INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — The fate of beauty initiatives at JCPenney, along with a lot of the company's other plans, just became a lot less clear following the hiring of former Apple executive Ron Johnson as CEO.

(THE NEWS: Ex-Apple exec fulfills dream, becomes JCPenney CEO. For the full story, click here)

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — Walmart has rebranded the small-format food-and-drug combo store Neighborhood Market as Walmart Market.

(THE NEWS: Coming soon: More Walmart Market stores. For the full story, click here.)

RICHMOND, Va. — Patients who used a calendar blister packaging system for their medications showed greater medication adherence than those using traditional vials, according to a new study published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics.

DALLAS — The market for electronic medical records in the United States may exceed $6 billion in value in five years, according to a new report by research firm MarketsandMarkets.

In the report, “U.S. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Market, 2010-2015 (Market Share, Winning Strategies and Adoption Trends),” released this month, the firm said that the market was expected to grow from $2.17 billion in 2009 to $6.05 billion in 2015.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — A new survey recently conducted by the University of Florida found that retailers lost $37.1 billion in theft last year, up nearly $4 billion from 2009.

Criminologist Richard Hollinger led the National Retail Security Survey, which was sponsored by security systems integrator ADT Commercial. Hollinger found that employee theft made up the largest portion with $16.2 billion in losses, or more than 43% of the total, followed by shoplifting and organized retail crime, with a loss of $12.1 billion, or almost 33% of the total losses.

WASHINGTON — The nation's Hispanic population grew four times faster than the total U.S. population between 2000 and 2010, with Mexicans representing the largest Hispanic group, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The recently released 2010 Census brief shows that the Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010 and accounted for more than half of the total U.S. population increase of 27.3 million. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43% — four times the nation's 9.7% growth rate.

NEW YORK — Rising unemployment claims, coupled with rising food and energy prices, prompted a decline in consumer spending outlook for May, according to Deloitte.

The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index, which is comprised of four components — tax burden, initial unemployment claims, real wages and real home prices — fell to 2.66%, from an upwardly revised gain of 3.29% a month ago.

WASHINGTON — Retail spending for the month of May experienced a slight drop of 0.2% to $387.1 billion, though the advanced estimates noted that May sales were 7.7% higher than the year-ago period, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday.

The government agency also reported that total sales for the March through May period were up 7.5% from the same period a year ago.