You'd have to go back to the glory days of William Randolph Hearst to find a media tycoon who proves the maxim that "nothing succeeds like excess" with more gusto than Rupert Murdoch.

Apparently "we are one people" indeed, just as Big Brother harangued 30 years ago. After the stock market closed yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty took to CNBC to announce an exclusive business enterprise partnership that would once have seemed dystopian at best. They also conducted interviews with leading digital and print tech journalists - presumably to smooth the feathers of ruffled Apple fanboys as much as to maximize the business impact of the new alliance.

The German national team famously overhauled its traditionally defensive-minded game into a potent offense over the past decade, leading to victory in the 2014 FIFA World Cup Sunday. Some advertisers are doing the same - albeit more rapidly - as they attempt to engage consumers who are themselves playing a different type of game than just a tournament or so ago.

In a move that expands its North American business beyond the premium Ghirardelli brand, the upscale Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprngli is buying Forrest Gump's favorite brand of candies, Russell Stover. The mass-market chocolates and its sister brand, Whitman, are distributed in drug, grocery and big-box retailers such as Walmart.

Eileen Ford, a savvy businesswoman who co-founded Ford Models with her husband, Jerry, in 1946 and was an unapologetic arbiter of pulchritude, mores and taste, died Wednesday at 92.

Nike is taking its Swoosh off the shirts of Manchester United after a dozen years because the terms for a renewed deal "did not represent good value for Nike's shareholders." Speculation is rampant that arch-rival Adidas, fresh off some ardent World Cup competition with Nike, will fill the void.

Volkswagen has unveiled a new version of the Passat - currently its No. 2 seller worldwide after the Golf - for the European market that has controls that would make a fighter jet pilot feel at home and is positioned as a luxury car for the masses.

Does the closing of the once rapidly rising Crumbs Bake Shop indicate some larger societal shift, as the Hollywood Reporter's headline suggests: "Has the Cupcake Craze Already Crumbled?" Or is it simply a case of bad management of a delectable idea?

Facing a barrage of shots from competitors, TGI Fridays this morning is launching a summer-long promotion that offers "a continuous supply" of a chosen appetizer for $10 per person.

It's not without controversy, but a video by filmmaker Lauren Greenfield for Procter & Gamble's Always brand of "feminine" products is stirring up conversations around the subject of what "like a girl" tells us about ourselves - as individuals and as a society playing by usually unexamined rules.