May 10, 2017

Media company blames media for lousy earnings

Mark Lennihan / AP

Time Inc. stock is down more than 13% in mid-day Wednesday trading, following a first quarter earnings report that included lower-than-expected revenue and higher-than-expected losses. All of this means that the venerable media giant is now trading well below the unsolicited $18 per share takeover offer it rejected last fall from Edgar Bronfman Jr. and the solicited $18 per share takeover offer that it rejected last month from Meredith Corp.

According to CEO Rich Battista, however, the blame does not belong to a board of directors who overvalued the company or management that fell short on performance. From the earnings call:

"The noise and relentless media speculation over the last 6 months around the potential change of ownership clearly was a major distraction to our employees and advertisers and other partners, and had an impact on Q1 results."

Bottom line: Blaming the media for your own shortcomings is hardly a novel tactic, but it's not something we usually see an actual media company do. Particularly when there is no indication that any of the reporting was faulty.

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Axios

Bernie Sanders wins Nevada caucus

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders waves to supporters at a campaign rally on Friday in Las Vegas. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to handily win the Nevada Democratic primary caucus, becoming the clear frontrunner among 2020 Democratic presidential primary election candidates.

Why it matters: Nevada is the first state with a diverse population to hold a nominating contest, highlighting candidates' abilities to connect with voters of color — particularly Latino voters.

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Axios

South Korea and Italy see spikes in coronavirus cases

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and China's Health Ministry. Note: China numbers are for the mainland only and U.S. numbers include repatriated citizens.

The novel coronavirus has spread to more nations, and the U.S. reports a doubling of its confirmed cases to 34 — while noting these are mostly due to repatriated citizens, emphasizing there's no "community spread" yet in the United States.

The big picture: COVID-19 has now killed at least 2,446 people and infected almost 79,000 others, mostly in mainland China. New countries to announce infections recently include Israel and Lebanon, while Iran reported its sixth death from the virus. South Korea's confirmed cases jumped from 204 Friday to 433 on Saturday and Italy's case count rose from 3 to 62 by Saturday.

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Rebecca Falconer

Heat wave melts 20% of snow cover from Antarctic island in days

The effects of February's record heat wave on Eagle Island in Antarctica. Photo: NASA

Antarctica's Eagle Island now has a side that's almost ice-free following this month's searing heat wave in the region, images released by NASA show.

Why it maters: "The warm spell caused widespread melting on nearby glaciers," NASA said in its report. It's the third major melt event of the 2019-2020 Southern Hemisphere summer, following warm spells in January and last November, according to the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Go deeper2 hours ago - Energy & Environment