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While today was long scheduled to bring the traditional release of the Pope's message for World Communications Day, as he ever tends to do, Francis suddenly gave the news something of a Turbo Boost: a week after granting the first private audience in memory to a leading corporate executive – the Google chief Eric Schmidt – the noontime Holy See briefing announced that the pontiff met this morning with the Apple CEO Tim Cook (above). Unless Vatican diplomacy's amazingly been called upon for mediation between the oft-warring Silicon Valley titans, the dots look to be lining up for something very...

Piper Jaffrey's Gene Munster, one of the better-known analysts who covers Apple, has joined the ranks of his colleagues and competitors who are predicting a decline in iPhone sales when CEO Tim Cook reports his December quarterly earnings on January 26. Of the seven most recent analyst reports that Business Insider has viewed, all of them now predict an upcoming slump in the number of iPhone units sold. One group, Pacific Crest, all but accused Apple of shading the truth about its sales prospects in a previous earnings call, in a note that said, "Management's confidence now looks highly likely...

While the latest smartphones from Apple might have picked up critical acclaim after their launch in September, Apple is ready to cut the production on the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus lines by thirty percent, reports Nikkei. Nikkei suggests that the drop in production follows slower sales in Q4 2015. Apple's production for the iPhone 6S family matched the production numbers for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S Plus. The lower sales of the newer handsets have led to more stock in the supply chain than Apple is apparently comfortable with, so the production will be slowed down for...

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research pulls no punches in his latest Apple Inc. AAPL 1.92% In a recent note, Chowdhry called for the "completely clueless" Tim Cook to be replaced. He cited a culture of "bozos" at Apple destroying $486 billion in shareholder value under Cook's management. Apple's PE multiple under Steve Jobs was consistently above the S&P 500 PE and above 20X according to Chowdhry. The S&P 500's current 20.5X PE dwarfs the 11.5X PE Apple generated under Tim Cook and Luca Maestri leadership. The lack of reward (positive yearly stock performance) is the market's way of telling...

The end of the year does not seem to bode well for Apple, as the tech giant's shares continued to drop 0.3 percent in early Tuesday trading. The company's stocks have now dipped below $110 for the first time since October, pushing the company to new financial lows, according to USA Today. The drop in Apple's shares continued from Monday, when the company fell by as much as 3 percent, to $109.79 in early Monday trading. Though the stock recovered for a time, it nevertheless closed down 0.6 percent, to $112.48 by the day's end. With the company's high of...

Tim Cook accepting an RFK award yesterday: "Today, more than half the states in this country still don’t offer basic protections to gay or transgendered people, leaving millions of people vulnerable of being fired or evicted because of who they are or who they love. Today some in our country would turn away innocent men, women, and children seeking refuge from prosecution and violence regardless of how many background checks they submit to, simply based on where they were born. Victims of a war, and now victims of fear and misunderstanding." Full Speech: http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2015/12/09/what-tim-cook-had-to-say-about-rfk-and-human.html Am I supposed to feel good...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is joining the CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization, a group formed by the Paulson Institute and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in order to divert the environmental impact of China's urban growth. "Apple is committed to running our global operations on 100 percent renewable energy and we're working hard to reduce emissions throughout our global supply chain," Cook said in prepared statement from the Paulson Institute. "We look forward to participating in the CEO Council's effort to advance China's green transformation and hope to do our part in helping China reach its climate goals."

Stock markets around the world have been posting big losses for the last few days. The route was especially rough this morning, with the DOW Jones at one point falling 1,000 points in less than an hour. At the heart of the current slide is an issue which could impact many tech companies: economic weakness in China. Two weeks ago China's government made an aggressive move to devalue its currency. This followed several weeks of tumult in the Chinese stock market, during which the government had also interceded with force. Taken together, investors saw a Chinese market where growth was flagging. That...

There is so much to admire about Apple. They make superb, beautiful products. Their amazing comeback story is unparalleled in corporate history. Steve Jobs has become something akin to a modern-day patron saint of the tech industry. Tim Cook is, rightly, enormously respected.So why do I think they represent so much of what’s wrong with the tech world?It’s because they have, I think, an almost Shakespearean tragic flaw: their obsession with centralized corporate control of the devices they sell. Apple sells fantastic hardware, and excellent software … and tries to maintain an iron-fisted grip on both, throughout their lifespan. Even...

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Wall Street fell on Tuesday as Apple's shares remained under pressure, hitting their lowest in more than six months, and investors digested earnings reports from a host of companies. The iPhone maker's shares fell as much as 4.4 percent to $113.25, slipping firmly below their 200-day daily moving average, a key technical level closely watched by traders. The stock was also the biggest drag on the three major U.S. indexes. While there was no clear trigger for the selloff, traders said worries over a slowdown in China and skepticism over demand for iPhone 6s were likely...

After an insensitive tweet led to the firing of her social media manager, Paula Deen has some explaining to do. Earlier Tuesday, the person running Deen's Twitter account tweeted a photo featuring the culinary celebrity and her son, Bobby Deen, dressed up as the characters Ricky and Lucy Ricardo from the television show "I Love Lucy." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/paula-deens-social-media-manager-fired-for-tweeting-racist-photo-2015-7#ixzz3fGGqfRXH

REMEMBER when you were taught that Australia was discovered by James Cook in 1770 who promptly declared it "terra nullius" and claimed it for the British throne? Turns out that could be completely and utterly wrong. Five copper coins and a nearly 70-year-old map with an "X" might lead to a discovery that could rewrite Australia's history. Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, currently Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the US, is planning an expedition in July that has stirred up the archaeological community. The scientist wants to revisit the location where five coins were found in the Northern Territory...

Prior to the Apple Watch’s launch, many were already predicting that the device would be the answer to wearables and be the device that would change the landscape of the wearables industry. Initial reviews are a bit mixed but it is Apple’s first-gen smartwatch so there are bound to be some areas that could be improved upon. However if the figures provided by analysts are accurate, it seems that there are many who are interested in the device regardless of the reviews. According to the latest numbers from Global Equities Research, they have estimated that Apple has received 7 million...

Apple CEO and Alabama native Tim Cook had some choice words on Sunday about meeting former Alabama Gov. George Wallace when he was a teenager. Cook, the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company, spoke of Wallace during a commencement address he gave at George Washington University. According to Business Insider, the Robertsdale native told the graduating class an anecdote about visiting Washington, D.C., as a 16-year-old who had won an essay contest at school. Before leaving for D.C., Cook had the chance to go to Montgomery and meet Wallace, who was notorious for his opposition to racial...

Thanks to brilliant tactics by gay activists, huge doses of corporate hypocrisy, tongue-tied politicians, and the silence of religious leaders -- religious liberty lost big battles in Indiana and Arkansas this week. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a column in The Washington Post deploring a "dangerous happening" of a "wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states" that would "allow people to discriminate against their neighbors." For example, he said Indiana and Arkansas passed laws that would allow individuals to "cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer." Incorrect. First, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act...

(Reuters) - Apple Inc's Tim Cook, one of the most prominent openly gay American CEOs, has joined fellow tech industry chiefs in decrying a controversial Indiana law that opponents say could allow companies to deny services to gay people. Cook, who publicly declared his sexual orientation last year, joined other tech chief executives, including Salesforce.com Inc's Marc Benioff, in blasting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which could let business and individuals turn away customers by citing "religious freedom." Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the controversial bill into law on Thursday.

Australians may need to rewrite their history textbooks. A new archaeological expedition may prove that the continent may have been discovered earlier than previously thought. Ian McIntosh, professor of anthropology at Indiana University, says he plans on visiting the location where five African coins were found in Australia’s Northern Territory in 1944 that have proven to be 1,000 years old, AAP reports. “Multiple theses have been put forward by noted scholars, and the major goal is to piece together more of the puzzle. Is a shipwreck involved? Are there more coins? All options are on the table, but only the...

<p>Chicago’s public health system is facing a massive $67 million shortfall after an early adoption of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion cost much more than expected, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.</p> <p>Cook County, which encompasses Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, made a deal with the Obama administration to get an early start on the health care law’s Medicaid expansion in 2012.</p>

In fact, Australian law now recognises polygamous unions contracted in other jurisdictions for many purposes. “The social institution of marriage differs from country to country. It is not now possible (if it ever was) to confine attention to jurisdictions whose law of marriage provides only for unions between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Marriage law is and must be recognised now to be more complex. Some jurisdictions outside Australia permit polygamy. Some jurisdictions outside Australia, in a variety of constitutional settings, now permit marriage between same sex couples. “These...

A Cook County judge who was found guilty but legally insane in February after shoving a courthouse deputy will go before the Illinois Courts Commission to determine whether she's "mentally able" to return to the bench. It might be the first time the state commission, which has the power to reprimand, suspend or even remove judges from office, has been asked to rule on a sitting judge's mental fitness for the bench. Judge Cynthia Brim, 54, was named in a complaint filed Monday by the Judicial Inquiry Board alleging conduct that was "prejudicial to the administration of justice and that...