Here's your Daily Digest for Monday, April 30:
The New York Times published another installment of its investigation into horse racing Monday — just in time for the Kentucky Derby this weekend.
The NYT analyzed data compiled by “chart callers” who put together results charts with information gamblers use to evaluate horses from more than 150,000 races between 2009 and 2011. They looked for terms that indicated a horse encountered a physical problem like “broke down, vanned off, injured, lame, euthanized, died, collapsed, bleeding or went wrong.”
While the Derby is all about pageantry, the NYT investigation focuses on the horses at racing casinos like Aqueduct where 30 horses have died over the last year, many of which were pumped full of painkillers in the weeks before their breakdown.
At some tracks, a bettor’s potential winnings are worth more than the horse which is against the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ recommendation that the purse be no greater than 50 percent of a horse’s value.
They say this standard protects horses because “the incentive for the owner is to care for the horse over the long haul, rather than risking it for a single payday,” according to the NYT.
Check out the whole series here.
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One World Trade Center — the skyscraper currently being built to replace and commemorate the twin towers destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks — is set to replace the Empire State Building as New York City’s tallest building, the Associated Press reports.
The city’s skyline was changed when the iconic towers were destroyed, but the unfinished building, nicknamed Freedom Tower, is set to reach around 1,250 feet high.
It’s not expected to be completed for at least another year, but when the tower is complete it could be named the tallest building in the city and the No. 3 tallest building in the world behind the Willis Tower in Chicago and Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
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Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to create a “subsidiary for Barnes & Noble's e-book and college textbook businesses,” the AP reports.
After a $300 million investment from Microsoft, B&N’s stock soared Monday morning. For Microsoft, the investment is an opportunity to get back into the e-book business.
The company will own 17.6 percent of B&N, a company that sells Android tablets — one of the main competitors for Microsoft’s smartphone software Windows Phone 7.
The company said there will be a Nook application for Windows 8 tablets scheduled to be released this fall.
Amazon has dominated the e-book market with its Kindle, but its share has been cut from around 90 percent to 60-65 percent since the 2009 release of the Nook.
