An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has long had a reputation as a hard-ball negotiator. It turns out its negotiations with Whole Foods leading up to its $13.7 billion acquisition agreement were no different, according to an SEC filing outlining a timeline of the talks between the two companies. On May 23, Amazon made a written offer to acquire Whole Foods for $41 a share, less than a month after the first meeting between senior executives of the companies, the filing said. Whole Foods came back with a counterproposal of $45 a share, which got Amazon to increase its offer to $42. But Amazon's bankers from Goldman Sachs then "stressed several times" that the increase to $42 represented Amazon's "best and final offer." Amazon's bankers "also made it clear again ... that Amazon.com would disengage from its efforts to acquire the company and pursue other alternatives and initiatives if the $42.00 per share price were not accepted," the filing said, "and that Amazon.com expected that the company would not approach other potential bidders while the company was negotiating with Amazon.com." Amazon also threatened it would walk away if the talks leaked to the press, which they did not. Translation: $42 or nada.

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EU ministers agree to reinforce the Libyan coastguards to try to discourage arrival of undocumented people.

Reader McGruber writes: The Hollywood Reporter has the sad news that Joan Lee, the wife of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 95. In an earlier story, Stan described meeting Joan: "When I was young, there was one girl I drew; one body and face and hair. It was my idea of what a girl should be. The perfect woman. And when I got out of the Army, somebody, a cousin of mine, knew a model, a hat model at a place called Laden Hats. He said, 'Stan, there's this really pretty girl named Betty. I think you'd like her. She might like you. Why don't you go over and ask her to lunch.' Blah, blah, blah. "So I went up to this place. Betty didn't answer the door. But Joan answered, and she was the head model. I took one look at her -- and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life. And then I heard the English accent. And I'm a nut for English accents! She said, 'May I help you?' And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, 'I love you.' I don't remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch. I never met Betty, the other girl. I think I proposed to [Joan] at lunch." After marrying, the couple returned to New York, where Lee worked at Marvel Comics forerunner Timely/Atlas Comics, a job he initially landed because his cousin Martin Goodman owned the company. Comics were a middling enterprise until Lee and Jack Kirby co-created the Fantastic Four in 1961 (followed by the Hulk, Avengers, Iron Man, X-Men and other characters) and turned the company, renamed Marvel Comics, into a pop culture powerhouse. In some versions of the origin of the Fantastic Four, Lee credits Joan with inspiring him. He was depressed about his career (Lee had dreams of becoming a serious novelist) and the state of comics (the industry in the 1950s was dominated by stories of war, science fiction and romance, genres he didn't like) and contemplated leaving the business. "Before you quit," Joan told him, "why don't you write one comic you are proud of?" And thus was born the Fantastic Four.

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An anonymous reader shares a report that makes a case of us living in an era where bailing has become just too common: It's clear we're living in a golden age of bailing. All across America people are deciding on Monday that it would be really fantastic to go grab a drink with X on Thursday. But then when Thursday actually rolls around they realize it would actually be more fantastic to go home, flop on the bed and watch Carpool Karaoke videos. So they send the bailing text or email: "So sorry! I'm gonna have to flake on drinks tonight. Overwhelmed. My grandmother just got bubonic plague..." Bailing is one of the defining acts of the current moment because it stands at the nexus of so many larger trends: the ambiguity of modern social relationships, the fraying of commitments (paywalled), what my friend Hayley Darden calls the ethic of flexibility ushered in by smartphone apps -- not to mention the decline of civilization, the collapse of morality and the ruination of all we hold dear. [...] Technology makes it all so easy. You just pull out your phone and bailing on a rendezvous is as easy as canceling an Uber driver. There are different categories of bailing. There is canceling on friends. This seems to follow a bail curve pattern. People feel free to bail on close friends, because they will understand, and on distant friends, because they don't matter so much, but they are less inclined to bail on medium-tier or fragile friends. Then there is professional bailing. This tends to have a hierarchical structure. A high-status person will frequently bail on a lower-status colleague, but if an intern bails on a senior executive, it is a sign of serious disrespect. What do you folks think?

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Theofilou walks free after five years in jail, but Greek anarchists accuse the government of a crackdown.

First meeting between Trump and Putin wrapped up with the announcement of truce deal covering south-western Syria.

An anonymous reader shares a WSJ article: Entrepreneur Jia Yueting likes to say that Apple is outdated, China's big technology companies are innovation-killing monopolies and his company, LeEco, is the real industry disrupter. That swagger served Mr. Jia in building an empire that sprawled across seven industries, from online video content to smartphones to electric cars. By having the ambition to take on Apple, Tesla and Netflix all at once, Mr. Jia seemed to embody the boundless promise of the huge China market. And investors responded favorably. Deal makers like HNA Capital and Legend Holdings bought in, as did the city government of tech hub Shenzhen, as well as movie director Zhang Yimou and other celebrities. British sports car maker Aston Martin joined up to develop electric vehicles. The U.S. state of Nevada promised $200 million in incentives for Mr. Jia's electric car venture, Faraday Futures, to build a $1 billion plant there. And LeEco unveiled a $2 billion deal to buy U.S. TV-maker Vizio. Now, most of those deals are dead or struggling and Mr. Jia's dreams are fading away due to a cash crunch and worried creditors (could be paywalled). On Thursday he resigned as chairman of a listed unit of LeEco, Leshi Internet Information & Technology, though he will remain the chairman of the holding company. That move comes after a Shanghai court last week -- at the behest of China Merchants Bank -- froze $181 million worth of his assets and $2 billion in shares over a missed interest payment.

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