THE ritual of wine service in restaurants often seems intended to intimidate and confuse the customer rather than to get the wine on the table with dispatch, and sometimes the ceremony annoys Michael Rowan, the wine maker for the Jordan Vineyard and Winery in Healdsburg, Calif. So he has developed a technique that enables him to disarm pretentious wine stewards and amuse his companions. He did it the first time on the spur of the moment.

''As soon as I saw him, I knew it would be a hassle,'' he recalled, referring to a sommelier. The man was dressed all in black and wore two silver chains around his neck, one for a large key, ostensibly to the wine cellar, the other for a tasting cup. His manner was formal, even severe, and he obviously was not aware that he was dealing with an experienced oenophile.

Mr. Rowan knew which wine he wanted to order, but the process took far longer than it should have. Finally the bottle arrived, and the sommelier uncorked it with a flourish and presented the cork for inspection, whereupon Mr. Rowan put it in his mouth and chewed it up.

He sagely nodded his head, indicating that the cork had been approved, and motioned for the horrified sommelier to pour the wine. As the glasses were filled, Mr. Rowan kept spitting out bits of cork and nodding his head in approval. ''The guy never even smiled,'' he said, but the others at his table were practically falling off their chairs.

Mr. Rowan's technique is perhaps extreme, but it clearly reflects one person's annoyance with pretension in wine service. He would readily concede that some of the ritual may be necessary, but he abhors the unnecessary trappings and supercilious attitudes that so often surround the simple task of obtaining wine in a restaurant.

Just how much of the ritual is necessary? Or is any of it really necessary? The fact is that a certain procedure should be followed in serving wine, and its purpose is twofold: to enable the customer to determine whether the wine is sound and to insure that the wine is displayed at its best. Any aspect of wine service that is not intended to achieve this purpose is unnecessary.

First, the bottle should be presented for inspection, and there is no pretension in this step. The customer needs to know whether he is getting the bottle that he ordered, and the waiter also wants to make sure there is no mistake. The customer should be sure to check the vintage, because many restaurants neglect to revise their wine lists to reflect inventory changes.

Even the best restaurants occasionally receive replacement wines of different vintages that are served before the list can be changed, but a sommelier who is doing his job properly will inform the customer when this is the case. Not to do so would be deceptive.

Once the bottle has been inspected and determined to be the one ordered, the sommelier should remove the capsule, the lead foil or plastic covering the end of the bottle, and should then clean the neck. Many waiters simply cut off the top of the capsule, but they should remove enough of the lead so that the bulge or ridge in the bottle's neck, which is designed to prevent dripping, is completely exposed.

Deposits that collect under the capsule can affect the flavor of the wine, and they are likely to find their way into the customer's glass if not enough of the lead or plastic is removed. Many waiters simply tear off the entire capsule.

When the cork is removed, it is customarily presented for inspection, enabling the customer to see whether it is in good condition. Actually, it is probable that not one customer in a thousand can learn anything from examining the cork, and this is one part of the ritual that may be superfluous.

But there is an exception. Many European wineries brand their corks not only with the name of the wine but also with the vintage. It can be comforting to have the information on the label confirmed by the cork, assuring that there was no mixup in labeling. But it is also true that many corks are unbranded and convey no information.

Next, a small amount of wine should be poured into the customer's glass so that he can taste it. This is a critical moment, and there is considerable confusion over its purpose. The goal is to determine whether the wine is sound, to assure that it has not turned bad in the bottle.

How does the customer know? A bad white wine will have begun to turn a golden color or sometimes even brown and will emit a sweetish, Madeira-like odor. In fact, one form of deterioration in white wines is called maderization. The wine actually takes on some of the characteristics of Madeira, the sweet, fortified wine from the Portuguese island of the same name.

A bad red will also have begun to turn brown and will display a similar odor. But keep in mind that a fully mature red wine in top condition will often have a brownish tinge. If there is any doubt, the sommelier should be asked to taste the wine, and if it has turned bad he should be happy to take it back.

Under what circumstances should a wine be decanted? The chief purpose of decanting is to eliminate sediment, the natural deposit that develops in red wines as they reach maturity, usually after eight or 10 years but sometimes earlier. A good sommelier should advise whether he thinks decanting is necessary, but the customer may want to pose the question.

Decanting is accomplished by gently pouring the clear wine off the sediment into another container, perhaps a crystal decanter, perhaps a pitcher, perhaps simply another clean wine bottle. A candle is often used to illuminate the wine as it flows through the neck of the bottle, so that the process can be halted when the sediment begins flowing.

A cradle or basket may be used to keep the bottle in a horizontal position prior to and during decanting if the bottle has been lying on its side in a rack. But ideally the bottle should be stood upright before decanting so that the sediment will sink to the bottom.

One aspect of the wine ritual that should be abolished is the use of baskets or cradles for wines that are not being decanted. They are affectations that serve no purpose and take up additional space on the table. And if they are used in lieu of decanting on the theory that the sediment will remain lying calmly against the bottom of the glass, they are counterproductive, for the sediment is stirred up every time the bottle is tipped for pouring.


No one can say that the seven candidates in Tuesday's mayoral election have avoided talking about some of the problems or suggesting solutions. But the most original ideas seem to have little connection with political reality.

Crime is up, and the Right to Life Party candidate proposes amputating the fingers of criminals one at a time. The subways are abysmal, and the Socialist Workers Party candidate suggests making them free. The economy is stagnant, and the Free Libertarian nominee recommends eliminating income taxes. There are candidates, too, on the Liberal, Conservative and Unity Party lines, but their discussions center less on new ideas than on the simple assertion that Edward I. Koch has not been a very good Mayor.

One result of all this is a consensus that Mr. Koch, the first mayoral candidate nominated by both major parties, has had a free ride in the post-primary political season.

His re-election is as certain as sunrise, and both he and his opponents appear only to be going through the motions of a campaign. No one has pressed the Mayor to reveal his plans for his second term, and he has volunteered as little as he did during the primaries, when he dismissed the notion of campaign promises as unnecessary and perhaps unworthy.

Nor is there evidence that Mr. Koch and his lieutenants have even chosen a direction for the next four years, although people close to the Mayor insist that such matters will be discussed before Inauguration Day, Jan. 1. If so, they may be forced to conclude is that answers are as elusive as ever, a point reinforced by events after the primary.

To the extent that Mr. Koch has pledged anything it is that services will improve in the next four years. So far, that has tended to mean he will hire more city employees - police officers, teachers, sanitation workers. But there are signs that the money may not be available to expand the municipal labor force. Last week, the chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, Felix G. Rohatyn, called retrenchment ''inevitable.''

Even if all the workers are hired, however, the people charged with making the city run say that would not be enough. ''The only way to improve services is to change the way things are done,'' says Nathan Leventhal, the Deputy Mayor for Operations. That means increasing employee productivity, and the city has focused on forms of ''gainsharing,'' in which a portion of productivity savings is handed over to the workers.

The Koch administration's biggest success in that realm, perhaps, was replacing some rear-loading three-man sanitation trucks with side-loading trucks carrying crews of two, each of whom gets a bonus of $11 a shift. Yet spreading the gain-sharing concept to other areas, such as one-man police patrol cars, has proved tricky. Moreover, with city labor contracts expiring June, productivity talks are unlikely to become easier.

While key services including schools, hospitals and the subway system are beyond Mr. Koch's direct control, he nonetheless has a big say in how they are run. That point was underscored not long ago when the president of the Transit Authority, John D. Simpson, said, ''If the Mayor thinks it's important, I think it's important.''

How much Mr. Koch wishes to use this pulpit has always been unclear, and would seem to depend on circumstances and on how willing he is to accept blame for failures. In the schools, where he can point to improved reading scores, he has taken considerable credit. In the subways - called worse than ever two weeks ago by the New York Public Interest Research Group - he has tended to shrug about how little he can do, Mr. Simpson's observation notwithstanding.

Law enforcement is another vital question - his No. 1 priority, Mr. Koch says. He plans to add 2,300 new police officers in the current fiscal year. He pledges they will be hired even if President Reagan wins proposed budget cuts that could deprive the city of an estimated $69 million on top of the $273 million lost in the first round of Federal cuts.

But with or without new officers, no one expects a sudden drop in crime. If anything, several brutal assaults in the last few weeks, including the rape of a nun in an East Harlem convent, have highlighted for many New Yorkers the fragile nature of the city's social fabric. Mr. Koch seems to be counting on demographics to solve the problem -a population with a rising average age is likely to produce a smaller percentage of criminals.

Then there are the Mayor's ineluctable racial difficulties, which were made plainer than ever when blacks voted against him 2 to 1 in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. He says he will try to do better. But his opponents have kept up a rataplan of attacks on the race issue, and in response Mr. Koch has dug in his heels. His voice has acquired a growing truculence as he insists again and again that no one could reasonably dispute the substance of his record on race and that the real problem is his ''personality.''

Perhaps more than anything else, events during the desultory campaign have made clear how much lies beyond the control of any Mayor, even one elected with the overwhelming support Mr. Koch expects to have.

He has an ambitious 10-year capital program to rebuild New York's physical plant, but chaos in the municipal bond market may force him to trim his sails. A sluggish economy would make it harder for the city to balance its budget next year. Relatively hard times in Europe lead to fewer foreign tourists on Fifth Avenue, and that, in turn, leads to shrunken tax revenues.

All of which means that when the glow of Mr. Koch's re-election wears off, reality could once again descend hard on City Hall. Mr. Koch, for one, does not seem worried; he is comfortable with, or at least reconciled to, uncertainty.

''Tell me,'' he once asked a visitor to his office, ''what in life is certain?''

Illustrations: photo of mugging victim, Bronx photo of crowded subway photo of side-loading sanitation truck


THE SITUATION IS HOPELESS By Ronald Searle. Illustrated. Unpaginated. New York: A Studio Book/The Viking Press. $12.95.

CARICATURISTS, as any caricaturist can tell you, live, work and die in a shantytown scarcely visible from that monumental Brasilia known as the world of art. Not even the young ones expect much from so lowly a calling. In the art histories no caricaturist is ever regarded as a major artist unless, like Daumier, he dusts himself off and does some paintings and sculpture. The few miserable souls in fine art classes who are interested in caricature pass around pictures by the artists they admire, quietly, as if in some Novosibirsk samizdat network.

In the 1950's the hero of the samizdat in the United States was an Englishman, Ronald Searle. His amazing drawings of the bon ton and the low life in New York, Paris, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New Orleans and London were cut out of magazines and passed around until the sulfite had a nap on it. The best of America's daily political cartoonists, Jeff MacNelly and Pat Oliphant, had Searle as their starting point, as did England's Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman. The publication of ''The Situation Is Hopeless,'' Searle's 50th book, counting collaborations, will have artists everywhere looking back across the career of this giant of the graphic netherworld.

Searle created a new approach to caricature by combining the highly conventionalized, two-dimensional drawing that came out of French modernism with a peculiarly British attention to details of costume, furniture, architecture, ornament, facial expression, gesture and the bric-a-brac of social life. The contradiction between the simplicity of the line and the clutter of the content tends to make even the most pointless Searle drawing funny.

Searle's draftsmanship was at its simplest in the show that made him famous just after the Second World War: an exhibition at the Cambridge School of Art of 300 drawings he had done while a prisoner of the Japanese in Malaysia. His drawings of British soldiers dying of cholera in the prison camps seemed all the more powerful for the spareness of his technique. Some had been done with makeshift markers, such as burnt-out matches. From that show came his first book, ''Forty Drawings,'' published in 1946.

So far as I know, Searle has never returned to somber subject matter. Throughout the late 1940's he was popular in England for a vein of black farce, most notably in his ''Belles of St. Trinian's'' cartoon series, from which the St. Trinian's movies were made. In the United States he was known for his Holiday drawings of New York, Las Vegas and other cities. His modernist line and his British eye for social detail achieved their consummation in these drawings, collected in the book ''Which Way Did He Go?'' in 1961. They rank among the finest drawings of cities since Dore's London drawings of 1872.

Like Dore and other great caricaturists and illustrators, from Rowlandson to David Levine, Searle had occasionally exhibited his Serious Work, that is, his paintings. Here his modernist streak, his penchant for flat design and for color, usually in the hot pastel range, come through strongly. (And like most other great caricaturists and illustrators, he has not been taken seriously in his Serious Mode.) This sort of design and color dominate Searle's humorous drawings today. The humor itself has become more blithe than topical. The play between formalism and literalism reached a baroque state in ''Ronald Searle,'' a major collection published in 1978.

We see more Searle Baroque in ''The Situation Is Hopeless.'' In this modern bestiary he gives us such creatures as a pink rat with a tentative and bemused expression amid mauve and bottle-green stone arches, and the caption, ''Fastidious rat looking for an impeccable sewer.'' Many of the jokes seem merely capricious until one begins to fit the beasts to their human counterparts. A ''retarded ape happy in the knowledge that it is the ancestor of man'' plays with bricks and a rubber tire, his pink face and pink bottom set off against the beef-gone-high grey of the cellar he appears to be locked inside of. An ''exceptionally obese hippopotamus trying to reassure itself that ''Fat is Fun'' juggles bonbons in a pink, blue, violet and coloradded orange arc. The bestiary includes four lions. Two of them are disheveled and rather neurasthenic monarchs. One is a ''feeble-minded circus lion basking in the belief that it is the King of Beasts.'' These three may have a special meaning for Searle's British audience, which finds itself no longer in the Twilight of Empire but in that sort of radioactive black light popular in the yobbo discos of Manchester.

My own favorite, however, is the lion on the cover. He wears blue jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned, ''Hi, I'm Rex.'' He rules over a tubercular blue de Chirico desert adorned by a cow skeleton belly-up beneath a Club Med red sun hung low in the sky. He looks like the sort of infra-bohemian bore who hangs out in resort motel bars in Arizona. In any case, ''Hi, I'm Rex'' is Ronald Searle at the peak of his powers of line, design, color and wit, and his many loyal subjects in America and Britain, his Gideon's Army of the Samizdat, will be only too happy to pay him homage.


PARIS, Feb. 10— Jacques Chirac, the Mayor of Paris, appeared before a news conference today to explain why he is running for President in the April elections.

''I was not listened to,'' he said of his resignation in 1977 as President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's Prime Minister. ''In the years since, I have continued to make suggestions and I still was not listened to.''

Mr. Chirac, formerly a close associate of Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, is now the President's principal rival for the votes of the French right and center-right. He is the leader of the Assembly for the Republic, the latest institutional heir to the party that once assembled about General de Gaulle.

This makes him the titular chief of France's Gaullists, but it is a fragile chieftainship over some fiercely divided tribes. The Gaullists reluctantly supported Mr. Giscard d'Estaing in 1974, largely at Mr. Chirac's urging, only to find that once in power the President proceeded to construct his own political following at their expense. Says He Has No Regrets

''Je ne regrette rien,'' Mr. Chirac, quoting Piaf, said at today's news conference when asked if he was sorry. Regrets or not, his 1974 support of Mr. Giscard d'Estaing earned him the prime ministership until the two split three years later.

On the other hand, it led a number of senior Gaullists to accuse him of wrecking the party for the sake of personal ambition. This resentment, compounded by the poor showing of the Assembly for the Republic in the last parliamentary elections, has resulted in two other Gaullist candidacies.

One of the rivals is another former Prime Minister, Michel Debre, who is running on a platform of scriptural faithfulness to de Gaulle's doctrines. The other is Marie-France Garaud, a witty, sharp-tongued aide to de Gaulle's successor, the late Georges Pompidou.

Mr. Chirac briefly outlined his program today, saying he was in favor of tax cuts to encourage small business, and of a tough line toward the Soviet Union.

In answer to some skeptical questioning, he insisted that he was confident of winning the elections. The skepticism stemmed from current polls that give him only 11 percent of the vote - or up to 17 percent should the two other Gaullists withdraw - against roughly 31 percent for Mr. Giscard d'Estaing and some 28 percent for Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist candidate.

Nevertheless, Mr. Chirac intends to campaign hard, with the help of party machinery that is largely loyal to him. And there is an instability about the French electoral situation that allows for some interesting hedging to the general view that Mr. Giscard d'Estaing will probably win, and that if he loses to anyone it will be to Mr. Mitterrand. For one thing, Mr. Giscard d'Estaing's big lead in the polls has dwindled, and Mr. Mitterrand has gained strength.

If the French electorate is thought of as divided into two large groups, with the right and center-right (Gaullists and Giscardists) on one side and the left and center-left (Communists and Socialists) on the other, the electoral strength of each side is not far from being even. In the second round of the 1974 elections, when all but the two leading candidates were eliminated, Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, supported by the Gaullists, defeated Mr. Mitterrand, supported by the Communists, by less than 2 percent. Bad Feeling on the Left

There is considerable bad feeling between the Socialists and the Communists this time, and most political analysts believe that in the first round, at least, the two parties will remain separate, with the Socialists far outdrawing the Communists. On the right the barriers are much less distinct.

There seems to be no particular ideological distinction between the Giscardist and Gaullist voters. Therefore, it is hypothesized that with Mr. Giscard d'Estaing's popularity sliding and with the possibility of Mr. Chirac making a strong campaign, many of the President's supporters, grown lukewarm, might switch.

It is mostly Mr. Chirac's supporters who suppose this. Other analysts doubt that the President will slip so far, or that his Gaullist rival will gain so much. Nevertheless, with elections 10 weeks away, with the campaign only just started and already growing old, the political world here seems grateful for any uncertainty it can get.

Illustrations: Photo of Jacques Chirac


WASHINGTON— When Ronald Reagan's Cabinet was first assembled, the similarities of the members - in age, in convictions, even in dress - were so remarkable that they seemed to some to blend into a faceless whole. Today the Cabinet is divided, on issues ranging from the embargo on grain shipments to the Soviet Union to the automobile industry's demand for limits on imports from Japan, and there is sometimes drama under the homogeneous surface.

No one expected the Reagan team to be completely free of differences, of course. The question was always how well the President would keep his pledge that the Cabinet, not the White House staff, would carry the burden of his Administration. Two months into his term, he has erected one of the most elaborate structures of the modern Presidency to carry out the functions of ''Cabinet government.'' Senior aides say they are pleased, even though difficulties remain.

Perhaps inevitably, the more conspicuous blowups have come in foreign policy. Behind-the-scenes backbiting seems to have stepped up, bringing a blunt repudiation last week by James S. Brady, the White House press secretary, of an earlier comment by a State Department official that the press had made too much of the turmoil in El Salvador. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. was reportedly furious. In fact, he has often expressed annoyance at White House or Defense Department comments on matters of foreign affairs.

But White House officials note that in the first weeks of his Presidency, Mr. Reagan and his Cabinet decided a slew of budget items and tax cuts with remarkable internal smoothness. And the ''Cabinet government'' superstructure has begun to be used successfully to review issues and settle disputes. (One measure of success is the lack of headlines: The participants have been satisfied that their views had been accommodated in some fashion.)

The main feature of the structure, borrowed from the concept of corporate executive committees, is six Cabinet councils, each serving as a formal body for the debating and shaping of policy. They are the National Security Council, required by law, and councils on economic affairs, natural resources and environment, health and human resources, commerce and trade, and food and agriculture. Each is headed by a Cabinet member, but each has an executive secretary who is a member of the White House staff. Each also has a ''secretariat'' of staff members from the agencies and the White House.

The man in charge of making it all work is Edwin Meese 3d, chief policy coordinator, assisted by James A. Baker 3d, chief of staff. With the use of a computer, the two have created a novel way of tracking issues as they filter through the council and secretariat structure.

When an issue has come before the White House, but has not yet been passed on to the Cabinet, Mr. Baker's office assigns it a number along with the label ''SS,'' for Staff Secretary. If an issue has come before Mr. Meese's office, or before one of the Cabinet councils - but not the White House staff - it is assigned a different number, along with the label ''CA,'' for Cabinet Administration. If something is forwarded from a Cabinet council to the White House staff, it gets another number and the label ''CS.'' And if it goes from the White House staff to a Cabinet council, it gets still another number and the label ''SC.''

''Our goal is to insure that everybody agrees on the facts and assumptions of a given issue before they start deciding the issue,'' said Craig Fuller, director of Cabinet administration at the White House. ''The Cabinet councils and secretariats are a way of using the staff to get all the options analyzed and all the relevant information digested before the issue goes to the Cabinet, where it will be discussed with the President.'' Since January, only 25 nonbudget issues have percolated through to formal discussion during a full Cabinet meeting of the sort favored by Mr. Reagan. When an issue reaches this exalted status, it is assigned yet another computer number and the label ''CM,'' for Cabinet Matter. Last week, for instance, Mr. Reagan presided over a vigorous give-and-take on CM-13: auto imports.

Mr. Reagan's struggles to mesh the functions of the people around him spring from a simple fact. Every modern President has found that his Cabinet and his staff approached issues with different perspectives. Typically, an agency focuses more narrowly on the policy implications, whereas the staff juggles a much broader range of concerns, from politics to Congressional demands to how something will be viewed in the press. In the Reagan White House, for example, Richard V. Allen and Martin Anderson, the national security and domestic policy advisers, have carved out the role of making sure that the President lives up to his campaign promises.

In his first week in office, Mr. Reagan held a Cabinet meeting almost every day. Soon Mr. Meese, among others, decided that improved staff work reduced the need. Now the Cabinet convenes only once a week, usually on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Reagan also meets once or twice a week with one of his Cabinet councils.

White House officials agree that not all the bugs are out. Recently, for instance, Agriculture Secretary John R. Block got permission from Mr. Meese to briefly discuss farm legislation personally with the President. The discussion quickly veered into matters for which no staff preparation had been done. Mr. Meese reportedly sat squirming as it deteriorated into a lively ''bull session'' that was essentially a waste of the President's time.

But the system ''worked'' recently, a White House official said, when it produced a lucid Cabinet debate between Energy Secretary James R. Edwards and David A. Stockman, the budget director, over Mr. Edwards's request for funds to help clean up the crippled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant and to purchase a reprocessing plant in Barnwell, S.C. Mr. Reagan listened intently and then took the prepared material home with him. He sided with Mr. Edwards on Three Mile Island and Mr. Stockman on Barnwell.

''The system isn't perfect,'' said one Reagan aide. ''But it's working better than many expected. Probably the main reason is that this is the system Reagan used in California, and he is determined to duplicate the success he felt he had. It helps that so many of us were with him then, so that we instinctively know how to make it function.''

Illustrations: photo portrait of Reagan Administration officials


Litco Bankcorporation of New York Inc. said it had signed a definitive agreement under which a subsidiary of Banca Commerciale Italiana of Milan, Italy, as previously announced, will acquire all of Litco's outstanding common stock.

Under the agreement, Banca Commerciale will pay $35 for each of the more than 2.6 million Litco common shares outstanding.

The price will be adjusted upward on the basis of any increase in Litco's net worth from March 31 to the end of the quarter immediately preceding the closing date of the acquisition.

Banca Commerciale has also agreed to provide an additional $20 million in new capital to Litco following the acquisition. Thus the agreement has a value of about $93 million for Litco shareholders and a total overall value of at least $113 million. Litco's shareholders will vote on the transaction at a meeting scheduled for July 16.


DAVID DIEFENDORF'S popular creations - ''Glossary of Unfamiliar Terms'' and ''Unfamiliar Quotations (From the Lips of Actual Living New Yorkers)'' - have often appeared in this space. Mr. Diefendorf has crafted a new collection, and here it is: GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR TERMS

PROMENADE: A beverage for important people. KINDRED: Fear of one's family. DIVINE: Whence digrape. BLUNDERBUSS: An inept kiss. POST-MORTEM: Dead-letter office. RADIOACTIVE: Tending to play one's radio too much. BROKERAGE: Material damaged by movers. ROCOCO: A fancy chocolate. PEDANTRY: Opposite of nobility. TENET: One who lives in a tenement. ODE: To be paid. INCARNATION: A country of drivers. CULPABLE: Able to culp. RUSTIC: Likely to corrode. TAPIOCA: A lively dance of the West Indies. PECCADILLO: A relative of the armadillo. XYLEM: A place for the mentally ill. CAMELOT: An area where dromedaries are parked. WHARF: Sound made by a dog. MAHATMA: The utterance of a confused person looking for his hat. ARCHDUKE: A superior podiatrist.

DAMNATION: One of the low countries. ARBOR: An English port. AD DIARY, C2 Occasionally Manhattan smells of its waters stale but salt and becomes again an island, graceful, with a history, with tiers of homesteads rounds of tents caves. That line drawn suddenly backward perhaps moves forward also as the steams and oils and dusts and all the dark decayings overwhelm the salt.

Recently Laurie Werner of Manhattan was standing in the Duffy Square TKTS line, waiting to buy reduced-price theater tickets, when she made an important discovery. Here is her report:

''I searched my pockets, and realized that I had only $22. Just enough for two tickets in a theater's Siberia, but not enough if, for once, I was offered choice seats. That night - of course - the seats offered were in the front mezzanine, center; total: $23. I frantically began to hunt for change in my pockets. When I found none, I asked the TKTS clerk if he'd take a check for $1 or hold the tickets until I could find a cash machine. 'Take the tickets,' he said. 'Pay me back another night.'

''To pay him back - and also to buy myself dinner - I now had to find a cash dispenser. I walked for awhile and found only one available machine (a sign said it was out of order and 'Being Renovated to Provide Better Service'). I was only a half-hour away from curtain time - I had to meet my friend Kenny, for whom I'd bought the other ticket, in the theater lobby at 8 - and I was ravenous and agitated. I rushed into Molfeta's, a restaurant across the street from the theater. I offered my credit cards - which I saw they didn't take - I offered a personal check with 10 I.D.'s, and I offered my dishwashing services, which are hardly worth mentioning. The manager smiled and led me to a table. 'Eat,' he said. 'Pay me back another night.'

''And everyone says New Yorkers are so mean.'' TWO MORE (AUTHENTIC) REASONS WHY I AM NOT LEAVING NEW YORK THIS WEEK 1. Little old man, Hosing down the platform At Houston Street station. Mopping with a broom and whistling, ''Take the A Train.'' 2. Taxi driver Racing up Eighth, Vividly cursing all the way. !!*¦! c ! Reagan, Carter, Koch, Proxmire And even the Waldorf Astoria. His license I.D. says, ''Nathan Polite.''

It may cost 18 cents to mail a letter now, but at least one New Yorker thought she knew how to beat the price hike. As Jean Epes of the Bronx was serving on jury duty last week, one of the other jurors began discussing luncheon plans. ''So,'' she asked, ''who'll come with me to the Post Office after lunch? We should go there and buy up those 15-cent stamps, before they change the price on them!'' There was a long puzzled silence in the Federal Court jury room, says Mrs. Epes. POEM Poe. R.F. PEASE SOLITAIRE

I live on a high floor of a building facing a busy avenue on the West Side of Manhattan. Across the street from me, a few floors down, at a window with a rather large windowsill, sits an elderly woman. She is playing cards by herself. She sits there all day long, from morning till evening, stopping only for brief moments during the day. Once I saw someone else moving about in the room behind her, but she seemed to pay no attention to whoever it was, and went on playing.

This has been going on for at least six years. The other day I finally found myself satisfying my intense curiosity. I took a pair of binoculars over to the window, to see just what kind of game of solitaire she was so engrossed in. When her window came into focus, I saw that what she was shuffling and laying out was not a deck of cards, but a stack of photographs: they were the faded photographs of children.

Summary: LEDE DIARY, C2   DAVID DIEFENDORF'S popular creations - ''Glossary of Unfamiliar Terms'' and ''Unfamiliar Quotations (From the Lips of Actual Living New Yorkers)'' - have often appeared in this space. Mr. Diefendorf has crafted a new collection, and here it is: GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR TERMS   PROMENADE: A beverage for important people.  KINDRED: Fear of one's family.  DIVINE: Whence digrape.  BLUNDERBUSS: An inept kiss.  POST-MORTEM: Dead-letter office.  RADIOACTIVE: Tending to play one's radio too much. BROKERAGE: Material damaged by movers. ROCOCO: A fancy chocolate. PEDANTRY: Opposite of nobility. TENET: One who lives in a tenement. ODE: To be paid. INCARNATION: A country of drivers. CULPABLE: Able to culp.  RUSTIC: Likely to corrode. TAPIOCA: A lively dance of the West Indies. PECCADILLO: A relative of the armadillo. XYLEM: A place for the mentally ill. CAMELOT: An area where dromedaries are parked.  WHARF: Sound made by a dog. MAHATMA: The utterance of a confused person looking for his hat. ARCHDUKE: A superior podiatrist.


PARIS, May 28— The structure and implications of terrorism in Europe are changing. Foreboding undertones provoke memories of the terrible 1930's and require clear, cool reaction. The U.S. is not yet directly involved. But it is of the greatest importance not to be carried away by emotional charges and counter-charges of Soviet master plots that unnerve.

In the last decade, terrorism was dominated by an anarchist mentality. Small groups of wild people kidnapped and killed to frighten society into paralyzed despair. West Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang and Italy's Red Brigades, for example, sought to provoke harsh and generalized repression that would in turn create a rebellious mood.

They had no plans for the future, not even a vague outline of how they wanted the world to change, only the mad romantic belief that if they could bring states tumbling down, something they preferred might emerge from the ruins.

Even Irish and Palestinian terrorists, Japanese, Armenians, Croats and others, murdered wantonly for ''the cause'' without any clear idea of how their crimes were supposed to advance their convictions. They wanted to attract attention and recruits, and force the release of prisoners so as to intimidate governments against further arrests.

No doubt some of them received material help and training from Soviet-sponsored agencies. But they achieved revulsion. With the exception of Turkey, where rival extremists did undermine a civilian Government and brought military rule, they failed in their purpose of shredding the social fabric.

Now there is a change of texture, and it is more serious. The new directions of conspiracy may be the first real success of terrorism. A certain collusion has developed between extremes of left and right in Europe. They are serving each other's interests in actually weakening governments whether or not there is deliberate cooperation, and in some cases there seems to be.

The plots recently attempted and disclosed in Spain and Italy are of a quite different order from the terrorism of the 1970's. They are the work of cold-minded people who know what they want to do with society: milk it and rule with an iron hand.

The rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920's and the collapse of Germany's fragile Weimar Republic in the 1930's were promoted by the ends working violently against the middle, confusing the distraught majority. Mussolini, Hitler and Franco knew exactly what they wanted and they won, for a time.

This is not to play Cassandra but to remember that the ravaging dictatorships could have been stopped if people had understood in time that identifying the enemy was not to choose one ideology against another but to resist all who oppose law and liberty.

Distinctions between ''friendly authoritarians'' and ''hostile totalitarians,'' as would be made by Ernest Lefever, the nominee to run the State Department's human rights program, can do more damage to the cause of freedom than murderous gangs.

The U.S. and the revived states of Western Europe have kept peace on this crucial continent not only through their military alliance but through their dedication to shared values. It is in the highest interest of the U.S. and the European Community to buttress those values and their proven representatives.

There are some specific and concrete steps to take. And now is not too soon. For the U.S., what many Americans think should be taken for granted needs to be repeated clearly. It is that America can never have the good relations with tyrannies that it has with democracies. Spaniards thought they heard the opposite when Secretary of State Alexander Haig said of the February putsch in Madrid that it was an ''internal affair.''

They remembered that Washington led the way in helping Franco Spain out of its postwar international quarantine. Other Europeans, perhaps members of the sinister P-2 lodge in Italy, remembered that the 1967 colonels' coup in Greece was also tolerantly accepted by Washington.

The U.S. is renegotiating its Spanish bases treaty. The way to show we understand the difference between partners and strange, if unavoidably strategic, bedfellows is to offer good terms to democratic Spain with a public caveat endorsed by the Senate that they will not apply should the regime be overthrown. That by itself would ''prevent the next coup,'' in the opinon of well-placed Western observers in Madrid. It would reverberate among Italian plotters too.

France needs to stop its semi-indulgence of Basque terrorists who use its territory as a sanctuary in tacit return for not agitating the French Basques. There are better chances for this with the new French Government, and it is in America's interest too to encourage Paris to be firm.

The conspirators in Italy and Spain don't want to be isolated from the West, but they risk miscalculating. Washington needs to set them straight quickly, before the hot and cold-eyed terrorist campaigns combine their destructive effect.


There's a new club that features comics at City Lights, 147 Amsterdam Avenue, at 76th Street. The advent of this new place brings to the Upper West Side the sort of establishment that has been flourishing on the East Side, with To Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip, and on the farther-south West Side with the Improvisation, the grand-daddy of them all, on West 44th Street.

City Lights is essentially a restaurant. The entertainment, segregated from the eating, takes place in a smaller, cozy back room where the tables put you within pointing range of the talent on the platform in the corner.

During the evening, the comics come and go, like rush-hour trains, each unloading a cargo of routines, some clever, some downright funny, some clearly in need of developmental funds before they are ready for public consumption.

There is a $5 cover Fridays and Saturdays, when the comics go on at 9 P.M. and midnight; $3 Sundays through Thursdays, when the show starts at 9 and just keeps going. Singers and improvisational types on Sundays, a showcase for aspiring comics on Mondays. No minimum ever. The backroom menu, light-eating items, runs from $2.50 to $5.25. Telephone: 580-1368. RETRO

Louise Brooks was an American movie actress, of rare beauty, who left Hollywood to make movies in Europe. She is little-remembered now except for a coterie of fans who have rediscovered her and keep the memory of her greatness alive (as she herself is). Among her American films were ''Love 'Em and Leave 'Em'' in 1926 and ''Beggars of Life'' in 1928. It is perhaps fitting that the last film she starred in, the 1930 ''Prix de Beaute,'' should be the earliest movie in the ''Rediscovering French Film: Part I'' series now at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53d Street, where it will be screened at 2:30 P.M. today.

Miss Brooks plays a Parisian typist, torn between her love for a linotype operator and a lust for fame. She was cast for the part by Rene Clair, who started to make the movie but was removed from the job and eventually replaced by Augusto Genina as director, although he is credited as one of the scriptwriters and, with G.W. Pabst, for the adaptation.

At 6 P.M. the series offers ''Goupi Mains-Rouges'' (''It Happened at the Inn''), directed in 1943 by Jacques Becker. This film, made while German troops occupied France, is about a peasant family in ruthless search for a treasure on their land, nasty people all, with the meanest of the Goupis a caricature of Hitler.

The films have English subtitles. Admission to the museum: $3; under-12's and over-65's, $1; students, $2; Tuesdays, pay-what-youwish. The museum is open from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Film information: 956-6100. THE EVENING AFTER

You didn' t have enough last night and still want to go out? Well, there is always Greene Street, at No. 101, ne ar Prince Street (925-2415), the high-ceilinged restaurant-nig htclub with a dark charmthat gives no indications of its lowly SoHo o rigin as a sanitation-truck garage. Greene Street has at mosphere as well as goodmusic, more often than not.

The music tonight and tomorrow is being made by Jorge Dalto, whose piano style evokes both his native Argentina and American jazz. Mr. Dalto, who is accompanied by his wife, Adela, on vocal, and by a half-dozen Latin instrumentalists, has recorded and toured with George Benson and with the Latin Jazz Percussion Ensemble featuring Tito Puente.

There is a two-drink minimum (unless you have dinner) plus an $8 minimum for the shows at 11 P.M., and 12:30 and 2 A.M. both days. Drinks, about $2.75. Dinner main courses, $15 to $21. GRADUATE COURSE?

''Oh, Johnny,'' a new musical now previewing at the Players Theater, 115 Macdougal Street (254-5076), came out of an adulteducation course in which Paul Streitz, book and lyrics, and Gary Cherpakov, composer and co-lyricist, began it four years ago as a class project in a mu sical-comedy workshop at the New School. On its way to Of f Broadway, it had a 1979 showcase at the Off Center Theater under its current director, Alan Weeks, who was a performer in ''Ain't Mi sbehavin' '' and ''The Wiz.''

This show, set in the World War II South Pacific, is all new but frankly reminiscent, even down to a trio in the mold of the Andrews Sisters (they sing ''The Boogie Bug'').

At 8 o'clock tonight; 7 and 10 P.M. tomorrow; 3 and 7:30 Sunday. During previews, through Jan. 9, admission: $10.

Illustrations: photo of Louise Brooks

Summary: INCUBATOR FOR COMICS   There's a new club that features comics at City Lights, 147 Amsterdam Avenue, at 76th Street. The advent of this new place brings to the Upper West Side the sort of establishment that has been flourishing on the East Side, with To Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip, and on the farther-south West Side with the Improvisation, the grand-daddy of them all, on West 44th Street.   City Lights is essentially a restaurant. The entertainment, segregated from the eating, takes place in a smaller, cozy back room where the tables put you within pointing range of the talent on the platform in the corner.


Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist for Morgan Stanley, said stocks have not entered "bubble territory." Parker has one of the more bullish outlooks on equities. His year-end price target for the S&P 500 remains at 2,014, more than 140 points above current levels.

At 15.5 times forward earnings, the S&P doesn't look frothy to him.

Stocks that make the market look like 1999—including fuel cell-maker Plug Power, for example, and its exponential runup—aren't widespread. Parker said market observers can always target isolated securities. He said fast-growing stocks that look cheap will underperform because the market has figured out something wrong with their business models, compared to fast-growing expensive stocks.

(Read more: Buckle up! Stocks in 'risky territory': Bogle)

What's more, the Federal Reserve's easy money policies allowed companies to push financial obligations out two to three years, and that means a very low risk for corporate bankruptcies, Parker said.

"If we're about to head into a bubble, then you'll want to be long for a while," Parker said on "Squawk on the Street." "I think everyone wants to call in and talk about it. If you want to call the top of the cycle, two things would be in place. One is hubris. And the other is debt. Hubris meaning some form of management arrogance gone awry. ... I don't think we're very frothy on that point."

(Read more: Cooperman calls market's direction)

Investors should, however, monitor drastically rising amounts of debt spread out over the global economy, which hit a record $100 trillion last year, Parker said. As long as the Fed remains accommodative on short-term interest rates, equities should have plenty of support, he added.

Parker listed health care, chemical and growth-focused technology stocks as his strongest plays.

Summary: Citi's chief equity strategist says the markets have room to run, but not without "speculative froth" in social media and biotech.


07/20/2015 AT 08:25 AM EDT

with saving him from a dangerous plunge during a mountain climbing expedition with

In an exclusive sneak peek at Monday's

star and the survivalist use via ferratas – climbing routes with fixed protection to help climbers – as they scale a step summit ... and it's clearly Ferguson's first time using the implements (or any sort of climbing lingo).

"Unclip yourself from the via ferrata," instructs Grylls, 41.

"From the Sofia Vergara, I unclip myself?" asks Ferguson, joking about his costar's similar-sounding name.

"Sofia Vergaras are very, very old, like a hundred years old," continues Ferguson, 39. "And you've got to be really careful with those Sofia Vergaras."

"Jesse can't quite get the via ferrata," Grylls says in an interview. "To be honest, I just let him go with it."

"The Sofia Vergaras are my best friend down here because without them I would be down there," says Ferguson, pointing to the bottom of the mountain.

Obviously out of his comfort zone, Ferguson then tells the camera that he's "seen his life flash before his eyes seven times" – but thankfully, he's got those good old Sofia Vergaras.

"Sofia Vergara saved my life," said Ferguson, before pausing: "Am I saying it wrong?"

airs Mondays (10 p.m. ET) on NBC.

Summary: The actor hilariously mixes up his costar with his via ferrata mountain-climbing equipment in a Running Wild with Bear Grylls clip


08/14/2015 AT 11:45 PM EDT

broke barriers earlier this year when she became the first African-American woman to be promoted to principal ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre – and she's taking her

"I wanted it to be an opportunity for me to educate people and get them to become ballet fans and to educate them on what it means to be a Black dancer – a Black ballet dancer," she tells

She currently mentors about a dozen promising dancers and sits on the board of

, which the ABT founded in 2013 to help diversify American ballet companies.

Copeland, 32, had a dramatic introduction to ballet. Growing up in a two-room motel suite with her mother and five siblings, she took her first ballet class at a local Boys & Girls Club at age 13, and her teacher was so stunned by her talent that she had Copeland move in with her as she nurtured her gift.

"I never knew it was going to get to this level. There are a lot of times when I wish it wasn't so much. But I wanted this type of exposure for the dance community," she told the magazine.

In a behind-the-scenes interview arranged by

, Copeland also sat down with a 13-year-old African-American dancer to answer questions and share some pearls of wisdom with the young dancer – lessons she learned the hard way.

"It's really just having a lot of confidence and belief in yourself," she explained. "Everyone hears no at some point ... I think it's possible to find the right place to be and to fit in and to hear the word yes."

Summary: "I never knew it was going to get to this level. There are a lot of times when I wish it wasn't so much. But I wanted this type of exposure for the dance community," says Misty Copeland


Apple was granted a patent on Tuesday for technology that allows its devices to read physical gestures and respond based on hand movements. That could lead to a major shift in how its users interact with their computers.

Microsoft and Samsung already incorporate gesture controls into some of their products, perhaps the most widely known being the Microsoft's Xbox Kinect motion sensor. Apple, however, could bring about a new era in its own desktop and living room computer use.

Apple may be looking to develop a gaming console or revamped Apple TV, according to Trip Chowdhry, a managing director at Global Equities Research.

"This patent indicates that probably a completely new category of touchless devices may be in works at Apple," Chowdhry told CNBC.

Read More When Apple's iPhone launch hijacked CES

Summary: Apple could offer new technology that lets users make computer commands with a wave of the hand.


Framingham-based Staples is expectedto release its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday morning.

The US Department of Labor will release the consumer price index for July on Wednesday morning. The CPI rose 0.3 percent in June, according to the Labor Department.

SCORE, a national nonprofit organization that provides mentoring people starting and running small businesses, is hostinga workshop that’s designed to help entrepreneurs identify the right business for them, determine values for the businesses, and arrange financing. Speakers include experienced advisers from banking, business brokerage, accounting, legal, and management backgrounds. Wednesday, 10 a.m. to noon, Peabody Institute Library, 15 Sylvan St., Danvers. Free.

General Assembly is hosting a workshop that will focus on applying content marketing knowledge across business types and channels. Attendees should have a basic knowledge of content marketing. Wednesday, 6:30 to 8 p.m., General Assembly, 51 Melcher St., Boston. $30.

The Capital Network is hosting a luncheon that’s designed to help entrepreneurs understand high-growth investments. Will Perkins and Jason Rodriguez of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP will lead the discussion. Thursday, from 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., Constant Contact, 1601 Trapelo Road in Waltham. Free for AEP members, $30 for non-members.

Summary: Staples, Consumer price index, and more notable events and things to know.


"We're expecting a rebound, partly because of what does seem to be a gathering storm around Greece and Europe," Capital Economics analyst Caroline Bain said. "There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the euro zone which we think will be supportive of gold prices this quarter."

The probability of Greece leaving the euro zone has risen several notches as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has taken an increasingly hard line over government debt. Tsipras has insisted that his country would not extend its reform-linked bailout.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Greece not to expect the euro zone to bow to Tsipras' demands in a growing confrontation that has rattled financial markets and prompted U.S. and Canadian pleas for calm and compromise.

Read MoreShould you write off gold this year?

Those concerns were offset by the firmer dollar, however, in which gold is priced.

On the main physical markets for gold, premiums over spot prices on the Shanghai Gold Exchange contracted slightly, MKS said in a note on Tuesday, but remained between $2.50-3.50, showing demand has emerged at lower levels.

"The worry will be, when the Chinese go on holiday next week and the natural support is taken away, will gold fall further?," it said. Some Asian markets close next week for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Among other precious metals, silver was down 0.8 percent at $16.85 an ounce. Platinum was flat at $1,213.10 an ounce, while palladium was down 0.1 percent at $776.22 an ounce.

Summary: Gold dipped as an uptick in the dollar offset the impact of concerns over Greece's future in the euro zone and fears over violence in Ukraine.


John Brynjolfsson, head of Irvine, California-based hedge fund firm Armored Wolf, said two underdogs will make it to the semifinals in Indianapolis: No. 13 seeds Harvard and UC Irvine.

The Columbia College grad, who runs $500 million in assets, also thinks Kentucky will make the Final Four, but he said the Wildcats won't win.

"As a fiduciary, I can't root for Kentucky, as that would destabilize a few bookmakers who laid out huge odds against them," Brynjolfsson joked to CNBC.com. He likes Duke to win it all.

Read MoreHow a pro gambler wins his March Madness pool

Others are sticking with blue-chip teams.

Another billionaire, private equity titan David Bonderman of TPG, thinks undefeated Kentucky will win it all. Bonderman, a University of Washington grad whose firm oversees $65 billion, also likes No. 2 Arizona, No. 1 Duke and No. 2 Virginia to make it to the Final Four.

Steve Pagliuca, managing director at $80 billion Bain Capital and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, thinks the top four teams will be Kentucky, Arizona, Virginia and Duke. A Duke alum, he likes the Blue Devils to go all the way.

Summary: The smart-money brackets: CNBC.com got some of the world's elite investors to pick their NCAA Final Four.


* China Q2 GDP comes in at 7.0 pct vs 6.9 pct in poll

* China floor space sales improves, factory output jumps

* Coming Up: U.S. Industrial output for June at 1315 GMT

(Adds comment, detail, updates prices)

MELBOURNE, July 15 (Reuters) - London copper climbed on Wednesday after a bright reading for China's factory output and better-than-expected second quarter growth suggested stimulus has fed into industry, improving the outlook for metals demand.

China's economy grew an annual 7.0 percent in the second quarter, steady with the previous quarter and slightly better than analyst forecasts, though further stimulus is still expected after the quarter ended with a stock market crash.

"Given that we have seen stimulus, I would have expected some stabilization. GDP came in a tick better than expected, and at least showed no further deceleration," said analyst Dominic Schnider of UBS Wealth Management in Hong Kong.

"Industrial output figures did show an enormous pick up, floor space sold is turning positive. While one month doesn't make a trend, I think the base metals will take this as a positive."

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.6 percent to $5,597 a tonne by 0234 GMT after easing in the previous session. Last week, prices hit the weakest level in six years at $5,240 a tonne.

Shanghai Futures Exchange copper also climbed half a percent.

Industrial output growth quickened to 6.8 percent, surprising analysts who expected it to rise 6 percent on an annual basis after a rise of 6.1 percent the prior month.

Floor area of property sold rose 3.9 percent from the year-earlier period. Analysts watch the indicator as a gauge of health in China's property market, a major driver of metals demand.

Gains were contained however, as markets priced in that a lower scale of easing may be needed. China's main stock indexes fell over 2 percent.

"China's copper demand conditions remain fragile in mid-2015 but if the current equity market volatility is contained, then copper should be the metal best placed to rally," Standard Chartered said in a research note.

LME nickel was up more than 1 percent and ShFE nickel rallied more than two percent at one point before paring gains. Wild swings continue, as some investors bet supply will tighten, while others see ample stockpiles in China.

Standard Chartered said that low nickel prices, which hit a six month trough last week, are set to accelerate cuts in China's nickel pig iron sector, which should boost nickel demand from stainless mills.

"There remains ample inventory both in China and ex-China to solve the deficits projected over the next two years so unless we see some large production cuts to deepen those deficits, there is no impinging sense of scarcity. "

(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Summary: *China Q2 GDP comes in at 7.0 pct vs 6.9 pct in poll. MELBOURNE, July 15- London copper climbed on Wednesday after a bright reading for China's factory output and better-than-expected second quarter growth suggested stimulus has fed into industry, improving the outlook for metals demand. China's economy grew an annual 7.0 percent in the second quarter, steady...


Domestic consumption had been seen as the weak link in Germany's economy since the 2007-08 financial crisis and the subsequent euro zone debt turmoil. However on Thursday, Ifo said that consumption was now the "driving force behind the upturn."

Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics, agreed there were signs of a rebound in German consumer growth.

Read MoreTourism: One of Europe's 'most important industries'

"Germany of course performed very well at the end of last year. We saw a 0.7 percent quarterly gain in GDP that's largely so far – and unusually for Germany – been down to the consumer sector, retail sales have picked up quite strongly, " she told CNBC over the phone.

"Certainly things have been looking up, not least the Ifo's own survey of the business climate," she added. "Other surveys have been picking up too, such as the PMI (purchasing managers' index) – they all point to a continued recovery in Germany."

Capital Economics has revised up its own forecast for German GDP growth this year to 2.0 percent from 1.5 percent.

McKeown debated however the significance of the weak euro when it came to the German recovery.

Read MoreUK, Germany have led Europe's recovery: Sorrell

"Perhaps surprisingly so, so far export growth has remained relatively modest, certainly by German standards… it doesn't really look for the time being like the euro is exerting a strong, positive influence, which is surprising given that it's been depreciating for eight, nine months now," she said.

Possible reasons for this, McKeown said, included structural factors holding back exports and, "a relatively long lag between the euro having an impact."

"We expect a moderate recovery of German exports and certainly see the euro having some positive impact, but we don't think that it's going to mean a boom in Germany," she said.

The Ifo's statement comes after the European Central Bank released the results of its second-quarter Survey of Professional Forecasters.

Euro zone GDP growth was revised up to 1.4 percent for 2015, compared to previous expectations of 1.1 percent. For 2016 and 2017, GDP was forecast to come in at 1.7 and 1.8 percent, up from earlier estimates 1.5 and 1.7 percent.

Summary: Germany's economic growth is expected to come in much higher than expected this year, Munich's influential IFO Institute said Thursday


The relationship between China's currency devaluation and the Federal Reserve's anticipated monetary tightening is driving stock market volatility, Fidelity Investments' Jurrien Timmer said Tuesday.

"I'm thinking they should not hike" in September, he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street". "It is potentially a policy error because the market will tighten for them, as is already happening to some degree."

Investors are growing concerned about just such an error, he said. The VIX, which measures stock market volatility, jumped nearly 135 percent in August, its biggest monthly gain since 1990.

China rocked markets last month after it devalued its currency, feeding fears that the country's leaders are losing confidence in their ability to hit economic targets and sending major U.S. averages into correction.

Read More Weak China August factory, services point to further economic slowdown

China's currency devaluation has been seen as a way to support flagging exports and bring the country in line with international standards. But the perception that it was also a bid to put off a Fed rate hike is feeding volatilty, as well, Timmer said.

"If you believe that the Chinese devalued the currency a few weeks ago in anticipation of a September liftoff, ... then the Chinese devalued to ward that off," he said. "The market went into a tailspin, and then the odds of a September liftoff were greatly reduced to something like 20 percent and everything kind of got calm again."

Higher interest rates would presumably increase the value of the dollar, which would also lift the greenback-linked yuan, making China's products more expensive to foreign buyers.

"If the Fed is going to go in September after all then it puts China back on the hot seat in terms of what it does with its currency," Timmer said.

Should China continue to devalue its currency, it will feed deflation around the world, he added. That would put the Fed on hold because it would face a tougher time hitting its 2 percent inflation target.

Summary: The markets are shaken by the collision of these two dynamics, Fidelity Investment's Jurrien Timmer says.


* LME tin rallies 1.5 percent as spreads tighten

* Coming Up: U.S. Factory orders July at 1400 GMT

(Recasts, updates prices, adds comment, changes dateline)

LONDON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Copper steadied on Wednesday after Chinese equities recouped some of their losses following further government intervention, though falling oil prices and an August slowdown in world factory activity kept a lid on gains.

A number of brokerages in top copper consumer China have pledged additional funds to buy equities, answering the latest government calls to support the wobbly stock market.

"We remain constructive on copper. The China story is over-played versus actual (copper) demand conditions which, while not thrilling, haven't deteriorated as much as the price implies," Vivienne Lloyd, analyst at Macquarie, said.

"Chinese shorts don't seem convinced (about selling) at the moment, London Metal Exchange stocks are falling, (Chinese) bonded stocks are down (and) copper is showing resilience above $5,000."

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.2 percent to $5,077 a tonne by 1028 GMT, after a 1.3 percent drop the previous session. Copper hit its weakest in six years at $4,855 a tonne at the beginning of last week.

Underlining global growth fears, China's manufacturing industry contracted and euro zone and U.S. growth eased in August, data showed Tuesday, while the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for world growth this year.

Copper found some support from a larger drop in LME prices compared to those in China, which have turned imports profitable, Reuters calculations show. China consumes nearly half the world's copper.

Also putting a floor under prices, Ok Tedi Mining Ltd's Papua New Guinea copper mine is likely to stay shuttered until the first quarter of 2016 as an intensifying El Nino worsens drought conditions.

"On the base (metals) there is no doubt we have recently seen CTA short covering. And with Chinese now on holiday until next week, there will have been an element of risk reduction there," broker Marex Spectron said.

But Standard Chartered cut its price forecasts for copper, citing extreme China pessimism and persistent surplus market conditions.

LME nickel rose 1 percent after senior government officials in Indonesia reaffirmed that the country will keep its export ban on nickel ore. Media reports had suggested the country might relax curbs to prop up its slowing economy.

LME tin rallied by 1.5 percent as cash tin traded at a $400 a tonne premium against the three-month benchmark on Wednesday, near its highest since 2009. <CMSN0-3>

Tin stocks on hand for delivery out of LME warehouses have hit their lowest since 2008 after Indonesian tin companies halted exports when new rules for shipments were introduced on Aug. 1.

But some companies including state-run PT Timah have since received licences to export, suggesting at least in the physical market supply tightness should be short lived.

($1 = 6.3633 Chinese yuan)

(Additional reporting by Melanie Burton. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Summary: LONDON, Sept 2- Copper steadied on Wednesday after Chinese equities recouped some of their losses following further government intervention, though falling oil prices and an August slowdown in world factory activity kept a lid on gains. A number of brokerages in top copper consumer China have pledged additional funds to buy equities, answering the latest...


Q. A man recently joined my mostly female team in a professional role. I was surprised to discover that he is making more money than women at his level who have been at the company longer. I feel like I'm caught in a TV show; can this really be a 2015 workplace? What can I do, and how can I prevent this stereotypical situation from happening again?

Work Ethic is a twice-monthly column on BBC Capital in which we consider the ethical and interpersonal dilemmas that workers face around the world. We welcome knotty questions from readers at workethic@bbc.com.

A. Think this is unusual? Think again. There is often some truth behind stereotypes, and yes, sometimes men do get paid more than women to do the same job. That’s why there are anti-discrimination laws in many countries, to prevent and correct these problems.

If you live in a jurisdiction where salary discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal, your company is breaking the law by paying a man more than a woman at the same level. But this is only true if the man and woman both have similar education, work experience, job descriptions, and performance metrics. A significant difference in any of these categories may be reason to pay colleagues differently — and legally.

“The details of background, job expectations and salary all need to be clear,” said Denise Kleinrichert, associate professor of management and ethics at San Francisco State University’s College of Business.

There are valid reasons why two workers might earn different pay for the same job. Perhaps they were hired at different times, one when it was easy to find good workers and the other when the market tightened up, leading the employer to pay a higher salary just to snag a good hire. Moving over laterally from another company often sparks a raise as well, even if the job is similar; that could vault one colleague’s pay above another’s.

However, if you do suspect discriminatory pay practices, your next stop should be the human resources office.

“A single employee can't stop individual discriminatory hiring or practices on their own if they are a bystander, but they can alert senior management (those above the hiring manager who is using discriminatory hiring or salary provisions) if the behaviour isn't addressed by HR or if the practice continues,” she said by email.

If HR is not responsive, and you feel you are being discriminated against yourself, you can file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in the US, or a similar regulatory body in other countries. “These agencies have a legal ability to sanction or require corrective action on the part of the company involved,” Kleinrichert said.

Be aware, however, that although it’s also usually illegal for employers to retaliate against workers who file such complaints, you may not find the workplace to be a welcoming environment if you’re suing the company. Whether or not you prevail in your complaint, you may end up choosing to work elsewhere.

To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, please head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

Work Ethic is a twice-monthly column on BBC Capital in which we consider the ethical and interpersonal dilemmas that workers face around the world. We welcome knotty questions from readers at workethic@bbc.com.

Summary: What should you do if you come across pay discrimination? Read this.


A new mural by elusive graffiti artist Banksy has been vandalised just 24 hours after it appeared on a wall in Bristol, his hometown.

The latest piece from the artist, a parody of Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring called The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum, features a yellow alarm box as the figure’s iconic piece of jewellery.

Banksy confirmed that the piece, which appeared on the exterior wall of a recording studio in Hanover Place, was his on his website on Monday. By Tuesday, it had been splattered with black paint.

Tenant Ellie Morgan, who is joint owner of the recording studio, said: “It’s a real shame and a bit annoying. Someone just snuck down, did it and then snuck off.”

“One of the bands that was recording came in and said someone had thrown paint on it. When we went out it was still wet and dripping. Banksy had already been back to touch it up once. Hopefully he will come back and touch it up again.”

Banksy has been a victim of vandals before. Earlier this month, a penis was spray-painted on one of his murals two weeks after it appeared on a wall in Folkestone, Kent.

It followed an attack on another piece, which targeted the issue of government surveillance painted next to a phonebox near GCHQ in Cheltenham.

The artist also came under fire in Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex, earlier this month when the council removed an artwork depicting five grey pigeons abusing a migratory swallow on the grounds that it contained “offensive and racist remarks”.

The piece appeared a week ahead of a byelection in the town in the east of England triggered by the local MP Douglas Carswell, who decided to defect from the Conservative Party to Ukip. It showed the pigeons holding up signs which read “go back to Africa”, “migrants not welcome”, and “keep off our worms” at the colourful bird. Ukip argues that Britain’s immigration policies need to be tightened.

In 2009, a Banksy piece in Bristol titled Mild Mild West, showing a comic bear throwing a petrol bomb at three cowering policemen, was daubed in red paint by members of a protest group who claimed artists like Banksy were “poor little middle class white boys” who were “gentrifying” urban areas.

Summary: Black paint was splattered on the graffiti artist’s latest piece ‘The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum’


LIMA, June 17 (Reuters) - Peru's annual inflation rate will likely stay above the central bank's 3.0 percent target ceiling until the end of the year thanks to the depreciation of the local currency, the central bank said Wednesday.

The sol currency's more than 6.0 percent slide against the U.S. dollar in the past six months is pushing up prices, Central Bank President Julio Velarde said.

"Such a rapid rise in the exchange rate has repercussions for inflation," Velarde told journalists on the sidelines of an event. "We're going to be above 3.0 percent until nearly the end of the year."

Inflation rose twice as rapidly than expected in May, in part because of a port strike and local fuel shortages. The annual rate stood at 3.37 percent, above the upper limit of the central bank's 1.0 to 3.0 percent tolerance range for the third month in a row.

But Velarde said that quickening inflation in recent months has been largely driven by supply factors.

"If we detect elements of demand-driven inflation we'll take measures," Velarde said.

Economic activity picked up slightly in March and expanded at the fastest rate in more than a year in April on a mining surge.

But the growth rate for the past 12 months is still well under the 5.0 percent pace that the central bank considers Peru's potential rate.

Velarde said that he expects the economic expansion in the second half of 2015 to be faster than in the first half.

The central bank and government have said an economic recovery from the worst slowdown in five years is now underway.

The central bank has held the benchmark interest rate steady at 3.25 percent for the past five months, despite weak growth.

Velarde added that he did not think that the weather pattern El Nino this year would have much of an impact on inflation.

Peru held its forecast for El Nino in coming months at "between moderate and strong" this week.

(Reporting By Teresa Cespedes, Writing by Mitra Taj)

Summary: LIMA, June 17- Peru's annual inflation rate will likely stay above the central bank's 3.0 percent target ceiling until the end of the year thanks to the depreciation of the local currency, the central bank said Wednesday. The sol currency's more than 6.0 percent slide against the U.S. dollar in the past six months is pushing up prices, Central Bank President Julio...


Not that Disney is complaining. Buoyed by rapturous critical notices, "Inside Out" scored the second best debut ever for Pixar, behind only "Toy Story 3's" $110.3 million opening, and the highest opening weekend ever for an original, non-sequel property, passing "Avatar's" $77 million start. The brainy family film picked up $91 million from 3,946 playdates. That was a significant jump on the $60 million-plus opening that Disney had projected.

"Inside Out," which unfolds largely inside the mind of a young girl struggling to come to terms with her family's move, represented a big gamble for Pixar. Produced for $175 million, it had a concept that defied an easy sales pitch and could have gone soaring over the heads of younger moviegoers. Instead, critics praised the film as ranking alongside previous Pixar greats such as "Up" and "Wall-E" in pairing cinematic daring with emotional uplift.

It wasn't just reviews. Production delays on "The Good Dinosaur" meant that 2014 was bereft of a Pixar release, putting a two-year gap between the animation studio's films and driving interest in its latest title.

There was one casualty at the box office. Open Road's "Dope" did not perform as well as the studio had hoped. The Sundance Film Festival favorite sparked a bidding war when it debuted in Park City, but the picture's off-beat sensibility (its a comedy about nerds living in South Central), was difficult to convey to audiences. "Dope" pulled in a disappointing $6 million from 2,002 locations, good enough for a fifth place finish.

Read MoreMarketing movies: 'Merch' that brings home the bacon

In third place, Fox's "Spy" showed some staying power, slipping 29% to $10.5 million and bringing its stateside total to $74.4 million. Disaster film "San Andreas" scored fourth position after snagging $8.2 million, pushing its domestic haul to $132.2 million.

Among art house releases, new indie distributor The Orchard kicked off the sex comedy "The Overnight" to an estimated $61,523 this weekend on three screens in New York and Los Angeles, for a per-screen average of $20,507. The company plans to expand the film next weekend and will have it playing on more than 300 screens by the July 4th weekend.

Summary: The North American box office sizzled as Disney and Pixar's "Inside Out" and Universal's "Jurassic World" duked it out at the multiplexes.


Photo: Rick Scuteri / Associated Press

Eric Reid explains all the soft spots in the 49ers secondary

The wide open spaces in the 49ers’ zone coverage have resulted in some really long pass plays the past two weeks.

The 49ers lead the league in completions allowed of 20-plus yards (15) and 40-plus yards (5). Most of the deep damage has been done in back-to-back losses to the Steelers (43-18) and Cardinals (47-7) in which they’ve surrendered 676 passing yards and five touchdowns.

What’s going on here? Safety Eric Reid said the defensive backfield has been too slow to react and the defensive front hasn’t produced enough pressure. The 49ers have collected one sack and three quarterback hits in their past two games.

In other words, Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger and Arizona’s Carson Palmer have been able to calmly survey and locate the soft spots.

“That’s kind of the downside of the zone,” Reid said when asked about the openings in the secondary. “You’re not close to people. But we’ve got to a better job of breaking on the throw. A little better job of getting pressure on the quarterback, just so the quarterback isn’t so comfortable. Aaron Rodgers is obviously dangerous if he’s comfortable in the pocket, so that’s something we have to do this week.”

Yes, the 49ers will look to improve Sunday against Rodgers, a two-time NFL MVP who is playing better than at any point in his 11-year career, in the estimation of Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Rodgers has become the second quarterback in NFL history to have 10 touchdowns and no interceptions in his first three games.

Rodgers acknowledged the 49ers are still in the figuring-it-out stage under first-year defensive coordinator Eric Mangini.

“We’re three weeks in, so a lot of teams are still figuring out the stuff they want to run and the stuff that’s working,” Rodgers said. “They’re whittling down their plans and continuing to add new stuff to the mix that they may have worked on in training camp. Teams are continuing to try to find their identity.”

For his part, Reid is confident the defense will get on the same page in a blitz-filled system designed to harass passers.

“You get pressure on a quarterback, you get him out the pocket, you hopefully get a sack and a turnover,” Reid said. “Force him into a bad throw.”

Is Reid confident the coaching staff is putting players in the best position to succeed?

“I’m very confident,” he said. “I love our scheme defensively. I don’t know much about the offense, but I’m sure the players love it over there, too.”

Summary: The wide open spaces in the 49ers’ zone coverage have resulted in some really long pass plays the past two weeks.  Most of the deep damage has been done in back-to-back losses to the Steelers (43-18) and Cardinals (47-7) in which they’ve surrendered 676 passing yards and five touchdowns.  The 49ers have collected one sack and three quarterback hits in their past two games.  Yes, the 49ers will look to improve Sunday against Rodgers, a two-time NFL MVP who is playing better than at any point in his 11-year career, in the estimation of Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.  Rodgers has become the second quarterback in NFL history to have 10 touchdowns and no interceptions in his first three games.  Rodgers acknowledged the 49ers are still in the figuring-it-out stage under first-year defensive coordinator Eric Mangini.  “You get pressure on a quarterback, you get him out the pocket, you hopefully get a sack and a turnover,” Reid said.


Read More Markets fear more to China's move

"Facebook still looks OK, Amazon and Google are in the game. There's not that many names that look constructive for the move higher," said Scott Redler, partner with T3Live.com. He said many other momentum names are in broken trends, and leadership groups are getting harder to find. "The banks were a leadership group and now are just kind of in line or weaker…. In the last three or four weeks, a lot of leadership groups lost momentum. When you have less leadership, it's hard for the market to stay elevated."

The S&P 500 lost 20 points Tuesday to 2,084, and the Dow was down 212 at 17,402.

Wednesday's data includes JOLTs, the job openings and turnover data at 10 a.m. ET, and markets will also be watching the 10:30 a.m. ET government oil inventory data after a more than 4 percent decline in U.S. crude futures Tuesday. There are also a few before-the-bell earnings including Alibaba and Macy's. Cisco and News Corp. report after the close.

Read More OPEC just kicked oil into the $30s

Of note will be a speech from New York Fed President William Dudley at 8:30 a.m. ET. While his topic does not appear to focus on monetary policy, traders are watching for any off-the-cuff comments in response to questions, after his talk on workforce development in Rochester, N.Y.

Some analysts say that the markets overreacted to China's devaluation of the yuan by just about 2 percent, but there are underlying concerns that the Chinese economy is much weaker than it appears.

"I really think by itself the very, very infinitesimally small devaluation by China is hardly on the radar screen if you look at a chart. It's not real meaningful in its own right but it comes at a time when there's so much emotionalism in the market," said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Markets. Paulsen said the collapse of the Shanghai market set up a feeling of squeamishness among investors about any negative Chinese news.

Read More This is 'more damaging...than the Great Recession'

China announced the surprise devaluation after its July exports dropped 8.3 percent. Paulsen said the actions by China look desperate to investors.

"Not only do they have to resort to controls on sellers, but they come out and do a devaluation for the first time in 20 years. It almost feels like they're plummeting economically. I don't think they are. There's not much data to suggest that…. I think it's more overdone," said Paulsen.

Read More Bill Gross Janus fund doing well, but still seeing outflows

Paulsen said the continued selling in commodities appears to be part of a bottoming process. "This is more a dollar story than a supply and demand story. The other thing that's going on is the DXY (dollar index) has not gone to new highs," Paulsen said. "To me if the dollar doesn't go to new highs, I'm not sure commodities are going to keep making big new lows."

After the devaluation, speculation circulated that it would keep the Fed from raising rates in September, and futures markets priced in greater odds for a December rate hike. But a number of economists stuck to their view that September is more likely, including J.P. Morgan chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli, who said it was a "minor headwind to growth."

Summary: Traders on Wednesday may be busier watching market signals than the few earnings and data on the calendar.


U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Somers, 33, and Korkie, 56, were shot by their captors shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province in southern Yemen long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds.

The operation, the second attempt to free Somers in 10 days, began with about 40 U.S. commandos late Friday in Dafaar, a small village. No Yemenis were involved in the raid, a U.S. defense official said.

The commandos arrived on tilt-rotor CV-22 Ospreys, which can fly like an airplane and land like a helicopter. Once on the ground, they approached the compound on foot. A barking dog may have given them away, but that remained unclear, an official said.

As they approached, they "lost the element of surprise," the official said.

"The enemy started firing erratically and then our guys returned fire," one U.S. official said.

The commandos were less than 100 meters (330 ft) from the compound at that point.

Read MoreThe merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda could cripple the civilized world

They shot and killed about 10 people, including al Qaeda guards and some civilians, said Ali al-Ahmadi, Chief of Yemen National Security Bureau. The Pentagon said it was unaware of any civilian casualties.

As they fought, an al Qaeda guard darted inside the compound and then exited through the back. Gunfire was heard. That's when American officials believe Somers and Korkie were killed.

With al Qaeda guards wounded or dead, U.S. commandos moved into the compound. They found the hostages with multiple gunshot wounds and carried them to a waiting Osprey, where they were treated. One of the hostages died in the aircraft, the other died once they landed on a nearby assault ship. The raid lasted just five to 10 minutes. The operation was pulled together quickly.

Read MoreISIS extremists claim to behead British hostage

Late on Thursday, Pentagon officials told the White House they had drafted a plan for the mission.

It was reviewed at the White House the next morning and signed off first by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and then by President Barack Obama, who authorized the mission based on information from the military, law enforcement and the intelligence community.

"We were working against a timeline, which was al Qaeda's public threat to execute Luke Somers within 72 hours," one senior administration official said.

"It was our assessment that that clock would run out on Saturday."

U.S. officials said the mission had the support of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

he raid was the third failed rescue attempt of an American hostage in five months and followed a Nov. 25 mission that was unsuccessful because Somers had been moved before U.S. commandos arrived.

In that raid, U.S. commandos and Yemeni troops swooped before dawn into a cave in the eastern province of Hadramout and freed eight people.

Seven of the eight turned out to be al Qaeda members who had been held captive by the militants on suspicion of being government spies, two senior

Yemeni officials told Reuters. The eighth was a Yemeni computer specialist, they said.

Al-Ahmadi, Chief of Yemen National Security Bureau, said after the seven were freed they told Yemen authorities they were members of al Qaeda in the

Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the militant network's arm in the country, and that they had been accused by their own organization of spying for the government.

Thet were detained by AQAP "not as hostages but as suspects," a senior Yemini security official said.

Reuters could not independently confirm his description of those being detained. American officials declined to address the question. Officials at the

White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment.

Summary: It could have been something as simple as a barking dog that alerted the al Qaeda guards as U.S. special operations forces approached the compound.


TrueCar estimates Ford will sell more than 751,000 of the F-Series this year, with nearly 190,000 going for more than $50,000.

That means the best-selling vehicle in the country will generate about $32 billion in revenue, with nearly $11 billion coming from higher-end models, according to TrueCar projections.

Read MoreFalling gas prices not slowing hybrid production

John Krafcik, president of TrueCar, said the results underscore the fact that people often misunderstand pickup trucks, which are no longer just for moving around. Instead, they have increasingly become high-end vehicles, he said.

Summary: TrueCar forecasts the latest pickups from Ford and Ram will be the most popular models sold among all vehicles with prices over $50,000.


People who own all-electric cars where coal generates the power may think they are helping the environment. But a new study finds their vehicles actually make the air dirtier, worsening global warming.

Ethanol isn't so green, either.

"It's kind of hard to beat gasoline" for public and environmental health, said study co-author Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. "A lot of the technologies that we think of as being clean ... are not better than gasoline."

The key is where the source of the electricity all-electric cars. If it comes from coal, the electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than gas, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity, according to the study that is published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They also are significantly worse at heat-trapping carbon dioxide that worsens global warming, it found.

Read MoreThe ugliest new and redesigned 2014 cars

The study examines environmental costs for cars' entire life cycle, including where power comes from and the environmental effects of building batteries.

"Unfortunately, when a wire is connected to an electric vehicle at one end and a coal-fired power plant at the other end, the environmental consequences are worse than driving a normal gasoline-powered car," said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who wasn't part of the study but praised it.

The states with the highest percentage of electricity coming from coal, according to the Department of Energy, are West Virginia, Wyoming, Ohio, North Dakota, and Illinois.

Read MoreChrysler renames itself as FCA US

Still, there's something to be said for the idea of helping foster a cleaner technology that will be better once it is connected to a cleaner grid, said study co-author Jason Hill, another University of Minnesota engineering professor.

The study finds all-electric vehicles cause 86 percent more deaths from air pollution than do cars powered by regular gasoline. Coal produces 39 percent of the country's electricity, according to the Department of Energy.

But if the power supply comes from natural gas, the all-electric car produces half as many air pollution health problems as gas-powered cars do. And if the power comes from wind, water or wave energy, it produces about one-quarter of the air pollution deaths.

Hybrids and diesel engines are cleaner than gas, causing fewer air pollution deaths and spewing less heat-trapping gas.

But ethanol isn't, with 80 percent more air pollution mortality, according to the study.

"If we're using ethanol for environmental benefits, for air quality and climate change, we're going down the wrong path," Hill said.

Summary: All-electric cars powered by coal electricity are potentially less Eco-friendly than their gas-powered counterparts.


For years, slow emissions declines in the West have been swamped by rising emissions in the East, and the trend continued in 2013. China's emissions grew 4.2 percent and India's 5.1 percent. Both countries have been constructing coal-burning power plants at a breakneck pace.

China is spending heavily on renewable and nuclear energy as it tries to slow the growth of coal, but despite those efforts it has become by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Its emissions of 10 billion tons a year of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacturing are almost twice those of the United States, though emissions per person are still far higher in the United States.

Read MoreIs climate change key to the spread of Ebola?

"China is really in a tough position," Dr. Peters said. "Emissions have grown so much in the last 10 years or so that no matter how you look at China, it has an immense task."

In a separate report in early September, the World Meteorological Organization said the level of carbon dioxide in the air in 2013 was 42 percent above the level that prevailed before the Industrial Revolution. Other important greenhouse gases have gone up as well, with methane increasing 153 percent from the preindustrial level and nitrous oxide by 21 percent.

The increase of these and other gases from human activity has caused the planet to warm by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the preindustrial era, which is causing land ice to melt all over the world. The oceans are rising at what appears to be an accelerating pace, and heat waves and torrential rains are intensifying.

The nations of the world have agreed to try to limit the warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which would require that emissions slow down and then largely stop in the next 30 years or so. If they continue on their present course through the century, scientists say, the earth could warm by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial level, which would likely be incompatible with human civilization in its current form.

Summary: Global emissions of greenhouse gases jumped 2.3 percent in 2013 to record levels, the New York Times reports.


10/08/2015 AT 01:00 PM EDT

The real Slim Shady is a real-life hero for Teejay Stainer, a young fan who has drawn inspiration from

throughout his struggle to walk.

The 10-year-old British boy was born without a calf bone in his right leg, which had to be amputated when he was 14 months old, reports the UK's

His parents, Georgina and Richard Stainer, helped their little guy find strength by playing the 42-year-old rapper's music. "We have always taught him to listen to the lyrics and their meanings, and as Eminem raps about surviving difficult times, it makes him feel brave," said Georgina, 28.

When Teejay got the gift of a prosthetic leg, the boy chose to put his hero's face on the front. From then on, he yearned to tell Eminem about his influence on him. "I just wanted to thank him for getting me through the difficult times and show him how dedicated I am," he said.

Teejay's parents set the wheels in motion by sharing a special photo on

. The post shows him holding a sign that reads, "My name is Teejay Stainer from Andover England. I wear a prosthetic leg. These are my Eminem legs I've had made. My wish is for Eminem to see them. Thank you."

Eminem finally caught wind of the 10-year-old's touching story thanks to thousands of people who shared the post. He surprised Teejay by sending a gift to his family's home in Andover, England. The package contained a signed copy of Eminem's 2010 album

. He included a sweet note: "To: Tee Jay – Saw ur pic [and] read ur message! Thanks 4 the support!

"He was so excited when we received the package, but he waited to open it until his dad got home from work," Georgina told the

. "He was over the moon to read Eminem's message – it means the world to him."

Summary: Teejay Stainer's "Eminem legs" got the rapper's attention


The benchmark Shanghai Composite index nose-dived 6.4 percent at the start of trade, following a jaw-dropping 8.5 percent plunge on Monday, the biggest one-day percentage loss since 2007. The market, which had climbed almost 60 percent between January and mid-June, has now erased gains for 2015, down over 6 percent year-to-date.

"The surge in prices that started a year ago was speculative, rather than driven by any improvement in fundamentals. A combination of poor data and policy inaction in China may have triggered today's market falls but the bigger picture is that we are witnessing the inevitable implosion of an equity market bubble," Williams said.

"Similarly, falling equity prices in China shouldn't be a cause of trouble in the wider economy or abroad," he added.

Read MoreCuban: China fell prey to top mistake an investor can make

Recent economic data from China have been mixed rather than unrelentingly negative as many recent headlines suggest, Williams said.

While the latest selloff was largely triggered by the disappointing flash Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) reading for August, he said the data point should be viewed with caution.

"For one thing, the manufacturing PMI has become a less useful guide to conditions in the industrial sector over the past year or so. For another, other parts of the economy appear to be doing much better," he said, citing the Caixin China services PMI, which hit an 11-month high in July.

"To some extent, the recent pattern of weakness in property construction and heavy industry set against strength in services is a positive sign that rebalancing towards a more sustainable growth model is underway," he said.

Summary: The turmoil gripping China's markets doesn't reflect the condition of the world's second largest economy, some analysts and economists warn.