Cheerios stands by mixed-race ad
NEW YORK - A 30-second ad for Cheerios cereal features a black dad, white mom and biracial child. The ad produced enough vitriol on YouTube last week that Cheerios requested the comments section be turned off. The company is standing by the fictitious family, which reflects a black-white racial mix uncommon in commercials today, especially in TV ads, while mixed-race families are on the rise in real life. The national ad will continue running as scheduled for several more months.
Wine in cans coming to the air
NEW YORK - Spirit Airlines is thinking outside of the bottle. The low-cost carrier known for extra fees and cheeky ads is now pouring wine out of aluminum cans.
Starting this week, passengers can purchase white moscato or strawberry moscato wine from Friends Fun Wine, an Aventura, Fla., company. Spirit will continue to sell mini bottles of Sutter Home wine. The can of wine is larger - 250 milliliters to the bottle's 187 - but it doesn't pack as much of a punch. The canned wine is 6 percent alcohol by volume. Sutter Home is 13 percent.
Toyota recalls 242,000 hybrids
TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it is recalling about 242,000 of its Prius and Lexus hybrid vehicles due to problems with their braking systems.
The recall applies to about 233,000 Prius vehicles made between March and October 2009 and about 9,000 Lexus HS250h models made between June and October 2009. The Prius vehicles affected are sold worldwide. The Lexus sedans are sold in the U.S. and Japan.
The automaker said brake pressure parts in the vehicles are made of a weak material that could crack due to vibration, slowing response times.
SEC may get tough on money funds
WASHINGTON - Investors could lose principal from money market investment funds that perform poorly under regulations proposed Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the change would affect mainly institutional rather than individual investors.
The SEC voted 5-0 to advance the plan, which would require shares of some money-market funds to "float," instead of having a fixed value of $1 per share. The proposal failed to gain support last year but has since won the backing of a panel of regulators that include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The public has 90 days to comment on the proposals. At some later point, the agency would finalize the rules or settle on a modified version of them.
S.F., N.Y. officials to talk cell thefts
SAN FRANCISCO - Top law enforcement officials from San Francisco and New York plan to meet with some of the nation's largest smartphone makers next week to help thwart the rise in cellphone thefts and robberies.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Wednesday that their meeting scheduled to take place in New York City on June 13 will be dubbed a "Smartphone Summit."