NBA star Jason Collins comes out as the first openly gay active male athlete in American sports.

Primark is first retailer involved in Bangladesh factory collapse to offer aid to victims. 

Chrysler earnings plunge on model changes. 

Samsung reveals 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3.

Burger King tweaks menu and message after first-quarter sales decline.

BYD of China plans to sell "made in USA" buses.

Bayer pays $1.1 billion for birth-control company.

Boeing returns Dreamliner to the air but must reassure passengers, as China is deemed likely to approve the plane in May.

Canon crowdsources short films.

Honda scores so far with mid-cycle remake of Civic.Continue reading...

Disney acquires Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, plans to restart Star Wars franchise.

Apple sees executive refuse to apologize for mapping flaw, so he and retail chief are to depart as design head Jony Ive takes on bigger role and Apple shares slip post-shakeup.BP returns to profitability and raises dividend.

BP returns to profitability and raises dividend.

Activision goes big for CoD: Black Ops 2.

Aldi revamps as German consumers reject austerity.

Bayer acquires Schiff for $1.2 billion.

Burger King boosts marketing and makes demographic inroads.

Ford profits reflect North American gains and European woes.Continue reading...

NFL settlement with referees clears the way for marketers.

Tempur-Pedic goes to the mattresses to buy Sealy for $228.6 million.

American Greetings hears buyout offer from founding family and CEO.

Amazon rejects false advertising claim in Apple app store suit.

Apple-Google maps talks failed on voice navigation.

BAE proposed merger with Airbus parent EADS hits snag in Germany.

Bayer partners with feline vets.

BlackBerry 10 will determine RIM's fate as company courts app developers.Continue reading...

A major food fight is brewing in California with potential consequences for all Americans, and it’s not the old-fashioned kind immortalized in movies set in school cafeterias. Proposition 37, one of 11 statewide measures on the docket for California voters in November, would require stores and vendors to label genetically modified organisms (GMO) foods by 2014. 

"It's an epic food fight between the pesticide companies and consumers who want to know what's in their food," said Stacy Malkan, media director for the California Right to Know campaign, which has raised $2.4 million to promote their initiative. Continue reading...

Toyota teams with Marvel for a Yaris viral video, above.

Ford hooks up with the 2012 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for product placement.

The king(size) Snickers bar is dead. Make way for the fun size.

Below: Coke and ScarJo, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Linsanity and more.Continue reading...

AOL seeks new agency to convince consumers to "care" again.

Apple faces $38M fine in China for iPad name as company retakes crown as world's top smartphone maker.

Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors get into the hard-cider business.

Bayer CEO says consumers don't give pharma enough credit.

Coca-Cola draws more interest than expected with polar bears "watching" the Super Bowl, though its quarterly profits slid.

Clint Eastwood declares no political motive behind Chrysler Super Bowl spot, donates fee to charity.

Disney and Univision talk about creating English-language cable-news channel.

Ford and General Motors continue to snark over Chevrolet's Silverado ad in the Super Bowl as GM seeks new life for Volt in California.Continue reading...

The great hurricane of last weekend has left a mess in its wake. We're not talking about Irene -- this is all about the media coverage of the storm as Irene pulled a veni, vidi, vici act that was unparalleled in the annals of weather examination. And the mess it left? An unresolvable controversy over whether the hurricane coverage was all too much, or whether you never can have enough.

George Will dubbed it "synthetic hysteria," and Howard Kurtz of The Daily Beast made no bones. "Someone has to say it: cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon," Kurtz concluded. The Washington Post's former media critic wrote that "the tsunami of hype on this story was relentless, a Category 5 performance that was driven in large measure by ratings" because TV producers were afraid to switch away from 24x7 coverage of Irene. "Does anyone seriously believe the hurricane would have drawn the same level of coverage if it had been bearing down on, say, Ft. Lauderdale?" Continue reading...

Airbus may develop longer-range plane to rival Boeing.

Apple tucks Newsstand into WWDC announcements.

AT&T's bid for T-Mobile is supported by Microsoft and Facebook.

Barack Obama's chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, resigns.

Bayer prostate-cancer drug shows promise.

BHP Billiton starts first US Gulf well since BP disaster.

BP tries to salvage Rosneft deal.Continue reading...