Souvenirs, collectibles, knick-knacks and knock-offs (so to speak) around politically and emotionally charged events are big business, at least in the short term. The death of Osama bin Laden is no exception. Already there are T-shirts, pins, coffee mugs and thongs on the market touting May 1 as a kind of new May Day. By 2 p.m. on Monday, there were already thousands of souvenirs on sites like Zazzle.com, and CafePress.com. "Outside of an election year, this is about as fast a pickup as we've seen in our history," said Joe Schmidt, SVP of retail at CafePress.

Air Canada is hoping to get U.S. business travelers to think of cities like Toronto and other Canadian cities as hubs to Asia. The program is part of a two-year plan by the carrier to increase business by growing its share of "trans-shipment" business, where an airline moves passengers from one country to another through a third country. The airline is targeting secondary markets like Boston, Pittsburgh and Cleveland where a trip to Asia means a stop at a major hub anyway. Air Canada increased trans-Pacific traffic 22% last year. The company is marketing the program to corporate clients and …

The somewhat official story was that Chevy Founder Billy Durant came up with the Chevrolet logo while pondering wallpaper in a Paris hotel. Not so, according to Durant's widow Catherine, who, in an interview with Lawrence Gustin, author of the 1973 biography Billy Durant said her husband saw the emblem in a Virginia newspaper while the couple vacationed in Hot Springs. But where was the evidence? Chevrolet historian Ken Kaufmann found it in old issues of an Atlanta newspaper, The Constitution. He found an ad for "Coalettes," "The little coals with the big heat!" He writes that the coal company, …

Forget bars, bowling alleys and the West Side Highway. The best place to meet for a romantic dalliance is the supermarket. Wal-Mart's Asda chain in Great Britain thinks so, anyway. The company has launched a dating website with UKDating, a popular dating site in the U.K. Instead of asking about hobbies, Asdadating.com matches partners based on shopping preferences. The company says it got the idea from shopper polls showing that 71% of men and 64% of women are open to meeting someone of the opposite sex while they shop for food. Forty-one percent said they look into the shopping baskets …

New data revealed at a conference on pediatric medicine may give ammunition to those challenging Colt 45's "Blast" beverage. Underage drinkers who endorse a favorite brand are a lot more likely to report recent binge boozing than those who don't have a favored brand. And the amount of money a company spends on TV to promote an alcoholic beverage has direct correlation to brand choice and association with underage alcohol use. The data, presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Denver, are based on a poll of 2,699 people between 16 and 20 years …

General Motors has appointed McCann Erickson to be Chevrolet's creative shop in India. Before now, GM India used three agencies to handle creative and digital media. GM India president and managing director Karl Slym said the company plans to launch new products and services under the brand both for India and "the global audience," he said in a statement. The automaker says India is one of its top 10 sales markets along with Brazil, China, Mexico and Russia.

Chrysler posted its first net quarterly profit since it filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2009. The automaker, of which Fiat SpA is majority stakeholder, posted a $116 million profit for the first three months of the year. That is a big turnaround from the $197 million net loss in the first quarter last year. Chrysler posted operating profit of $477 million during this most recent quarter.

The psychological and political implications of the terrorist's death are huge, but there has also been an immediate, albeit muted, effect on global markets. Gold had been on a bender and stocks heading down until Sunday night, when news of Osama Bin Laden's death swept the world. Now stocks are up slightly, particularly at Tokyo's Nikkei index, as well as in Korea and Europe, while gold and oil are down. The Nikkei closed today above 10,000 for the first time since the March 11 earthquake rocked the nation.

Gatorade is touting G Series Fit with ads and new media buys as part of an effort to move the brand into sports nutrition and innovation. The company developed the campaign for the G Series products, which has three SKUs for before, during and after workouts, by tapping "fitness influencers," like group exercise instructors and personal trainers. They also helped develop the products. One of these pros was present when the company filmed the ads to make sure the routines were authentic. The effort includes Olympians Allyson Felix and Ryan Lochte; Tim Howard, a professional soccer player; Coco …

Is Apple turning a blind eye to a potentially huge profit center by not marketing new products like iPad 2 in India? Writer Karan Israni says yes. She says that although Apple launched the new iPad on March 2 this year, at least in the U.S., and to 25 more countries later in the month, India was not one of them. She writes that when Apple finally introduced the product to India on April 29, the iPad 2 was out of stock within hours. Things were worse with iPhone, which didn't arrive in India, she writes, until the …