What's Behind Dear Kate's No-Underwear Yoga Pants

Lingerie company Dear Kate's new no-underwear yoga pants make a lot of promises: No panty lines. No bunching. No riding up. No camel toe. No stressing about comfort. And they'll make your butt look great.

If they can deliver all that, the new pants, which have a thick, absorbent lining around the crotch, may be able to shove their way into the busy market for yoga gear. That's the plan, at least, for Dear Kate founder Julie Sygiel, whose company is making its first foray away from undergarments.

"We surveyed our customers and said, 'Hey what do you want to see from us next,'" Sygiel, who studied chemical engineering at Brown University, told the Huffington Post in an interview. "Yoga wear was by far the winner."

She may have caught on to something.

Most women wear a thong or other kind of panties with their yoga pants. But around 17 percent of women wear nothing at all underneath their pants when they work out, according to Dear Kate's market research. A survey conducted by Groupon earlier this year found that about 25 percent of women go commando while practicing yoga.

Alexandra Seijo, who teaches yoga at Equinox and Pure Yoga in New York City, said she doesn't usually wear underwear while practicing, and will definitely check our Dear Kate's new pants. She wants to be focused on what's happening internally when she's doing yoga, so something that would keep her mind from getting distracted would be a plus, she said.

"Sometimes we do get caught up in the external, when the purpose of yoga is to go within," Seijo told HuffPost. "The last thing you want to worry about is tugging, pulling, pinching, having any kind of clothing malfunction because you want to be fully immersed in the practice."

Still, no-underwear yoga pants have their limits. Some may have issues trusting the concept of shunning their underwear, especially after Lululemon's see-through yoga pant debacle in 2013. And they need to be washed after each use without an undergarment.

Dear Kate started as an underwear company, but decided to expand into yoga-wear. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

Founded in 2012, Dear Kate has raised $1.2 million thus far from private investors, selling a selection of undergarments that present an alternative to "period panties." They have extra lining and are made of materials that wick moisture, release stains and resist leaks. They're also aimed at women who have bladder issues after pregnancy.

Now, Dear Kate is trying to grab a piece of the growing market for yoga gear. Global sales of so-called "activewear" climbed 7 percent and surpassed $33 billion in the 12 months ending in June, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. Athletic wear companies, fast-fashion emporiums and even some haute couture labels are trying to claim their slice of the yoga pie. Meanwhile, smaller yoga apparel makers are battling each other, vying to be the next Lululemon.

The regular, full-length yoga pant from Dear Kate costs $118. Lululemon charges between $82 and $128 for most of its yoga pants, while many similar styles from rival Athleta run from $64 to $98.

While items like no-underwear running shorts have been around for a long time, Sygiel is hoping that her more versatile yoga product will set it apart. And the stretchy pants aren't just for yoga -- women use them for many athletics, from pilates to running and biking.

Sygiel's yoga pants, made at a factory in Queens, New York, are getting attention even before they become available to the public. A 30-day Kickstarter campaign for the pants attracted more than $150,000 in funding. Though Sygiel declined to share precise sales numbers, she said that in 2014, the company expects to triple its revenue total from the year prior.

Dear Kate's pants are expected to launch in mid-November, but are available for pre-order now.

Dear Kate's no-underwear yoga pants have a thick, moisture-wicking lining. (Photo courtesy Dear Kate)

All Your Favorite Halloween Candy Is Made By Only 10 Corporations

Arguably the best part of trick-or-treating as a kid was when you got home, dumped your take on the floor and evaluated the night's haul. Maybe you sorted it by which type was your favorite -- Hershey's over here, Reese's over there, sad, unwanted lollipops and Now and Laters thrown in the discard pile. Maybe you did it by color if you were an artistic type, or by flavor profile if you were a blossoming foodie.

Most kids probably don't sort their Halloween candy according to which company owns the brand, because most kids don't know or care where their treats come from. But if they, or an adult who cares a lot about candy conglomerates, were to do so, here's what it would look like:

Who knew Smarties and Tootsie Rolls had their own companies?

Unsurprisingly, American chocolate giants Hershey and Mars distribute much of the chocolate sold in the U.S. (and chocolate is America's favorite Halloween treat, according to a 2013 survey by the National Confectioners Association):

Note: The Huffington Post defined "Halloween candy" by going to Manhattan locations of CVS, Duane Reade and Walgreens and seeing what was being sold in the Halloween aisle. This is most likely not a comprehensive list of everything everyone considers "Halloween candy."

U.S. Consumers Sue Takata Over Airbags; Class-Action Status Sought For Larger Payout

(Adds detail on lawsuit)

Oct 27 (Reuters) - Takata Corp, the Japanese company whose potentially defective airbags have led to the recall of millions of vehicles, was sued on Monday by consumers who claimed Takata and several car manufacturers defrauded them by concealing crucial information.

The lawsuit, filed with a U.S. District Court in Florida, is believed to be the first in the United States to seek class-action status on behalf of consumers nationwide.

If that status is granted, it could subject Takata to a larger payout in a trial or settlement than if vehicle owners were forced to sue individually.

The federal lawsuit is at least the third filed against Takata in the last week over alleged airbag defects. The other lawsuits were brought on behalf of individual owners.

A Takata representative in the U.S. could not immediately be reached.

The lawsuit also names car manufacturers as defendants, including Toyota and Honda. Representatives for those companies in the U.S. also could not immediately be reached.

U.S. safety regulators are investigating whether Takata airbag inflators made from 2000 to 2007 were improperly sealed or subject to other defects.

At least four deaths and dozens of injuries have been linked to faulty Takata airbags, and their potential to rupture and spray metal shrapnel at vehicle occupants.

Takata "had a duty to disclose these safety issues because they consistently marketed their vehicles as reliable and safe," the lawsuit said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has urged owners of an estimated 7.8 million Chrysler, Ford , General Motors, BMW, Honda, Mazda , Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Fuji Heavy's Subaru and Toyota vehicles to replace their airbags

The case in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida is Craig Dunn et al vs. Takata Corporation et al, 14-cv-24009. (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Ken Wills and Kenneth Maxwell)

Twitter Stock Plummets 14 Percent

(Reuters) - Twitter Inc's efforts to improve user engagement and growth rates are taking longer than expected to gain traction, prompting a wave of rating and price target cuts on the stock.

Twitter's shares fell 14 percent to a near four-month low of$41.80 in early trading on Tuesday. Up to Monday's close, the stock had already fallen about 24 pct this year.

The online messaging service, known for its maximum 140 character "tweets", said on Monday its timeline views per user, a measure of engagement, fell 7 percent in the third quarter.

Twitter's user base also grew at a slightly slower rate of 23 percent in the quarter, raising concerns that the social network was losing ground to new mobile services such as WhatsApp and Instagram as well as to bigger rivals such as Facebook Inc.

The company's user growth rate was 39 percent in the quarter before it went public in November last year.

"User growth is starting to decelerate faster than we previously expected," Nomura Equity Research analysts said.

"While we believe that ad demand continues to outstrip supply, deceleration in monetization on a year-over-year basis is happening sooner than we had expected," they added.

At least four brokerages cut their ratings on the stock, and at least 13 cut price targets.

"All of this (disappointment) is occurring despite almost a year's worth of user interface/product improvements that should have 'mainstreamed' the user value proposition," analysts at RBC Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients.

"We believe it could take much, much longer to prove out than we had assumed," they said.

RBC downgraded the stock to "sector perform" from "outperform", while Nomura and BofA Merrill Lynch cut their ratings to "neutral" from "buy."

Stifel Nicolaus downgraded the stock to "sell" from "hold".

"Our long-term estimates decline materially as slower user growth coupled with potentially unsustainable growth in ad prices eventually leads to significantly lower revenue and earnings estimates," Stifel analysts said.

Out of 36 brokerages covering the stock, 14 have a "buy" rating, three have a "strong buy", 17 have a "hold", one has a "sell" and one a "strong sell".

Twitter has been making significant product enhancements to expand its user engagement levels this year and has broadened its advertising capabilities over the past few years.

Twitter teamed up with France's Groupe BPCE [BPCE.UL] in October to allow the bank's customers to transfer money via tweets.

It also forged a partnership with Berlin-based audio-streaming service SoundCloud to allow users to play podcasts, music and other audio clips direct from their timelines, or message feeds.

"How, when, and to what extent Twitter is able to engage and monetize these users are some of the key pieces to the puzzle around how Twitter can expand its low monetization levels," Canaccord Genuity analysts said.

(Reporting by Rachel Chitra and Tenzin Pema; Editing by Feroze Jamal)

The Workers Making Sure The NYC Subway Is Ebola-Free

The people who clean the subways might be New York City's unsung heroes. They work at all hours, power-washing urine from platforms, putting themselves in harm's way to clean tracks and mopping the train car floors and seats that millions of people use every day.

Still, workers were disconcerted by the news that Craig Spencer, the doctor who tested positive for Ebola in New York City on Thursday, rode the A, L and 1 subway lines the day before he was diagnosed. After all, they’re the ones who have to clean the trains on which Spencer travelled.

"It's a time for caution, a high level of caution," said John Samuelsen, president of the Transportation Workers Union Local 100, which represents Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers.

Samuelson told The Huffington Post that the biggest concern for transit workers right now is making sure they have the right protective gear for cleaning up hazardous waste. The union is advising workers to do their jobs and be professional, but to challenge any supervisor who tells them to deal with infectious waste without protective equipment.

The risk of any transit worker contracting Ebola is relatively low. The disease is not airborne, and it’s only spread through bodily fluids. For someone to catch it, they would have to actually come in contact with something like mucus or vomit from an infected person.

Bodily fluids weren’t reported on any of the subway lines Spencer rode on Wednesday, according to the MTA.

That said, uncomfortable cleanups are all too common on New York City's busy subway system.

"This is nothing new for transit workers," Samuelsen said.

Indeed, whoever ends up cleaning the subway will be well-prepared. Transit workers are trained regularly on how to deal with emergencies. Moreover, the MTA already has procedures in place for cleaning up infectious waste in the transit system, including isolating the bus, train car or subway where the waste is found and providing protective equipment and training to the people cleaning it up. The MTA has added extra levels of protection for workers cleaning the places where Spencer came in contact with the system.

“Based on advice from health experts, the MTA has updated the protocols to ensure employees are issued nitrile gloves, use a 10 percent bleach solution for disinfection, and double-bag any potentially infectious waste,” according to a statement from the agency.

In addition, the TWU Local 100 union released a statement Thursday saying that its director of occupational health, Dr. Frank Goldsmith, is “closely monitoring the situation."

The people who keep the subway humming work under a variety of strange conditions that would be foreign to most New Yorkers, according to Robert W. Snyder, the author of Transit Talk: New York Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories. Their hours can be erratic. They’re in contact with many more people every day than most of us are. Some of their jobs are “industrial” and can involve dangerous conditions. Amid all of this, these workers are also expected to maintain a happy face for customers, Snyder told HuffPost.

(This is confirmed by just one look at the union's website, which is currently advertising a workshop called “Dealing with Difficult People.")

Transit workers are "often seen as invisible unless something goes catastrophically wrong,” said Snyder, who is also a professor at Rutgers University’s Newark campus.

That dynamic was on display earlier this month, when passengers wrote in anger to various news outlets about a used condom that had been hanging from a handrail on the F line for weeks. An MTA spokesman told Gothamist that he wasn’t necessarily surprised workers had missed the condom, which was relatively high up, because they’re so focused on cleaning the floors and seats of the train.

Despite the stressful conditions of transit work, people still flock to the job because “it remains one of the few jobs in the city where an ordinary person with an ordinary education can build a decent life with decent pay,” Snyder said.

Transit workers who clean the subway make about $25 an hour, according to data provided by the union. MTA workers also get dental and medical benefits, as well as perks like two weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave.

That may be part of the reason that, so far, transit workers and organizers haven’t used the Ebola panic to highlight the difficulties of the work. By contrast, earlier this month, airplane cleaners and other LaGuardia airport workers addressed Ebola in a strike that was organized with the help of the Service Employee International Union.

Though the LaGuardia protest dealt with working conditions more broadly, the Ebola outbreak offered a good opportunity to highlight those conditions, since the workers cleaning airplane cabins regularly come into contact with passengers’ bodily fluids.

Samuelsen added that his organization was in constant communication with workers and the MTA to ensure employees are working safely.

"We're not going to put ourselves in harm's way," he said.

Lululemon Partners With Dalai Lama, Enrages Critics

Lululemon can't even donate to charity without miring itself in controversy.

The yoga-wear retailer is getting slammed after announcing a partnership this week with the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. Lululemon will contribute $750,000 to the Tibetan spiritual leader's nonprofit organization over the next three years to expand education initiatives and for "researching the connection between mind-body-heart," according to the company's press release.

Some critics say the alliance is hogwash. They don't think the Dalai Lama's name should be associated with a money-making enterprise and complain he's been "hijacked" and turned into a mere corporate marketing tool.

A mob flocked to Lululemon's official blog, lighting up the comments section with accusations of hypocrisy.

"As he believes that luxuries are not necessities, you believe in $100 yoga pants," one commenter pointed out.

"It is offensive that you have sunk so low as to use the Dalai Lama and his image as part of your branding," another wrote.

"I am put-off by Lululemon’s bizarre effort to hijack the Dalai Lama for brand-building and commercial gain," a third added.

A few who spoke out against the partnership claimed not to like the Dalai Lama, with one calling him "cruel" and another calling him "greedy."

Lululemon appears to disagree. "Both organizations share a common vision for developing the next generation of compassionate leaders in the world and are committed to engaging and empowering healthy communities," the company said in its press release.

Lululemon and the Dalai Lama Center did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Lululemon has a lot on its plate. Last spring, quality control issues sparked a recall of too-sheer yoga pants. Then, last fall, co-founder Chip Wilson irked many customers when he said Lululemon's pants "don't work" for some women's bodies. Earlier this month, Lululemon managed to offend the entire city of Buffalo, New York, by making fun of its NFL team.

One commenter summarized: "Dear Lulu, your product is still in question, don’t get me wrong. Great marketing, done! Now get back to improving your product and winning clients back."

Downloading Music Is Quickly Going Out Of Fashion

First records died, then cassette tapes, then CDs and now, downloads. That's right, we're all but officially in the age of streaming services.

Apple might operate the largest online music store in the world, but the Apple Store's iTunes digital music sales have fallen about 13 percent this year, a source familiar with the matter tells the Wall Street Journal. The writing is on the wall.

Meanwhile, Spotify is surging ahead. The music streaming service hit 10 million global paid subscribers in May, up from 6 million paid subscribers in March 2013. Throw in people who use the service but don't pay, and Spotify's now lays claim to 40 million active users, up from 24 million in March 2013.

Then there's Pandora, the Internet radio service with 80 million users, which dominates the streaming music industry. Those numbers have steadily increased, up from 70 million in May 2013, and listening hours have continued to increase too.

Of course, there's a big difference between the Apple Store on the one hand and Spotify and Pandora on the other. Apple's iTunes makes mountain of money, while Pandora occasionally turns a little profit and Spotify isn't even profitable yet.

Nevertheless, Apple apparently sees which way the wind is blowing. As speculated in earlier reports, Apple will be relaunching and rebuilding Beats Music -- the existing $10-a-month subscription streaming service -- under its own brand.

You can soon say goodbye to the days when download was king.

American Airlines Says Ebola Fears Taking Toll On Business

Oct 23 (Reuters) - American Airlines Group said it saw a measurable impact on its bookings from the Ebola virus last week, making it the first U.S. airline to note such an effect due to concern about the possible spread in the United States of the disease.

The Dallas-based carrier said the change in bookings happened after U.S. congressional hearings on Ebola last week. The effect lasted a day and bookings quickly returned to normal, airline executives said on a call with analysts and reporters.

Other U.S. airlines have said they have not seen any impact on bookings from concern about the disease.

The virus has killed nearly 4,900 people, mostly in West Africa, and claimed its first victim in the United States earlier this month when an infected man died in Dallas. (Reporting by Alwyn Scott and Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Americans Are Taking Fewer Vacation Days Than At Any Point In Nearly 4 Decades

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Americans took the least amount of vacation time in almost four decades last year, forfeiting billions of dollars in compensation without scoring points with their bosses, according to an industry group analysis released on Tuesday.

The report for the U.S. Travel Association said the average American with paid time off (PTO) used 16 of 20.9 vacation days in 2013, down from an average of 20.3 days off from 1976 to 2000. It added that 169 million days of permanently forfeited U.S. vacation time equated to $52.4 billion in lost benefits.

"By choosing to work instead of taking PTO, employees are essentially working for their employers for free," the analysis said.

The report did not give a reason for the drop in vacation time but the fall coincided with the 2007-2009 recession and a slow economic recovery. An Ipsos/Reuters survey in 2010 found that only 57 percent of Americans used all their vacation time.

Wealthier workers tend to earn more vacation days, and also leave more of it on the table, according to the study. People with an annual income of more than $150,000 failed to use an average of 6.5 vacation days last year, while those with less than $29,000 did not use 3.7 days on average.

Employees who foreited paid time off do not get more raises or bonuses than those who take all their vacation time. They also report higher levels of stress at work, the survey said.

"America's work martyrs aren't more successful. We need to change our thinking. All work and no play is not going to get you ahead - it's only going to get you more stress," Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said in a statement accompanying the report.

The analysis was prepared by Oxford Economics, a forecasting group. It used Labor Department data and a June survey of 1,303 workers by GfK Public Affairs and Corporate Communications in conjunction with Oxford Economics.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Alan Crosby)

All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone

Here's more proof the middle class is dying.

The middle-class share of American wealth has been shrinking for the better part of three decades and recently fell to its lowest level since 1940, according to a new study by economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics.

In other words, remember the surge of the great American middle class after World War II? That's all gone, at least by one measure.

In this case, "middle class" is defined rather expansively as the bottom 90 percent of all Americans. "Wealth" is the total of home equity, stock and bond holdings, pension plans and other assets, minus debt. As such assets are mostly owned by mid- to higher-income households -- and considering most Americans define themselves as "middle-class" -- it seems reasonable to use the bottom 90 percent as a proxy for the "middle class."

Saez and Zucman discussed their paper in a blog post for the Washington Center For Equitable Growth on Monday that included this stark chart:

Debt has been the big force driving net wealth lower for the middle class, according to Saez and Zucman. Brief bubbles in stock and home prices in the 1990s and 2000s only temporarily offset the steady, depressing rise in mortgage, student-loan, credit-card and other debts for the bottom 90 percent.

"Many middle class families own homes and have pensions, but too many of these families also have much higher mortgages to repay and much higher consumer credit and student loans to service than before," Saez and Zucman wrote.

Another important factor has been that incomes have stagnated for most Americans over the past few decades, once adjusted for inflation. Along with rising debt levels, stagnant wages have made it impossible for most families to save very much money.

And who has been the beneficiary of this middle-class misery? The top 0.1 percent of Americans, whose incomes have just kept rising, and whose share of wealth has soared to levels not seen since Jay Gatsby was still staring at the blinking green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock:

In fact, the middle class is not alone in suffering from shrinking wealth. The rest of the top 10 percent of Americans below the 0.1 percent -- the "merely rich," Saez and Zucman call them -- have also suffered from falling household wealth over the past four decades.

This rising inequality of wealth can only lead to more inequality of income and wealth in the future, Saez and Zucman warned, echoing French economist Thomas Piketty. The very rich will just keep getting richer by living on the returns from their wealth, while the rest of us will keep falling behind.