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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Sep 17, 2014
September 17, 2014
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. Sample content intended for show prep.
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The Stock Market:
The big news today in business is the AliBaba initial public offering. Various Wall Street sources say the 310 million shares of the Chinese e-commerce company will go for around $60-66 bucks, making the company $20-21 billion dollars richer --the biggest IPO ever.
Apple Upgrade out today:
Look for Apple to release iOS 8 at 1 pm (Eastern) today, since it usually releases upgrades and other system upgrades at that time.
The upgrade can be used for iPhone 4S models and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad Mini, and the fifth-generation iPod Touch.The Reel Deal:
Krispy Kreme is marking the 30th anniversary of "Ghostbusters" by selling two kinds of marshmallow-filled doughnuts.
Daily Variety reports there'll be a "Ghostbusters" donut featuring a "green splat" --referring to some paranormal slime-- along with the film's logo, while the other donut will be decorated with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's face and a sugar hat.
The new donuts will be available from Sep 29 through Halloween (Oct 31 --of course) at stores in the US and Canada while supplies last. Customers can pre-order five dozen or more at their local store beginning Tuesday.Human Nature:
"Um…?" Or " Uh…?"
Your --"um"-- preference for one or the "uh"-ther (see what we did there?) is influenced by where you live. A linguist at Aston University in the U-K used 6 billion words from Twitter to figure out which U.S. counties prefer "um" and which tend to say "uh." To reveal the regional breakdown, Discovery.com's D-News says the linguist used a statistical tool called "hot-spot testing." It extracts individual data points for comparisons that can make a broader prediction. In this case, the "um" vs. "uh" data provided some of the first clues of a dialect that linguists have been curious about but hadn't been able to pinpoint: A "Midland dialect" that follows the Ohio River.
A mapped breakdown of the data shows that:
--New England, the Midwest and the Southeastern United States have a strong "Uh" preference
--The Central and Southwestern states showed a strong "Um" preference.
--Most of the West Coast is --um, uh-bout an equal mix of both. (Bartha)Grace notes from Vinny Marino:
ARIANA GRANDE is a venti-sized diva, and kinda mean. The Confidential gossip column in the New York Daily News says the singer was at a Manhattan radio station recently, signing autographs and posing for photos, but when the elevator doors closed as she left the building, Ariana allegedly said (quote), "I hope they all f'in die." And, that's not the first time something like that has happened.
When Ariana was in Australia last week, she ended a meet-and-greet session with fans after just a few minutes because she didn't like the way the photographer was shooting her. She insists on only being shot from the left side of her face. Aussie journalists were also warned in advance they they could not ask Ariana about who she's dating, why her Nickelodeon show "Sam & Cat" was canceled, if she likes being compared with MARIAH CAREY and if she's recording a single with JUSTIN BIEBER.
Wanna get a pic with Ariana on her upcoming tour? It will cost you $495-dollars, and you have to be in the pic with four to six other people! No individual shots. (Marino) -
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