-
Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Aug 2, 2013
August 2, 2013
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
Anniversaries:
Just to show you one voice can make a difference... Eight-year-old ALEXANDRA SCOTT, who raised money for cancer research, died at her home in Wynnewood, PA (2004). Alex suffered from neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer. She decided to set up a lemonade stand to raise money to fight the disease and raised two-thousand that first year (2002). Two years later, before she passed away, the Alex's Lemonade Stand fundraisers brought in over a million dollars. Nine years later, the idea has caught on across the country and has raised more than $30 million for various charities and research organizations.
What's the Buzz:
Giving USA reports that, overall, charitable donations increased by a mere 1.5 percent in 2012 and predicts it could take up to five more years to return to pre-recession levels. (Kaye)
Back to school:
The National Retail Federation's 2013 Back-to-School Survey finds school supplies are already moving from retailers' shelves: 24 percent of families with children in grades K-12 say they shop at least two months before school (they might be done already!), up from 22 percent last year and the highest percentage seen in the survey's 11-year history.
--49 percent will shop three weeks to one month before school
--22 percent will shop one to two weeks before school
--3 percent will shop the week school starts
--3 percent will shop after school starts (Kaye)Bid'ness is Bid'ness:
Further proof that a good furor can gin up business: Despite a boycott that saw some retailers yank the issue from shelves, Rolling Stone's Boston Bomber cover featuring DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV was a hit on newsstands, selling twice as many issues as usual.
The mag unloaded 13,232 copies between July 19 and July 29 at nearly 1,500 retailers --a 102 percent jump from last year's average. (In case you're wondering why that number seems low, only five percent of Rolling Stone's circulation is sold at retail. --Maiman)Little girls all over America want to wear high heeled shoes now. You can blame the trend on SURI CRUISE. Steve Madden is selling out of sneaker wedges for 11-year-olds. Higher-end designers likeMICHAEL KORS and Stuart Weitzman are selling heeled sandals and shoes in Mother-Daughter sets.
According to the NY Times, the average heel for little girl shoes is 1-and-3-quarters (1-3/4) inches. Orthopedic surgeons worry that the heels are going to do everything from deform developing feet to spinal fractures. Psychologists are worried about early sexualization.
Phone starter: How young is too young for heels? (Bartha)Today's police blotter:
A Long Island woman was visited by law enforcementafter she and her husband looked up "pressure cookers" on Google.
MICHELE CATALANO claims she was just trying to find a way to cook better lentils. Catalano writes in her blog: "I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in 'these times' now."
Of course, backpacks and pressure cookers were used to make the bombs used in the April 15th Boston Marathon attack.
The Suffolk County police department ultimately ruled Catalano's internet searches as "non-criminal in nature." (Still) -
-