If you think Groupon’s online coupon idea will continue to be a surefire success against mounting competition , you’ll have a chance to bet on it: The company filed paperwork for its much-anticipated initial public offering today, reports MarketWatch . Groupon plans to raise $750 million with its IPO and to trade…
Continue reading …VS Naipaul might be one of the great writers of the 20th century, but he appears also to be a straight-up literary sexist, notes Gawker , which picks up on an interview he gave to the Guardian . In it, Naipaul says that no woman could write as well as he can;…
Continue reading …Bartenders, beware: The New Jersey Supreme Court has given a drunken driver the right to sue the bar that served him, reports the Asbury Park Press . When Frederick Voss crashed his motorcycle in 2006, his blood-alcohol level was .196%—almost two and a half times the legal limit. Voss pleaded…
Continue reading …The rough economy has its benefits—chief among them the fact that it’s becoming easier to open your new lightbulbs. With oil prices soaring, manufacturers and retailers are looking to cut down on plastic packaging, the New York Times reports. One potential casualty: the clamshell package, which is notoriously difficult…
Continue reading …With its finances stretched to the breaking point, Alto, Texas, is giving its police officers the boot for six months—all five of them. OK, so it’s not exactly the NYPD. But with the county sheriff’s office already overburdened, town residents are afraid losing their small department could have dire…
Continue reading …Eric Holder today told the US Sentencing Commission that he supports a proposal to release thousands of federal prisoners convicted on crack-related offenses. Until Congress changed them last year, federal sentencing guidelines gave crack users—who are predominantly poor and black—much harsher sentences than powder cocaine users. Now, Holder…
Continue reading …The food pyramid is no more. The nutrition icon long derided as way too complicated has been replaced by a plate divided into portions, notes NPR . Fruits and veggies take up more than half its space, and meat doesn’t get a mention. (Instead, there’s a “protein” section, along with one…
Continue reading …China is finally ready to debut its first aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang. But the world shouldn’t exactly be shivering its timbers in fear of this display of military might, writes David Axe of Wired , dubbing the ship “a piece of junk.” The ship’s Ukranian-built engines are unlikely to be…
Continue reading …The courier who inadvertently led the US to Osama bin Laden has been identified, along with his brother. Abrar and Ibrahim Said Ahmad were born in Kuwait, but their family hailed from a one-time Taliban stronghold in northwest Pakistan, according to a senior Pakistani security official. The Wall Street Journal…
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