The 38th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival opens Sept. 4 under a slight cloud of missed chances. This year, festival programmers announced that any movie that had its world premiere at one of the fall’s other major festivals — Venice, New York, Telluride — wouldn’t get a prestigious early berth at Toronto. So Canadian audiences won’t be getting to see Ben Affleck in “Gone Girl,” the David Fincher adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestseller. Nor will they see Alejandro Inarritu’s “Birdman,” with its wild comeback performance by Michael Keaton. Toronto festivalgoers will just have to be content with the 400-plus other films from Hollywood, off-Hollywood, and around the planet. As the annual awards race seems to start earlier with each passing year, TIFF is still Oscar season’s prime launching pad, and beyond the glitz are some terrific films you may not see anywhere else. Here are the ones I’m most looking forward to.

The unholy mix of talents on this one is enough to get anyone paying attention. Flemish filmmaker Michael R. Roskam turned heads with 2011’s startling “Bullhead” and has now adapted a short story (“Animal Rescue”) by the pride of Boston, Dennis Lehane. Not surprisingly, it’s about a botched robbery and its aftermath, but promising to raise things further above the ordinary is a stellar cast: the always-mesmerizing Tom Hardy, original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Noomi Rapace, and — in his final role before his untimely death — James Gandolfini.

The latest from stealth auteur Bennett Miller (“Moneyball,” “Capote”) was a sensation at Cannes in May, not least for Steve Carell’s career-changing dramatic turn as John DuPont, the wealthy eccentric who bankrolled the careers of Olympic wrestlers and who, in 1996, shot one to death in his driveway. Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum costar; the Oscar drumbeats have already begun for Carell, who seems to have physically transformed into an entirely different person for this role.

“The Imitation Game” and “The Theory of Everything”

Two broody big-science biopics that star, respectively, the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”) as WWII code breaker, AI pioneer, and persecuted homosexual Alan Turing and the not-well-enough-known Eddie Redmayne (“Les Miserables”) as renowned physicist Stephen Hawking in his early days. Felicity Jones (“Like Crazy”) plays Hawking’s wife Jane Wilde, on whose book the film by James Marsh (“Man on Wire”) is based.

“The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”

Japan’s Studio Ghibli has seemed almost as much a locked room as the mind of its resident genius, animator Hayao Miyazaki. Arriving not long after the announcement of the studio’s imminent shuttering, filmmaker Mami Sunada’s documentary promises to reveal what goes on in the real Magic Kingdom — the one responsible for surreal classics like “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro.” “Kingdom” also stands to make a long-overdue case for the second grandmaster of Ghibli, animator Isao Takahata, whose “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” will also be playing TIFF.

A film adaptation of the cult off-Broadway musical that tells a love story both forward (from his side of events) and backward (from hers), with one song that meets in the middle and gets all the musical-theater groupies crying like babies. Richard LaGravenese directs and Jeremy Jordan (currently starring in the American Repertory Theater’s “Finding Neverland”) plays the guy, but the reason this may be special is Anna Kendrick as the girl. Some of us have been waiting for this Maine native to get a shot at a big, old-fashioned musical since seeing her nail “The Ladies Who Lunch” in 2003’s “Camp.”

The legendary Liv Ullmann, once the muse of Ingmar Bergman and now a Boston-area local, goes behind the camera to bring August Strindberg’s 1888 psychosexual power struggle to the screen. Colin Farrell plays the stroppy valet Jean, and Jessica Chastain plays the nobleman’s daughter who wants him and taunts him. Can the ethereal Chastain do envelope-pushing classic drama? Hell, yes, say the few moviegoers lucky to have seen Al Pacino’s 2013 filming of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” with the actress in the title role.

Germany’s Christian Petzold conquered the international festival circuit with 2012’s “Barbara,” and now he returns with the kind of weighty-yet-crazy melodrama that will either soar on wings of intensity or fall flat on its face. Nina Hoss, the gravely beautiful star of “Barbara” — she almost stole “A Most Wanted Man” from the late Philip Seymour Hoffman — plays a disfigured Holocaust survivor who gets a new face and a new relationship with an old husband.

Jon Stewart made a movie, so it has to be a comedy, right? Or perhaps a documentary? Wrong. Stewart was inspired — actually, chagrined might be a better word — by the case of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who was featured in a satiric segment on Stewart’s “The Daily Show” in 2009 and was subsequently imprisoned and brutalized by Iranian authorities for five months, on suspicions of being an American spy. Gael Garcia Bernal plays Bahari. On TV Stewart has perfected a balancing act of stinging political commentary behind a comic façade, but his debut feature sees him walking far out on the wire.

Sept. 5 is Bill Murray Day at the Toronto Film Festival, and, oh heck, why not just call it a global holiday and give everyone the day off? Screenings of the comedian’s classic films will culminate in the premiere of his latest, which costars Naomi Watts and Melissa McCarthy and casts Murray, a.k.a. the Buddha of the movies, as a “misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic war veteran.” In other words, “Stripes Pt. XVII.”

Other Toronto film’s I’ll be jostling in line to see: “Love and Mercy,” featuring Paul Dano as young Beach Boy Brian Wilson; Cannes hit “Mr. Turner,” with Timothy Spall as painter J.M.W. Turner for director Mike Leigh; Mia Wasikowska as “Madame Bovary” for director Sophie Barthes; Thomas McCarthy (“The Station Agent,” “The Visitor”) trying to wrangle Adam Sandler into a genuine acting performance in “The Cobbler”; and “Natural Resistance,” the latest wine documentary from Jonathan Nossiter, perhaps the only filmmaker who’s also a professional sommelier.

And these are only the movies I know I want to see. The best part of a film festival is discovering the ones you don’t.

Summary: As the annual awards race seems to start earlier with each passing year, the Toronto International Film Festival is still Oscar season’s prime launching pad, and beyond the glitz are some terrific films you may not see anywhere else.


09/15/2014 AT 09:00 PM EDT

has canceled all of her European promotional commitments because of her health, the singer announced Monday.

The singer, 29, was forced to bow out of two private concerts for Virgin Radio listeners in Paris,

, and also canceled a scheduled appearance with Zane Lowe in Radio 1's Live Lounge.

"For medical reasons independent of our will, the artist has been forced to cancel all promotional activities planned in Europe over the coming days," her label Polydor/Universal said in a statement.

The singer is scheduled to perform this Friday at the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta.

A rep did not immediately respond for comment.

Summary: The Ultraviolence singer cancels her upcoming European appearances for medical reasons


FORTUNE — Comedian Louis CK said on Tuesday that he had taken in $500,000 in less than three days from selling his latest standup special directly to the public at $5 a pop. This should make media companies nervous because this is the future — and increasingly, the present — of media distribution. Remember all that stuff people were saying 15 years ago about the Internet’s capacity for disintermediation? It’s all coming true now.

Here’s the thing about media companies: they have trouble with edge. That’s why local newspapers often churn out inoffensive mush. It’s why “local” commercial radio sounds precisely the same in Birmingham, Ala. as it does in Berkeley, Calif. And it’s why a brilliant comedian like Louis CK couldn’t make it on network television despite two attempts: network executives filed his edges completely away, even though people like him precisely for his edges.

Even auteur-friendly outlets like Time Warner’s TWX HBO act as filters between artist and audience. In that case, much of the downside comes on the business end. Louis CK told Terry Gross on Fresh Air this week that with traditional comedy specials, he gets his fee, but never a cut of the aftermarket, where the real money is made. After the special airs, he said, “then they put it on video, you know, on iTunes AAPL , Netflix NFLX and DVD, and then they go try to make a profit with it. You’re supposed to participate in that profit, but I’ve never seen a check from a comedy special. They’re just — it’s never — it never ends up being that.”

Here, it’s all that. On Wednesday morning, the comedian tweeted that sales of the new special had reached 130,000 downloads, for a gross of $650,000. On his Web site, he broke down the finances: the cost of producing the six-camera shoot and renting the Beacon Theater was basically covered by ticket sales (he directed the thing himself and edited the video — which looks as good as any “professionally” produced special). Expenses associated with distributing the video were minimal — there is a near-zero marginal cost for each video sold. And unlike traditional media, very little in the way of fixed costs. No big marketing expenses, no focus groups, no paying media-company middlemen to do … whatever it is they do. (So far, he’s netted about $200,000.)

“If the trend continues with sales on this video,” he wrote, “my goal is that I can reach the point where when I sell anything, be it videos, CDs or tickets to my tours, I’ll do it here and I’ll continue to follow the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not overmarketing to you, keeping as few people between you and me as possible in the transaction.”

He also made the video DRM-free. He was worried about piracy, and he’s been pleading with his fans to not put the video on bittorrent sites. Of course, it was pirated within minutes, which might be cutting into sales a bit. But with a $5 price point, the incentive to download pirated copies is almost nil. True fans will pay it and, given how successful the enterprise has been for all concerned, piracy can be seen as simply a cost of doing business rather than the Armageddon the media industry sees.

Most important to Louis and his fans, though, is this: “I got to do exactly the show I wanted, and exactly the show you wanted.” Indeed, this might be the funniest hour of standup Louis CK has ever done.

Of course, it helps that Louis was — thanks in part to big media companies — already famous. The funniest comedian in the world couldn’t have done something like this on such a scale if he or she were unknown. And standup specials are one thing — produced television is something else. Even Louis needs a network like FX to finance production and distribution of his sitcom, Louie, though it should be noted that it’s done on the cheap, and the network lets Louis do basically whatever he wants. He demanded that freedom going in, and the show is successful for that reason.

Media companies will be around for a long time to come, to develop talent and distribute product (though the Internet eating into that part of the business, too — just look at the success of comedy podcasts by relative unknowns). But the fact that no big companies were involved in this should give pause to all media executives who think they know better than performers what audiences want, and how much they’re willing to pay to get it.

Summary: Comedian Louis CK is raking it in with a Web-based experiment that cuts out distributors. That should make media companies very nervous.


SAN FRANCISCO — Despite an Internet outcry about their malleability, Apple’s new iPhones proved difficult to bend in lab tests run by Consumer Reports magazine.

Stress tests on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and on comparable smartphones from Apple Inc.’s competitors, showed that it took ‘‘significant force’’ to damage any of the devices, Consumer Reports said in results of a study published on its website.

‘‘All the phones we tested showed themselves to be pretty tough,’’ the report said. ‘‘We expect that any of these phones should stand up to typical use.’’

Following claims the iPhone 6 Plus bends if it’s sat upon, Apple said that bending of its devices is ‘‘extremely rare.’’ Only nine customers had contacted Apple about a bent iPhone 6 Plus, the company said Thursday.

The iPhone 6 Plus began to deform after 90 pounds of force was applied, and the iPhone 6 stood up to pressure until 70 pounds was applied, the same as the HTC One M8. The Galaxy Note 3 was damaged at 150 pounds. All devices withstood 55 pounds, the force needed to break three pencils, the magazine said.

‘‘Bear in mind that it took significant force to do this kind of damage to all these phones,’’ Consumer Reports said. ‘‘Both iPhones seem tougher than the Internet fracas implies.’’


(Reuters) – Tesla Motors TSLA unveiled an all-wheel drive Model S Thursday night, saying “D” stands for “dual motor,” putting an end to days of speculation on the meaning of the cryptic “D” in Chief Executive Elon Musk’s tweet last week.

At an event in Hawthorne, California, the Silicon Valley automaker announced the latest upgrades, about a week after Musk posted a pair of tweets suggesting the company would soon announce a product he referred to as “D.”

Summary: Duel-motor Model S is the latest from the Silicon Valley electric car maker.


PITTSBURGH I T is noon, and the revolving doors of the Duquesne Club spin nonstop as a seemingly endless stream of men and women spills into the small foyer. They wait for their luncheon partners under murals of cherubim engaged in pursuits that are not usually associated with the chubby nudes, but are dear to the members' hearts: golfing, fly casting, hunting. Many of the women, however, slip discreetly toward the side staircase and what is still known - despite rechristening a year ago as the Crystal Room - as the Ladies' Dining Room.

Women were permitted to join the Duquesne Club last year but, to the immense relief of its 2,500 males, it is still very much a man's world. ''After all the fuss we had, we finally wound up with three women members,'' said Gurdon F. Flagg, the club's 80-year-old secretary-treasurer, noting that few women have reached the rarefied levels appropriate to membership. The privileged few ''are all very gratified to be able to come in,'' added Mr. Flagg, who has worked at the club for 50 years.

Indeed, change comes slowly to the venerable Duquesne Club, which is celebrating its centenary this year. Once the home away from home for Carnegies, Fricks, Mellons, Laughlins, Joneses and others who made their fortunes in coal, steel, railroads, oil and banking, the club is still the place for the captains of Pittsburgh industry. Its membership list draws heavily from the top executive ranks of U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Gulf Oil, Westinghouse and other corporate giants.

Although many of the industries that made Pittsburgh great have gone into decline, taking with them some of Pittsburgh's luster, there is no suggestion of fallen fortunes at the club. In recent years, other clubs have been forced to consolidate (Dartmouth with Yale, Columbia with Princeton), move into rented quarters (the Advertising Club, Brown and the Lambs all use the Women's National Republican Club in New York) or shut down altogether (the Fifth Avenue, Engineers and Weavers Clubs). But the finances of the Duquesne Club have rarely been healthier, thanks to hefty admission fees, loyal membership and a reputation for serving the best food in town.

In the old days, of course, the membership numbered more robber barons and self-made millionaires. Stefan Lorant, a steward at the club, remembered one of the new millionaires, downing his sixth drink as he filled sheet after sheet with figures. ''I am trying to figure out whether I am worth $6 million or is it $8 million,'' he said. Others were less ostentatious, such as Andrew William Mellon, a reserved man who left his limousine at the corner to avoid attention. ''A.W. seldom spoke to anyone,'' recalled Mr. Flagg.

Even today, the Duquesne Club, which was established as a club for ''social enjoyment,'' is not the exclusive domain of the business community. Frequently its private dining rooms are filled by the Pittsburgh opera society or similar groups. (Such social events, as well as frequent private entertaining by corporations, help fill the club's coffers.) In terms of cultural and charitable activities, said Howard Love, chairman of National Steel and member for 15 years, ''It's a big part of the fabric of this city.''

But in this corporate town, surpassed by only New York and Chicago as a headquarters for large companies, the Duquesne Club has a firm grip on business's heart and - thanks to its highly rated kitchen - stomach. When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently ranked this city's top-paid executives - described as ''the fortunate 50,'' it led with two Rockwell International executives, Robert Anderson and Donald Beall, each earning more than $1 million. The list bore striking similarities to the club's membership roster. ''At least 10 of them are currently on our board, and another 10 have been,'' said Melvin Rex, the club's manager.

''It's a relatively tight business community in Pittsburgh,'' said Jerry McAfee, who is chairman of Gulf Oil and president of the Duquesne Club. ''The Duquesne Club is central.'' Mr. McAfee joined in 1955, when he became one of the score of vice presidents at the oil company. Indeed, membership in the Duquesne Club is generally regarded as an inevitable perquisite for an executive who reaches a certain level.

It is also a necessary means of doing business. ''A lot of deals are made at the club, on both the buy and the sell sides, and a lot of contacts,'' said David Roderick, chairman of U.S. Steel and a past president of the club.

''It oils the machinery that makes thing happen,'' said Alberta Arthurs, president of Chatham College, a local women's college. (Mrs. Arthurs is one-third of the club's female membership; the others are Paula Hughes, a first vice president for Thomson McKinnon Securities who is a trustee of Carnegie-Mellon University; and Sister Jane Scully, president of Carlow College and a director of Gulf Oil.)

One of the reasons that membership is so highly regarded is its cost. The club charges $4,000 in initiation fees and $740 a year in dues for active members, and in most cases it is the employer who pays. (Members who do not live in Pittsburgh, are elderly or have retired get a reduction.) And not everybody who has the price is accepted. An aspiring member must be nominated and seconded by no fewer than five members, and even those who are accepted face a 10-month wait.


Wizzard wheeze ... Roy by Scott King. Image Herald Street London, Bortolami New York/PA

David Baddiel's side didn't stand a chance. In Football Pitch (1997), the comedian is at midfield in a soccer-match diagram, heading up a team that includes Chris Evans and Frank Skinner. Not a bad first 11. But take a look at the other side. There are 48 of them, and, in terms of raw talent, they seriously outshine Baddiel's boys: Jean Genet, Malcolm McLaren, André Breton, Chuck D.

For anyone who suffered through the beery, leery 90s, Football Pitch is thrilling. Suddenly it seems as if you might not be on the losing side.

"I'm not really a football fan," explains the artist, Scott King. "The idea was just a device to illustrate both 'whose side are you on?' and to 'beat them at their own game'." As King says, being a football supporter was a prerequisite for "new lads" back then.

The piece is typical of King: pop with highbrow references, partisan, simple, graphic. It was first published in the inaugural issue of Crash!, an art magazine that King co-produced with the historian Matt Worley immediately after leaving the art directorship of the style magazine i-D. It appears again this month in a retrospective book, Scott King Art Works, alongside other pieces that could be seen as funny, puerile, glib or heroic, depending which side you come down on. There's a bar chart illustrating the incidence of Christian names among Britain's fallen soldiers; Venn diagrams examining the appeal of Kurt Cobain and Manic Street Preacher Richey Edwards. A bust of Karl Marx is made up to look like glam rocker Roy Wood; Cher's eyes, nose and mouth are fitted on to Che Guevara.

King's friend Wolfgang Tillmans convinced him to put the book together. Tillmans also helped fund Crash! 13 years ago and offered King advice on how to make the transition from newsstand to gallery. "It's a big leap, from graphic design to art. People who have done it, like Barbara Kruger, are few and far between," King says. "Once I treated the art world with too much reverence. Now I've no interest in other people's opinions."

King was born in 1969 and grew up in Goole, East Yorkshire. He did his graphic design degree in Hull, landed the job at i-D, and later began designing record sleeves for clients such as Morrissey. "They paid so well," he admits. "But I've always felt much more akin to artists like Sarah Lucas. That's more me than [graphic designer] Neville Brody's version of The Face magazine or New Order's covers."

The continuity in King's work is striking. Some of this can be put down to his long-term, collaborative relationship with Worley. "What struck me about Scott," says Worley, "was that he could express, in a pop manner, ideas writers needed whole books to explain." The 20th century's ideological battle lines seem to recur in a work such as The Oppressed, a roomful of revolutionary slogans written on speech bubbles. "I do have a nostalgia for movements and people who thought they could change things; who said no, rather than OK all the time," says Worley.

Crash! recently put together a programme for this year's Marathon, a series of artists' presentations at London's Serpentine Gallery. Listings are interspersed with Better Britain, Crash!'s satire of arts initiatives in a time of cuts. Suggestions include erecting gigantic reproductions of the Tubular Bells sculpture from Mike Oldfield's 1973 album cover at sites of economic depravation, and sticking the Angel of the North on Nelson's Column. "It's utterly idiotic, the idea that egomaniac artists can come up with these things while the country is in complete meltdown," says King of art-led plans for regeneration. "It's like Hitler making plans for Welthauptstadt Germania from his Berlin bunker in 1945."

And yet, despite King's attack on the arts establishment, his work could be strengthening Britain's gallery businesses. Graphics commentator Adrian Shaughnessy says that thanks to people like him, today's young designers don't want to take commercial briefs and instead view themselves as artists.

"I'm no intellectual," King says, "but I do my best. At worst, I'll get the gist of some Walter Benjamin and make it into pop crap. From years of labouring away with the same five pages, I think some of it sinks in."

Scott King Art Works is published by JRP Ringier

Summary: Alex Rayner: How did Scott King go from designing style magazines to subverting the art world?


‘‘So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.’’

And with that, Apple CEO Tim Cook, leader of perhaps the world’s most admired company, head of the globe’s most iconic brand and chief of one of the most valuable companies on the planet, became the first CEO in the Fortune 500 to publicly come out as gay. In an eloquent, thoughtful and powerful essay in Bloomberg Businessweek published early Thursday, Cook wrote that ‘‘while I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now.’’

There are a few other CEOs of publicly traded companies who are gay: Trevor Burgess, the chief executive of C1 Financial, became the first openly gay CEO of a publicly traded bank, for instance, and IGI Laboratories CEO Jason Grenfell-Gardner is public about his sexuality.

But there are no CEOs of companies nearly as large or economically significant as Apple who have publicly said they are gay. And that’s important, say gay rights advocates, both to help inspire others to share their stories and to improve workplace discrimination against LGBT employees. ‘‘The fact that Apple is so incredibly ubiquitous and successful — they just posted their most successful quarter of all time — and that it has been led by a now openly gay leader, sends a tremendous message,’’ said Todd Sears, a former investment banker who founded a global LGBT leadership and strategic advising firm.

Fred Sainz, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in an e-mail from an airplane Thursday morning that while it’s always significant when someone makes the choice to come out, Cook does have an ‘‘elevated platform.’’ It’s a platform, he noted, that the Apple CEO has already used to advance equality issues, such as when he spoke out about Alabama’s record on civil rights on Monday.

‘‘I have to believe that business leaders across the world today took notice of the fact that they have a gay colleague now in their ranks,’’ Sainz wrote, ‘‘and questioned what that means to company policies and support for nondiscrimination protections.’’ There is ‘‘lots of positive reflection going on today in boardrooms because of Tim Cook.’’

On the whole, American businesses have become increasingly progressive on the issue of gay rights in recent years, opposing legislation seen as discriminatory, favoring the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act and adding more inclusive workplace policies and incentives. Many large companies have been leaders on the issue.

And yet, 29 states still lack laws that explicitly ban discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation; even more are lacking laws that do the same based on gender identity. Legislation known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act sought to bring such protections to the federal level, but it has long languished since passing the Senate nearly a year ago.

Sears said Cook’s decision to come out in a business publication is especially important. It shows that ‘‘he wanted to come out to his business colleagues and put this in the business context,’’ he said. ‘‘He did not come out in People Magazine.’’

The move, Sears added, could help openly gay senior executives just one level below the CEO to reach Corporate America’s highest post. And it could drive more employees at all levels to feel more comfortable coming out at work, a prospect that could have a tangible impact on productivity. He pointed to research showing that employees who are out about their sexuality at work progress more quickly, are more productive and stay with their companies longer.

Other research, published last December by Deloitte, found that as many as 83 percent of all lesbian, gay and bisexual employees engaged in ‘‘covering’’ at work, a sociological term for downplaying stigmatized activities within an organization. According to Christie Smith, a managing partner at Deloitte, the best solution to the problem may be for more CEOs to speak openly about their personal lives, as Cook has done.

In the survey, Deloitte gave respondents a chance to answer open-ended questions about what would help them feel more comfortable being their true selves at work. The most common answer from employees was that they wanted to see leaders share their stories.

‘‘Not the stories of what they’ve done and their resume, but their stories of who they are,’’ Smith said. ‘‘When you have a senior leader of any organization — but especially a prominent one in the Fortune 10 or in the Fortune 1000 — really talk about who they are and bring their whole selves to work, that is the most effective thing they can do.’’

Summary: There are no CEOs of companies nearly as large or economically significant as Apple who have publicly said they are gay. And that’s important, say gay rights advocates, both to help inspire others to share their stories and to improve workplace discrimination against LGBT employees.


Legal Sea Foods will close its 20-year-old Prudential Center restaurant at the end of the year.

The company said all 144 workers will be transferred to other restaurants. The establishment is slated to close Dec. 28, when its lease expires.

Boston Properties Inc. is redeveloping the 23-acre Prudential Center complex to add a 17-story office building with about 422,000 square feet of space.

Legal Sea Foods said its current site was redesignated for a retail business, instead of a restaurant, because of the project. Legal is in talks with Boston Properties to open a 9,000-square-foot restaurant in the new tower when construction concludes in 2016.

The company had unsuccessfully tried to find a temporary location in the complex during the construction phase.

Summary: Legal Sea Foods will close its 20-year-old Prudential Center restaurant at the end of the year.  The company said all 144 workers will be transferred to other area restaurants.


SeaWorld is having what can only be considered a massively disappointing year. The theme park operator released its third-quarter earnings report today, and things aren’t looking any better than they did earlier this year.

The company reported decreases in revenue, net income, and earnings per share. Those declines can’t be blamed on increased expenses — the simple fact is that fewer people are going to SeaWorld SEAS parks, and when they are there, they are spending less money.

A big reason for this ongoing decline is continued bad publicity. The anti-SeaWorld documentary “Blackfish” seems to be a perennial favorite on lists of suggested documentaries to watch on Netflix NFLX . An announcement of larger habitats for the park’s trademark Orca whales last summer largely backfired, with much of the coverage still focusing on the underlying issues, namely that no tank can recreate the ocean habitats where Orcas live naturally.

Tuna Amobi, an analyst at S&P Capital, said the backlash generated by Blackfish has lasted longer than he thought it would, and that it seems to be continuing. Jared Goodman, the director of animal law at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said his group was going to continue to press SeaWorld on its treatment of Orcas. He said that the continual tanking of the SeaWorld business was a sign that investors and visitors are “deciding not to support marine animal abuse with their hard-earned money.”

Attendance at SeaWorld fell to 8.4 million visitors last quarter, down from 8.9 million in the quarter before. But its not just allegations of animal abuse that are keeping people out of the parks; competition is another factor. In Orlando, Fla., home of one of SeaWorld’s three parks, there’s always tough competition from the likes of Disney DIS , but this year the opening of a second Harry Potter-themed park (operated by Universal) compounded it. During Wednesday’s earnings call, CEO Jim Atchison partially attributed the falling attendance at SeaWorld to “competitive pressures in Florida.” When asked directly about the new Harry Potter park, Atchison said that while he admits the opening may have hurt SeaWorld this year, he doesn’t know if that’s a long-term problem, noting that the initial launch of a major attraction tends to see an attendance spurt, and then “things tend to norm out a little bit.”

And don’t look now, but Elsa and Anna are coming to Orlando soon, with a “Frozen” themed ride coming to the Norway section of Epcot. Epcot has generally been seen as the Disney park with the least appeal to kids — sorry, but a world cultures pavilion isn’t ever going to compete with Cinderella’s Castle — but that may chance now that the mega-hit Frozen is making its way there.

All of this, of course, is bad for SeaWorld. With so many options, it’s hard to see parents who might already be iffy about the treatment of Orcas making the choice to schlep their kids to the park. To adjust for this decrease in revenue, SeaWorld is announced a plan today to cut $50 million in annual expenditures by the end of 2015. The plan will “focus on the centralization of certain administrative and support functions and the further optimization of our park operations,” according to CEO Jim Atchison.

Amobi, though, sees this measure a bandage on a bullet wound, and S&P downgraded the stock from a buy to a hold.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said, adding “it’s a bit underwhelming. I feel like they had their backs up against the wall.”

Summary: A cost-cutting plan won't be enough unless the company can get people back into its parks.


Art is included alongside archival documents in this exhibition about the modern discovery of sex as a scientific subject. Ooh Dr Freud, I had such a strange dream last night …• Wellcome Collection, London NW1 from 20 November until 20 September 2015

Beauty by Design: Fashioning the RenaissanceContemporary fashion meets Renaissance paintings in this intriguing show in which British designers respond to the ruffs and silks that people wear in 16th-century portraits, to investigate the idea of beauty.• Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 15 November until 3 May

The Event SculptureThis is not so much a static exhibition as a series of performances exploring the history of time-bound spatial art from Simone Forti’s Slant Board (1961) to a new decaying sculpture by Urs Fischer.• Henry Moore Institute, Leeds until 8 March

Joan FontcubertaThis Catalan surrealist photographer shakes up our sense of reality with stange images of mythic creatures.• National Media Museum, Bradford from 20 November until 5 February

Mike Nelson selects from the V-A-C collectionLast chance to see this selection of modern sculpture by one of Britain’s most imaginative installation artists.• Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 until 30 November

William Hogarth – Marriage a la Mode, III: The InspectionHogarth’s satire on sex before sexology is a truly shocking portrait of life in 18th-century London. A sleazy aristocrat visits a pox doctor, accompanied by a child prostitute and her mother. The grim reality of London’s history comes horribly to life. A skeleton in a cupboard gropes a mannequin.• National Gallery, London WC2N

How astonishing Gordon Parks’s long-lost photographs of 1950s Alabama are...

... and that they show that segregation was never as black and white as it seemed

What the world’s most popular dark tourism hotspots are, from Chernobyl to Rwanda

What David Bailey thinks his best photograph is

How Diana Matar photographed the dead and the disappeared of Gaddafi’s Libya

That you can now buy a luxury condo – in a missile silo

What the 10 most notorious looted artworks of the last two millennia are

That Peder Balke was one of the original Arctic explorers, and painted haunting icy visions

What Studio 54 really looked like at its peak

How one chubby-ankled new font will help readers with dyslexia

Why photographs don’t work in art galleries

That the wacky wunderkind of Danish architecture is making a new front door for Battersea Power Station

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Summary: Jonathan Jones: Masters of sex bare all at the Wellcome Collection, plus rare photographs of Alabama in the 50s and New York’s superclub at the height of its fame


Two years ago, Courtney Buechert, CEO of Eleven, Inc., realized he had a problem. Sure, his San Francisco-based agency had great clients, including Apple APPL , Facebook FB and NetApp, but among a staff of 150, there were no female creative directors and not a single woman in senior management.

The four partners? All men.

“We think of ourselves as enlightened, but despite all our good intentions and stated commitment to equality, we weren’t walking the talk,” says Buechert. “We had to rethink everything.”

As a result, he and his partners went through a soul-searching process, ultimately changing the entire company down to its actual articles of incorporation. Today, they have a female partner, a female creative director, and of the 42 people in their creative department, 46% are women, far better than the industry standard of around 11%.

And they’re not the only agency making big changes. Much has been written about how Silicon Valley and new technology are upending the advertising business, but when it comes to diversifying its workforce, some advertising agencies, like Eleven, Inc., are proving to be the true disruptors. A number of small, mid-sized, and even large international advertising agencies are restructuring they way they do business in order to increase the number of women in leadership positions.

In order to promote more women at his agency, Anthony Reeves, Chief Creative Officer at Atlanta-based Moxie USA re-engineered his entire creative team, restructuring the way assignments are given and even how the next big campaign is conceived.

“We elevated our creative process by developing cross-functional teams and giving everyone an equal voice in the brainstorming process,” he says. Equally key, the agency aggressively recruited more women to join the agency. The results? His creative team, once nearly all male, is now close to 50/50; women make up more than 30% of the creative leadership.

Larger agencies also are trying to improve their numbers. Martha Hiefield is president of the Seattle office of POSSIBLE, a global digital agency whose clients include Microsoft, AT&T, and Coca-Cola. After an analysis showed that only 15 percent of POSSIBLE’s creative leadership was female (although 40 percent of staff was female), Hiefield led a major revamping.

She changed pay structures, expedited promotion plans and added more “life friendly” polices, such as flexible work hours and extended parental leave. “I knew we had to do something different or we were going to continue to lose great talent,” says Hiefield. While she didn’t disclose numbers, she says retention has improved.

In fact, many agency executives say that the new approach has had an unexpected bonus: it appeals to young workers of both genders. “We made changes we thought would be good for women, but we’re finding these strategic solutions also meet the complex lifestyle needs of millennials,” Buerchert says.

It’s still too early to know if this diversification of leadership and thinking has made an impact on the bottom line, but the executives say the work is better. “When you have people with a complex array of experiences and knowledge contributing to the process,” Reeves says, “you’re going see better, more innovative ideas.”

With the awards season just around the corner, Reeves has high hopes the changes will result in wins. He says, “No matter the outcome, the days of white men laughing at white men’s jokes are over.”

Lisen Stromberg is an award-winning journalist. She writes about women, the workplace and life in Silicon Valley.

Summary: When it comes to gender diversity, some ad agencies are leading the way.


Liechtenstein-based Quant uses the Geneva show to highlight its technology, but the startupâs radical innards are often overshadowed by its conceptsâ dramatically styled skin.

This year, Nunzio La Vecchia (pictured), the chief technical officer of parent company NanoFlowcell AG, played the role of ringmaster to tout the companyâs latest semi-miraculous breakthroughs.

In the case of the Quantino hatchback, that means an electric drive system powered by a pair of 175-litre tanks of ionically charged fluid that provide propulsion by moving electrons from one to the other. This provides a quick refuelling capability to go with the Quantinoâs claimed 1,000km driving range and 200kph top speed.

One intriguing aspect is that the system is designed to run at 48 volts, which is below the threshold for lethality, so such a car could skip the elaborate and expensive safety measures applied to high-voltage electric cars.

But until the Quantino actually has any voltage coursing through its systems, it is an academic exercise. La Vecchia promises prototype testing later in 2015, to be followed by an avalanche of licensing deals from other carmakers.

"The potential applications for the NanoFlowcell cover a very diverse range, and not only in the automotive sector,â he said in a statement. âFor this reason, we have extended our research and development activities into other fields and industry sectors.â (Credit: NanoFlowcell AG)

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Summary: From audacious hypercars to eminently practical hatchbacks, the most design-centric show of the year brought it all.


They say in a good workplace your coworkers become your second family, but that doesn’t help pet lovers much. However, these companies are all about furry family and friends. Some like hotel group Kimpton let you bring your pet to work, while others like biotech company Genentech are padded with pet perks like discounted insurance and meetups.

Summary: These are the best workplaces for pet owners.


On Friday, the Labor Department released its most disappointing estimate of job growth in months, leading some to worry that the economic recovery is slowing down.

But job market bulls can take solace in a report released Tuesday by the Labor Department, which showed that the rate of job openings have hit at a 14-year high.

US Job Openings Rate: Total Nonfarm data by YCharts

Openings increased in many sectors, including professional and business services, healthcare and social assistance, and accommodation and food services. Predictably, job openings decreased in the mining sector, likely due to the sharp decline in oil prices in recent months.

Though the trend in job openings is heading in the right direction, the Labor Department doesn’t break down the sort of jobs these openings are for — whether they are high paying or full time, for instance. Furthermore, the ratio of unemployed to the number of job openings remains higher than at any point in the past 20 years. This suggests that employers might be listing openings for jobs they are not necessarily set on filling.

A better gauge of the health of the labor market, and one that Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said she watches closely, is the “quits” rate. This measures the rate at which workers are volunarily leaving a job — often times because they have better opportunities elsewhere. A high quits rate suggests greater opportunity in the labor market.

US Quits Rate: Total Nonfarm data by YCharts

As you can see from the above chart, the quits rate has increased a good deal over the past year, but it remains depressed compared to the years before the recession. Meanwhile, the quits rate has leveled off in recent months, adding credence to the views of Fed doves like Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, who has argued against raising interest rates until at least the middle of next year, as opposed to the consensus prediction of mid-to-late 2015.

For the time being, the market is taking any news that the labor market is slowing as a sign that the Fed won’t rush to raise rates. The S&P 500 has risen roughly 1% since trading began Monday, with markets closed the day the March jobs report was released, for the holidays.

Summary: Should Tuesday's JOLTS report calm fears of a slowing jobs recovery?


The man who occupied one of the most important economic posts in the U.S. during the financial crisis will soon be collecting his paychecks from one of the largest hedge funds on Wall Street.

Former Federal Reserve board chairman Ben Bernanke, who oversaw the country’s central bank from 2006 until last year, will be a senior adviser to Citadel, the hedge fund announced Thursday morning. Founded by billionaire Kenneth Griffin, Citadel manages $25 billion in assets.

Bernanke, a former economics professor at Princeton University, left the Fed more than a year ago at which point he was succeeded by current chair Janet Yellen. Bernanke’s new role will find him advising Citadel on global economic and financial matters and monetary policy.

Speaking with The New York Times about his new career path, Bernanke said he had spent the past year scouting job opportunities, and that Citadel represented the prudent choice due to the fact that the asset manager is not regulated by the Fed. Bernanke also told the Times that he is well aware of the public’s poor reception to the so-called “revolving door” that escorts so many Washington regulators to cushy Wall Street positions. That is exactly why he chose Citadel over various banking and lobbying positions he was offered elsewhere in the industry, Bernanke said.

After all, Bernanke’s tenure at the Fed will primarily be remembered for his role helping to engineer the government bailout of the financial industry, as well as for implementing the Fed’s economic stimulus program.

As the former Fed chair alluded to, though, Bernanke is far from the only high-profile government employee to have spent the late-2000’s fiscal crisis trying to right the Wall Street ship only to eventually land a lucrative gig in the financial industry. Here are five former regulators from the financial crisis who left the government to make millions.

Summary: Former Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke is headed to Wall Street, where he will be an adviser for $25 billion hedge fund Citadel.


If this were a submarine drama like, say, Wolfgang Petersen’s epic “Das Boot”, then we’d be at that point where the crippled sub is lying silently on the seabed, creaking ominously under the pressure of the water while the mechanics try to effect that miracle rescue.

Every one of those creaks could be the herald of catastrophic hull loss. But, as I outlined yesterday, the director of this movie has plenty for potential for more twists and turns before the final dénouement.

Today’s loudest creak comes courtesy of Bloomberg, which reported that the ECB is reviewing the amount of money it’s willing to lend against collateral issued or guaranteed by the Greek state (so called Emergency Liquidity Assistance): a fine point of detail, but an important one, as it’s this form of refinancing that fills the marginal gap in Greece’s banks balance sheets. In layman’s terms, it’s what ensures the banks can still stock their ATMs with cash.

As of last week, ELA stood at €74 billion, or 13% of all the assets in the Greek banking system. Only five months ago, it was zero. All this is lent against the promise of a government whose finance minister loses no opportunity to tell the world that it is bankrupt. The money is officially lent at the Bank of Greece’s risk, and the ECB decides every week whether to renew, increase, or cut off the funding. That’s how precarious the situation is. That’s why Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis speaks of the ECB ‘having a noose around our necks.’

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that ECB staff have proposed increasing the discount applied to the collateral imposed when ELA is extended. That means lending fewer euros against a given bond, reducing the risk for the ECB if the bank subsequently defaults.

The surprise here is that it’s less than a week since ECB President Mario Draghi said the topic of haircuts was “mentioned, but not discussed” at the ECB governing council meeting, which suggests that something may have happened in the meantime to alarm Frankfurt.

It isn’t hard to guess what that might be: Athens on Monday promulgated a decree forcing all government entities except pension funds and some state-owned companies to hoard their spare cash at the central bank. The sound of barrel-scraping is getting louder.

At the moment, the Bank of Greece acknowledges the existence of €137.3 billion in eligible assets for ELA credit, and the discount is supposed to be applied to the bond’s market price, not its face value (Greece’s two- and five-year bonds currently trade at around 60 cents on the euro, according to Investing.com). So, a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the very maximum that can be borrowed in the circumstances would be around €82 billion, if the Bank of Greece accepts those market prices as reliable. And that’s before the valuation haircuts. So it looks like it will be very difficult to increase the haircuts without actually reducing the amount of euros Greek banks have to meet their clients demands.

The margins are getting finer, not just for Greece, but for the ECB too. For the sake of its own credibility as Europe’s bank supervisor, it can hardly afford to raise its exposure to the Greek system even as the risk of default is obviously rising. But if it squeezes too hard, it could trigger something that will make it clear how deep underwater Greece is.

Watch more business news from Fortune:

Summary: As Athens takes ever more desperate measures to raise cash, the ECB is trying to cover its back without triggering a disaster.


(REUTERS) — Venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers is seeking to recover about $973,000 in costs from a high profile gender discrimination trial that captivated Silicon Valley, according to a court filing on Thursday.

A jury cleared Kleiner Perkins in March of claims it short-circuited former partner Ellen Pao’s career because she is a woman. The trial helped spark a wide discussion about gender at the center of the U.S. technology industry.

Kleiner has offered to waive its legal costs should Pao choose not to appeal, according to firm spokeswoman Christina Lee. Kleiner’s costs request includes about $865,000 in expert witness fees, the court filing said.

“We believe that women in technology would be best served by having all parties focus on making progress on the issues of gender diversity outside of continued litigation,” Lee said in a statement.

Pao and her legal team are considering the proposal, said Heather Wilson, a spokeswoman for Pao.

Pao, now interim chief executive at social-news service Reddit, claimed her standing at Kleiner Perkins crumbled after she ended a brief affair with a partner. Her career deteriorated after he and Kleiner Perkins started retaliating against her in a climate that was overall unfriendly toward women, her lawyers argued.

After the verdict, three jurors told Reuters they had focused on Pao’s increasingly negative performance reviews, which undermined her argument that she deserved to be promoted.

Kleiner’s offer to withdraw its costs request in exchange for an end to the case, is common when defendants prevail in employment lawsuits. Should Pao decide to pursue an appeal, her case would be heard by California’s First District Court of Appeal.

According to Westlaw data, out of 49 decisions involving discrimination and retaliation over the past two years, the First District affirmed 26 of 31 cases where the employer won in the trial court, or 84 percent. Only five cases were reversed.

Meanwhile the court, which covers San Francisco and 11 other Northern California counties, handed victory to employers in more than half of the cases they lost in the lower courts, reversing 10 of 18 cases.

Summary: Kleiner has offered to waive the legal costs should Pao choose not to appeal the March decision in her gender discrimination suit against the firm.


Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez throws to the Chicago White Sox's Adam Eaton in the first inning of Wednesday's game

04/29/2015 AT 03:10 PM EDT

For the first time in MLB history, two teams took the field before an empty stadium at Baltimore's Camden Yards on Wednesday.

throughout the city in the wake of the death of 25-year-old

to close the stadium for public safety.

But for players, the game will be "a challenge," Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis told reporters before the game, according to

"Yesterday was crazier to me because I drove in and you see the National Guard, the state troopers, the sheriff," he added, speaking of Tuesday's practice. "It was more like a war zone than I expected."

Meanwhile, Chicago White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton said that he's "not happy" the game will be played this way.

Added Orioles manager Buck Showalter: "We didn't practice for quiet."

Monday and Tuesday's games were both postponed following the

Summary: Riots throughout the city in the wake of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray prompted MLB officials to close the stadium


T HE diamond market may be in a slump, with prices of investmentquality stones down to about half what they were early last year, but that doesn't mean that the person shopping for an engagement ring or a pair of stud earrings is paying any less. That's because there are two markets in diamonds: one for investment (internally flawless stones weighing one carat or more) and one for jewelry (99 percent of the world volume).

According to Richard Dickson of De Beers Consolidated Mines, which markets more than 80 percent of the world's diamonds, ''to use the price of the one-carat D-flawless stone as a benchmark of diamond prices would be totally unrepresentative.''

Bruce Lipshy, president of the Zale Corporation, a giant jewelry retailer, said: ''The consumer gets confused when he reads about the diamond decline, but he fails to understand that it's the investment diamond being talked about. Between 1976 and 1981, diamonds really went up and created a hype in sales. The consumer got the inflation mentality: Buy now before the price goes up even more. Now, it's the reverse mentality: Wait until the price goes down more.''

Experts in the diamond industry agree that speculators caused the price of investment stones to rise dramatically when diamonds became a fad like stamps, coins or paintings as a hedge against inflation. From 1979 to 1980, a one-carat D-flawless stone rose in price from $10,000 to $65,000. (That's the time gold reached a high of $850 a troy ounce; gold has also plummeted nearly 50 percent since then.)

But the price of diamond jewelry has gone up much less. According to the Diamond Information Center, the average retail price for the average engagement ring weighing a quarter of a carat went from $585 in 1979 to $700 in 1980.

Retail sales of diamond jewelry in this country fell from 12.7 million pieces in 1979 to 12.5 million pieces in 1980. This year's figures seem to be ahead of last year's. De Beers reports that for the three months ended May 1981, sales in the United States were up 12 percent over the same period last year. Since 40 percent of jewelry sales in this country take place around Christmas, the industry is optimistic that the full year will show a return to the steady growth of previous years. From 1977 to 1978, the number of pieces of diamond jewelry sold rose from 10.7 million to 11.6 million.

Engagement rings account for about 30 percent of the diamond jewelry sold every year. Research by the Diamond Information Center indicates that nearly three-quarters of all first-time brides get engagement rings, and half of all repeat brides get them.

Next to rings, the most popular styles in diamond jewelry for the last several years have been stud earrings and solitaire pendants. ''Years ago, diamonds were worn only in the evening,'' said Theodore Baumgold, president of Baumgold Brothers, a company that has been importing, cutting and polishing diamonds for 75 years. ''Now they're worn with jeans. Stud earrings and the solitaire on a chain revolutionized the industry. They brought diamonds to the middle class. At one time they were only for the extraordinarily wealthy.''

''Today,'' he added. ''more smaller size diamonds are required - up to a quarter of a carat.'' Lyman Wood, senior vice president of the Lenox Corporation, which makes jewelry as well as china and crystal, estimates that 95 percent of the diamonds sold weigh half a carat or less. And that is why the market for diamonds to be made into jewelry is separate from the investment market for big stones to be secreted in a vault.

If diamond jewelry prices do go down, the experts agree, it is mostly because the price of the gold used for the setting has gone down. Dealers rarely lower the price of diamonds even when demand is low, Mr. Baumgold said. They just hold on to the jewels until demand picks up again.

P ARENTS who are interested in sending their children to private or parochial schools are usually advised to start looking at least a year ahead. Next Tuesday might be a good time to start. That is when the Parents League of New York is sponsoring its biennial Independent School Day from 4 to 6 P.M. at the Loyola School, Park Avenue at 83d Street. Admission is free.

Representatives of 69 primary and high schools will be there to answer questions about such subjects as curriculum, rates, testing and scholarships. League volunteers will also be on hand to help parents unfamiliar with the city's independent schools. A list of the schools with facts about each will be available to all.

Among the schools participating are Buckley, Dwight, Dalton, Collegiate, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Friends Seminary, Lycee Fran,caise, Marymount, Chapin and the Professional Children's School.

For further information, call the Parents League at 737-7385. Anne-Marie Schiro


I f I were a pop sociologist by trade, I would get to work on a 900-page book entitled ''The Coming Crisis of Information Overload.'' (If there is already such a title on the fall publishing lists, forgive the oversight.) In the doomsday style that is de rigueur for such exercises in pseudoscience, I would draw a picture of a world in which the computers have gone into overdrive and are flooding the world with unevaluated data. So much undigested information is poured out at lawmakers, scholars, jurists, generals, commissars and presidents that they find themselves unable to make even the simplest decisions: to sell weapons to the enemy or not, to jail the killer or let him go, to close down the subways or.... Somewhere along the line, everyone's ability to distinguish between raw information and knowledge has disappeared. Data piles up but minds atrophy through disuse. All human activity slides to a halt and the race slowly and horribly smothers under printout paper.

This dire scenario probably is recognized as feasible in some variant form by everyone who trafficks in information nowadays. I feel sure, for instance, that musical scholars must be looking uneasily over their shoulders at the rising flood of data in their fields. Consider, after all, what so often us ed to pass as musical history: a few random letters, a tailor's bil l or two, some testimony from interested parties such as wid ows, publishers or rivals, and a lot of strong opinion based on questionable readings ofa few questionable facts. The data was there all right, but scholars of old did not have our refined ways of diggi ng it out. Many of them would now look naive in the eyes of the avera ge office computer. Withtheir crude tools, it is a wonder that such f amous cataloguers as Wolfgang Schmieder (Bach), Georg Kinsky (Beet hoven), Ludwig van Kochel (Mozart) and Anthony van Hoboken (Hayd n) got anything done at all.

But they managed somehow, and so did such other bearskin-clad primitives as Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Philipp Spitta, George Grove and Michael Praetorius. In a few years it will be impossible for the young student of musical history to understand how these people could have operated at all, without data bank, microfilm or microfiche. It seems they did all the collecting, collating, sorting and evaluation in their own heads, if you can believe that. We are told there also was no jet air travel, no electric typewriter, no ballpoint pen, no Xerox.

Now, however, what a new world it is that we have entered. Recently, I have been enjoying myself with Denis Stevens's ''Musicology: A Practical Guide,'' a concise and yet extremely graceful book that Schirmer has brought out in its Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides series. Mr. Stevens is something of an oddity in his profession, s ince he has made interlocking reputations both as a scholar and a s a practical musician - record collectors know him as the conductor of the Ambrosian Singers. His book, in just 224 tightly packe d pages, makes a brilliant stab at the formidable task of explaining what musicology is about for a general audience. It also gives a helpful though necessarily sketchy outline of the basic literature on which modern scholars draw.

Mr. Stevens knows all about data overload, of course. He is particularly concerned about the current academic mania for digging up mediocre old music, chiefly for use as seminar fodder: ''Whatever happened in earlier centuries, our own has much to answer for when we come to assess its contribution to the unearthing, transcribing, editing and publishing of early music. The great composers having been resuscitated in their serried ranks of heavy tomes, it then became the scholar's duty to deal with the less than great; and as the gigantic barrel was scraped to its very bottom so that the complete or collected works of almost totally unknown composers could appear for the first time in score, the bottom collapsed and the entire contingent vanished into another barrel beneath the first one. If one musicologist in one lifetime sees an average of 50 students through their Ph.D.'s, and if those in turn produce an equal or greater number of comparably gifted researchers, it follows that the amount of music now being quarried from European libraries - in partial fulfillment of degree requirements and in total disregard of whether it will ever serve some useful purpose - has reached truly gigantic proportions.''

It also happens that while struggling or inept musicologists tend to concentrate their attention on smaller and smaller subjects, even some of the best of them are finding it impossible to arrive at judgments. Every supposedly unchallengeable fact they bring to light, it seems, is quickly contradicted by another, equally unchallengeable, fact. They act wary, if not shellshocked, and with good reason. As Mr. Stevens points out, what was accepted as the last word in research not long ago on notes inegales,, Baroque embellishments, musica ficta, or dotting has been overturned by recent studies. And the new word could well be refuted tomorrow, when the latest printouts come in. Right now, for instance, the practical musician is advised to follow Frederick Neumann's ''Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music,'' which contends that there was no such thing as a commonly accepted approach to embellishments in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some composers, it seems, did one thing, some did another. The suspicion may arise in the layman's mind that with modern musicology's resources, as with the Bible, it is possible to prove anything you like.


1981: a post-mortem. Five days from now, 1981 will become just another year that was. What trends and events is it likely to be remembered for by the residents of Publishers Row? Herewith a brief rundown.

* Much of 1981 was a time of nervousness and apprehension, a feeling intensified by reports of high unemployment and lagging retail sales in many parts of the country. Precise figures won't be available until next March, but it now appears likely that the sales of mass-market paperbacks will not break out of the 527-to 550-million-copy range into which they've been locked during the past half-dozen years, while sales of trade paperbacks will fall at least 10 percent below the all-time high they reached in 1980, 172 million copies.

* Partisans of softcovers were gratified to learn, from a survey conducted by the trade journal Publishers' Weekly, that paperbacks now constitute nearly 70 percent of the stocks of the nation's bookstores, a percentage that is expected to increase markedly during the next several years. To add to their pleasure, another trade journal, the CPDA News, reported that the wholesalers who fill the racks at newsstands, variety stores and supermarkets with massmarket paperbacks, and who recently have shown a marked partiality for magazines, are renewing their zeal for books.

* Musical chairs has long been a favorite game along Publishers Row, but the game has never been played so frenziedly as in 1981. At several houses it was accompanied by administrative changes that - some critics charge - subject editorial decisions to the direction of personnel whose orientation is in sales and promotion. The result has been - again quoting the critics - an increase in ''me too'' publishing, the issuance of volumes that are clones of books that have been selling well.

Popular taste. In 1981, all but 16 of the 110 books that made the mass-market paperback best-seller list were works of fiction. The longest runner, however, was a nonfiction book that appealed to the public's interest in two subjects - diet and a sensational murder case. In August, Bantam's ''The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet,'' written by the late Dr. Herman Tarnower and Samm Sinclair Baker, completed a 79-week run, with 5,560,000 copies in print.

* Reprints of veterans of the hardcover best-seller lists - 79 in all - continued to dominate the mass-market paperback best-seller list.

* For some years, a number of publishers have lamented the industry's practice of tying up large amounts of capital in the purchase of reprint rights. A favorite target of their regret was Judith Krantz's ''Princess Daisy,'' for which Bantam paid $3,200,000, an all-time high. In 1981, they showed a measure of restraint. The year's largest purchases were: - New American Library's $3,000,000 for two novels by Robin Cook - ''Fever,'' which will be published in hardcover a month hence, and another still in the author's typewriter. - Bantam's $2,500,000 for Mario Puzo's work-in-progress, described as a ''prequel'' to ''The Godfather.'' - Bantam's $1,860,000 for Cynthia Freeman's current best seller, ''No Time for Tears.'' - Bantam's $1,653,000 for Thomas Harris's new best seller, ''Red Dragon.'' - Avon's $1,000,000 for Albert Goldman's bestselling biography, ''Elvis.'' - Dell's $910,000 for another bestselling biography, ''Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star'' by Kitty Kelley. - Avon's $825,000 for Anton Myrer's forthcoming ''A Green Desire.''

* One of 1981's most remarkable developments was the surging popularity of women's romances, sales of which are said to exceed $100,000,000 a year. The phenomenon caught the eye of the news media when the first annual convention of the Romance Writers of America was held in Houston in June. Queen of the affair was Janet Dailey, whose 65 books have sold 80 million copies, qualifying her for the distinction of being the ''fifth best-selling living writer.''

Romantic stories written to formula have been favorites with women for generations. In 1981 there were many subgenres of romances, varying in setting from 18th-century castles to contemporary business offices, in sophistication from ''sweet-sensual'' to ''bodice rippers,'' in audiences from teen-age girls to mature women interested in a ''second chance at love.''

Crazes. By the general reading public, 1981 is likely to be remembered most vividly for three crazes that found expression through a dozen best-selling paperbacks.

Cat lovers and cat haters have vented their feelings through seven cartoon books: ''Garfield at Large'' (909,000 copies), ''Garfield Bigger Than Life'' (850,000), ''Garfield Gains Weight'' (825,000 ), ''101 Uses for a Dead Cat'' (795,000), ''The Official I Hate Cats Book'' (375,000), ''The Second Official I Hate Cats Book'' (325,000) and ''Cat's Revenge'' (225,000).

Preppies have been targets for ''The Official Preppy Handbook'' (1,233,725 copies) and ''I Hate Preppies'' (180,000). We've lost track of all the books that promise solutions to Rubik's cube, but three have achieved best-sellerdom: ''The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube'' (6,308,000 copies), ''Mastering Rubik's Cube'' (2,005,000) and ''You Can Do the Cube'' (500,000).

A final footnote to the year's record: ''The Joy of Sex'' dropped off the list in October, ending an eight-year run with total sales exceeding 5,000,000 copies.


Louis M. Lyons, curator of Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism for 18 years and a reporter who was a watchdog of the American press, died of malignant lymphoma Sunday at Harvard University's Stillman Infirmary in Cambridge, Mass. He was 84 years old and lived in Cambridge.

Mr. Lyons was also a commentator on the WGBH public television and radio stations in Boston. He began his career as a reporter for The Boston Globe and was one of nine American journalists selected for the first Nieman fellowships at Harvard in 1938. ''I want to get a little away from the job and read all around in some fields of history and philosophy,'' he wrote in his application, ''and to reflect on a larger pattern than the daily hopper of news.''

The fellowships, established under the will of Agnes Wahl Nieman, widow of the founder of The Milwaukee Journal, permit reporters and editors to study at Harvard for a year in any field they choose. Named Assistant Curator

In 1939, Mr. Lyons was appointed assistant curator of the Nieman Foundation and for the next seven years divided his time between The Globe and the foundation. Toward the end of World War II, he went to Europe as a correspondent for The Globe. In 1946, he was appointed full-time curator, succeeding Archibald MacLeish, the poet, who was the foundation's first curator.

In his term as curator, Mr. Lyons developed a wide and affectionate acquaintance among the hundreds of newspaper people who were awarded fellowships.

When he retired as curator in 1964, Harvard awarded him an honorary degree, calling him ''the conscience of his profession.'' Mr. Lyons was an astute critic of newspapers and frequently expressed regret that there was no regular professional criticism of the press. Urged Reporters to Dig

He urged reporters to dig under ''censorship, secrecy and classification of information to get at the facts.'' He said in 1958 that ''A bold press is called for to prevent, by vigilant reporting, the overriding of individual rights by demogogic politicians.'' But a ''decently restrained press is needed,'' he said, ''in dealing with the private lives of individuals.'' He scorned newspapers that ''do not seek to inform, but only to excite, their readers.''

Mr. Lyons was born in the Dorchester section of Boston, and graduated in 1918 from the Massachusetts Agricultural College, now the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He spent a year at The Globe, starting in 1919, while undertaking graduate studies in English at Harvard.

He returned to The Globe as a reporter in 1923, but eventually became an editorial writer. Among the events he covered were the swearing-in of President Coolidge, the flooding of the Connecticut River Valley in Vermont in 1927, the return of Charles A. Lindbergh from his flight to Paris, and the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing the Lindberghs' infant son.

Mr. Lyons's most publicized effort was probably a 1940 interview with Joseph P. Kennedy, then the United States Ambassdor to the Court of St. James's. Mr. Kennedy gave a very unflattering assessment of Britain's economic and political situation and of the intelligence of King George VI. Mr. Kennedy asserted that he had been misquoted and attempted to force The Globe to dismiss Mr. Lyons, but his editors supported him. Mr. Kennedy later resigned as ambassador. ''It was the only thing Lyons was questioned on in 43 years,'' Davis Taylor, The Globe's former publisher, said when he learned that Mr. Lyons had died. Awarded Peabody Prize

Mr. Lyons received the George Foster Peabody Award for his news broadcasts on WGBH, which he began in 1951 with 15-minute programs of his personal views. He continued the programs until 1978. From 1978 to 1980 he conducted a WGBH radio program concerned with local public affairs.

Among other honors he received were the Richard Lauterbach Civil Liberties Award in 1959, the Freedom Foundation Medal and the Overseas Press Club Citation in 1962 and the Alfred I. duPont Award in 1964.

Mr. Lyons is survived by his wife, the former Catherine F. Malone, four children from his marriage to Margaret Wade Tolman Lyons, who died in 1949: a daughter, Margaret Ford, of Bridgewater, Conn., and three sons, Richard L., of Sandwich, N.H., John W., of Mount Airy, Md., and Thomas T. of Andover, Mass. He is also survived by a stepdaughter, Sheila King, of Cambridge; 16 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at 1:30 P.M. at Memorial Church in the Harvard Yard.

Illustrations: photo of Louis M. Lyons


WASHINGTON — The economy was expanding in all regions of the country in late spring, aided by strong sales of autos and other consumer goods.

In its latest survey of business conditions, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday that some of its regions reported that lower energy prices were encouraging consumers to shop and eat out more. Growing sales of homes and commercial real estate also boosted the economy.

Employment growth was solid, although some layoffs were reported in manufacturing and energy industries, which have cut back because of falling prices.

The Boston Fed reported “stable or improving” conditions across New England, with retail sales growing, real estate activity strong – except in the Hartford area – and some tightness in the labor market.

The Fed report, known as the beige book, will be used by officials when they meet July 28-29 to consider interest rate policies. The Fed is not expected to start raising rates until at least September.

The Fed found that inflation has remained steady, with only modest upward pressure on wages, outside of some positions requiring specialized skills.

Manufacturing activity was described as uneven. Four districts — Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, and Chicago — reported gains. Three districts — Cleveland, Kansas City, and Dallas — reported declines. Some of the weakness was blamed on the rising value of the dollar, which was hurting exports, and cutbacks in demand for equipment in the energy sector.

Producers of primary metals such as steel generally reported strong demand. Solid growth also bolstered the aerospace, construction, and plastics industries.Home sales were stronger in most parts of the country. Commercial real estate was also on the upswing.

Summary: The US economy was expanding in all regions of the country in the late spring, aided by strong sales of autos and other consumer goods, according to a Federal Reserve survey.


Police take cover behind cars in Ferguson on Sunday

08/12/2015 AT 01:00 AM EDT

The one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death turned violent on Monday when

On Tuesday, St. Louis County police released video from a surveillance camera that they say shows an 18-year-old who was critically shot by police just seconds before firing a gun,

As protesters took to the streets in observance of Brown's death, Tyrone Harris Jr. allegedly shot at an unmarked police van. The 20-second clip from

is said to show Harris reaching for a gun in his waistband seconds after shots are heard.

According to the AP, police said the shots came from as many as six people who were part of two feuding groups unrelated to the protests.

Harris remained in critical condition on Monday. The boy's father, Tyrone Harris Sr.,

of how events unfolded the night of the shooting.

"My son was running to the police to ask for help and he was shot," he told the AP. "It's all a bunch of lies â¦ They're making my son look like a criminal."

He has been charged with five counts of armed criminal action, four counts of first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer and one firearms charge – a total of 10 felonies.

Summary: Police say an 18-year-old who was critically wounded is shown in surveillance footage


"It is easy to see that supply is still constrained. It's also clear the mortgage market remains off-kilter. Home loans are readily available for those who have good credit, a W-2 income and who are applying for a government-backed mortgage, but it can still be challenging for others, such as the self-employed and retired, even for those with a high income or significant assets, or both," noted Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic DataQuick analyst.

Read More Housing supply dogs a recovering Detroit

Lack of homes for sale and for rent continue to push pricing. It would take 44 percent of the area's median income to rent a home and 101 percent to buy a home with 10 percent down, according to a new analysis by RealtyTrac. San Francisco is also the second fastest selling housing market in the nation, second only to San Jose, according to Realtor.com.

It also boasts the highest rents, even higher than New York City. The average San Francisco rent reaching an all-time high of $3,460 for a 1-bedroom apartment, according to a report last month from Zumper, a rental listing and analytics company. San Francisco rents increased 1.5 percent from February to March and were up 3.3 percent over the last quarter.

Read MoreWorker influx boosts Charlotte housing

The search for affordable rental housing has actually become comical—darkly so.

Summary: High prices for San Francisco housing are finally hurting sales. The number of homes sold in February was the lowest for the month in seven years.


Eight of the nation's largest banks will be able to use their own models and systems to calculate the amount of capital they need to set aside for risk- weighted assets, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The banks receiving approval for their models are JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street, Bank of New York Mellon and U.S. Bancorp. The changes will take place in the second quarter.

The source said at least 10 other U.S. banks are in line to have their models approved, as the rule they are complying with applies to all U.S. banks with more than $250 billion in assets and a global presence. The other banks have not received approval yet as their models have not been running for the last two years.

The rule on how to model for capital was finalized in 2007, and in July 2013 regulators said at a minimum the banks would have to hold 7 percent Tier 1 capital, which primarily entails common stock and reserves. The source said that under the banks' own models, they will all hold more than the 7 percent minimum and that broadly speaking all eight banks have currently meet or exceed that level.

The banks receiving approval for their models and systems have been testing them for the past two years, proving to regulators they have an appropriate system for measuring risk.

Here is an example of how it might work: Under a standard model a bank is required to hold 50 percent capital on a residential mortgage. However, some residential mortgages are riskier than others.

So a bank may have a model where the amount of capital set aside for a residential mortgage to a homeowner with a high credit score and who put down 20 percent would be less than one with a lower credit score and a 5 percent down payment.

The eight banks will start calculating the new capital numbers in April of this year and start disclosing them by the end of the second quarter.

Summary: Eight of the nation's largest banks will begin  using their own models and systems to calculate the amount of capital they need to set aside.


On Wednesday, Moody's said it had lowered its forecast for the euro-dollar exchange rate to 1.10 through 2015 and 1.13 in 2016, adding that it did not expect any major recovery in the single currency before 2017.

"In general, a weaker euro boosts the price competitiveness of euro area exports, which account for about 25 percent of Europe's gross domestic product," the ratings agency said in a research note.

"However, a lower euro exchange rate will raise import prices and increase the cost of inputs that are denominated in currencies other than the euro."

Moody's said the low euro would prove "mildly negative" for non-food retailers, while airlines would suffer the most.

"While demand for flights to Europe might increase, driven by the rising popularity of euro area destinations, most of this rising demand will be captured by non-European airlines," it said.

"In addition, flying from Europe to other continents will become less attractive. Furthermore, the positive effect of falling oil prices will be partially offset by the weakening euro, as global oil prices are quoted in U.S. dollars making fuel purchases more expensive for European airlines."

In a February research note, Goldman Sachs Asset Management said the weak euro could boost revenues for many of the region's companies.

"With 54 percent of aggregate corporate revenues being generated outside of Europe, we look for a weakening euro to benefit the competitiveness and profitability of many European companies through a more competitive export business and higher profits when converting overseas profits back into the local euro currency," the bank said.

Summary: European carmakers and chemical and tourism companies stand to gain most from the weak euro, while the airline sector looks set to be worst hit.


Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Paul Ceglia arriving at federal court in New York, November, 2012.

Ceglia, of Wellsville, New York, was first charged in 2012. He claimed he was entitled to ownership of half of Facebook, based on a 2003 contract the two had signed, but prosecutors accused him of forging the contract with Zuckerberg, who would be expected to testify at trial.

Ceglia, who was to face trial May 4, has pleaded not guilty. Fogg said Monday that Ceglia has "always been concerned with justice."

"He has always been concerned about if he'd get a fair trial," Fogg said.

The charges flowed from a 2010 civil lawsuit Ceglia filed against Zuckerberg and Facebook in Buffalo, New York.

The lawsuit contended the two men signed a contract when Zuckerberg was a freshman at Harvard University that gave Ceglia half of a planned social networking website.

Read MoreHow many 'life-saving' watches will Apple sell?

Zuckerberg had previously done some programming work for Ceglia's company, StreetFax.com, and Facebook has said the only valid contract between them related to that company.

Prosecutors said Ceglia forged documents as part of the Buffalo litigation, including the contract and email correspondence with Zuckerberg.

Last year, a Buffalo federal judge dismissed Ceglia's lawsuit, finding the purported contract for an ownership stake in Facebook was doctored.

The case is U.S. v. Ceglia, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-00876.

Summary: An man who was set to face trial in May for attempting to defraud Facebook Inc and founder Mark Zuckerberg, is missing, his lawyer said on Monday.


Companies have used April Fools' Day as a chance to pull pranks for decades—all the way back to the 1960s when the BBC famously pretended to broadcast scents into living room televisions.

Not much has changed. Companies are still unleashing gags left and right to celebrate April 1.

Google on Tuesday released a prank that turns Google Maps into Pac-Maps, a version of the popular Pac-Man game laid out on real-life maps. Users can play Pac-Man on their neighborhood streets, eating cherries and dodging ghosts.

Read MoreGoogle releases Pac-Maps for April Fools' Day

Summary: Companies love tricking their customers on April Fools' Day. CNBC looks at some of the best pranks.


For most, the sensible choice is to aggregate the newly antiquated 401(k) plan with other prior plans in the form of a direct rollover to an IRA. In this case, you are not limited to the investment options in the new 401(k)—options that are notoriously mediocre. Be certain to check all the right boxes to ensure that your rollover is not a taxable event.

It's also important to take stock of any company benefits that are transferable. Although they are nearly extinct, pension plans of various sorts accrued during your tenure may do nothing for you now but could be meaningful in the future.

Read MoreBest big firms to work for

One client recently wondered whether she'd left a small pension behind from a previous job. I encouraged her to call the company's human resources department, and indeed, there was $9,000 sitting in a plan earning 3 percent per year that she can't touch for another 15 years.

If you're blessed enough to have annual income in excess of your saving and spending needs, you may have a qualified or non-qualified deferred compensation plan to handle. And while also rare, there are occasions in which group benefits—such as life, disability income or long-term care insurance through your company—can also be traversed to private policies with the vendor.

Summary: In career moves, the stakes are high and mistakes are often made. Here are 3 tips to ensure a successful, smooth transition.


Athletic apparel company Lululemon climbed more than 3 percent on Wednesday, touching a 52-week high during the session. It closed just below $69 per share.

Despite its strong performance—up 23 percent year-to-date—trader Dan Nathan believes competitors Nike and Under Armour make better plays in the space.

"I'd much rather own Nike or Under Armour for a breakout," Nathan said.

Lions Gate shed more than 6 percent on Wednesday on Tuesday news that MHR Fund Management will sell 10 million common shares in the entertainment company in a secondary offering. It closed at about $31.50 per share.

Adami said the offering "caught a lot of people by surprise." He would buy the stock if it recovers above $32 per share, but would stay away if it keeps reeling.

Pete Najarian is long AMAT, AAPL, BABA, BAC, BMY, BP, CSX, DISCA, FOXA, GE, KKR, KO, LLY, MRK, PEP, PFE and SAP. He is long calls AA, AAPL, ABT, BBBY, BK, CNX, COP, CSX, EBAY, EEM, EXXI, F, FCX, FL, GE, GM, GT, HOG, JD, KO, MYL, NEE, PBR, PEP, PFE, TEVA, TWTR, UA, UAL, UFS and ZIOP. Today, he bought AA calls, AAPL calls, ABT calls, BBBY calls and EEM calls. Today, he sold LYB calls.

Dan Nathan is long BBRY June call spread, INTC April Put spread, IWM April put fly, JPM April 60/55 put spread, M May call spread, NKE call spread, QQQ May 108/ 98 put spread, SHAK, T, TWTR, WMT June call spread, XHB April 35/32 put spread and XLP May put spread.

Steve Grasso is long AAPL, EVGN, MJNA, PFE, T, TWTR and GDX. His firm is long AMZN and MCD. His kids own EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR and SPY.

Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS and INTC. Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.

Summary: "Fast Money" traders discussed how to play movement in Bed Bath and Beyond and other consumer names on Wednesday.


By most accounts, Access Health CT worked very well, even in the first months of Obamacare open enrollment last fall when other exchanges, including HealthCare.gov, stumbled badly. Connecticut's exchange reached its target goal for enrollments in private plans four months before the close of open enrollment, and was among the top seven states in the nation when it came to signing up residents believed to be eligible for the insurance.

This success prompted Counihan to offer up the state's expertise and its technology to other states for a fee.

Connecticut's success also drew the attention of the Obama administration, which several months ago announced plans to appoint, for the first time, a dedicated CEO for HealthCare.gov. On Tuesday, officials revealed that Counihan had been tapped for the job.

Read MoreMd. Obamacare contractor subpoenaed

Maryland, whose own exchange had been a disaster, in April said it would use Connecticut's software for enrollment for the 2015 season. Counihan, at that same time, told CNBC that his exchange was in talks with four more states about them using Connecticut's model.

But in a press release Tuesday, the Health and Human Services Department revealed the number had more than doubled. "Nine states have contacted Connecticut's exchange about implementing its technology," it read.

When CNBC's "Street Signs" asked Counihan on Tuesday about those states, he said, "I really can't share the names."

"Connecticut's had some good conversations with several states, and we'll see what happens," he said, adding "We definitely believe there's a big opportunity to make this scalable."

Kaiser's Levitt said that in addition to Maryland, the obvious candidates to be talking to Connecticut are Oregon, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Hawaii—all of which experienced serious technological problems with their state-run exchanges.

Other potential candidates, he said, include some of the seven "partnership states," which are actively encouraging their residents to sign up for Obamacare plans, but whose enrollment functions are handled by HealthCare.gov. Those states are Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and West Virginia.

"There are a number of states that ... want to run their own exchange, but who for a variety of reasons couldn't get their act together in the first year," Levitt said.

Summary: Nearly 20 percent of all U.S. states are eyeing the possibility of adopting technology from Connecticut's lauded health insurance marketplace.


* U.S. sells $18 bln 5-year TIPS to mediocre demand

* AT&T bond deal lures investor attention from Treasuries

* Steep fall in U.S. new home sales revives economic worries

(New throughout, updates prices and market activity) NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries yields fell on Thursday with benchmark yields retreating from 3-1/2 week highs as investors stepped back in the bond market a day after a broad selloff in Treasuries, German Bunds and British Gilts. A larger-than-expected 11.4 percent drop in domestic new home sales in March, together with disappointing global factory data, rekindled doubts about whether the U.S. economy is strong enough for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year. "The weaker economic data certainly helped pulled some bids back into the market," said Andrew Richman, fixed income strategist at SunTrust Private Wealth Management in Palm Beach, Florida. Uneasiness about Greece and its future in the euro zone also underpinned safe-haven demand for Treasuries. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for a speeding up of work to conclude a reform-for-cash deal with euro zone creditors to keep his country afloat after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday. Benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note yields fell 3.5 basis points to 1.937 percent after hitting 1.993 percent on Wednesday, which was the highest in 3-1/2 weeks, according to Reuters data. The 30-year bond yield slipped 3 basis points from late Wednesday to 2.623 percent, a day after reaching 2.679 percent, the highest in five weeks. Analysts blamed Wednesday's market downdraft on factors including a perceived hawkish tilt in the minutes of the Bank of England's previous meeting and investors paring heavy holdings in Bunds due to the European Central Bank's bond purchase programs, and concerns about Greece. The number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week by 1,000 to 295,000, but the underlying trend was seen consistent with employers hiring more workers. Thursday's drop in yields was also limited by gains on Wall Street where the Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq composite was on track to record closing highs.

On the supply front, the Treasury Department sold $18 billion of five-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities to mediocre demand.

Low-yielding Treasuries were overshadowed by a robust corporate bond sector where AT&T launched a $17.5 billion deal, which is the third biggest ever, according to IFR, a unit of Thomson Reuters.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Peter Galloway and David Gregorio)

Summary: NEW YORK, April 23- U.S.  "The weaker economic data certainly helped pulled some bids back into the market," said Andrew Richman, fixed income strategist at SunTrust Private Wealth Management in Palm Beach, Florida. Uneasiness about Greece and its future in the euro zone also underpinned safe-haven demand for Treasuries.


MOSCOW, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Russian consumer electronics and white goods retailer M.video said its online sales surged in the past week as a renewed weakening in the rouble prompted some consumers to splash out on durable goods.

A sharp weakening of the rouble against the dollar raises the prospect of price rises as Russian retailers need to cover higher import and production costs, and can prompt consumers to rush to buy goods before prices go up.

M.video said sales on its website jumped by 156 percent in the week of Aug. 24 compared with the same week last year, adding that Apple's iPad Air and Samsung's Galaxy Tab were the most popular items.

"Since Monday we have seen a revival in demand, which is related to active sales as part of back to school, current promotions, and rouble rate fluctuations," it said in a statement.

"We see interest in ... big appliances and TVs against the backdrop of the rouble weakening," a spokesman for the company said.

The rouble fell sharply against the dollar on Aug. 24, approaching its 2015 low, as prices of oil, Russia's chief export, skidded.

The currency remains some way off its all-time low of 80 hit in December when it came under pressure from Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict. That led to an unprecedented buying spree with consumers rushing to buy cars, home appliances and flats in a bid to invest their fast devaluing savings before prices rose.

The shopping spree helped M.video's fourth-quarter 2014 sales increase by 52 percent but demand cooled afterwards and its first half 2015 sales were only up 2.3 percent.

Russia's statistics office says prices of electrical goods and other household appliances jumped 26 percent in January-July 2015 from a year earlier.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Olga Sichkar; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Summary: MOSCOW, Aug 28- Russian consumer electronics and white goods retailer M.video said its online sales surged in the past week as a renewed weakening in the rouble prompted some consumers to splash out on durable goods. The rouble fell sharply against the dollar on Aug. 24, approaching its 2015 low, as prices of oil, Russia's chief export, skidded.


"I took the company over two and a half years ago. The fascinating thing about the growth of the company is we've gone, from the end of 2012, from 33 million customers to 57 million," Legere said.

And while T-Mobile did do an acquisition during that time, Legere confirmed that the acquisition only accounted for 8.9 million customers. Thus, the majority of increase has been organic growth for the company.

When Legere took over the company, he openly described himself as someone who needed "wireless for dummies." However, he touted that as a strength. He spent a significant amount of time listening to both sides of a customer service calls, interacting with users on social media, going into stores and listening to customers and employees.

"My business philosophy is listen to your employees, listen to your customers. Shut up and do what they tell you. And each of our uncarrier moves and the way I run my company is completely aligned with that," the CEO added.

Legere said that he thinks the style of honest leadership is one that many CEOs today are getting pressure from customers to emulate.

"Right now, I think CEOs in general are getting pressured from their people and customers to be more open, to be more honest, be less of a suit, be more attached to your customers and employees and lead us, motivate us, show us the finish line," he said.

In fact, Legere noted that he personally swears like a sailor, which is something that a CEO typically can't do. But his style has resonated with both customers and social media. Why is he willing to speak like this?

---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Apple's monstrous earnings She's a CEO billionaire & next Steve Jobs? Cramer: Wall Street playing cruel joke? ----------------------------------------------------------

"I am at the stage in my career and life, where I am who I am. I am who my customers are," Legere added.

Legere's strategy has been to embody his brand, as was evidenced by his magenta sneakers with "TMobile CEO" embroidered on the side. His goal is to be a walking brand for the company, and to have people ask why he loves his company so much. He thinks it is contagious, that people will want to be a part of it.

"From the day I got here, Jim, I just told my people, here's where we are going," Legere said. "You don't get it. We're going to win big, and we're going to do it by focusing on customers."

Summary: Jim Cramer sits down with T-Mobile CEO John Legere to discuss how his honest leadership style has resonated with Wall Street.


Lackluster economic data from China has only added to the woes for investors already in thrall to volatile moves in Chinese stocks and the recent central bank's devaluation of the currency, the yuan, in August in a bid to boost the economy.

OPEC believed it would be OECD countries to bolster global oil demand growth but signalled caution for growth in China and India. Slowing growth there could further dent oil prices, which have fallen spectacularly since June 2014 when a barrel of Brent crude fetched $114. With a glut in supply and lack of demand wearing on prices over the last year, the same barrel of oil will cost $47.78 today.

"While OECD growth forecast remains unchanged at 2.0 percent for 2015 and 2.1 percent in 2016, major emerging economies are increasingly facing challenges," OPEC warned Monday.

"China's and India's growth forecasts have been revised down by 0.1 percentage points to now stand at 6.8 percent and 6.4 percent for China and at 7.4 percent and 7.6 percent for India in 2015 and 2016, respectively."

Despite the fall in oil prices, OPEC has remained steadfast in its production levels, meeting and exceeding its 30 million barrels per day ceiling (In August, OPEC crude production averaged 31.54 mb/d, according to secondary sources, OPC said) in what many see as a bid to see off its U.S. shale oil producers.

The move has put pressure on U.S. producers who have higher production costs with many cutting or stopping production or drilling projects.

OPEC forecast that while non-OPEC supply would grow by 88,000 barrels a day in 2015, following a downward revision of around 72,000 barrels per day, it said, "due to lower-than-expected output in the U.S," showing that OPEC's strategy to maintain market share is working well.

Demand for OPEC crude has not been dented, the group said, and is estimated at 29.3 mb/d in 2015, 100,000 barrels per day higher than the previous assessment and up by 400,000 barrels per day from the previous year.

Summary: It used to be that oil producers could rely on a booming China to up their forecasts of global demand but not anymore.