It's like a sandwich on steroids – or on caffeine, to be more accurate.
If you're in need of a little pick-me-up, you now can get it by wolfing down a peanut butter sandwich, thanks to Steem. The U.S. company has launched a caffeinated version of peanut butter that promises to deliver "protein, electrolytes, and caffeine, granting you hours of endurance and focus, and freeing you from distractions like hunger and fatigue."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer doesn't think so.
The New York lawmaker is urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to "immediately investigate a new, potentially dangerous product that is hitting store shelves."
One serving (two tablespoons) contains the same amount of caffeine as two 16-ounce (473 ml) cans of Red Bull or five cans of Coke, the senator said in a news release earlier this month.
"This may look like an ordinary jar of peanut butter, and it may cost the same as a jar of peanut butter, but the fact is, it's much more dangerous than an ordinary jar of peanut butter," Mr. Schumer warned ominously.
The senator said it is even scarier to think about what might happen if a child unknowingly ate an entire sandwich made of caffeinated peanut butter: "To think that peanut butter, one of the snacks most closely associated with children, might have to be stored in the medicine cabinet as opposed to the kitchen cabinet should serve as a jolt to the FDA."
Disclosures agrees the FDA should move fast before we see a wave of kids bouncing off the walls of America's school lunch rooms.
Jeans and a double pepperoni, please
The stock of hip clothing chain Urban Outfitters made like a snowbird over the past week, heading south 7.4 per cent on Monday and losing more than 26 per cent over a five-day period ending Tuesday. It's since regained a bit of ground, but still, it's taken a pounding.
So what was fuelling the rout? Well, for one thing, shareholders are having trouble digesting the company's move to gobble down a U.S. restaurant group best known for its Pizzeria Vetri chain.
It doesn't help that the retailer disappointed with third-quarter results posted Tuesday, but the jump into the restaurant business with the Vetri Family was a bit of a head-scratcher for many observers. The company's experience in the food business extends no further than the coffee shops in some of its outlets.
The strategy, according to restaurant founder Marc Vetri, is to use Urban Outfitters' muscle to help expand the small chain's footprint, as Bloomberg reported. "It's a perfect match," Mr. Vetri said in a statement.
Others aren't so sure pants and pies are such a great combo. On Monday, one tweeted: "So UrbanOutfitters just bought a pizza chain. My prediction: Old pizzas sold as distressed or vintage at 3x the price."
Wal-Mart scores with Patti pies
And speaking of pies, voulez vous mangez une tarte, ce soir? Well if it's one of the Lady Marmalade singer's sweet potato pies you're after, you may have a long wait.
Soul/R&B icon Patti LaBelle apparently is not just a great singer, but a star in the kitchen, too. So much so that she created the pies for Wal-Mart – whose boxes bear her name and picture – that the chain just can't keep on its shelves.
The stampede for Patti pies was sparked by a video posted on YouTube last week that went viral in a big way. At the time of writing, Chicago singer James Wright's gushing musical review – laced with enthusiastic profanities – has had almost 10 million views.
In it, he unboxes – with some hilarious difficulty – and eats the pie while breaking into song like he's the diva himself.
Kerry Robinson, vice-president for bakery and deli at Wal-Mart, told NPR last week that the chain was selling a pie per second last weekend, after the video dropped.
Mr. Wright isn't just a fan of the pies, but he's also a huge fan of the multi-Grammy winner, so he was bowled over when Ms. LaBelle called him to thank him for his praise of her pies. "I was crying like a baby. … She kept thanking me and thanking me and she was like, boy, you can sang!"
While they're on a roll, maybe Wal-Mart should think about introducing a line of Aretha cupcakes.
Like Garbo, they want to be alone
People who need people may be the luckiest people in the world. But those who don't – and let's face it, there are plenty of them – just want to be left alone most of the time, thank you very much.
And yet everyone needs to earn a living, so what are the best careers for misanthropes?
The Occupational Information Network, a U.S. Department of Labour database, looked into it. The database analyzed 974 occupations and, among other things, rated how much a job requires contact with other people, and how much a job requires being pleasant to others, Business Insider reports.
On the list of the 13 careers most suited to the antisocial (why Business Insider listed 13 is anybody's guess) are economists. The discipline, long associated with just being simply boring, was given of score of 57.5 out of 100
But economists are social butterflies compared with the top occupation for the just-leave-me-alone crowd: Hunters and trappers racked up a mere 51 points. They're people who don't need people – not the luckiest people in the world.
Full points to Modigliani buyer
You can't always know what your spouse is up to, but Wang Wei's suspicions were well-founded. When the hammer came down at a Christie's auction in New York last week at $170-million for a Modigliani, Ms. Wang was certain there was only one person it could be.
"As soon as I heard that it went to an Asian buyer, I knew it was him," Ms. Wang told The New York Times, referring to her husband, Liu Yiqian.
While it was the second-highest price paid for an artwork at auction, it must have set a different kind of record: Mr. Liu is paying for his purchase with his Amex card. And it's not the first time the Chinese billionaire has plunked down the plastic for a big purchase, as Disclosures has reported.
Mr. Liu used his American Express card to purchase a 15th-century Tibetan silk tapestry for $45-million last November to pocket some serious frequent-flier miles, as he did a few months before that to pay $36-million for an ancient Chinese ceramic.
Mr. Liu takes a nationalistic pride in his latest acquisition. "The message to the West is clear," he told the New York Times. "We have bought their buildings, we have bought their companies, and now we are going to buy their art."
And it looks like our frequent-flier miles, too.