Yahoo looks to regain cool with Tumblr deal
SAN FRANCISCO – After falling woefully out of fashion, Yahoo wants to be cool again while catering to the capitalistic demands of its shareholders. That goal led CEO Marissa Mayer to make a $1.1 billion bet on online blogging forum Tumblr in a risky acquisition that revolves around the vision and instincts of a 26-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of bringing more beauty and creativity to the Internet.
The deal announced Monday is Mayer’s boldest move since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo’s latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo’s most expensive acquisition since it bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion.
While hailing Tumblr as a fount of creativity that attracts 300 million visitors each month, Mayer told analysts Monday that she is “making a sincere promise to not screw it up.” Yahoo said Tumblr’s founder, David Karp, will remain in charge and will keep Tumblr’s headquarters in New York to retain the same “irreverence, wit and commitment to empower creators.”
Hezbollah pulled deeper into Syria civil war
BEIRUT – Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into Syria’s civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday.
The intense battle drove rebels from large parts of the town of Qusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.
The overt Hezbollah involvement – several funerals for group members were held Monday in Lebanon – edges the war further into a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.
Wave of attacks kills at least 95 in Iraq
BAGHDAD – A wave of attacks killed at least 95 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll during the last week to more than 240 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.
The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-07, when Sunni and Shiite militias carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood. Still, Monday’s attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.
Ferris wheel ride world record broken
CHICAGO – A manager of Chicago’s Navy Pier rode the tourist spot’s Ferris wheel for more than two days – 384 times, up and around – bringing the world record for the longest ride to the birthplace of the amusement park favorite.
“I thought Chicago should have that title,” Clinton Shepherd said after finishing his record-breaking ride Sunday. Shepherd, the park operations manager, spent 48 hours, 8 minutes and 25 seconds riding Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel during the weekend.
The first Ferris wheel was built in 1893 in Chicago for the World’s Columbian Exposition.
Guinness World Records allowed him to have one five-minute break each hour. His gondola on the wheel was specially outfitted with a big-screen TV, cushions and curtains.
Associated Press
