Katie Couric is on top as rumours about her quiting CBS Evening news to host a daytime talk show continue to circulate
Katie Couric Quits
Rumors have been swirling for weeks about what Katie Couric will do when her CBS contract expires this summer. Now, The Associated Press reports that she is heading to fill the Oprah-sized hole in the daytime talk show lineup.
According to The AP, Katie Couric will step down from her role as anchor of the 'CBS Evening News' after almost five years in the job. The AP says a CBS executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Katie Couric has not officially announced her plans, reported the move Sunday night.
No departure date has been set, but Katie Couric's contract expires June 4. Katie Couric is now expected to launch a syndicated talk show in 2012, and several companies -- including CBS -- are reportedly vying for Katie Couric's services.
The New York Post reports that CBS offered Katie Couric a new package including both a daytime talk show and a prestigious regular slot on Sunday night news magazine, '60 Minutes.' Although Katie Couric's current contract stipulates that Katie Couric contribute to '60 Minutes' at least six times a year, Katie Couric still hasn't received any assignments from the producers.
Until recently, Katie Couric was expected to stay on as anchor of the 'CBS Evening News' through the 2012 presidential elections. According to the Post, however, the appointment in February of '60 Minutes' chief Jeff Fager as CBS News chairman effectively ended any plans Katie Couric had of extending her stay as nightly anchor.
Katie Couric became the first woman to helm a nightly news broadcast when Katie Couric took over from Dan Rather in 2006. Katie Couric's move from NBC's 'Today' show made headlines, but after a strong start, using a new format, ratings began to fall, and the broadcast quickly reverted to a more traditional style.
The 'CBS Evening News' settled into third place in the ratings and remains well behind Brian Williams at NBC's 'Nightly News' and Diane Sawyer at ABC's 'World News.' Insiders say that Katie Couric's $15 million salary has become increasingly hard to justify for a third-place broadcast.
Rome Hartman, Katie Couric's first executive producer at the 'CBS Evening News,' told The AP that, while Katie Couric's tenure clearly didn't work out as well as CBS hoped, "I don't think it's right to think of it as, or call it, a failure. ... There are people who love Katie and those who don't love her and that was a factor," he said. "But it was the overall dynamics. There was a rock that we couldn't move and I don't think it would have mattered who we would have put in there."
No replacement for Katie Couric has yet been announced, but names linked with the role include Harry Smith, Scott Pelley and Russ Mitchell. Jeff Fager is also said to be looking for candidates outside of CBS. If Katie Couric signs a talk show syndication deal with CBS it's possible that she could continue as evening news anchor on a temporary basis past June, if Katie Couric were to agree to stay on during an extended search for her successor.
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES Grounds Planes over Leak fears.
Southwest Airlines is in the news because Southwest Airlines is expected to cancel 70 more flights, or 2 percent of Southwest Airlines Monday schedule, as it inspected older planes for cracks in the fuselage.
Southwest Airlines canceled about 600 flights and grounded 79 planes over the weekend after a Boeing 737-300 jet sprang a 5-foot hole in the roof shortly after takeoff from Phoenix on Friday. The plane made an emergency landing. Southwest Airlines said no one was seriously injured.
Southwest Airlines Spokeswoman Brandy King said Monday morning that Southwest Airlines had inspected 33 similar planes in the Southwest Airlines fleet and returned them to service and expected to complete checks on remaining grounded planes by late Tuesday.
King said two planes had cracks similar to those in the Phoenix jet and would be repaired before they fly again. A National Transportation Safety Board member told The Associated Press that a third plane was also found to have cracks developing.
The Southwest Airlines jet with the torn roof had made more than 39,000 takeoff and landing cycles.
Now for Epsilon. So who is this Epsilon you say? Well, I found out about Epsilon through an Email from Best Buy which stated the following:
We have been informed by our email service provider, Epsilon, that your name and email address have been exposed by unauthorized entry into their system. Epsilon deploys emails on our behalf to our Reward Zone members. Click here to read Epsilon's statement.
We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that has been exposed was your name and email address. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon has determined that account details, passwords or any other personal information were not at risk.
It is possible that you may receive spam email messages as a result and we would advise you to be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders. More information on spam and protecting yourself from email fraud can be found here.
In keeping with security industry best practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site, www.bestbuy.ca. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy. The next scheduled email from Reward Zone about our Trade In Event will arrive to your inbox on April 15, 2011.
Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.
We regret this has taken place and any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we are working diligently to fully investigate this situation and continue to protect your personal information. If you have further concerns or questions please contact us: 1-866-BEST-BUY (238-7289) or customercare@bestbuycanada.ca.
Sincerely,
Angela Scardillo
Vice President of Marketing
Best Buy Canada
I did a little digging, and as it turns out Computer hackers have stolen the names and email addresses of millions of people in one of the largest internet security breaches in US history.
The names and email addresses of customers of Barclaycard US, Capital One and other large firms were taken in an attack on the marketing email provider Epsilon last week. British customers of Barclays Bank, which owns Barclaycard US, were not affected. A spokesman for Barclaycard US confirmed it would continue to work with Epsilon despite the breach.
Other information, such as passwords or credit card details in the Epsilon database, are not thought to have been exposed. However, some banks have warned customers to expect fraudulent emails attempting to solicit further login details.
Epsilon, which provides marketing services via email to about 2,500 companies, put a warning on the Epsilon website on Thursday March 31st stating that the Epsilon systems had been "exposed by an unauthorised entry" into its email system. It is not yet known who perpetrated the attack on Epsilon, which US law enforcement agencies have begun investigating.
Epsilon said in their online statement "The information obtained was limited to email addresses and or customer names Only, a rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway."
Over the weekend, dozens of Epsilon clients (Including Best Buy) began to warn their clients that their email addresses may have been stolen. Some of the largest financial institutions in the US, such as JPMorgan and Citigroup, are among the companies affected. Disney Destinations also began warning its customers about the Epsilon security breach. The list of companies affected by the Epsilon security breach is expected to continue to grow.
TiVo wrote to their clients on Sunday morning stating "Please note, it is possible you may receive spam email messages as a result. We want to urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties."
A list of millions of email addresses with their source is likely to be incredibly lucrative for "phishing" scams, where seamingly credible emails are sent to live Email addresses soliciting further sensitive information, such as bank account details. Usually these phishing scams involve warnings about account status and threats of accounts being revoked unless the reader logs into what is in essence a fake site. The private information is then collected and the scammers use it to bilk unsuspecting people of money.
The attack on Epsilon has drawn parallels with other large-scale computer infiltrations, most notably the Heartland Payment Systems breach of 2008. More than 40million bank account details were stolen in that attack, conducted by a criminal gang led by notorious hacker Albert Gonzalez. Gonzalez was later sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Last month an Iranian hacker claimed he stole digital security certificates used for online transactions by some of the web's largest sites, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Skype.
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