Nearly lifeless, Arik hangs from shackles in a dark torture cell, where he is beaten mercilessly for answers about Drusus' murderer. "Just finish it," the bloody landlord mumbles to the Roman soldiers, not willing to speak.

Caiaphas storms into Pilate's palace, eager to speak his mind about the three Jews killed without reason. Before Caiaphas can get any words out, Pilate pushes toward him an urn filled with the ashes of the fallen Roman soldier. "The assassin came for me," Pilate spits at Caiaphas, who loses all sense of conviction. "Ten Jews will be crucified every day until I have the man who tried to kill me," Pilate continues, sounding more and more angry with each word. Meanwhile, Cornelius and his men drag 10 terrified young men out of a synagogue, some of them barely teenagers. Surrounded by shouting pilgrims, the Romans yank the Jews through the streets to their undeserved destiny. Once they reach Golgotha, the soldiers hold the squirming boys to the crosses, roping their hands and feet firmly. As the 10 crosses are hoisted up, the sound of a horn fills all of Jerusalem as an eerie signal - it's begun.

Realizing the severity of Pilate's plan, Caiaphas sits in the Temple chamber, ignoring Annas' suggestion to delay the trial of Jesus' followers until the assassin is caught. "The Temple has to be seen to be strong now," Caiaphas counters. "We need a quick trial to end their disruption."

Stephen, a curious young man, wanders over the rocky desert hillside, peering down at the other side. In the river below, he sees a cluster of converts, all waiting to be baptized by the disciples. After joining them, Thomas plunges Stephen into the water "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Stephen emerges from the river smiling, looking relaxed and reborn, ready to embrace this new brotherhood. Maya announces she's going back to the city to check on her father, and Mary Magdalene joins her, wanting to keep her promise to Peter to keep his daughter safe.

Cornelius enters the torture chamber once again, this time with Arik's young daughter, Tamar, in tow. "Papa," Tamar utters, frightened. Arik raises his head, barely able to see out of his battered-shut eyes. Horrified that Tamar is in danger, Arik is ready to make a deal with the Romans. "Let my daughter go," he whispers to Cornelius with any strength he has left, "then I'll tell you." In the morning, Arik's dead corpse is carted away as Cornelius and his men flood the city streets, looking for Boaz. The Romans first check his shop, where they find his secret hideaway filled with deadly weapons, including the knife that was used to kill Drusus. Boaz, however, is deep within the city, pushing people out of his way, running for his life.

Dressed as a commoner, Leah scurries through the town to find Melek, the crippled beggar. "Stand up," she instructs him, and he does with ease. "This man Peter aims to destroy the Temple," she tells the curious beggar as she hands him a bag of coins. "Help us prevent that," she continues, asking Melek to lie in court, testifying that he was paid to pretend he was healed. Very reluctantly, Melek takes the money.

Peter and John sit in their prison cell, surrounded by screams and wails bouncing off the stone walls. "We're going to die today," Peter says to John, who has tears streaming down his face. Temple guards fiercely grab Peter and John from the cell and hurl them into the courtyard, where Maya, Mary and seemingly all of Jerusalem are awaiting the trial. On their knees before the Sanhedrin, Peter and John look nervous as Caiaphas commands control. "Tell us, in whose name do you claim the cripple was healed?" the High Priest asks, ready to end this ordeal. Even with the crowd's disapproving murmurs, Peter stands by his word - the cripple was headed by God in the name of Jesus Christ. "You're liars!" Caiaphas shouts, as he brings Melek out to testify. Being a man who is used to being invisible, Melek feels a tremendous amount of pressure with everyone looking to him for answers, but regardless of Leah's bribery, he tells the truth under the eyes of God. "There was no trickery," Melek announces to the Sanhedrin, finally feeling bold. "I praise God for this man Peter and the one they call Jesus of Nazareth!" The crowd begins to lobby for Peter and John's release as Reuben quickly removes Melek from the court. With no other option, Caiaphas is forced to free them, but only on the condition that they do not speak or teach the name of Jesus of Nazareth. "Break this condition, and you in turn will be broken," the High Priest warns sternly.

As free men, Peter and John walk back to the safe house, greeted by cheers throughout the entire city. "What happened?" he asks, astonished by how many people are awaiting their return. "You did," Matthew says, hugging Peter tightly. "And they just keep coming." Inspired by the hundreds of new followers, Peter leaps onto a table and draws the attention from everybody in the room. "We are united when each of you gives what you have and takes only what you need," he says to the mesmerized crowd. "The Kingdom of God is coming and we will be fit to enter!" One by one, the converts line up and donate all of their belongings. Among the donators is a wealthy couple, Ananias and Sapphira, who places a large chest full of gold and jewels on the table. "All that we have in the world we give to Him," Ananias says with sincerity, earning a nod of approval from Peter. Later in the day, a mother finds Peter in the streets and asks him to cure her fatally ill daughter. Peter freezes, suddenly not feeling confident. "It will be God's will, not mine," he says as he takes the lifeless young girl in his arms. When the girl does not initially respond to Peter's healings, he steels himself and tries once more, this time with more conviction. "In the name of Jesus Christ, be healed," he says, and suddenly the girl gasps and opens her eyes. Peter can barely believe it himself. It's a miracle. "We have to tell people about this," Stephen says, completely fascinated. "We have to go to the Temple now." Peter, however, quickly dismisses this idea, urging Stephen to be patient. Feeling dejected, Stephen turns away and walks right into Cornelius and his men dragging the next group of 10 Jewish boys to be crucified. Cornelius orders Stephen to move aside. When Stephen refuses, Cornelius punches him in the gut, knocks him to the ground and brings a knife to his throat. "I want you to live," the Roman soldier says through his teeth, "because I am merciful." Cornelius kicks Stephen once more before carrying on with his duties. When they arrive at Golgotha, the Romans brutally fling the dead Jewish boys into a pile to make room for the new ones.

Sitting in solitude, Peter tries to gather his thoughts when Mother Mary finds him. "My son chose you for a reason," she comforts Peter, who is clearly overwhelmed with his newfound power. "He knew your faith was strong enough to bear the responsibility, to help you become the man our people need you to be." He looks into Mother Mary's eyes and nods, knowing she's right.

Pilate sits at his desk, making a stick figure out of Drusus' ashes. He transforms the figure of a man into a figure of a cross. "Now I'm making a mountain out of their ashes," he says spitefully, almost as if he's in a trance. Horrified by the man her husband has become, Claudia tries to remind Pilate of the dependable, ambitious diplomat he once was. "Now you extract a mass blood sacrifice to appease your almighty wrath," she says with worry in her eyes. "I am an instrument of Roman power," Pilate answers back defiantly. "My actions are an expression and reminder of that power." Feeling defeated and disrespected, Claudia leaves as her husband once again pulls the urn full of ashes close to him.

Boaz snakes through the shadows of the streets, trying to stay hidden, when suddenly Levi, the leader of the Zealots, grabs him and pulls out a knife. "If I've found you, they'll find you," he says to a frightened-looking Boaz. "But they won't kill you quickly like I would," he adds, and tells Boaz to disappear. Boaz hurries home and frantically packs his belongings. His beloved Eva watches, feeling helpless and heartbroken. "Please stay here, stay with me," she pleads, on the verge of tears. "I can't; they'll kill you too," Boaz says, equally as sorrowful. As he kisses her, she grabs his face and loses herself one last time before he leaves.

Crammed on the floor of the safe house with many of the converts, John lies, restlessly fidgeting in his sleep. In his hazy dream, he envisions himself in the Temple courtyard, touching a very specific crack on the ground. When he wakes in the morning, John goes to the courtyard, looking for the exact spot from his dream. Finally he finds the right crack, but he is unsure of what he is looking for. As John stands on the stone, perplexed, a wealthy man named Barnabas approaches him and begins talking to him with great friendliness. "You confine yourselves to the poor and the sick," Barnabas tells John, "but I am poor and sick, in my soul." Barnabas offers to give all of his money in exchange for Jesus' message to be preached, and John invites Barnabas to come with him, now understanding why his dream led him here. After getting Peter, the three of them walk deep into the desert to a wide stretch of dry, open land. "When I bought this land, I was assured King David once made camp here," Barnabas says. "I'm glad to give you this land." Very grateful, Peter smiles. "It's perfect. A new beginning."

Joseph hurries through the Temple, searching anxiously for Caiaphas. Furious and devastated that his nephew is hanging on a cross for a crime he did not commit, he commands the High Priest put an end to this extremely corrupt situation. "You've made a career of being close to Pilate," Joseph says, tears brimming in his eyes. "Make it count for something now." Feeling desperate, Caiaphas prays in the Temple courtyard, pouring ashes all over himself as part of a mourning ritual. "He has a position that none of us do. He speaks for us," she says as she looks over at her nervous husband. "Yet he is silent," Annas agrees.

At the new commune, the converts work vigorously to set up their new home. Peter walks through the camp, pleased at the sense of community already growing. "We're in awe of what you've achieved here," Ananias commends Peter, but Peter gives all of the credit to the work of the Holy Spirit. "We are humble in its presence," Sapphira replies. When Peter once again wanders throughout the commune, he notices Boaz. "If we are still at odds, then this place is not for you," Peter tells the violent Zealot. Peter tells Boaz he can live here, so long he repents his sins in the name of Jesus Christ, but Boaz refuses. "I do not recognize this name Jesus from the scriptures," he tells Peter, not willing to give up his Jewish identity. "I recall Joshua, Solomon, King David," Boaz adds, insisting he will stay at the commune regardless. Feeling powerless, Peter confides in Ananias. "There are people here who take advantage of us," he says. Suddenly, a wind picks up around them and Peter hears a twisted whispering sound of the Holy Spirit. In a cloudy vision, Peter sees Ananias and Sapphira hiding money, despite them telling Peter they have donated everything they had. Realizing the couple has lied not only to him, but also to God, Peter charges Ananias for his sins. Ananias denies everything, but the Holy Spirit knows the truth. A trickle of dark blood drips from Ananias' nose, and his face is covered in black speckled dots. He looks to Peter in confusion, trying to speak, but only gurgles of blood come up. Drowning in his own fluids, Ananias drops to his knees and keels over dead. Unaware of the commotion, Sapphira seeks Peter, asking about Ananias' whereabouts. Hoping she will not face the same fate as her husband, Peter asks Sapphira to speak truthfully about holding anything back for themselves. "There may have been something set aside, but what does that matter?" she asks, confused. "It matters because you bet against our mission succeeding. You bet against God, Sapphira!" Peter cries out. She looks at Peter horrified, as black dots begin to scatter on her face and blood oozes from her nose and mouth. The men who are burying her husband will soon bury her too.

Caiaphas barges into Pilate's palace, still covered in thick ash. "Your chief responsibility as Governor is to maintain the peace, but you've squandered that," Caiaphas tells Pilate, aggressive at last. "More blood will be spilt. Roman blood." Pilate, not appreciative of Caiaphas' disrespect, orders his soldiers to restrain the High Priest. He picks up the urn he is obsessed with and grabs a fistful of Drusus' ashes, shoving them into Caiaphas' mouth. As Caiaphas gags and chokes, Pilate takes hold of his face firmly. "I will continue as I see fit, until I have what I want," the Roman ruler barks at Caiaphas. "There will be no mercy," Pilate says as a promise, not a threat. As Caiaphas leaves the palace completely humiliated, he catches the sympathetic eye of Claudia. Knowing she must do something about her out-of-control husband, she finds Leah late at night. "This killing has gone on too long. Pilate's brutality will never find the assassin," she says, one ruling woman to another. "But you can, you can end this. His name is Boaz." Leah is surprised, but thankful for the information. This could be exactly what her husband needs to end this chaos.

Summary: Following the attempt on his life, Pilate cracks down on the Jews; Peter and John face a corrupt trial; the smiting of new converts creates fear amongst the Christians.


Updated APR 29, 2015 11:27a ET

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Cardinals general manager Steve Keim and coach Bruce Arians say they don't have any major needs heading into this week's NFL Draft.

Not to be contrary, but here's one to consider: a consistent edge rusher.

The Cardinals finished 24th in the NFL last season with 35 sacks. Many of those were the product of blitzes. Arizona brought pressure more than any team in the NFL, putting a strain on the team's secondary, particularly cornerbacks Patrick Peterson and Antonio Cromartie, who were often left alone in coverage.

Cromartie is gone, and for all his promise, Justin Bethel is still green and unproven. That's one reason to find a consistent edge rusher, but the bigger picture is simple: The more the Cardinals can generate pressure with a four-man front, the greater their chances of maintaining their defensive integrity.

"With the way the passing game has evolved, you need somebody who can apply constant pressure on the quarterback," said retired NFL player Bertrand Berry, who posted 14.5 sacks for the Cardinals in 2004 -- the third-highest total in franchise history. "You don't want to always have to manufacture pressure through scheme and zone dog and all out blitzes. It puts too much of a strain on your linebackers and your back end. You want somebody in your front four who can put his hand on the ground and go get the quarterback any time you need it."

The Cardinals do have some options on their current roster. That, coupled with the usual pre-draft smokescreens, may be why Arians and Keim aren't using the "need" word.

Outside linebacker Alex Okafor showed promise last season, leading the team with eight sacks. Calais Campbell had seven sacks from his defensive end position and still has upside to that part of his game. The Cardinals also signed 30-year-old veteran linebacker LaMarr Woodley, who Arians describes as a "very physical outside edge player" who "collapses the pocket and sometimes gives you some good inside pressure."

Arians also revealed at the NFL owners meetings that the team will move defensive end Kareem Martin to outside linebacker this season.

"With his length -- I wouldn't say he's Aldon Smith at this point in his career -- but he's got that body style and he's shown some stuff off the edge, so we are going to look at him to see if he can play in space at all," Arians said. "That might be a spot where he can find his niche as a pass rusher.

"With the number of guys we have to mix packages together, I really like our pass rush," Arians added, before admitting he'd like to have one more speed guy.

"I think Calais is the key," Berry said. "They're going to build around him. With all due respect to Patrick Peterson and the secondary, they're going to go as Calais goes.

"If you don't have someone on the outside to take pressure off of him, then teams can clamp down on him. You don't always want Calais to have to put forth a Herculean effort, so I think a lot of teams are taking Seattle's approach where you have and need two or three guys that can rotate in and apply pressure."

The 2015 NFL Draft is considered deep in edge rushers; as many as five could come off the board in the first 15 picks. Three edge rushers have gone in the top 10 in each of the past two drafts, and 32 edge rushers have been selected in the first rounds of the last five drafts. There have been six first-round edge rushers in each of the past two drafts, and eight went in the first round in 2011.

Florida's Dante Fowler Jr., Nebraska's Randy Gregory, Clemson's Vic Beasley,Kentucky's Alvin "Bud" Dupree and Missouri's Shane Ray are considered the top edge rushers in this year's draft, although some warts have developed on Gregory and Ray that could hurt their stock. Ray was cited Monday for marijuana possession, and Gregory failed a drug test at the NFL Scouting Combine for the same reason.

Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter

A look at the top OLB & DE draft prospects, per CBSSports.com

Summary: Former Cardinal Bertrand Berry says Arizona needs a consistent edge threat on the opposite side to take some pressure and attention away from defensive end Calais Campbell.


Social media can be a dangerous place for children, and a haven for those would would prey upon them. Sometimes, however, it can be a vital refuge for those who were abused in real-life, and an avenue for seeking justice when more traditional means have failed.

That’s been the experience of Matt Lauzon, a Boston entrepreneur known for founding tech companies Gemvara and Dunwello.

The 30 year-old grew up in the small industrial city of Biddeford, Maine, where, at the age of 13 or 14, he claims to have been sexually assaulted by a local man who lived across the street from a Little League field where Lauzon regularly played. Lauzon was ashamed of the incident and terrified of telling his father, who he describes as “very Catholic and homophobic.” When local detectives came to the family’s home to interview Matt with his father in the room — after having independently learned that the man had been in contact with Lauzon — the boy denied that anything untoward had occurred.

That would, and should, be awful enough. But the story took a darker turn when, according to Lauzon, he later would be contacted via an online messageboard by a Biddeford police officer named Stephen Dodd who said he knew what had happened and wanted to help.

“I felt a sense of relief as I had regretted not talking to the two detectives and it felt like this was a chance to talk to an officer I could trust,” Lauzon recently wrote in a letter to Maine’s attorney general. But, according to Lauzon, Stephen Dodd had no interest in helping. During their first meeting, inside an SUV parked on a dirt road, Lauzon says that the officer sexually assaulted him in much the same manner as the previous man. And the abuse would be repeated on subsequent occasions.

For well over a decade, Lauzon kept quiet. When his father passed away, he didn’t tell his mother. When he would visit Biddeford as an adult, he didn’t tell old friends. But Lauzon’s outer silence was a facade, masking an inner turmoil that, by the middle of last year, had him “very close to killing myself.”

Lauzon says that his turning point was reading an article written in The Guardian by fellow tech entrepreneur Ruzwana Bashir, who discussed having been molested as a child in England. Bashir also had remained silent for years, but was compelled to speak after a widespread abuse scandal roiled the British town of Rotherham.

Lauzon emailed Bashir, CEO of San Francisco-based travel startup Peek, to thank her for her courage. “We ended up having spending a few hours on the phone together,” Bashir says. “I encouraged him to go to the police.”

But when Lauzon began reaching out through proper channels, he ran into brick walls. Wary of a Biddeford Police Department that he felt might be partial to Dodd (who retired in 2003 at the age of 46 and moved to Florida), Lauzon eventually filled out a form on the Maine State Police website, but never heard back from them. Instead, he received an email from one of the Biddeford detectives who had originally gone to Lauzon’s home years earlier, asking him to come to the local station and give a verbal statement. Lauzon was told that the matter was then referred to the state Attorney General’s office, but he soon felt that he was getting the runaround.

Where he went next was Facebook.

“My first post was really in a fit of frustration,” explains Lauzon, who first went to tell his mother what had happened. “My goal was to get as many people who are my friends to provide me with support. I got that, but wasn’t fully expecting what happened next.”

“I started getting messages from other people who had been abused, thanking me for going public,” Lauzon says. “Kind of like how I had reached out to Ruzwana, but some of these were also people who had grown up in Biddeford and say they were abused by Stephen Dodd and another cop.”

Soon Lauzon was regularly posting about the situation, including copies of emails from city officials that seemed to reference the case. His attorney originally expressed concern about using social media in such a manner, but later acknowledged that the medium had helped to uncover many more alleged victims (including some who had gone to law enforcement much earlier than Lauzon, but to no avail). As of this morning, five other men have accused Dodd of abusing them as children.

“The way Facebook connections work, my posts were seen by people with ties to Biddeford who I had never even met before,” Lauzon says. “It also caused people in the tech community to reach out to ask if there were ways they could help.”

Dodd has not been arrested, but Lauzon is optimistic that his posts have sparked enough public outrage that the state attorney general will have no option but to act (either via formal charges or at least a public statement). He also is scheduled to meet shortly with Maine Governor Paul LePage, who Lauzon says “has taken a lot of interest” in the situation. From a media perspective, the local press — plus The Boston Globe — has been regularly monitoring the situation since Lauzon’s original Facebook post, and this month’s Biddeford City Council meeting was dominated by the controversy.

Biddeford, Maine.Photograph by Jill Brady — Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

Dodd’s attorney did not return a request for comment, and the Biddeford Police Department and Maine Attorney General’s office have said publicly that they cannot publicly discuss the situation.

Lauzon strongly believes that going public has begun to help him heal, and wants to encourage others to share their own stories and seek justice. He and Bashir are in the very early stages of launching some sort of online platform for other victims of childhood sexual abuse.

“We have an obligation to help others,” says Bashir, whose own abuser was sent to prison for eight years. “Both of us being entrepreneurs, we have a lot of advantages in getting something like this started, but we both also run companies, so will need to find someone to work on it in a fulltime capacity… There is this democratization of power now thanks to the Internet, whether it’s by using Facebook or something like my Guardian article or whatever Matt and I come up with. We’ve both heard from so many people everywhere who have had these issues and have not wanted to speak out because of the culture of shame. It’s a real barrier that needs to be knocked down.”

Summary: For more than 15 years, Boston entrepreneur Matt Lauzon carried a horrible secret that nearly drove him to suicide. He tried the proper channels. And, when that failed, he turned to social media.


Zenefits is growing so fast that it has to onboard new employees in bulk: 150 at a time, once per month. Since the San Francisco software startup’s mission is to simplify the busy work of human resources tasks like payroll and benefits, it has avoided hiring its own head of HR, relying on its own software to get workers up and running.

But earlier this year, Zenefits outgrew its own software, which is designed for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. At just two years old, Zenefits now has has just over 1,000 employees. (It hired a head of HR when it hit 800.) The hypergrowth is particularly notable for a startup in a category that even CEO Partner Conrad admits is “tremendously unsexy.”

Today, Zenefits takes a big step to continue its hypergrowth. Zenefits has raised $500 million in Series C funding, valuing it at $4.5 billion. That valuation represents a 9x jump over its last round of funding, which happened just one year ago.

Fidelity Management and TPG led the funding round, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, and Sound Ventures, the investment firm of Ashton Kutcher. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Institutional Venture Partners, and actor Jared Leto participated. Zenefits noted that this round represents Andreessen Horowitz’s largest ever deal.

Zenefits has amassed 10,000 customers, who use its human resources software for free. Zenefits acts as a middle man, taking a commission when it connects companies with third party vendors like health insurance providers or payroll services companies. In March, the company closed more new business than it had in the entire existence of the company, Conrad says. The company expects to book an annual recurring revenue, an accounting term used by software companies like Zenefits, of $100 million this year, up from $20 million last year.

The money will be used to continue that growth. “If we want to hit equally eye-popping numbers in 2016 and 2017, we really need this much capital to do it,” Conrad says.

“We could always grow slower,” he continues. “If we wanted to grow less quickly, we would need less capital, but we think this is right thing to do and our metrics suggest the return on investment would be very high.”

The company plans to use the new capital to hire even more employees to help Zenefits acquire new customers and provide support to them. Zenefits believes it can serve many of the five million American businesses which have fewer than 1000 employees. (A comparable company, Workday WDAY , provides enterprise-level HR software for larger companies.)

Zenefits’ early growth has ruffled some feathers along the way. Last year, the state of Utah banned the company from operating in its state, on the grounds that giving away software for free acted as an illegal rebate. (Zenefits itself is a licensed insurance broker.) At the time, Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad said the ban was “kind of bullshit,” and “blatant overreaching where the regulator is trying to protect brokers from competition.”

Last month, Utah reversed that ban. Since then, Zenefits has taken a softer approach toward entering new states, Conrad says. His team has been proactively reaching out to Departments of Insurance in states across the U.S. to show them the value Zenefits’ software brings to small businesses. “Once we show them a demo, they get it,” he says. Further, Conrad believes the small business owners that use Zenefits have enough lobbying power to help the company avoid future regulatory fights.

Summary: The company's valuation has grown ninefold in less than a year.


When Barbara Greenwald went out to buy a food processor last January, she noticed that the manufacturer, Moulinex, was offering a $7 refund with proof of purchase.

"The machine was only $50," the Manhattan resident said, "but I thought, why shouldn't I get it for $43 if I could? I had never bothered sending for those 50-cent or $1 refunds, but this one was worth the trouble." So she filled out the form and sent it in Jan. 30; a check for $7 arrived May 7.

She joined the 36 percent of American households that are estimated to be participating in refund promotions run by manufacturers. A national survey last year by the Nielsen Clearing House found that such participation had more than d oubled since a previous survey, in 1977, when 17 percent of the respondents said they had sent for rebates durin g the year. The recent survey also found that, on average, fami lies send for five refunds a year.

Such refunds include the $5 or $10 offers on supermarket items. Though coupons offering price reductions are still the most popular promotional tool used by manufacturers, the dramatic increase in consumer interest in refunds has resulted in growth in the number of refund promotions, according to Nielsen.

Of course, cents-off coupons are less trouble to the consumer, who simply takes them to the store. That is why 76 percent of those surveyed in 1980 said they used them, as against 65 percent in 1975. Refunds require filling out forms, mailing them in and then waiting for the money, yet the response rate on refunds is 20 to 50 percent while that on coupons is 4.5 percent. With prices so high, more and more people are willing to take the time and trouble to save a few dollars.

Many subscribe to rebate newsletters. More than 300 such newsletters are published monthly, according to K. R. Baumbusch, president of Promotion Marketing Association of America, a national trade group. "These are printed by women all around the country who charge $12 or $15 a year to subscribers," he said. "There are also miniconventions of consumers held just about every weekend somewhere or other. Maybe 50 or 100 or 200 women gather to swap coupons and information on refunds."

Such swapping has sometimes led to problems: people requesting from manufacturers coupons that were not being offered in their geographic area or consumers not sending in the proper proofs of purchase or cash register tapes or other required evidence. To avoid such errors Mr. Baumbusch put together a consumer checklist (see the following box), which he asked the newsletter publishers to print. There have been fewer problems since then, he said.

A spokesman said that General Mills had offered refunds on every product, new and existing, at some time. "Coupons get people to buy our products," he said. "Refunds get them to continue to buy our products." That is because many refund offers require proofs of purchase from more than one package.

Sometimes a company will offer a refund as an overlay on an existing promotion - say, a 25-cent coupon to buy one package, plus $1 back after buying four packages. The rarionale is that after a family has bought four or five packages it will become accustomed to the brand and will continue to buy it. A cents-off coupon, on the other hand, promotes fast sales but does not n ecessarily foster repeated purchases.

To test the efficiency of the refund operation, this reporter bought a variety of products during the summer (most offers advise consumers to allow six to eight weeks for refunds). The purchases included a Norelco coffee maker, Sinarest tablets, Enhance hair conditioner, Duracell batteries, DX toothbrushes and Kellogg's cereals. All refunds except Kellogg's were received within the time limit; Kellogg's, which said it had no record of the request, reports responses in the millions and a failure rate of 0.5 percent.

While some refunds are handled by the manufacturer, most are farmed out to so-called fulfillment houses. However, anyone with a complaint about a refund should write directly to the manufacturer's consumer service department. REFUNDS CHECKLIST

The Promotion Marketing Association of America offers the following suggestions to assist consumers on mail-in refund promotions:

*Include the official refund certificate. These are usually required and cannot be reproduced.

*Check to see if the offer has geographic limitations or an expiration date

*Print your name, apartment number, address, city, state and zip code clearly *Include the proper proofs of purchase from the correct product, size, flavor, variety, etc. These vary widely: box tops, box bottoms, special seals, symbols, labels. Never use substitutes or facsimiles.

*Check details of the offer carefully since some require cash-register tapes

*Enclose all the materials in an envelope bearing your return address and of sufficient size and strength to insure delivery. Print clearly the exact offer name, box number and address on the envelope and include sufficient postage to insure delivery.

*Allow sufficient time for delivery, usually six to eight weeks. Keep records of what, when and where you send for a refund.


Cuts in the food stamp program by the Reagan Administration ''reflect how double-digit inflation has robbed us of compassion as well as our standard of living,'' Carol Bellamy, New York City's Council President, has charged in a scholarly publication here.

She contends that the program's problems have been blamed on ''fraud and easy eligibility rather than on the underlying causes - failed economic policies.'' She says the nation is ''no longer shocked by the effects of poverty'' and would cure inflation and unemployment by ''sacrificing the most basic need of the poor - food.''

Miss Bellamy set forth her views in attacking the city's former Human Resources Administrator, Dr. Blanche Bernstein. Last spring, Dr. Bernstein cited Miss Bellamy among ''sniping'' advocates who impeded efficient administration and lacked understanding of problems of administering a large program under rapidly changing Federal directives and court orders.

Dr. Bernstein said that reforms embracing both ''reasonable effectiveness'' a nd compassion finally occurred despite ''special interest grou ps and their supporters'' in Congress and state and local legisla tive bodies. She ran the city's welfare program in 1978 and 1979 and previously was deputy state commissioner of social services. 1.2 Million Benefit

Miss Bellamy and her counsel, Barry Ensminger, say in the current City Almanac, published by the Center for New York City Affairs of the New School for Social Research, that the food stamp program benefits 1.2 million people in the city.

They include, the authors of the article say, 835,000 welfare clients (1980 mean monthly grant of $398 for four-person families); 110,000 elderly, blind and disabled recipients of Supplemental Security Income (mean monthly gross income $314) and 257,000 other poor (mean monthly household income $588).

Food stamps ''now average less than 45 cents a meal per person,'' they say, but still made ''dramatic dietary improvements among lowincome groups'' and reduced infant mortality by a third in former areas of gross malnuitrition across the country.

Various government data, they say, show that in New York State, $302.7 million in food stamp benefits in 1976 added $15 million to $20 million to farmer income, raised retail food sales by $150 million and created or retained more than 20,000 jobs.

The state and local governments, they say, received new tax revenues of ''$12 for every state dollar spent on food stamp administration.'' Causes for Overruns Cited

They say a coalition of religious, charitable, community, labor, recipient and antipoverty groups and elected officials brought about expansion and improvements in the program. The causes for cost overruns, Miss Bellamy and her counsel say, were not ''overzealous advocates'' or cheating, but ''inflation and unemployment.''

In the previous City Almanac, Dr. Bernstein had contended that it was Department of Agriculture regulations, ''not the states' administrative ineptness,'' that were mainly responsible for past high error rates.

She also charged that Federal Court decisions had created excessive administrative costs in return for ''dismal'' benefits, adding that ''the courts need to be made aware'' of cost-benefit impacts.

One court order here, she said, forced a $544,000 administrative effort that gave 25,591 households, or 3 to 4 percent of the city's participants at the time, $3,443,322 in retroactive benefits.

Another, she said, cost $600,000 for compliance and provided retroactive benefits to 9,207 households, or 2 percent of the eligibles, for a probable ''minuscule percentage'' of total benefits.

A third, she said, cost $102,000 to implement and gave 183 applicants $18,776 in benefits.


ELLY Ameling's afternoon of song at Carnegie Hall Sunday ranged across most of Europe - alighting briefly in England and Spain but concentrating its charms mostly on the music of the French and the Germans.

Miss Ameling was as comfortable with the dance-hall decadence of Poulenc's ''Violon,'' Satie's ''La diva de 'l'Empire' '' and Schoenberg's ''Gigerlette'' as she was with Strauss's heavier humor in ''Hat gesagt, bleibt's nicht dabei.'' In Schubert's ''Die junge Nonne,'' her voice, her countenance, indeed her whole body seemed to change dramatically as the anxiety and fear of the song's beginning became the major-key hope and strength of its end.

The second half of Miss Ameling's program sought out exquisite examples of the French vocal tradition -the private longings of Faure's ''Apres une reve,'' the eroticism of Debussy's ''C'est l'extase,'' and the nostalgia and sadness of Chausson's ''Le colibri'' and the ''Chanson triste'' of Duparc. Her taste and control here and in the rest of this program seemed never to fail her.

Dalton Baldwin was Miss Ameling's faithful and reticent accompanist. The large audience seemed enchanted by both. Bernard Holland

Summary: ELLY Ameling's afternoon of song at Carnegie Hall Sunday ranged across most of Europe - alighting briefly in England and Spain but concentrating its charms mostly on the music of the French and the Germans.   And charms there were.


The Society of American Museums tonight pulls its 73d ''Salute to Magic'' out of its hat at 8 o'clock in the Hunter College Auditorium, 68th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues.

The society, which is 80 years old this year, has more than 3,500 sleight-of-hand members nationwide, and 10 percent of them are in its New York chapter. Ever since 1909 it has been doing its annual show, at which magicians, stars and newcomers bedazzle audiences with new tricks or with old tricks in new guises; some tricks never really do grow old.

Tonight you will see Tomsoni & Company, a comic performer who has honed to a fine art the illusion of being inept. Shelley Carroll, described as a ''manipulative'' magician, will conjure up, out of thin air, balls and cigarettes, which is not uncommon, and umbrellas, which are. Oprandy is a fire-eater and also does a triple escape. The four-member Masters of Magic will suspend a woman from a microphone, somehow, and will repeat Houdini's Metamorphosis illusion, in which a man and a woman exchange places in a trunk. The City Mime Ensemble, 10 nonmagicians, will do an act, and Lee Allen, a magician, will serve as host.

Some of the proceeds will go to the Houdini Hospital Fund, which helps needy magicians. Admission: $5, $9, $10. Information: 796-8611. WIEN, WIEN, DU ALLEIN

There is new music, there is old music and there is Viennese music, that special Mittel Europe soul music that is as sweet and smooth as schlagobers, real whipped-cream. Years ago Robert Stolz packed them in for open-air Vienna nights at Lewisohn Stadium, at City College. Lewisohn is long gone, but the taste lingers on in concert, unfading through the years.

Tonight at 8:30, the Queens Symphony Orchestra, with Roberta Peters, the coloratura soprano, performs ''A Night in Vienna'' at Queens College's Colden Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island Expressway and Kissena Boulevard, in Flushing (793-8080). There are seats available for tonight's concert; a repeat of it tomorrow afternoon is sold out.

David Katz, conductor, will lead the orchestra through such melodious perennials as Strauss's ''Overture to Die Fledermaus,'' ''Tales From the Vienna Woods'' and Von Suppe's ''Poet and Peasant Overture.'' Miss Peters will sing ''Vilia,'' ''The Laughing Song,'' ''Vienna, City of My Dreams'' and others of the genre.

Admission: $12, $11, $9. Free parking at the center. For another $6 you may attend a reception for Miss Peters after the performance in a building next door; pay at the door. ACROSS THE BAY

The ferry season is upon us, a time when the cheapest cruise out of Manhattan lands you in Staten Island. Among the borough's special charms is the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on its north shore at Richmond Terrace, an aggregation of gracious architecture and grounds once home to retired sailors and now home to all sort of events.

Tomorrow from noon to 5 P.M., another island institution, the Staten Island Children's Museum, is staging an outdoors ''Meadow Fair'' at Snug Harbor. This fund-raiser is dedicated to fun for kids, although adults may find it fun, too. A hot-air balloon will hover over the festivities, which include a Dixieland band, stiltwalking puppets, rides and a chance to make crowns and conical hats and banners and pennants. All sorts of hawkers, a fleamarket for grownups and helium balloons.

Admission: $1; 50 cents for children. A five-minute ride on the No. 1 bus from the ferry terminal. Information: 273-2060. ART

Constantin Brancusi was a Rumanian sculptor who died in 1957 after having produced art most highly esteemed by connoisseurs, museums and collectors. The International Brancusi Society, organized to study his life and relationship with contemporary art, holds its fourth annual meeting at 1 P.M. today in the faculty lounge of Fordham University, at Lincoln Center, on the 12th floor of 113 West 60th Street.

Dr. Louise Averill Svendsen, senior curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, will speak about Brancusi and his works at the museum. James Johnson Sweeney, former director of the Guggenheim, who was a friend of Brancusi, will introduce her and give a short talk about the artist. Dr. Florence M. Hetzler, a Fordham philosophy professor, will report on ''Brancusi in India,'' from where she has recently returned.

For Sports Today. see page 20. Richard F. Shepard

Illustrations: Photo of Roberta Peters

Summary: NOW YOU SEE IT   The Society of American Museums tonight pulls its 73d ''Salute to Magic'' out of its hat at 8 o'clock in the Hunter College Auditorium, 68th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues.   The society, which is 80 years old this year, has more than 3,500 sleight-of-hand members nationwide, and 10 percent of them are in its New York chapter. Ever since 1909 it has been doing its annual show, at which magicians, stars and newcomers bedazzle audiences with new tricks or with old tricks in new guises; some tricks never really do grow old.   Tonight you will see Tomsoni & Company, a comic performer who has honed to a fine art the illusion of being inept. Shelley Carroll, described as a ''manipulative'' magician, will conjure up, out of thin air, balls and cigarettes, which is not uncommon, and umbrellas, which are. Oprandy is a fire-eater and also does a triple escape. The four-member Masters of Magic will suspend a woman from a microphone, somehow, and will repeat Houdini's Metamorphosis illusion, in which a man and a woman exchange places in a trunk. The City Mime Ensemble, 10 nonmagicians, will do an act, and Lee Allen, a magician, will serve as host.


P reparations for President Reagan's summit trip to Europe are proceeding on a number of levels, some more subtle than others. This week, for example, the United States International Communication Agency is holding a seminar for two dozen European journalists from 19 countries, a project that the participants have informally christened a ''charm school.''

First, the writers and broadcasters are being treated to private sessions at the Pentagon with an impressive roster of Administration leaders, headed by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and Deputy Secretary of State Walter J. Stoessel Jr. Then they're off to Fort Stewart, Ga., which is swarming with gnats this time of the year, to view a military demonstration on rapid deployment.

Although I.C.A. officials contend for the record that this is just another foreign correspondents' briefing, policymakers are privately hopeful that the sessions will lay down a foundation of positive articles about the strength and determination of American leadership, neatly timed just before the President's visit. White House Check-Up

I n making his rounds of the nooks and crannies of the President's mansion, Rex W. Scouten, the chief White House usher, is ever vigilant for the slightest plaster crack that could signal a structural problem. From time to time he takes the precaution of asking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to send in a geodetic survey team to check out the place. At his request, Charles T. Whalen, chief of the National Geodetic Survey's vertical network branch, last week gave the White House the equivalent of a physical examination.

Using sophisticated computerized survey equipment and 40 benchmarks on the White House walls, Mr. Whalen and his surveyors looked for any signs of earth movement that could spell trouble. There has been very little change in the building's level since its last major structural overhaul in the Truman Administration. Four years ago, Mr. Whalen found a sinking trend in the mansion's southwest corner, and according to his calculations, the rate of subsidence comes out to about one inch every 90 years. The results of this year's examination will not be known for another week.

An official at the atmospheric agency remarked: ''When Jimmy Carter was President, one corner of the White House was sinking. Now that Ronald Reagan is the occupant, I guess the major question is whether the place is shifting to the right.'' Clergy's Defense Lesson

A s Billy Graham, the nation's best-known evangelist, preaches against the nuclear arms race, which he views as a hurtle toward the ultimate in hellfire and brimstone, the Pentagon has been quietly mounting a counterattack on the religious front.

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger recently invited more than 50 American clergymen of many denominations to the Pentagon for what was billed as a ''defense forum for religious leaders.'' One participant came away with this observation: ''I was struck by the general support of this group for the defense initiatives of this Administration and its timidity in asking any kind of hard questions. It was a piece of cake for the Pentagon. The only hopeful statement that was made was Mr. Weinberger. He said, 'I don't think nuclear war is limitable; I know it is not winnable.' '' Stockman Sends Regrets

D avid A. Stockman has done it again. For the second time in as many weeks, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget has canceled an appearance before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss the Administration's ''new federalism'' proposal.

Committee members and staff were irked when they received Mr. Stockman's last-minute regrets for Monday's hearing. Edwin L. Dale Jr., the budget director's spokesman, said that Mr. Stockman had had trouble reaching anyone on the committee, which, he said, explains why the panel didn't get the word until late Friday afternoon.

Although the Administration and the nation's governors insist that their ''new federalism'' negotiations are going smoothly, some members of this Republican-controlled committee believe Mr. Stockman's apparent reluctance to testify indicates that things are not so rosy. Officials in Mr. Stockman's office acknowledge that the talks are in a delicate stage right now and say the budget director does not want to discuss the matter publicly until there is firm progress to report. Said Mr. Dale: ''We have pledged that the Finance Committee will get Stockman first when the timing is right.'' Phil Gailey Warren Weaver Jr.

Summary: Pre-Summit 'Charm School'   P reparations for President Reagan's summit trip to Europe are proceeding on a number of levels, some more subtle than others. This week, for example, the United States International Communication Agency is holding a seminar for two dozen European journalists from 19 countries, a project that the participants have informally christened a ''charm school.''   First, the writers and broadcasters are being treated to private sessions at the Pentagon with an impressive roster of Administration leaders, headed by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and Deputy Secretary of State Walter J. Stoessel Jr. Then they're off to Fort Stewart, Ga., which is swarming with gnats this time of the year, to view a military demonstration on rapid deployment.


After a brief demotion to the No. 2 spot last year, Apple has won back its title as the world’s most valuable brand, according to the annual BrandZ ranking put together by marketing research firm Millward Brown.

Google briefly claimed the most valuable brand title last year, interrupting Apple’s three-year run. Apple’s brand value boomed 67% this year, hitting an impressive $247 billion. Google’s brand value, meanwhile, climbed 9% to $174 billion over that same period–making it the No. 2 most valuable brand this year.

Millward calculates the most valuable brands using a mix of market data and consumer surveys to isolate what portion of a company’s value is credit to its brand name.

Here’s the top 8 most valuable brands for 2015:

Last year’s value: $148 billion

Change from last year: 67%

Last year’s value: $158 billion

Change from last year: 9%

Last year’s value: $90 billion

Change from last year: 28%

Last year’s value: $108 billion

Change from last year: -13%

Last year’s value: $79 billion

Change from last year: 16%

Last year’s value: $78 billion

Change from last year: 15%

Last year’s value: $63 billion

Change from last year: 36%

Last year’s value: $81 billion

Change from last year: 4%

Summary: Google isn't #1 any longer


06/10/2015 AT 05:00 PM EDT

returned to the stage Tuesday night for the first time since the birth of

a little over three months ago, but she had another landmark moment on her mind when she greeted the full house at the Grand Ole Opry.

"Tomorrow is actually the exact day – 10-year anniversary – of the very first time I walked out on this Opry stage," she said to the crowd's cheers. "So I can't believe it's been 10 years. But I'm just eternally grateful and thankful for all the blessings I've had in my life. Just thank you, guys, for allowing me to be on this stage, and thank you for coming to hear all of us play. This means so much."

Of course among those blessings is her son, Isaiah, who was born on Feb. 27. Though her husband, NHL star

, was easy to spot on the ice in the weeks after the birth, Underwood, 32, has stayed out of the spotlight while she's been embracing new motherhood.

This week, though, she's back with a roar. Besides playing two Opry shows on Tuesday night, she's performing Wednesday night at the

at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. And on Saturday night she'll entertain a sellout crowd at LP Field, Nashville's NFL stadium, during CMA Music Festival week. About 100,000 country music fans are expected to pour into the city for the annual extravaganza that takes over much of the city's downtown.

Underwood told the Opry audience she's revved for the week even as Nashville's summer begins to heat up. "We've been driving around town a little bit, and I see some of you guys out there," she said. "It's really cool. Everybody's got their cameras. They're ready. I love it! I just wish somebody would turn the air conditioning on outside."

Underwood clearly has been keeping to the diet and

she's been famous for long before her pregnancy, and she sparkled on stage in a form-fitting low-cut blue minidress. Her three-song set offered the audience something old and something new: her Randy Travis "I Told You So" cover (from 2007); her current single, "Little Toy Guns," as well as her signature song, "Before He Cheats" (2005).

Underwood's most recent Opry appearance was on Dec. 13, but the last time she appeared on the Opry House stage was Jan. 8, when she and Vince Gill performed a stirring duet of "Go Rest High on That Mountain" at the funeral of Opry legend Little Jimmy Dickens.

She hits the road later this month for several concert dates. Her next Opry appearances are July 24 and 25.

Among the unexpected members of the audience at the early show on Tuesday were action-film star (and former California governor)

co-star Tom Arnold. In town for the

, the duo greeted the crowd briefly on stage and then found seats to watch the show, which also featured Billy Currington, Easton Corbin, Mickey Guyton, and Bill Anderson, among others.

Summary: The singer kicks off her action-packed week at the Grand Ole Opry


FORTUNE — As a reporter I salute my professional colleagues for so thoroughly laying bare the recent U.S. Justice Department inquiry that led to the resignation of C.I.A. Director David Petraeus and a related Defense Department inquiry concerning General John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

But now that the once white-hot scandal has died down to the “what-was-that-all-about?” stage, some non-journalist readers might be wondering if the probes were handled with appropriate discretion by public officials. As we look back across the wreckage — the invasions of privacy visited upon outstanding public servants and their unquestionably innocent spouses and children in the name of reassuring the public that various theoretically conceivable security breaches and political conspiracies were, in fact, merely theoretical — doesn’t it seem like there ought to be a law curbing this sort of peeping-tomfoolery?

There actually is such a law: the Privacy Act of 1974.

“Virtually all the information that has entered the public domain about these investigations has constituted a violation of law,” says Daniel J. Metcalfe, a professor at American University Washington College of Law who, for 25 years, as a Justice Department official, guided the government-wide administration of both the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act. “There are at least five Privacy Act victims here — one doing double duty as an apparent perpetrator — and the violations have to do with both names and investigatory file content.”

The Petraeus inquiry has startled many Americans by showing how easy it is for the feds to read citizens’ private emails, even those of the C.I.A. Director. While law enforcement officials do have that power under appropriate circumstances, what they are not supposed to do is then go tell The Washington Post what they found in those emails — unless and until the investigation results in formal accusations of wrongdoing.

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I asked Metcalfe to take a retrospective stroll with me through the reportage, pointing out along the way all the apparent Privacy Act violations he could detect as they occurred. As a journalist, I often found myself sympathetic to the leaker, whose disclosures provided the public with important explanations for missing pieces of the puzzle.

But the law is intended to prevent collateral damage to innocent — or even marginally guilty — bystanders. “You can think of it as almost a civil liberties issue,” says Metcalfe. By their nature, investigations need latitude to probe the lives of people who will often turn out to have done nothing wrong. Those individuals, in turn, are entitled not to be publicly stigmatized and humiliated. (The Privacy Act makes the United States liable for civil damages caused by violations committed by its officers. Though individual officers do not face personal civil liability, they can face criminal misdemeanor charges.)

Here’s the basic timeline, based on accounts contained in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and A.P. stories. The investigation apparently began around May, when Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite, received harassing emails from a then-unknown source. According to later statements by Kelley’s spokesman, she thought the emails might reflect a potential threat to Petraeus and Allen, whose private comings and goings were referred to in them. Her social acquaintance, F.B.I. special agent Frederick W. Humphries II, agreed with her assessment, and initiated an investigation. At that point, professor Metcalfe says, the identities of Kelley, Petraeus, and Allen, were all supposed to be protected under the Privacy Act. When the inquiry established that the emails were written by Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biographer and, for a period, lover, her name too, should have been protected. When questions about Humphries’ own conduct arose, his identity, too, became protected.

The inquiry then appears to have languished, perhaps because it turned up no security breaches or crimes judged worthy of pursuit.

In late September, with the elections drawing near, agent Humphries reportedly became concerned that the inquiry’s findings were being either deep-sixed or postponed for political reasons. Evidently acting as a whistleblower, Humphries shared what he knew with Congressman Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington State, who then put Humphries in touch with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whom Humphries also spoke to. Cantor then brought Humphries’ concerns to the attention of senior FBI officials.

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Humphries’ conversations with Reichert and Cantor may have constituted the first Privacy Act breaches, according to Metcalfe. Though the information did not immediately leak out into the press, Metcalfe says, Reichert and Cantor here count as members of the public who aren’t supposed to be given access to the information they got. While an exception to the Privacy Act permits, under various circumstances, informing Congress “as a body” (or one of its houses or committees) about the contents of an inquiry, Metcalfe says, this leak does not come within that exception, he says.

“I’m not concerned with that as a Privacy Act violation,” says Humphries’ counsel, Lawrence Berger, who is the general counsel of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. Berger says the content of any conversations between Humphries and Reichert or Cantor should have remained “protected and confidential” under separate rules governing congressmen’s behavior.

Still, once Reichert and Cantor received the information, they were not bound by the Privacy Act, which gags only Executive Branch employees. This is not statutory oversight, Metcalfe observes, since attempts to prevent congressmen from speaking out might run afoul of the Speech and Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As a consequence, congressmen can sometimes constitute a significant conduit through which otherwise Privacy Act-protected information can lawfully gush out to the public.

Perhaps prodded by Cantor’s inquiries, the F.B.I. finally confronted Petraeus in late October. He admitted the affair, but denied having disclosed any confidential information to Broadwell. On the evening of election night, Tuesday, November 6, the F.B.I. notified Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., of the situation. Clapper recommended to Petraeus that he tender his resignation.

On Thursday, November 8, Petraeus met with President Barack Obama and did just that. The President slept on it, then accepted the resignation the next morning. The C.I.A. announced the resignation that afternoon, Friday, November 9, and Petraeus simultaneously issued a statement acknowledging an affair.

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In reporting the resignation, the Washington Post noted that it had been prompted by an FBI investigation and that Petraeus’s lover had been Broadwell. It attributed these details, which were not contained in the official announcements, to “two federal law enforcement officials.” This leak, Metcalfe maintains, appears to have been another Privacy Act violation.

At about the same time, other media organizations, like the Times, were also identifying Broadwell and mentioning the criminal inquiry, though they attributed the information to “Administration and Congressional officials.” (Senior congressional officials and the House and Senate intelligence committees had been lawfully informed about what was happening shortly before the resignation was announced.)

Might it then be possible, I asked Metcalfe, that if Congressional officials were the first to leak Broadwell’s identity, and Administration and law enforcement officials then merely confirmed that information, that there was no “disclosure” and, therefore, no Privacy Act breach?

No, he says. When a reporter is told something about executive branch activity by someone on the Hill, he still doesn’t know how accurate the information is, Metcalfe continues. When he gets confirmation from the law enforcement authorities themselves, he knows he’s on solid ground. So the confirmation can still constitute a prohibited disclosure, he says.

The next morning, on Saturday, November 10, the Post carried an article providing many details of the inquiry. The sources were described as “three senior law enforcement officials.” To the extent those details came from the investigative file, Metcalfe says, the story appears to have constituted yet another Privacy Act violation.

On Sunday, November 11, the New York Times again quoted “law enforcement authorities” who said: “There were hints of possible intelligence and security issues, but they were unproven. You constantly ask yourself, ‘What are the notification requirements? What are the privacy issues?’”

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For the officer to have said this to the Times may have constituted yet another violation, according to Metcalfe.

But isn’t it an extenuating circumstance that the F.B.I. was, at this point, taking a great deal of flack due to various unwarranted conspiracy theories. The statements from the “law enforcement officials” were designed to reassure the public that there had been no political cover-up and to explain to Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, why she hadn’t been notified much earlier than she was, as she was demanding to know.

“Such a purpose is legally irrelevant,” Metcalfe says.

Late Sunday, the Associated Press identified Kelley for the first time. The scoop came from “a senior U.S. military official . . . who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.” This leak appears to have constituted still another Privacy Act breach.

Kelley and her husband have retained Abbe Lowell of Chadbourne & Parke to review the disclosure of their identities and other government leaks with an eye to bringing actions under the Privacy Act and other laws. “All the Kelleys did was put law enforcement on notice of strange and illegal behaviors,” says a member of the Kelleys’ legal team. “What law enforcement did in return was to make the Kelleys the focus of media attention — with all the trespassing of their property, abusive phone calls and emails, revelations about their private life, and disruption to their and the children’s lives that caused.”

“This is not how federal law enforcement investigations should work,” says Metcalfe. Would-be tipsters may now ask themselves, he continues, “Do I want to end up like Jill Kelley?”

On Monday morning, November 12, the Journal carried a still more detailed account of the investigation, this time credited to “U.S. officials.” Though the attribution is theoretically broad enough to include Congressmen, its minute-by-minute granularity suggests that it very likely came from law enforcement authorities again.

“The FBI investigation began with five to 10 emails beginning around May and received by Ms. Kelley,” the Journal wrote. “In September, prosecutors and agents began a legal analysis to determine whether there were any charges that could be brought. Among the discussions: whether to interview Ms. Broadwell, who was the focus of the criminal probe, and Mr. Petraeus.”

This leak might have constituted yet another Privacy Act violation, according to Metcalfe.

On Tuesday, November 13, the New York Times reported that General Allen was under investigation for possible “inappropriate communications” with Kelley. This news was attributed to “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials traveling with him” on a trip to Australia. Panetta referred the matter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, the paper continued, after “a team of military and civilian lawyers reviewed what defense officials say are thousands of pages of documents, including hundreds of emails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley.”

Telling the Times this information may have constituted another Privacy Act violation, according to Metcalfe. (A spokesperson for Panetta declined “to comment on comments attributed to unnamed officials.” He also drew my attention to a transcript of Panetta’s official remarks that day, which does not include any reference to Allen’s being under investigation.)

Finally, on Wednesday, November 14, the Times identified Humphries as the F.B.I. agent who filed Kelley’s original complaint, attributing this news once again to “law enforcement sources.” This leak constituted still another apparent Privacy Act violation — the tenth by my count, and that’s only after sifting through a tiny fraction of the thousands of articles written about the Petraeus probe.

“The content of any information that deals with Mr. Humphries was improperly and illegally leaked to third parties,” says Humphries’ attorney Berger. “End of story.” (He declined comment on whether he plans to sue.)

I sought comment from the Justice Department about the fact that so many reporters had obtained so much seemingly Privacy Act-protected information from “senior federal law enforcement officials,” and about Metcalfe’s opinion that many of these disclosures constituted Privacy Act violations. In response, I received this email from the Department’s public affairs director, Tracy Schmaler:

“Sorry,” it read. “We don’t comment on pending investigations.”

Summary: There ought to be law protecting the privacy of government inquiries that don’t lead to formal charges. Come to think of it, there is.


On Thursday, the company announced better-than-expected earnings of 49 cents a share in the first quarter. Revenue of $3.4 billion basically matched Wall Street forecasts.

"Cardboard is our most profitable stream in our recycling," Steiner told CNBC Friday. "When you look at e-commerce, when you look at all commerce…it gets shipped in a box. That box, we recycle it. And it can make another box to bring materials back."

But recycling for the first three months of 2014 dropped 3 percent compared with the year-ago period.

"It's more difficult to make money with lower prices," Steiner explained, "which means we're not going to make as much investment, which means we're not going to be able to do as much recycling."

The name of the game has been controlling margins. "You can get less volume at higher margins. That's what we've been doing the last 10 years. What we call, 'Not getting the most volumes but the best volumes.'"

Summary: Garbage stinks. But for Waste Management, that rather unpleasant smell is ripe with the opportunity to create renewable energy.


Dunkin’ Donuts on Wednesday opened its first store in Reykjavik, Iceland, drawing crowds eager for a taste of the chain’s baked goods and coffee. ‘‘I love the variety they offer,’’ said Steinar Gunnarsson, a student. ‘‘They offer more than just a couple of brands of doughnuts usually found in Icelandic bakeries.’’ Drangasker, the franchise holder, has the right to open as many as 16 restaurants in the country over five years, chief executive Arni Petur Jonsson said. Dunkin’s parent company, Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Brands Group, signed a deal in January to open more than 1,400 shops in China over the next two decades, plus 100 more in Mexico. Worldwide, the company has 11,000 locations in 36 countries. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

EMC Corp. shares rose 3.2 percent Wednesday after Re/code reported the Hopkinton data-storage giant was considering a deal that would involve a buyout by its subsidiary, California-based VMware Inc. EMC’s board is considering the idea as part of a “wide-ranging strategic review of its operations and as a partial response to pressure from an activist shareholder,” the technology news website said, citing unidentified sources. EMC stock climbed to $26.85 after its biggest one-day jump since December. The stock is down 9.7 percent this year. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

WATERBURY, Vt. — Keurig Green Mountain, reporting disappointing sales, said it will eliminate about 330 jobs, or 5 percent of its staff. The maker of single-serve coffee-brewing systems said revenue from coffee pods and brewers decreased in the fiscal third quarter. The company aims to save $300 million over the next three years by cutting jobs and becoming more efficient. Shares of Keurig tumbled 26.7 percent to $54.99 in aftermarket trading. Earnings are expected to shrink as Keurig spends at least $100 million on Kold, its cold-drink system, in fiscal 2016. It’s also dealing with higher coffee prices. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

Lottery terminals at every major supermarket in Massachusetts have been updated with software to prevent minors from buying tickets, said. Lisa McDonald, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts State Lottery. More than 300 machines at Stop & Shop, Shaw’s, Market Basket, Roche Bros., and other chains now require purchasers to scan a driver’s license with every purchase. The change comes amid concerns that people under 18 were illegally buying tickets. — JACK NEWSHAM

Premium Internet addresses are hard to come by, but Boston engineer Ken Granderson thinks he’s got three of the choicest properties around, and he’s willing to part with them. Granderson, a native of Brooklyn, purchased a trio of Internet addresses in 1995 — roxbury.com, mattapan.com, and dorchester.com — for $50 apiece, and annual renewal fees that now come to $24 a year. He had hoped to build a series of community websites to serve African-Americans, but the effort fizzled out by 2002. He’s planning a move to Maryland, but first would like to sell the addresses to the highest bidder. He said estibot.com, a site that appraises the value of Internet addresses, estimated mattapan.com to be worth about $1,000. Roxbury.com could be worth $37,000, and dorchester.com might sell for $40,000. — HIAWATHA BRAY

Neiman Marcus Group, the century-old luxury department-store chain acquired two years ago in a $6 billion leveraged buyout, is going public. The company, owned by Ares Management LLC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, filed for a $100 million initial public offering of stock. The amount is typically a placeholder used to calculate registration fees and may change. Dallas-based Neiman Marcus plans to use proceeds from the IPO to repay debt. Consumer-company IPOs have been a bright spot this year, raising almost $8.8 billion — more than in any other industry. Neiman Marcus, for much of its history a family-run company, was publicly traded from 1987 to 2005. Neiman Marcus also owns the Bergdorf Goodman luxury stores and the offprice Last Call clearance centers. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

SAN ANTONIO — Google’s ultra-fast Internet service is coming to San Antonio, the largest city yet to be promised the opportunity to accelerate online access speeds. A total of 24 US cities in seven states have now been selected as markets for an Internet service called Google Fiber. Started five years ago in Kansas, the ambitious project represents Google’s attempt to pressure major broadband providers such as Comcast, Verizon Communications, and AT&T Inc. to upgrade their networks so they run at faster speeds. Google Inc. is installing fiber-optic lines in selected cities to deliver Internet service at 1 gigabit per second, which is up to 100 times faster than existing services. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Reddit, the online site known for free-wheeling discussions, is updating its content policy as it tries to be a more welcoming place. Cofounder and CEO Steve Huffman (right) posted on the site Wednesday that the goal is to consolidate ‘‘various rules and policies that have accumulated over the years into a single set of guidelines.’’ He says illegal content, inciting violence, and ‘‘involuntary pornography’’ are still banned. So what’s new? A community can now be quarantined — so that only people who choose to see its content can do so. Huffman says groups will be quarantined if they would be ‘‘extremely offensive’’ to the average Redditor. He says Reddit is also banning communities that exist solely to annoy others and ‘‘generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.’’ — ASSOCIATED PRESS

DETROIT — Tesla Motors’ net loss nearly tripled to $184 million in the second quarter as it spent heavily to prepare for the launch of its new Model X SUV. The Palo Alto, Calif. maker of electric cars said Model X deliveries will start in the third quarter. Production will ramp up quickly in the fourth quarter. But Tesla said it’s not totally confident suppliers will be able to match its production demands, so it lowered expectations for its total annual sales this year. Tesla said it expects to sell between 50,000 and 55,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs, down from a previous target of 55,000. Tesla sold a record 11,532 Model S electric cars in the second quarter. Revenue rose 24 percent to $954.9 million. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

DETROIT — Mazda is recalling its biggest SUV to fix suspension parts that can rust and come loose, causing a loss of steering control. The recall covers more than 193,000 CX-9 SUVs in the United States from the 2007 through 2014 model years. The company says in documents posted Wednesday by safety regulators that front ball joints can rust from water leaks and separate from the suspension. Ball joints allow the wheels to pivot when the steering wheel is turned. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

Summary:
Retail

Dunkin’ Donuts arrives in Iceland

Dunkin’ Donuts on Wednesday opened its first store in Reykjavik, Iceland, drawing crowds eager for a taste of the chain’s baked goods and coffee. ‘‘I love the variety they offer,’’ said Steinar Gunnarsson, a student.


Apple's looming entry into the smartwatch market has not intimidated Pebble.

"I think you do exactly what we're doing now, which is going to the community that has supported us from the beginning," Eric Migicovsky, co-founder and CEO of the smart watch maker, told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" on Wednesday.

Pebble, which started in 2011, has raised money for most of its products through crowdfunding site Kickstarter. Its newest watch, the Pebble Time, reached $1 million more quickly than any project in the site's history after it launched Tuesday.

The project racked up more than $6 million by Wednesday and Kickstarter has endured some technical issues since it launched.

Read MoreKickstarter's down: Is Pebble to blame?

Summary: Apple's entry into the smartwatch market has not intimidated Pebble, the start-up that set a Kickstarter record with its new project.


China's Shanghai Composite index erased early losses to rebound 2.2 percent, hitting a four-week high, on the back of rallying financial and property majors.

Banking stocks like China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China pulled in more than 2 percent gains, respectively. Brokerages reversed earlier steep losses, with Citic Securities and Haitong Securities advancing more than 4 percent each. Property majors also contributed to the rally; China Merchants Property and Poly Real Estate elevated 4.4 and 5.5 percent, respectively.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index snapped a four-session losing streak with gains of 0.5 percent. Focus remained on HSBC, which finished 0.2 percent lower, after CEO Stuart Gulliver and Chairman Douglas Flint apologized for the bank's shortcomings overnight.

Gaming stocks remained dismal on news that the Macau government plans to impose a limit to the number of mainland tourists that visit the city; Sands China receded 3 and Melco Crown fell 2.7 percent. SJM Holdings eased 0.4 percent after posting a 12.7 percent drop in its 2014 net profit.

South Korea's Kospi index settled at a three-month low late Thursday. For the day, markets were focused on news that retailer Shinsegae is interesting in acquiring a majority stake in Kumho Industrial, which holds a 30.1 percent stake in the country's second-largest flagship carrier Asiana Airlines. Shares of Shinsegae pared gains to ease 0.3 percent, while Kumho Industrial charged up 15 percent.

Read MoreCan sports re-energize Singapore's tourism?

Across Asia, corporate earnings were a key theme. Late on Thursday Singapore-listed commodities trader Noble Group unexpectedly reported its first quarterly loss in three years due to asset write-downs.

Iceberg Research issued a fresh report early Thursday, claiming that the Hong Kong-based Noble Group overstated the value of commodities it holds by at least $3.8 billion, which the latter has refuted. Since Iceberg's first negative report on Febuary 15, shares of the commodities trader have been in a tailspin, falling a combined 13 percent in the first two sessions following the allegations. On early Thursday, Noble Group's shares were halted ahead of its fourth-quarter results.

The broader Straits Times index, meanwhile, slipped 0.4 percent.

Summary: Japanese shares outperformed the region by clinching a new multi-year high, as the rest of Asia traded mixed on Thursday.


Two earthquakes rattled Los Angeles within four hours, including one centered near the Baldwin Hills oil fields, but no injuries or damage were reported.

The second quake, magnitude 3.5, struck in the View Park-Windsor Hills area at 9:17 p.m. PDT on Sunday, the U.S. Geologic Survey said.

At 4:35 p.m., a magnitude 2.5 tremor shook Baldwin Hills area, about three miles away.

The epicenter was located near the Baldwin Hills oil fields, about eight miles west of downtown Los Angeles, raising speculation that the quake was caused by drilling, the Los Angeles Times reported.

But USGS seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that the depth of the quake was well below the oil fields. She said that quake was considered a "foreshock" to the larger one because they were in the same area and struck within a few hours of each other.

The Los Angeles Fire Department went into "earthquake mode," meaning all 106 neighborhood fire stations surveyed the city for damage.

It said no damages or injures had been reported.

Summary: Two earthquakes rattled Los Angeles within four hours, including one near the Baldwin Hills oil fields.


The constitution provides for three separate and distinct branches of government, each having a "check" on the other, thus allowing, as James Madison wrote, for ambition to "counteract ambition."

Read MoreHigher costs for Obamacare's new Medicaid patients

As our government has grown and the issues we face have become more complex, the lines separating the branches have blurred. While it used to be that Americans were subject to federal laws passed by Congress, today the majority of rules that govern their daily lives have been promulgated, interpreted, and administered by federal agencies in the executive branch. So much for "all legislative power shall reside in Congress."

The regulatory burden on everyday Americans is astounding. Last year, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, federal agencies issued nearly 16 regulations for every law passed by Congress, costing businesses an estimated $1.88 trillion in lost economic activity.

Federal courts are tasked with upholding constitutional principles when the political branches fail to do so. When the law is ambiguous or silent on an issue, it is the responsibility of Congress to clear up or add to its language, not the courts or an agency.

The courts should adhere to the natural reading of the law and require government agencies to do the same. In 2013, in City of Arlington v. FCC, the Supreme Court cautioned that "judges ought to refrain from substituting their own interstitial lawmaking" for that of an agency. Yet this is exactly what was done by the court in the recent King v. Burwell case regarding Obamacare.

Read MoreOp-ed: Stop fighting it. Obamacare is here to stay

In Burwell, the chief justice wrote that the principle of "Chevron deference" (which holds that courts should defer to agencies' interpretation of statutes when the language is ambiguous, provided the interpretation is reasonable) did not apply. "Had Congress wished to assign that question [of whether Obamacare tax credits were available on federal exchanges] to an agency," Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, "it surely would have done so expressly." Unfortunately, in this instance the court decided to give deference to its own interpretation.

Prior to Burwell, precedent for the court substituting another opinion for that of Congress was set by the Supreme Court in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), and Auer v. Robbins (1997). Because of these decisions, federal courts have increasingly deferred to agency interpretation, both of their governing statutes and their own regulations.

On its face, this may seem like an understandable position for a court to take. Agencies, after all, are experts in a particular field and have technical expertise that courts often find difficult to scrutinize. In practice, however, excessive deference has fundamentally changed how federal agencies regulate and how Congress writes law — this is a tragic deviance from the constitutional structure of our three branches of government. Instead of simply carrying out the directives of Congress, agencies now look for ambiguities in the law knowing full well that courts will defer to their interpretation.

Consider EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, a case decided by the Supreme Court last year. Congress, under the Clean Air Act, required states to develop plans to keep polluters within their states from sending pollution downwind to other states. Not finding any state plans satisfactory, the EPA simply ignored the statutory directive for states to create their own plans and issued the "Transport Rule." This rule imposed a plan on 27 "upwind" states disproportionate to the actual pollution each state emitted, causing those states to shoulder more than their fair share of the burden.

Read MoreCongress may have to set interest rates: Senator

Citing Chevron deference, the Court upheld the EPA's rule. The majority claimed that the EPA was not required to give states a second opportunity to create their own plan despite a completely new regulatory requirement, nor was the EPA required to assign a burden in proportion to each state's pollutant levels. The agency, in essence wrote a new section of the law, and the courts allowed it to. Sadly, this is just one of many examples of agencies overreaching under the assumption that judicial deference will uphold their regulations, leading to costly and time-consuming litigation.

When agencies choose to expand laws written by Congress to pursue their own agenda, knowing that the courts will likely not check their power, judicial deference becomes little more than a blank check for agencies to exercise legislative and judicial authority. Such deference diminishes "We the People" to "They the Regulators." It also makes the Constitution irrelevant and the voice of the people affected by the regulations ignored.

Relieving the extraordinary regulatory burden on the American people begins by fixing this constitutional imbalance by reconsidering the proper degree of deference that courts should afford agency decisions. It also requires Congress to clearly state in each statute that it is their intent that agencies and the courts not expand the text beyond its natural reading. Finally, the courts have an obligation to restrain, in a manner prescribed by Congress, the agencies from writing new law from their desk. Lawmaking may be slow, but we have checks and balances for a reason.

While what the Court did in Burwell is a step away from Chevron, it's a step in the wrong direction. The courts should not grant blanket deference to agencies, but neither should courts substitute their own opinion for that of Congress. When the law is ambiguous or silent on an issue, it is the responsibility of Congress and Congress alone to write a clearer and more complete statute.

Summary: The Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare is a step in the wrong direction for the U.S. government, says this senator.


08/26/2015 AT 07:50 PM EDT

was spotted without his wedding ring while running errands in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The actor looked casual in a blue polo and jeans while carrying a drink, but his finger was noticeably missing a gold band.

and Affleck, both 43, have been spotted wearing their wedding rings

. Friends of the former couple say they are wearing their rings in an effort to help their three kids, Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and Samuel, 3, adjust to their

The kids "are a big part of why they're still wearing [the rings]," a source told PEOPLE. "They just want them to be okay."

Affleck has been spending quality time with the kids back home in L.A., while Garner finishes production on

The actor recently took his kids shopping at their

(where he was last seen wearing his ring) and on a fun trip to a

"Ben spent the whole weekend focused on the kids," a source told PEOPLE. "The kids were all high energy and seemed to enjoy the outing."

Summary: Both Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have been spotted wearing their wedding rings on and off


Jessica Biel and Beverley Mitchell

08/28/2015 AT 01:45 PM EDT

– who played sisters Mary and Lucy Camden, respectively, on the feel-good family drama – reunited at Biel's brother's travel accessories launch Thursday.

"Added bonus to see my girl @JessicaBiel love her more than I can ever explain," Mitchell, 34, captioned a WhoSay selfie of the pair

, which celebrated Justin Biel's new collection for his socially conscious company, BARE.

The night marked one of Biel's first major public outings since welcoming baby boy

, 4 months, with husband

"It's an amazing thing, and itâs amazing to see Jessica become a mom. Iâm the closest uncle, and itâs an amazing opportunity for them, and Iâm so excited for them," her brother Justin told PEOPLE. "I'm just thrilled to get to know the little guy as he grows up."

On Thursday, Mitchell shared a throwback photo of the

cast's kids in honor of the premiere's 19th anniversary.

"Thank you to all those who love and supported us through the years!" she captioned the shot of her, Biel, Mackenzie Rosman, Barry Watson and David Gallagher.

Summary: "Love her more than I can ever explain," Beverley Mitchell says of Jessica Biel


09/01/2015 AT 07:00 PM EDT

Former WWE star, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, was charged on Tuesday with the 1983 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Nancy Argentino.

Charges against Snuka include third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for Argentino's death, the

reports. She was 23 at the time.

In May of 1983, police were called to a hotel room near Allentown, Pennsylvania where they reportedly found her struggling for air with mucus coming from her mouth and nose. She later died at a hospital.

Although the case went cold, it was reopened in 2014 when an autopsy showed Argentino's cause of death as traumatic brain injuries. It also mentioned that she had three-dozen cuts and bruises. Forensic pathologist Isidore Mihalakis reportedly added that the case should be investigated as a homicide.

In 1985, Argentino's family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Snuka and won, but the victim's sister Louise Argentino-Upham still sees the current charges as a relief. Upham told

– a local Allentown newspaper – it's relieving that her 90-year-old mother may finally see justice.

Throughout the years, Snuka, 72, has maintained his innocence. In his 2012 autobiography he discussed Argentino's death, saying that the incident ruined his life.

"Many terrible things have been written about me hurting Nancy and being responsible for her death, but they are not true," he wrote. "This has been very hard on me and very hard on my family. To this day, I get nasty notes and threats. It hurts. I never hit Nancy or threatened her."

According to AP, Snuka was arraigned on Tuesday and released after posting bail.

Summary: Snuka has been charged with third-degree murder for the death of his girlfriend from more than three decades ago


★★½ Digging for Fire The latest from indie whirlwind Joe Swanberg casts Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt as new parents having doubts about it all. Likable but lightweight, the movie tills soil that has been churned since humanity began and doesn’t come up with much new. (83 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Learning to Drive An all-female crew — director, producer, editor, screenwriter, and star (the terrific Patricia Clarkson) — inject zest into this romantic comedy based on a New Yorker article. After losing her husband to a younger woman and her daughter to a boyfriend, a book editor decides it’s time to take control of her life and learn to drive. (89 min., R) (Peter Keough)

★★★ Meru The film doesn’t explain why people climb mountains, but it makes you grateful that they do. Shot by two of the climbers, “Meru” offers astonishing images of their attempt to conquer the “Shark’s Fin” peak of the title mountain. Though less skillfully depicted, the climbers’ inner landscape seems daunting as well. (90 min., R) (Peter Keough)

★★ No Escape Nothing gets the attention of audiences like the prospect of children being victimized by evildoers. That’s one hook in this thriller about a family that relocates to an Asian country for dad’s new job. Another is the universal fear of foreign hordes killing Westerners. Crudely effective, “No Escape” is pure escapist fare. (103 minutes, R) (Peter Keough)

★★★ Rosenwald Aviva Kempner’s documentary about the philanthropy of the little known owner of Sears is a lesson in responsibility. A believer in social justice and equality, he gave millions to build schools in the South and endow African-American artists and institutions. (96 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)

★★½ A Walk in the Woods If not for the presence of Nick Nolte, his decrepitude as picturesque as the Appalachian Trail scenery, this adaptation of Bill Bryson’s memoir would be like a series of postcards with accompanying platitudes. Robert Redford plays Bryson. (104 min., R) (Peter Keough)

★½ War Room The latest release from Sony’s religious-demographic division is so heavy on broad pulpit-pounding that it’s challenging to get swept along by the story’s message. Priscilla Shirer plays a put-together wife and mom whose life is secretly a shambles. (120 min., PG) (Tom Russo)

★★ We Are Your Friends A drama set in the electronic dance music scene and starring Zac Efron, and, yes, that sentence just canceled itself out. It’s a well-intentioned but formulaic “Saturday Night Fever” knock-off that occasionally conveys the heady intoxication of the dance floor. (96 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★½ Z for Zachariah An apocalyptic tale featuring Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine. Robbie plays a gentle farm girl whose bucolic home has escaped the radiation unleashed by some unspecified doomsday event. Her solitary existence is shaken up by the arrival of Ejiofor’s stir-crazy engineer and Pine’s hunky miner. (95 min., PG-13) (Tom Russo)

Summary: Capsule reviews of new movies.


The linchpin of the relationship between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin was a May 2014 accord on a 30-year deal for China to buy natural gas from fields in Eastern Siberia, for a reported $400 billion, with first delivery between 2019 and 2021. During the signing in Shanghai, Mr. Putin bragged that the deal was an "epochal event" and expressed relief that Russia, under pressure from European sanctions, would be able to diversify its gas sales.

But the price was never formally announced, and it is possible that with plunging energy prices, the deal will have to be renegotiated, said Jonathan Stern, chairman of the natural gas research program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in Britain. The Chinese wanted the gas for its depressed northeast region, and the Russians had started to prepare for its delivery, but there has been only limited drilling, he said.

Another deal, for natural gas from Western Siberia, was initialed by the two leaders in November in Beijing, but a formal contract that was expected to be signed in Beijing during Mr. Putin's current visit appears to have fallen by the wayside, Professor Stern said. "This is the contract which Putin could have signed this week, but we understand will not, partly because Chinese gas demand now looks much lower than previously thought," he said.

Further complicating that deal is Russia's inability to pay for the pipelines, and the question of whether China needs the Russian gas badly enough to finance their construction, said Edward C. Chow, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "China will have to pay for the construction, one way or another, given Russia's financial crunch," he said.

More from the New York Times:

Military parade in China gives Xi Jinping a platform to show grip on power The China Factor: China falters, and the global economy is forced to adapt Diplomatic memo: As Russia remembers war in Europe, guest of honor is from China

A Chinese expert on Russia, who is usually sanguine about the relationship with Moscow, said that the deal had also run into pricing problems. "The negotiations face many difficulties due to the plunge in the price of gas," said Zhao Huasheng, director of the Center for Russia and Central Asia Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "We have to recalculate all the costs and try to push for a price cut."

In Moscow, similarly, optimism about China substantially helping Russia out of its economic problems has faded.

"The big hope that China is going to provide a lifeline to sustain Russia through the sanctions and the falling oil price is not working," said Alexander Gabuev, an analyst of Russian-Chinese relations at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

"It is a symbolic relationship — with a small, volatile economic base," he said. The Kremlin elite was "disappointed that nothing has materialized as quickly as the Russians hoped."

Russian demand for Chinese manufactured goods is down 40 percent, and for clothing 50 percent, from this time last year, Mr. Gabuev said. The volatile ruble has made Chinese investors wary, and attempts to get the countries' banking sectors to work together have not borne much fruit, he added.

Because the goal of $100 billion in trade with China looks impossible to reach in 2015, the $200 billion the countries had projected by 2020 might also prove overly optimistic, Russian officials say.

The big energy deals are not the only victim of the economic slowdowns.

Read MoreScenes from China's extravagant military parade

A fast rail link that China had said it would build to Beijing from Moscow is in doubt because China, which is an expert at such construction, is demanding that Russia pay for it. The nearly 500-mile first leg, between Moscow and Kazan, was scheduled to open before the 2018 World Cup in Russia. But work has yet to start, and it is unlikely to, Ms. Hill said. "The Russians won't have the money to pay for it, and the Chinese are not going to do it for free," she said.

The friendship between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi has been striking and captured the attention of both countries, because each man likes to project an image of power and even daring. At global gatherings, they almost strut on the stage together. At a meeting of Asian leaders on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2013, Mr. Xi presented Mr. Putin with a birthday cake. In Beijing in November, Mr. Putin demonstrated for Mr. Xi the finer points of a Russian cellphone.

Their apparent mutual admiration has been all the more noticeable because of the long and rocky relationship during the Cold War between Communist China and the Soviet Union, when the countries were ostensibly on the same side but nearly came to a nuclear showdown in 1969 over a border war. The tenure of Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the helm of the Soviet Union sent shudders through the Chinese Communist Party, and still does.

"There has never been a close relationship until recently," Ms. Hill said. "The success of China has bred the interest of Russia." Even though Chinese growth was slowing, China still seemed "brighter" to the Russians relative to the downswings in Europe and Ukraine and to their own economic problems, she said.

Read MorePutin's censorship regime now reaches into the past

The sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in Ukraine also pushed the two countries closer.

Both leaders boast that they have elevated the ties between their countries to a strategic relationship; Russia and China recently held joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean and the Sea of Japan. And they have joined at the United Nations in opposing American initiatives in Libya and Syria, and have held similar views on Iran.

But there are limits to their strategic interests. China has been wary of Russia's moves in Crimea and particularly in Ukraine, where Beijing has commercial and military investments. It also worries that Crimea's secession from Ukraine might set a precedent for Chinese territories such as Tibet or Xinjiang or for the world to recognize Taiwan's de facto independence.

In Central Asia, they are more competitors than cooperative friends, especially as China buys energy from countries that have been in Russia's traditional sphere of influence, energy that China could, if it wanted, purchase from Russia.

The Obama administration has responded to the friendship with a certain nonchalance, arguing that Russia will inevitably be a liability to China, particularly in hard economic times.

In the words of Douglas H. Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Washington seems to think Putin is more burden than boon to Beijing."

Summary: Friendship between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russia's leader Vladimir Putin is strained, the New York Times reports.