There are several reasons to pay attention to what's happening at Abercrombie, but perhaps InvestorPlace feature writer Dan Burrows' lede sums up the best one: "Abercrombie & Fitch makes losing money look cool."

After several weeks of rumors, Apple announced that it was indeed acquiring Beats Electronics for $3 billion yesterday, along with its co-founders, rapper Dr. Dre and producer Jimmy Iovine, who will be Apple employees "100%," CEO Tim Cook tells Re/code's Peter Kafka. In addition, brand Beats goes on - "a rare move for a company that has almost always focused on its Apple brand," as Hannah Karp and Alistair Barr put it in the "Wall Street Journal."

Michelle Obama pushed back yesterday against push-back from some schools, an association of nutritionists and food suppliers, and Congressional Republicans on new school lunch standards authorized by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. It is rare for a First Lady to get directly involved with congressional politics, several observers point out.

Apple plans to take on Google and Samsung with a "Jetsons-style home automation" software platform that will be unveiled at its Worldwide Developer Conference that opens next Monday in San Francisco, the Financial Times' Tim Bradshaw revealed yesterday.

Amidst continuing decline from two companies that once epitomized the expansive American Dream - Sears and Hewlett Packard - we also learned yesterday that existing home sales in April showed an upward tick, and there are more properties to choose among, giving writers a hook to hang a little optimism on.

Unilever's sales of its Ragu and Bertolli brands to Japan's Mizkan Group for $2.15 billion "[marks] a final step the restructuring of its portfolio in North America," Reuters tells us. It may also be a harbinger of Japanese companies acquiring brands in the West as its domestic market shrinks, according to Bloomberg's Matthew Boyle.

"Terrifying." "Hideous." "McScary." "Creepy." Those are some of the modifiers being attached to McDonald's new mascot for its Happy Meal on social media and in newspaper ledes this morning. He's a toothy critter with a red complexion and Sponge Bob torso who looks like he might be on the lam from Legoland.

It's not often that you see the hiring of a PR person get the coverage that Tony Cervone's return to General Motors is receiving, but it is also not often that a company's future depends so heavily on how well it pieces together its shattered public image "in the face of several federal investigations and the company's internal inquiry into its handling of the recall" of millions of vehicles with defective ignition switches, as the "New York Times"' Bill Vlasic observes.

AT&T's $48.5 billion agreement yesterday to purchase satellite TV operator DirecTV and its 20.27 million U.S. video subscribers will provide a muscular competitor to the bulked-up Comcast-Time Warner but the Federal Communication Commission will not be alone in questioning the wisdom of the combination.

For years, it seems, private labels have been nothing but a success story, whether it's in the grocery aisles, warehouse outlet or drugstore. But one particularly telling comment in yesterday's flurry of retailers' first-quarter results - our Sarah Mahoney has the complete roundup here - was a promise by Kohl's to drive sales by bringing back name brands that will attract customers back to its "retail racetrack" nationwide.