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aggressive overhaul that included getting rid of most discounts in favor of everyday low prices and bringing in new brands.
• The biggest blow came Friday from his strongest supporter, activist investor and board member, Bill Ackman, who had pushed the board in the summer of 2011 to hire Johnson to shake up the dowdy image of the retailer. Ackman, whose company Pershing Square Capital Management, is Penney's biggest shareholder, reportedly told investors that Penney's execution "has been something very close to a disaster."
• On Saturday, Ullman received a phone call from Penney's chairman Thomas Engibous asking him to take back his old job, according to Penney spokeswoman Kate Coultas. The board met Monday and decided to fire Johnson.
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• NEW YORK (AP) -- She was the first crush for a generation of boys, the perfect playmate for a generation of girls.
• Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a cute-as-a-button Mouseketeer on "The Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1950s, ruled among baby boomers, who tuned in every weekday afternoon to watch her on their flickering black-and-white television sets.
• Then they shed their mouse ears, as Annette did when she teamed up with Frankie Avalon during the '60s in a string of frothy, fun-in-the-sun movies with titles like "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."
• Decades later, she endeared herself to baby boomers all over again after she announced in 1992 that she had multiple sclerosis and began grappling with the slow, degenerative effects with remarkably good cheer and faith.
• Funicello died on Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., of complications from MS, the Walt Disney Co. said. She was 70 and had dropped from public view years ago.
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