top business days when it closes its 143 retail stores on Black Friday to encourage customers to spend time outside.
CEO Jerry Stritzke told HuffPost Live on Wednesday that the decision to close up shop for the day wasn't "made lightly," and admits that "it's a bit of a startling idea from a retail perspective."
"[We] certainly had to think hard about it. This is new news. I haven't spoken to very many of my contemporaries about the issue, but I'm excited by the idea," Stritzke said. "I think it's intriguing that we can create this conversation [about] something so central to our brand and kind of who we are."
This is the first time REI will close on Black Friday, even though the day after Thanksgiving has historically been a "top 10 business day" for the company, according to Stritzke. However, the company's decision exemplifies some retailers' recent opposition to keeping stores open on what is traditionally a family holiday, and the day after.
Online shoppers will still be able to purchase items from REI on Black Friday, though they'll initially be directed to a blackout screen imploring them to explore the outdoors. Online sales aren't the initiative's priority, however.
"It's easier to leave [the website] on than turning it off," Stritzke explained.
Watch Jerry Stritzke's conversation with HuffPost Live in the clip above.
Want more HuffPost Live? Stream us anytime on Go90, Verizon's mobile social entertainment network, and listen to our best interviews on iTunes.
Not every company can afford to offer Netflix-level year-long maternity leaves. In fact, even Netflix doesn't offer that benefit to all of its workers. Still, there are creative ways to give perks to new moms.
Domo, a 5-year-old startup based in Utah with a workforce of 600 employees, came up with something pretty innovative.
Every pregnant woman at the company gets $2,000 in gift cards to buy maternity clothes, according to an article by Claire Zillman in Fortune.
If you've ever had to go to work in an office while pregnant, you will instantly understand why this is awesome.
For those of you who haven't, here's the deal: No one really wants to spend/waste money on maternity clothes -- you only need them for a very limited amount of time and they are expensive. Most of us just sort of muddle through, buying a few things, borrowing a lot of things and making do with stuff in our closet that is stretchy or big.
That's fine when you're home on the weekends, but it's a big bummer at the office, where you want to maintain a professional appearance and often wind up donning some pretty weird garments. Like, oh I don't know, a maternity shirt your cousin wore in the 1990s with a bow at the collar that seems like an OK idea in the morning but makes you feel like a sad, old Christmas present. (That may be something I know about firsthand.)
Domo's chief executive came up with the idea for the perk after his assistant became pregnant, Zillman told Fortune.
The company, which helps other businesses manage their data, doesn't offer Cadillac-level maternity leave. You get one month at full pay and then six weeks at partial pay. Five or six people have used the clothing benefit so far, Fortune reports.
Would more paid leave probably be preferable to a new wardrobe? Yes, sure. Still, the gift cards are a nice idea and certainly signal to employees that they're valued at a time that can feel very uncertain to a lot of women. And small signals like that add up, making employees more loyal to companies, which are then less likely to have to train new workers because their current ones stick around. It's a win-win -- and nobody has to dress like a Christmas present.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — J. Crew has agreed to end on-call scheduling at stores nationwide, following similar moves by several other major retailers, New York's attorney general said Friday.
In April, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office wrote to 13 retailers questioning the practice of keeping workers on call for shifts on short notice. The letter also cited possible violations of New York's requirement to pay hourly staff for at least four hours when they report for work.
"Workers deserve protections that allow them to have a reliable schedule in order to arrange for transportation to work, to accommodate child care needs and to budget their family finances," Schneiderman said Friday. The company has agreed to provide one week of advance notice about schedules at all its New York stores, he said.
Senior Vice President Maria Di Lorenzo said J. Crew ended on-call shifts nationally this month. The on-call shifts had helped the company deal with unexpected staff absences and schedule changes for product deliveries, she said. The retailer began discussing possible changes 10 months ago, has disabled the on-call feature from its scheduling software and now will fill needed slots on a voluntary basis, which may present some challengers for managers, she wrote in a letter to the New York attorney general.
"Further, J. Crew has strict anti-retaliation policies," Di Lorenzo wrote. "Consistent with those policies, J. Crew will not retaliate against associates who do not volunteer to cover these shifts."
That follows announced agreements confirmed by Bath & Body Works and affiliate Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap Inc. Williams Sonoma said it's also ending the practice.
Urban Outfitters has agreed to end on-call shifts at its New York stores, according to the attorney general.
MORE ON HUFFPOST:
Retailers Closing The Most Stores of
Share Tweet ✖ Advertisement Share this ✖ close Current Slide
A business degree, even from one from a top school in the country, won't be enough to protect women from the gender gap in compensation.
A report Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday found that the difference in pay for men and women swells as time goes by. Both groups leave their MBA programs earning about the same -- men's $105,000 to women's $98,000 -- but the split becomes more exacerbated years later. By the time they're six to eight years out of school, median compensation for men is $175,000, and $140,000 for women. For the latter, that rounds out to about 80 percent of men's paychecks, proving unfortunately that the roughly 78 cents women make to a man's dollar still holds up.
The study counters arguments that the pay gap between men and women results from a discrepancy in education and skills, Businessweek reporter Natalie Kitroeff told HuffPost Live on Wednesday. "We're looking at them coming out of the same schools, in the same years," Kitroeff said. "It was surprising to find that there was such a persistent gap, and we found this across every single industry."
Men gain the most ground in year-end bonuses. When those are excluded, the pay gap shrinks. Women who graduated Columbia's business school between 2007 and 2009, for example, earned a median of $170,000 in 2014, while men raked in $270,000. The difference in base salaries, though, was just $30,000.
The study's findings also reject the notion that the gap stems from women choosing to go into fields that pay less. Generally, men do enter the more lucrative industries, including consulting, real estate and finance, at higher rates -- 43 percent of men versus 32 percent of women -- but "even when women went into the highest-paying industries, they were paid less," Kitroeff said.
And let's not forget that the gender pay gap starts way before higher degrees. At the most elite colleges in the U.S., male alumni far outearn their female classmates, with Harvard men earning an average of $53,600 more than women 10 years after they start their undergraduate studies.
A business degree, even from one from a top school in the country, won't be enough to protect women from the gender gap in compensation.
A report Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday found that the difference in pay for men and women swells as time goes by. Both groups leave their MBA programs earning about the same -- men's $105,000 to women's $98,000 -- but the split becomes more exacerbated years later. By the time they're six to eight years out of school, median compensation for men is $175,000, and $140,000 for women. For the latter, that rounds out to about 80 percent of men's paychecks, proving unfortunately that the roughly 78 cents women make to a man's dollar still holds up.
The study counters arguments that the pay gap between men and women results from a discrepancy in education and skills, Businessweek reporter Natalie Kitroeff told HuffPost Live on Wednesday. "We're looking at them coming out of the same schools, in the same years," Kitroeff said. "It was surprising to find that there was such a persistent gap, and we found this across every single industry."
Men gain the most ground in year-end bonuses. When those are excluded, the pay gap shrinks. Women who graduated Columbia's business school between 2007 and 2009, for example, earned a median of $170,000 in 2014, while men raked in $270,000. The difference in base salaries, though, was just $30,000.
The study's findings also reject the notion that the gap stems from women choosing to go into fields that pay less. Generally, men do enter the more lucrative industries, including consulting, real estate and finance, at higher rates -- 43 percent of men versus 32 percent of women -- but "even when women went into the highest-paying industries, they were paid less," Kitroeff said.
And let's not forget that the gender pay gap starts way before higher degrees. At the most elite colleges in the U.S., male alumni far outearn their female classmates, with Harvard men earning an average of $53,600 more than women 10 years after they start their undergraduate studies.
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple announced Wednesday it will build 200 megawatts of solar energy projects in China and work with local suppliers to source more renewable energy, its latest moves to green its Chinese supply chain amid criticism that its local partners are heavy polluters.
In addition to bringing on an additional 200 MW in northern, eastern and southern China, the tech giant said it will launch an initiative to "drive its manufacturing partners to become more energy efficient and to use clean energy for their manufacturing operations."
Apple said the 200 megawatts projects will produce the equivalent of the energy used by more by than 265,000 Chinese homes in a year.
As part of Wednesday's announcement, major Apple supplier Foxconn said it will build 400 MW of solar energy projects by 2018, starting in Henan province.
“These projects go beyond Apple’s operations in China to help our suppliers adopt clean renewable energy,” Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, said in a statement.
The announcement comes months after Apple said it would build its first major solar energy project in China, two 20 MW solar farms in Sichuan province, with solar developer SunPower.
The company now says its China operations are "carbon neutral" because the solar installations produce more energy than is used at its offices and retail stores throughout the country.
Four years ago, Chinese environmental groups accused Apple of turning a blind eye as its suppliers polluted the country by emitting toxic gases and discharging heavy metal sludge, among other practices.
In the United States, Apple was criticized by environmental group Greenpeace in 2012 for relying too heavily on fossil-fuel-based energy to power its energy-hungry data centers.
On Wednesday, Greenpeace said the company had taken a "major step forward" in greening its supply chain.
"We hope that Samsung, Microsoft and other IT companies will follow their lead in manufacturing their cutting-edge devices with a 21st century energy supply," said Gary Cook, IT policy analyst at Greenpeace.
The programs will avoid over 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in China between now and 2020, according to Apple.
Apple has also taken steps to operate more cleanly in its home state of California. In February, the iPhone maker said it would buy about $850 million of power from a new California solar farm to cut its energy bill and supply electricity for its new campus in Silicon Valley as well as other offices and stores.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; and Julia Love; Editing by Leslie Adler)
A former Massachusetts Uber driver has been sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison after raping a female passenger, adding to a growing list of Uber drivers accused of sexual assault.
Boston native Alejandro Done, 47, who pled guilty, was sentenced last Friday on charges including kidnapping, assault and battery, and aggravated rape, according to USA Today.
On Dec. 6, 2014, Done picked up a woman heading to her home in Cambridge. Done told the woman that she would have to pay him in cash. The two went to an ATM to withdraw money, then Done drove her to a secluded location, reported the Star Tribune.
Done kept the victim trapped in the car as he strangled and sexually assaulted her.
The felon has previously been charged with five other unsolved sexual assaults that happened in the Boston area between 2006 and 2010. That case is still pending. Uber told USA Today that Done had passed a background check, and had no prior criminal record.
"The defendant preyed upon a young woman who trusted that he was who he portrayed himself to be," District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. "I encourage the public to take precautions when using any ride-sharing service."
In another recent case, in South Carolina, a sixth-grade teacher, who was moonlighting as an Uber driver was arrested on charges of kidnapping and forcible rape. Patrick Aiello, 39, allegedly assaulted a 23-year-old woman in August. The woman managed to escape from the car and was struck by another one in the process.
A former Uber driver in India, Shiv Kumar Yadav, was convicted of raping a female passenger Tuesday.
Many states in the U.S. are demanding that Uber ensure its background checks are more thorough. Last year, prosecutors in California filed a complaint against the ride-hailing service for failing to adequately vet drivers, some of whom have been convicted sex offenders, kidnappers and murderers.
Last April, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker proposed a bill giving his state oversight in background checks. Uber has backed the legislation proposal, and hosts a petition on its website in favor of the governor's plan, which has more than 30,000 signatures.
Uber faces a litany of other problems. Last weekend, drivers called for a strike and demanded better pay and higher fares. The service has been suspended in Spain for creating unfair competition and it is banned in Italy for not adhering to licensing rules. French taxi drivers, who were upset by having to compete with Uber, took to the streets last summer, smashing cars and setting tires on fire.
A year ago, IHOP got the Internet’s attention when it sent out a tweet with a "hip new voice."
Pancakes on fleek.
— IHOP (@IHOP) October 21, 2014
“Who knew IHOP was so hip? The pancake chain has found its voice on Twitter, and it sounds an awful lot like a teenage hip-hop fan,” quipped Adweek at the time.
Since then, the breakfast haven has been using the social media platform as a way to engage younger customers, frequently sending out cheeky and slang-filled tweets.
Pancakes, you look good, won't you back that stack up.
— IHOP (@IHOP) October 7, 2014
Is it worth it, let me work it. I put my fork down, flip it and reverse it. pic.twitter.com/5IoqsqoqUA
— IHOP (@IHOP) October 8, 2014
DEEZ are NUTS pic.twitter.com/eqfq1gFm01
— IHOP (@IHOP) October 9, 2015
The strategy has been working in the company’s favor, with some of their posts garnering thousands of retweets. This week, however, IHOP was skewered for going a step too far.
On Sunday, the restaurant chain posted a photograph of a stack of pancakes with the caption: “Flat but has a GREAT personality.”
The backlash to the post was swift, with several IHOP customers expressing outrage at what they said was too racy a tweet.
"Can't teach my Girl Scouts that casual misogyny is okay," wrote Twitter user Laura Perkins Cox.
Another user named Seamus Bellamy criticized the pancake house for "snark" and "sexism."
Someone on the @IHOP social media team don' gonna get fired, yo. pic.twitter.com/ddT2z7nJGX
— Andrew Husband (@AndrewHusband) October 18, 2015
@IHOP my son follow this account, this is ridiculous
— mike (@FARTDAUGHTER) October 18, 2015
Uh @IHOP I really must advise against. pic.twitter.com/wFKzP1YDSR
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) October 18, 2015
There were other netizens who responded with humor -- and utter bafflement.
Something is going on with IHOP on Twitter and I hope I never find out what it is
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 18, 2015
@IHOP my seven beautiful sons saw this tweet and asked me what it means. what do I tell them? they are all in their thirties
— Hot Food Ma (@crushingbort) October 18, 2015
.@IHOP I like my breakfast fertile, submissive to man's God-given authority, lush, and available 24 hours per day. Please advise.
— Old Hoss Radbourn (@OldHossRadbourn) October 18, 2015
What th-- ?!? https://t.co/VCdcbEqymi
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 18, 2015
This is a...weird brand tweet https://t.co/RS9zXw1MUr
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) October 18, 2015
The company has since taken down the post and issued an apology.
Earlier today we tweeted something dumb and immature that does not reflect what IHOP stands for. We're sorry.
— IHOP (@IHOP) October 19, 2015
IHOP isn’t the only fast food company that has been using social media as a means to reach a younger customer base. Several other big chains, including Taco Bell and Burger King, have employed similar strategies.
Over the past few decades, American companies have turned away from pensions and toward 401(k) accounts to help their workers save for retirement. That's been a terrible deal, according to a new analysis released Thursday.
Senior citizens on average drew less than $1,000 from their 401(k)s and similar accounts last year, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found when it looked at Census data. By comparison, seniors on average received $6,000 from traditional pensions.
The terrifying reminder that many people are headed for their golden years with hardly enough money to afford cat food for dinner comes at a time when politicians -- well, mostly Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) -- are talking about Social Security expansion again.
The amount seniors draw from their 401(k) accounts could edge up a little in the coming years, as the 401(k) generation heads into retirement. These plans started becoming popular in the 1980s.
Still, there's little evidence that 401(k)s will be as significant a source of income for retirees as pensions were back in the day, said Monique Morrisey, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who did the analysis.
"There's very little money in these things [401(k)s]," she told HuffPost. "Yes, they're gonna increase, but not enough."
The picture is bleakest for the bottom 60 percent of earners, as you can see.
Social Security is the primary source of retirement income for middle- and lower-income Americans.
"My view is that when you have millions of seniors in this country trying to get by -- and I don't know how they do on $11,000, $12,000, $13,000 a year -- you don't cut Social Security, you expand it," Sanders said during Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate.
Sanders is looking for an across-the-board increase in Social Security benefits. His chief rival, Hillary Clinton, declined to say during the debate if she supports a similar expansion, focusing her comments on improving the situation for women and children.
"Bernie Sanders is onto something," Morrisey said.
Progressive hero Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has also been pressing for an expansion, joined by other Democratic senators.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is talking about scaling back benefits as part of his party's ongoing effort to cut government spending.
You've probably heard that keeping your rear planted in your desk chair for hours on end may be as much of a health hazard today as smoking was for previous generations.
Prolonged sitting has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer and even premature death. But at least we have standing desks to combat the problem, right? Maybe not.
According to a new study, published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology on Oct. 9, standing at your desk may be no better than sitting, and that's because it's the being still that has the negative impact on your health. (Maybe it's time to replace your standing desk with a treadmill desk.)
For the study, the researchers monitored the behavior and health of 3,720 men and 1,412 women over the course of 16 years. Beginning in 1985, the London-based volunteers recorded how many hours a week they spent sitting.
At the end of the 16-year period, the researchers tallied the hours and then checked the National Health Service Central Registry and determined that 450 of the participants had died. But the researchers found no correlation between time spent sitting and mortality.
The findings challenge previous research showing that sitting for long periods can shorten your lifespan even if you exercise often.
"Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing. The results cast doubt on the benefits of sit-stand work stations," Dr. Melvyn Hillsdon, associate professor of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter in England and a co-author of the study, said in a written statement.
The researchers concluded that sitting itself won't kill you. Rather, a sedentary lifestyle in general may be what's harmful to your health.
"Research is not black and white, and if a single study finds X or Y that doesn’t mean that this is the truth we should all go along with," Dr. Emmanuel Stamatakis, associate professor at the University of Sydney in Australia and a co-author of the study, said in an email. "The recent study findings are in disagreement with the rest of the literature and there must be a reason for this."
The suit not only sheds light on the ethics and optics of bottling water during a historic drought. It also raises questions about the very idea of large corporations profiting off of what is widely considered a shared public resource.
The litigation comes at a time of enormous growth in the bottled water industry. Americans bought a record 10 billion gallons of bottled water in 2014, spending nearly $26 billion, according to data from the Beverage Marketing Corporation, a research and consulting firm.
The company is now working with the Forest Service on getting its permit reviewed and renewed, a process that could take up to 18 months. That review only began after critics and the Desert Sun started asking about the expired permit, according to the Sun.
Brown went even further in an interview with a California public radio station: "If I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy a different brand of bottled water. We see this everyday," he said. "In fact, if I could increase [bottling], I would.”
Environmental groups say regardless of how much water the company is using, it’s simply not OK to extract and profit from local waters during a drought. “This doesn’t make sense,” Kurtz told HuffPost.
Other companies have decided to avoid the negative public relations hit that bottling water during a drought brings.
Starbucks agreed to stop sourcing its bottled water brand Ethos in California earlier this year, noting the “serious drought conditions and water conservation efforts in California,” in a press release.
Environmental groups say regardless of how much water the company is using, it’s simply not OK to extract and profit from local waters during a drought.
Yet, no one has studied the environmental impacts of the operation. Former forest service employees and activists said that such research was imperative.
"They're taking way too much water. That water's hugely important,” Steve Loe, a biologist who retired from the Forest Service in 2007, told the Desert Sun. "Without water, you don't have wildlife, you don't have vegetation."
Princeton professor Angus Deaton won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for his work on consumption, income and poverty.
Much of his work focuses on how to measure poverty around the world. The question of who is poor, he says, is very easy to determine at a community level. It's doable at a national level. But when you try to determine just who is poor worldwide, it's nearly impossible. Figuring out what poverty is globally is a big part of Deaton's work.
He has asked whether poverty should just be measured in terms of the question, "Do you have enough to eat?" or whether there are other factors that should play into the definition -- and whether those factors are different across different societies.
Deaton wrote a very good (non-technical) essay about the difficulties of measuring poverty back in 2003. In it, he writes of all the different factors that have nothing to do with having enough food that go into determining if someone is poor around the world:
Even if you have enough goods, they are worth little if you are not healthy enough to enjoy them. Children who live in an unsanitary environment will obtain little nutritional benefit from the food that they eat if they continually suffer from diarrhea. More broadly, girls who are denied the opportunity to go to school experience yet another type of poverty, the poverty of not being able to read and to participate in activities that are only open to the literate. People are also poor in another sense if they lack the resources to participate fully in the society in which they live, who in Adam Smith’s term “are afraid to appear in public,” even if their incomes would be sufficient in some other society.
Deaton's 2013 book The Great Escape looks at the interaction between health and wealth over the last 250 years, and how the two in combination have contributed to the amount of inequality that we see today. Here's a small excerpt (taken from a longer excerpt posted by Cardiff Garcia), in which Deaton argues that income inequality has a huge effect on democratic outcomes, and is therefore a big problem:
The very wealthy have little need for state-provided education or health care; they have every reason to support cuts in Medicare and to fight any increase in taxes. They have even less reason to support health insurance for everyone, or to worry about the low quality of public schools that plagues much of the country. They will oppose any regulation of banks that restricts profits, even if it helps those who cannot cover their mortgages or protects the public against predatory lending, deceptive advertising, or even a repetition of the financial crash.
To worry about these consequences of extreme inequality has nothing to do with being envious of the rich and everything to do with the fear that rapidly growing top incomes are a threat to the wellbeing of everyone else.
In this video, Deaton himself gives an overview of his work on the origins of inequality.
For more on Deaton and his work, see Monday's posts from Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen.
Singapore said Monday that it plans to start rolling out self-driving buses sometime next year.
The Ministry of Transport designated almost 4 miles of road to test the buses.
"We hope to one day deploy a network of demand-responsive shared vehicles to form a new mobility system for intra- and inter-town travel," the government said in a statement on Facebook. "This will provide convenient point-to-point transport mode within towns, and help us rely less on private cars. In time to come, we also wish to have self-driving buses operating on fixed routes and scheduled timings to reduce the heavy reliance on manpower."
But the tiny city-state isn't the only place in East Asia actively pursuing self-driving public transportation.
In nearby China, bus manufacturer Yutong said last October that tests on its autonomous bus yielded successful results while driving on a 20-mile stretch between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, in Henan province.
By contrast, the race to produce safe self-driving vehicles in the U.S. has focused on personal cars. Google's self-driving cars look like individual bug-like pods. Tesla, on the hand, has added autonomous features to its newest all-electric vehicles.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio woman was awarded $1.6 million Wednesday in the trial of a lawsuit that alleged a chemical from a DuPont Co. plant contaminated drinking water and contributed to her contracting kidney cancer.
A jury awarded the damages to 59-year-old Carla Bartlett of Guysville in one of two cases that could influence thousands of similar lawsuits over the chemical giant's discharge of perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8. The chemical is used to make Teflon.
Some 3,500 people say they became ill after the company dumped C8 into the Ohio River and their drinking water from its Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia.
The trial, which lasted about three weeks, was the latest development in a yearslong battle between DuPont and residents of the Mid-Ohio Valley in the heart of Appalachia. Bartlett once lived closer to the river. Her lawyer said she was thrilled by the verdict.
"She understands that she did good for the communities all up and down the Ohio River," attorney Mike Papantonio said.
He said the jury decision was vindication for those who argued that C8 is "bio-persistent," referring to its presence in the bloodstream years after contamination.
DuPont, which maintains C8 didn't contribute to Bartlett's cancer, said it expects to appeal. Company spokesman Gregg Schmidt said the jury decision not to award punitive damages validates the company's position that DuPontnever consciously disregarded the risks to people living near the Parkersburg plant.
Workers and plant officials drank the same water as residents, DuPont attorney Damon Mace told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday. Of its eight employees with cancer in 1989, only one had worked at length with C8, he said.
But Papantonio and co-counsel Gary Douglas argued that Delaware-based DuPont long knew the risks of C8 but showed "conscious disregard" for Ohio and West Virginia residents by downplaying or hiding the chemical's effects on the public. Papantonio noted that the company tested the blood of those working with the chemical.
Mace told jurors the company tested the workers because they would have the greatest exposure to the chemical, which some studies showed could possibly be linked to cancer.
About 80,000 residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in 2001. It resulted in a settlement in whichDuPont agreed to pay as much as $343 million for residents' medical tests, the removal of as much C8 from the water supply as possible and a science panel's examination into whether C8 causes disease in humans.
___
This story has been corrected to attribute the comment about workers and plant officials drinking the same water as residents to DuPont attorney Damon Mace, not company spokesman Gregg Schmidt.
Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won't provide jobs to actual human workers.
As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up.
But if Hawking is right, the problem won't be about catching up. It'll be a struggle to even inch past the starting line.
Now, credit lines extended to any coal companies by Citi must first gain "senior approval" and pass more rigorous ethics guidelines that factor in human rights.
"Citi's credit exposure to coal mining companies has declined materially since 2011," Citi said in a 10-page memo on its environmental practices. "Going forward, we commit to continue this trend of reducing our global credit exposure to coal mining companies."
The U.S. coal industry has been a financial disaster this year. There have been a string of high-profile bankruptcies, and borrowing costs for U.S. coal companies soared from 8 percent at the start of the year to 65 percent in July.
These are all important indicators that the financing activity Citi has pledged to cut down on is getting riskier -- which means there are very good reasons for Citi to decrease its exposure to coal companies that have nothing to do with the environment. It's just what a smart banker should do.
But that still represents a shift for Citi, which, it's worth remembering, shoveled billions of dollars at bad mortgages in the period leading up to the financial crisis.
Citi did not immediately respond to questions about whether its new commitment goes beyond the decline in lending that would already be expected as the coal industry struggles.
To be sure, there are signs that the banking industry is waking up to the economic and existential threats that climate change poses.
In a joint statement last week, a group of six colossal U.S. banks called for a "strong global climate agreement" during the United Nations' upcoming conference in Paris. Citi was among them.
But though progress has already been significant, the industry has a long way to go to take really meaningful steps to reduce climate change.
"Reducing credit exposure is only a partial step forward," Lindsey Allen, executive director of the nonprofit Rainforest Action Network, said in a statement. "We urge Citigroup and Wall Street laggards such as Morgan Stanley to cut all financing ties to both coal mining and coal-fired power."
Twitter on Monday named him its permanent CEO, nearly four months after he took over as the interim chief executive following Dick Costolo's sudden departure.
The company he co-founded nine years ago is in flux, struggling to attract new users and make money. Shareholders clamored for Dorsey to stay in the position in large part because few other business leaders seemed qualified to meaningfully correct Twitter's course.
But Dorsey is also the full-time chief executive of mobile-payments firm Square, a position he will keep in addition to heading up Twitter. Square is quietly preparing for an initial public offering -- a process that, judging from Twitter's own IPO, can become quite volatile.
That's a lot for anyone to take on. As much as he's going to need the people around him, Dorsey -- who's known to meditate and jog early in the morning and take long, meandering walks during the day -- will also need to turn inward for the tools to help him succeed in both roles.
Twitter is a social media company. Square processes credit card transactions. The two firms have little in common, which helps in a certain way -- perhaps there are few conflicts of interest. But the arrangement will require Dorsey's mind to be nimble. He'll navigate very different realities at the helm of each company.
"It's unusual and really challenging," Sydney Finkelstein, management professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck Center for Leadership, told The Huffington Post.
Finkelstein said the people in Dorsey's professional inner circle will be crucial to him, perhaps more than they've ever been.
"To make something like this work, you have to have a world-class team around you," Finkelstein explained. "Effective leaders delegate. In this case, you probably have to delegate more than normal. … You have to be able to process in your brain two different worlds."
Dorsey must also remain mindful of his own emotions to prevent himself from succumbing to stress and becoming reactionary.
“Oftentimes what we do is we withdraw and we tighten and we become reactive,” Janice Marturano, executive director of the nonprofit Institute for Mindful Leadership, told HuffPost. “That’s exactly the opposite of what we need to do during stressful times in our lives.”
Simple activities like napping, taking a walk and finding a quiet room to meditate for 10 minutes can be helpful. Some of this is undoubtedly part of Dorsey's routine already, but not everyone has time for that. Training the brain to take what Marturano calls “purposeful pauses” -- receding into the mind during a brief moment of free time -- can help keep a leader grounded, even when she or he is stretched thin.
“In times of real craziness, you have to be able to find your training that allows you to meditate with a cup of coffee, or with the two minutes you walk from this office to this meeting,” said Marturano, whose book Finding The Space To Lead was released recently in paperback. “Rather than texting along the way, you say, ‘I’m going to use that time for meditation.’”
To be sure, not everyone enjoys the perks of a chief executive whose net worth Forbes estimates at $2.2 billion. Many workers struggle as wages remain low. Nearly two million people in the United States work multiple part-time jobs, and nearly 1.6 million of those do not have a primary full-time job. That means many are likely disqualified from receiving health insurance coverage or other benefits as part of their compensation. The perks and privileges enjoyed by Dorsey and others in the executive set certainly make their struggle a bit less difficult.
Still, Marturano said the principles of mindfulness apply as much to workers stocking shelves for minimum wage as they do to someone running two large technology companies.
"We influence the people around us every day, so we're all leaders," she said. "It's about making the time to reflect."
Things are improving so slowly for women in corporate America that we aren’t going to achieve gender equality at the top for another 100 years, according to a report released Wednesday.
It's not for the reasons you might think -- i.e., it's not a “mommy issue.” Both women and men reported feeling strained by the competing pulls of work and family, according to the survey of nearly 30,000 workers at 118 North American companies. The survey was conducted by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, a nonprofit focused on women's advancement founded by Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook.
The big, ugly, hard-to-fix issue, the study suggests, is gender bias. That contradicts a lot of the conventional wisdom about why women don’t make it to the so-called C-suite -- the highest levels of a company where you find the jobs with “chief” in the title, like chief executive and chief finance officer. Only 17 percent of those lofty positions are held by women, according to the McKinsey/LeanIn survey. There are only 24 female CEOs on Fortune’s list of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. That's an improvement from 1998, when there was just one woman on the list, but it still means that men hold the chief executive spot at over 95 percent of those businesses.
“Some of the biggest barriers are cultural and related to unconscious biases that impact company hiring, promotion, and development processes,” said Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey & Company, in a press release. He's using the current corporate jargon for sexism at work.
These days, sexism has (mostly) moved beyond the crass discrimination of the "Mad Men" years, shape-shifting into something we now call unconscious bias -- the things a lot of us believe about women without even realizing it. These attitudes are harder to combat, or even prove, but they show up again and again in the research. A lot of people, for example, believe on some level that women are less competent than men. There's also something called a "maternal bias," in which mothers who do well at their job are disliked -- and kept from advancing -- because they're believed to be terrible parents.
Women hold 45 percent of entry-level jobs at the companies surveyed, and their ranks thin out as you go higher. Only 27 percent of vice presidents at those companies are women, as are 23 percent of senior vice presidents and 17 percent of C-suite execs. These figures are a very slight improvement from 2012 (see the chart below). Very slight -- that’s where that 100-year estimate comes from.
So what’s going on? First off, women aren’t quitting their jobs or “opting out.” In fact, the survey found that women, on average, quit their jobs at the same rates as men, or even less often. At the higher levels, women are more likely than men to stick around, the study found.
The issue is that women aren’t getting promoted at the same rate as men -- and at every step along the corporate ladder, women say they are less interested in becoming a top executive.
The reasons why are telling. For single women, the main reason they said they didn’t want to advance any higher at work was stress. And while women with children said the main reason they didn't want to advance was because of work and family pressures, stress came in at a very close second for that group.
This isn't a case of "women are uniquely unsuited for the corporate environment because of their families and stuff." For men with children, the difficulty of balancing work and family was also the top reason they weren't interested in holding a higher-ranking job -- 62 percent of men with children said that, compared to 65 percent of women with children. And mothers were 15 percent more interested in becoming a top executive than the women surveyed who didn’t have children.
“Historically, we thought women were less interested in promotions because of their concerns with family responsibilities,” Rachel Thomas, the president and co-founder of LeanIn, told The Huffington Post. “This study points to a new reason: There’s something in the workplace that’s more stressful for women. Women say stress and pressure is a top obstacle for them -- all women, not just mothers.”
The stress, Thomas suggests, comes from the bigger hurdles women face at the office. For example, there’s research showing that women are often believed to be less competent at their jobs than they really are, while men are often believed to be more competent than they are. Women have to prove themselves again and again.
There's also a Catch-22 involving personality: Women who are seen as competent are less likely to be seen as likable, and women viewed as more likable are less likely to be seen as competent, research has shown.
“We always say that women walk on a tightrope," Thomas said. "Men are not on that tightrope."
According to the report, “women are almost four times more likely than men to think they have fewer opportunities to advance because of their gender -- and are twice as likely to think their gender will make it harder for them to advance in the future.”
Yet most men surveyed said that women had equal or greater opportunities at work than men do.
"There’s a break between what people think and how they really understand the issue,” Thomas said.
LeanIn, of course, wants to change things. The group’s report contains a lot of good advice for companies looking to advance women:
Gather the data. Companies must systematically look at how many women they employ and how many women they promote. You need to be able to truly see the problem in order to fix it. Some companies, like Accenture and Ernst & Young, already do this.
Make it a priority. If leaders care about this, everyone else will, too. Get managers involved. Hold them accountable for achieving gender equality goals. Make sure employees know how to counteract bias. You see more companies like Facebook and Google doing unconscious bias training these days.
Create programs that actually help. At PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, the performance review process is structured in such a way that it doesn’t hurt women who take maternity leave.
There’s no magic bullet on this issue, Thomas said. You can’t just create a “women’s networking group” or say you’re focusing on the issue and expect the problem to vanish.
The report also touches on the gender inequalities that exist in other areas of life. For example, women still report that they do more of the work at home, which undoubtedly adds to their stress.
There are a lot of things companies need to do, Thomas said. “This is a big ship we’re trying to turn.”
The "happiest place on Earth" might be a little less happy these days as Disneyland fans turn grumpy over a new round of price increases -- including the introduction of an annual pass that costs more than $1,000.
This week, Disney eliminated many of its current annual pass options for both the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, replacing them with new passes that in most cases are more expensive.
And in one case, it's a lot more expensive: An annual pass to Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure with no blackout dates has jumped by nearly $300.
The new $1,049 Disney Signature Plus replaces the $779 Premium Annual Passport. Like the Premium pass, the Signature Plus allows for unlimited attendance to both Anaheim parks and provides discounts on some food and merchandise. The Signature Plus will also include additional perks such as parking and unlimited downloads of PhotoPass images such as the pictures taken on rides.
A lower-priced pass offers access to the parks 350 days a year -- all but the two busy weeks around Christmas and New Year's -- for $849.
A full list of prices and benefits is available on the Disneyland website.
It's the second time this year annual pass prices have risen, with a February increase bringing the no-blackout cost from $699 to $779.
Some parkgoers are complaining that the increase comes as Disneyland gets ready to shut down a number of popular attractions for an extended period, including the Disneyland Railroad and Tom Sawyer Island, due to construction of the new "Star Wars" land.
Welcome to Disneyland where we're about to charge you lots more money for six fewer attractions!
— David Daut (@Illusion0fLife) October 4, 2015
Disneyland pass increase would feel justified if it came at the opening of new attractions but its coming when a lot of stuff is closing.
— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) October 4, 2015
Disneyland stopped selling Premium annual passes, and replaced it with a new pass that's exactly the same except it's $1000. ✨Disney✨Magic✨
— Alec.pdf (@alecsahagian) October 4, 2015
The price of single-day tickets did not change, with a day at Disneyland costing $99.
Prices for annual passes at Walt Disney World also jumped, with the new Platinum Pass -- which allows entry into the parks all year -- now costing $749. The annual pass had previously cost $654.
A number of other passes are also available at both parks, including passes for local residents and members of the Disney Vacation Club. The Disney Premier Passport, which offers unlimited access to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, now costs $1,439, up from $1,099.
The company said more changes may be ahead, including pricing that could vary from day to day based on demand.
“We have to look at ways to spread out our attendance throughout the year so we can accommodate demand and avoid bursting at the seams,” Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Bob Chapek told The Wall Street Journal.
Also on HuffPost:
Celebrities At Disney of
Share Tweet ✖ Advertisement Share this ✖ close Current Slide
Experian, the world's biggest consumer credit monitoring firm, on Thursday disclosed a massive data breach that exposed sensitive personal data of some 15 million people who applied for service with T-Mobile US Inc.
Connecticut's attorney general said he will launch an investigation into the breach.
Experian said it discovered the theft of the T-Mobile customer data from one of its servers on Sept. 15. The computer stored information about some 15 million people who had applied for service with telecoms carrier T-Mobile during the prior two years, Experian said.
T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said the data included names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers and passport numbers. Such information is coveted by criminals for use in identity theft and other types of fraud.
"Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian," T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said in a note to customers posted on the company's website. "But right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected."
The Experian breach is the latest in a string of massive hacks that have each claimed millions - and sometimes tens of millions - of customer records, including the theft of personnel records from the U.S. government this year, a 2014 breach on JPMorgan Chase and a 2013 attack on Target Corp's cash register systems.
It is also the second massive breach linked to Experian. An attack on an Experian subsidiary that began before Experian purchased it in 2012 exposed the Social Security numbers of 200 million Americans and prompted an investigation by at least four states, including Connecticut.
Experian on Thursday said it had launched an investigation into the new breach and consulted with law enforcement.
The company offered two years of credit monitoring to all affected individuals. People, however, said that they did not want credit protection from a company that had been breached.
Legere responded by promising to seek alternatives.
"I hear you," he said on Twitter. "I am moving as fast as possible to get an alternate option in place by tomorrow."
Experian said the breach did not affect its vast consumer credit database.
Legere said no payment card or banking information was taken.
T-Mobile had nearly 59 million customers as of June 30. A representative for the carrier said that not all 15 million of the affected applicants had opened accounts with T-Mobile.
The telecom carrier's shares were down 1.3 percent in extended trading after closing little changed at $40.13 on the New York Stock Exchange.
In the earlier data breach affecting Experian, a Vietnamese national confessed in U.S. court last year to using a false identity to opening an account with the unit, known as Court Ventures, sometime before Experian purchased it in 2012.
A spokeswoman for Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said on Thursday that it would investigate the latest attack.
The spokeswoman, Jaclyn Falkowski, declined to elaborate on the T-Mobile incident, but said the investigations of the Court Ventures matter "is active and ongoing."
(Additional reporting by Karen Friefeld and Arathy Nair; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Related On HuffPost:
Biggest Data Breaches of
Share Tweet ✖ Advertisement Share this ✖ close Current Slide
Sept 30 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is planning to lay off hundreds of people at its headquarters in Arkansas as part of the retail giant's efforts to pare costs, people familiar with the matter said.
Fewer than 500 employees are expected to lose their jobs and an announcement could be made as early as this Friday, according to one of sources, who declined to be named because the move had not been made public.
Wal-Mart declined to comment. News of the impending cuts was reported earlier on Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal.
The cuts will make up a small portion of the more than 18,000 people employed at the Bentonville, Arkansas office but fit in with a streamlining effort that has been flagged by Chief Executive Doug McMillon in recent months.
"There are no cash registers in the office," McMillon told analysts after the company's annual shareholders' meeting in June to emphasize his focus on stores as the earnings driver for the company.
Speculation of job losses has percolated in Bentonville for several weeks, fueled in part by reports on the matter by local media outlet City Wire. Recruiting firms have reported an influx of resumes from Wal-Mart employees concerned about losing their jobs and suppliers have braced for cuts that could have a knock-on impact on their local operations.
The cuts come as the world's largest retailer struggles to shore up its profit margins, which have been weighed down by a $1 billion investment announced earlier this year to increase wages for half a million store-level workers and other cost pressures. The company's stock is down 26 percent so far this year.
In August, Wal-Mart reported weaker quarterly earnings and lowered its annual profit forecast, hit by higher labor costs, a squeeze on pharmacy margins and the stronger dollar, which has crimped its overseas business.
McMillon and other top executives are due to present their strategy for the company at an annual meeting with analysts and investors later this month in New York.
Earlier On HuffPost:
9 Things Walmart Would Like You To Forget of
Share Tweet ✖ Advertisement Share this ✖ close Current Slide
