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Just a few short weeks ago, we were counting down the minutes until the Twinkie made its big return to store shelves. Well it happened today… or rather it happened on Today. Al Roker and Twinkie the Kid escorted a Twinkie truck (strangely, with a big cupcake on the side of it) into Rockefeller Center at which point Al dragged a tub of Twinkies over to Savannah Guthrie, Tamron Hall, and Willie Geist and they hurled cakes at the crowd. Welcome back Twinkie…

A Today show segment is a big get, but the whole thing was a little low on enthusiasm if you ask us. But really, the big test is with the customers.
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Asiana Airlines is considering a lawsuit against the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) after it confirmed the phony and racially-charged names that were reported on Oakland news station KTVU. The airline says it might just sue the station as well.

Both organizations apologized for the error after it aired on Friday. The NTSB says the names were confirmed by a summer intern who spoke in error. But that might not be enough for the airline. Ki Won Suh, a PR rep for Asiana, said the error “seriously damaged the reputation of the four pilots and the company,” reports NBC News. The names were used as part of a report on the July 6 plane crash.

Three girls have died (one was struck by a fire truck on the ground, but it’s unclear if that’s what killed her) and 181 of 307 passengers and crew were injured when Flight 214 hit a seawall then burst into flames. Six people are still being treated in the hospital.

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A lawsuit against Target has brought to light an employee training document –”Organization Effectiveness, Employee and Labor Relations Multi-Cultural Tips” – that offers advice to managers who work with Hispanics. According to court documents, Target was thoughtful enough to remind those in charge that:

a. Food: not everyone eats tacos and burritos;

b. Music: not everyone dances to salsa;

c. Dress: not everyone wears a sombrero;

d. Mexicans (lower education level, some may be undocumented);

e. Cubans (Political refugees, legal status, higher education level); and

f. They may say ‘OK, OK’ and pretend to understand, when they do not, just to save face.

*Clears throat.*

Oh.

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Under pressure to take action to improve the safety conditions at Bangladeshi factories that make their goods, 17 American retailers including Walmart, Target, and Gap have signed on to the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. However, the plan is already coming under fire from labor and human rights groups who say that the failure to include a third party monitoring system or any labor representation makes the plan, essentially, a “sham.”

The discussion over factory safety continues months after the Rana Plaza building collapse in April that killed more than 1,100 people in Dhaka. A fire in another factory in Bangladesh killed 112 people in November. In both cases, workers were making garments intended for sale by some of the biggest retail companies in the world. Walmart and Sears claim they didn’t know their goods were being made at Rana Plaza. Read more

Eliot Spitzer, who seemed silenced by a prostitution scandal and the end of shows on both CNN and Current TV, is barking again. This time he’s talking about a run for New York City Comptroller, a far cry from his days as governor of New York State, but still. He’s asking people to cast their vote of confidence in someone who had to give up office in shame and disgrace.

Of course, he first has to get 3,750 signatures by Thursday just to get on the ballot. “The public is forgiving. Whether that forgiveness extends to me is a separate question. I will ask for it. I will say to the public: Look what I’ve done in the intervening five years. Look what my record was as attorney general and governor,” he said during one of many interviews he gave today (five before noon, by the New York Daily News’ count). Despite some heckling, some say the campaign launch has been a successful one.

No doubt, he’s taking cues from Mark Sanford, who won a Congressional seat in South Carolina earlier this year after getting caught leaving his post to spend time with his then-mistress in Argentina. And, closer to home, he could be looking to Anthony Weiner, who’s now leading the pack of mayoral candidates in New York City alongside Christine Quinn. The Daily Beast also calls out President Bill Clinton, who overcame more scandal than a group of people have in a lifetime and maintains incredible popularity among Democrats into his post-presidency.

So how is it possible that politicians can thwart scandal with relative ease? Are the suits made out of Teflon? Are they wearing Wonder Woman Bracelets of Victory underneath those cuff-linked Brooks Brothers shirts? Do they have one of those crazy gizmos that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones use in the Men in Black movies to make people forget everything? We’re going to propose that politicians have the benefit of distance and low expectations.

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If you were in New York City last weekend, you had an advanced July 4th celebration with a slew of Benjamin Franklins, thanks to Virgin Mobile. The mobile company let loose 100 Benjamins to drum up attention for its special deal — they’re offering $100 to anyone who switches carriers through July 7. Personally, we kind of forgot that this was a Virgin Mobile clip about 20 seconds in, but that could be because we’re drunk on Independence Day joy.

via @becktold

Virgin Mobile has been upping its game over the past few weeks, adding the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy Ring to its offerings. However, the latter doesn’t have 4G, so meh on that.

Separately, but truly in the spirit of the day, the Statue of Liberty reopened today, months after it shut due to damage from Superstorm Sandy. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning, and we’ve seen a lot of pics and hoopla popping up on Twitter. Nearby Ellis Island remains closed.

We pulled the snapshot at right from Tom Becktold, Business Wire’s SVP of marketing. Very cool.

The Big Catch

On this day when the rest of us are preparing for some time off, the PR team at Long John Silver’s must be hard at work.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has declared the fast food chain’s Big Catch “the worst meal in America.” The Big Catch is a battered and fried piece of haddock fish and two side dishes. The side dish choices are green beans, hush puppies, onion rings, coleslaw, French fries, rice or corn.

Lab tests on the meal with the onion rings and hush puppies show that it has 33 grams of trans fat (more than two weeks worth), 19 grams of saturated fat, 3,700 milligrams of sodium, and 1,320 calories. My stomach hurts just typing that.

The CSPI says the restaurant isn’t completely honest about the nutritional facts of this meal; their claims that there’s seven to eight ounces of fish in the Big Catch are wrong. Rather it’s “60% haddock, 40% butter and grease.” Now I’m gagging.

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, the restaurant said, “Long John Silver’s offers a variety of meal choices including baked fish and shrimp that can satisfy almost every diner’s dietary choices. We stand behind our published food data and will review any requests from CSPI that raise questions about our data.”

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Kellie Pickler accepting the Mirrorball Trophy as winner of this year’s ‘DWTS.’

After the craptastic couple of weeks Paula Deen had, where in the world would she go? Disneyland? Home to Savannah? Off the grid to the outback of Australia maybe? No. Dancing With the Stars.

Word is that Paula Deen could be on the next season of the dance program. The Huffington Post went to ABC directly with the rumor. Their response: “We don’t comment on casting until we officially announce.”

As that story points out, DWTS has a history of bringing on controversial stars. Kate Gosselin and Bristol Palin are noted. In an interview with Rob Shuter that we’ve previously linked to, Jon Gosselin, now reeling from accusations that he’s responsible for the fall of the house of Ed Hardy, says he would consider a spot on the show.

In fact, the show has become a place for both exposure and redemption. Andy Dick, who has been arrested for allegedly dabbling in drugs and groping underage girls, was on this season. Nancy Grace, known for her bombast on HLN as much as her “journalism,” was on a previous season. David Hasselhoff, whose drinking problem reportedly cost him a television job and fueled an appearance on Entertainment Tonight in a home video shot by his then-16-year-old daughter, has also been on the show.

So what is it about DWTS that brings out everyone in need of, not just a career revival, but a reputation revival?

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Alec Baldwin on “Late Night with David Letterman”

The Daily Mail has removed the story it posted stating that Alec Baldwin’s wife Hilaria was tweeting during James Gandolfini’s funeral on Thursday. After further investigation, it turns out that the reporter, George Stark, who’s in Los Angeles, didn’t take the time difference between the East and West Coast into account. The tweets actually went up after the funeral.

The Daily Mail has apologized “for any distress caused,” but the Kraken was already released and Baldwin had some apologizing of his own to do.

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Jennifer Lopez took her show on the road to Turkmenistan this weekend, performing at an event organized by the China National Petroleum Corp. In the audience: Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the leader of the former Soviet country. And, what do you know?! It was his birthday. So JLo did her best Marilyn Monroe and busted out her rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Unfortunately, Berdimuhamedow is the leader of a government that Human Rights Watch calls “among the most repressive in the world.” Whoopsie!

JLo’s rep told the Associated Press that if she’d known about the human rights violations the government is accused of, she never would’ve performed.

And remind us again why she didn’t know about them?

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