Music album sales see lowest level since 1994
For the week ending May 30, the U.S. music industry sold a total of 4,984,000 albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That’s the lowest one-week number since Soundscan began compiling sales data, in 1994.
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Wal-Mart to help employees with tuition costs
Wal-Mart will offer its 1.4 million U.S. employees 15 percent reductions on tuition at American Public University, a for-profit online educational firm. With the price cut, a bachelor’s degree would cost about $24,000.
The New York Times
McDonald's recalls Shrek glasses
McDonald’s has recalled 12 million drinking glasses sold to promote the animated film Shrek Forever After. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the glasses, decorated with paintings of Shrek characters, contain cadmium, a heavy metal linked to cancer, osteoporosis, and kidney disease.
The Christian Science Monitor
Freebies from Pfizer and other drugmakers
U.S. drugmakers distributed about $3 billion in free samples to physicians in 2007, according to the first-ever comprehensive survey of the marketing practice. The vast majority of the freebies was handed out by Pfizer, which distributed $2.7 billion in samples.
The Wall Street Journal
Coulomb Technologies plans more charging stations
Coulomb Technologies plans to install 4,600 charging stations for electric vehicles nationwide—one-third of them in California—by the end of 2011. The installations could ease worries among potential buyers of electric vehicles that they won’t be able to recharge their batteries.
LATimes.com
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feature The cost of e-filing; Dipping into nest eggs early; What Americans are drinking; Planning for death; How tax refunds are spent
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feature Building bigger houses; And tuition at OSU is?; Christmas at McDonald's; Self-gifting at Christmas; Lloyd’s prepares for Hurricane Sandy claims; Google's billions
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feature Good results for the third quarter; Compensation at financial firms hits a high; Three cities with recovering economies; Good year for car sales; Broadway's best performance ever; Tax bite is less in 2010 than in 1980
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feature Airlines cut domestic flights; Income up in small cities and rural areas; Bond and Lincoln lift box office earnings; Don't be fooled by Black Friday; The high toll of identity theft
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The bottom line
feature The gender pay gap; U.S. economic growth; Parents who argue about money; Online subscriptions rise
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The bottom line
feature Can the U.S. keep up?; Airlines spend billions on runway taxiing; Americans exaggerate their working hours; The Dow Jones's 67.9 percent gain; Success and summer babies
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The bottom line
feature Consumer confidence jumps; Wall Street cuts jobs, raises pay; Goldman Sachs's muppet hunt; Desktop web searches decline; Pizza Hut scraps debate freebie