Fantasy Football Week 1: Rankings and Matchup Analysis

Abstract: You have heard us say it before: N.F.L. Week 1 is the toughest fantasy football week to prepare for, for the simple reason that we are starting from scratch. Sure, there was what happened in 2014, and in training camps and preseason games, and while we will take all of this into consideration below in our matchup analyses, there will be a lot of surprises in Week 1, as there will be all season. Who will be the Allen Hurns of this year’s Week 1? Another thing that can help you prepare for Week 1 and every other week this season: Take a peek at the game lines determined by the oddsmakers. We are not trying to turn you into a professional gambler; it is just common sense for those trying to predict how an N.F.L. game will play out. Those who determine these odds have one goal: to predict which N.F.L. team will win and by how much, including the total number of points that will be scored, and a lot of research goes into it. But it is important to remember that like anything else determined by humans, it is not going to be perfect. Most important, from a fantasy perspective, is to look at the games predicted to be high scoring. You still have to figure out which players are going to be involved in that scoring, but that is where we will try to help. This week, the consensus choice by the oddsmakers for the highest scoring game is the Atlanta Falcons-Philadelphia Eagles (55.5 combined points). Keep reading to see how we think players like Matt Ryan and DeMarco Murray might fare. If you are new to this column, a reminder that the players below are not the players we think will do the best or worst at their positions this week. They are just players we either like or do not like based on whom they are playing against and other factors. If you do want an ordered list of players, we will publish player rankings each week. While past performance is no guarantee of future success, our player rankings were the fifth most accurate in 2014 out of 125 fantasy football experts graded and are tied for the most accurate over all since 2012. We will also answer as many of your lineup questions all season on Twitter. Follow us at @5thDownFantasy. Fantasy Football Rankings 2015 These player rankings from the Sablich brothers are for standard and PPR scoring formats and will be updated throughout the season. Favorable Matchups Quarterbacks Matt Ryan (ATL) vs. Philadelphia — Ryan opens the season at home in what should be a shootout against the Eagles. In fact, this game is projected to be the highest scoring game of the week, according to oddsmakers, with two strong offensives mixing with two poor defensive units. The Eagles allowed the second most passing yards per game in 2014 (265), second only to Atlanta (280), and were the third best matchup for opposing fantasy quarterbacks (18.9 Fantasy Points Per Game, ESPN.com standard scoring). Tony Romo (DAL) vs. Giants — When these two teams get together, the defenses never seem to show up. The Cowboys scored 31 points in each of last year’s meetings, with Romo totaling 554 yards and seven touchdowns. He will look to exploit a Giants secondary that figures to be even worse than it was last season, after season-ending injuries to Bennett Jackson, Mykkele Thompson and Justin Currie this preseason. Eli Manning (NYG) vs. Dallas — It has been a typically poor preseason for Manning and the Giants offense, but a date with Dallas could get things turned around. Manning countered Romo last season with 248 yards and three touchdowns in Week 7, and 338 yards and three touchdowns in Week 12. Dallas’s secondary is arguably in worse shape than the Giants’. With their best cornerback, Orlando Scandrick, lost for the season , the Cowboys are forced to roll with Brandon Carr ( ProFootballFocus.com’s 13 th worst cornerback in 2014), the rookie Byron Jones and the often-injured cornerback Morris Claiborne. Ryan Tannehill (MIA) vs. Washington — Coming off a near-perfect preseason, completing 33 of 41 pass attempts (80.4 percent) for 303 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, he should continue to shine against last season’s most favorable fantasy quarterback matchup. In 2014, the Redskins allowed the fourth highest completion rate (66.5) and the most passing touchdowns (35) and had the fourth fewest interceptions (7). Image The Raiders' run defense could present a favorable matchup for the Bengals' Jeremy Hill. Credit Gary Landers/Associated Press Running Back Jeremy Hill (CIN) vs. Oakland — The Raiders allowed the third most rushing touchdowns (17) and the 11 th most rushing yards per game (119) in 2014, leading to the most fantasy points allowed to running backs. Our seventh ranked running back heading into 2015, Hill should get off to a fast start against this defense. Doug Martin (TB) vs. Tennessee — Martin is coming off a strong preseason, with 118 yards and one touchdown on 20 carries, and has cemented himself as the starting back in Tampa Bay. The Titans, who rated as PFF.com’s fourth worst run stopping unit last season, allowed the second most rushing yards per game (137) and the second most fantasy points to running backs. DeMarco Murray (PHI) vs. Atlanta — In an attempt to remedy their N.F.L.-worst defense, the Falcons brought in the former Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. But stopping the run could still be an issue, as this off-season’s best acquisition, the Clemson edge rusher Vic Beasley, is projected to be more of a situational pass rushing specialist in his first year. Murray may not see as many carries as last season, but he will see enough to produce strong fantasy numbers against the third best fantasy matchup from 2014. Jonathan Stewart (CAR) vs. Jacksonville — The Jaguars yielded 127 rushing yards per game in 2014, the sixth most in the league. Injuries were part of the problem for the defensive line last season, and could be again this season. Their top draft pick, defensive end Dante Fowler Jr., is out for the year with a torn A.C.L. and both starting defensive tackles, Roy Miller and Sen’Derrick Marks, are attempting to return from serious injuries. Wide Receiver Jordan Matthews (PHI) vs. Atlanta — Atlanta struggled against receivers in 2014, allowing the seventh most fantasy points (24 F.P.P.G.) and the sixth most yards after the catch, and finished as the fourth worst pass coverage unit (PFF.com). While Desmond Trufant is emerging as one of the best cornerbacks in the game, Matthews should mostly avoid him operating out of the slot position. Kendall Wright (TEN) vs. Tampa Bay — After a strong preseason, Wright appears to be the rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota’s favorite target. Tampa Bay does feature the standout cornerback Alterraun Verner, but over all, its secondary ranked 28 th against the pass in 2014 and allowed the third most fantasy points to opposing receivers (25.7 F.P.P.G.). The Buccaneers also allowed receivers to catch an eye-opening 70 percent of their passes, the highest rate in the league. Davante Adams (GB) vs. Chicago — Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw 10 touchdown passes against the Bears’ 30 th ranked pass defense in two games last season. In each of those games, Jordy Nelson, the man Adams is set to replace, surpassed 100 yards and had two touchdowns. The Bears’ returning cornerbacks, Kyle Fuller and Tim Jenkins, were part of a secondary that allowed 23.7 F.P.P.G. to the position (11 th most) and the second most touchdowns to the position (34). Brandin Cooks (NO) vs. Arizona — The Cardinals had the fourth worst pass defense in 2014, including the most yards allowed after the catch (147 per game), and that was with the talented cornerback Antonio Cromartie, who skipped town to rejoin Darrelle Revis in New York. Arizona also lost one of the game’s top defensive minds, Todd Bowles, to New York; cut the veteran defensive end Darnell Dockett; and let lineman Dan Williams sign with Oakland. Tight End Tyler Eifert (CIN) vs. Oakland — One of the preseason’s favorite sleeper picks at tight end performed well this summer and gets a decent matchup with the Raiders (10 th most fantasy points to TEs in 2014). Jason Witten (DAL) vs. Giants — The veteran should be a serviceable fantasy option in what should be a high-scoring game against the Giants, who allowed the ninth most fantasy points to the position in 2014, including a touchdown to Witten. Defense/Special Teams Carolina vs. Jacksonville, Jets vs. Cleveland, Miami vs. Washington, Cincinnati vs. Oakland Unfavorable Matchups Image Colin Kaepernick (7) might find the going rough against a tough Minnesota defense in Week 1. Credit Chris Humphreys/USA Today Sports, via Reuters Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (SF) vs. Minnesota — The Vikings were tough against quarterbacks in 2014, both through the air and on the ground. They ranked seventh against the pass (223 Y.P.G.) and Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton and Ryan Tannehill, quarterbacks with good wheels (like Kaepernick), combined for 78 rushing yards and 0 TDs on 21 attempts. The former Bengal Terence Newman and the No. 11 overall pick, cornerback Trae Waynes, were key additions to the Vikings’ solid secondary. Philip Rivers (SD) vs. Detroit — The Lions were the fifth worst fantasy matchup for quarterbacks in 2014 (14.1 F.P.P.G.), led in part by the All-Pro safety Glover Quin and his N.F.L.-leading seven interceptions. Only Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers managed more than 20 fantasy points against Detroit in 2014 (ESPN.com standard scoring). Ryan Fitzpatrick (NYJ) vs. Cleveland — With the gifted Joe Haden and Tashaun Gipson still in uniform, one of the N.F.L.’s best pass defenses should continue to cause headaches in 2015. The Browns allowed the eighth fewest passing yards per game (224.5) and the seventh fewest fantasy points to quarterbacks (14.4 F.P.P.G.). Joe Flacco (BAL) vs. Denver — With Aqib Talib and Chris Harris forming one of the top coverage tandems in the league, Denver allowed the ninth fewest passing yards per game in 2014 (225). Running Backs Alfred Morris (WAS) vs. Miami — Ndamukong Suh, the driving force behind Detroit’s top ranked run defense in 2014, should improve Miami’s ability to stop the run in 2015. Morris also played better last season when with a runner like Robert Griffin III at quarterback (12.9 F.P.P.G. in nine games) than without (9.1 F.P.P.G. in seven games). Kirk Cousins begins the season as the starter. Justin Forsett (BAL) vs. Denver — Losing defensive tackle Terrance Knighton is a big deal, but Denver will still field nine starters from last season’s second best run defense, which surrendered only 80 yards per game on the ground. The Broncos also allowed the second fewest runs of 10 or more yards last season. Isaiah Crowell (CLE) vs. Jets — Crowell is slated to start the opener because he is the only healthy back on the roster, but that is the only good news for his owners against a Jets front that ranked fifth against the run last year (93 Y.P.G.). The Jets should be even better in 2015 with the addition of the Southern Cal lineman Leonard Williams, the sixth overall pick in the N.F.L. draft. Frank Gore (IND) vs. Buffalo — Rex Ryan’s defenses have almost always fared well at stopping the run, and he inherited a talented bunch that ranked 11 th against the run last season (106 Y.P.G.). Buffalo yielded the sixth fewest fantasy points to opposing backs in 2014, thanks in part to allowing the sixth fewest rushing scores in the league (10). Image Andre Johnson (81) and the rest of the ballyhooed Colts offense will have their work cut out for them against the Bills. Credit L.G. Patterson/Associated Press Wide Receiver Andre Johnson (IND) vs. Buffalo — As good as the Bills were against the run last season, they were even better against the pass (third ranked, 206 Y.P.G.). The Bills may have lost the starters Jairus Byrd and Da’Norris Searcy to free agency over the past two years, but the secondary remains a strength with the former first-round pick Stephon Gilmore, the veteran Corey Graham, Aaron Williams and the second-round pick Ronald Darby, who will be starting in place of the injured Leodis McKelvin. Even with McKelvin out for the final six games of last season, no wide receiver managed to top 10 standard fantasy points against the Bills last season. Steve Smith (BAL) vs. Denver — Smith and the rest of the Ravens’ pass catchers have the unfortunate task of facing Chris Harris Jr., PFF.com’s top-ranked cornerback in 2014. Starting opposite from Harris is cornerback Aqib Talib (12 th on PFF.com). Brandon Marshall (NYJ) vs. Cleveland — The Browns had the top-ranked pass coverage unit in 2014 (PFF.com). Haden, the star of Cleveland’s stellar squad, is likely to shadow Marshall in this game. Keenan Allen (SD) vs. Detroit — Detroit’s Darius Slay and Rashean Mathis were top 16 cornerbacks in 2014 (PFF.com). Over all, the Lions were the eighth toughest fantasy matchup for receivers in 2014. Tight End Dwayne Allen (IND) vs. Buffalo — Allen is a touchdown-dependent fantasy tight end, and the Bills allowed only two of them to the position all last year. Over all, Buffalo was the toughest team for opposing fantasy tight ends to play in 2014 (4.1 F.P.P.G.). Travis Kelce (KC) vs. Houston — In our view, Kelce is emerging as the kind of tight end worth starting every week, but keep expectations in check against the Texans, who held every tight end they played last season to under 10 fantasy points. Defense/Special Teams Pittsburgh vs. New England, Baltimore vs. Denver, Arizona vs. New Orleans, San Diego vs. Detroit.


Noah Syndergaard Stymies Padres as Mets Gain in East

Abstract: Through six perfect innings Tuesday night, Mets starter Noah Syndergaard remained stoic, apparently unaffected by the sudden tinge of the historic in this late July game. Syndergaard had little reaction, too, when the San Diego Padres’ Will Venable finally singled up the middle on the first pitch of the seventh. And he remained calm when Yangervis Solarte followed with another single, a play on which Venable scooted to third as Ruben Tejada, trying to initiate a double play, errantly flipped the ball past Daniel Murphy. After Matt Kemp weakly flied out to Murphy, Syndergaard finally unwound as he watched Tejada turn a double play — this time cleanly — to end the Padres’ lone scoring threat of the night against him. He walked off the mound with a hop in his step. With the Mets firmly entrenched in the division race and clinging to a 2-0 lead at that point, there were matters more important than Syndergaard’s missed chance at the record books, and he delivered on those counts, pitching one more scoreless inning and allowing three hits total in a 4-0 win . Against his final batter, Alexi Amarista, Syndergaard still looked close to untouchable, throwing a 97-mile-per-hour fastball for his ninth strikeout. When he left after the eighth inning, the center-field scoreboard showed highlights of Washington’s game, an eventual 4-1 loss to the Miami Marlins that cut the Nationals’ lead in the National League East to one game. The Citi Field crowd, its attention by that point solely focused on the game’s impact on the standings, applauded as loudly as it had after Syndergaard retired the first 18 batters he had faced. Syndergaard, who allowed two runs or fewer for a sixth straight start, lowered his E.R.A. to 2.70 and improved to 5-5. “I don’t think any of us could have predicted the rise he’s had this fast,” Manager Terry Collins said. The Mets took the lead in the first inning on a two-run blast by Lucas Duda, his 15th home run of the season. Curtis Granderson added a two-run shot in the eighth, and Tyler Clippard pitched a scoreless ninth inning in his Mets debut. The win provided a happy resolution to a day when Jenrry Mejia was suspended for a second positive test this season for performance-enhancing drugs. Syndergaard demonstrated that the Mets’ strong starting pitching could overcome the loss of a valuable reliever. “Noah put on a show tonight, so I was happy I kept that zero on the board,” Clippard said. “What I saw tonight was pretty special, and obviously we’ve got a whole staff of him.”


Wizards are Trying to Repair Season and Image

Abstract: WASHINGTON — There were no suspensions Friday, no official censures and no apologetic news releases. For the first time in a week, the Washington Wizards were left to focus, momentarily, on basketball. Normalcy, however, remains a distant goal. The Wizards’ star player, Gilbert Arenas, is serving an indefinite suspension stemming from an altercation involving guns in the locker room. Four of his teammates were fined Friday for participating in a pregame skit that mocked Arenas’s gunplay. All week, players, team executives and staff members have been shuttling in and out of the offices of law-enforcement authorities, who are investigating the Dec. 21 altercation in which Arenas displayed four handguns during a conflict with teammate Javaris Crittenton. On Thursday, a day off for the team, it was Coach Flip Saunders’s turn to speak with the authorities. On Friday, hours before a home game against the Orlando Magic, two more players, Randy Foye and Fabricio Oberto, made the trip to see federal prosecutors and the local police. “To be honest, it’s almost a surreal situation,” Saunders said before the Wizards’ 104-97 victory over the Magic at the Verizon Center. “There’s no question it’s a distraction.” It was the Wizards’ first home game since Arenas was suspended by the N.B.A. for repeatedly mocking his situation. In a pregame huddle Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Arenas pantomimed guns with his fingers while teammates smiled and laughed. Four players — Foye, Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee and Nick Young — fell to the floor, pretending they had been shot. The team determined that the stunt had been planned and fined those four players $10,000 each, according to The Washington Post. The scene was captured by a photographer, mortifying league officials and adding another layer of humiliation for the franchise. “Another use of poor judgment,” forward Antawn Jamison said. “You just got to put it behind us.” The Wizards tried to do so Friday. Jamison, one of the most respected veterans in the league, grabbed a microphone before tip-off to address the fans and express the team’s regrets over the skit. “This is a serious situation,” Jamison told the fans. “It’s something that we take to heart. We never meant to make light of the situation.” The fans responded tepidly at first, then cheered in appreciation when Jamison pledged to make the Wizards “one of the most respectable organizations in the league.” All seemed forgiven by the final buzzer, when much of the capacity crowd of 20,173 rose to their feet and applauded the rare victory. “That’s the first time we probably got everybody out of their seats this year,” Saunders said. “It shows that the people haven’t given up on the team, and it shows that the team hasn’t given up on themselves. That’s important right now.” There have been few reasons to cheer this season. The Wizards (12-22) opened training camp with high expectations, after hiring a successful veteran coach (Saunders) and acquiring two impact players, Mike Miller and Foye. Arenas, their flashy star guard, was back, after playing only 15 games over two seasons because of knee injuries. After going 19-63 last season, they were projected to be a playoff team, with Sports Illustrated ranking them fourth in the Eastern Conference. But the season quickly turned disastrous, even before Arenas — in what he called a misguided joke — displayed his guns in the locker room. Jamison injured his shoulder in the preseason and missed the first nine games. Miller injured his calf in November and missed 21 games before returning Friday. The Wizards were 11th in the East heading into Friday night’s game. Now they are again missing Arenas, their starting point guard and leading scorer. “It’s going to affect your life,” Jamison said. “We don’t have one of the best players in the league — that’s affecting everybody. Changes might happen — that’s affecting everybody. “The only way this thing can get solved, it’s about the rest of the guys in that locker room, putting all this behind us and just concentrating on playing basketball. It’s that simple.” Along the way, the team also lost its owner and patriarch, Abe Pollin, who died in November at age 85. His widow, Irene Pollin, is now running the franchise, along with their children. The franchise has not won a championship since 1978, when the team was called the Bullets. Abe Pollin changed the name in 1997, after his friend Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, was shot to death. The Pollin family has generally been silent about the Arenas saga. But they co-signed a statement this week supporting his suspension by the N.B.A. and calling his actions and the reactions of his teammates “unacceptable.” The impacts of the Arenas-Crittenton conflict, which was sparked by a gambling debt, are still reverberating. On Wednesday the Nets imposed a ban on gambling on team flights. Saunders confirmed Friday that the Wizards had done the same, immediately after the Dec. 21 locker-room incident. “It led to a confrontation,” Saunders said, explaining his decision, “and to avoid those situations.” Amid the losing and the controversy, the Wizards have reportedly made every player on the roster available in trades. Arenas, their franchise player, has virtually been erased from the premises. A banner bearing his image was removed outside of the Verizon Center. His jersey was not available at any of the fan shops in the arena. And he was edited out of the team’s pregame video. “It’s just sad,” said guard DeShawn Stevenson, a close friend of Arenas’s. “Because he worked so hard to get where he’s at — second-round pick, nobody knew who he was.” Several feet to Stevenson’s left, Arenas’s locker was empty, save for a name plate and a half-dozen pairs of shoes. A trading card of Sam Cassell, a Wizards assistant coach, was taped to the back of the locker. Arenas has been told to stay away from the team during his suspension, although he is permitted to work out at the arena as long as the team is not present. There is no telling when his suspension will end, or what charges will eventually be leveled. He could conceivably be barred for the rest of the season. He might never play another game for the Wizards. “Hopefully, I’ll see him there,” Stevenson said, glancing toward Arenas’s locker. In the meantime, Arenas’s teammates are mired in a scandal they did not create, left to salvage a season, and their reputations, without him. They are trying to move on without him. “I think we already have,” Jamison said. “It’s been going on too long, long enough. We’re definitely sick of it. Too much negative publicity.”

Washington Wizards
Basketball
Arenas Gilbert
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations


Alberta’s Oil Royalty Increase Is Protested

Abstract: OTTAWA, Oct. 26 — Both the oil industry and environmental groups were united, at least in disagreement, on Friday by the province of Alberta’s decision to raise oil and gas royalty charges. After receiving two reports concluding that Alberta is shortchanged by energy companies, the province’s premier, Ed Stelmach, announced on Thursday night a complex series of changes to royalty charges and the system used to assess them. According to Mr. Stelmach, the changes will bolster the province’s annual royalty income by 1.4 billion Canadian dollars, or 20 percent, when the program takes effect in 2009. Energy producers condemned the increase as excessive, while environmental groups called it inadequate. Although Mr. Stelmach’s calculations were challenged on Thursday, his estimate of increased income falls well below levels recommended in a report issued last month by a special government panel. It suggested measures that would have provided an additional 2 billion Canadian dollars a year. Even though high oil prices have led to a boom that created labor and materials shortages in Alberta — the center of Canada’s energy industry — oil and gas company executives have spent the last month warning the province that higher royalties could imperil its financial future, curb investment and eliminate jobs. Unlike Danny Williams, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador who vigorously pushed back against such claims when his province recently sought higher energy revenues, Mr. Stelmach took a much more low-key approach. “We’re not Communists; I’m not whatever-his-name-is in Venezuela,” Mr. Stelmach said during a speech Thursday night, referring to Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela. “This is Alberta. We share the returns of our economic rent with all Albertans.” But Mr. Stelmach’s methods did not mute the industry’s criticism. “Concern and disappointment would be the two words I would pick,” said Pierre R. Alvarez, the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “They keep looking at the government take. We keep trying to explain to them that you have to look at the industry’s returns.” But Chris Severson-Baker, the director of the energy program at the Pembina Institute, which studies energy use and global warming issues, said he calculated that the net royalties on oil extracted from Alberta’s oil sands would rise 2 percent, compared with a 22 percent increase recommended by the review panel. “In some ways this is one big oil town,” Mr. Severson-Baker said of Calgary, where both the Pembina Institute and Alberta’s oil industry are based. “When the oil industry starts threatening, people get scared even if a lot of those threats were not particularly genuine.” If his estimate is correct, Mr. Severson-Baker said, the low royalties on oil sands will lead to continued production increases from those operations, which are among Canada’s leading sources of emissions related to global warming. Mr. Alvarez said a lack of detail from the government made it impossible for his group to quantify the impact on the oil and gas industry. As is the case throughout Canada, most of the oil and gas reserves underneath Alberta are owned by the government rather than energy companies or landowners. The new royalty program varies rates with oil and gas prices and volumes using complex formulas. Under the plan, the maximum royalty rate for natural gas and conventional oil production will rise to 50 percent from 35 percent. The situation with the oil sands, Alberta’s main oil source, is even more complicated. Start-up projects will continue to pay a royalty of 1 percent, although that may rise to 9 percent if oil approaches $120 a barrel. After that, royalties will range from 25 to 40 percent depending on market prices. Oil sands royalties are currently capped at 25 percent. The province will enter negotiations to bring the two oldest established producers, Syncrude Canada and Suncor Energy, into the system. Those companies have special royalty arrangements set to expire in 2015. In an investment note, RBC Capital Markets, a unit of the Royal Bank of Canada, lowered its share price forecast for the energy sector by 2 percent and did not alter any of its previous ratings of energy stocks.

Royalties
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Alberta (Canada)


Dear Diary: My Week Wearing an Apple Watch

Abstract: I picked up my Apple Watch last Wednesday at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. After interviewing some of the designers and engineers who worked on the device, I was given a guided tour of the watch, similar to what customers will receive when they buy one at an Apple Store. The device that Apple lent me was the 42-millimeter stainless steel watch with a Milanese loop band, which sells for $699. The Apple Watch’s bands are interchangeable; I was also given an extra leather band (bright blue, $149) and a sport band made of a kind of rubbery plastic that sells for $49. Over a week, I took notes of the highs and lows of using Apple’s new device. Here’s my diary: Day 1. This interface isn’t exactly easy. In Cupertino, an Apple guide walked me through how easy it is to pair the watch with my iPhone (the device gets its Internet connection from a nearby iPhone) and then showed me the watch’s interface. While the demo looked simple, there are unseen depths to the watch. Figuring out what it can do, and how, takes a few days of adjusting. There are two primary input methods for the watch, the touch screen and the digital crown, or the little knob on the side of the device. The screen is similar to any touch screen you’ve used. The main difference is that it does not accept some actions you know from your phone, including pinch-to-zoom. It also accepts a novel gesture not found on phones, called Force Touch. With that gesture, you press the screen harder than you normally do to unearth extra controls on certain screens. Video The technology columnist Farhad Manjoo asks whether the Apple Watch’s new “taptic engine” will give us an alternative to constantly checking our phones. Credit Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times The crown, which turns with the weighty precision you would expect of a fine watch, performs a few functions. You press the crown in to switch between the clock face and your home screen of apps; sometimes, pressing the crown also acts as a back button. If you press and hold down the crown, you invoke the Siri voice assistant. You can also call up Siri by holding your wrist up and saying, “Hey Siri!” — which is awkward in public but addictive in private. The crown’s main functions involve scrolling and zooming. When you’re on a screen with a list of items or a long screed of text, turning the crown will scroll up or down. Although you can also scroll by flicking the screen, scrolling with the crown can be faster and more precise than using the touch screen, and your finger isn’t covering what you’re trying to look at. When you’re on a screen with images or icons — like your home screen of apps, or the Photos or Maps app — turning the crown will zoom in and out of the image. In addition to these primary input methods, you’ve also got to remember four types of screens from which different functions can be performed. These are the clock face, the notifications panel, apps and glances. Let’s go over them here: The face is just what it sounds like, one of 10 different timepiece screens you can choose from that show the time, and, on some screens, lots of extra information, including the date, calendar entries, or the position of the sun in the sky. As with most smartwatches, the Apple Watch’s screen is usually off. It turns on to show the clock face when you turn your wrist toward your face. If you swipe down from the clock face, you’ll see the notifications panel. Think of it as you would the list of notifications on your phone — tiny missives from apps seeking to get your attention. Some notifications will also trigger alerts that will cause the watch to make a sound or to buzz its “taptic engine,” the mechanism that causes the watch to tap on your wrist. Apps on the watch are similar to those on a phone: They’re little programs that perform discrete functions. The watch comes with more than a dozen apps made by Apple, and many third-party developers, including The New York Times, have also built watch apps that are companions to their iPhone apps. The watch apps are packaged with iPhone apps; when you install them on your phone, they automatically become available for your watch. The final primary interface element — and the one that feels the least Apple-y, because it adds a layer of confusion without much attendant utility — is something called a glance. Glances are quick, summary views of certain apps that you can see by swiping up from the watch face. For instance, the glance for the Weather app shows you the current temperature and your location; the Calendar glance shows you your next appointment. Image The Apple Watch's customized Maps app. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times If all this sounds complicated, you’re right. It is slightly difficult to get the hang of the Apple Watch, at least at first. The biggest problem is figuring out which types of actions are available on which screens. For instance, if you get an email notification, you can’t swipe left on the message to archive it, because that quick action is available only from the Mail app, not the notification for the Mail app — which is confusing, because the two screens are nearly identical visually. Or, if you’re in the glance for the Maps app, you can’t move the map around; to do that, you’ve got to go to the full Maps app, which looks initially just like the glance. It took me at least a day to feel confident at shuttling around the different parts of the watch. Since it’s a brand-new device, it stands to reason there will be a bit of a learning curve involved. Still, the Apple Watch presents an uncharacteristic first impression, one that many may find daunting. Day 2. Wrestling with notifications. For several years, some techies have argued that the best way to separate us from our phones is to add some new device to our lives, preferably something attached to our bodies. This was the main justification for Google Glass , and in the last few weeks it has become one of the major arguments in favor of the Apple Watch. The theory goes like this: Because it is fixed on your wrist, and because its interface is tuned for quick interaction rather than complex tasks, a smartwatch can let you take care of digital demands faster than your phone. This idea is nice, but to get it to work, you’ve got to decide which notifications you want to get on your watch, and which you don’t. When you first set it up, the watch generally mirrors the notifications you’ve set for your phone: If you now get an iPhone alert when a friend changes her Facebook profile photo, you’ll get one on your Apple Watch. (The system is smart enough to alert you in just one place — it doesn’t buzz your watch if you’re looking at your phone.) But because the phone and the watch are such different devices, mirroring notifications between them often makes little sense. For instance, since there’s isn’t (yet) a Facebook app for the Apple Watch, notifications for Facebook on the watch are essentially useless — your wrist buzzes with a note that your friend has changed her profile photo, but when you tap the Facebook notification, nothing happens. Even for apps that are available for the watch, mirroring the phone’s notifications is not necessarily the best decision. Do you want every email to buzz your wrist, or just those from your VIPs? How about social apps like Twitter — when should you let them ring your watch? I spent many hours pondering such questions, and there was a lot of fine-tuning in the notification screen on my phone. In other words, it didn’t just work. Day 3. Nobody notices this watch. On your wrist, the Apple Watch feels like any other watch. It isn’t too big, it isn’t too heavy, and it is handsomely elegant without being flashy. The shiny Milanese band was my favorite of the three I tried, even though its magnetic clasp periodically loosens up during the course of the day, requiring adjustment. Like anything you wear for the first time, you’ll notice the watch in the early hours after you put it on, but you’ll quickly forget it’s there until you need it. I was surprised to discover that the Apple Watch didn’t command much notice from others, either. I used it in public in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Manhattan for a week, and only a handful of people asked what it was. Image The Apple Watch can be used to pay for cabs and groceries, as well as for presenting a boarding pass to an airport security agent. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times Even when I made a show of using it, like holding it up to pay for groceries at Whole Foods or to present my digital boarding pass at San Francisco International Airport, nobody really said anything. By the way, it worked perfectly at Whole Foods and at the security checkpoint at the airport, but there was a hitch before boarding the plane — my wrist couldn’t fit under Virgin America’s scanner, so, like a time traveler visiting from the olden days, I had to access the boarding pass on my phone. #Firstworldproblems. Day 4. The best and the worst. When Apple unveiled the watch last year, it did not specify how long the battery would last between charges. For me, the battery consistently lasted at least a full day. On a day of heavy use it got to about 10 percent of power left by bedtime. But on most days I noticed robust battery life, with 20 to 30 percent remaining on the battery bar at the end of a day, which is far better than I fare with my phone. The watch’s charger, a little magnetic disc that sits on your bedside table, is excellent. The watch attaches and detaches from it with ease, so charging it nightly isn’t difficult. Another unexpectedly nice feature was making phone calls from my wrist. It sounds dumb. It looks dumb. But when I got a call in the middle of something else — cooking, slumping on the couch — tapping my wrist and chatting was easier than searching for the phone. You don’t have to hold your wrist up to your face like Dick Tracy; the microphone is powerful enough to pick up sound while you use your hands normally. In a strange way, the watch makes phone calling — which smartphones have been killing in favor of messaging — more interesting than texting, because the watch has no alphanumeric keyboard. You can send messages from the watch, but it’s limited. One way is to dictate your message, but that isn’t perfect. You can also send emoji or default responses (things like “O.K.” or “I’m on the way!”), but those options aren’t often sufficient to get across a range of emotions. For similar reasons, Apple has restricted outbound email. You can triage your messages — archive them, mark them as read or unread, flag them — but you can’t respond, not even with emoji or canned responses like my standard response to most emailers, “Thanks but no thanks, chump.” I found this less than stellar: I would have loved at least a set of canned responses. In general, I found the Mail app to be something of a pain to use, and I’m hoping that Apple or some third-party creates the perfect mailbox for the watch. Day 5. Magic happens. There is something magical about having a computer that no one notices right there on your wrist. I first experienced this magic while at lunch with a colleague. I’m usually a wreck at such meetings, because while I try to refrain from looking at my phone, my mind is constantly jonesing for the next digital hit. Lunch today is different. My iPhone remains hidden deep in my pocket, and to all the world I am the picture of the predigital man. It is the middle of the workday, the busiest time for digital communication. Yet with the Apple Watch on my wrist, my mind remains calm, my compulsion to check the phone suddenly at bay. After spending the last few days customizing my notification settings, my watch is a hornet’s nest of activity. It buzzes every few minutes to indicate incoming email and texts, tweets or Slack messages. The buzzes aren’t annoying. They go completely unnoticed by my colleague, while to an addict like me they’re little hits of methadone — just enough contact with the digital world to whet my appetite, but not nearly as immersive, and socially disruptive, as reaching for my phone and eyeing its screen. I not only register the watch’s buzzes, but several times while we’re chatting, I surreptitiously check its screen. I scan some incoming messages and tweets, and even flag a couple of emails for later. At the end of the meal, I ask my colleague if she’s noticed me checking my watch. She is surprised; she hasn’t seen it. Day 6. This thing could keep me fit. Image The Apple Watch measures physical activity and periodically send prompts to the wearer to move around. Credit Apple The Apple Watch has two ways of measuring physical activity. One way is passive: In the background, it constantly measure your steps, how often you stand up and, periodically, your heart rate. It displays these three activities ingeniously; there is a diagram depicting three rings that become fully-closed circles as you get closer to completing your daily activity goals. As you go through the day, the watch prompts you to move around more often if you start to feel slothful. Every hour, it reminds you to stand up. I found the prompts helpful. There’s nothing revolutionary about it; I’ve tried lots of activity trackers in the past, and the watch doesn’t do much more than the cheapest ones. But as part of a device that you’ll wear for other reasons, having a general-purpose health app is pretty handy. The Apple Watch can also measure more strenuous exercise. There’s a dedicated app to track your runs, bike rides and other physical activity. After some initial calibration with your phone, the watch can measure your workout distance even when you leave the phone at home. I would love to tell you that the app put me through its paces, but that would be a lie. I spent most of the week as I normally do — with slight but hardly strenuous daily activity, and never quite approaching the level of an actual workout. Day 7. This isn’t a goof-off machine. The cynic might point out that even if the Apple Watch does liberate you from your phone, your escape is only illusory — you’re still attached to the digital world, and you’re only escaping for yet another screen. Is that really a positive direction either for you or for society? And to the extent that the watch begins to replace your phone, won’t you just start spending more of your time on its tinier screen, eventually rebuffing the real world again, just like you did on your smartphone? Surely smartwatches aren’t going to be a panacea for tech-induced antisocial behavior. But after a few days with the Apple Watch, I get a sense that they do more good than harm. It’s not just that interactions on the watch are speedier and less socially intrusive than those on the phone. The Apple Watch also has another, hidden benefit: It is far less immersive than a phone. There just isn’t that much to do on such a tiny screen, so you rarely feel yourself getting sucked in and lost. Consider this: The Apple Watch has no web browser. If you come upon a web link in an email message, a tweet or some other app, tapping it does nothing. This absence eliminates whole avenues of procrastination — there’s no Google, Wikipedia or BuzzFeed. While there are some news and entertainment apps for the watch, they consume precious little time. And that, to me, is the biggest difference between this device and a phone. The watch, for now, is all business, aimed solely at improving your productivity. For some users, that alone might be worth several hundred dollars.

Apple
Watches and Clocks
Wearable Computing
Mobile Apps


New York and Unions Continue Feud on Financial Rescue Plan

Abstract: The leader of a group of municipal labor unions accused city officials on Thursday of shutting the door on negotiations over a financial rescue package that could avert thousands of teacher layoffs after the Bloomberg administration rejected an offer of $262 million to help close a budget gap. “As far as I’m concerned, they cut off the talks,” said Harry Nespoli, the chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, a coalition of nearly 100 unions representing 500,000 active and retired city employees. Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said the city had no choice but to reject the unions’ offer because of the condition attached to it. If the city had taken the money, it would have had to agree to move $110 million from a health care reserve fund, which is jointly run by the city and the unions, to another fund — a move that would have allowed the unions to spend the money more freely. “We remain ready to negotiate on a deal to avoid layoffs and hope we can reach agreement,” Mr. La Vorgna said. Mr. Nespoli, in a statement, disputed the city’s account, saying the money would have gone to a welfare fund that covers some health benefits, like medication and eye care. He said the rejection made the threat to the city’s schools “more real every day.” Mr. Bloomberg and the City Council have a week left to adopt a budget. Union leaders have gone from hopeful to skeptical, saying City Hall has been reluctant to make a key concession: reduce its spending on consultants. At issue is preventing the reduction of the municipal work force; they said the Bloomberg administration was using consultants to replace city workers who left or retired as a way to gradually eliminate positions from its payroll. The labor committee’s offer to give the city money from the health care reserve fund was also predicated on agreement by the Council and the Bloomberg administration to make contributions on their own, adding more money to the pot to head off layoffs of 4,100 teachers, keep firehouses from closing and preserve the jobs of day care workers. City Hall may have reason for optimism now that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has won major concessions on wages and benefits from the state’s largest union of public employees. Three people involved in the city discussions said there was disagreement within the Bloomberg administration as to how much the city should concede, or if it should concede anything. Negotiations continue, with Council members also pressing the mayor to embrace alternative cuts. “Hopefully, there will be a meeting of the minds,” said Councilman Fernando Cabrera of the Bronx, a member of the Council’s budget negotiating team.

Municipal Labor Committee
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Teachers and School Employees
New York City


White Powder Mailed to Donald Trump’s Campaign Office Deemed No Threat

Abstract: A white powder that was discovered at the campaign office of Donald J. Trump at the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday night was not a threat, the authorities said. The Police Department said it was called around 7:30 p.m. to the fifth floor of the tower, at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, for a report of an envelope containing white powder. Mr. Trump’s home is also in the building. The envelope had been mailed to Mr. Trump’s campaign office, where a staff member opened it and immediately called the police, The Associated Press reported. The police said early on Friday morning that the powder was deemed to be safe, though investigators were still determining what exactly it was. The situation was declared under control around 11:10 p.m., the Fire Department said. The police said four people, including a police officer, had been evaluated. The authorities had previously reported that six people were being evaluated. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, referred inquiries to the United States Secret Service. A press officer at the agency was not immediately available to comment on Thursday night. Mr. Trump was campaigning in California that night. In March, the authorities investigated a letter containing a nonhazardous white powder that was sent to the Manhattan apartment of one of Mr. Trump’s sons, Eric.

Donald Trump
Threat
Manhattan
Buildings
2016 Presidential Election


Racing Spouses Were Already Part of the Family Business

Abstract: Courtney Rahal plans to stand in the pits at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday while her 27-year-old husband, Graham, climbs into a car and starts his ninth Indianapolis 500. She will join her parents in a suite for a while, returning to the pits for the end of the race. That is standard procedure for most of the spouses and sweethearts of the 33 drivers in the race, which will be run for the 100th time, before a sellout crowd of more than 300,000. But Courtney, 27, is different. She drives fast cars for a living, too — faster than Graham’s. Known professionally as Courtney Force, she drives a Funny Car owned by her father, John, a 16-time series champion, in the National Hot Rod Association series. While Graham Rahal qualified last weekend at Indy at 225.847 miles an hour, she topped 330 m.p.h. at an N.H.R.A. event in Topeka, Kan. She leads the Funny Car standings after seven events. Of course, Graham’s race will last 500 miles and will hopefully include 2,000 left turns, and Courtney’s races are deafening, 1,000-foot-long nitromethane-fueled bursts on a straightaway. But the couple, married for six months, can relate. “I think it is a positive, because they both understand the demands that are placed on each other,” said the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champion Bobby Rahal, who is Graham’s father and owner of his racecar. “They don’t have to explain to each other what they have to do, and why. They both recognize the risks — although I’m sure they don’t dwell on that. You appreciate what each other is doing.” The work is extremely hazardous, of course. Eric Medlen, a Funny Car driver for John Force, died in March 2007 after crashing in a test session. Six months later, Force was seriously injured in a crash at Ennis, Tex., and was out of racing for four months. Graham drove in the last two races in which IndyCar drivers sustained fatal injuries: Dan Wheldon, the two-time Indy 500 winner, at Las Vegas in October 2011, and Justin Wilson at Long Pond, Pa., last August. “We know what’s out there,” Force said. “The monster’s always out there. It is out there, but you can’t dwell on it. I’ve always believed when the Good Lord wants you, he’s going to take you. She’s seen it, lived it, with losing Eric.” Image Graham Rahal and Courtney Force rode a scooter at Texas Motor Speedway in 2014. Credit Larry Papke/Associated Press Courtney said, “It’s always in the back of your head, the danger, but you expect that as a driver, anyway.” Graham’s occupation was what led Courtney to follow him on Twitter early in 2012, her first season as a driver. At 19, Graham won his first IndyCar Series race in 2008 — still the youngest American to win a major open-wheel event. She was coming to Indianapolis with friends; she reached out to him for dining suggestions. Rahal had other obligations and could not meet her, but they stayed in touch. He texted her to see if she could get him tickets to an N.H.R.A. event in Joliet, Ill. “I remember I was in the pit area, signing autographs, and he walked over to me when I was right in the middle of signing, and he gave me a big hug,” Courtney said. “I remember thinking: ‘Oh, my God, he’s hugging me in front of all these fans. They’re going to jump to conclusions.’” But they liked each other. When the IndyCar Series had a race later that season in Fontana, Calif., not far from her house in Yorba Linda, she asked Graham to get her two tickets — one for her and one for her father. “I made my dad go to the race with me,” Courtney said, “because no one would think anything of it.” They became a racing couple, even though their backgrounds were different. She grew up in Southern California and is one of four sisters, all of whom drove or work for their loquacious, 66-year-old father. (Brittany Force, 29, is third in the Top Fuel standings.) Graham grew up in Columbus, Ohio. John Force did not know Bobby Rahal well before Graham met Courtney, but Force said, “He reminds me a lot of his dad,” meaning Graham was lower key and softer-spoken than Force, with a droll wit. “John is a great guy — very successful, very demanding,” Graham said. “I grew up in a very successful family, so we bump heads. We’d be a good TV show, let’s put it that way.” Graham laughed, then added, “John is racing. That is John. He’s a shoot-from-the-hip-kind of guy. It is difficult for me sometimes, because he is so different.” As Courtney recalls, Graham began talking about marriage before she was quite ready. She thought that perhaps he would propose to her when visiting the Forces over Christmas — almost a year after they had met. Graham had an accelerated plan. They went to Venice, Italy, at Thanksgiving 2014, and Graham came prepared. He hired a gondola and hoped to propose at just the right moment of the ride. He waited until the light was just right — and spotted a Dumpster and “nasty fencing.” “I thought, `Wow, this isn’t romantic,’” Graham said. “He’d been sweet-talking me, then all of a sudden he said, ‘Isn’t the architecture really amazing here?’” Courtney said. “I was just kind of frozen. I remember him fiddling with something in his pocket. It was utterly unexpected.” They finally reached a spot where he could pop the question. Courtney said, “Before I said yes, the first thing I said was, ‘Does my dad know?’ He knew my dad can’t keep a secret.” Graham had already run it past John and Laurie Force. John Force said, “I know he loves her — that’s what’s important to my wife and me. You’ve got to be in love to make that work. They’re kind of a special couple.” They were married last November in Southern California next to a cliff that overlooked the Pacific Ocean, but they have kept residences near their teams’ headquarters, seeing each other as often as their schedules permit. Courtney has been in Indianapolis most of May. “I don’t get to see her enough,” Graham said. “The largest drawback is that we live our lives on the road. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. It’s demanding, and it’s frustrating. On the weekends, she disappears off to her races. You try to make it work.” These are the years for racing. Although Graham starts 26th in the 33-car field Sunday, he has been encouraged by how his car has run this month. And when the N.H.R.A. season has a western swing later this summer, he plans to spend time in California, cheering his wife on. “It’s just an understanding of what we do — the stresses, the ups and downs, how your moods can change when you’re not running good,” Courtney said. “That support is huge. That was one thing I learned is that we could share this together.”

Courtney Force
Graham Rahal
Bobby Rahal
John Force
Indy 500
Car Racing
National Hot Rod Assn


Demise of Gigaom Doesn’t Faze Its Rivals

Abstract: In the week and a half since the technology news site Gigaom stopped publishing, it has been held up as a cautionary tale for media in a go-go era. Here was a news organization that once looked promising, but collapsed so unexpectedly that its reporters were working on articles right up to the moment they were told they were out of jobs. Could the same fate befall other apparent darlings of media’s new gilded age — companies like Business Insider, Recode, Vice, Politico, Vox and BuzzFeed? Many of them, like Gigaom, have raised boatloads of financing and have tried to create a mix of businesses, including advertising, conferences and subscriptions, to turn a profit. But Gigaom’s downfall does not offer easy lessons for media start-ups. Gigaom, pronounced Giga-ohm, was special, and not in a good way, according to more than half a dozen staff members and executives, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing nondisclosure agreements with the company. It was a company troubled by poor leadership, a history of spending beyond its means and an inattention to major problems that had dogged its businesses for years. Chief among those problems was a bet on a division that sold specialized market research reports to corporate customers. That division became Gigaom’s largest business, but it became less clear over time that it could deliver on those expectations. In the days since the shutdown, a telling disagreement has emerged among people associated with the company. Some say that Gigaom was a business that, in retrospect, could never have worked as it was structured. Others say that it may have paid off one day, if only its investors and creditors had given it a bit more patience and a lot more money. Neither story is much of a testament to the way the company was run. Gigaom’s troubles were not obvious to readers. Founded in 2006 by the technology journalist Om Malik, the site covered technology news with unusual depth. It eschewed slide shows, hype-ridden headlines and other sensationalist tricks known in the trade as “clickbait.” Image Credit Stuart Goldenberg Though Gigaom claimed a relatively small readership of about 6.5 million visitors per month, its audience was coveted by advertisers. The company also ran several conferences each year. And then there was the research division, which executives often described as the company’s golden goose. Gigaom, it seemed, had found a business model that could fund serious journalism. Investors poured more than $30 million into the company in several rounds of financing. But on March 9, Gigaom’s staff members received an email requiring them to attend a meeting that afternoon. Mr. Malik, who had long ago stepped back from day-to-day management of the company and was now a venture capitalist, and Michael Rolnick, Gigaom’s chief executive since January, gathered employees in the front lobby of Gigaom’s San Francisco headquarters. Dozens joined by telephone and Google Hangouts. A staff member in Germany had to be awakened for the call. Mr. Rolnick broke the news so quickly that some people had not yet made it onto the call by the time he was done. Gigaom, which owed $5 million to $10 million in bank loans and short-term financing, could no longer meet its financial obligations, Mr. Rolnick told employees. It would halt publication immediately, and most of the company’s 68 employees would be laid off. Workers were stunned. “It came totally out of the blue,” said Stacey Higginbotham, a writer for Gigaom since 2008. Others were more blunt: “It was like a brick hitting me behind the ear,” said Stowe Boyd, a freelance analyst for Gigaom’s research division. A conference that Gigaom had planned to hold in New York this week was hastily canceled. Tickets, which sold for more than $1,000 each, have not been refunded. Some employees who were in that final meeting recalled hearing Mr. Rolnick say that the company’s assets had been seized by creditors, including Silicon Valley Bank and Western Technology Investment, which provides loans to fast-growing start-ups. Recode reported last weekend that Gigaom had accumulated significant debts and its monthly payments on rent and interest approached $400,000. (One source disputed that number, saying interest and rent costs were about $200,000 a month.) Image Gigaom covered technology news with unusual depth, and its abrupt failure was a shock to its staff. But Gigaom’s assets have not been seized. Instead, executives and the board decided that even with a cash infusion, the business could not be fixed. Their concerns revolved primarily around Gigaom’s market research business. According to an employee who has seen the company’s finances, last year’s revenue from the web advertising business totaled around $2.5 million, while the events business brought in about $5 million. Research, meanwhile, accounted for more than $8 million in revenue, and it was growing more quickly than any other segment. The division made money in a few ways. Gigaom contracted with a large freelance network of research analysts, and it offered their reports for a subscription beginning at $300 a year. Its analysts also produced custom reports for clients at much higher prices — say $10,000 or more for in-depth research meant to answer a host of questions in the tech business. In this way, Gigaom had modeled itself on companies like Forrester and Gartner, small but lucrative stalwarts of the tech research industry. For many years, the company believed that the research business was highly profitable. But the business had fundamental problems. First, research required a lot of time. After Gigaom sold its reports, its analysts — all contractors — had to produce them. That could take as long as four months, and the company was not paid until those reports were delivered. To the analysts doing the reports, it appeared as though the number of sales and marketing people in the research group — a peak of 20, while the rest of Gigaom had four — did not justify the work they were bringing in. “I was dealing with two or three sales and client fulfillment people all the time, and it seemed like too much for the business we had,” said Mr. Boyd, who prepared many research reports for the company. And there was not enough repeat business. Gigaom’s executives had been attracted to research because unlike the news website or conferences, it looked as if it could grow without expanding an expensive staff. But that did not turn out to be the case, because many reports were one-time sales. Image Om Malik founded the news site in 2006. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times In the last year or so, Gigaom’s executives and its board re-examined the research department’s finances. They determined that despite its growth, and contrary to the company’s long-held belief, research was not the cash cow they believed it could be. And when money became tight, they could not bank on the research group. Paul Walborsky, the company’s former chief executive and a champion of the research business, left last summer. (He is now a consultant for The New York Times.) Elias MurrayMetzger, the company’s former vice president for finance, left in February. Strangely, even as finances worsened, Gigaom did not aggressively cut costs. Staff members were given leeway to travel, and right up until the end, many were planning reporting trips. Its staff ballooned to as many as 80 at one point; it never made any mass layoffs. And in the last two years it signed leases for spacious offices in New York and San Francisco. Just as damaging to the young company, it was left without a chief executive for many months. In the time between Mr. Walborsky’s departure and Mr. Rolnick’s hiring, decisions about the future of the research business were put off, and research sales declined. Though Mr. Rolnick had a plan to prioritize the web business, staff members say he did not inspire confidence. Particularly troubling to them was his delay in putting his name anywhere on the site. He is not listed as the chief executive of Gigaom on the company’s team page , on his LinkedIn page or on his social media profiles. It is an odd story, and probably not the best example from which to draw grand conclusions about the future of the media business. “People are shaken,” said Sarah Lacy, the founder and chief executive of Pando Daily, a three-year-old tech-media company that also used venture funding to get started. In the wake of Gigaom’s announcement, Ms. Lacy said she was besieged with calls from investors and friends about what it meant for her site and industry. She does not think it means much . “People want to feel like it’s a sign of a bigger thing,” she said. “But it is such a unique thing. It appears to have been a mismanagement of the company.”

GigaOm
Business Insider
Vice
Om Malik
Silicon Valley
Sarah Lacy
News media,journalism
The Politico
Startup
Venture capital


After Seasons of Baseball Agony, Ecstasy in San Francisco

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — The sun rose a bright orange in San Francisco on Tuesday morning as ecstatic Giants fans continued celebrating the city’s first World Series championship up to — and beyond — the break of dawn. At waterfront AT&T Park, hundreds of Giants faithful waited till 4 a.m. for the team’s return from Texas, trophy in hand, even as countless other rowdy revelers blocked traffic, honked horns and lit trash-can bonfires. It was a delirious outpouring for a city that had not had a champion since the 49ers’ last Super Bowl title, more than 15 years ago, and for a Giants fan base that agonized over countless close wins this year , and all kinds of missed opportunities in decades past. One hand-scrawled sign in front of City Hall read, “56 years of Giants torture ends now.” On Monday night, thousands of fans crammed into the Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall — which was bathed in orange light — to watch Game 5 on a Jumbotron, an eclectic crowd that included hippies and hipsters, families and fanatics. Some of the revelry after the win, however, was criminal. The San Francisco police reported six arrests, and several broken windows, including one at AT&T Park. Several small fires were set, and one police officer required medical attention after being hit by a bottle. There was also a potentially dangerous scene — recorded and broadcast on YouTube — showing a car driving into a crowd that had lighted a bonfire in the middle of a city street. In the video, the car is surrounded and beat on, its windshield breaking, until the police arrive. The police are promising a heavy presence at Wednesday’s planned ticker-tape parade — though who still uses ticker tape in this tech-heavy city is an open question. The parade is expected to follow the route taken by the Giants when the team first came to San Francisco in 1958. The Giants had endured all manner of near misses since moving west. The most recent came in 2002, when the team stood six outs from a World Series title before bowing to a late rally in Game 6 by the Anaheim Angels. The Angels eventually won the title, and the Giants’ torture continued through a series of subpar seasons. Barry Bonds was the team’s star the last time it played in the Series, and while his jersey was in evidence Monday night, one was more likely to see the names — or nicknames — of the Giants’ current squad. Outside City Hall, for example, the most common accoutrements were either fake beards — in homage to closer Brian Wilson’s dyed black stubble — or black-and-white Panda caps, a show of love for Pablo Sandoval, the team’s cuddly third baseman who is known as Kung Fu Panda. “Everyone on this team has their own personality,” said Q. Griffith, a 32-year-old fan who goes by a single initial. “Everyone’s so unique.” On the eve of an election, and in a city known for its activism, Monday night’s crowd was also peppered with political pamphleteers on all kinds of candidates and issues, including marijuana legalization. And indeed, not far from Griffith, there was the unmistakable aroma of marijuana, a phenomenon that was also widely reported during Games 1 and 2 at AT&T Park. Many fans said the Giants squad reflected the welcoming — and sometimes oddball — nature of the city. “It’s a team of misfits,” said John Riera, a 29-year-old industrial hygienist. “And this is a town of misfits.” Mayor Gavin Newsom, a lifelong Giants fan who played baseball in college , announced the parade minutes after the Giants closed out the Rangers , cheering the team for “defying the odds and bringing the entire city together.” That sentiment was echoed by Richard L. Perri, 66, who said he grew up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan but converted after coming to San Francisco — “with flowers in my hair” — in the late ’60s. Perri, an oil painter, said he had come to the civic center plaza from his art studio to watch the last few innings. And while he would have loved for the Giants to have beaten the Yankees — once a Dodgers fan, always a Dodgers fan — beating Texas was all right, too. “It’s a great event for the city,” Perri said. “I’d rather have this than an earthquake to bring us together.”

Baseball
World Series
San Francisco Giants
Texas Rangers
San Francisco (Calif)


Phil Jackson and Lakers Have Been Here Before

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Déjà Zen Master? The Lakers , who showed Phil Jackson the door in 2004 and rehired him as the coach in 2005, are considering completing the cycle again after firing his latest successor, Mike Brown , one season and five games into a four-year, $18 million contract. Acknowledging the team’s interest in Jackson, General Manager Mitch Kupchak said, “I think you’d be negligent not to be aware that he’s out there.” Mike D’Antoni , the former Knicks coach, was also on the Lakers’ shortlist, but he had not been contacted as of midday Saturday. The job is Jackson’s if he wants it, said a person with knowledge of the process. The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Jackson was meeting with Lakers officials that morning. Jackson could not be reached but still lives in Playa del Rey, Calif., minutes from the Lakers’ practice center, and is still in a relationship with the owner Jerry Buss’s daughter, Jeanie. Since leaving the Lakers in 2011, Jackson has tried to find a front-office role with several teams but has received no offers. People close to him described him as eager to be involved. When his first Lakers contract expired in 2004, Jackson intended to retire, having won three titles with them before Detroit ended their turbulent season in the N.B.A. Finals. Nevertheless, Jackson was surprised when Jerry Buss made no attempt to persuade him to stay. The next season, with Shaquille O’Neal gone, the new coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, bolted 43 games into his five-year, $30 million contract and the team fell to 34-48. Jackson signed a three-year, $36 million deal, the highest coaching salary in N.B.A. history. Jackson wound up staying six more seasons as the Lakers won their 2009 and 2010 titles. With his contract up after their 2011 second-round sweep by Dallas, Jackson retired again. “I haven’t spoken to Jimmy Buss this year,” Jackson said, referring to the owner’s son, in his final session with reporters. “As far as management, if you want to call it that, there’s really not a relationship with that aspect of it. So when I leave here, I don’t anticipate they’ll call me up and ask my advice.” Indeed, the decision to hire Brown, whose contract contained three guaranteed years with a fourth-year team option, was made by Jim Buss in his debut as the head of the day-to-day operations, replacing his father. The Lakers finished No. 3 in the West last season and were eliminated by Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs. Whatever peril that posed for Brown, the late-summer acquisitions of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard raised expectations for the team and the stakes for him. The Lakers went 0-8 in the preseason and started 1-4, with Brown trying to install the Princeton offense. Howard missed all but one of the exhibitions, and Nash has missed all but two regular-season games. The starters were even older and slower. The supposedly rebuilt bench was outscored, 184-87. The Lakers never led in the second half of any of their losses. With the team 1-3, Jim Buss had told ESPN Los Angeles : “I have no problems with Mike Brown at all. He just works too hard and he’s too knowledgeable for this to be happening.” Buss added: “Kobe and I have a relationship where he can just look at me and say, ‘Everything’s cool.’ So yesterday during practice, I gave Kobe a quick glance, and everything was cool.” After the desultory loss in Utah, everything heated up. A video snippet showing Bryant glowering on the bench, titled the “Kobe death stare,” found quick popularity on the Internet. At Brown’s last practice Thursday, Bryant, who had backed Brown and even joked that fans should “shut up, let us work,” denied glaring at him. Bryant said Friday that he and Jordan Hill were joking that Brown might hold a five-hour shoot-around before that night’s game against Golden State. Shortly thereafter, Kupchak told the players Brown would not be coaching the shoot-around. “Guys were in shock,” Bryant said after the Lakers beat the Warriors, 101-77 . “These guys haven’t dealt with this. Some of them were just like, man, playing in L.A. is crazy.” He added, “But the situation being what it is, there just happens to be a lot of good coaches out there who are available.” Bryant endorsed D’Antoni as a “guy I’d absolutely be in favor of” as well as the former Lakers assistant Brian Shaw, now with the Indiana Pacers. But Bryant all but composed an epic poem about Jackson. “You all know how I feel about Phil,” he said. “One thing that’s always bothered me, his last year, I wasn’t able to give him my normal self because I was playing on one leg. He’s too great of a coach to go out that way.” Bryant added: “A lot of this is really Phil’s fault. When it comes to basketball, he’s on a genius level. So it’s tough for anybody to step into those shoes afterward with players that were raised underneath that tutelage.” When asked about Jackson’s ability to reinstall the triangle offense, Bryant said, “Are you doubting the Zen master?”

Basketball
Jackson Phil
Los Angeles Lakers
Brown Mike
Howard Dwight
D'Antoni Mike
Nash Steve


Partial Victory for BP in Dispute Over Settlement

Abstract: HOUSTON — A federal appeals court gave BP a partial victory on Wednesday by ordering a lower court judge to reconsider his interpretation of a settlement with claimants who filed billions of dollars of claims against the oil company after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster . In a divided opinion, the majority found that the formula that measured a potential loss needed to be clarified. The third judge argued in a dissent that BP was trying to change the rules it had already agreed to. BP has repeatedly complained about the claims process, arguing that the program’s administrator, Patrick Juneau, was approving fabricated payments for business economic losses based on an unsound interpretation of an agreement the company reached with victims last year. BP has also repeatedly asked Judge Carl J. Barbier of United States District Court to suspend payments of private claims because of misinterpretations of the agreement and additional accusations of fraud. But Judge Barbier has refused, ruling that Mr. Juneau interpreted the settlement properly. Image The Deepwater Horizon spill in April 2010, which spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster has cost BP billions. Credit Gerald Herbert/Associated Press The United States Court of Appeals in New Orleans, while upholding the lower court’s dismissal of a BP lawsuit against Mr. Juneau, ordered Judge Barbier to give “further consideration” to the complaints. “The district court had no authority to approve the settlement of a class that included members that had not sustained losses at all, or had sustained losses unrelated to the oil spill as BP alleges,” the court ruled. It concluded that in the event that the administrator was interpreting the settlement to include people who did not suffer spill damages, “the settlement is unlawful.” The Appeals Court ordered Judge Barbier to develop a “narrowly tailored injunction” that will allow for “deliberate reconsideration of these significant issues.” BP has also complained that private contractors working for the claims office have been wasting money and that the office has lacked antifraud controls. In a recent court filing, BP requested that payments be suspended until the former F.B.I. director Louis Freeh, who was appointed by Judge Barbier to investigate wrongdoing in the claims process, helps the claims office improve and execute antifraud procedures. Mr. Juneau did not immediately respond to the decision, which was released late in the day. “BP is extremely pleased with today’s ruling,” said Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman. “Today’s ruling affirms what BP has been saying since the beginning: claimants should not be paid for fictitious or wholly nonexistent losses.”

BP
Lawsuits
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Patrick A Juneau
Carl J Barbier


Hungry and Ill in a Country Plundered by Boko Haram

Abstract: MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — In a two-room concrete house on the outskirts of this city along the airport road, Abdulrahman Adam’s 21-month-old body trembled as he struggled to keep down what little food he had in him. At first, his grandmother, Hauwa Saleh, sitting by his side on the dusty floor, thought Abdulrahman was teething. But everything he ate came right back up. It continued for days in September and he added a cough and started to have diarrhea. By then, the signs were clear: It was not a simple illness. In this northeastern part of Nigeria ravaged by the terrorist group Boko Haram, where there is not enough food to go around and no one goes to bed full, Abdulrahman was withering away from malnutrition. Nearly everyone in his neighborhood, crumbling under the influx of refugees fleeing the Islamist rebels, is skin and bones, starving and slowly dying. Nearby in the house, his 22-year-old mother, Iyatu Adam, seven months pregnant and weak, slipped in and out of consciousness, and could not help. She had not eaten enough, either. The boy’s father had left the capital of Borno State to find a job as a day laborer because there were few jobs in the city. His uncles worked all day laying bricks to earn $1 each. With no one else able to help, Abdulrahman’s survival depended on his 55-year-old grandmother. Over the next 40 days, she took him to one public hospital and then another. Both denied him. There were no vacant hospital beds, they told her. An uncle spent $35 — nearly a month’s pay — to pay for his admission to a private hospital for a few days. He received fluids and medication and was released. Back home, his grandmother continued to care for Abdulrahman. They shared the only mattress in the house with the other young siblings. Everyone else slept on the ground, a thin mat between them and the hard floor. The backyard was strewn with trash, a hole dug in the ground for a toilet. Ms. Saleh walked 600 feet to retrieve the family’s drinking water from a well and took home what she could carry in small containers. Abdulrahman ate what grains the family could afford, or what was left over after they paid their rent with their harvest of groundnuts and beans, or what scraps their neighbors gave them. But the family was careful not to eat too much for dinner. They had to save something for breakfast. Image Abdulrahman Adam and his grandmother, Hauwa Saleh, in early November at the Umaru Shehu Ultra Modern Hospital. The boy died there on Nov. 15. Credit via International Rescue Committee By early November, Abdulrahman’s health had rapidly declined. He was always tired and had a fever, no appetite and a stiff neck — a sign of deadly meningitis. His mother, who was near full term, was no better. His grandmother rushed her grandson and her daughter again to a public hospital, Umaru Shehu Ultra Modern Hospital, praying that this time it had enough room for them. A part of the hospital with 24 beds that had opened only weeks earlier, and was operated by the relief organization International Rescue Committee, accepted them on Nov. 4. Abdulrahman was placed in a bed enclosed in a mosquito net, with other malnourished children nearby. About 200 children die every day in this area of Nigeria, the international group Save the Children reported in November . “Our true way of being was always associated with extreme hunger,” said Ms. Saleh, sitting on the concrete stoop at the house. She has been the head of the household since her husband died seven years ago. “Ever since, my struggle to provide the family began, because I was left with no option other than to work hard and see the children grow,” she said. At the hospital, the boy’s mother was taken to a separate area and received intravenous fluids and medication. Her health improved, and Ms. Adam gave birth to a girl, who was named after her grandmother. But Abdulrahman’s health deteriorated. He died on Nov. 15, another victim in a region plundered by Boko Haram rebels, who have destroyed houses and schools, kidnapped thousands of young women and forced millions to flee their homes, plunging Nigeria into the worst recession in decades. During its yearslong insurgency, Boko Haram stripped the area’s farmland dry, stealing crops in the country’s most fertile region to feed its fighters. Farmers fled, and many have not returned. The rebels have warned that they left behind mines on the fields. “We only need food, food, food, and nothing else,” Ms. Adam said in an interview in December. “Hunger nearly killed me.” By December, the International Rescue Committee’s center in the hospital had treated 210 children with severe acute malnutrition. Twenty-six had died. In the first 11 months of 2016, Borno State had nearly 75,000 extremely malnourished children. The World Food Program has declared that the region, where millions lack sufficient food, is experiencing “faminelike conditions.” “The need for stabilizing children with severe acute malnutrition with medical complications is high,” said Mohamed Kassim, the operations manager of the International Rescue Committee’s medical center in the city. The center is working this year to treat up to 60 malnourished children a month, an increase from 50 a month in 2016, he said. Founded in 1933 and based in New York City, the International Rescue Committee is the newest beneficiary organization supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Of the eight groups assisted by the fund, it is the only one that works beyond the New York region. In 2015, the organization helped over 23 million people affected by conflict and disaster in more than 40 countries and 26 cities in the United States, with a focus on health, education and economic well-being. In addition to its health center in the city, the core of humanitarian and military support in Borno, the International Rescue Committee provides food and hygiene supplies to residents, and offers services for gender-based violence and therapy sessions. “This crisis is sorely underfunded and has largely been ignored by the international community, despite the extreme violence and clear evidence of crisis levels of food insecurity,” said Stephanie Puccetti, the organization’s senior emergency program coordinator in Nigeria. In the two months since Abdulrahman died, Ms. Saleh and her daughter have returned home to lives still filled with uncertainty and peril. Ms. Saleh, who earned $10 a month as a housekeeper for a family, has not worked since that family left town. The all-day job was grueling and the pay was only enough to cover the cost of the bus fare there and back, so she had started to walk the approximately six miles round trip to save some money. But it paid in other ways: The family gave her leftovers to take home. Her sons, after a day’s work of laying bricks, pool their $2 to buy food to bring home. Ms. Adam is eating more often, but not the nutritious food she needs while she nurses her newborn daughter, Ms. Saleh said. A few weeks ago, Ms. Adam’s husband sent $15 to her that he had made working in another city. It paid for food. “We have been praying that may God grant that we get out of this situation soon,” Ms. Saleh said. “And for now, it’s only prayer, prayer and prayer.”

Boko Haram
Malnutrition
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Humanitarian aid
Maiduguri Nigeria


Legal Options Limited for Alumni Who Told of Abuse at the Horace Mann School

Abstract: As former students and prosecutors turn to the courts to deal with reports of widespread sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School, lawyers have begun to conclude that New York’s current restrictive statute of limitations laws are likely to block any effort to hold the prestigious private school legally accountable for the allegations, some of which are decades old. The Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, set up a special hot line on Tuesday for former students to report episodes of sexual misconduct. He has acknowledged that cases may not fall within the statute of limitations, a situation that would prevent a criminal prosecution. Mr. Johnson has added that it is not clear whether private schools are covered by laws that require school administrators to report child abuse, as public schools are. “Despite the statute of limitations issues, information about past conduct can be helpful in assessing the current situation,” said Steven Reed, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, on Tuesday. The passage of time may also complicate any civil suits. Michael G. Dowd, a New York lawyer who has represented victims of sexual abuse for years, said former Horace Mann students had asked him to review their cases, but most suits would be barred by the state’s statute of limitations. “I’m disgusted,” Mr. Dowd said in an interview. “When you have to tell someone who was injured as a child that there is no justice for them, it makes you appalled and sick as a human being.” In the days since they were first described in an article in The New York Times Magazine , the accounts of abuse by several now-dead Horace Mann teachers have put a sharp new focus on state laws that make New York among the most restrictive in limiting legal recourse in child sexual abuse cases. For years, efforts in Albany to liberalize the laws have failed, often encountering fierce resistance from the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions that feared financially devastating lawsuits. “New York is one of the worst states in the country for child sex abuse victims,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who specializes in sexual abuse law. For civil suits and many criminal charges, New York law requires that allegations be made in court by the time a victim is 23 years old. With the most recent Horace Mann accounts dating from the 1990s, the courts would be likely to bar most cases against the school, its administrators or its teachers, legal experts said. Around the country, as they have responded to evidence of abuse that often dates from decades ago in the Catholic Church, several states have amended their laws to permit suits many years after the episodes. Connecticut, California and Delaware are among the states that have liberalized their approach. Several states have lifted restrictions on when a lawsuit could be filed, while others allow victims to begin lawsuits at whatever point they come to understand the harm done to them by childhood abuse, no matter how old they are, like when a connection is made between adult depression and a childhood sexual assault. But New York has remained among the most restrictive states, along with Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, said Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul lawyer who has handled thousands of suits against the Catholic Church. Margaret M. Markey , a Queens assemblywoman, has repeatedly sponsored a bill to change the law to permit civil suits by victims until they are 28, and which would provide a one-year period during which the courts would consider old abuse claims. Assemblywoman Markey, a Democrat, said the Horace Mann assertions seemed to have changed the political landscape, in part by shifting the focus from the Catholic Church. She said the accounts showed, “It can happen to anyone.” But Dennis Poust, the communications director of the New York State Catholic Conference, noted that one important goal of any statute of limitations was to keep the courts from getting involved in lawsuits based on long-ago incidents, when, he said, it is often difficult to get to the truth. “We believe,” Mr. Poust said, “it is impossible to defend against claims that are decades old when the abusers are dead or infirm, and the people who supervised them are dead.” New York judges have sometimes seemed frustrated that the state’s statutes of limitations barred the suits. In 2006, the state’s highest court said the existing law did not permit suits against the Catholic Church based on old claims. “However reprehensible the conduct alleged,” the court said, “these actions are subject to the time limits created by the Legislature.” With varying degrees of success, victims’ lawyers have tried novel strategies to keep sex abuse suits alive. Some have tried suing under state or federal laws that permit action against racketeering enterprises, but such laws are often geared toward financial damage, not an emotionally scarring experience. A federal-court case now under way in New York involving claims of sexual abuse at another private school, Poly Prep, in Brooklyn, is testing that legal approach. Other cases have been based on claims that cover-ups and conspiracies continued through the years. Such a position can remove any statute of limitations issue because such cases are effectively about the conspiracy, not the original sexual assault. Horace Mann has called the allegations of sexual abuse abhorrent, but declined to respond to specific allegations “upon advice of counsel.” Ms. Hamilton, the Cardozo law professor, said that as prosecutors and civil lawyers evaluate potential cases they will focus on whether those who currently run the school have had knowledge of any sex abuse allegations.“The question with Horace Mann,” she said, “is whether or not there is an ongoing conspiracy.”

Horace Mann School
Statutes of Limitations
New York State
Suits and Litigation
Sex Crimes
Child Abuse and Neglect
Private and Sectarian Schools
Education (K-12)
New York City


Economic Reports for the Week of Jan. 30

Abstract: ECONOMIC REPORTS Data will include personal income and spending for December (Monday); the S.& P./ Case-Shiller home price index for November, the Chicago purchasing managers index for January, and consumer confidence for January (Tuesday); ADP employment for January, the I.S.M. manufacturing index for January and construction spending for December (Wednesday); weekly jobless claims and productivity for the fourth quarter (Thursday); and unemployment for January, the I.S.M. nonmanufacturing index for January and factory orders for December (Friday). CORPORATE EARNINGS Companies reporting results will include Gannett and Wendy’s (Monday); Archer Daniels Midland, Biogen Idec, CIT, Eli Lilly, Exxon Mobil, Mattel, McGraw-Hill, Pfizer, United Parcel Service, U.S. Steel and Amazon.com (Tuesday); Aetna, AOL, Nasdaq OMX, Northrop Grumman, Whirlpool, Allstate, Electronic Arts and Qualcomm (Wednesday); Beazer Homes, Blackstone, Boston Scientific, Cigna, Dow Chemical, International Paper, Kellogg, MasterCard, Merck, The New York Times, Pulte, Sara Lee, Viacom and Take-Two Interactive Software (Thursday); and Clorox, Tyson Foods and Weyerhaeuser (Friday). IN THE UNITED STATES The Senate Banking Committee will conduct a hearing about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee will conduct a hearing about the Video Privacy Protection Act, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will conduct a hearing about the global energy outlook for 2012 (Tuesday). Automakers will report their sales for January, the Senate Budget Committee will conduct a hearing about the outlook for the euro zone, a House Financial Services subcommittee will conduct a hearing about the Financial Institutions Examination Fairness and Reform Act, and AMR, the parent of American Airlines, will lay out its cost-cutting plan under bankruptcy protection (Wednesday). Retailers will report their same-store sales for January and a House Financial Services subcommittee will conduct a hearing about the collapse of MF Global (Thursday). IN EUROPE The heads of governments from the European Union will meet in Brussels to wrap up a deficit-reduction treaty to deal with the sovereign debt crisis and Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader accused of causing $2.3 billion in losses through unauthorized trading, will enter a plea in London (Monday). The European competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, will issue a decision about the proposed merger of Deutsche Börse and the New York Stock Exchange (Wednesday).

Company Reports
Economic Conditions and Trends


After a Slow Start, Holiday Sales Improved

Abstract: Many major American retailers were able to recover from a slow start to December shopping, according to monthly sales results reported on Thursday. Despite early indications that the holiday season would be lackluster, the 17 apparel chains tracked by Thomson Reuters reported a 4.5 percent increase for December sales at stores open at least a year, exceeding the 3.3 percent gain analysts had expected. However, Target, the nation’s second-biggest retailer after Walmart, said its December sales were flat. Retailers relied on discounts to get that December revenue, which may hurt results when they report fourth-quarter profit. “Sales came late in the holiday shopping season and, as a result, were at deeper discounts than planned,” said Kevin Mansell, Kohl’s chief executive. He said the company would take further markdowns as it prepares for spring. The stores reporting sales data on Thursday ranged from apparel retailers to department stores, though some large retailers, including J. C. Penney and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as Walmart, do not report monthly data. Analysts noted a rush of last-minute promotions after slow sales early in the month. “We’ve noticed significant promotions at retailers looking to recover preholiday sales, and fewer promotions at retailers we believe have performed well,” Oliver Chen, a Citigroup analyst, wrote in a research note. Image Shoppers outside Macy’s in Manhattan Dec. 26. Most retailers posted a modest improvement. Credit Eduardo Munoz/Reuters With drugstores included in the totals, the rise in December retail sales from a year ago was 2.3 percent, Thomson Reuters said. Drugstores are dealing with consumers switching to cheaper generic drugs. ShopperTrak, which counts shoppers at the nation’s malls, reported that traffic picked up in the final week before Christmas. Still, in December it lowered its sales forecast for November and December to a 2.5 percent gain over last year, down from the 3.3 percent it had estimated previously. Another reading on the holiday season was also tepid. MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which estimates overall consumer spending, said last week that holiday-related sales rose 0.7 percent from the end of October through Christmas Eve, the smallest increase since 2008. Last year, sales were up 2 percent. Most of the department stores reporting results Thursday beat analysts’ expectations. At Nordstrom, sales at stores open at least a year, a measure known as same-store sales, were up 8.6 percent, shooting past estimates of 3.4 percent. Kohl’s said its same-store sales rose 3.4 percent , above analysts’ estimates of 1.2 percent but below Kohl’s internal expectations. Macy’s same-store sales were about in line with analysts’ expectations, at 4.1 percent. Macy’s said fourth-quarter earnings would be in a lower range than it had previously announced, at $1.91 to $1.96 a share, down from $1.94 to $1.99 a share. Target, which heavily promotes the holiday season, said its same-store sales were flat compared with last December, while analysts had expected a 0.8 percent gain. Its heavily promoted collection of designer holiday gifts, in partnership with Neiman Marcus, was a disappointment, according to some analysts. The company said that the number of same-store transactions fell compared with last year, but the average amount spent per transaction rose, and that the food, health and beauty, apparel and home categories were up over last year. “Strong results late in the month did not completely offset softness in the first three weeks,” Gregg W. Steinhafel, Target’s chief executive, said in a statement. The discounter Costco did much better than expected, with a 9 percent same-store sales gain , above the 6.5 percent that analysts had projected. Among apparel stores, the teenage clothing retailer Wet Seal posted a decrease of 9.7 percent and Zumiez posted a decline of 1 percent.