Time Warner will spin off Time Inc., the nation’s largest magazine publisher, by year’s end, the conglomerate announced on Wednesday. Time Inc. will then be an independent, publicly traded company, while its former owner, Time Warner, retains its magazine-inspired name.

Time Warner had been trying to sell most of Time Inc.’s titles, including People and InStyle, to Meredith, which publishes magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal and Fitness. A new merged company would oversee magazines with a similar audience — lifestyle titles appealing to a mostly female readership.

But those negotiations fell apart, and the New York Times reported just minutes before the Time Warner announcement that Time Inc. also wanted to unload its four iconic titles — Time, Sports Illustrated, Forbes and Money. Meredith was not interested in those titles.

While those more news-focused publications have many benefits for a company that also owns CNN and HBO, Time Warner seems to think its Time Inc. unit will be more valuable if kept together.

“A complete spin-off of Time Inc. provides strategic clarity for Time Warner Inc., enabling us to focus entirely on our television networks and film and TV production businesses, and improves our growth profile,” Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a statement. “Time Inc. will also benefit from the flexibility and focus of being a stand-alone public company and will now be able to attract a more natural stockholder base.”

While Time Inc. remains the largest publisher, the entire magazine industry has been hit by declining advertising revenue. Time Inc. advertising revenue fell by five percent in fiscal year 2012, and Time Inc. announced in January that it would lay off roughly 500 staffers.

Time Warner reported $6.1 billion in profit that fiscal year, and $463 million of that came from publishing. That figure represented a 20 percent decline from the previous year.

Time Warner also announced Wednesday that Time Inc. CEO Laura Lang will depart once Time Inc. can stand on its own but will remain until a successor is found. She has been in the post since November 2011.

“Laura indicated to me that we should find a different kind of CEO for this new public company, and I respect her decision,” Bewkes added. ”She has been a great partner who has given Time Inc. forward momentum to make this transition possible, and I look forward to working with her to select the right leader to head the company as an independent entity.”

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As I watched the sun set slowly and majestically over the hills in Simi Valley, California at President Reagan’s presidential library where Republican presidential candidates debated Wednesday, I reflected on a moment from a decade ago that illuminates some of our politics.  Ten years ago, early the morning of September 11, I was sitting at my desk in my Austin, Texas office, looking at a national poll of voters that I had just gotten back that day.

At the time I was consulting for the Republican National Committee, and one of my jobs was to oversee the polling that might help inform the White House along the way.  I was scheduled to fly to Washington, D.C. that day to brief the White House on the latest numbers.  And then the news reports came in about the hijacked planes on the East Coast.  Planes were grounded, my trip was canceled, and life changed permanently for all Americans.

I never got to give the briefing on that poll.  In one moment the entire political environment in the country changed.  In that poll we did not ask a single question on foreign affairs, terrorism, or national security.  President Bush’s job approval rating had drifted down to 51%, and the opposite poles of the electorate were reemerging strongly.  Republicans adored President Bush; Democrats despised him.

Within a few days, national security and terrorism would dominate the conversation and continue to do so at least through the 2004 re-election campaign, and President Bush’s job approval would skyrocket to a historic high in the 90s.  No more polarization;  the country was united, and waited to be called into a common and unified bond of action by the President.  Unfortunately this never happened. Instead, citizens were told to go shopping and get back on airplanes – a huge missed opportunity to address the problems of the day and on the horizon.   Over time President Bush’s numbers would drift down, and the country would return to its polarized place it had started at before 9/11.

Flash forward a few years, and we see an inspirational and history-making leader inaugurated in January 2009.  President Obama, while not at the all time highs of President Bush in approval, had a enormous support from Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.  Again, the country hungered for a call from our leader to come together as a nation and address our problems.   Again, unfortunately, this didn’t happen. In a few months time, we degenerated back to the vitriol of the prior years.  Another big window of opportunity missed by another president.

So here we are today, on the eve of the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, going into an important presidential election, and the bitterness between leaders of the political parties is at an all-time high.

Neither party seems willing to be frank and honest with the American public.  Our leaders seem unable to tell Americans that our economy has fundamentally changed and there is no going back.  That to regain our future, we are going to have to all participate in shared sacrifice.

Republican candidates at the debate castigated President Obama, and offered economic solutions which, while appealing  to the base, are out of step with today’s economic reality.  We also learned that Republicans, while justifiably applauding former President Reagan, can’t seem to let go of the idea that maybe things aren’t the same today as they were in 1981.

In his economic speech to the joint session of Congress, President Obama offered  a bipartisan collection of policy items but did not lay out a vision of what the economic future looks like or inspire any confidence about how we are going to get there.  It felt more like a lecture by a professor to a class on homework assignments, than a leader professing the vision we could all get behind and move forward together.   And the response to the speech has been predictably partisan and divisive – Democrats applauded the president, while Republicans criticized.

We can’t continue on the path we are on.  Another window of opportunity will appear to unite the country, just like the ones that did for Presidents Bush and Obama. I am hoping a leader will be there to grab it and lead.  And maybe the parties will let go of clinging to leaders of the past (for one campaign I would like a Republican to not mention Reagan, and a Democrat to not mention FDR), and follow the American public to the future — through that window to witness the sunrise that awaits all of us.

Steve & Anita Shevett From left: Jeremy McCarter, Richard Nelson, Carl Bernstein, Kurt Andersen and Alec Baldwin.

A new play by Richard Nelson, “Sweet and Sad,” opens today at the Public Theater in New York. The play takes place on Sept. 11, 2011 in Rhinebeck, New York, and explores one family’s struggle to find meaning in the attacks, ten years later.

After a preview of the play this week, actor Alec Baldwin hosted a public forum that included Nelson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein, and journalist Kurt Andersen. While the play largely focused on grief, mourning and the unanswerable questions in the wake of 9/11, the public forum dealt mostly with political questions such as how foreign policy has changed in the past decade, and predictions for the next presidential election.

When Baldwin was asked what he would do to help society if he woke up tomorrow and found himself in charge, he said, “I have the same unshakable view that there are two issues that are linchpins of the problems in this country: campaign finance reform is the linchpin of all domestic problems in this country. We need public funding of campaigns… In terms of foreign policy, energy independence. If we can have not a Manhattan project, which talked about bombs and destruction, but a power project, a positive rallying cry for this country to have real energy independence.”

Nelson, however, echoing his play, steered clear of mixing art and politics. In the program notes to “Sweet and Sad,” Nelson said that the theater is the artistic form that uses the entire live human being as its form of expression. As such, the human is always at the center of the play, and gives the theater experience a point of view that is more moralistic or humanistic than political.

“Art must be a parallel world to politics,” Nelson said in the forum. “Politics often want to use art and there are some artists that push into politics. But I would be passionate that it is a parallel world that is a necessary world. That is why in times of great humanism, you have had great theater. That is why under Totalitarianism and dictators, the theater is often perceived as the greatest threat.”

Most people exposed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks didn’t develop post-traumatic stress disorder or other types of mental illness, underscoring people’s general psychological resilience in the face of trauma, according to Sandro Galea, chair of the epidemiology department at Columbia University’s public health school.

Galea spoke today at a Columbia conference discussing science, policy and public health a decade after the attacks that occurred Sept. 11, 2001. He said there doesn’t seem to be much of a mental-health “anniversary effect,” citing a study that examined affected individuals for years afterward and that showed “no convincing evidence of reactivating” traumatic memories on 9/11 at least for each of the first three years after the attacks.

But the minority of people who did have problems tended to have clustering of mental illnesses, so those who reported symptoms of PTSD also tended to have more depression or other psychological symptoms, he said.

And, those with more PTSD symptoms also reported more problems with asthma and made more visits to the doctor or emergency room. Why this link exists is controversial, said Galea. One possibility is that “you’re having a flood of people to the ER because of asthma symptoms when in fact the underlying issue is PTSD,” which emphasizes how physical and mental health are often intertwined, said Galea.

Though it’s still unknown what factors might make someone particularly vulnerable to PTSD, it’s likely a combination of genetics and environment. And, non-traumatic, on-going life stressors, like financial or marital difficulties, contribute “quite a bit” to psychological problems, said Galea.

(NaturalNews) As the ten-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks quickly approaches, a recent USA Today piece reflects on the drastic, and likely permanent, changes that have taken place in US airport security. What was once a relatively simple and painless walk through the metal detector has mutated into a nightmarish circus of screaming TSA agents, invasive pat-downs, naked body scans, strip searches, and other unconstitutional violations of personal and civil liberties — and conditions will most likely never return to what they once were before 9/11.

NEW YORK — Take a walk down Wall Street, and the change is immediately apparent.

Off Nassau Street, the former Seamen’s Bank for Savings building houses a New York Sports Club, with a sign out front that reads “Invest in Yourself.” A block east, a former Bank of New York building is now the Museum of American Finance. Along the south side of the street, the monoliths of an earlier financial era now contain rental apartments.

The Financial District has transformed in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which initially turned the downtown area into a scene of devastation and turmoil. New businesses and residents have moved in, imbuing a neighborhood once dominated by finance with a new measure of diversity. From 2002 to 2010, the share of workers downtown employed in finance, insurance and real estate dropped from 33 percent to 28 percent, according to data from the Alliance for Downtown New York.

In name, the neighborhood is still the Financial District. But experts say the city’s financial center of gravity has moved elsewhere.

“The events of 9/11 were the death knell perhaps for the physical bricks and mortar manifestation of the financial capital,” said Stephen Brown, a professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. “It accelerated the move that was already taking place.”

Real estate brokers speak of a downtown renaissance, pointing both to the growth that has already occurred and to future plans for corporate tenants, such as the magazine publisher Conde Nast, which in May signed a lease at One World Trade Center.

But the transition has been not without growing pains. The destruction of the World Trade Center towers took an economic toll on the area, and the frequent construction in the years since has affected local businesses. With rents becoming more expensive, some small businesses have left.

“The place just feels very, very much like a ghost town to me,” said Steven Wilner, a partner at the downtown law firm Cleary Gottlieb, and chair of the firm’s New York real estate committee. “As you move east from the World Trade Center, those streets used to be really vibrant places. People from the Trade Center used to walk out at lunchtime and come to all those businesses. And it just doesn’t feel the same.”

As the concentration of finance downtown has thinned, some local businesses have lost reliable customers. Michelle Koo, owner of Koodo Sushi on Liberty Street, recalled the days when Wall Street types would place large orders at her restaurant. The drop-off in business she said she’s suffered is partially due to the financial crisis of 2008. But there’s a demographic element as well, she said.

“All the customers moved out,” she said. “All the residents who moved in are young people. At night, they hang out; they don’t stay here. It won’t benefit us.”

In earlier days, she said, the restaurant received business from financiers working late: “During overtime, we got their order.”

The exodus of financial firms from the downtown area was underway before the terrorist attacks, as the advent of computerized trading made physical proximity to the stock exchange less important. Firms moved to Midtown, or across the river to New Jersey. Banks opened offices in Asia and South America, capitalizing on so-called emerging markets, whose economies are rapidly growing.

But the recent history of finance in the neighborhood is marked more by dilution than exodus. The years following 9/11 saw new entrants downtown, and the sense that finance dominated the landscape continued to erode.

The government had a hand in that process, as Washington approved more than $20 billion in aid for New York City after the attacks, in the form of tax benefits, work projects and compensation for businesses. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a combined city and state initiative, gave businesses $150 million to help retain and create jobs downtown. Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees got $29 million, according to the LMDC website.

Goldman Sachs benefited from this government largess when it made the decision to move from its Broad Street headquarters to a building closer to Ground Zero, securing approval to sell $1.65 billion in special tax-free bonds, and winning tens of millions of dollars in grants.

A few key developments have also given the area a new appeal. Architect Frank Gehry designed a residential tower on Spruce Street, which the New York Times‘ architecture critic called “the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS building went up 46 years ago.” And real estate brokers say that Conde Nast’s decision to move downtown ensures a vibrant future for the neighborhood.

Dottie Herman, a well-known figure in New York real estate and chief executive of the brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman, said in an interview that she enjoys spending Friday evenings downtown, when she’s not in the Hamptons.

“You can see the Statue of Liberty. You can see all of the Hudson, and the ships. You see kids playing, and people eating outside,” she said. “It’s wonderful. It’s just wonderful. It’s probably one of the nicest places you could go. It’s like being in another country.”

But others are more wary of the transformation, saying new businesses have pushed out some of the local color.

“What troubles me the most is we’re losing mom and pop, and we’re getting Sprint stores, and Anne Taylor, and the Gap, and Duane Reade — all these national chains,” said Edward Sheffe, who chairs the financial district committee of Manhattan Community Board No. 1. “Mom and pop can’t afford to be here anymore.”

“You can buy a Maserati down the street, you can go to Tiffany’s, but you can’t get a ham sandwich. You can’t get your shoes repaired,” added Sheffe, who goes by the name of Ro. “We may well end up with this gleaming, new, modern, sleek neighborhood that is so sterile to live in.”

High-end retailers dot the Financial District: Hermes, BMW, Tumi, Tiffany & Co. The brokerage Winick Realty hosted a party last year at 75 Wall Street to attract another such tenant. “We’re really pushing for a high-end luxury retailer to come down here,” Winick broker Annie Shinn said at the time.

Sheffe isn’t alone in his lamentation for the lack of ham sandwiches. A Goldman Sachs employee, who asked not to be named, said the firm’s new location at 200 West Street, on the northern edge of the Financial District, affords fewer culinary options than before.

“That’s the general feeling among employees,” he said, adding that the nearby Shake Shack has become a company favorite.

Still, even the neighborhood’s skeptics foresee a bright future. Wilner, of Cleary Gottlieb, said he recommended that the law firm stay downtown in 2007, when the company was renegotiating its lease.

“One of the drivers for my recommendation that we stay in place was my view that this area is going to become rejuvenated, and going to become a very desirable place to be,” Wilner said. “I am hoping that all of that just comes back to life.”

French entrepreneurs Christophe Camborde and Yannick Lacastaigneratte, who founded cloud storage storage Steek and sold it to F-Secure for close to $40 million in 2009, are apparently at it again.

A year after founding a company called Ezakus Labs, which has yet to launch a product, they’ve raised $3 million in funding from Idinvest (formerly AGF Private Equity) – for those who understand French, check our coverage of the news on TechCrunch France.

Not much is known about the company at this point, but here’s the buzzword-laden pitch from the press release:

The company features a groundbreaking audience targeting service allowing publishers and advertisers to easily set up social profiling offers with a cutting edge precision compared to the current standards.

Groundbreaking and cutting edge? Clearly, it’s a revolutionary, next-generation service.

For what it’s worth, Idinvest is an investor in several successful French companies, including Meetic, Criteo, Viadeo, Deezer and Dailymotion.