Harder, faster, fiercer, louder: Jacob Epstein's The Rock Drill confronts you at the door, muscles flexed, thighs splayed, pumping away with his tool. A shocking creature, with his visor head and radiator ribs, he rides a real industrial drill. Half-man, half-anthropod, and precursor to a thousand Hollywood androids, Epstein's figure rises up with a violent phallic thrust – a pile-driving vision of the future.

Rock Drill ought to be his name, not just the title of this long-lost work (this is a reconstruction of the dismantled original). He has terrible force of personality. And he is the most devastating creation in this show by some way, a sculpture from 1913 that seems to summarise all that vorticism stood for with its driving ambition for machine-age dynamism and shattering new forms. The Rock Drill ought to be the ideal host, the perfect symbol for both the movement and the show. Except that Epstein was never a paid-up vorticist.

In the long march through modernism, vorticism is the quickest of steps. It flares up in 1914, peaks briefly in 1915 and sputters out towards the end of the first world war. There are only two shows. There are only two issues of its in-house journal, Blast. There may be only one full-time vorticist.

"Vorticism," declared Wyndham Lewis in the 1950s, "was what I, personally, did, and said, at a certain period." The assertion may have infuriated the surviving members of the group, but it is not without its merit when you consider the diversity of their gifts, from the painter David Bomberg to the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, compared to Lewis's single-mindedness as ringleader, recruiting sergeant, megaphone, exemplar and theorist of England's only homegrown avant-garde movement.

Lewis belongs to the first generation of Europe's non-representational artists. His drawings are incisive, satirical, on the edge of abstraction. His paintings from this phase – angular, syncopated, explosive – are even better, which is some claim, given that scarcely any survive.

In the 1912 illustrations for Timon of Athens, he begins to abandon depth for a flat pageant of forms that jostle like the elements of some unsolved puzzle. By 1915, in his enormous painting The Crowd, he shows quasi-cubist figures haplessly scattered in a system of grids that seems to prefigure the pinball machine. Workshop (1914-15) is a marvellous concatenation of geometric planes, in coruscating pinks and hot mustards, that almost resolve into windows, ladders, stacks and shelves, by day and yet also, as it seems, by night. It turns architecture inside out. And seeing it in Tate Britain's survey, surrounded by fading issues of Blast, old catalogues and invitations, typed manifestos and handwritten declarations of solidarity or hatred – period pieces of English art history from 100 years ago – it suddenly looks more modern than ever. With its graphic zip and register, Workshop conjures pop art half a century in advance.

There are other masterpieces in this show, but not many. Tate Britain has David Bomberg's terrific painting The Mud Bath, with its interplay of bent, reclining and zigzagging forms packed into a scarlet tank. It has Gaudier-Brzeska's Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound, on loan from the National Gallery in Washington, biting its mucklestone lip. From the front, it is Pound to a stylised T (was ever a poet more portrayed?) from his goatee to his bouffant quiff. From the rear, it resembles a circumcised phallus. "Make it virile," was Pound's bombastic command; contemporary critics found it merely pornographic.

Nobody visiting this show could fail to spot the influence of abroad in almost every work. The Dancers, Les Demoiselles: Wyndham Lewis's chorus line wends its way directly out of Picasso. Roger Fry had mounted his celebrated exhibition, Manet and the Post-Impressionists, back in 1910, the same year Marinetti delivered his futurist lectures in London.

The trick with this show is to try and remain indifferent to the obvious strains of cubism and futurism that appear wherever you look. It is not hard, for instance, to deduce local figurative forms in all this accordion-pleated abstraction – piano keys and nightclubs, people and performers, London alleys and even the back-to-back terraces of northern mining towns. Lewis saw that cubism, for instance, could be more than a highly advanced visual language. It could be made to speak of life itself, with all thronging motion, humanity, incident.

One of the strongest works here is his wonderfully acute Architect With Green Tie (1909), which skewers the self-importance of a particular man while sending up the profession's characteristic fondness for that calculated spot of colour. The work isn't abstract at all, in fact; it's one of Lewis's best caricatures. But it also predates vorticism, exposing an unusual dilemma for the curators of this show, which originated in North Carolina. Vorticism is such a brief movement and so little of the art survives (a huge tranche of it, belonging to the US collector John Quinn, vanished long ago) that it is quite a feat to assemble anything representative.

The exhibition attempts to counter the problem by including a good many fellow-travellers, recreating both of the original vorticist shows and displaying the issues of Blast, with its upper-case insults, wonderful woodcuts and wild demagoguery, along with testaments of war, imaginary and real.

Here is the row between Lewis and Fry over the Daily Mail's Ideal Home Exhibition, of all things, played out in aggressive letters. Here are the missives from the Western Front, including Gaudier-Brzeska's final postcard before he died in the trenches. He was 23.

By the time you get to the end of this vigorous yet melancholy exhibition, vorticism has dwindled into a graphic style. Anyone can imitate it by now and they do. There are still some startling works to come: Edward Wadsworth's fantastically concise woodcuts are among the best things here. Look at his Newcastle, as neatly condensed a sonnet to industry, ironwork, bridge span and community as you could find, all stitched together with saw-tooth zips: English printmaking at its sharpest.

But even if its members had not lost their lives, the first world war had to kill off this machine-loving movement. Alas, because this show is so strictly vorticist, you do not see how the best of the artists responded, what Lewis made of the trenches in his war paintings, how he mocked his own brutal machismo, his own vicious energy, in the savage self-portrait Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro.

But what you do see is what became of Epstein's The Rock Drill, once again an accidental symbol of the group. Legs gone, drill removed, hands lopped off, Epstein turned the torso into an amputee, vulnerable, disarmed, a victim of wartime violence.

Summary: The virile optimism of vorticism exploded on the art scene in 1914, only to be crushed by the horrors of war. Now a new exhibition relives those days, writes Laura Cumming


The wife of Qatar's head of state has won a libel case against the British-based Arabic newspaper Azzaman, which had falsely accused her of dealings with Israel and political interference.

Four articles published in 2002 in London had claimed Shaikha Mouza al-Misnad interfered in political, judicial and security matters in Qatar and dealt secretly with Israel. But in an out of court settlement on Tuesday, the newspaper and its editors accepted "there was no truth whatsoever in any of the allegations they had published", according to a statement read in court. Shaikha Mouza's lawyers said on Tuesday they had produced documents which showed Azzaman was controlled by Saudi Arabian intelligence paymasters who used the paper as a mouthpiece for a propaganda campaign against neighbouring Qatar and its leadership. The documents also showed that Azzaman executives set up a Centre for the Defence of the Press and Intellectual Freedom in the Arab World intended to attract Saudi dissidents in exile so Saudi authorities could monitor them.

Speaking to Aljazeera.net on Tuesday, al-Misnad's solicitor -Cameron Doley - said the Saudi publication had printed four articles during the summer of 2002 containing a wide array of untrue and extremely serious allegations.

"But after we showed Azzaman was the mouthpiece for black propaganda, the paper capitulated almost immediately and agreed to meet Shaikha Mouza's long-standing requirements for settlement."

Out of court settlement Edited by Iraqi national Saad al-Bazzaz, the paper agreed to settle out of court, agreeing to publish a front-page apology and pay more than Â£500,000 in damages and costs for allegations published in June and July 2002.

Doley added that, by British libel case standards, half a million pounds was "an enormous" amount to have agreed upon.

But Azzaman's editor and publishers had never argued that the allegations were true.

Saad al-Bazzaz was an adviser toUday Hussein in the 1990sThey said they were based on material from reliable sources, which Azzaman as a "serious and independent newspaper" had a duty to share with its readers, citing the legal defence of qualified privilege. In view of the documents showing Azzaman's links to the Saudis, Justice David Eady ruled that the daily could not claim protection on the grounds that it was an independent newspaper.

Saad al-Bazzaz was an adviser toUday Hussein in the 1990s

And London-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih added that "there is no way Azzaman can be considered a serious newspaper, but a means for the Saudi government to blacken the reputations of its political enemies".

"Indeed, it is papers like these and the fronts they back that send intelligence agents posing as Saudi dissidents to spy on reform movements like ours," he added. And the judgment, and documents admitted by the court, reveal the animosity between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which both belong to the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, and the role played by Saudi intelligence in trying to discredit its neighbour. Saudi embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the case. Al-Bazzaz was also unavailable for comment. Not so neighbourly

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have long been at odds. Qatar reported border skirmishes in October 1992, saying Saudi Arabian forces had killed two of its soldiers. It incurred more Saudi wrath when the present amir, Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, deposed his father in a bloodless coup in 1995. Doha accused Riyadh of backing a failed attempt to reinstate the former ruler the following year. Qatar has ruffled feathers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world by hosting the satellite television channel Aljazeera and promoting social and political reforms. Shaikha Mouza, an active advocate of women's empowerment and other causes, will donate the damages to two charities, Medical Aid for Palestinians and an Iraqi education fund, her lawyers said. Al-Bazzaz held senior media positions in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule until his defection in the 1990s.


A New Zealand man is in custody in Bali accused of threatening to kill a woman or "damage her face" as well as stealing from her.

Richard James Wackrow, 40, was arrested on Saturday as he passed immigration at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport, headed for Australia.

North Kuta Police Station Chief Ronny R. Eppang says he faces up to five years in jail for threatening and stealing from US tourist Mary Joe Olejniczak, whose Canggu villa he stayed in in June.

Ms Olejniczak, 43, told police in August that Wackrow threatened to kill and "damage her face" in an SMS.

"At that time, the victim reported that she lost her surfboard, mobile phone, two of her watches and money from her villa in the Canggu area," he said.

Police allege that when they arrested Wackrow on Saturday, he was carrying the stolen surfboard.

He will be charged with theft and making a threat.

Police say he does not have a lawyer and is refusing to be questioned.

His brother Ben Wackrow told New Zealand's 3News the family was raising funds for a lawyer.

"It wouldn't be unlike him to not be in some sort of, I wouldn't say trouble, but getting up to some sort of mischief," he said.

The New Zealand Herald reported the Wellington man lived in Burleigh Heads, Queensland.

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Summary: A New Zealand man faces up to five years in jail for threatening and stealing from a US tourist in Bali.


FORTUNE — The Google versus Apple debate has never been more vibrant. Ever since both companies rose to dominance in 2007, we’ve seen countless investors, journalists and analysts take opposing sides on virtually every aspect of this war between the tech titans.

But is there really a debate when it comes to investing? The short answer: Not based on the numbers there isn’t. The financials, fundamentals, and valuation continue to fall squarely in Apple’s corner. Any level-headed investor would buy Apple over Google today, especially in light of Google’s recent unjustified parabolic rally to $770 a share just before it reported an epic miss on earnings.

The reason Apple has outperformed and will continue to outperform Google both on the earnings front and in terms of the stock performance comes down to the simple fact that Apple operates in a substantially larger market than Google. The smartphone industry is a much larger beast than the online ad market, and Apple is becoming an increasingly dominant player within that space. Google, which continues to derive a large majority of its revenues from online ads, operates in a low billion-dollar market while Apple operates in a trillion-dollar market. Google’s maximum upside potential is only a mere fraction of Apple’s maximum upside potential.

Just to get a sense of how much larger Apple’s core operating market is consider that before the inaugural launch of the iPhone in 2007, Google reported $4.2 billion in net income, more than the $3.5 billion Apple AAPL reported that year. However, as the iPhone exploded in popularity, Apple not only surpassed Google GOOG in both revenue and net income, it actually surpassed every single company on the entire NASDAQ-100.

MORE: Among many hits, Apple’s lonely flop

In 2009, Apple earned more than Google in net income for the first time in its history. Three years later, Apple reported three times as much in net income as Google. In 2013, Apple is expected to quadruple Google’s net income and report twice Google’s growth rate. That gives you a sense of the size of the smartphone market relative to the ad market. Can this even be remotely characterized as a close contest? This chart below tells a very powerful visual story of how much Apple has outperformed Google over the past three years.

If you think that looks dramatic, take a look at the revenue comparison of these two companies. Before the advent of the iPhone, Apple had maintained a small lead on Google when it came to sales. It was never really anything very significant. Today, it’s mind-boggling how much Apple has pulled away from Google in terms of sales. When the books are closed on the year, Apple will likely have reported nearly four times Google’s revenue.

In 2007, by contrast, Apple only reported 50% more in revenue than Google. Thus, the gap in sales between Google and Apple has widened by a factor of eight between 2007 and 2012. And everything points to that gap widening even further in 2013, 2014 and 2015 as Apple gets closer to selling 200 million iPhones a quarter. Apple is expected to sell roughly 40 to 50 million iPhones per quarter next year. Google still hasn’t been able to surpass what Apple made in revenue when it sold only 8 million iPhones a quarter back in 2009.

What this all demonstrates is that anyone who has argued that Google was a better buying opportunity than Apple in any year since 2007 has been dead wrong. They have been dead wrong not only from a stock performance perspective given that Apple’s stock has outperformed Google by a factor of 3-1 over the past several years now, but they have been wrong from a pure earnings growth and valuation perspective as well. The chart below compares Apple’s revenue growth to Google’s. Notice how even though Apple reports four times Google’s revenue, and even though Apple reports three times as much in net income as Google, Apple still grows at twice the pace of Google on both the top and bottom-line on a percentage basis — and it is widely expected it will do so in 2013 as well:

Despite the fact that Apple has been able to far outpace Google’s top and bottom-line growth, Apple still trades at a far lower valuation than Google. So Apple not only makes more money than Google, grows its earnings faster than Google, operates in a larger market than Google, has much greater upside earnings potential than Google, but it also trades at a substantially lower valuation. Apple’s price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio and price-to-cash ratio are currently much lower than Google’s.

Even after Google missed on earnings last week, causing a precipitous 70-point drop in the stock price, Google still trades at a higher P/E ratio (21.4) than Apple (14.3). And get this. Once Apple reports earnings on Friday, if the stock doesn’t move substantially higher, it’s P/E ratio will drop to 13.1 based on Friday’s close. As it stands right now, investors are already paying an extra 40% premium just to have the right to buy Google over Apple even though Apple has grown its income at more than twice the pace of Google, not just in 2012 but over the past 5-years on average.

The main argument Google pundits make is that Apple’s extraordinary past performance notwithstanding, it is the future — and not the past — that determines value. The market is forward looking and thus places more value on future potential than it does on past results. Google bulls have argued this for years, and every year Apple’s performance has proven the them wrong.

Year after year Apple is the proven winner, while Google pundits continue to cling onto delusions that Google is somehow a better value “next year.” And yet this time next year, Apple’s earnings growth and stock performance will absolutely decimate Google’s earnings and stock performance, and we will still hear the same arguments about how “the market is forward looking” and how Google will win “next time.”

The reality is that Apple is not only destroying Google in this race, it is destroying all large cap technology companies. Not a solitary top-10 tech company has been able to even remotely keep up pace with Apple. If you go back to 2005, Apple was the second smallest of the top-10 in tech reporting only 1/6th the net income of Microsoft — the then leader.

Today Apple far exceeds every other tech company and reports more than three times the net income than most of them. What’s more, despite Apple’s size, its growth rate continues to far exceed the other top-10 tech companies. Yet, somehow Apple maintains a much lower P/E ratio than most of these top-10 companies. So how is Google supposed to compete with Apple when Apple is in its own league without a competitor? The chart below speaks volumes:

Let’s take a look at the future prospects of the these two companies, comparing the revenue and earnings outlook for 2013 to see whether a case can be made to own Google over Apple.

Without taking into account the highly anticipated introduction of the iPad Mini on Tuesday, top analysts covering Apple expect the company to report roughly $63 billion in net income on $230 billion in revenues for the 2013 fiscal year. That would represent roughly 47.3% earnings growth and 43.75% revenue growth when compared to Apple’s fiscal 2012. So just to get this straight, the largest market cap company is about to grow its earnings by 43.75% this year.

Google, by contrast, is expected to grow its net income by roughly 18.7% according to a consensus of Wall Street analysts. The analysts are looking for Google to report roughly $16.8 billion in adjusted net income on $53.6 billion in revenue. Unlike Apple, Google very rarely surprises analyst expectations by any large degree. Over the past four quarters, for example, Google missed by 9.5%, beat by 4.50%, beat by 0.80% and missed by 15.20%.

Apple, on the other hand, tends to decimate expectations in most quarters. In fact, there has yet to be a year where analysts haven’t had to scramble to adjusted their estimates higher as Apple comes in and destroys expectations. So that $63 billion in net income on $230 billion in revenue estimate is likely to move up as the year progresses and as Apple introduces new innovative products and services.

Apple has not only objectively won the debate from 2009 to 2012, it is largely expected to win next year. But somehow and based on some measure Google is supposed to be a better investment than Apple? Here is what the Google v. Apple story looks like going ahead to 2013:

Here is another way to think about all of this. If an investor had $1 trillion in her bank account and had the ability to buy Apple or Google outright in cash at their current market capitalizations, only someone who didn’t care about money would buy Google for $223.5 billion over Apple at $571.7 billion. The reason? Given that Apple not only already has $130 billion of that market cap in cash (as of this Friday’s report), Apple’s return on equity is much larger than Google’s.

Next year Apple will return 14.5% of its entire net market capitalization while Google will return 9.4%. That means if both companies stopped growing, it would only take Apple about six and a half years to completely pay off its entire net market capitalization while it would take Google more than 11-years to accomplish the same feat.

Apple still has at least 3-years of explosive growth ahead of it based on where it stands in the global handset market, and another 3-5 after that of moderate growth.

That’s what all of these people who think Apple is going to hit some major peak and then collapse like its 1999 don’t quite understand. If Apple merely just remained at this current price-level, it would have its entire market cap in cash over the next four years. If it collapsed as some believe that it will, the company would simply be able to take itself private. That’s why Apple continues to push higher, why it will continue to push higher and why it is clearly a much better investment opportunity than Google going into the next three years.

Andy M. Zaky is a fund manager at Bullish Cross Asset Management, which owns a significant position in Apple as a core holding across several different portfolios. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Summary: Putting to rest the Google vs Apple debate by letting the numbers tell the story.


Matthew Morrison and wife Renee Puente at their Oct. 25 Halloween party

10/26/2014 AT 06:00 PM EDT

celebrated his one-week wedding anniversary on Saturday – and wasn't quite done with celebrations.

Throwing his fifth annual Halloween and birthday party at Hyde Sunset Kitchen + Cocktails in West Hollywood with the help of Freixenet, Morrison and his new wife,

, channeled John Travolta and Uma Thurman's characters from

. "It ended up being better than I ever could've imagined," Morrison (who turns 36 on Oct. 30) gushed about his

Morrison called his Maui ceremony on Oct. 18 "just perfect," but that doesn't mean there weren't a few hiccups leading up to his big day. "I think the biggest surprise was there was a hurricane in Hawaii when we were there, so that led to a lot of, I guess, stress that we didn't really anticipate!"

But Morrison found the silver lining. On the eve of his wedding, "The hurricane brought the most amazing sky that night. It was a green sunset, which is kind of an anomaly. So that was special."

Luckily, on his wedding day the weather cooperated. "Saturday, it rained the entire day up until the moment my mom and I started walking down the aisle, when it let up. And then it was clear for the whole ceremony, the whole reception, until the moment the band at the end of the night said 'All right, thank you, have a good night.' And then it started pouring again," he said.

Despite the weather worries, Morrison and Puente, 31, made sure their ceremony was special and personal. "We both wrote our own vows. That was the moment I teared up, was when she was saying her vows to me. Both our vows were very us and filled with heartfelt sentiments but also some comedy," Morrison said.

He had one last heartfelt surprise up his sleeve for his new bride during their reception. "I sang a song as a surprise to her. It was 'Top Of The World' by The Carpenters, which was her mom's favorite song. Her mom passed last year and we actually had the wedding on her mother's birthday."

The reception wasn't all serious. "The coolest thing we did was a partners hula together. It's tradition for a Hawaiian bride to dance hula for her husband so she did that. I never saw her do it before and it was amazing. And we kinda learned this hula together that we did after that. It was awesome."

Morrison is currently wrapping up the final season of

, but don't expect him to shift straight to Daddy duty. "I think we're on a two-year plan," he said. "We want to enjoy this moment and enjoy being husband and wife by ourselves because once that happens, it's kind of not about you any more."

Summary: The newlywed's "just perfect" nuptials featured singing, dancing and near-disaster weather


Images of shootings, manhunts and hostage stand-offs in Paris this week replaced the usual picture postcard views of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Seine.

France’s tourism industry may be another victim. As is the case following almost all high-profile terrorist attacks, some would-be visitors may stay clear.

“There’s a lot at stake,” said Luke Bujarski, the director of research at Phocuswright, a firm that specializes in research about travel, tourism and hospitality.

France is a prime destination for U.S. travelers. The country accounted for 19.9% of all American trips to Europe in 2013, second only to the United Kingdom with 26.3%, according to a Commerce Department report.

Tourism generates around 7% of France’s gross domestic product, or nearly $200 billion in spending annually, based on data from the World Bank and the French foreign affairs and international development ministry.

More people visited France in 2013 – 84.7 million – than the United States, which had 69.8 million visitors, The Telegraph said.

How much of an impact there will be is unclear. The attacks – which included a dozen murdered at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine along with several hostages killed during raids that left the chief suspects and an ally dead – certainly tarnished the country’s image for safety. Travel agents and analysts expect that some people will cancel trips to France or check the country off their list this year.

Bujarski pointed out that ramped up security by the French government may make it more difficult for tourists to enjoy the country. High-profile locations such as museums are almost guaranteed to get extra police and tougher screening. The result may be more “congestion” and “inconvenience” that’s off-putting to those who visit France in the future, he said.

Laura Rodriguez, a director with American Society of Travel Agents, told Fortune that visitors to regions with a history of violence should take safety precautions and make use of the expertise of tour guides. She added that travelers should stay aware of their surroundings and buy travel insurance so they can be reimbursed if they have to cancel their trip because of dangerous events on the ground.

Rodriguez, who is also owner of Marina Tours and Travel in Phoenix, which specializes in tour group vacations to France, said she wouldn’t want to scare her customers.

“Things like this could happen in any part of the world,” she said. “And let us hope things don’t happen again.”

Mike McCormick, the executive director of the Global Business Travel Association, which represents the corporate travel industry, explained that businesses post-9/11 have had a “wake-up call” in terms of how protective they are of employees who travel abroad.

In 2013, business travelers spent $35 billion dollars on travel in France, marking three years of negative growth, according to a Global Business Travel Association report. But it said corporate travel spending was expected to start rising again, to $37 billion in 2014.

“My expectation is that largely it would be the same,” McCormick said about the attacks’ impact on business travel to Europe and France, specifically. “Leisure tends to be a little more reactive to situations, for sure.”

He continued: “But the other thing that I think that has happened is there’s a resilence and awareness that wasn’t there before. Ultimately, we are very aware now of happenings in every part of the world. I think there’s just much more of an understanding.”

Summary: The terrorist attack at a Paris satirical magazine and ensuing hostage stand-offs could be a turn off to tourists and corporate visitors this year.


Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Grey

01/30/2015 AT 11:05 AM EST

Proud father by day, dominant in a kink club by night. It was a tough job, but

To prepare to play Christian Grey in the highly anticipated erotic novel adaptation

he had to leave his infant and wife home to visit the dark underbelly of the BDSM world.

"For research, one rainy Tuesday evening, I kissed the wife and baby good night and went to watch a dominant-submissive session in a dungeon," said the Irish actor, 32.

The show was run by

' "adviser" on the sexual subculture of bondage, dominance and sadomasochism. But he wasn't quite the punishing presence Dornan expected: "I watched him do his thing ... It was quite jovial, a very different approach to how I saw Christian being in the Red Room. I think Christian takes it a bit more seriously."

One thing Dornan himself took seriously was his costar

's comfort while filming the infamously racy sex scenes from

"Some of the Red Room stuff

uncomfortable," he admits. "There were times when Dakota was not wearing much, and I had to do stuff to her that I'd never choose to do to a woman."

Johnson, 25, confirmed, "It's stressful enough to be tied to a bed naked in a scene. But then they call cut, and you're

tied to the bed, naked. Jamie would be the first one to throw a blanket over me."

And, while Johnson didn't accompany Dornan to the sex club, the on-screen couple did share a personal trainer. "I was going be naked, so I wanted to look good," says Johnson.

She also did her own, more intimate personal preparation: "[I] had more waxing than any woman should have!"

hits theaters on Feb. 13.

Summary: The Irish actor did some interesting "research" while preparing to play the kinky Christian Grey


Barring a last-minute breakthrough, drugs firm Sanofi SA’s SNYNF Chairman Serge Weinberg may have to acknowledge in his results presentation next week that the hunt for a new chief executive is not going well.

At least three potential candidates in a narrow field have turned their back on the job heading France’s largest company.

The manner of Chris Viehbacher’s shock dismissal three months ago, and the surprisingly small pay-off he won last week, have cast a long shadow over the process.

“I think it is going to take time,” said a source close to the company. “What we risk missing in the meantime is a strategic vision that you cannot have without a deep knowledge of the pharmaceuticals sector.”

Weinberg, who will be 64 on Feb. 10 and does not have a pharmaceuticals background besides his five years on the board, is running Sanofi himself while board member Jean-Rene Fourtou conducts a search–one which began well before Viehbacher was fired.

Last week Christophe Weber, the French chief operating officer of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co, told Reuters he had rejected an approach.

Paris-schooled Olivier Bohuon, chief executive of British medical devices maker Smith & Nephew Plc SSN , told staff in November he had no plans to leave, and in the same month, former Wyeth boss Bernard Poussot joined the board of Sanofi’s rival Roche SA .

AstraZeneca Plc AZN Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, another prominent French pharma executive, has played down any interest by saying he sees himself as more Australian than French.

Weinberg has said an understanding of Sanofi’s French culture is important to the search for “mainly outside candidates”.

But he has rebuffed suggestions that non-French candidates are unwelcome, despite his experience with the German-Canadian Viehbacher, who ruffled establishment feathers by keeping secret plans to cut French jobs, and by moving his domicile to the U.S.

Viehbacher was fired abruptly on Oct. 29 last year, hours after he had presented a poor set of third-quarter results, and days after a leaked letter he sent to the board showed he had found out months earlier of Weinberg’s plan to get rid of him.

The news shocked investors, who had seen the outspoken and affable former GlaxoSmithKline executive as a strong manager. Weinberg put the sacking down to poor execution and lack of communication with the board — citing partly a poor outlook for the diabetes division, which accounts for more than 30% of profits.

It’s not been all bad news for post-Viehbacher Sanofi. Last week, U.S. health regulators accepted its application to review a potent cholesterol drug on a priority basis, potentially giving it the upper hand in a fierce race to market with Amgen Inc. AMGN .

And Sanofi’s shares, down about 1.7% at €82 since the sacking, have recovered most of the losses suffered after the initial shock.

Meanwhile, last week’s announcement of Viehbacher’s severance settlement has raised new questions about whether there is more behind his dismissal.

Viehbacher received €4.44 million ($5 million) in severance, even though the amount stipulated under the terms of his employment was €5.92 million.

“The trouble with finding a successor hinges on the fact that we don’t know the real reason he was fired, and because a lot of people are asking themselves questions about the subject,” said an industry insider who has spoken to some potential candidates.

“The very low pay-off (sic) he received only reinforces the idea that the reasons he was fired are not the ones that have been talked about.”

Summary: France's largest company can't find a French-speaking pharma expert who wants to work for its mercurial board.


Standing StonesLiverpool Terry Duffy exploits the evocative potential of paint's fluidity, its ability to shift in an instant from abstract to figurative and back again. Working on a "hot pressed" shiny surface, Duffy pushes the paint around, smears and distresses it, scratches its surface, until the desired ambiguity is achieved. The exhibition title, Standing Stones, hints at this ambition to summon images that might be ostensibly abstract but, by their tactile form, confront one with an almost human presence.

· Walker Art Gallery, to Jun 8

As a mode of informal architectural improvisation, sculptors' drawings tend to be almost organic in their inventiveness. These working blueprints reveal the processes, hesitations, intuitions, diversions and afterthoughts. I am reminded of Joseph Beuys' definition of drawing as practical creative thinking. This show follows seven sculptors as they utilise line to dream up solid form. Doug Cocker and Lars Englund's sketches (pictured) map out outlandish sculptural territories through some kind of psychic geometry. And one of Cocker's realised oak wood structures crawls up the Fermynwoods' water tower as if the drawing has solidified in the air. RC

· Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, to Jun 15

Simon Patterson is best known for the Great Bear, a version of the London Tube map with the station names replaced by comedians, philosophers, actors and footballers. He made it some 15 years ago now, but it is testament to our love of Harry Beck's design and Patterson's manipulation of it that it still remains popular. It features in an anthology of work by Patterson at the National Maritime Museum. The show is called The Undersea World And Other Stories - inspired by the long-running TV series The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau - and features a newly commissioned work about the pioneering, sandal-wearing Neptune of the sea. Also on show are wall drawings based on the Marx Brothers' 1931 film Monkey Business and four fully rigged racing sails bearing the titles of literary figures with naval- sounding names.

· National Maritime Museum, SE10, Thu 1 to Oct 26

Chelsea Theatre's Sacred season returns with a series of offbeat live performances. The events will spill out of this World's End haunt on to the King's Road and surrounding areas, transforming the sloaney shopping mecca into a veritable carnival. It is difficult to garner the level of artistic enterprise: art collectives like LEIBNIZ will certainly be worth a look, particularly for their blood-letting demands, but I'm dubious of Dr Roberts' Magic Bus (pictured) - an old Routemaster bursting with arty types is too irritating for words. Richard DeDomenici, who wants to build a Culturail, a new tube line that links all the art centres across London, sounds interesting. As an art critic, I'm all for it.

· Chelsea Theatre, SW10, Mon 28 to May 10

Spine-chilling works abound in this group show in celebration of Walpurgisnacht (witches' night). Walpurgisnacht lands on April 30 and is believed to be when witches revel with their gods to await the arrival of spring. It is mentioned in Goethe's Faust and was the day on which Hitler and his henchmen committed suicide. The 15 artists here include Luke Gottelier, Kes Richardson and Cathy Lomax, although Charlotte Bracegirdle's uniquely unsettling picture of a Victorian doll (pictured) gets my vote for queasy paranormal activity.

· Crimestown, N16, Thu May 1 to Jun 1

In theatre circles it's called "suspension of disbelief", that inclination to be won over by artful make-believe. To accompany Opera North's Shakespeare Resounding season, this exhibition is focused around one of the most famous episodes of mischievous deception: the Cottingley Fairies. Looking now at the enchanting yet so amateurishly faked photographs taken almost a century ago by Yorkshire girls Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, one can be bemused by how the many apparently intelligent dupes, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were so eager to believe in the fairyland in the garden. Here the photographs and drawings are seen alongside commissioned installations by Giuseppe Lambertino and Eva Rowson & Yvonne Carmichael investigating possible factual sites of Shakespeare's theatrical fictions.

· 42 New Briggate Gallery, to May 21

Mark Chapman claimed that, by killing John Lennon, who he obsessively adulated as the most famous man in the world, he ritually appropriated a measure of that fame for himself. The legendary episode forms a starting point for the collaborative duo AL and AL's new computer-generated video, Eternal Youth, which charts the assassination of a fictional superstar named Winston Glory. AL and AL first met by chance while visiting Derek Jarman's Dungeness garden in 1997 and they appear to have inherited some of the great director's spirit of filmic dreaming. Eternal Youth, alongside two past works, is fixated with the electronics of celebrity culture. Image is everything and virtual image, through its ability to be precisely controlled, is more contagiously convincing than physical image.

· FACT, to Jun 8

The clue to this exhibition is in the names of the curators: Dr Robert Laing and Karen Novotny - characters in novels by JG Ballard. Laing is from High Rise, the tale of middle-class implosion in a yuppie tower block, and Novotny comes from the fragmented The Atrocity Exhibition. They are used here to promote Ballard's concept of New Psychology through the work of five artists. Under the curatorship of anyone but Andrew Hunt, I would have been dubious of this undertaking, but Hunt is getting a reputation for idiosyncratic exhibitions that are well researched and engaging without being in the least bit pretentious. Expect a wilfully Ballardian vision of suburban utopia from artists Dan Mitchell, Merlin Carpenter, Josephine Pryde, Rachel Reupke and Alastair MacKinven as they pitch affluenza, segregation, fetishism, and sexual frustration into Bournville, the Victorian elysium built by the Quaker philanthropist, Cadbury.

· International Project Space, Sat 26 to May 31

Summary: Standing Stones, Liverpool | Standing Stones, Liverpool | Simon Patterson, London | Sacred, London | Walpurgisnacht, London | Matter Of Fact, Leeds | Eternal Youth, Liverpool | Zodiac 3000, Birmingham


Toyota is set to offer low-cost automated braking safety packages to U.S. customers as an optional accessory for all its Toyota and Lexus cars by the end of 2017.

The new braking system will be launched when the company showcases its first-ever RAV4 Hybrid SUV and Lexus unveil its fourth-generation RX luxury crossover SUV on Wednesday and Thursday at the New York Auto Show.

Toyota TM said the packages — Toyota Safety Sense (TSS) and Lexus Safety System+ (LSS+) — will help in accident protection by preventing or mitigating rear collisions, keeping drivers within their lane and enhancing road safety during night time driving.

“Pushing these systems across our lineup, as quickly as possible, can help protect people in the event of a crash. More importantly it will help prevent some crashes from ever happening in the first place,” Jim Lentz, Chief Executive, Toyota Motor North America said in a statement.

While the TSS will be priced between $300 and $500, the LSS+ will be priced from $500 to $635, the carmaker said.

Summary: The packages will be offered to U.S. customers as an optional accessory in all Toyota and Lexus cars by the end of 2017.


General Electric’s GE legendary former CEO said Friday the conglomerate’s plan to let loose most of its financial services business is “a smart move and right for the changing financial landscape.”

The company said Friday it will sell off the majority of its GE Capital assets—worth $500 billion—and initiate a share buyback program for up to $50 billion.

Welch, the legendary leader of the company from 1981 to 2001, whose masterwork will now be dismantled, told CNBC Friday morning: “I like the package.”

After the financial meltdown of 2008 and ensuing great recession, GE suffered like many of its banking peers. The conglomerate’s big shift marks a return to industry over finance, a major reorganization for current chief Jeff Immelt.

“When I talked to Immelt last night, he didn’t trash Jack,” a CNBC anchor said, having asked the chief whether it was a mistake for GE to structure it that way in the first place. “He said, ‘Look, it was a different market then. It’s a different market now. We’ve got to figure it out.'”

Separately, Larry Bossidy, formerly CEO of Honeywell, who spent over 30 years at General Electric, rising to executive level, told CNBC he viewed the day’s news with “mixed emotions.”

“I remember all hard work went into building a huge risk contained financial colossus” — one that was highly profitable, he said.

Then, subsequently, the balance sheet became stretched, on both the asset and liability side, and that left GE Capital vulnerable to the financial crisis, he added.

“So what they announced today is the right thing to do,” Bossidy said. Now it’s clear GE “wants to become an industrial company.”

The spinoff will take place over the next two years.

Summary: The illustrious former CEO of the conglomerate gives current chief Jeff Immelt's plan his blessing.


Raji Sukumaran after saying her last goodbye to her son Myuran at Nusakambangan Island Prison on April 28. (AAP)

The mother of executed drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran has written an emotional open letter to Indonesia's president, Joko Wododo — the man who refused to grant her son clemency or even meet her face to face.

"I am not sure where you were as the men you ordered to kill my son, and seven others pulled the trigger but I am sure you were far away," wrote Raji Sukumaran.

"My son died knowing all his loved ones were close by waiting in a hotel room to hear the news that he had been executed."

She also revealed one of Myuran's final words were in prayer for Indonesia and said she hoped she could "help other people or their families in some way as they sit and wait for you to order their deaths".

But the letter was also filled with rebukes for Indonesia's president, after Sukumaran was put to death on the Indonesian island of Nusakambangan last week, along with fellow Bali Nine smuggler Andrew Chan and six foreigners, after 10 years on death row and numerous legal battles.

"I watched as over the last four months you tortured him by making jokes about his life, making him guess the night he would be taken, openly discussing the way in which he would die, parading and humiliating our family," she wrote.

"Your reasons for taking these [eight] lives had nothing to do with preventing drugs and everything to do with your politics."

Indonesian president Joko Widodo. (AAP)

Ms Sukumaran said she would be punished for the rest of her life because of her son's death and criticised Mr Widodo for ignoring her requests for a meeting.

"You could not even have the courage to face our requests to communicate with you," she said.

Funeral services for Chan and Sukumaran will be held in Sydney in the next few days.

The full letter from Raji Sukumaran:

Dear Mr President, Leader of Indonesia and father of three children,

My name is Raji Sukumaran, and my son, Myuran Sukumaran, was executed in the early hours of Wednesday 29 April 2015 under your instructions.

As I make the preparations to bury my beautiful son, I thought I would share my feelings with you. I thought I would share how my son was reformed, was full of life, love and passion, and who so desperately wanted to live his life in service to help others.

I have made this letter open in the hope that it may help other people or their families, in some way as they sit and wait for you to order their deaths.

I would really like to think that you would be able to understand, if you don't, then feel free to share this letter with your wife, who I think would understand, one mother to another.

My son doesn't want another mother, father, sister or brother to go through what we went through. For no grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or friends should have to deal with what we've had to deal with.

I am not sure where you were as the men you ordered to kill my son, and seven others pulled the trigger but I am sure you were far away. My son died knowing all his loved ones were close by waiting in a hotel room to hear the news that he had been executed. My son did commit a serious crime but he also apologised to your country and your people many times. In the last 10 years while you kept him in prison, he chose to do all within his power to make up for his crime. It wasn't easy, I am not sure anyone will ever realise how hard good man in prison, to be a positive role model for other younger prisoners, Indonesian prisoners. Myu spent many years rehabilitating so many prisoners, he hoped that he could help as many people as possible, to give them a chance to leave prison to go out in the world a little better than they came inside. Myu helped prisoners who struggled with drug use and many other issues. My son never asked for his rehabilitation to be enough to free him from prison, all he asked was that he not be killed. Was it too much for you to let him live the remainder of his life in prison? I have heard that many others around you took the time to read and learn of the works of my son, and of Andrew and of the people they helped. Many of whom are now helping other people themselves. I cannot believe that all of his works could not even get you to even read the paper you were signing. I remember when you were elected as President of Indonesia, my son was celebrating. My son told me that 'Our new President is a man of the people, a person that would support education, rehabilitation and people bettering themselves' and that you would look into everything he had done in the prison. I guess he was wrong. As human being, I can't even understand how you could sign a person's death without looking into their personal circumstances. If you do not read what you are signing how can you know whether the life you are taking belongs to someone who is mentally unwell, or an old man in a wheelchair, or young mother with two children, or a father of two, or a man who has been in your prison for 17 years, or a gospel singer, or two young boys who made foolish mistakes. My son only hoped to live in prison for the remainder of his life so that he could be able to continue his good work, which has become known around the world. All he wanted was to be given a chance to do that.

I as a mother was punished for 10 years as well for his crime, and I will be punished for the rest of my life now because you took his life. I did not ask you to send my son home. I just asked you not to order his death but instead you ignored me and many others. I asked to meet you, to speak to you but once again you could not even have the courage to face our requests to communicate with you. I will not have the chance to see him get married, have children. Mr President, do you think that your punishment towards my son after he had spent 10 years in gaol reformed and helping others and then executing him is fair and just? Do you as a leader feel that everyone who faces justice in Indonesia is treated fairly and equally? Do you believe that Indonesia has a justice system that doesn?t make mistakes? Do you not hear or read all the stories about corruption in criminal cases?

I think this is something very important - you have told the thousands and thousands of people in prisons across your country, that no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you change your life, no matter what your personal circumstances are - you will not receive mercy. You ask them to not try, as I have never heard of anyone in prison around the world doing the works my son has done - it was still not enough for you to read his clemency application. I hope your wife would understand what myself and Andrew Chan's mother are going through. I felt so helpless as I watched my son walk away, healthy and full of life. I watched as over the last four months you tortured him by making jokes about his life, making him guess the night he would be taken, openly discussing the way in which he would die, parading and humiliating our family. We made funeral plans for our sons while they were still alive. This was because we were told you the President had not changed your mind, and that you had ordered the executions to be carried out, despite the world wide outcry to let our sons live. I want to ask you to put your family in my situation. Only days before I saw a video in which you said that you did not want Indonesians to be killed overseas. I know as I write this letter, the death of our children will not make any difference to drug trade in Indonesia. I am sure you know this, and that your reasons for taking these 8 lives had nothing to do with preventing drugs and everything to do with your politics.

I hope that your children, your grandchildren, your nephews and nieces never make a mistake. I also want you to remember when your child falls in love, gets married, makes plans for the future, that Andrew Chan also fell in love, made plans for his future and was executed. How would it feel if this was your son?

I was told as my son said his last words, one of the last things he did was say a prayer for Indonesia. My son sought forgiveness for your country and the men taking his life, as he knew you did not know what you were doing. This was the man you ordered to die. I am not sure whether I could ever forgive you, I hope that I have that much grace and compassion in my heart one day. But I am sure this pain in my heart will stay with me for the rest of my life, and it hurts so much. Think for a second, one of your children is tied to post, and men are lined up in front of them and the fear he would have felt, and then your child is shot through the heart. My son was young and foolish, he did not deserve to suffer like this.

My son will be missed by so many people who love him and so many people are finding it difficult to come to terms with what has happened.

As I finish this letter I pray for the many other men and women whose lives are in your hands, especially those on death row. I pray that you will have the courage to look beyond the politics for they too have families who love them despite their mistakes.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: The mother of executed drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran has written an emotional open letter to Indonesia's president, Joko Wododo &mdash; the man who refused to grant her son clemency or even meet her face to face


CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— His white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, the wiry impresario hammers home another lesson after 80 minutes of Socratic dialogue with his class about Japan's rise to dominance in worldwide motorcycle production.

''Faced with global competition,'' Michael E. Porter says, after summarizing the difficult experience of America's Harley-Davidson Motor Company, a division of AMF Inc., ''you can give up, seek protection - or focus your strategy.''

There is little uncertainty evidenced in the faces assembled in the brightly lit, red-carpeted amphitheater. This is the Harvard Business School, and there is no question among these 103 second-year students that the only answer is to focus strategy.

Three years after its introduction, Mr. Porter's course in competitive and industry analysis has become the most popular at the business school. More than half of its 800 second-year students signed up for it this academic year.

Their interest is, in part, a measure of a current fashion in corporate management. Bloodied from losses administered by Japanese and European adversaries, American executives are grasping for a logic to global competition.

Mr. Porter, a 33-year-old associate professor at Harvard, has given them one. To be sure, hundreds of books on business strategy have been published in the last few years. What distinguishes Mr. Porter's approach, in the eyes of many, is the introduction of the rigors of economic analysis into what has long been considered the intuitive art of business strategy. Adopted by Many Professors

Mr. Porter's first book for practitioners, ''Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,'' was published last fall and has been adopted by many business school professors.

George Steiner, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote in the Journal of Business Strategy, ''Porter's work should serve to sharpen all managerial intuitions.'' Many business schools have adopted it for their spring courses in business planning.

Despite that type of acclaim, Mr. Porter, who has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a Ph.D. in industrial economics from Harvard's economics department, was resisted at first by professors wedded to the business school's devotion to case analysis.

These professors were convinced that each company studied in a case analysis presented an unusual problem requiring an unusual process of analyzing the information available to reach a strategy decision. Mr. Porter also uses case studies, but he argues that general economic rules governing competition can serve as tools in analyzing a company's particular competitive problems.

''I thought there had to be a way to make the process of determining strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities more analytical so we don't have to rely so much on the vision of the manager,'' Mr. Porter said in an interview. Article Published in 1979

The idea, which he first presented in an article, ''How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy,'' published in 1979 in the Harvard Business Review, is to give corporate planners some mechanics ''to find a position in the industry where his or her company can best defend itself against these forces or can influence them in its favor.''

Mr. Porter, who earned more than $100,000 last year, with more than $60,000 coming from consulting and lectures, believes American executives have learned hard lessons from not taking a global view in the past of markets and competition.

The level of competition in an industry, whether regional or global, depends on five basic forces, according to Mr. Porter. ''The collective strength of these forces determines the profit potential of an industry,'' he wrote. They are:

- Barriers to entry, such as huge capital requirements, elaborate after-the-sale servicing forces or distribution networks.

- Bargaining power of suppliers, where few companies provide most of a manufacturer's raw material.

- Bargaining power of customers, especially where products they purchase are standard.

- Threat of substitute products, such as with high-fructose corn syrup for sugar, or cellulose for fiberglass insulation.

- Jockeying for position among competitors, such as price-cutting, adding manufacturing capacity, introducing new products or mounting expensive advertising campaigns. Motorcycle Case Study

Several of these forces came into play as Japanese companies grew to dominate worldwide motorcycle manufacuring between 1960 and 1975. A case study on how the Japanese did it, developed from research by the Boston Consulting Group, is regarded as a classic by professors of business policy courses. It is also part of Mr. Porter's course at Harvard.

The Japanese attack included a flurry of new, lighter motorcyles, huge investments in research and development, large advertising efforts to broaden the image of motorcycle riders from ''hoods and cops'' to affluent, leisure-seeking adults, and low-price strategies to gain market share.

By selling in major countries around the world, the Japanese gained production, marketing and technological advantages that enabled them to introduce products more quickly and at lower prices than their less nimble competitors.

In 1975, when the case study was completed, the Japanese companies commanded 90 percent of worldwide motorcycle sales, up from 5 percent in 1959.

The oldest son of a retired Army colonel and his Czechoslovakian wife, Mr. Porter comes naturally to global business issues. He attended grade school in Taiwan and high school in Europe before entering Princteon University, from which he was graduated with honors in mechanical engineering.

Illustrations: photo of Michael E. Porter teaching a class


LA PAZ, Bolivia, Aug. 28— The rats running over his face still haunt him. He is a priest who was taken from his church here two months ago by agents from the Government's Special Security Service. They took him to an interrogation center on an ordinary looking block guarded by policemen at each end in a neighborhood of expensive homes and embassies.

A muscular interrogator called Turco punched him in the kidneys, so that to lie down was painful and to urinate excruciating. That night the guards threw water on the floor, turning the straw on which he tried to sleep into ice.

But it was the rats that came out later that he remembers most. ''There were so many of them,'' the priest said in an interview given on condition that his name not be published. Situation Has Improved

Thirteen months after the military took power in a violent coup led by Gen. Luis Garcia Meza, human rights in Bolivia remain a troubling affair. In the last few months the situation has improved over what it was soon after the military came in. Assassinations and disappearances of the regime's opponents appear to have stopped. Torture has diminished somewhat, although a labor leader died last week after reportedly being tortured.

''Things aren't spectacularly bad now,'' a diplomat said, ''just bad.'' A new military junta that forced General Garcia Meza out three weeks ago has promised to curtail abuses further. Those abuses center in the Special Security Service. According to human rights leaders and diplomats and on the evidence of events of recent weeks, the agency has continued to operate independent of the politically weak junta. Beatings an Old Practice

The jailing and beating of political opponents has occurred even under some civilian governments in Bolivia, but the systematic and violent abuses that began after last year's military coup is something new, many Bolivians say.

Shortly after the coup, the Special Security Service was formed by Col. Luis Arce Gomez, who stitched it together from paramilitary groups that he had trained - with the aid of mercenaries from countries such as France and West Germany - to help carry out the coup. The residential block it has taken over is lined with unlicensed white vans that look like ambulances.

One resident who lived on the block said she had to move because she could hear the cries of people being beaten and tortured in what had been in an ordinary house next door.

The Security Service today is a shadowy force said to have between 600 and 1,000 members. Not even Government officials are sure of the number. Though the agents carry identification cards from the Interior Ministry, many remain more loyal to local commanders, senior military officers said. Electric Torture Devices Used

Sophisticated electric torture was introduced last year by Argentine advisers bringing in Argentine devices, such as prods and clips called ''picanas,'' according to leaked Bolivian documents published last year. Reports persist that there are still Argentines present in the torture chambers, though they may be private mercenaries.

Through continued arrests, torture and detention for questioning, the Security Service has intimidated into silence Bolivians who might speak out. Virtually all political and union activity is outlawed here.

Almost all of the country's top civilian political leaders, including many former presidents, are spread around South America in exile. Human rights leaders estimate that in all 5,000 Bolivians have gone into exile since the coup.

Most left the country on their own, but several hundred have been forced out in recent months, many of them Indian peasants picked up by the Sercurity Service for minor violations such as speaking against the Government in a drunken moment, according to church leaders, United Nations officials and people who have been inside the detention centers.

They have been deported through the United Nations Refugee Program to countries such as Sweden, where many are said to be miserable in trying to adjust to cultures, climate and foods alien to their primitive backgrounds. 70 Reported in Internal Exile The Government has said that since last Nov ember there have been no political prisoners in the country. Amnesty Internation al, however, reports that about 70 Bolivians were living in fo rced internal exile last month, and human rights groups here es timated the number at several hundred last week.

The Security Service sends these people to forlorn outposts high in the cold Andes or deep in the hot Amazon jungles, where they must get their own living and report daily to the local authorities, human rights leaders said.

These and other security measures, such as a midnight curfew, continue even though many military officers agree that there is little threat of revolutionary violence. Unlike the situation in other military-ruled Latin countries, ranging from Guatemala to Argentina, the lefists here are tamed and unarmed. Bolivia's heavily Indian culture is a pacific one. Ernesto Che Guevara, the revolutionary leader who was killed here in 1967, complained bitterly in his diary of the unresponsiveness of Bolivian peasants.

''Bolivians are not cowards,'' a church leader said. ''That they have not become violent yet, as in a country like El Salvador, means that we still have a chance - if the military does not destroy it.''

Col. Rolando Canido, the Minister of the Interior appointed by the new junta, announced that the Government would impose curbs on the Security Service and deactivate those units not working directly for the ministry. But nothing, according to military officers, has yet been done. Editors Are Interrogated

As the junta last week talked of new press liberties, for instance, the editors of two of this city's major newspapers, Hoy and Ultima Hora, were picked up by Security Service agents and interrogated for several hours.

At Presencia, a Roman Catholic-owned daily, reporters had been threatened and beaten by Security Service agents over the last year, and one complained that the paper maintains a fearful selfcensorship. ''I worry about where the line is,'' the reporter said.

Security Service agents have raided worker-struck textile factories and tin mines since the junta took over. Julio Cassio, a local union leader at one of the mines, died last week in Security Service captivity after the papal nuncio here had asked for his release. Church leaders said he had died from beatings.

The junta said this week that it planned to form an official human rights commission. The Catholic and Methodist churches here maintain low-key public positions in defense of human rights. Private human rights leaders, in the meantime, have either had to go underground or leave the country.

Illustrations: Photo of Col. Luis Arce Gomez


MOAB, Utah— The great rivers flowing through Canyonlands National Park have done their work well. To the West, the Green carves its way past Upheaval Canyon; to the East, the Colorado skirts Dead Horse Point and continues its meandering ways. Water and 300 million years have sculpted a surrealistic profusion of red rock canyons, sandstone spires and arches, gorges and buttes.

It is easy to become emotional about the magnificent landscape, and many people are. Even over the din at the confluence of the rivers, as the parent Colorado roars into Cataract Canyon, the 17-year-old debate rages between those who would make the park more accessible and those who would leave it the wild, remote, untouched place it is.

The debate is now more acute as attendance at national parks surges. Twenty percent more people visited Canyonlands this year than in the same period last year, and in many ways the conflict over use of the park here illustrates the somewhat conflicting mandate the National Park Service has operated under for 65 years: to preserve the natural beauty and resources while providing for the enjoyment of visitors. Big Plans, Scaled Back

Seventeen years after Canyonlands became Utah's third national park, there are no services in the 337,570-acre national treasure, save for picnic tables, fireplaces and the odd pit toilet. There are no rooms, no food, no water, no gasoline. There is spectacular scenery, but many of the people who visit Canyonlands see only its periphery; the interior can be reached only in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, on foot or by river raft.

In 1980, visits totaled 56,965. In 1962, when the Park Service was planning to put paved access roads, visitors' centers, lodges, stores and even a heliport in the park, it was estimated that there would be 763,000 visitors in 1980.

The planned amenities, many of the roads and a once-envisioned 600-foot-long bridge over Big Spring Canyon connecting to a paved road leading to the confluence of the mighty rivers, did not materialize for a variety of reasons, depending upon whom you talk to.

The environmentalists are partly to blame for underdevelopment, says Calvin Black, the San Juan County Commission chairman, a leader in Utah and Nevada in the drive to have Federal lands turned over to the states. But Jim Catlin of the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club sees an ''ever-diminishing amount of land that is free from mechanized recreation.''

Bates Wilson, 68 years old, the park's first superintendent, the man responsible for Canyonlands' gaining Federal attention, which led to park designation, says that in many instances water scarcity and nature forbade expansive development. The current superintendent, Peter L. Parry, said lack of funds was largely to blame. The major parks that feel the crush of millions of people annually will get priority in financing, he said.

Sam Taylor, who has edited and published The Moab Times-Independent for 25 years, blames a lack of aggressiveness by Mr. Parry and others. It was ordained by the Park Service from the outset, he said, that Canyonlands would be designed to exclude people.

''Yes, I'm vastly disappointed,'' said Frank E. Moss, the former Senator from Utah, whose bill created the park in 1964 and who is now practicing law in Washington. ''There was a great change of attitude in the National Park Service at the time my bill was enacted. They shut down the plans we had expected to be carried out. This was the time the great environmental wave struck.''

''Plenty of people are seeing the park,'' said Mr. Wilson, who is now farming east of Moab. ''True, some people are denied seeing it because they are physically unable to hike or won't ride in a jeep or don't have one. I don't think, however, that every point of interest should be open to a pink Cadillac.'' Road Is Center of Debate

The focus of contention is in the park's southeastern corner, and the much-assailed road to nowhere. Thirty-five miles south of Moab a paved road runs several miles west into the park, past Six Shooter Peaks and Squaw Flat, and ends abruptly at Big Spring Canyon. It had long been planned that the canyon would be bridged and a paved road would continue about five miles to the confluence of the Green and Colorado.

''The real fantastic stuff is a little bit further,'' past the dead end at Big Spring Canyon, said Mr. Taylor, the newspaper publisher. ''Now, people get out of their cars where the road ends and say, 'What the hell is this?' ''

In 1978, when the Park Service submitted a new proposed plan for Canyonlands, it recommended against the bridge and the road to the confluence. One reason, said Mr. Parry, was that the letter-writing public, by a 980-to-15 margin, urged that it not be built.

Others, like Commissioner Black and Mr. Taylor, felt betrayed. In July 1980 Mr. Black severed what he called ''diplomatic relations'' with the Federal agency. The San Juan County Commission terminated deputy sheriff commissions and bail bondsmen's authority previously accorded to some Park Service personnel.

And so one of the seeds of the attempt by some Westerners and their Congressional delegations to wrest control of 400 million acres of land from the Federal Government was planted, said Mr. Black, who does not seek ownership of the park.

''I think there may have been some misunderstanding about development,'' Stewart L. Udall, the Secretary of the Interior in 1964, said from his Phoenix law office. ''What dictates that there are relatively few roads is the nature of the landscape itself. It's rugged country. ''I think if they just settle down and accept it - it's there for all time - it will be a great asset to them.''

Illustrations: photo of Moab, Utah Map of Utah


BALTIMORE (AL) - Placed Lenn Sakata, infielder, on 15-day disabled list.

Called up Bob Bonner, shortstop, from Rochester of International League.

CALIFORNIA (AL) - Called up Doug Rau, pitcher, from Redwood City of California League. Placed Bill Travers, pitcher, on 21-day disabled list.

MILWAUKEE (AL) - Traded Buck Martinez, catcher, to Toronto (AL) for Gil Kubski, outfielder.

PITTSBURGH (NL) Called up Victor Cruz, relief pitcher, from Portland of Pacific Coast League.

Summary: BASEBALL   BALTIMORE (AL) - Placed Lenn Sakata, infielder, on 15-day disabled list.


Amax Inc. reported yesterday that earnings in the third quarter of 1981 plunged 49 percent, as sales slipped 3.9 percent. The Greenwich, Conn., company, one of the world's leading producers of molybdenum, which has important interests in base metals, silver, coal, petroleum, aluminum and iron ore, said that net income dropped to $51 million, or 73 cents a share, from $100 million, or $1.53 a share, in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Sales were at $657 million, off from $684 million.

''We've been pulling down estimates all year, so these results do not come as a surprise,'' said Peter L. Anker, an analyst at the First Boston Corporation. ''We're looking at a company whose earnings are declining, reflecting a weakness in its major product lines. There was another molydbdenum price reduction recently, which does not provide much optimism for the fourth quarter.''

Pierre Gousseland, chairman and chief executive offficer of Amax, said that although the company's earnings to date for the third quarter could not compare with the third quarter of 1980, they represented ''a considerable achievement considering the present economic climate.''

Molybdenum, nickel, tungsten and specialty metals earnings were $29 million below the similar period a year ago, the company said, while base metals incurred a loss of $11 million, versus earnings of $16 million in the 1980 third quarter. Amax's molybdenum output last year was 102 million pounds, equal to 62 percent of non-Communist world consumption.

The latest quarter, Amax said, includes the capitalization of $6 million, after-tax, of prior period expenditures on the MacTung Canadian tungsten project now deemed exploitable by Amax.

Lead earnings, Amax said, dropped because of lower shipments caused by a strike and reduced prices. General Foods

The General Foods Corporation, the country's biggest producer of coffee, announced that net income in the third quarter increased 6.9 percent, to $54.4 million, or $1.10 a share, from $50.9 million, or $1.02 a share, in the comparable quarter of 1980. Sales soared 33.8 percent, to $2.06 billion, from $1.54 billion.

''We are beginning to see response to our increased marketing investments this year to stimulate volume growth,'' said James L. Ferguson, chairman and chief executive of the White Plains concern.

He said that while the company's coffee business had faced considerable margin pressure earlier in the year from rapidly declining green coffee prices, those prices had strengthened, and the quarter closed with margins moving to more normal levels.

For the latest quarter, General Foods said, foreign currency translations had a negative impact of 12 cents a share, compared with a negative impact from such translations of 2 cents a share in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Gulf and Western

Gulf and Western Industries announced that net income in the fourth fiscal quarter ended July 31 rose 6.9 percent, to $68 million, or 87 cents a share, from $63.6 million, or 87 cents on a comparable basis reflecting conversions of convertible debentures subsequent to the fiscal year 1980's end. These conversions resulted in the issuance of approximately 17 million of common stock.

For the full fiscal year, the multi-industry concern, which has major interests in motion pictures, apparel, home furnishings, financial services and sugar, said that net income in the latest fiscal year increased 13.9 percent, to $290.9 million, or $3.75 a share, from $255.3 million, or $3.47 cents a share, on a comparable basis.

The company said the gains were largely attributable to substantial operating increases from its sugar operations and record results from its Paramount Pictures subsidiary, led by the box-office success of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' Colgate-Palmolive

The Colgate-Palmolive Company announced that net income in the third quarter dropped 26.4 percent, to $37.3 million, or 45 cents a share, from $50.7 million, or 62 cents a share, in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Sales were virtually unchanged, at about $1.3 billion.

Colgate said the the results in the latest quarter reflected a $24.3 million, or 30 cents a share, negative currency translation adjustment contrasted to a gain of $4.5 million, or 6 cents a share, in the corresponding quarter of 1980. ---- Earnings tables, page D11.


By now, Chrysler Corporation managers are used to cliffhangers. But even by their own standards, last week may have been a bit much.

With the deadline for submitting a survival plan worthy of another $400 million in Federal loan guarantees less than 24 hours away, Treasury Secretary G. William Miller sent the carmaker back to the bargaining board with the United Auto Workers, the banks who now hold Chyrsler loans and the company's suppliers. After a long night's work, their concessions met with conditional approval. Friday was to mark the formal O.K, with 15 days to get it all in writing.

But Friday is now Monday, the hitch not another rejiggering of the plan but rather the diversion of Mr. Miller's attention to the Iranian hostage banking negotiations. Actually, the extra weekend won't hurt. One of the stipulations of the loan guarantee board, which is overseeing the $1.5 billion in guarantees already granted, is that Chrysler's lenders accept 15 cents on the dollar for $1 billion of its debt. And until they do, another condition, that the company seek a merger, cannot be successfully pursued. As for the suppliers and the union, they are to freeze prices and wages respectively. The U.A.W.'s contribution, in cost-of-living increases until 1982, would come to $622 million from its 64,000 workers.


BEVERLY Sills was comparing notes with Albert Hudes on their f avorite tear-jerkers. ''La Boheme,'' said Mr. Hudes, who is directoro f development for the New York City Opera. ''I feel cheated if I d on't cry on cue. The cue for me is in the third act when Mimi says s he's leaving Rodolfo.''

''I cry at 'Butterfly,' '' Miss Sills announced between bites on a carrot stick. ''That's my baby.'' Then, turning back to the buffet table, she said: ''Oh, somebody ate up all my carrots. Do I have to eat celery now?''

Meanwhile, Mary McFadden was discussing orchids with John W. Mazzola, president of Lincoln Center. ''I'm an orchid nut,'' the designer said. ''I can't kill an orchid plant. I think I'm going to ask my building if I can grow orchids on the top. There's a swimming pool up there with a few sad, dying plants.''

They were among the 50 guests at a cocktail party on Wednesday in Bonwit Teller's Designer Salon, marking the store's first anniversary on 57th Street. Tonight there will be a gala to benefit the Consolidated Corporate Fund of Lincoln Center. A City Opera performance of ''La Boheme'' will be followed by a supper dance.

''We decided to give Lincoln Center a present for our birthday,'' said Helen Galland, president of Bonwit's. ''We expect to raise at least $50,000.''

Catherine Lamy, who is making her City Opera debut as Mimi, eyed the evening dresses on display and said ruefully: ''I saw my Mimi costumes today. They're so drab. Musetta gets all the glamorous ones.'' THe party that heralded the opening on Tuesday of the Pierre Hotel'sr edecorated Cotillion Room would have been glamorous even in a barn. T he guests included Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Patricia Lawford, E unice Shriver, Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Christopher Reeve, Y asmin Khan, Jacques d'Amboise, Norris and Norman Mailer, Burl Ives, W endy and Orin Lehman, Alexandra and Arthur Schlesinger and Vernon J ordan.

They were brought together by Jean Kennedy Smith for the annual awards banquet of the National Committee, Arts for the Handicapped, of which she is national chairman.

Among the Adolfos, McFaddens and de la Rentas, the dresses that caused the most comment were Mrs. Smith's and Mrs. Lawford's. ''Jean, haven't I seen that dress before?'' Senator Kennedy asked his sister. ''It's Mother's, isn't it?'' Mrs. Shriver said. ''Yes,'' Mrs. Smith admitted, fanning out the red chiffon flounce. Then Mrs. Lawford arrived in a silver and white dress with a fringed skirt and said: ''Jean told me she was wearing one of Mother's dresses, so I wore one of Mother's dresses, too.''

''A NNIE'' celebrated its fifth birthday on Broadway this week by taking over the Atrium and six restaurants in the Citicorp Center. Martin Charnin, the show's director and lyricist, greeted guests in a black satin jacket with a blue plastic butterfly under his collar. ''They told me to wear a butterfly, so I wore a butterfly,'' he said.

Among the guests assigned to Les Tournebroches for dinner were Allison Smith, the current Annie; Lewis Allen, a co-producer; his wife, Jay Presson Allen, the screenwriter; Marty Elfand, the movie producer, and Arthur Cowen, an investor (''I put $16,000 into 'Annie' and the money keeps rolling in,'' he said).

''If we're all in here,'' Mrs. Allen said, ''this must be the V.I.P. room.'' Later, contemplating the Cornish hen on her dinner plate, she said to her husband: ''If we'd had a little less clout, we could have had pasta in Alfredo's.'' THE Metropolitan Museum of Art held its annual spring benefit on M onday, and it was interesting to see the reactions of people e ntering the Great Hall. Some, awed by its vastness, quickly ducked i nto the cloakroom. Others posed in the doorway, commanding attentionl ike actors making a grand entrance. Peter Martins, hearing the s trains of ''Wunderbar,'' scooped up a young woman in his party and w altzed her around.

Proceeds from the party ($500 for cocktails and dinner; $100 for the after-dinner dance) go toward keeping galleries open. ''We make a lot of money on this,'' said Mary Sykes Cahan, senior public affairs associate, ''but we never tell how much. We don't want people to get complacent.'' Anne-Marie Schiro


''My husband had been looking for 10 years for someone to discuss Joyce with. He couldn't do it with me - I'm not a Joycean - but after we bought the bookstore a year ago he formed a Joyce Club and now they can all drown in each other's passion,'' said Lila Beldock Cohen, owner of Paperback Alley, 984 Sullivan Avenue, South Windsor. Joyceans will gather at the shop June 15, and one Tuesday each month, to discuss, read and generally commemorate the Irish author's works and spirit.

Recently, they held a 100th birthday party for James Joyce. Another special event June 16 is called ''Bloomsday,'' a milestone in Joyce's life. It was the day the author first dated his future wife, Nora, and the date on which events in the life of Leopold Bloom, central character in ''Ulysses,'' Joyce's most famous novel, took place. Marathon readings of the book are held each June 16 wherever Joyceans congregate throughout the world, and at Paperback Alley they will commence at 8 A.M. and continue for 12 hours.

The Writer's Club of Paperback Alley will meet at the bookstore at 7:30 P.M. this Tuesday with Charles Morse, columnist for The Hartford Courant, as guest speaker. And the Virginia Woolf Memorial Gallery is open daily for those who wish to browse, read or contemplate life. It contains older fiction, chairs, coffee and a child's playpen. ''We named it for Virginia Woolf because I spend a lot of time there trying to write,'' said Mrs. Cohen, ''and she once said that for a woman to write, she needs a room of her own and an outside income.''

Marshall J. Cohen, her husband, is a psychiatric social worker for the State of Connecticut. ''One of us has to earn a living,'' said Mrs. Cohen. There are no admission charges, but reservations are advisable for the special events. For further information, call 644-9979. BLUEGRASS WEEKEND

Seventy-seven acres of green grass at Strawberry Park in Preston will vibrate to the sound of Bluegrass Friday through next Sunday when the 5th Annual Bluegrass Weekend is held at the park's campgrounds located north of Mystic, off Route 165.

Entertainers will include Glen Huffer as master of ceremonies, and Grass Roots, Traver Hollow, Johnson Mountain Boys, Dave Liska and The Kentucky Wind, Billings Gap, Lost in the Shuffle, Sounds of Bluegrass and The Mountain Laurel Cloggers.

A wide variety of other amusements at the park includes three swimming pools, a baseball field, volleyball, basketball and shuffleboard, hiking, hayrides, square dancing, arts and crafts, saunas, and story hours for children. Horseback riding over miles of trails and pony rides for youngsters are also available.

For those who do not bring their own equipment, there are trailers and tents already installed for rent. For those who do, the campsites reflect many moods - densely populated, secluded, woodsy or lawnmowed. Sanitary and laundry facilities, hot and cold food, fireplaces and picnic tables are always on hand.

A special $50 camping charge for families will be in effect for the bluegrass weekend. For a detailed schedule of rates and more information, call 886-1944. AUDUBON TALK

The Endangered Species Act will expire Oct. 1 unless Congress reauthorizes funding for it. Ken Berlin, counsel and legislative director for the National Audubon Society and chairman of the Endangered Species Reauthorization Coalition Coordinating Committee, will speak and show a film on the subject at 8 P.M. Tuesday, Baldwin Middle School, Guilford, sponsored by the Menunkatuck Audubon Society.

His talk will deal with the way the act works, its economic impact, the dynamics of lobbying for environmental legislation, threats to species diversity, what is important about the threats and what can be done to save species from extermination.

The talk is free. More information may be obtained by calling 453-3340. COLONIAL NEEDLEWORK

''Plain and Fancywork,'' the new exhibition running until July 12 at the General William Hart House in Old Saybrook, is an indication of why colonial women's work was never done.

A comprehensive display of homemade textiles from the 17th through 19th centuries, the exhibit takes fabric on its journey from sheep or flax to spinning wheel, hand loom, stitching, embroidery and other steps necessary for producing everything in the household from bed linen to underwear to towels to gowns to military uniforms.

Patchwork, samplers, needlepoint and beadwork are also included. The ''fancier'' the work, the more likely that it was done at a later period, when families had prospered and the lady of the house could pass on the ''plain'' sewing to servants.

The show fills all rooms in the 1767 mansion, which is open from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. Fridays through Mondays. A gift shop and 18th-century garden are other features of the Historical Society facility. For more information, call 388-2622. ENGLISH FETE IN NEWTOWN

In 1776, John Beach, founder of Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, refused to recant his allegiance to King George. A former congregational minister, he had returned briefly to England and was ordained an Anglican. By sheer force of will he kept his church and a handful of other American Anglican churches open in spite of the forcible closing of many others by colonial authorities.

While many of his colleagues fled to Canada, he remained in Connecticut, steadfastly loyalist. ''He regarded such revolutionaries as Nathan Hale and the Sons of Liberty as young hoodlums,'' said Bob Gardner, an organizer of the English Fete celebrating the church's 250th birthday and its Anglo-American roots from 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Saturday.

The festival will be held on the church green, 36 Main Street, and it will feature re-creations of 17th- and 18th-century crafts, trades, music, dancing and life styles. An encampment, parade and mock Revolutionary War battle between colonists and loyalists will take place at 10 A.M. in Ram's Pasture at Routes 25 and 302. Eleanor Charles


06/26/2015 AT 04:45 PM EDT

One Georgia deputy has given new meaning to the phrase, "to serve and protect."

On June 18, Alexandra Davis, who is expecting a baby with her fiancé, wrote a private message to the Forsyth County Sheriffâs Office's

to find the deputy who anonymously paid for her gas.

The deputy had overheard Davis on the phone with her fiancé and learned they were "scraping for money," according to

"My fiancé and I are living paycheck to paycheck as I am 26 weeks pregnant," she wrote in her online message. "He is looking for a better job."

The 21-year-old had to withdraw $10 from her savings in order to pay for the gas to get home that night.

"Iâd finally been able to deposit the $100 I needed to pay back my stepmom," Davis tells PEOPLE. "I put it in a place where I canât just grab it if I want to get lunch or something – Iâve really been trying to save it."

While waiting to pay for gas, she called her fiancé, 24-year-old Kyle Roper.

"I said, 'I'm using $10 for gas, so I can get home tonight,' " Davis says. "I guess [the deputy] overheard that part of my conversation. I was thinking to myself, 'Man, this guy is taking forever.' "

When she got to the counter, the gas station employee told her that the officer had paid for her gas. She was still on the phone and was "confused," so she ran out the door to find the deputy, but he was driving away.

"He was already in his truck," Davis exclaims. "[He] didnât look back, he just drove away!"

On Thursday, the Forsyth County Sheriffâs Office revealed that they tracked down the deputy who helped Davis, but that he chose to remain anonymous.

"He really inspired me to pay it forward and pass that blessing on to someone else,â Davis says. "The smallest things can turn out to be the biggest blessings."

Summary: âHe really inspired me to pay it forward and pass that blessing on to someone else,â Alexandra Davis tells PEOPLE


Iran and major powers have admitted during tense talks that their fast-looming deadline to nail down a historic nuclear deal will be missed as they struggle to overcome major differences.

Officials in Vienna said on Sunday however that Tuesday's target date would only be missed by a few days, with Iran saying there is "no desire or discussion yet" on a longer extension.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif meanwhile was set to return to Tehran for consultations, officials said, although the US said this was not a matter of concern.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said as he joined the talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers that the six powers were prepared to walk away if needed.

"We still have very big challenges if we are going to be able to get this deal done," Hammond told reporters.

"No deal is better than a bad deal. There are red lines that we cannot cross and some very difficult decisions and tough choices are going to have to be made by all of us," Hammond said.

Earlier on Sunday, EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini said "political will" was still needed to get a deal after almost two years of intense diplomatic efforts to resolve the 13-year-old standoff.

"It is going to be tough, it has always been tough but not impossible," Mogherini told reporters.

Iran and the P5+1 group - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - are seeking to flesh out the final details of a accord that builds on a framework deal reached in Lausanne in April.

Zarif's deputy Abbas Araghchi suggested parts of that framework no longer applied because other countries had changed their positions.

A deal must stand up to intense scrutiny by hardliners in Iran and the United States, as well as Iran's regional rivals Israel, widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself, and Saudi Arabia.

According to the Lausanne framework, Iran will slash the number of its uranium enrichment centrifuges, which can make nuclear fuel but also the core of a bomb, shrink its uranium stockpile and change the design of the Arak reactor.

In return it is seeking a lifting of a complicated web of EU, US and UN sanctions which have choked its economy and limited access to world oil markets.

But tough remaining issues include the timing and pace of this sanctions relief and UN access to Iranian military bases, something which Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday again ruled out.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said ahead of his arrival in Vienna that "if there is no clarity on this (inspections of military sites), there will be no deal."

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Summary: A June 30 deadline to reach a historic nuclear deal with Iran will be missed, negotiators for Tehran and major powers admit.


Samsung has announced plans to slash prices on its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones, indicating an effort to boost lagging smartphone sales.

The tech giant reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and announced its "plans to firmly maintain its sale of premium smartphones by flexibly adjusting the price of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, and launching a new model with a larger screen." Samsung didn't announce specific prices, however.

The price-cutting move comes amid falling profits and a declining share of the smartphone market for Samsung. Profits fell 8 percent last quarter, including a 38 percent decline in mobile income. The company's worldwide quarterly smartphone shipments fell 2.3 percent year over year, according to research firm IDC.

Summary: Samsung said it plans to reduce Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphone prices to boost its lagging smartphone sales.


Michael Ainsworth | Pool | Reuters

Ice and sleet covers the road in Stephenville, Texas.

Subzero cold had already arrived in the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa by 4 a.m. ET and temperature records were expected to fall in those areas throughout the morning. The icy blast was expected to shift east throughout the day, Palmer said.

While the cold remained relentless, there was a brief rest from snow and ice for much of the nation. More than 100,000 homes and businesses were still without power in the Carolinas, Virginia, Alabama and Georgia, after those states were hit with as much as 10 inches of snow Wednesday.

Not This Time! Atlanta Plans to Avoid Snow Paralysis Thousands still stranded on Atlanta highways Helicopter Rescues Students Stranded by Snow Near Grand Canyon

The only areas getting snow early Friday were Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Another band of snow was forecast to hit the Midwest on Saturday and shift into the Northeast on Sunday.

Summary: It may be almost March, but the brutally cold winter appears unwilling to release much of the nation from its icy grip. NBCNews reports.


Hometown: She was born in Atlanta, but her family moved to Boston when she was 3 months old.

Think of: She often gets compared to former Boston comic Patrice O’Neal, who died in 2011, because she can deliver confessional or potentially offensive material with a straight face and cool demeanor, dissecting the creepy crimes of “Law & Order: SVU” or describing how her girlfriends think she’s handy because she wears pants instead of a dress.

What caught our eye: She has frequently stolen the show at the Comedy Studio with her effortless honesty and confidence.

Light bulb moment: When she was living in Atlanta for college, a girlfriend asked her what she wanted to be, and Jay said “a comedian,” surprising herself. “As soon as I said it I was like, ‘Oh [expletive] I can’t believe I just said that.’ You know what I mean? Out loud to another person.” When her girlfriend asked her why she wasn’t doing it, Jay said, “Because I’m scared I’m going to be good at it.” About a year later, in 2011, she moved back to Boston to do comedy and hasn’t looked back since.

Biggest thrill: Being onstage, telling jokes to strangers. “You get up there and you piece together this bit and you say it, and it hits like you thought it was going to hit. And you get this huge laugh out of these people that you don’t even know. It’s like, nothing feels better than that.”

Biggest surprise: In March, Jay performed on New York comic Hannibal Buress’s show at the Knitting Factory. “To be onstage doing my thing and to hear him laughing at my jokes — to look over and see him — that was the first time I performed for someone on that level, that I respected. . . . And for him to confirm or verify that I was funny was like, holy [expletive], this is crazy.”

Inspired by: She loved Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby as a youngster, and Dave Chappelle when she started comedy, but her true inspiration is just being alive and getting to be a comedian. “No matter if I have two dollars in my bank account or I have two thousand, I feel great because I know that I’m doing what I’m intended to do on this Earth.”

Aspires to: “Have my own tour where I’m going to theaters around the country and venues around the country and people are there just to see me and my brand of comedy. They already know what I do and they’re there for that, and I can just be me for 40 minutes.”

For good luck: “I listen to Drake before every show and I sit, a lot of times, in bathrooms of venues all by myself for a little while. I do a little prayer moment. Just a little one. A little, ‘Hey, God, how you doin’? Look out for the kid.’ Then I just get up and walk out.”

What people should know: At press time, Jay was competing for votes with other comics on FunnyOrDie.com to play the second stage on the Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Tour, which comes to the Xfinity Center in Mansfield on Aug. 15. But what she wants you to know is that her comedy is genuine. “The impression I try to leave people with is that I’m a real person. This isn’t something I made up to make you laugh. This is my life. These are my thoughts. I’m just trying to put them out there and see if you dig ’em.”

Coming soon: Jay cohosts the stand-up and sketch show Comedy Chop Suey with Tawanda Gona at the Milky Way Lounge in Jamaica Plain on July 31.

Summary: Profile of up-and-coming Boston-area comic Sam Jay.