BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Ben Affleck got some vindication and Jodie Foster made a revelation at the Golden Globe Awards.
Affleck's "Argo" earned him best motion picture drama and director honors at Sunday night's ceremony. The awards came just a few days after Affleck was surprisingly omitted from the best-director category at the Academy Award nominations. Affleck also stars in the real-life drama as the CIA operative who orchestrated a daring rescue of six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.
These wins seem to shake up the Oscar race, in which Steven Spielberg's stately, historical epic "Lincoln" was looking like a juggernaut. Despite seven Golden Globe nominations, "Lincoln" earned just one award: best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis' intense, richly detailed portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as he fought for passage of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery. Spielberg's film heads into the Feb. 24 Academy Awards with a leading 12 nominations.
The other big winner of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's honors was "Les Miserables." Based on the international musical sensation and Victor Hugo's novel of strife and redemption in 19th century France, it won best picture musical or comedy, best actor for Hugh Jackman and best supporting actress for Anne Hathaway.
"Honestly, I would have played a musket, so I'm thrilled I got to sing a really good song," Hathaway joked backstage. She belts out the dramatic "I Dreamed a Dream" as the doomed prostitute Fantine.
But perhaps the biggest news of the night was from Foster, who came out without really coming out and suggested she was retiring from acting but then backpedaled a bit backstage. Foster was this year's recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, which is announced beforehand and is usually a pretty respectful and predictable part of the evening.
But the 50-year-old Oscar-winner for "The Silence of the Lambs" and "The Accused," who's been protective of her private life and reluctant to discuss her sexual orientation, used this opportunity to speak from the heart in a rambling and emotional speech that confirmed what long had been an open secret. The veteran actress seized control of what is every year a noisy, boozy ballroom; the crowd of A-listers quickly quieted down as it became apparent that she had something serious and important to say.
She was coy at first, suggesting she had a big announcement that would make her publicist nervous. (At this point, the audio inexplicably dropped out of the NBC broadcast, even though nothing off-color was said.)
Then she stated: "I'm just going to put it out there, loud and proud ... I am, uh, single," pausing for dramatic effect before that last word. "I hope you're not disappointed that there won't be a big coming-out speech tonight. I already did my coming-out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age."
She also made it sound as if this would be her last time on stage, but clarified for reporters afterward: "I could never stop acting. You'd have to drag me behind a team of horses. I'd like to be directing tomorrow. I'm more into it than I have ever been."
Among the other multiple winners of the night, "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mashup, earned two awards: for supporting actor Christoph Waltz as a charismatic bounty hunter and for Tarantino's script. The writer-director thanked his friends for letting him read scenes to them as he works through his scripts.
"You guys don't know how important you are to my process," he said. But he added: "I don't want input. I don't want you to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong. Heavens forbid."
"Zero Dark Thirty," which also has been a major contender throughout awards season, earned Jessica Chastain a best-actress Globe for her portrayal of a driven CIA operative at the center of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. That film's director, Kathryn Bigelow, also was left out of the best-director category at the Academy Awards even though it's up for best picture — a result of having nine best-picture nominees and only five best-director slots.
Looking ahead to how the wins for "Argo" might change the Oscar race, Affleck said backstage he tries not to handicap those kinds of things.
"We got nominated for seven Oscars," he told reporters. "If you can't be happy with that, your prospects for long-term happiness are pretty dim.
"I also didn't get the acting nomination," he added, getting a big laugh. "No one is saying I got snubbed there."
On the television side, "Game Change" and "Homeland" were the big winners with three awards apiece. "Game Change," the made-for-HBO movie about 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, won for best motion picture or miniseries made for television, best actress for Julianne Moore and best supporting actor for Ed Harris' portrayal of John McCain. "Homeland" was named best TV drama series, and its stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis received the dramatic acting awards.
Co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, longtime friends and collaborators, had playfully snarky fun with several members of the audience including Taylor Swift, Day-Lewis, Bigelow and even former President Bill Clinton, who arrived on stage to rock-star applause when he introduced "Lincoln" as one of the best-picture nominees.
Fey and Poehler were also competing against each other for best actress in a TV comedy series, Fey for "30 Rock" and Poehler for "Parks and Recreation."
Neither won. Lena Dunham claimed the comedy series Globe for "Girls."
After that, Fey and Poehler showed up on stage with cocktail glasses, with Fey joking that it was time to start drinking.
"Everyone's getting a little loose now that we're all losers," Poehler said.
Poehler's final words also referred back to the biggest moment of the night. She cracked as she was signing off: "We're going home with Jodie Foster!"
___
AP Entertainment Writers Anthony McCartney and Beth Harris contributed to this report.
“Comforting” isn’t a word I usually associate with salads, but this week I put together five grain salads that fit that bill. Over the years I have developed a number of delicious whole grain salads that combine various grains with vegetables, herbs and often nuts, tossed in a tangy dressing. I have also married many a grain and vegetable in a pilaf. I decided to bring both concepts together in hearty salads that I’m calling “skillet salads;” each one is heated through in a skillet just before serving.
You can get ahead on all of these by cooking the grains or noodles ahead. Whole grains freeze well and keep in the refrigerator for three days. Then it’s just a question of preparing vegetables, herbs and dressing. Even if you don’t cook the grains ahead you can prepare the other ingredients while they’re simmering.
I make a meal of these at lunch, and serve smaller portions as sides or starters for dinner. If you want to serve the warm, tangy grains on a bed of salad greens I recommend spinach or sturdy greens like frisée or dandelion greens that will stand up to the heat of the salad and won’t wilt beyond recognition when topped with something warm.
Skillet Beet and Farro Salad
This hearty winter salad can be a meal or a side dish, and warming it in the skillet makes it particularly comforting. Cook your farro until you see that the grains have begun to splay so they won’t be too chewy and can absorb the dressing properly.
For the Salad:
2 medium or 3 small beets, roasted
1 cup farro, soaked for 1 hour in 1 quart water
Salt to taste
1 ounce lightly toasted pistachios (scant 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, tarragon, marjoram, chives, mint
Freshly ground pepper
For the Dressing:
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Salt to taste
1 small garlic clove, minced or pureéd
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons walnut oil
Crumbled feta for garnish (optional)
1. Roast the beets and meanwhile cook the farro. Place in a medium saucepan with the soaking water and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes to an hour, until the grains have begun to splay. Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 15 minutes or longer in the water. Drain through a strainer set over a bowl.
2. While the farro is cooking, make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegars, salt, garlic, and mustard. Whisk in the oils. Pour into a wide frying pan or saucepan and add to the farro, along with a couple of tablespoons of the farro cooking water. Peel and dice the beets and add, along with the herbs and pistachios. Stir over medium heat until heated through and serve, with a little feta sprinkled over the top if you wish.
Yield: Serves 6
Advance preparation: The cooked farro and the roasted beats will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.
Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 304 calories; 19 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 27 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 61 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein
Note: If you want to reduce the fat and calories in this dish, substitute buttermilk for some of the oil. Be careful not to allow the dressing to come to a boil when you heat it in the pan or the buttermilk will curdle.
Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”
The Dow Jones Industrial rose 8 points as of 11:23 a.m. EST Monday, having fallen as much as 29 points at the start of the day. The S&P 500 fell 3 points to 1,469. The Nasdaq composite index fell 14 points to 3,111.
The Standard and Poor's 500 closed at a five-year high of 1,472 on Thursday, following a solid start to the fourth-quarter earnings reporting period and amid optimism that the outlook for global growth is brightening.
Apple's stock, which accounts for 10.3 percent of the Nasdaq index, slid $16 to $504.10 after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company has cut its orders for iPhone 5 components due to weak demand. Apple slipped below $500 a share for the first time in nearly a year in early trading. The stock has slumped 28 percent since closing at a record $702.10 in September.
Earnings reporting will pick up this week with many big U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America releasing results.
“The market is definitely in wait and see mode,” said Brian Gendreau, a market strategist at Cetera Financial Group.
Investors will be scrutinizing revenues, to assess whether the drawn-out debate over the “fiscal cliff” had an impact on consumer spending. A series of tax hikes and spending cuts, due to come into effect Jan. 1 were only averted by a last-minute deal.
Investors will also follow a speech about monetary policy from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He is expected to speak in a question-and-answer session in Ann Arbor, Michigan beginning at 4 p.m. ET, just as the stock market closes.
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans, an alternate member of the Fed's Open Market Committee, said Monday in a speech in Hong Kong that central banks should help create conditions to foster “robust demand growth,” as the U.S. and other advanced economies try and reduce debt.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, fell 1 basis point to 1.85 percent.
Among other stocks making big moves:
— Health Management Associates fell 8 cents to $9.04 after the hospital operator said late Sunday that its preliminary earnings reflect tough economic conditions. The Naples, Fla., company said it expects to earn 19 cents to 21 cents per share on revenue of $1.48 billion, less than analysts had forecast.
CAIRO—
The ruling was a victory for the ailing Mubarak and his Interior minister, Habib Adli, who also won his appeal. Both men, who had been sentenced to life in prison, face other criminal charges and are likely to remain in detention until a new trial in the deaths by security forces of more than 800 protesters.
“The previous ruling was unfair and illegal,” said Yousry Abdelrazeg, one of Mubarak’s lawyers, who accused the judge in the first trial of political bias. “The case was just a mess and there was no evidence against Mubarak.”
No date has been set for the new trial.
The court’s decision comes amid turmoil over an Islamist-backed constitution and outrage over the expanded powers of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. It means a bloody chapter in Egypt’s 2011 revolt will be revisited with the prospect that Mubarak, whose police state ruled for 30 years, may be absolved in a case that deepened the nation’s political differences and impassioned the Arab world.
Mubarak was convicted in June of not preventing the deaths of hundreds of protesters attacked by police and snipers during the uprising, which began on Jan. 25, 2011, and ended 18 days later when he stepped aside and the military seized power.
Mubarak argued that he had not ordered the crackdown and was unaware of the extent of the violence. A recently completed government-ordered investigation into the killings, however, reportedly found that Mubarak had monitored the deadly response by security forces in Tahrir Square via a live television feed.
The appeals court ruling came a day after prosecutors announced an investigation into allegations that Mubarak, 84, received about $1 million in illicit gifts from Al Ahram, the country’s leading state-owned newspaper. The former president has reportedly been in a military hospital since December after he fell in a prison bathroom and injured himself.
Last year’s trial riveted the nation with images of the aging Mubarak wheeled into the defendant’s cage on a stretcher, his arms crossed and his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
(Special correspondent Reem Abdellatif contributed to this report)
The Rules, a dating instruction manual of yore by two ladies named Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider (they know what they’re talking about ’cause they’re married!), should, by now, have gone the way of the cave drawing or the horse and buggy, as a relic of times past. It was initially published in 1995, nearly 20 years ago, and we don’t even want to calculate what that means in dog years. But alas, it’s still hanging around, lurking in the bookshelves of various bricks and mortar stores where such things are sold; lingering on Amazon.com and giving us coquettish looks; promising such things as actual, official answers in the ongoing struggle to win a man and make him put a ring on it (I’m paraphrasing, of course).
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Far from aging gracefully and going away, it’s been updated to bring it up to speed with the newfangled ways in which we do things, you know, on the Facebook and World Wide Web and whatnot. Of course, business-wise, this makes sense. It’s a best-seller! In fact, there’s a whole franchise of Rules books, described by Elle as “one of the best self-help books of all time.” So why wouldn’t Fein and Schneider and their publisher hope to make some more money with a new installment of the book that promises answers to pressing social media-dating questions like these: “How long should I wait to respond to his text message? Can I friend him on Facebook? Why did he ask for my number but never call me?”
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Well, they would. Grand Central Publishing released the book, Not Your Mother’s Rules, on January 8, and it’s ranked number 4 in dating books on Amazon. One would presume from the title and the pitch that the ladies behind it hope that the younger generations will lap this stuff up, just like their moms did.
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Of course, it’s a self-help book, so I am predisposed to dislike it. Self-help books, especially those about dating, often fall into a category that could be better described as, well, undermining. The problems with such books for me are multifold. One, they posit that human relationships can be commoditized; that there is one path that works for all in terms of getting what you want. (They also presume, in a stereotypical manner, that what we all want is the same, and, I think, infer there’s some ongoing battle between men, who want one thing, and women, who want the opposite.) I don’t think those messages are true, and I don’t think they’re particularly healthy or helpful, either.
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Further, self-help books are published to make money. Those that say they’ll teach a reader how to get married or get the relationship they want do so by preying on the bewilderment, confusion, insecurity, and desires of women (and sometimes men, too). Sure, dating is hard. Sure, it’s difficult to find “the right person.” But the process should also to be fun, experiential, silly, weird, unique, and something we learn from. Figuring out what you want for yourself by doing it, that’s a great thing. Making dating about adhering to some code that a couple of people came up with and want to sell you so they can make money, well, that’s not so great. Women and men may read this stuff because they think it can’t hurt. Sometimes it feels good to believe that there are rules that can be followed to get what we want; it means we need only have the dedication and commitment to follow those rules, which is way easier than, for instance, thinking for ourselves deeply and making our own decisions, and having courage and believing in ourselves.
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Some of the advice in this book may not be categorically awful. Simplified to “don’t act like an obsessive”; “pause before you rush to do something you regret”; and “take care of yourself!” some instructions could actually be quite handy as a common-sense reminder. But categorizing it as stuff women need to follow to snag a man makes it highly problematic, even if the occasional tip is not so bad. And stuff like this, “New chapters include rules for text flirting: women under 30 wait 30 minutes to respond to a man’s text; older women should wait 4 hours,” as Pat Kiernan wrote today on his blog, is particularly disheartening, and inherently sort of woman-hating. Control your texting, The Rules ladies say. “Women shouldn’t take the first step to initiate any relationship — and that includes online dating,” they told the New York Daily News. Once you have a guy, ignore him, “at least for a little while.” And don’t sext until you’re married. That might save us from a few political scandals. But is this the kind of advice women need, in this day and age?
If there was to be an excellent dating self-help book for the year 2013, I’d hope it would tell people to trust themselves. To behave as they see fit, according to the situation they’re in, regardless of age, because they are smart, lovely people who deserve the good things they put out into the world, and even if they make mistakes, they’ll find their way and do the right thing. That self-help book would tell women to stop reading dating self-help books, and instead to behave as though they knew they were wise enough to decide for themselves what they should do, to interpret the signs and make the right moves, or make the wrong ones and deal with that, too, instead of adhering to some rules that aren’t really the way we are at all. It would most of all tell everyone to be themselves, and stop pretending to be something else. Because The Rules, and those who follow them, create some weird perceptions among men and women. Suddenly anyone who does text someone right back is perceived somehow as needy or “too easy to get.” That’s especially odd given that a four-hour delay in a response, when you could respond quite easily, is actually rather rude. Would that we could rid the world of such descriptions as “hard to get” altogether, because more important than playing games or appearing a certain way (difficult to get?) is finding someone you care about and behaving a way that shows that you do. Why do we persist, instead, in making everything so convoluted and difficult?
We can only hope, I suppose, that as time progresses these tips will become as ancient and quaint-sounding as, for example, the instructions in Miss Leslie’s Behavior Book, published in the 1800s. Until then, a word of advice. Follow your instincts; if it feels right, it probably is; don’t believe everything you read in dating books, and maybe, do yourself a favor: Don’t read dating advice books at all. But DO read Miss Leslie’s, for snippets such as this:
Now, that’s helpful advice.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Hollywood's junior prom for film honors features quite a different cast than the senior prom at next month's Academy Awards.
Sunday night's Golden Globes are in a rare place this season, coming after the Oscar nominations, which were announced earlier than usual and threw out some shockers that have left the Globes show a little less relevant.
Key Globe contenders lined up largely as expected, with Steven Spielberg's Civil War saga "Lincoln" leading with seven nominations and two CIA thrillers — Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" and Ben Affleck's "Argo" — also doing well.
All three films earned Globe nominations for best drama and director. Yet while "Lincoln," ''Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" grabbed best-picture slots at Thursday's Oscar nominations, Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for directing honors after a season that had seen them in the running for almost every other major award.
The Globe and Oscar directing fields typically match up closely. This time, though, only Spielberg and "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee have nominations for both. Along with Spielberg, Lee, Bigelow and Affleck, Quentin Tarantino is nominated for directing at the Globes. At the Oscars, it's Spielberg, Lee, "Silver Linings Playbook" director David O. Russell and two surprise picks: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for "Amour" and first-time director Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."
That forces some top-name filmmakers to put on brave faces for the Globes. And while a Globe might be a nice consolation prize, it could be a little awkward if Affleck, Bigelow or Tarantino won Sunday and had to make a cheery acceptance speech knowing they don't have seats at the grown-ups table for the Feb. 24 Oscars.
That could happen. While "Lincoln" has the most nominations, it's a purely American story that may not have as much appeal to Globe voters — about 90 reporters belonging to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who cover entertainment for overseas outlets.
The Bigelow and Affleck films center on Americans, too, but they are international tales — "Zero Dark Thirty" chronicling the manhunt for Osama bin Laden and "Argo" recounting the rescue of six U.S. embassy workers trapped in Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis.
Globe voters might want to make right on a snub to Bigelow three years ago, when they gave their best-drama and directing prize to ex-husband James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster "Avatar" over her war-on-terror tale "The Hurt Locker."
Bigelow made history a month later, becoming the first woman to win the directing Oscar for "The Hurt Locker," which also won best picture.
Globe voters like to be trend-setters, but they missed the boat on that one. Might they feel enough chagrin to hand Bigelow the directing trophy this time?
Spielberg already has won two best-director Globes, so that might be a further inducement for the foreign-press members to favor someone else this time.
Their votes were locked in before the Oscar nominations came out. Globe balloting closed Wednesday, the day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its awards lineup.
The Globes feature two best-picture categories — one for drama and one for musical or comedy. Most of the Globe contenders also earned Oscar best-picture nominations, including all of the drama picks: "Argo," ''Lincoln," ''Life of Pi," ''Django Unchained" and "Zero Dark Thirty."
Yet only two of the Globe musical or comedy nominees — "Les Miserables" and "Silver Linings Playbook" — are in the running at the Oscars. That's not unusual, though, since Oscar voters tend to overlook comedy. The other Globe nominees for musical or comedy are "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," ''Moonrise Kingdom" and "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen."
Acting contenders include Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones for "Lincoln"; Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway for "Les Miserables"; Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman for "The Master"; Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence for "Silver Linings Playbook"; Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained"; Alan Arkin for "Argo"; and Jessica Chastain for "Zero Dark Thirty."
Globe acting recipients usually are a good sneak peek for who will win at the Oscars. All four of last season's Oscar winners — Meryl Streep for "The Iron Lady," Jean Dujardin for "The Artist," Octavia Spencer for "The Help" and Christopher Plummer for "Beginners" — took home a Globe first.
Jodie Foster will receive the Globes' Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 70th Globes ceremony, airing live from 8-11 p.m. EST on NBC.
There will be a friendly rivalry between the hosts of the Globe ceremony, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The co-stars of the 2008 big-screen comedy "Baby Mama" both are nominated for best actress in a TV comedy or musical series, Fey for "30 Rock" and Poehler for "Parks and Recreation."
The Globes present 14 film awards and 11 television prizes.
___
Online:
http://www.goldenglobes.org
With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.
There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.
“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.
Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.
While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.
There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.
In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.
“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”
There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.
In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.
As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.
According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.
Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.
Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.
The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.
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Each year manufacturers announce more than 1,000 recalls of dangerous products, including toys, cars, medicine and food. But because there's no definitive way to inform consumers, many people remain unaware of these recalls and may continue to use an unsafe product. Here are some steps to take to keep yourself informed:
After buying a product, mail in the product registration card or, if it's an option, register online or by phone. Note that although some manufacturers take advantage of the registration process by asking for such things as your income, age or buying habits, you only have to give your contact information and the brand and model number of the product.
Sign up for email alerts with the Consumer Product Safety Commission at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx. You can choose to receive all alerts or use the category options to be notified only for recalls of children's, household, outdoor or sports products.
For recalls related to cars, motorcycles, tires and vehicle child restraints, sign up for email notification from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/subscriptions. You can select what products you want to monitor, including specific car models.
For food safety recalls, sign up for email alerts at http://www.foodsafety.gov/recalls/alerts, a website offered by the Department of Health and Human Services. The site also offers an app for smartphones and will feed recall notices to your Internet news reader.
For recalls of medical drugs and devices, go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website at http://www.fda.gov and select FDA Recall Email Alert. At the next page, you have several choices to be alerted to different kinds of recalls.
scott.wilson@latimes.com
As he prepared to unveil the seventh-generation Corvette this weekend — an event akin to the naming of a new pope in the sports-car world — General Motors executive Mark Reuss told a story familiar to legions of Corvette faithful over six decades of production.
Reuss coveted the car as a teenager, back when the 'Vette versus Porsche debate ignited the same fury as disco versus rock. He bought one in his 20s, a used silver 1969 model with a big-block 427 engine, and took his future wife on their first date. Then he married and sold the two-seater to make room for a family.
Such nostalgia is pervasive among Corvette buyers. The car's heritage means even more to GM as it attempts to rebound from the bailout-and-bankruptcy era.
PHOTOS: Six generations of the Corvette
In a once-a-decade event, Chevrolet will unveil the redesigned 2014 Corvette on Sunday night at a preview to next week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. As with every 'Vette since 1953, the new model will serve as the standard bearer of the brand's engineering, a laboratory for technology that trickles down to mainstream models. The dynamic extends to marketing, as the Corvette embodies the soul of the brand, the aspirational "halo" car that GM hopes will rub off on perceptions of its entire lineup.
"When you see a Corvette in a showroom, most know that Chevrolet embodies performance, value and is unapologetically American," said Reuss, president of GM's North American operations.
Corvette redesigns have historically boosted sales of the sports cars, often by 50% or more. But some question how much a new Corvette can do to shore up Chevrolet's sagging U.S. market share.
"The negative is that, in the minds of Corvette owners, it is a Corvette before it is a Chevy," said Jeremy Anwyl, vice chairman of Edmunds.com. "It is not like you go look at the Corvette and walk out with a Cruze. If they took the money they spent on Corvette development and spent it on a couple of marketing campaigns, they would get more bang for their buck."
Others aren't so quick to write off the premium sports car's benefit to the larger brand. Larry Dominique, former vice president of product planning at Nissan, saw marketing benefits in play from the Japanese automaker's series of Z sports cars. Consumers believed that Nissan's other vehicles shared the same DNA, which the company underscored in pitching its Maxima as the "four-door sports car."
"There is an awareness and consumer draw," Dominique said. "That's why Chevy dealers put the Corvette on the turntable out front."
Profitable niche
The Corvette has often served as a barometer of the company's fortunes. Many view the mid-1960s Sting Ray version as a golden era of the 'Vette's might and sex appeal, a tangible representation of GM's corporate power.
A decade later — after GM got caught flat-footed by the oil crisis — the Corvette morphed into a sports car for posers, poorly built and agonizingly slow.
As a premium car, the Corvette naturally sells in low volumes, particularly through the battered economy of recent years, when sales plummeted from more than 40,000 in 2007 to less than 12,000 last year.
Even in good years, Corvette sells as many copies in a year as Toyota's Camry sometimes sells in a month.
But the economy is on the mend, and whatever the Corvette does for the larger Chevrolet and GM brands, the car will turn a substantial profit on its own, Reuss assured.
"This makes as much money as any of the top-profit models in our company," Reuss said. "That is why we do it."
Even as GM works to make Chevrolet more of a global brand, the Corvette remains an American affair.
"From a business case, the car is done for North America first," Reuss said. "Anything else that happens because we made a fundamentally sound car is extra benefit."
Reuss also hopes to speed up the timeline for Corvette redesigns, which have averaged nine years and once stretched to 15 years. The current Corvette debuted in 2005. Corvette fans, he said, won't have to wait so long for the next version.
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