IRS's Lerner Placed on Leave

The IRS official at the center of the recent scandal has been placed on administrative leave, reports the National Review . Lois Lerner had been in charge of the agency's tax-exempt unit, which singled out conservative groups for added scrutiny. Her immediate boss already has been forced into early retirement , and...

Amazon Building Huge, Tree-Filled Biodome in Seattle

Amazon has big plans for its new campus. Big, sphere-shaped plans. The company revealed earlier this month that it will build a biosphere in Seattle, a 65,000-square-foot structure made up of three domes, where the temperature will always be a perfect 68 to 72 degrees, Fast Company reports. The...

The Weather Is Getting More Expensive

The bill from the Oklahoma tornado is now expected to top $2 billion in damages, making it the latest member of the rapidly growing billion-dollar weather-disaster club, the New Yorker observes. In a recent study, climate scientists found that billion-dollar-plus disasters (among them Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, and the 2011...

Tesla Pays Off US Loan 9 Years Early

Tesla has come a long way since Mitt Romney labeled it a "loser" in the presidential debates. The company has paid off its $465 million 2010 loan from the Department of Energy—plus interest—nine years before it was due, Businessweek reports. With yesterday's payment for $451.8 million, "Tesla...

Ford to End an Operation Running Since 1925

Starting in October 2016, Ford will no longer produce vehicles in Australia, the company says. "Our costs are double that of Europe and nearly four times Ford in Asia," says Ford Australia CEO Bob Graziano. Facing struggling sales and citing high wages, the firm will close its two plants in...

Guy Finds $100K Comic in Wall of Old House

David Gonzalez bought an abandoned home in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, for about $10,000, planning to remodel it. But he ended up getting more than he bargained for—more than 10 times more, it seems. In the walls of the house, amid the newspapers used as insulation, Gonzalez found a...

Apple Case Clinches It: We Need Tax Reform Now

So what can we take away from Apple chief Tim Cook's testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday about the company's byzantine tax strategy ? Not that Apple did anything illegal, only that it's savvy enough to employ "smart accountants and tax lawyers," says the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal...

Bernanke to Congress: Stop Screwing the Economy

The Federal Reserve isn't planning to take its foot off the gas pedal anytime remotely soon, Ben Bernanke told Congress today, while rebuking legislators for not doing their own part to juice the economy. The Fed's interest rate has been near zero since 2008, and Bernanke said he expects it...

Apple's 'Offshore' Billions? They're in Manhattan

Tim Cook went before the Senate yesterday, answering accusations that Apple is keeping billions from the IRS' clutches by holding it in overseas subsidiaries. Only that money isn't actually overseas, the New York Times reports—its $102 billion in offshore profits is managed by a subsidiary based in Nevada and...

Guy Fined $2.4K for Renting Out Condo on Airbnb

This may give you pause if you were considering renting out your apartment on Airbnb : A New York City man did just that, and now he'll have to pay a $2,400 fine. New York officials initially fined Nigel Warren $7,000 after he rented part of his condo to...

Gandhi Blood on Auction Block

A few drops of Mahatma Gandhi's blood are among the oddest items on sale at an auction of historical goods in London today, Reuters reports. The blood samples, taken when the Indian nationalist leader was recovering from an appendectomy in 1924, are expected to fetch around $20,000. Gandhi fans...

Apple Kept Billions Out of IRS' Reach: Probe

A Senate inquiry into Apple has accused the company of keeping billions out of the reach of the IRS through tax havens and a complex network of overseas subsidiaries. The company runs its non-American operations through affiliates based in Ireland, which has a low tax rate. However, investigators say many...

Takeout Tycoons GrubHub and Seamless Merge

Yahoo and Tumblr weren't the only online properties getting into bed together today: GrubHub and Seamless, two of the largest food-delivery websites in the US, have announced a merger, combining forces to fend off an increasing number of startup rivals, Bloomberg reports. "This has nothing to do with cost savings;...

Man Kills 4 After Bank, ATM Deny Him Cash

A pretty horrific story out of southern Israel today, where a man apparently became enraged after visiting the bank with the intention of taking care of a $1,640 debt—which failed to happen, reports Ynet : His request denied, he "came back with a pistol and shot dead four people...

Yahoo Promises Not to 'Screw Up' Tumblr

As Marissa Mayer puts it , "Tumblr. + Yahoo! = !!" As Tumblr CEO David Karp puts it , "F--- yeah." The two companies this morning announced that a definitive agreement has been reached and that Yahoo will indeed acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion, a transaction that Mayer expects will close in...

New Home to Most Poor Americans: the 'Burbs

The face of American poverty is now a suburban one, according to new research from the Brookings Institution. Researchers found that the number of people living in poverty in the suburbs soared 64% between 2000 and 2010, more than twice the rate of urban areas—meaning that now more poor...

A Small-Town Mystery: Who Won $590M Powerball?

As the winner of the $590.5 million Powerball jackpot wonders whether to take the annuity or a $370 million lump sum, the people of Zephyrhills are wondering who among them may now be incredibly rich. The winning ticket was sold in a Publix supermarket in the Florida town, population...

Trek Blasts to No. 1

The Star Trek franchise may be living long, but it hasn't quite prospered as well as expected this time around. Star Trek Into Darkness topped the box office charts in its opening weekend, but "only" made $84.1 million domestically—well under the $100 million many had expected, reports the...

Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1B

The rumors were apparently pretty accurate : Yahoo will indeed acquire Tumblr, and its board has approved a $1.1 billion cash deal for the blogging site. The board met today and unanimously OKed the deal, in what AllThingsD 's Kara Swisher reports was "a foregone conclusion." It's the biggest acquisition...

1 Lucky Winner in $590M Powerball

Get ready to shake your fist at Florida, where one lucky winner has beaten incredible odds to hit the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million. The single winner was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., according to a Florida Lottery executive. "This would...

eHarmony Looks to Match Bosses, Workers

EHarmony is moving from the business of love to the business of, well, business. The dating website is developing a job service that aims to cut through what one eHarmony exec calls the "artificial and weird interaction" of the job interview in much the same way it does the date....

Report: Yahoo In 'Serious' Talks to Buy Tumblr

The tech world is abuzz today over reports that Yahoo is in talks to invest in, partner with, or just plain buy Tumblr, in an attempt to, to quote Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman, make the company "cool again." Goldman uttered those words earlier this week, saying that the company's chief...

Target Dabbling With Its Own Netflix Competitor

When you think "streaming video," Target is probably not the first name you think of—or the fiftieth. But the retail giant is hoping to change all that; it's currently beta testing a Netflix-esque service that, the Target Ticket site proclaims, provides "instant access to 15,000 titles, new releases,...

Cannes Hit With $1M Jewelry Heist

If the Cannes red carpet looks a little less fabulous this year, blame jewel thieves. Someone made off with more than $1 million worth of jewelry that was supposed to be lent out to the stars yesterday, smashing the security box where it was being kept in a Novotel Hotel...

Found in Cookie Jar: $4.85M

Ricardo Cerezo's wife was cleaning the kitchen when she told the Illinois man he'd better get the lottery tickets that had been piling up in a cookie jar for the past month checked—or she was going to throw them away. Good thing, because that prodded Cerezo to take the...

He's Back: Gates World's Richest Person Once Again

It's been a while—six years, to be precise—since Bill Gates was dubbed the richest person in the world by Bloomberg. But thanks to an ascendant Microsoft and a dent in Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's fortune—now $72.1 billion—Gates is again at the top with $72.7...

Fired Groupon CEO Records 'Business Music' Album

Groupon's co-founder seemed to take it pretty well when he got fired , which somehow still doesn't detract from the nuttiness of what Andrew Mason has done since: recorded an album ... of "motivational business music." The tidbit comes in an otherwise fairly unremarkable Chicago Tribune piece about Mason's decision to start...

American Airlines to Let Light Packers Board Earlier

If you're traveling light, you can board earlier on American Airlines. The airline said today that people carrying just a personal item that fits under the seat—no rolling suitcases—will be allowed to board before most other passengers. American said the change will speed up the boarding process because...

Topless Bea Arthur Painting Sells for $1.9M

No, Bea Arthur never sat for a topless painting. But that didn't stop artist John Currin from conjuring one up in his imagination in 1991, and last night it sold for $1.9 million at Christie's, reports the New York Post . It was part of a $495 million night, a...

Obama's Net Worth Revealed —Kind Of

President Obama's net worth could stand at a hair under $7 million ... or just $1.8 million. That range comes via his financial disclosure reports released yesterday, and USA Today sums it up perfectly: The Obamas "are wealthy, but it's uncertain just how wealthy." Their assets are documented on an...