Updated SEP 01, 2014 8:44p ET

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez didn't have much time to soak in his team's win Friday night, in as much as he had to get his mind wrapped around the Wildcats' next opponent.

Rodriguez, half-joking, in his postgame press conference said he needed to speak quickly because he wanted to get to working on the next game.

In what will be Arizona's quickest turnaround of the season -- six days between games -- the Wildcats are in the middle of preparing for Texas-San Antonio, a favorite to win Conference USA.

Thursday's game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 at 5 p.m.

There's nothing like reviewing an opponent to dull the excitement of a huge victory. San Antonio did everything but take over Houston's TDECU Stadium.

"They handled them pretty well," Rodriguez said of UTSA's 27-7 win over Houston.

The Roadrunners created a school-record six turnovers, possessed the ball 15 minutes longer and held Houston to just 208 total yards including minus-26 on the ground.

"I told our team right after the game that we're going to have a tougher opponent on the road," Rodriguez said on Monday in preparation for Arizona's first road game of the season. "We have a lot of respect for them in how hard they play."

Arizona found that out first hand last year in a 38-13 win in Tucson.

The Roadrunners return 38 seniors and nine starters on offense and as many on defense. The Larry Coker-coached team isn't afraid of the big timers either, having faced Houston last week (a win), Arizona this weekend and Oklahoma State (next week).

Rodriguez said UTSA "will be as good as anyone we play" when it comes to pass rushing. That'll be key in keeping redshirt freshman Anu Solomon upright on Thursday.

"They are as good as anybody we've seen on film," Rodriguez said. "They are well coached and their passes rushers are active with their hands."

Rodriguez doesn't expect anything less than a tough fight from a coach he now calls a friend in Coker, who coach at Miami when Rodriguez was at West Virginia as part of the Big East. One of their more memorable meetings came on Oct. 2, 2003 when No. 2 Miami came from behind to win 22-20 on a last-second field goal. Kellen Winslow caught a pass on 4th and 13 to keep a drive alive.

Rodriguez remembered it all too well on Monday.

"I shouldn't remember it because it was a loss," Rodriguez said. "I do remember how talented they were. It was a great ball game to watch. I thought he did a great job there. He's not just a great football coach but he's a great person."

One of the most anticipated debuts was for multi-purpose back DaVonte' Neal, who transferred from Notre Dame last year. He had a so-so opening night.

Neal caught two passes for 29 yards and a touchdown. He also returned two punts for 10 yards. It's the punts that have everyone excited. Friday he had no room to run. Rodriguez said Neal "tweaked" his ankle near the end of the game, so he was replaced by Samajie Grant as a punt returner later.

"I wish we would have blocked better," Rodriguez said. "Had we blocked better I think he could have hit a couple of creases. Bur he played well and competed. He made a few nice plays."

Arizona's student section was in full force on Friday, making it for a festive atmosphere at Arizona Stadium. More than 50,000 fans were in the stands and more than 4,000 students in their respective section. Rodriguez applauded the fans' efforts, saying it was great. But, he feels it could get better.

"I still think we could create the best student environment in the Pac-12," he said. "Looks like it was fun. If I was a student I'd want to be in the Zona Zoo (what the student section is called) and have the time of my life for 3-1/2 hours. The other fans were good, too."

He also realizes he has to put a product on the field that is worthy of watching.

"I want to make it an event where they can't wait to come," he said. "If anything we need to make it where we are fun to watch."

Follow Steve Rivera on Twitter

Summary: Arizona's quick turnaround for UTSA underway.


10/22/2014 AT 05:20 PM EDT

It's every family's worst nightmare.

After sending a text on Oct. 13 from her Point Loma, California, home, Navy wife Elizabeth Sullivan, originally from Hampton, Virginia, disappeared without a word, police told CBS affiliate

Fearing the worst, her family set up a

page to help search for the 31-year-old.

"Elizabeth is a married loving mother of two young children – Ryan and Grier – and our family will do everything in our power to find her and bring her back home safely," says a statement on the page.

Sullivan's phone has remained off since sending that last text message, police said.

"We left it at 'talk to you tomorrow' â¦ didn't hear from her again," friend Nathan Caracter told

Caracter, who was the one to file Sullivan's missing person report, said that she and her husband, Matthew, had been having marital problems.

"We are all very worried and concerned," said Caracter.

But then on Sunday, nearly a week since she'd last been seen, Sullivan was spotted on a soccer field in San Diego, police confirmed.

Authorities did not make contact with Sullivan, who was wearing black pants and a gray sweatshirt, and they are still actively looking for her.

Sullivan's father, Tony Ricks, told ABC News that he generally spoke to his daughter daily but hasn't heard from her since that fateful Monday.

"I just would want her to call home," he said. "No judgment, no blame. We just want you to be safe and okay and come home."

Summary: Elizabeth Sullivan was spotted in San Diego on Oct. 19, almost a week after vanishing from her Point Loma home


Many institutional investors are convinced that the days of easy money are over in private equity. Managers need to distinguish themselves through their ability to add actual operating value to the underlying portfolio companies.

Private equity firms are generally active board members of their portfolio companies. Nearly every investment firm spends a great deal of time monitoring the tactical performance of their portfolio companies: Performance vs. budget, sales pipeline analysis, cash flow monitoring, margin assessment, capital structure optimization, valuation, etc. The tactical performance of a company is important, of course. Ultimately, however, as an investor and board member, a private equity investor’s role should be more strategic than tactical. It is easy for investors to get lost in the tactical minutia and forget to ask themselves the big strategic questions.

The following are five key strategic questions private equity investors should ask themselves about each of their portfolio companies — or prospective portfolio companies — at least every 3 to 6 months.

1. What is the company’s core strategic plan? Investors need to evaluate tactical performance within the context of strategic goals. The lifecycle of a company or operating division is basically a series of 3- to 5-year strategic plans. The plan may be to develop a prototype product and win some key first customers. It could be to expand internationally, scale revenues and cash flow or expand the product set into adjacent markets. It could be to manage the transition from a growth to a value orientation by rationalizing the cost structure, or to successfully transition a company from a corporate spinoff to a standalone entity. It could be to narrow the company’s focus to a core set of products in a declining market. There are numerous core strategies that are potentially appropriate 3- to 5-year plans for a private equity or venture-backed company. Investors must also consistently evaluate whether the strategic plan remains appropriate if there have been changes in the portfolio company’s operating and competitive environment. Companies that clearly identify their core strategic plan almost always execute better than those that do not.

2. Are we the right owners to execute on the strategic plan? This is perhaps the hardest question for investors to ask themselves, but it is fundamental. Private equity firms are generally pretty good at screening deals that don’t fit their strategies at the time of acquisition but they don’t always recognize when the strategic environment has shifted post-investment. A growth equity firm with a company that has shifted into slow-growth maturity; a company in a consolidating industry that would better off as a product or division of a larger company; a company embarking on a new 5-year product strategy with an investor near the end of their fund life…

These are all situations in which the right decision may be to seek a new owner. Sometimes answering this question requires admitting relative defeat on a certain investment but that is preferable to spending years working on a portfolio company that is outside a firm’s investment strategy.

3. Does the company have the right CEO to execute on the strategic plan? Most private equity investors are good at figuring out when a CEO is underperforming. It’s more difficult to determine whether a good CEO is in the wrong role, particularly if the core strategy has changed. Sometimes a company needs an entrepreneurial visionary, other times it might need an operational “Mr. Fix-It.” Sometimes a company may need a turnaround specialist, other times it may need a sales and marketing expert. A visionary’s talents are not appropriate for a turnaround strategy, nor should a sales and marketing guy be focused primarily on operational efficiencies.

4. Is the company earning an appropriate return on invested capital? The key unit economics of the company’s products must be earning more than a sufficient return on invested capital. The ROIC methodology varies by industry (a mature product manufacturer needs to monitor different metrics than a growth-stage online software company, for example), as does the cost of capital. No matter what the stage of business, however, at some point the core business must be able to profitably generate revenue. There is no point investing in revenue growth if the unit economics won’t work.

5. Is the company gaining market share? If the unit economics are working, a company must assess its total addressable market and its share within that market. If the competition is growing more quickly (while also earning sufficient returns on invested capital), then the investor must figure out why and help look for solutions. It could be a sales and marketing execution problem, or a product problem. It may be a market power problem that can only be fixed by pivoting to a different or more specialized niche. If a company is having difficulty gaining market share in a certain market, then it has to question how long it should remain in that market.

Investors with the discipline to consistently ask these five strategic questions will have a framework to evaluate a company’s tactical performance, which in turn will enable the investors to create more portfolio company value. After all, creating portfolio company value is what private equity investors are paid to do.

Tyler Newton is a partner and research director at Catalyst Investors, a growth private equity firm focused on tech-enabled services. He is based in New York City and blogs at www.tylernewton.com.

Summary: By Tyler Newton, contributor         Many institutional investors are convinced that the days of easy money are over in private equity. Managers need to distinguish themselves through their ability to add actual operating value to the underlying portfolio companies. Private equity firms are generally active board members of their portfolio companies. Nearly…


Seeing chief executives like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella make $84 million a year has become so commonplace in the U.S that it’s easy to glaze over and ignore it altogether. That’s especially the case for those approving such steep pay, Microsoft’s board of directors, who are comprised entirely of CEOs, chairmen of other organizations, chief financial officers, Nadella himself, and the president of Harvey Mudd College.

It’s easy to recognize the accomplishments of a peer. But the rank-and-file, on the other hand, has no voice in these discussions.

Microsoft isn’t unique on this account. In fact, the tech giant’s employees are likely paid better than those who work for most other companies. But the lack of a say on CEO pay among workers has played a major part in the sky high pay of American CEOs, who, on average, make twice as much as their German counterparts.

Chulalongkorn University’s Sorapop Kiatpongsan and Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton recently published an analysis of what people from different nations believe CEOs are paid in their respective countries and how much CEOs should be paid compared to the average worker. The researchers found that CEOs are paid extravagantly more than both what survey respondents believe they are paid and should be paid.

The researchers also broke out the average CEO-to-worker-pay ratio for 16 countries, using AFL-CIO data. For the U.S., the ratio is 354-to-1. Germany comes in third highest with a ratio of 147-to-1. It’s still a large figure, but should the ratio in the U.S. be more than double that of economic stalwart Germany?

The difference comes down to two issues.

U.S. CEOs take more risk

On average, a German CEO at a large company made about $5.9 million in 2013, while U.S. CEOs in the S&P 500 made an average of $12.3 million. That’s because U.S. chief executive pay is intimately tied to their company’s share price through stock option compensation and other forms of equity pay.

Pedro Matos, a professor at the University of Virginia Business School, and his fellow researchers found that once you account for the size of the company (U.S. has more large firms than Germany), industry, whether the company is family owned, and the fact that U.S. CEOs are often paid more in equity, U.S. CEOs are paid on par with German CEOs. “U.S. CEOs weren’t more qualified or less qualified,” said Matos. “You’re giving them more incentives because the board and owner are asking for the CEO to align [priorities] with the company.”

The discrepancy is due to the stock that the board gives U.S. CEOs to ensure they will act in the best interest of the organization. Since most U.S. CEOs aren’t the founder or part of a family-run company, boards look to give the new boss incentives by connecting the CEO’s success to that of the business. When the stock goes up, the CEO will make more. German CEOs have fixed pay structures, so there are fewer highs and fewer lows.

In Germany, labor has a seat at the table

In the U.S., average annual worker pay is $34,645. A German worker receives $40,223 a year on average.

In the U.S., there have been several attempts to close the CEO-worker pay gap through an increase in the minimum wage. The issue has found its way to the ballot box in several states in the 2014 midterm elections. The federal government plans to raise the pay of anyone working on a construction or service contract to $10.10, while 38 states introduced minimum wage bills in 2014 with 11 (including Washington, D.C.) have enacted boosts in pay this year. Seattle went the farthest, passing a $15 minimum wage in June.

Then again, Germany doesn’t have a minimum wage at all.

Maybe it has to do with the difference in labor rights between Germany and the U.S. In the U.S., union strength has been depleted. Earlier this year, the International Trade Union Confederation scored countries based on the level of support governments provide their trade unions. On a one-to-five scale, the U.S. scored a four, indicating “systematic violations of rights,” from governments or companies engaged in “serious efforts” to prevent improvement in labor conditions. That put the U.S. on par with Iran, Iraq, Mexico, and Hong Kong.

Germany scored a one, a rating that indicates that “collective labor rights are typically guaranteed.” At the same time, Germany has seen labor union participation drop considerably over the years.

Most important of all, representation on German corporate boards of directors is split between labor and shareholders through an executive board and a non-executive board. This has given workers the ability to raise employee pay along with overseeing CEO salaries.

Whether it’s through minimum wage hikes or acceptance of labor unions, for the U.S. CEO-to-worker pay ratio to decrease, workers will need a seat at the table. This would not only help improve worker pay, it could also provide a much-needed counterpoint during CEO salary discussions.

Most U.S. companies leave workers out of boardroom conversations, so it’s not surprising that executives primarily focus on CEO pay incentives and fail to recognize the necessity to do the same for the rank-and-file.

Without those kinds of conversations during board meetings, American CEO pay will likely continue to skyrocket.

Summary: In Germany, corporate boards include representation from rank-and-file workers, ensuring that employee pay rises along with CEO salaries.


See the pattern highlighted in green, next to the photo of Tim Cook looking irritable? That stubby body and long tail?

That’s what technical analysts call a Shooting Star candlestick. Shooting Stars are bearish signals in the best of times, a sign that an uptrend may have peaked.

But this one, with its extra-long tail, is what Slope of Hope’s Tim Knight (who created the collage) called a “Big Ass Shooting Star.” It was a loud warning bell to traders — and trading algorithms — that it was probably time to take their profits and run.

Or it would have been if the trade that created that extra-long tail — the one that took Apple Monday briefly to a new all-time high of $117.28 — were real.

But it wasn’t real. It was an artifact of the options market that made it look like someone in the Midwest Stock Exchange had bought $1.26 million worth of Apple at 2% above market price — something nobody in their right mind would do.

It was a phantom trade, a chimera, yet it was duly posted as Apple’s 52-week high on financial sites around the Web — including Google and Yahoo — where it still stands two days later.

These outliers surface from time to time, but Apple seems to get more than its share.

Two weeks earlier, on Nov. 4, the same financial sites showed $110.30 as the high of the day even though no trade above $109.90 was ever recorded. That turned out to be another artifact of the derivatives market, triggered by an Apple employee exercising 7,000 options, again on the Midwest Stock Exchange. Apple’s real share price eventually caught up, but it took six trading days.

This kind of thing drives serious investors crazy. They watch for all-time highs and Shooting Stars. They set up complicated conditional trades based on a stock hitting pre-set marks. And the biggest traders — the ones that account for most of the daily volume in a stock like Apple — are computer programs whose internal logic is beyond human ken. Who knows what they are thinking?

Hello, SEC? Anybody watching this?

Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.

Summary: How can a trade that never happened be enshrined as Apple's all-time high?


01/06/2015 AT 11:40 AM EST

will stand trial for allegedly

at a bar in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

Diamond, 37, was charged with second-degree recklessly endangering safety, disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon after he admitted he was armed with a knife during a fight Dec. 25 at the Grand Avenue Saloon.

Diamond, who was interviewed after he left the bar, told police he was defending his 27-year-old fiancée, Amanda Schutz.

Diamond's defense attorney, Thomas Alberti, says no one saw the former child star stab anyone during the altercation, but after hearing a police officer's testimony, an Ozaukee County judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to bind Diamond over for trial.

"There is no evidence Dustin Diamond touched anyone with his knife," Alberti tells PEOPLE. "Dustin didn't reach out or slash out or throw his arms around and try to wound someone. He merely flashed the pocket knife to try to stop the harm that was befalling his wife."

According to a criminal complaint, Diamond claimed the incident began after he declined to shake the hand of a woman who was bumping into his girlfriend. Soon after, he said, a man confronted him. He said he decided to pay, get their coats and leave, but a "brawl" erupted.

At that point, Diamond said, he heard his girlfriend scream, turned around and saw she was bleeding and that two men were holding her by the hair. Diamond said he was moving toward his girlfriend when a bar patron grabbed him.

During the preliminary hearing Monday, Ryan Hurda, a Port Washington police officer, testified that the bar patron pushed the actor as he moved toward the fight. The man's brother got involved after he heard "the snap of a knife," reports the Associated Press.

The officer said the bar's video surveillance did not show the alleged stabbing.

"No, it's not distinct, but you see he's holding some type of object in his right hand," Hurda testified, according to the AP.

After spending four nights in jail, Diamond was released after posting $10,000 bail on Dec. 29. He was granted permission to leave Wisconsin for "employment purposes," according to

. Diamond has a plea hearing scheduled for Jan. 22.

Diamond is best known as nerdy Samuel "Screech" Powers in the early 1990s sitcom

Summary: The former Saved by the Bell actor was involved in a bar altercation on Christmas Day


Updated JAN 09, 2015 12:26p ET

Golf's biggest name is officially headed to its loudest tournament. In a Twitter post, Tiger Woods announced -- in grand fashion, I might add -- that he'll be starting his 2015 season with back-to-back stops at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Farmers Insurance Open.

This is music to the ears of golf fans everywhere as these are two of the most exciting events of the year.

Torrey Pines, of course, is the site of his epic U.S. Open playoff win over Rocco Mediate. And, Woods hasn't played in the Phoenix Open since 2001, but you can be sure the crowds will be even bigger and more raucous with him in the field when the event begins Jan. 29.

As if the memory of his 1997 ace on the infamous par-3 16th isn't enough to get you excited, the Super Bowl will be in town that week.

To say it will be a circus is a par-5 of an understatement.

Picture this: a wild Sunday finish followed by kickoff in the big game. Heaven for a sports fan, indeed.

Tournament chairman Dan Calihan told Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic that he had yet to get official confirmation of Woods' entry, but described the news as "awesome."

"How cool is that. It obviously adds quality to the field. He's Tiger Woods. It'll add more fans, more excitement, more media, it'll help the TV ratings … it's just exciting for everybody. He elevates any event he goes to."

Calihan told Bordow that the tournament's single-day attendance record of 189,722 set in 2014 is likely to fall if Woods makes the cut for Saturday's third round.

"My goal wasn't to have more people show up but it looks like we might have to. It will probably mean more attendance Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and potentially Sunday too."

Adding to the storylines this year at the Waste Management Phoenix Open is the massive overhaul led by designer Tom Weiskopf.

Woods has made only three appearances at the TPC Scottsdale, but each has been noteworthy.

He was criticized in 1999 when he was permitted to let fans move a massive boulder in front of his ball after it had been declared a loose impediment. Also that year, a spectator who had been heckling Woods was found to have had a gun in his fanny pack.

In his most recent appearance in 2001, someone lobbed an orange onto the green while he was putting.

"It will be great to return to Phoenix," Woods said on his website. "The crowds are amazing and always enthusiastic, and the 16th hole is pretty unique in golf.

Woods played only nine times worldwide last year because of surgery to his back and lingering issues. In his return after four months off, he tied for last in the Hero World Challenge in Orlando, Florida.

Woods is working with a new coach. He has slipped to a No. 34 ranking and he is still not guaranteed a spot in the first World Golf Championship of the year at Doral for the top 50 in the world.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Summary: Golf's biggest name is officiallyheaded to itsloudest tournament. In a Twitter post, Tiger Woods announced that he'll be starting his 2015 season with back-to-back stops at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Farmers Insurance Open.


Brian Setzer sparked a rockabilly revival with the Stray Cats in the ’80s, but “Rockabilly Riot!: All Original” proves that you can’t go home again. The Stray Cats offered a fresh take on the genre, but Setzer’s voice no longer has its playful lightness. He spent intervening years reviving swing with his Brian Setzer Orchestra, then made a credible return to rockabilly with his first “Rockabilly Riot!” album in 2006: a covers disc titled “A Tribute to Sun Records.” But the new effort often feels forced and rushed, with an overdose of stylized ’50s jargon such as “let’s get real real gone . . . she ain’t nothing but fine, fine, fine” in the first single, “Let’s Shake.” A few songs jump out, including the time-warped “Vinyl Records” and the Scotty Moore homage “Rockabilly Blues.” Others sputter badly, such as the off-key “The Girl With the Blues in Her Eyes” and “Blue Lights, Big City,” an attempt to sound like Buddy Holly doing Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City.” Too bad there’s not more brightness on this album. (Out Tuesday)STEVE MORSE

Summary: Brian Setzer falls short of his rockabilly-revival heyday with the Stray Cats on his new album of original material.


An artist’s rendering of a proto-typical MegaBots competitor.

Last fall, Gui Cavalcanti made a big splash by suggesting that the next big action sport will involve giant robots, piloted by humans, shooting each other with paint balls. Cavalcanti and two cofounders began working on prototypes in Somerville and Worcester, and they offered a sneak peek at last year’s New York Comic-Con show.

But a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign didn’t bring in the $1.8 million Cavalcanti had set as his goal. Investors were intrigued by the concept but not quite ready to cut checks. Now Cavalcanti’s team has relocated to San Francisco, where they have attracted support from the chief executive of a major design software company.

I caught up with Cavalcanti, one of the founders of the Artisan’s Asylum“makerspace” in Somerville, earlier this week. He said MegaBots co-founder Matt Oehrlein had also moved west with him in December, but the third cofounder, Andrew Stroup, peeled off earlier this year.

Cavalcanti said he bumped into Carl Bass, chief executive of Autodesk, at a conference last May and showed him MegaBots concept art. Autodesk, headquartered in San Rafael, Calif., makes product design software. Cavalcanti said Bass “was like, ‘that’s amazing — what would it take for you guys to build that with Autodesk products?

Together, Autodesk and MegaBots launched a competition that invited anyone around the world to design armor and other elements of the robot — like a cannon that would attach to the robot’s left arm. MegaBots and Autodesk are building the winning designs and plan to unveil them at Maker Faire in mid-May, in San Mateo, Calif.

Summary: Gui Cavalcanti’s MegaBots team has relocated to San Francisco, where they’ve attracted support from the chief executive of a major design software company.


One of the key challenges to frictionless mobile and web payments is being able to carry your digital wallet across platforms and websites, including your credit cards, shipping and billing information. Apple AAPL , Google GOOG , PayPal, and others are all trying to help solve this problem. Last year, PayPal allowed for “one-touch” payments on phones running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. With it, you need only log in once with PayPal to pay for goods across different mobile apps.

On Tuesday, PayPal EBAY extends this capability to web, allowing customers to pay for goods across the millions of websites that accept PayPal with only a single log in. Here’s how it works: if you log in to an e-commerce site and use PayPal, you’ll be prompted to enter your username and password to use your credit or debit cards on file. After that log in, any other attempt to purchase an item on the web using PayPal will proceed with only a one-click confirmation of the purchase.

Because users don’t have to keep re-logging in, they end up spending more, PayPal says. PayPal users who went through OneTouch experience on Lyft converted more frequently than those who went through the traditional PayPal experience. StubHub, the eBay-owned ticket marketplace, reported a double digit increase in sales.

In eBay’s Q1 earnings call last week, PayPal CEO-in-waiting Dan Schulman alluded to new features being added to the company’s digital wallet strategy.

All signs point to PayPal having an healthy future as an independent company, as the payments giant prepares to spin-off from parent company eBay. In the first quarter of 2015, PayPal saw payment volume rise 18% to $61 billion, with the number of transactions using PayPal growing 24% to over 1 billion. Mobile, is a key growth area, with payments through PayPal on phones up 40% year-over-year. In fact, mobile payments now represent 30% of all PayPal transactions.

Despite mobile commerce growth, payments made on the web still makes up for the majority of e-commerce, PayPal Senior Vice President, Global Head of Merchant and Next-Generation Commerce, Bill Ready explains. Which, he adds, is why launching one-touch payments for websites is such a huge opportunity.

Summary: The payments giant wants to reduce the friction found in paying for goods online.


Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox web browser, said it would phase out a commonly used but insecure kind of web protocol to prevent hackers and governments from spying on users.

The non-profit developer community said it would eventually stop supporting non-secure HTTP, or hypertext transfer protocol, for exchanging data on the web. Instead, it plans to switch over to “HTTPS,” an encrypted version of the protocol that ensures better privacy and security for users.

HTTPS has been gaining support in a number of corners lately including the United States’ government. Other organizations, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have been pushing a wide array of Internet services and websites to adopt the technology amid heightened worries about security in the wake of revelations by National Security Agency-whistleblower Edward Snowden about government spying.

Mozilla security lead Richard Barnes and his colleague Martin Thomson drafted a document outlining the move and its rationale. “The web needs to stop using insecure HTTP and move to HTTPS,” they write. “We should begin making it less appealing to deploy new things over HTTP, in order to create incentives for HTTPS adoption.”

After initiating a public email thread in mid-April, Barnes announced that Mozilla is pressing forward with a plan to phase out the protocol. The community must next figure out a deadline after which new features will be available only for secured websites and also when access to browser features for non-secured websites will be taken offline. As Barnes writes on the Mozilla security blog:

Since the goal of this effort is to send a message to the web developer community that they need to be secure, our work here will be most effective if coordinated across the web community. We expect to be making some proposals to the W3C WebAppSec Working Group soon. [Editor’s note: that W3C group helps with improving the security of the web.]

Currently, about 30% of the Internet traffic in North America is protected with HTTPS encryption. That share is projected to increase to more than two-thirds by the end of 2016 as video streaming service Netflix begins encrypting all of its traffic over the next couple of years.

Earlier Thursday the Canadian networking equipment company Sandvine released a report predicting that more than half of the world’s Internet traffic will be secured with encryption by the end of this year.

For more about cyber security, watch this Fortune video:

Summary: The non-profit group behind the browser is planning a significant change to protect users from hackers and snooping governments.


ROLL CALL One Year in the United States Senate. By Senator William S. Cohen. 344 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster. $14.95.

IF the name William S. Cohen means anything to you, it is probably because you vaguely remember it as belonging to one of the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted to bring impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. Mr. Cohen had little other national distinction while serving in the House of Representatives, but the brief fame of the Watergate hearings was enough to persuade voters in Maine to send him on to the United States Senate in 1978.

''Roll Call'' is a journal of Mr. Cohen's first year in the Senate. He says he hopes it will ''serve as a lens ... that will allow the viewer to see the flowing metamorphosis of power, people, and events.'' It doesn't do that for me. I detect more ebb than flow. And where is the metamorphosis? One comes out the other end of this book with the dispirited feeling that nothing has really changed, and that this bright, sensitive, eager, young (40-year-old) Senator is just kidding himself if he thinks that his year in the Senate has made a particle of difference in the life of the Republic.

Perhaps I'm doing him an injustice. Maybe I reacted that way only because the form of the journal -mostly little dibby-dab entries, hardly more than jottings on the back of an envelope (no, I do not mean like the Gettysburg Address) - makes it all seem so inconsequential, so helter-skelter and thoughtless. That last quality apparently struck Senator Cohen, too, on rereading his manuscript. In the postscript to the book he admits, ''I have been recording events without reflecting enough upon them. Perhaps that in itself is an appropriate statement about life as a politician.''

But there are some good things in ''Roll Call.'' Part of the author's entry for January 15, 1979, the day he took the oath of office, is a too-brief recollection of his growing up as a sometimes troubled and sometimes rebellious son of a Jewish father and an Irish Protestant mother. When the Senator writes about his parents and his long-time friends from the non-political part of his life, there's a freshness often missing elsewhere. I was much more interested in the story of how his father, Reuben Cohen, lost the family bakery to the eminent domain of urban-renewal idiots in Bangor, Me., than I was in any of the Senate activities recounted here.

Still, ''Roll Call'' does occasionally offer a useful glimpse of life in Congress: the horsetrading that has little to do with ideology or merit; the way staff members hold their bosses hostage; the hopeless fragmentation of a member's life that allows him/her maybe 30 minutes per committee hearing; the never-ending courtship of the press; the phoniness of some Senate rituals, such as the two-bell quorum call (which is ''simply a delaying device to give the leadership time to decide what to do next''); the kind of political priorities that found Mr. Cohen attending the Aroostook County (Me.) Potato Blossom Festival rather than watching over an important export bill that he had co-sponsored; and the way that the junior members kowtow to the senior, especially their committee chairmen. Mr. Cohen is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and his flattery and defense of Chairman John Stennis, Democrat of Mississippi, are sometimes almost embarrassing.

For instance, when the supplemental bill for defense appropriations for fiscal year 1979 came to the floor, it included funds to purchase four ships originally intended for Iran, which subsequently canceled its order. Senator Don Riegle, Democrat of Michigan, sent a letter to all members of the Senate asking them to delete funds for two of the ships because the decision to buy them was, in Mr. Cohen's paraphrase, ''little more than a bail-out for Litton Industries in Mississippi, located in the homeland of Chairman John Stennis.'' Bail-out was exactly the right description, and Mr. Cohen had to admit that ''it was a point that no doubt crossed the private thoughts of many members.'' But Mr. Riegle had gone too far. He had made ''a direct challenge to the integrity of the Armed Services Committee and its Chairman. ... Even those who disagree with Stennis look upon him with respect and admiration.''

Senator Cohen may think his readers were born yesterday, but in fact most people competent enough to read his lightweight journal are perfectly aware that Mr. Riegle was not defeated by senators eager to defend the integrity of Mr. Stennis and the Armed Services Committee but by members who wanted to make sure that they didn't jeopardize their own turn at the Pentagon trough.

Still, I must say that Senator Cohen comes across as a rather likable fellow - as politicians go. A Latin major in college and the author of a book of poetry (''Of Sons and Seasons,'' 1978), he is not your standard political hack. There's hope for anyone who makes a major political decision while reading ''Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'' He obviously tries to avoid (though not always successfully) the ego rashes and windbaggery that afflict so many members. So ''Roll Call'' will bring some joy to a jaded electorate.

But the next time Senator Cohen prepares to publish, I do wish he would show a little more restraint in his prose style. He writes of the storming of the American Embassy in Iran and the murder of the American Ambassador to Afghanistan: ''The full cup of frenzy was being passed to parched lips around the world.'' Elsewhere, a politician's private life is described as ''sacrificed upon the bloody and brutal altar of public service.'' The dying wife of a colleague: ''Her life's hourglass could no longer be inverted.'' Rain: ''The heavens went dark gray and started to weep.'' Sunrise: ''The sun was lifting its red eye over the horizon.'' Rudeness: ''Today, the white gloves of senatorial etiquette and courtesy were stained by the spreading pool of impatience and belligerence.''

Furthermore, he is a most sanguinary writer, with an affinity for cuts and gashes. He describes voluntary prayer in schools as ''an issue that has hung like a ragged wound in the minds of millions.'' Or: ''The news accounts of the congressional travel plans rubbed like shards of glass in an oozing wound.'' Or, of Jody Powell's criticism of the press at the Annual Dinner of the White House Press Correspondents Association: ''It was a strategic miscalculation of enormous dimensions and left a wound that continued to ooze openly. ...'' Or: ''It also serves to pick the scab of our constituents' wounded sense of fairness - that elected officials are treated as an elite class. ...'' Etc.

Mr. Cohen says that one of his best friends keeps reminding him that ''it's better to be a second-rate poet than a first-rate Senator.'' That probably is a comforting thought.


WASHINGTON, Feb. 4— With the initial wave of appointments and executive orders completed and the American hostages home from Iran, President Reagan is turning to the task of building public momentum for the economic package he plans as the keystone of his Administration.

The President's televised address to the nation, set for 9 P.M. tomorrow, will be his first major test in the White House as a public persuader on behalf of his economic recovery program. It takes on added importance as an appeal over the heads of Congress after the reluctance of some Republicans and Democrats today to go along with a preliminary Reagan proposal to raise the national debt limit.

"This is the kickoff for his second campaign in two years," said Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada, the Presidnet's closest ally in Congress, "the first to win the Presidency and the second to sell his program to the people and through them, to Congress. It's part of an inside-outside campaign. He's going to be playing the role of educator."

"That's what I think this Presidency is going to be all about - using the White House as a bully pulpit," Mr. Laxalt said.

The White House timed the address to reach voters just as Congress prepares to head home on its Lincoln Day recess, hoping that Mr. Reagan could stimulate public pressure on members of Congress to go along with the Reagan program, which will be formally presented in mid-February.

Aides say the address will be a "straight-from-the-shoulder, person-to person" talk on harsh economic realities confronting the nation; on the need to give up some benefits from Federal programs, and on the dire consequences if Congress does not accept the comprehensive package now being built by the Administration.

"He's going to tell people we're at an economic watershed," one senior White House official said.

Administration officials all contend that the new President's sweeping victory gave him a mandate for conservative reform. Most politicians credit him with having earned political good will with extensive private meetings with Democratic as well as Republican leaders. The release of the hostages, they add, has produced a mood of hopefulness and support. Challenge on Enactment

But both the comments of politicians and recent public opinion polls underscore the challenge that Mr. Reagan faces in winning enactment for his cut in personal income taxes and major cuts in Federal spending from the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives as well as the Republican-led Senate.

"People are expecting a great deal more that the President or this Congress will be willing to do," Representative Daniel Rostenkowski, chariman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said. "Everybody expects inflation to just gradually disappear. It's not going to happen that way."

While Republicans such as Representative Barber B. Conable of upstate New York voice fears that the Reagan tax formulas could feed inflation, Mr. Rostenkowski warned that big-city Democrats would find it hard to go along with kind of major cuts in social programs.

"We hear about cuts in public service jobs, in the student loan program, in eligibility formulas for food stamps, trade adjustment assistance, and the triggers for unemployment benefits," the Illnois Democrat said. "Those are going to be very difficult things for members of Congress who are running in two years to be held accountable for. I told the president after the Inauguration, 'You've got to do this as swiftly as possible.'"

White House strategists acknowledge that Mr. Reagan's first task is to create a public mood that puts higher priorty on going along with what officials call "strong, tough" cuts in many programs as an essential part of the battle against inflation, rather than on protecting programs that serve specific interest groups or regions of the country.

"That's a hard thing to do," James S. Brady, the White House press secretary, acknowledged. "For most Congressmen, it's like swimming upstream."

A recent New York Times/CBS News Poll found that most people put a balanced budget ahead of major tax cuts and that there was no majority for cutting any specific spending programs mentioned in the poll. The broadest support registered was 47 percent backing for cuts in the food stamp program. A Division on Strategy

On strategy, the Administration is divided into camps, one favoring extended efforts to work out compromises with the Democrats, since they control the House, and the other favoring partisan confrontation that would let the Democrats produce their own tax bill in the House while the Republicans try to push a version through the Senate.

David A. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has told associates that he favors this kind of approach unless a large number of Democrats are willing to go along with extensive budget-cutting.

Some political advisers of the President are cautioning him against adopting a partisan strategy on the ground that the House rules make it difficult for the Republican minority to prevail over the Democratic majority. They are also warning of the risk that, if the President does not fair well, the Democrats may gain strength in the 1982 election.

"Those Democrats are going to be around for four years," said one close political associate of Mr. Reagan, "and there may be more of them in 1982 if the typical off-year election trend holds. I don't thing it's wise to antagonize them early on."

Both Democrats and Republicans have been pressing for some mechanism that would delay the impact of any tax cuts until a certain level of spending cuts were achieved, to use the political incentive of tax cuts to get Congress to accept the Reagan spending cutbacks. "We've got to keep a carrot out there for Congress and the voters," said one senior White House official.


SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Dec. 5— Costa Rica, long considered a model of political stability and social welfare, has become a case study of how unfavorable commodity prices abroad and mismanagement at home can turn an affluent economy into a financial debacle.

Bankers here agree that Costa Rica's financial snarl is the worst the developing world has seen in many years. ''Costa Rica makes the renegotiation of Turkey, Zaire, Jamaica and even Nicaragua look like a piece of cake,'' said a London-based banker who asked that his name not be used.

Months of negotiation between Costa Rican officials and foreign bankers will reach another milestone Wednesday with a meeting in New York. Costa Rica has suggested a possible settlement, and the banks are expected to respond to the proposal.

When Costa Rica's finance minister, Emilio Garnier, meets with the 12-bank steering committee representing 148 banks, he hopes the group will not only renegotiate $1 billion in existing debts but also provide a further $1.9 billion in credit over the next five years to finance interest payments.

But Costa Rica has been sternly warned by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and its angry foreign creditors that no one will bail out this country until its Government adopts unpopular austerity measures. Austerity Still Lacking

Such moves, though, have been repeatedly postponed. Just two months before general elections are to be held, President Rodrigo Carazo Adio seems reluctant to risk a wave of protests by ordering price increases for gasoline, electricity and water.

''I'm sure that Carazo wants to pass on all the problems to the next administration,'' said Luis Alberto Monge, the candidate who is favored to win in the February voting and take office on May 8. ''We're going to inherit a bankrupt economy.''

Technically, the Costa Rican Government is already bankrupt. It is unable to make even interest payments on its $2.6 billion debt, owed to commercial banks, foreign governments and international organizations.

The country's currency, the colon, was allowed to float 15 months ago. Since then its value has slumped from 8.60 colons to the dollar to about 40 colons to the dollar, shattering the remnants of business confidence and fueling an inflation rate expected to exceed 60 percent this year. The lack of foreign exchange has left many factories without the imported raw materials necessary to keep producing goods.

''What you have is a private sector denied credit because the country is insolvent,'' said a foreign diplomat who wished to remain anonymous. ''Without credit for raw materials, the private sector is in great danger of going under. And if it does go under, we'll never get out of this crisis.'' Slump Seen Worsening

The nation's economic activity, which grew only 1.5 percent last year, is expected to shrink about 3 percent this year and fare even worse in 1982.

Costa Rican analysts argue that the present crisis had been slowly ripening for several years, with the country regularly consuming more than it produced, importing more than it exported and borrowing more than it could repay. To finance chronic trade and budget deficits and to sustain an expensive welfare state, Costa Rica tripled its foreign debt in less than four years.

But serious economic pressures did not arise until 1979 when - almost simultaneously - world oil prices doubled and world coffee prices slumped. Costa Rica, depending on oil imports for 80 percent of its energy and on coffee exports for 65 percent of its foreignexchange earnings, saw its reserves quickly evaporate.

''In 1970, one bag of coffee bought 100 barrels of oil,'' Vice President Jose Miguel Alfaro said. ''Today one bag of coffee buys just three barrels of oil.''

During the last two years, the crisis has been aggravated by the Government's handling of its domestic economic policy and its relations with foreign creditors. Collapse of I.M.F. Deal

For example, an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a so-called extended fund facility worth $330 million fell through last summer when Costa Rica failed to fulfill its part of the agreement. After only $19 million had been dispersed, the deal was canceled by the I.M.F.

Foreign bankers, who quit making new loans to the Government late last year, charged that they had been misled by Costa Rica's central bank about the true state of the country's finances. Officials privately acknowledged that they knew neither the size of the foreign debt nor to whom it was owed.

Finally, in July this year, the New York-based firm of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb was hired to advise the Government on renegotiation of its debt. The first meeting with foreign creditors took place in New York in September. On Oct. 30 Costa Rica made a proposal, and it expects to hear the banks' answer on Wednesday.

In essence, Costa Rica is requesting that the principal of shortterm debt be rescheduled over five years, with three years' grace, and that the principal of long-term debt be rescheduled over 10 years, with five years' grace. It has also offered the banks a choice of capitalizing all accumulated and future credit or of lending Costa Rica fresh credit to cover interest. What Creditors Want

The main demand of the creditors is that Costa Rica first complete an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Last month a new I.M.F. mission returned to San Jose for negotiations, this time for a $110 million standby agreement. But again the credit was made conditional upon an increase in the prices charged by public utilities.

Creditors' frustration with the Carazo administration has become so deep that even the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as the World Bank is formally known, is attaching monetary preconditions -specifically, higher interest rates -before releasing a promised $25 million for export promotion.

Because of the approaching elections and change of administration, there are fears in business and political circles here that agreements with the I.M.F. and foreign banks may still be weeks or even months away. ''If we drift on like this, a lot of damage can be done before the new government takes over in May,'' said an opposition politician who requested anonymity.

Some foreign diplomats involved in aid programs for Costa Rica are equally alarmed by pressure from creditors. One official, who did not want his name used, said there were ''signs that the banks want to squeeze blood out of a turnip.''

The diplomats argued that a tough negotiating stance by the banks could be counterproductive. The country's only hope of paying its debts, the diplomats said, would be through an economic recovery.

Illustrations: map of Costa Rica charts photo of a Costa Rica market street


I don't suppose anybody can make it through a whole lifetime here in the 20th century twilight zone without an occasional suspicion that he is living in a global booby hatch.

Still, most of us try not to think that way, and I am no exception. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, I keep assuring myself that everything from the balance of nuclear terror to frozen onion rings makes good sense and can be rationally explained by people a lot saner than I am.

Then along comes something like the Air Force's $138 million plumbing mistake. Plumbing is an inelegant word to describe such a dandy piece of business, but that's basically where the Air Force went wrong.

It was putting up a large building whose purpose required a great deal of intricate tubing and piping, only the people designing the building and the people designing the tubes and the pipes apparently never got around to talking to each other, so when the pipes and tubes came it turned out that none of them fitted the places in the building for which they supposedly had been designed.

The result is that everything has to be done all over again, which will add $138 million to the cost of the job. All right, you say, nobody's perfect. I can go along with that. Maybe plumbers and carpenters don't like to talk to each other. I can go along with that, too. Still, when you're putting hundreds of millions into a construction project, you'd think there would be some $75,000-a-year man whose job is to make sure the plumbers and the carpenters are both looking at the same blueprint.

All right, this fellow's secretary forgot to remind him to send the blueprints to the plumbers. I can see that happening. So far it all looks reasonable and sane. I can even understand the Pentagon's tapping the Treasury for another $138 million to undo the mistake.

To me, admittedly, $138 million is not salami, as it is to the Pentagon. If I try to squeeze the Treasury for $500, the Internal Revenue auditors call me in for an inquisition with thumbscrews. I can go along with that. The Treasury needs that $500 so it will be able to write a check when the Air Force calls up and says, ''Send over another $138 million right away; we forgot to get the carpenters and plumbers together on our multihundred-million-dollar building job down in Tennessee.''

I can go along with that. The Air Force and I have different values. If I'm walking along and see a penny in the gutter, I don't bother getting my hands dirty picking it up. The Air Force is that way about hundred-million-dollar bills. If it isn't a billion it's not real money.

All right, I can go along with that. What bothers me, however, is this: What is the Air Force doing in the construction business? Sure, it has to build barracks and mess halls and airplane hangars. I can go along with that. But this $138-million-mistake building is not like those things. It seems to be some gigantic structure for testing new jet engines.

When it's finished, throwing in the bill for the $138 million mistake and allowing for inflation and cost overruns yet to come, it will probably cost about half a billion dollars. I can go along with that. The Air Force uses jet engines. It has to test them, doesn't it?

I have a problem, though, with why in the age of rockets the Air Force is plunging half a billion into a building to test new jet engines. If the test building costs half a billion, how much are these still unt@ested jet engines going to cost? Billions and billions, surely.

Billions and billions for new generations of jet engines to power new generations of airplanes that will carry new generations of Hbombs round and round in the sky until they either become obsolete or we are all blown up by H-bombs toted new-style aboard rockets.

For the first time I am tempted to say, ''It's crazy.'' Why spend billions on new engines for new airplanes carrying new bombs that won't even be deliverable until after the rockets have blown everything to kingdom come, while the Government axes the publictelevision budget as a waste of money? Is it worth surviving the thermonuclear holocaust if there is no ''MacNeil-Lehrer Report'' that night to present the balanced views of both Washington and Moscow?

I do not cry, ''This is crazy.'' If I did, the Air Force would remind me that American security rests on a ''triad'' of rocketry, submarines and airplanes. Without the airplanes, Jefferson will be silenced by Marx. And after all, is $138 million not money well wasted in the eternal struggle to insure every American the right to a future glistening with armaments?

I can go along with that. After all, extremely bright people have figured it all out. If you disagreed with such intelligent people you'd be crazy. I'll go along with that.

Illustrations: drawing of people being threatened by pilot of a plane

Summary: Sunday ObserverBy Russell Baker   I don't suppose anybody can make it through a whole lifetime here in the 20th century twilight zone without an occasional suspicion that he is living in a global booby hatch.   Still, most of us try not to think that way, and I am no exception. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, I keep assuring myself that everything from the balance of nuclear terror to frozen onion rings makes good sense and can be rationally explained by people a lot saner than I am.   Then along comes something like the Air Force's $138 million plumbing mistake. Plumbing is an inelegant word to describe such a dandy piece of business, but that's basically where the Air Force went wrong.


WASHINGTON The fall of Presiden Abolhassan Bani-Sadr of Iran strengthens a regime that already has survived many premature obituaries. Contrary to expectations, this development may produce a less adventurous Government in Teheran.

The power of the Islamic Repubilcan Party and its allies is now virtually unchallenged. The elimination of its chief rival for poliitcal power, with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's blessings, gives it a chance to consolidate both its positionand it legitimacy as the day draws closer when the charismatic Ayaltollah leaves the scene.

The institutions established or controlled by the party - the Cabinet and Pariament, the Islamic courts, the well-armed Revolutionary Guards, the neighborhood committees, the street gangs - permits it a tighter grip on Iran than outside observers usually recognize.

The elimination of Mr. Bani-Sadr, then is hardly a sign of the regime's disintegtation; rather, its demonstrates the Islamic revolutionaries' consolidation of power. Western analysts should not repeat their mistake of 1979 when,after the Shah fell, they believed that only Western-educated technocrats could run Iran and that clerics lacked the necessary political skills.

True, major economic problems - inflation, unemployment, huge budget deficits, and industrial chaos - together with the sputtering war with Iraq, which is being fought mostly in Iran's oil-producing province, threaten Iran's stability. Yet thes factors would have to persist for many months before the country was brought close to collapse.

While much of the middle class and many bazaar merchants have turned aginst the new rulers, the peasants have done well economically and the masses remain loyal. The revolution has not yet run its course.

The removal of Mr. Bani-Sadr also ties Ayatollah Khomeini himself more closely to the party and it supporters. After Mr. Bani-Sadr took office in February 1980, the Ayatollah maintained some balance between Mr. Bani-Sadr and the party, supporting each in turn when he felt the rival group went too far. The Ayatollah's highest principle was preserving the unity of revolutionary forces, which he saw surrounded by relentless enemies. Now that he has only one political force left, unity has come to mean crushing any opposition to its wishes.

While the Ayatollah has been relatively active recently, his age and fraility limit his future influence. The settlement of succession now, rather than through a civil war between the Bani-Sadr and party factions, has given the miltant clergy a full, clear endorsement for their policies.

The military's refusal to intervene on Mr. Bani-Sadr's behalf is important. He spent months courting the soldiers and touring the front, but patriotic momenturmand Ayatollah Khomeini's personal appeal prevented the troops from marching on Teheran. While high officers will continue to press for a peace settlement with Iraq, the military is likely to remain for the foreseeable future a professional rather than political force. This renders unlikely the common Western expectation of a military coup.

By ending factional conflicts as a major cause of militancy in foreign policy. Mr. Bani-Sadr's disappearance may add flexibility to Iranian diplomacy. When he called for a solution of the hostage crisis, the party outflanked him by escalating support for the kidnappers. Only after removing him from any involvement with the issue did Prime Minister Moohammed Ali Rajai and his allies move toward a settlement. When the President called for peace negotiations with the Iraq, the party made political capital by charging him with softness. Now the cleric have enough poiwer and security to make some hard decisions with fewer domestic incentives for intransigence. This does not mean any likely reapprochment with Washington and Moscow: The party's leaders take nonalignment seriously and will try to stay equidistant from the great powers. Certainly Ayatollah Khomeini will permit no change on this issue.

The party's main remaining enemy is the left, which though weak and divided is the only organized opposition. The pro-Moscow Tudeh Party, which is Communist, will hew close to the Islamic Republican Party to avoid giving it any excuse to smash it. However, the stronger Peoples's Mujahedeen, a group that mixes Marxism and populism with Islam, is moving toward a confrontation with the clergy that it is likely to lose. The response to such a defeat might be a sharp upsurge in terrorism.

In the ruling triumvirate, Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, the Islamic Republican Party's leader and chief justice of the Supreme Court, is the strongest figure; The Speaker of the Parliament, Hojatolislam Rafsnjani, ranks second; and Mr. Rajai is something of a figurehead. They face huge tasks - the staggering economy, the Kurdish insurgency, and the war with Iraq - but they have been demanding power for more than two years and now no longer have a scapegoat if they fail to solve these problems.

Iran is not likely to reject the current style of Islamic fundamentalism until its exponents have been given a full opportunity to govern. One way or another the hardliners' triumph is a necessary condition for any return to stability.


Wheat and soybean futures prices fell to new life-of-contract lows in most contract months yesterday, leading grain futures in a decline that analysts attributed to fears of higher interest rates and an end-of-the-month sell-off.

Interest rate forecasts also helped send gold and silver prices into a tumble, analysts said, while hog and pork belly futures were mixed in quiet trading.

The steep drop in grain and soybean futures was spurred by selling in anticipation of the first delivery day for July contracts, on Tuesday, according to Bob Lekberg, grain analyst for Shearson Loeb Rhoades in Chicago.

''It was the best volume we've had in a long time,'' Mr. Lekberg said. ''It could be construed as a selling climax.'' The continued strength of the dollar on European markets and fears of continued high interest rates also had a negative impact on the market, Mr. Lekberg said.

At the close, wheat was 6 cents to 8 3/4 cents lower, with the July contract at $3.75 a bushel; corn was 6 cents to 7 1/4 cents lower, with July at $3.32 1/4 a bushel; oats were 3 1/4 cents to 5 1/4 cents lower, with July at $2.03 1/4 a bushel; and soybeans were 16 1/2 cents to 22 1/2 cents lower, with July at $6.90 1/2 a bushel.

Gold futures fell by as much as $20, with the contract for current delivery closing at $443 an ounce, while silver was off as much as 51 cents, with June closing at $9.46 an ounce.

Much of the selling in gold came as those who held contracts to buy were forced to liquidate their holdings because of declining prices, according to Jack Boyd, vice president of commodities research for Drexel Burnham Lambert in New York.

Hog and pork belly futures posted gains in nearby contract months, but fell sharply in distant months. Hog futures were 1.05 cents lower to 0.42 cent higher, with the July contract at 55.12 cents, while pork belly futures were 1.50 cents lower to 0.90 cent higher, with July at 51.50 cents a pound.

Cattle futures opened sharply lower, but regained much of the loss in a quiet trading session. Live cattle prices fell 0.05 cent to 0.52 cent with the August-delivery contract at 68.05 cents a pound, and feeder cattle were 0.02 to 0.50 cent lower, with the August contract at 67.05 cents a pound.


TRENTON WHEN he was first elected in 1973, Governor Byrne made enactment of a public campaign financing law his top priority. Since then he has watched the law grow to cover the gubernatorial primaries as well as the general election and has seen the field of potential candidates in this year's race swell to 20.

To the Governor, who cannot run for a third term, it is as though a favored child has turned into a monster. It seems like anyone with political ambition is getting ready to make the race and, as a result, the upcoming primary will not only be the most expensive gubernatorial primary ever held in New Jersey, but possibly in the nation. ''Maybe I've made the job seem too easy,'' Mr. Byrne said, ''or maybe we've made the primary financing law too broad.''

Last week the Governor proposed some changes that would make the law considerably less broad by making it harder for minor candidates to secure state funds. It is doubtful, though, that any changes could be made in time for this year's race.

In order to qualify for public financing in New Jersey's gubernatorial primary, a candidate must first raise $50,000 on his own. From then on, the candidate is eligible for $2 in public funds for every $1 raised privately, as long as the private funds come in contributions no larger than $800. The ceiling on state contributions is approximately $600,000, so a candidate needs to raise $350,000 privately to attract the maximum amount of state aid. (Since the spending limit is $1,050,000, candidates can raise another $100,000 in unmatched funds if they wish.)

The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission originally estimated it would need about $4 million to provide matching funds for the 1981 primary. But 11 Democrats and nine Republicans have either already declared their candidacies or at least filed with the commission as possible candidates, so the cost to the taxpayers may well exceed $10 million. Since only a small percentage of New Jersey's 3.5 million voters usually participate in the primaries, some observers have estimated that it will cost the state $10 for each vote cast.

In addition to the financial problems spawned by the law, there are political problems, too. The larger the field, the more attractive the race becomes to minor candidates, who reason they will need only about 25 percent of the votes cast to have a chance of capturing their party's nomination. For example, Richard B. McGlynn of Millburn, a former judge and ex-member of the State Board of Public Utility Commissioners, has estimated he will need only about 75,000 votes to become the Republican candidate .

Even if the chances of winning the nomination are remote, there is another reason for a minor candidate to hop on the ballot and get state funds: It is a cheap way to build recognition for a future race.

Mr. Byrne was a former prosecutor and a judge who had never run for public office when he became a candidate in 1973. He abhorred the maneuvering for campaign funds and reportedly would leave campaign strategy meetings when the the talk turned to money. When he was elected he said he wanted his first campaign for governor to be the last in which special interest groups could attempt to buy influence through large campaign contributions.

He succeeded in getting a general election financing bill through in 1974 and, at the urging of the newly-created Election Commission, agreed to support extending it to the primary, though this provision wasn't adopted until after Mr. Byrne won re-election. Now, however, the proliferation of candidates has so alarmed the Governor that last week he proposed that the $50,000 ''threshold'' for each candidate be raised to $150,000 or $200,000, and that some sort of runoff be included to ensure that the winner of each party's nomination achieved broad support. Too Late to Change?

Assemblywoman Barbara W. McConnell, the Flemington Democrat who became the first female candidate for governor last week, said the Legislature had already considered a threshold of $150,000 during its debate on the law, but decided on the $50,000 limit so as not to deny any citizen an opportunity to run for governor. And in any event, leaders like David Norcross, the state Republican chairman, who opposed the public financing law, say it is too late to make changes for the June contests.

According to Lewis B. Thurston, the executive director of the Election Commission, three candidates, Mayor Thomas F.X. Smith of Jersey City, Mayor Lawrence F. Kramer of Paterson and Mr. McGlynn, already have submitted financial records indicating they qualify for matching funds under the law as it stands. Commission auditors are expected to rule on the applications by the end of the month and the first checks could be due by then.

This could create another problem, since the Legislature has yet to appropriate money to cover the checks. Faced with the growing number of candidates, the State Senate last year passed a bill authorizing payment of the matching funds but containing no specific amount. The Assembly wants to include an amount, but can't agree on how much.

Whatever happens, most observers agree that New Jersey is not finished with its pioneering experiment. Indeed, the state's experience with public funding during this year's gubernatorial campaign may very well shape new approaches for the next one, four years hence.

Illustrations: photo of Richard B. McGlynn


WASHINGTON, Feb. 10— In his first Economic Report to Congress, President Reagan declared today that his Administration was trying to break with past practice and create a strong, noninflationary economy ''in which the private sector is the key engine to growth, employment and rising living standards.''

Mr. Reagan again opposed any pump-priming measures, such as public works projects, to combat the economic slump Excerpts from report, page D18. that began last summer and argued that the pain of recession must be borne as the price of long-term benefits. ''The decision to end inflation over a period of several years willbe sustained by this Administraton, even though short-run costs will be suffered before long-term benefits begin to accrue,'' the report as serted.

As protests to the President's budget proposal for the fiscal year 1983 mounted, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate Democratic leader, urged Mr. Reagan in a written appeal to withdraw the plan. (Page A30.)

In the report, the Administration for the first time acknowledged that the huge and rapid multiyear military build-up that is a cornerstone of Mr.Reagan's policy might inflict some harm on the private economy. The report raised the possibility of inflation among producers of military goods, delivery delays and ''some temporary crowding out of private investment'' as Pentagon procurement preempts capital goods production capacity.

Emphasizing monetary issues more than any President has since the 1946 Employment Act mandated an annual report to Congress, the report took a dim view of reinstating a link between money and gold. It was the first time the Administration has openly signaled a tilt on the emotional question of repegging the dollar's value to gold - a policy abandoned by President Nixon in 1971.

As an alternative, the report suggested a ''monetary rule'' - shorthand for any one of several formulas - that would curtail the discretion of the Federal Reserve Board to regulate the money supply. This section drew speculation that the recommendations next month of the President's Gold Commission might be similar.

An extended discussion of monetary issues in a seven-and-a-halfpage message from Mr. Reagan to Congress that accompanied the 194-page report by his Cou ncil of Economic Advisers renewed Admin istration criticisms of the Federal Reserve and argued that continue d progress in arresting inflation and achieving brisk economic grow th was almost entirely in the hands of the central bank.Federal Reser ve officials have apprehensively interpreted such suggestions a s a sign that the central bank may be blamed by the White House i f the Reagan economic strategy is unsuccessful.

''They think monetary policy is a lot more powerful than we do,'' one Federal Reserve official commented. ''We think budget deficits are a lot more important than they do.''

References all through the council's report to ''expectations'' were part of an argument that the success of the President's economic policy depends heavily on the Congress and the Federal Reserve accepting Mr. Reagan's advice on fiscal and monetary policy. The report said that ''a critical element'' in the Administration's forecast of a strong economic expansion in the second half of the year at an annual rate in excess of 5 percent ''is the assumption that inflationary expectations will, in fact, continue to recede.''

With respect to the economy in 1982, Murray L. Weidenbaum, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters that the Administration saw no particular merit in moving the scheduled July 1 tax cut of 10 percent forward to April or May but might go along with such Congressional sentiment provided Congress did not also try to alter the mid-1983 tax cut.

Mr. Weidenbaum said ''we find it sad to witness'' an expanding margin between total unemployment and higher levels of ''minority unemployment.'' But, he argued, ''Government make-work employment efforts'' ''haven't succeeded.''

The two other members of the council are Jerry L. Jordan, a monetarist economist, and William A. Niskanen, who devotes himself to particular problems, such as trade and energy.

As in his budget proposal on Monday, Mr. Reagan devoted much of his message to arguing his case for less government. ''Reversing the trends of the past is not an easy task,'' he said. ''The damage that has been inflicted on our economy was done by imprudent and inappropriate policies over a period of many years; we cannot realistically expect to undo it all in a few short months. But during the past year we have made a substantial beginning.''

On the large budget deficits he projects, the President had this to say: ''We face high, continuing and troublesome deficits. Although these deficits are undesirably high, they will not jeopardize the economic recovery.''

As for the politically explosive Social Security issue, the report confined itself to generalities. It said ''some combination'' of reduced benefits, later retirement and higher payroll taxes was inevitable ''in the long run.''


WHEN is the last time the woman in a Burt Reynolds movie got the notices? It's happened to Rachel Ward, English born, 24 years old and a smash hit with the press. A reviewer who liked ''Sharky's Machine'' described Miss Ward's ''smoky voice, distinctive personality and face worth sonnets.'' Another reviewer , who didn't like ''Sharky's Machine,'' said, ''The only interesting thing about this tedious, contrived picture is an actress named Rachel Ward.''

Miss Ward, who had been in boarding schools until it was time to take her university exams, decided at the age of 16 to abandon higher education. ''I'd discovered boys and nightclubs. My parents saw it coming when I stopped doing my homework and didn't get in until 7 in the morning.''

Wanting to act, she applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, but chickened out when ''I got back a terrifying form saying, 'The audition date is such and such, bring along a Shakespeare monologue and a contemporary monologue.' I thought, 'Oh, my God, I can't do this, they've got to be kidding.' ''

Modeling - she's 5 feet 8 inches tall, and skinny, a condition she insures by eating no breakfast and no lunch -brought her to New York, but success wasn't instantaneous. ''I remember it was freezing cold,'' she says, ''and I couldn't afford cabs, and I'd have eight appointments in one day, and I'd always be late, and the photographer would have given up and left. It was a nightmare.''

Still, she loved America. ''It had always been one big movie to me. I imagined every man was going to be Paul Newman or Robert Redford. Men had gone to the moon from America. It seemed like the hub of all the things that were happening in the world.''

Eventually, a change of agency brought her more modeling work than she could handle, but ''it doesn't sustain you for that long, modeling,'' she says. ''It's thrilling when you're 16 to see yourself on a magazine cover, and the money is wonderful. But I'd come home in the evening and think, 'What have I done today?'

''So I started acting classes. I was afraid of doing it, and then somebody said to me, 'You know, the only way out of it is through it.' And I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being a coward.''

Miss Ward's acting teacher urged her not to go to Los Angeles. ''You'll just be one of the girls hanging around out there. Stay here, study, get into an Off Off Broadway show.'' Miss Ward w ent to Los Angeles anyway. She likes it. ''I love talking about movies, and acting. All my friends are actors.'' She knows she's s kipped many steps - ''A lot of people have worked a lot harder, and t hey haven't even got an agent'' - but she's serious about her career. ''I want to be good,'' she says. ''I hav e a lot of energy, but I'm still very much in the learning process. I have two acting classes a night and dance classes three times a wee k, and I'm always rehearsing scenes. That's the kind of life I have a t the moment.''

Being sent to read for ''Sharky's Machine'' wasn't frightening, because it was such a long shot. ''I remember thinking,'' she says, '' 'It isn't likely I'm going to get this role opposite Burt Reynolds. What a waste of time.' ''

But when it came down to her and one other woman, she began to be nervous. Mr. Reynolds, however, turned out not to be ''a scary person.''

Miss Ward has also completed a movie with Steve Martin - it's called ''Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid'' - and she says she understands how people can fall in love with their leading men. ''I'm crazy about Burt,'' she says, ''and Steve is wonderful, too.''

Armand Assante is a handsome actor, long on muscles (he lifts weights) and dedication (with each new role, he tries to research ''the issue that dominates the character's life''), but lately, he's been short in the luck department.

Take the case of ''Kingdoms,'' which opened - and closed - on Broadway last month. ''Kingdoms'' gave Mr. Assante a chance to play Napoleon. He brought to the assignment energy and daring, giving a performance that filled some critics with admiration, and others with loathing. (One reviewer called his efforts ''epically horrible,'' and he liked ''Kingdoms'' even less.)

O.K., you can't win them all. But ''Kingdoms'' was only part of fate's dire plan for Mr. Assante during 198l. Take the case of ''I, the Jury.'' A new movie adaptation of the Mickey Spillane novel, starring Mr. Assante as Mike Hammer, private eye, must have sounded foolproof. The book has sold more than seven million copies; even the 1953 B-movie version was a hit. Now, almost 30 years later, you've got ''wide-screen anamorphic Panavision,'' and total lack of censorship, a state that permits you to slit people's throats and let their blood seep down through the ceiling onto the participants in an orgy, so how can you miss?

Going broke is one way. That's what happened to American Cinema, which produced ''I, the Jury.'' Last June, the company was shooting in New York, putting in 14-hour days, trying to finish up in time to beat a threatened strike by the Directors Guild. On one sunny morning, Pier 97, between the West Side Highway and the Hudson River, was the site of the action. As always on location, the logistics of the thing were awesome. A company has to move in not only cast, crew, sets and props, but also the food and the portable toilets, as though they weren't in the middle of a city but in the wilds of Africa. Antique automobiles (a 1933 Chevrolet with a running board, a 1938 Buick with tufted gray upholstery and a bud vase) were being made ready for a scene, extras were being given period haircuts, and a stunt man with a very red eye was explaining how he'd got it.

''Me and Alex Stevens had to fall off a roof and crash through a greenhouse, and we hit our heads together. They took me to the hospital. The hospital said it was a concussion.''

Today would be easier, the stunt man said. ''Today, I just get shot.'' Mr. Assante got banged up, too. A knock on the head in a fight scene left him deaf in one ear for weeks. A New York actor (he worked up and down the East Coast - the Long Wharf in New Haven, the Arena Stage in Washington, New York's Shakespeare Festival - before he ever made a movie), Mr. Assante scored as Goldie Hawn's French lover in ''Private Benjamin.'' He says he has ''great respect for the film business. It's dangerous territory. You've got to be very careful what you lend yourself to.''

I'll say. Right before he made ''I, the Jury'' (which some movie company is bound to pick up and release; Warner Bros. has already elected to distribute it in Europe), Mr. Assante lent himself to an even more perilous venture. He worked in a movie that has since been shelved because, according to an associate, ''it's totally unsalvageable,'' explaining, ''Armand had this director that just wandered around picking his teeth, while a kid followed him with a script and a box of toothpicks.''

Mr. Assante is writing a screenplay himself, and planning to marry Karen McArn, an actress in waiting. ''She just got out of school,'' he says. ''She's just starting in the profession.'' So 1982 is beginning well. But then, it wouldn't have to go far to beat 1981.

''Night Shift,'' a comedy that Ron Howard is directing, with Henry Win@kler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long heading the cast, has gone before the cameras in New York. ... Claude Lelouch, the F rench director, is planning to make ''Edith and Marcel,'' the story of Edith Piaf an d Marcel Cerdan. Evelyne Bouix and Patrick @Dewaere willhave the titl e roles. ... Theresa Russell, who was Dustin Hoffman's leading lady in ''Straight Time,'' will act opposite Gene Hackman in ''Eureka,'' a murder mystery to be directed by Nicolas Roeg. ... David Lynch, who re ceived an Academy Award nomination for his direction of ''The Elephant Man,'' will next do ''Red Drag on,'' basedon a novel by Thomas Harris. Walon Green is writing the sc reenplay. ... Shohei Imamura's ''Eijanaika'' has its New York premie re at JapanHouse this weekend, with screenings tonight, tomorrow afte rnoon and Sunday night.

Illustrations: photo of Rachel Ward


CAIRO, Jan. 30— Hosni Mubarak left Cairo today on his first round of state visits as Egypt's new President. Nearly half of his 10-day trip will be taken up with talks in Washington.

The tour will take Mr. Mubarak to Rome, Paris, London and Bonn, in addition to his stay in Washington beginning Tuesday. He will confer until Friday with President Reagan, as well as with other Administration officials and Congressional leaders.

Mr. Mubarak's meetings in the United States, which is Egypt's chief supplier of military and economic aid, are expected to cover a wide range of subjects, including the stalled talks on Palestinian autonomy and issues such as the pace of American arms deliveries. Wants Accelerated Arms Supply

Mr. Mubarak is expected to argue for the need to speed up arms supplies as Egypt modernizes its armed forces and replaces much of the outdated equipment that was supplied by the Soviet Union in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

The American arms commitment to Egypt includes supplying armored personnel carriers, M-60 tanks, F-4 and F-16 fighter planes, missiles and advanced ground and air surveillance equipment.

It is also possible that the Egyptian President will se ek additional American arms beyond the present c ommitment. At the same time, he has emphasized in speeches here that Egypt does not wish to be dependent on any one source of military su pply. France to Sell Planes to Egypt

The French and Egyptian Governments recently announced an agreement in which France will sell Egypt 20 Mirage 2000 fighter-bombers at a cost of $1 billion, with delivery to begin next year. Egypt has denied reports published abroad that the bill for the planes will be paid by Saudi Arabia. Defense Minister Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala has said that the Mirage deal was arranged ''on easy terms'' at 9 percent interest and is to be paid in 12 semiannual installments.

Another key issue, according to officials here, concerns United States economic aid, which has amounted to more than $6 billion since 1975.

The process by which aid projects are specifically earmarked irritates Egyptian officials, as it did before Mr. Mubarak came to power after the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat on Oct. 6. Egyptian officials say American aid to Israel, with which Egypt has a peace treaty, practically constitutes a blank check.

Mr. Mubarak has made economic progress his top priority and has scheduled a conference of Egypt's leading economists and fiscal analysts for mid-February.

The Government-supervised press here reported today that Mr. Mubarak would ask the Reagan Administration and Congressional leaders for ''more freedom and flexibility in the distribution and use of loans according to Egypt's development circumstances'' and new economic policy.

Over all, the Mubarak Government is pressing for greater Egyptian control over administering and carrying out the aid program. Besides meeting with Mr. Reagan, Mr. Mubarak will confer with Vice President Bush, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and oth ers.

One subject expected to come up is the refocusing of Mr. Sadat's ''open door'' policy to encourage foreign investment. Mr. Mubarak has said that the policy has focused much too heavily on importing consumer goods. He wants the emphasis placed on industrial development, and he is also expected to seek a greater commitment of foreign private capital. Sinai to Be Discussed

Another topic is Israel's scheduled return to Egypt by April 25 of the last part of Sinai, which Israel captured in the 1967 war. This is expected to be associated with talks about the stalemate between Egypt and Israel on a plan for self-government for the 1.3 million Palestinian Arabs living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip.

The talks are also expected to cover the possibility of normalization of relations between Egypt and other Arab nations, which were broken after Mr. Sadat initiated the Egyptian-Israeli peace process with his trip to Jerusalem in 1977. Mr. Mubarak has said he is willing to resume ties with those countries, providing they make the overture, and he has forbidden the press here to criticize the nations that broke relations.

Officially, the United States position has been that Egyptian efforts to resume the diplomatic ties are all right so long as the Camp David accords are not jeopardized. Mr. Mubarak has repeatedly expressed his commitment to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

The discussions may include Egypt's relations with the Soviet Union. In September Mr. Sadat cracked down on critics of his Government and as part of that move expelled the Soviet Ambassador, a number of aides and about 1,000 Soviet technicians, who he said were conspiring against Egypt's interests.

Mr. Mubarak has said in recent interviews that resumption of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Egypt appeared inevitable, but he gave no timetable. ---- Mubarak Meets With the Pope

ROME, Jan. 30 (AP) - President Mubarak met with Pope John Paul II today in a private audience. The Vatican released no details of their talks. Mr. Mubarak met later with Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini.

Illustrations: photo of Hosni Mubarak with Pope John Paul II (page 1) photo of Sandro Pertini, Hosni Mubarak


It is like a never-ending political campaign, and while millions of dollars have been raised, supporters will need to open their wallets again if they want a victory in the general election.

The difference is that this candidate is Boston 2024, and it’s got big problems. At times, it seems like a whole city has been against what is supposed to be a feel-good event, hosting the world’s top athletes. At other moments, it seems like the United States Olympic Committee is conspiring to strip Boston of its designation to bid for the 2024 Summer Games.

So who in their right mind would give money to this operation now?

Steve Belkin, for one, still believes. The Boston entrepreneur and former owner of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team contributed $100,000 last fall and plans to give more. His reason: The Olympics can get all of us to focus on how to make the city better, such as fixing the MBTA.

“Our city has challenges, and I think this makes us address those challenges,” Belkin said.

Jeff Bussgang, a cofounder of Flybridge Capital Partners, will be writing a check, but more than money he wants to rally colleagues in our high-tech and biotech economy to get behind the Games. In his mind, it’s an opportunity to tell the world about the technology the region can produce — from personalized medicine to electric bikes.

“Inside Boston, we think we have this really strong global innovation brand,” Bussgang said. “In truth, the world believes that Silicon Valley is where the future is being invented. We need to market Boston as a global innovation hub.”

Bussgang hasn’t decided how much he will give, but even with all the missteps of Boston 2024, he doesn’t feel like he is throwing good money after bad.

“This is a startup. I am used to working with startups. Startups don’t execute flawlessly,” he said. “We’ve got nine years to build a company — and work out the kinks. I am more tolerant of hiccups.”

People with more money than they know what to do with may still be willing to bet on a Boston Olympics, but that can’t be the norm. Boston 2024 needs to come up with a better plan for venues and fine-tune its financing strategy before even bigger checks roll in.

That new plan won’t come out for a couple more weeks, keeping some potential donors in a holding pattern. No doubt poor poll numbers — more people oppose an Olympics in the Boston region than support it — have also spooked some well-heeled supporters. The bid’s opponents have complained loudly about the danger of cost overruns and taxpayers footing the bill.

The bad publicity and its impact on fund-raising makes me wonder whether money is tight for Boston 2024. By my count, based on publicly available information, the group is spending, on average, more than $800,000 a month to prepare the bid, paying public relations consultants to architects. During the first quarter, the group raised, on average, just under $1 million a month in cash. The fine print will tell you that former Boston 2024 chairman John Fish and his wife, Cyndy, along with his company’s foundation, made up at least a quarter of all cash and in-kind donations in the period.

Despite Boston 2024’s new era of transparency, Erin Murphy, its chief operating officer, wouldn’t disclose how much cash on hand the nonprofit has, saying only “we are bringing in more than we are spending.”

Murphy said the group is meeting its fund-raising goals and has brought in $14 million in cash and in-kind contributions from companies, individuals, and foundations. She said Boston 2024 will need about $75 million to prepare the bid, including more than $60 million in cash. The International Olympic Committee will pick a winning city in 2017.

Murphy said the group is expanding its pool of supporters and expects some early donors to contribute again.

But some are like Amos and Barbara Hostetter, who are not at the moment in a giving mood.

The Hostetters made a personal gift of $250,000 in November, and they were recently approached again. The answer was no, said Jim Canales, president of the Barr Foundation, the nonprofit set up by the Hostetters using a fortune made in the cable television industry.

Canales did not know why the couple isn’t participating in the second round, but said the Hostetters were initially interested in how the Games could spur transit improvements and long-term planning in the city.

As for the Barr Foundation, Canales said, the nonprofit has no position on the Olympics and has not explicitly been asked to give. The bid “relates to a lot of issues we care deeply about,” he said. “We’re very interested in tracking this.”

Eastern Bank gave $100,000 in January, right after the USOC selected Boston as a candidate in the global competition to put on the 2024 Summer Games. The bank hasn’t decided whether it will write another check, but so far it has no misgivings.

“We don’t regret it at all,” said Richard Holbrook, the bank’s chairman and chief executive. “We still believe it’s a topic worthy of exploration.”

Right now, Boston 2024 is like a presidential contender who engineers an upset in the Iowa caucuses, but stumbles in the New Hampshire primary. The group needs a big win with its “2.0 plan” to survive. Otherwise the campaign is over.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly mentioned how much Boston 2024 is spending each month on preparing the bid.

Summary: Who’s giving to Boston 2024, the group organizing the region’s Olympic bid, and who’s not.