Toyota's Japan flagship Crown car to debut on global markets
Toyotaโs flagship model in Japan, the Crown, is going on sale around the world for the first time, including in the U.S. Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda said the company was aiming for 200,000 vehicles in annual global sales in 40 nations.
Inquiry finds Crown Resorts unfit to run its Sydney casino
The Crown logo is seen on Crown Sydney Tower at Barangaroo in Sydney on Dec. 28, 2020. An inquiry has found Australian gambling company Crown Resorts unfit to run its new Sydney casino because it facilitated money laundering and had other problems. Commissioner Patricia Bergin recommended several changes Crown should make before it could run the casino. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP)SYDNEY โ Australian gambling company Crown Resorts is unfit to run its new Sydney casino because it facilitated money laundering and had other problems, a regulator said Tuesday. Her recommendations include a forensic probe to make sure all money laundering in Crown accounts has been uncovered.
Sales top 3 million for Barack Obama's "A Promised Land'
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)NEW YORK โ Just a month after publication, Barack Obamaโs โA Promised Landโ is well on its way to becoming the best-selling presidential memoir in modern times. Crown announced Wednesday that sales have topped 3.3 million copies in the U.S. and Canada, within range of Bill Clintonโs โMy Lifeโ and George W. Bushโs โDecision Points,โ both of which have sold between 3.5 million and 4 million. โPersonal Memoirs of Ulysses Grantโ sold hundreds of thousands of copies when published in the 1880s, and remains in print, but there are no precise records of its total sales. โA Promised Land,โ the first of two planned volumes, covers Obamaโs election in 2008 and much of his first term. Previous works, written before he became president, include the million sellers โDreams from My Fatherโ and โThe Audacity of Hope.โObama still has to catch up to his wife, Michelle Obama, whose โBecomingโ has sold more than 8 million copies in North America since coming out in 2018.
Obama memoir sells a record 1.7 million copies in first week
Crown announced Tuesday that it had increased its initial print run from 3.4 million copies to 4.3 million. โA Promised Land,โ the first of two planned volumes, was published Nov. 17 and sold nearly 890,000 copies just in its first day. Her "Becoming," published in 2018, has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and is currently in the top 20 on Amazon.com. George W. Bush's โDecision Pointsโ sold 775,000 copies its first week and Bill Clinton's โMy Lifeโ topped 1 million in eight days. The two presidential memoirs have now each sold between 3.5 and 4 million copies, totals that Obama's book should easily surpass.
Barack Obama memoir off to record-setting start in sales
โWe are thrilled with the first day sales,โ said David Drake, publisher of the Penguin Random House imprint Crown. As of midday Wednesday, โA Promised Landโ was No. โSo far it has been neck and neck with Michelle Obama's book,โ he said. The New York Times' Jennifer Szalai wrote that the โmost audacious thing" about โA Promised Landโ is โthe beaming portrait" of Obama on the cover. Obama's book is the highlight of publishing's holiday season and for some independent bookstores, the potential difference between remaining in business or closing.
McConaughey writing book based on life-changing adventures
NEW YORK Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey didn't want to write an ordinary celebrity book. This is not a traditional memoir, or an advice book, but rather a playbook based on adventures in my life, McConaughey, 50, said in a statement about Greenlights, which comes out Oct. 20. Adventures that have been significant, enlightening, and funny, sometimes because they were meant to be but mostly because they didnt try to be.According to Crown, which announced the book Wednesday, the actor known for films Dallas Buyers Club and Magic Mike will draw upon a diary he has kept for 35 years. He found not only stories, questions, truths, and affirmations, but also a reliable theme, Crown announced. "From growing up as an adventurous kid in a tough-love Texas home of rule breakers, to revelatory journeys to Australia, Peru, and Mali, to his early days in Hollywood and meteoric rise to fame, McConaughey shares how his life experiences have instilled in him the importance of competent values, the power of new experiences, and, as he puts it, either changing your reality or changing how you see it.