'Heroes' Star Zachary Quinto Comes Out After Gay Teen Commits Suicide

Zachary Quinto, the star of "Star Trek" and the former NBC series "Heroes," came out publicly on his website today.

Quinto said he was moved to make the announcement after hearing of the suicide of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemayer, a New York state resident whose parents say was bullied prior to his death.

Rodemayer had participated in the popular "It Gets Better" campaign months earlier.

Quinto's website statement read in part:

"[I]n light of jamey's death - it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it - is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality.  our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered citizen of this country.  gay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying.  parents need to teach their children principles of respect and acceptance.  we are witnessing an enormous shift of collective consciousness throughout the world.  we are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government."

By referencing "living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it," Quinto threw down a gauntlet for the movie and television industries.

Hollywood, long an inwardly progressive environment in terms of homosexuality, still dictates that actors perceived as straight by audiences remain closeted.

There's no doubt that right now, some actors who still labor under this unwritten rule are mulling following Quinto's lead -- maybe even aloud, to their agents and publicists.

So we'll have to wait and see if Quinto's move triggers a ripple effect or just a single splash.

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Indy 500 Champion Dan Wheldon Dies After A Horrifying IndyCar Crash In Las Vegas

Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon died of injuries sustained in a 15-car wreck at the IndyCar World Championships in Las Vegas today.

Wheldon was airlifted to a nearby hospital with undisclosed but severe injuries after the crash, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but was unable to recover.

IndyCar announced his death shortly before 6:00 p.m. eastern time.

The crash occurred during the 13th lap of the race.

It appears Wheldon's car went airborne, turned, and slammed into a semi-flexible "catch fence" above the wall. But the exact details of the crash and injuries he sustained are still undisclosed.

Three other drivers were hospitalized with more minor injuries.

Wheldon was 33 years old. He is most famous for winning the Indy 500 in both 2005 and 2011.

He leaves behind a wife and two sons.

Below you can find ancedotes, driver reactions, and videos of the crash.

EARLIER

6:15 p.m.:

Tragic scene in Vegas. Many drivers crying as they prepare to drive on a five-lap tribute around Las Vegas Moter Speedway.

6:20 p.m.:

Here's what Danica Patrick told the AP after the crash:

It was debris everywhere across the whole track, you could smell the smoke, you could see the billowing smoke on the back straight from the car. There was a chunk of fire that we were driving around. You could see cars scattered.

Others have said it's the worst crash they've seen.

6:30 p.m.:

Three other drivers — Will Power, Pippa Mann, and JR Hildebrand — were injured in the crash. None of them were airlifted, and there is no indication that their injuries are as severe as Wheldon's.

7:25 p.m.:

It appears that Dan Wheldon wrote a blog post for USA Today yesterday. It's a chilling and saddening read. But it gives you an insight into Wheldon's thoughts and frustrations on the eve of the race that would ultimately claim his life. Read it here.

8:20 p.m.: What Wheldon saw

Here's video of the very beginning of the crash from Wheldon's cockpit. It cuts away before he collides.

MORE VIDEO

Here's a full version of the replay from above:

Here's one from an onboard camera of Will Power:

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A Brawl Nearly Erupted Between The Lions And 49ers After Their Coaches Got Into A Postgame Scuffle

San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh got in a minor scuffle with Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz after the Niners' 25-19 win today.

After a brief postgame handshake, Schwartz began chasing after the giddy Harbaugh. At that point, multiple players became involved, the the two teams squared off near the tunnel.

Nothing came of it, but it was pretty close to an ugly scene.

After the game, Schwartz said Harbaught cursed at him.

Here's what he said, from PFT:

“I went to congratulate [Jim] Harbaugh and got shoved out of the way. . . .  I didn’t expect an obscenity at that point.”

Here's the video (the incident starts 20 seconds in):

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Nickelodeon Launched Its Awesome 90s Series After Listening To Twitter Followers

When Nickelodeon launched its 90s TV tribute series, its ratings on subsidiary network TeenNick saw a triple-digit uptick, rising 500% among 18- to 34-year-olds, according to Nickelodeon's Nielsen numbers.

The media company credits its decision to actually pay attention to its Twitter and Facebook followers for that spike.

"It was a listening exercise, and we reacted to it," Keith Dawkins, senior vice president and general manager of Nicktoons and TeenNick, told us in an interview. 

It all started when younger employees told network executives that they should bring back old-school programming, pointing out that there was a demand from Twitter and Facebook users.

At first, TeenNick broadcast four half-hour episodes between midnight and 2 a.m. on weeknights. Now 90s shows run every day from 10 p.m. to midnight.

The biggest challenge was branding the block as an "adult" series.

"Nickelodeon as an idea is a pivotal, iconic, emotional thing to that generation," says Dawkins. "These were the shows of the generation."

He's cautiously optimistic about the future of the vintage block. For now, it's a matter of seeing how ratings and viewer reactions shake out. Keeping up with loyal fans on Twitter and Facebook is a huge part of that, he says, as is getting those fans onto 90sAreAllThat.com. On the site, Nick fans can vote on what shows they want to see.

In coming weeks, TeenNick will have a better idea if the initial ratings are due to the shows' novelty or a sustainable, winning business move. For now, Dawkins says the network isn't focusing too much on monetizing programming by targeting advertisers. TeenNick first has to make sure the viewers are there to stay.

"We're able to conduct research daily by going on social media," he says. "That's what started this journey, and that's what will continue. Digital has led our experience, not followed it."

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After Raising A Boatload Of Kickstarter Cash, Diaspora Asks Users For A $25 Donation Each

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Diaspora was supposed to be a breath of fresh air from Facebook's inaccessible take on privacy.

After the new social network startup successfully raised just over $200,000 on Kickstarter last year (smashing the $10,000 goal), it's pretty much fallen off the radar.

Now they've reached out to users via email to ask for donations, reports The Next Web:

“We’re not in this for the money. But today we’re asking for your help — some money — to keep building Diaspora*. Can you contribute $25 or any other amount you feel comfortable with?”

The Next Web responds perfectly to this request, saying:

Today’s email is quite clearly a last ditch attempt from the team to keep things running – a “what have we got to lose?” moment I imagine. But one look at what’s been built with the $178,000+ raised should tell you your money is better spent, or indeed donated, elsewhere.

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Scottish Man Jailed After Reporting Stolen Marijuana To Police

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A Scottish man has been jailed for 10 months after he reported the theft of his own cannabis plants to the police, reports the BBC. 

David Williamson said he was held at gunpoint by four men as they robbed him of his drugs. After a Scottish court heard him admit that the stolen property was his marijuana it issued a search warrant of Williamson's apartment, believing he was cultivating and manufacturing the drug. 

Police later found 20 seedlings and cultivation equipment in his apartment. Williamson claimed that he was using the drug himself to treat his Hepatitis C. 

To read more from the BBC click here>

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BILL GROSS: The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Just Fighting Back After "30 Years Of Being Shot At'

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One of the richest, biggest investors around seems to be 100% on the side of the Occupy Wall Street Protesters.

Just tweeted by PIMCO:

Gross: Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they’re fighting back after 30 years of being shot at.

30 years of being shot at?

It sounds like he's basically saying it started with Reagan, though actually labor's share of the national income has been declining for about 40 years.

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Hilary Swank Gets Busted At Human Rights Criminal's Birthday Bash -- After She Said She Wouldn't Go

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Yeah, Hilary Swank and Jean-Claude Van Damme played their recent trip to Chechnya very, very wrong. Here's an itemized list of their mistakes.

1. Unlike Eva Mendes and Kevin Costner, Swank and Van Damme RSVPed "yes" to the birthday party of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who's accused of allowing widespread abduction and torture of his constituents.

2. Swank's manager confirmed that she would not be attending on Sept. 26.

3. Swank and Van Damme jetted off to the party -- which reportedly had a "portraits of the evil leader everywhere" theme.

4. Presumably having glanced around the room and finding they knew nobody else, Swank and Van Damme figured no one would ever hear they'd showed up.

5. Oh, right, except for a little thing called YouTube.

6. Swank went onstage to wish Kadyrov a happy birthday.

7. Van Damme went onstage to say -- and we're quoting here -- “I love you, Mr. Kadyrov.”

8. They went home with estimated six-figure checks in their pockets.

Start picking out charities, kids. And about a year's worth of movie and TV roles that are well beneath your pre-Kadyrov pedigree.

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Japanese Stock Market Jumps After Taking A Day Off

Sam Ro | Oct. 10, 2011, 8:37 PM | 61 |   x You have successfully emailed the post. After being closed Monday for Health-Sports Day, Japanese markets are joining the global rally. The Nikkei is up 2.0%.  Other Asian markets are following suit.

Korea's Kospi is up 2.3%. 

Australia's S&P/ASX is up 0.5%.

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Looks Like We May Be Stuck With Just An iPhone 4S After All (AAPL)

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The evidence continues to grow that Apple will only announce an iPhone 4S on Tuesday, a souped up iPhone 4 that has the same external design but a faster processor and other powerful internals.

9to5Mac discovered a mention of the "iPhone 4S" in the latest developer beta of iTunes. The reference also links to an image of the current Verizon version of the iPhone 4.

There's no mention of an iPhone 5 or any photos of a redesigned device.

It looks like Apple pulled the iTunes beta from its developer's page. We can't find it, and we're hearing the same thing from other developers on Twitter. We're still trying to confirm Apple removed it.

Head over to 9to5Mac to see the evidence >

UPDATE: Yup, it looks like Apple has removed the latest iTunes beta from its developer's site. We just tried to download it and got the following error:

Image: Screenshot

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Markets Doing Nothing After Crazy Day On Wall Street

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After a wildly volatile day in New York, it's quiet once again.

Futures not really doing anything. Asia quiet.

The Nikkei is up just modestly.

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SABMiller FINALLY Manages To Take Over Foster's After Months Of Being Rebuffed

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You have to be ruthless and persistent to win in a hostile takeover, and that's what SABMiller has just proved.

Australian brewer Foster's has finally caved to a $10.2 billion bid from the UK-based brewer and bottler, after three months of telling them to shove off, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Here's all the drama that led up to the final deal:

SABMiller first tried back in June, but the $10 billion bid quickly rejected -- Foster's CEO John Pollaers later said it was "so far from reality, it wasn't worth engaging," according to the Wall Street Journal.

It just got more hostile from there. In August, Foster's rebuffed another $10 billion offer, saying that it "significantly undervalued" the company. 

Then it really got ugly. The brewer accused Foster's of making misleading financial statements and tried to get Australia's Takeovers Panel to intervene, but it refused the review.

SABMiller actually reduced its cash offer to $9.6 billion in another bid earlier this month, and was once against told that it was "inadequate." Foster's gave up the fight just over a week later after the bid was increased back over the $10 billion mark.

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Everything Is Diving After The Big Italy Downgrade

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Markets around the world are lower after S&P's downgrade of Italy.

That includes US futures (down over 0.5%), the euro, and Asia.

Here's the Nikkei, down about 1.5% right now.

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Stocks Diving AGAIN After Fed Action, Dollar On The Rampage

  x You have successfully emailed the post. Yesterday stocks got destroyed after the Fed's announcement of Operation Twist, an announcement that obviously left a lot of market participants wanting.

Well the market's falling again.

All the big US indices are down over 1.3% at the moment.

Europe's getting smashed, naturally. Italy is off about 3%.

France is off 3.7%.

The only winner? Not gold. Not Swiss Franc. The dollar.

Not helping things: A fresh batch of bad economic news in both Europe and China. See here for more details on that.

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Report: Manny Ramirez Arrested In Florida After Alleged Domestic Incident

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Former baseball star Manny Ramirez has been arrested in Florida.

He was taken into custody after an alleged domestic dispute with his wife, according to TMZ.

More coming as information becomes available...

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What Microsoft Did For Cantor Fitzgerald After 9/11 (MSFT)

When Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its 960 employees on 9/11, it wasn't expected to survive. 

The firm, which occupied space on the 101st-105th floors of One World Trade Center, also lost most of the "files, hard drives and technological capability that make a brokerage firm tick," reports the Los Angeles Times. 

But amazingly, within a week, the firm was back to trading online -- thanks to companies like Microsoft, which "flew out some 50 employees to help Cantor break into the password-protected computer accounts of all the workers who were gone," and Cisco Systems, which "sent a dozen 18-wheelers full of routers, cables and other hardware to Cantor's office in New Jersey." 

Cantor's reemergence may be one of the greatest comeback stories on Wall Street. According to the LA Times: 

At the same time that [CEO Howard] Lutnick was shuttling between funerals, he was also bringing on new employees to begin rebuilding Cantor. On the weekend before the memorial, Lutnick had interviewed and hired 35 people from temporary office space in midtown Manhattan.

The expansion has rarely stopped since then. Lutnick, who oversaw 2,100 employees before Sept. 11, when Cantor was known primarily for trading bonds, now oversees 4,500 employees and has grown his company into a full-service investment bank.

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Outback Steakhouse Goes On Damage Control After Serving Alcohol To A 4-Year-Old

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An Outback Steakhouse in Ohio accidentally gave samples of an alcoholic beverage -- a slushy with vodka and peach schnapps -- to a 4-year-old girl and a pair of teens, according to a report from ABC5.

The manager comped the meal, and said he would make a donation to the family's church. He later bailed on that promise and referred the family to Outback's legal department.

Once the story got to the media, Outback had to go on damage control to try to reduce all the negative PR. 

It issued this apology from its legal department, which puts a little bit of the blame on the family:

We were serving samples of one of our specialty cocktails to adults waiting to be seated. Our server failed to inform the adults in the Kerwin family that the drink contained alcohol. A member of the family then gave the sample to two of their children. 

Our server gave samples only to the adults in the Kerwin party and was not present when the adults gave the samples to the children. Regardless, we should have informed the adults that the samples contained alcohol.

How hard is it to simply apologize and accept complete responsibility for a mistake? Apologies that come right from the legal department making excuses can only be seen as distancing yourself from what happened, even if the blame might not necessarily lie 100% on the company.

The chain did what was expected of it and canned the offending server. Plus, Outback changed its policy on samples, and won't be serving any alcoholic samples anymore.

It's the fourth time something like this has happened in a big chain restaurant since April -- the other offenders were Applebee's, Chili's and Olive Garden.

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Euro Tanking, And European Equities Sliding Again After A Huge Day Of News

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Thursday was a huge day around the world, with Obama's jobs speech, Bernanke's speech, Trichet's tirade, and some mediocre data, not to mention a new 9/11 terror threat.

Anyway, markets aren't so hot. The big European indices are off somewhere in the neighborhood of -.5%, give or take 0.1%.

US futures actually remain higher at the moment, and gold continues to rally.

The euro is down notably, below $1.39.

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The Truth About Yahoo After Carol Bartz (YHOO, NWS)

After Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was fired last night, cofounder Jerry Yang told employees today that the company is not for sale.

In an all hands meeting, Yang said:  "You don't ask your CEO to leave and then start a sales process."

But a source familiar with Yahoo's board proceedings tells us that Yahoo is very much for sale.

In fact, says this source, the board is planning to form two committees, staffed by independent directors: one to explore strategic options – such as a sale – and another to find a CEO replacement for Bartz.

So far, the "strategic options" committee has made a lot more progress. It's already in touch with Allen & Co, the boutique M&A powerhouse that would help Yahoo talk to interested buyers.

Meanwhile, the board's CEO search committee has yet to hire a search firm.

So is Jerry lying? Maybe not. Jerry Yang, still a huge Yahoo shareholder, infamously resisted a Yahoo sale to Microsoft.

Perhaps he's still doing his best to prevent change.

The truth is, Yahoo's future will likely follow one of three paths.

A top flight technology or media figure like former News Corp boss Peter Chernin or Marc Andreessen could join with a private equity firm like KKR and buy Yahoo and run it or hire someone else to.Yahoo could stay with its current "premier digital media company" strategy and let interim CEO Tim Morse run the thing until it is sold – perhaps to News Corporation. (Yes we're hearing that one again).The board could decide the current strategy won't work, and that Yahoo needs another "turnaround" CEO and it hire someone like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, ex-OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan, or News Corp digital boss Jon Miller.  The is the least attractive option for Yahoo's current employees and executives, who do not want a new boss to come in and hit the reset button.

Private equity or a sale into News Corp seem like the most likely options at the moment.

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Goldman: Now There's Sizable UPSIDE To Q3 GDP After That Strong Trade Report

Surprise!

Goldman might hike its Q3 GDP report after this morning's trade deficit number.

Here's the (somewhat abridged) note:

----------

BOTTOM LINE: Trade report points to sizable upside risks to our 1% forecast for Q3 GDP growth. However, the cyclical signal from the report was arguably less positive. Jobless claims rose slightly.

KEY NUMBERS:

Trade balance -$44.8bn in July vs. GS -$51.0bn, median forecast -$51.0bn.

Initial claims 414k in week ending September 3 vs. median forecast 405k.

MAIN POINTS:

1. The US trade balance narrowed significantly more than expected in July, to -$44.8bn from -$51.6bn previously. The improvement reflected a sharp rebound in real export volumes. Real goods exports rose by 4.9% (month-over-month), reversing declines over the previous two months. In contrast, real goods imports fell by 0.2%, following a decline of 0.7% in June. Real goods imports have been essentially unchanged this year. A rebound in the motor vehicle sector after supply chain-related disruptions earlier this year appears to be affecting trade flows: nominal exports of vehicles rose by 12% and nominal imports of vehicles gained 15%.

2. The July trade report is a major positive from a GDP accounting perspective, and we now see significant upside risks to our forecast of 1% for Q3 (quarter-over-quarter, annualized). However, the cyclical signal from today's data is arguably less positive, due to temporary support from the recovery in the auto sector and weakness in real imports.

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