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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jun 25, 2014
June 25, 2014
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He's dead, Jim:
ELI WALLACH, who notably starred as "The Ugly" in the 1960's classic spaghetti Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," with CLINT EASTWOOD and LEE VAN CLEEF, has died. He was 98. He also appeared in "The Magnificent Seven" and has over 160 credits in movies and TV shows to his name.
Anniversaries:
Five years ago today: MICHAEL JACKSON died of an overdose of the anesthetic propofol. He was 50 years old.
The Internet:
A new report from Forrester Research says Facebook is still king when it comes to social media and teenagers.
The latest survey of about 45-hundred teens shows more than three-quarters of kids online use Facebook. That's twice as many as use Pinterest or Tumblr or Snapchat, and more than use Instagram and WhatApp combined.
Forrester analyst NATE ELLIOTT also notes that "28 percent of young users who are on Facebook say they use it 'all the time,' a higher percentage than said this about any other social network."Sucking the life out of the wire services:
We have more proof that TAYLOR SWIFT is slowly morphing into the crazy cat lady. The country cutie just adopted a new feline companion named "Olivia Benson" after the character from "Law and Order: SVU" and is showing off her new furbaby all over social media. The superstar took a video of the adorable kitten snoozing upside down and mama admitted she's a "really aggressive sleeper." (Lee)
Fashion Emergency:
[Ding Dong] "Avon's calling... with a pink slip." The iconic door-to-door seller of beauty products gas announced it's laying off another 600 employees. That's on top of the 650 that Avon laid off in December. Fashionista.com says Avon's restructuring follows a loss of $167-million dollars in its first quarter in 2014. The newly eliminated positions will primarily be in the corporate organization and North America business unit, the company said. The cutbacks are expected to save Avon $50 million to $55 million before taxes, per year. The company hopes to save $400 million by 2016. The company blames its expansion into international markets for its "underperforming." (Bartha)
Cool kids may not be long-term winners:
New research gives more support to the idea of arrested development in adolescents: it shows that those worldly, super-cool kids in middle school who hung out with the older set and had no use for people their own age often grow into lonely, unfocused losers by the time they hit their twenties. That's the gist of the study in this month's issue of the journal Child Development.
"The fast-track kids didn't turn out OK," says University of Virginia psychology professor and lead study author JOSEPH ALLEN. He tracked almost 200 kids who were in a hurry to grow up over a decade, and says the "pseudo-maturity" at 13 and beyond didn't let them evolve into well-adjusted 23-year-olds.
Instead, Dr. Allen says the former "cool kids" as young twenty-somethings have trouble with intimate relationships, substance abuse, and even crime. "They are doing more extreme things to try to act cool, bragging about drinking three six-packs on a Saturday night, and their peers are thinking, 'These kids are not socially competent'," Dr. Allen said. "They're still living in their middle-school world."
Dr. Allen suggests the need to be perceived as "cool" pushed the pseudo-mature kids toward conspicuously risky behaviors, that failed to impress over time as the rest of their peer group pursued age- and developmentally-appropriate interests. (Kaye) -
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