New York Times adds 100,000 digital subscribers

The New York Times says it sold 100,000 digital subscriptions last month at a time when its business has been struggling. STORY HIGHLIGHTS The New York Times added 100,000 digital-only subscribers in the past month
Web-only plans for the Times start at $15 per month
The Times says it will share some subscription revenue with Apple by June 30RELATED TOPICSThe New York Times CompanyApple Inc.Media (CNN) -- Internet activists, perhaps today's new generation of hippies, often chant the mantra that "information wants to be free."

The New York Times may have silenced some of them on Thursday. The venerable news outlet announced that 100,000 people had signed up for digital subscriptions in the first month since they were offered.

The Times erected a pay wall on its site March 28, forcing readers to subscribe if they wanted to click on more than 20 articles per month. The digital plans range from $15 to $35 for four weeks of access, depending on which device you want to read the articles on. An early promotion let subscribers pay 99 cents per week.

So, 100,000 new digital subscriptions in four weeks for the nation's third-largest newspaper -- is that an impressive figure?

"If you're The New York Times, no," said Alex Daley, an analyst for Casey Research. "The New York Times is the Apple of the journalism world," he added.

Daley believes that Web-only subscription rate could be hard for the Times to sustain and grow.

"There's no virtuous cycle in a subscription business like this," he said. "Over time, the sales are actually going to get harder than easier."

By June 30, the Times will start giving Apple 30% of revenue from users who sign up for a subscription via its app on the iPhone or iPad, said Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the news organization.

As of last month, the Times' app for Apple devices had been downloaded 7.8 million times, she said.

"Apple creates innovative products that our readers love, and it is important for us to make the Times available on those platforms where our readers want us to be," she wrote in an e-mail.

Let's crunch a few numbers: Apple sold 4.69 million iPads in the last three months -- "every iPad 2 we were able to make," Peter Oppenheimer, the financial chief said -- versus the Times's 100,000 digital plans.

The Times' Web-only subscription base "should be in the millions, but it's going to take them time to get there," Daley said. "It's an adjustment for their customers. It's an adjustment for their business."

The Times' financial health, like that of many print-centric media companies, is less than stellar. The company's profits fell sharply over the last few months due to a struggling advertising market.

"You have a business still whose core revenue model is changing dramatically," Daley said. "You're talking about a company that is half advertising-based, half subscription-based."

The newspaper's circulation and its subscription revenue have fallen while newsprint costs have risen. That's despite online postings from a few outspoken cost crunchers who discovered that it's cheaper in some cases to subscribe to the paper's Sunday print edition, which comes with free digital access, than to buy a digital-only plan.

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Moms angry after kids were served booze at chains 1,000 miles apart

Jill Vanheest's 2-year-old son was given sangria on March 31 at an Olive Garden in Florida. STORY HIGHLIGHTSA Florida mother says of Olive Garden: "They poisoned my child right in front of me"Her toddler was taken to the hospital after being served sangria at a Florida restaurant8 days later, a Michigan boy was served alcohol at an Applebee's franchiseBoth chains apologized and vowed to change their drink-serving policiesRELATED TOPICSApplebee's International Inc.Olive Garden Italian Restaurants (CNN) -- Two mothers expressed outrage Friday night that their young children -- about 1,000 miles away and days apart -- were inadvertently given alcohol by servers at franchises of national chain restaurants.

Jill Vanheest, whose 2-year-old son was given sangria on March 31 at an Olive Garden in Lakeland, Florida, told HLN's Jane Velez-Mitchell that she's having difficulty accepting what happened.

"They poisoned my child right in front of me," Vanheest said Friday. "There aren't really words for how distrustful that makes me feel, how angry I am."

Just over a week later, on April 8, Taylor Dill-Reese said that her 15-month-old son was given alcohol during a meal -- rather than the apple juice he'd ordered -- at an Applebee's in Madison Heights, Michigan.

She said that the staff there explained that the boy got the wrong drink due to a mix-up at the bar, after containers for apple juice and margarita mix (which has tequila and triple sec) were somehow switched.

This week, Applebee's issued a statement apologizing to the parents of Dominic Wilson Jr. "for the stress and worry this caused them." It vowed to immediately retrain servers on the company's "beverage pouring policy" and change to pouring apple juice only from single-serve containers, like a juice box.

"We recognize our responsibility to constantly assess our safety policies and procedures to ensure they are rigorous and consistently followed," the Kansas-based chain said. "We believe today's strong actions make a statement to our guests of all ages around our commitment to provide a safe and enjoyable dining experience."

But Dill-Reese told Velez-Mitchell on Friday that she's not convinced.

The mother, who is 18 and was at the restaurant with her son and fiance, said she was particularly angry given that a similar incident happened before at Applebee's -- namely, a 2006 case in which a 5-year-old boy was given a Long Island iced tea, which contains rum, gin, vodka and tequila, at a New York City establishment of the national chain.

"it's just sad, the simple fact that this isn't the first time this happened (or) that they were going to change the way they were going to serve drinks," the mother said. "Why wait two, three kids later to change the way you serve drinks? What if my son was the one that died?"

Steven Krawitz, a personal injury attorney who represented the family involved in the 2006 case, told HLN that -- whatever Applebee's and other restaurant's promises to change their policies for serving drinks to children -- a parent should never rely on a server fully when their son or daughter gets a beverage.

"The parent, unfortunately, cannot now trust what used to be a no-brainer," Krawitz said. "Restaurants are serving drinks for kids, millions of drinks, but now, given this sort of rash of ... unavoidable or unacceptable mistakes, the parents now have to test the drink."

Police were called to the Applebee's in Michigan after Dill-Reese and her fiance noticed Dominic acting strangely -- "saying 'hi' and 'bye' to the walls (and) laid his head down like he was sleepy, then woke up and got really hyper," recalled the mother.

Once a server told the parents that the boy was given margarita mix, he was rushed to the hospital, where Dill-Reese said he had a blood-alcohol limit of .10. Applebee's, though, said that Madison Heights police conducted a field test and found the drink itself only registered a .014 alcohol level.

While Dill-Reese has already filed a lawsuit against Applebee's, Vanheest said she has not decided whether to do the same against Olive Garden.

Vanheest claims that her son, Nikolai, ordered an orange juice and started drinking it. But then a waiter "came over and said there's been a mistake, grabbed the cup and kind of scurried away."

Meanwhile, her son "was not acting like himself" -- climbing in and out of his high chair and people's laps, not responding to requests to calm down, and "just getting louder and louder."

When the restaurant's staff admitted that the boy had gotten sangria, which contains wine, the child was brought to the hospital. After some struggle, he was given intravenous fluids and had his blood drawn before being checked and eventually released.

"He ended up with a lot of bruises," Vanheest said.

After the incident came to light, Olive Garden released a statement in which it called the incident "unacceptable." The chain, which is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, said "we have implemented a change in our procedures to prevent this situation from happening again" -- though it didn't detail what those changes were.

"We take the responsibility that comes with serving alcohol seriously," the statement said. "As much as we strive for perfection, this was an unfortunate case of human error."

But Vanheest, the toddler's mother, said she's not yet ready to forgive.

"Just that their disorganization allowed this ever to happen -- it's extremely frustrating," she said. "I've lost all trust and all faith in them."

Watch ISSUES with Jane Velez-Mitchell Monday through Sunday at 7pm ET on HLN. For the latest from ISSUES click here.

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Kobe Bryant fined $100,000 over anti-gay slur

"The words expressed do not reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities," Kobe Bryant said Wednesday. STORY HIGHLIGHTSNEW: In pregame phone call, Bryant apologizes to Human Rights Campaign presidentBryant used an expletive and an anti-gay slur about a refereeThe NBA says, "Such a distasteful term should never be tolerated" (CNN) -- The National Basketball Association fined Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers $100,000 on Wednesday for "offensive and inexcusable" comments he made during Tuesday night's game, the league said in a statement.

Bryant used an expletive and an anti-gay slur directed at a referee after receiving a technical foul in a game against the San Antonio Spurs.

In a pregame phone call Wednesday night to Joe Solomonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, Bryant apologized for using the slur, the commission said in a statement.

"We had a very sincere conversation in which he expressed his heartfelt regret for the hurt that his words caused," Solomonese said. "He told me that it's never OK to degrade or tease, and that he understands how his words could unfortunately give the wrong impression that this is appropriate conduct. At the end of a difficult day, I applaud Kobe for coming forward and taking responsibility for his actions."

Earlier, Bryant issued a statement saying his remarks should not be taken literally. "My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period," he said. "The words expressed do not reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were not meant to offend anyone."

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Labor Department Reports 382,000 Unemployment Claims Last Week

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WASHINGTON -- Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, extending a multi-week downward trend that gives hope employers will continue new hiring.

The Labor Department says the number of people seeking benefits dropped 10,000 to 382,000 in the week ending April 2. However, that 392,000 was revised upward by 4,000 from initial reports. 

Even so, benefit claim reporting for the week ending April 2 showed the third drop in claims in four weeks. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, declined to 389,500.

Applications near 375,000 are consistent with a sustained increase in hiring. Applications, which reflect the pace of layoffs, peaked during the recession at 659,000.

The number of people seeking benefits has fallen for several months. The four-week average has dropped by 28,750, or nearly 7 percent, in the past eight weeks. At the same time, businesses are stepping up hiring.

Employers added a net total of 216,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said last week, and the unemployment rate fell from 8.9 percent to 8.8 percent. Private employers added more than 200,000 jobs in both February and March, the biggest two-month gain since 2006.

The number of people collecting benefits also dropped. The total dipped slightly to 3.7 million during the week ending March 19, one week behind the applications data. That's the lowest total since October 2008. But that doesn't include millions of people receiving aid under the emergency unemployment benefit programs put in place during the recession.

Overall, 8.5 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ending March 19, the latest data available. That's down sharply from the previous week, when nearly 8.8 million people collected benefits.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Virginia Tech fined $55,000 in shootings

File photo by Alan Kim, The Roanoke Times, via AP

Injured individuals are carried out of Norris Hall at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself.

EnlargeCloseFile photo by Alan Kim, The Roanoke Times, via AP

Injured individuals are carried out of Norris Hall at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself.

The failure warrants a fine "far in excess" of that, a letter notifying the university said, but $27,500 per violation was the most allowed by law. The university also was cited for failing to follow its own security policy, required by law, on crime warnings.

The department cited the school for violations of the Clery Act, which requires schools that receive federal aid to issue a "timely warning" when a serious crime is committed on campus. The law is named for Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh University freshman murdered in her dorm room in 1986.

Virginia Tech said in a written statement it will appeal. "Neither the Department of Education nor the Clery Act defines 'timely,' " the statement said. "The university actions on April 16 were well within the standards and practices in effect at that time."

A survivor of the shootings, Virginia Tech graduate Colin Goddard, applauded the fine.

"I think what's important is it was the maximum they could fine," said Goddard, 25, who was shot four times by Virginia Tech student Seung Hui Cho. He is assistant director of federal legislation with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "It's not a surprise. I knew that the school had acted too slowly four years ago."

At about 7:15 a.m. on the day of the rampage, Cho fatally shot two students in a residence hall. At 9:26 a.m., school administrators e-mailed students and staff to say there had been a shooting; the e-mail did not say the killer had not been identified.

Between 9:40 a.m. and 9:51 a.m., Cho shot 47 more people in Norris Hall, then fatally shot himself.

The Education Department letter says students and staff continued to move freely around campus, unaware of the danger.

"The facts that the assailant had not been identified, a weapon had not been found at the scene and that bloody footprints led away from the bodies strongly indicated that the shooter was still at large, and posed an ongoing threat," Education official Mary Gust wrote.

After the first shooting and before the warning, she said, two senior administrators e-mailed their families, bank deposit pickups and campus trash pickup were canceled, and Blacksburg public schools were locked down.

Virginia Tech said that its own guidelines at the time of the shootings said 48 hours would be an acceptable time frame in which to inform a campus of a serious crime. The school complained it is being held accountable for a standard adopted after its own tragedy.

A representative of Security on Campus, an organization launched by the Clery family, disputed that.

"All the provisions that they were found to have violated had been part of the original statute enacted in 1990," S. Daniel Carter said.

He said the case has broader national policy implications.

"It sends a very important message to other colleges and universities that their timely warning policies have to be taken seriously," he said.

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