Paul Libin, president of Circle in the Square Theatre and former chairman of The Broadway League, said Mann died Friday in New York of complications from pneumonia.
"His contributions to Broadway and off-Broadway are immeasurable both in the productions he created, and the talent that he nurtured," said Charlotte St. Martin, the executive director of The Broadway League. "He will be missed by many in our community, and our hearts go out to his friends, family, and students."
A co-founder of Circle in the Square Theatre in 1951, Mann spearheaded in 1956 the acclaimed revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" and the American premiere of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night." According to the League, those two productions led to a reevaluation of O'Neill, now recognized to be America's greatest playwright.
Mann produced or directed more than 175 plays at Circle, which in 1972 moved from Greenwich Village to its current in-the-round stage on Broadway. In 1963, he founded Circle in the Square Theatre School, a program for training young actors.
Some of the school's alumni include Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Lady Gaga, Benicio del Toro, Idina Menzel, Felicity Huffman and Molly Shannon.
Mann received the 1957 Tony Award for Best Play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night," a 1976 Special Tony Award acknowledging 25 continuous years of quality productions at Circle in the Square, as well as 12 additional Tony Award nominations.
Together with Libin, Mann presented new and classic works at his theater, including works by Sam Shepard, Thornton Wilder, Horton Foote, Yazmin Reza, Truman Capote, Arthur Miller, Athol Fugard and Terrence McNally.
Some noted Circle productions include "Uncle Vanya" with George C. Scott; "The Lady from the Sea" with Vanessa Redgrave making her Broadway debut; "Salome and Hughie" with Al Pacino; "The Iceman Cometh" with James Earl Jones, which Mann directed; "Candida" with Joanne Woodward; and "Death of a Salesman," also with Scott.
The Circle lately has been home to the Broadway premiere of Sam Shepard's "True West," the revival of "The Rocky Horror Show," ''Sweeney Todd," ''The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," Alan Ayckbourn's "The Norman Conquests," ''Lombardi," and the current revival of "Godspell."
"I first met Ted on my initial site visit of Circle in the Square, when 'Godspell' in the round was just a concept. There he was, to say hello, to shake my hand, and to welcome me to his house," ''Godspell" producer Ken Davenport wrote in his blog Monday. "His fingerprints are on a lot of resumes of some of our industry's finest actors and finest artists."
Mann also directed operas, including Benjamin Britten's "Turn of the Screw" for the New York City Opera, "La Boheme" for the Juilliard School, and "The Night of the Iguana" for Moscow's Maly Theater.
He was married to the late Patricia Brooks, a leading lyric coloratura soprano, who died in 1993. He is survived by his two sons, Andrew and Jonathan, and five grandchildren.
Israeli officials have reportedly let it be known that they won't give their United States counterparts a heads up if the country decides to launch an airstrike against Iran. According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told this fact to every American official coming to Israeli hoping to talk them out of a pre-emptive strike of Iranian nuclear facilities. Officials say it's for the U.S.'s own good, since if they don't know about the strike in advance, they can't be blamed for failing to stop it. Never mind that most of Israel's enemies don't trust anything they say and would likely assume that the Americans were behind it anyway. 
Select Stock | Agency Collection | Getty ImagesConsumers redeemed 63 percent more coupons in 2011 as they increasingly looked online and used their smartphones to scour for deals, according to Coupons.org.Atkinson, a Brooklyn resident, and other bargain-seeking consumers fueled a 63-percent surge in coupon redemption last year, according to new data from Coupons.org. But the changing face of the coupon user may surprise you.Households with incomes of $100,000 or more are twice as likely to coupon as those who earn less than $35,000. College-degree holders are also twice as likely to use coupons as those who did not graduate from high school. Atkinson, who made a beeline for the CVS [CVS Loading... () 
] coupon dispenser during a recent trip to the drugstore in New York City, has grown so accustomed to using coupons that she has a hard time imagining paying retail at Macy's [M Loading... () ![[cnbc explains]](/CNBCexplainsicon1.gif){kind=small}
. “Shoppers continue to love coupons,” said Bob Carter, president of Inmar Promotion Services. “With consumer confidence flat, unemployment 
Allen Murabayashi is the CEO and Co-founder of PhotoShelter. Allen authors PhotoShelter’s free business guides for photographers and marketing professionals, including topics like email marketing, search engine optimization, and starting a photography business. Allen is a graduate of Yale University, and flosses daily.
Despite declining home prices reported Tuesday, Toll Brothers [TOL Loading... () 
Photo: Patrick Lane PhotographyA package-free, zero-waste grocery store where customers bring their own, reusable containers to fill with local and organic goods? It sounds like a dream for environmentalists, but it’s a real-life business venture for brothers and co-founders Christian and Joseph Lane.Their store, in.gredients, based in Austin, Texas, comes by its commitment to local food and sustainable practices naturally – Austin is the birthplace of Whole Foods [WFM Loading... () 
Photo: Patrick Lane PhotographyChristian Lane, co-founder of in.gredientsAs far as the capital, it is all investor money and loans — we are guaranteeing loans. When we had this idea, we had it as far as the business plan. Then we decided to crowdsource the funding and put together the IndieGoGo campaign. The campaign recognized in.gredients as the number one Food Campaign of 2011. [Through that effort we] received $15,455 in funding. Our business, [Brothers Lane, LLC] contributes some funds and we are selling shares of the store as a private place offering. Do you need to know a significant amount of information about the grocery industry? There are some industry-specific things [about the grocery business], but a lot of it is method. Our approach is not to come from a grocery-intense background, but to break the mold, do things differently. We did however, retain services of a local consultant that has 30 years or so experience in the natural food and organic business to give us feedback, to see where we were on and off and to see where we were headed with things. What demographics are you attracting?This has an appeal to a good number of people. What we anticipate is the 25- to 34-year-old who has an interest in cooking, as well as people that are into the more organic and natural foods. Austin is the right place because it is a progressive city. 
Photo: Patrick Lane PhotographyThe concept is built around the idea that people will bring their own containers, or buy them in the store. What makes you sure this idea will succeed? We felt strongly about this business plan and so we shared it with our friends and family. But they are not going to tell you that you have a bad idea. We needed to get an outside sense of our plan; instead of using a focus group we did crowdfunding. So a big part of that validation came from IndieGoGo. We thought, ‘If this doesn’t work then what we had was a bad idea.’ [Since then] We have had about 300 people [contacting us through social media] volunteer to help. What's next? 
Such caution permeated last week’s report that the People’s Bank of China has recommended accelerated opening up of the Chinese financial system. Given what is at stake, in both China and the world, it is essential to consider the implications. Maybe the world will then do a better job of managing this process than it has done in the past.This plan was published by Xinhua, the state news agency, not on the PBoC’s web site. Moreover, it was published under the name of Sheng Songcheng, head of the statistics department, not that of the governor or a deputy governor. This must mean that it is more an exercise in kite-flying than a policy. Nevertheless, this was published with the PBoC’s approval and, quite possibly, with that of people much higher up still.The article lays out three stages for reform. The first, to occur over the next three years, would clear the path for more Chinese investment abroad as “the shrinkage of western banks and companies has vacated space for Chinese investments” and so presented a “strategic opportunity”. The second phase, in between three and five years, would accelerate foreign lending of the renminbi. In the longer term, over five to 10 years, foreigners could invest in Chinese stocks, bonds and property. Free convertibility of the renminbi would be the “last step”, to be taken at an unspecified time. It would also be combined with restrictions on “speculative” capital flows and short-term foreign borrowing. In sum, full integration would be indefinitely delayed.What are the implications of this plan? The answer is that it seems sensible. In reaching that view, one has to take into account the benefits and risks of financial “reform and opening” for China and the world.The arguments for such opening up to the world are closely connected to those for domestic reform. Indeed, the former cannot be undertaken prior to the latter: opening up today’s highly regulated financial system to the world is a recipe for disaster, as Chinese policymakers know. It is for this reason that full convertibility would come in the distant future, as this plan suggests.Happily, arguments for domestic reform are powerful. Dynamic financial markets are an essential element in any economy that wishes both to sustain growth and to begin rivaling rich countries in productivity, as China surely aspires to do. More immediately, as Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics notes in a recent study: “Negative real deposit rates impose a high implicit tax on households, which are large net depositors in the banking system, and lead to excessive investment in residential housing. Negative real lending rates subsidize investment in capital-intensive industries, thus undermining the goal of restructuring the economy in favor of light industries and services.”*Yet, as Mr Lardy also knows, this distorted financial regime is part of a wider system for taxing savings, promoting investment and repressing consumption, which has led to huge interventions in foreign currency markets and vast accumulations of foreign currency reserves. The deeper case for reform is that this system no longer contributes to a desirable pattern of development. But it has become so deeply entrenched in the economy that reform is politically fraught and economically disruptive. The question is even whether such reform is politically feasible. It is surely likely to be a slow process.How would the PBoC’s proposed moves towards opening up then fit with such a cautious reform? Presumably, the greater freedom for capital outflows envisaged for the next five years would partly substitute for accumulations of foreign currency reserves. Yet if this went with suggested moves towards higher real interest rates, China’s savings and current account surpluses might explode, worsening the external imbalances.This point underlines just how big a stake the rest of the world has in the nature of China’s reform and opening up of the financial sector.China’s gross savings are running at an annual rate of well over $3 trillion, which is more than 50 per cent larger than the gross savings of the U.S.. Full integration of these vast flows is sure to have huge global effects. China’s financial institutions, already enormous, are also almost certain to become the biggest in the world over the next decade. One need only think back to Japan’s integration in the 1980s and subsequent financial implosion to recognize the possible dangers. We should be pleased, therefore, that China is taking a cautious approach.The world has a huge interest in a shift of China’s economy towards more balanced growth. It has a parallel interest in the way China manages its domestic reform and opening up of the financial system. A whole range of policies need to be co-ordinated, particularly over financial regulation, monetary policy and exchange rate regimes. If this is done well, today’s high-income countries’ crisis will not be promptly followed by the “China crisis” of the 2020s or 2030s. If it is done badly, even the Chinese might lose control, with devastating results.The PBoC suggests a timetable of reforms that would fit with China’s and the world’s needs. But if this is to happen, thorough discussion of all the implications must now occur. China’s policies do not matter for the Chinese alone. That is what it means to be a superpower — as the U.S. should note.* Sustaining China’s Economic Growth After the Global Financial Crisis, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2012.
The disclosures are the latest sign government officials are stepping up action against banks that packaged home loans into bonds during the housing boom. The underlying mortgages later soured, spurring billions in losses for investors. Goldman [GS Loading... () 
Penalty-corner specialist Sandeep Singh scored five of the eight goals The Indian media have applauded the performance of the country's field hockey team, which gained a berth in the London Olympics with an 8-1 victory over France on Sunday.
Cloud-top height fell 1 percent on average between March 2000 and February 2010, according to measurements from the multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer mounted on NASA’s Terra satellite. That 1 percent means a reduction of 30 to 40 meters in the average maximum height of clouds, during the 00s.