N.F.L. Schedule: Who We Think Will Win in Week 17

Abstract: In 2014, the Packers won one for the Limper. Last year, they won with the Miracle in Motown. Whatever the 175th edition of Green Bay versus Detroit has in store, it’s certain to be the best thing going in the 17th and final week of the 2016 regular season. The winner claims the N.F.C. North, as the Packers did in the 2014 finale, when quarterback Aaron Rodgers played through a calf injury to beat Detroit. The loser could still make the playoffs as a wild-card team, as the Lions did last season despite blowing a 20-point lead in a late-season loss to Green Bay. Consider this a playoff aperitif to whet the postseason palate. Here is a look at Sunday’s matchups and who we think will win them: Packers (9-6) at Lions (9-6) 8:30 p.m. Line: Packers by 3 ½ The Packers were 4-6, and losers of four straight, when Rodgers played the part of the end-season prophet. “I think we can run the table,” he said, and who’s laughing him off now? Green Bay has won five straight and is a prime-time victory away from its fifth N.F.C. North title in six years. Rodgers may be the best seer in the N.F.L. this side of Joe Namath. The Lions can win their first division title since 1993, when the N.F.C. North was still the N.F.C. Central. Lose, and they can still land the final wild-card berth if the Redskins fail against the Giants in an earlier game. Pick: Packers Ravens (8-7) at Bengals (5-9-1) 1 p.m. Line: Bengals by 2 ½ Too good to earn a top-10 draft pick, too bad to earn a playoff spot, these A.F.C. North comrades will play out the last thread of the string together. The Ravens are staring at the nose of a third nonwinning season in the four years since their Super Bowl XLVII victory. Their last win in Cincinnati? New Year’s Day 2012. The Bengals have dropped five of their last seven games by an average of 3.2 points per blown opportunity. That’s one way to explain why quarterback Andy Dalton isn’t going to the postseason for the first time in his six-year career. Pick: Ravens Jaguars (3-12) at Colts (7-8) 1 p.m. Line: Colts by 4 ½ This is one of five “zombie” games — featuring two teams walking the field after their playoff hopes are dead and buried. The Colts will enter the off-season wondering why so close wasn’t enough. They are 5-5 in games decided by one score, after being a league-best 26-8 in such games under Coach Chuck Pagano from 2012 to 2015. Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles passed for 325 yards and caught a touchdown pass in a 38-17 win over Tennessee on Dec. 24. It was too late to save Coach Gus Bradley, who was fired on Dec. 19. Pick: Jaguars Patriots (13-2) at Dolphins (10-5) 1 p.m. Line: Patriots by 9 ½ If the Patriots win on the road Sunday, they won’t be required to do so again unless they reach the Super Bowl in Houston. N.F.L. Playoff Picture: All the Games That Matter for Your Team Exploring the playoff chances and seeding possibilities with one week to go. New England can lock in the No. 1 playoff seed, and the home-field advantage that serves as its prize, with a win in Miami. It would be the Patriots’ fourth No. 1 seed in seven years, the best such run in the A.F.C. since the current seeding-by-record format was adopted in 1975. A Raiders loss to Denver would serve the same purpose for New England. Miami has made the playoffs for the first time since 2008. If the Dolphins win, and Kansas City loses in San Diego, they will bump up to the No. 5 seed. Pick: Dolphins Bears (3-12) at Vikings (7-8) 1 p.m. Line: Vikings by 5 Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford is having a record season that few find worth mentioning. That’s what happens when a 5-0 start is swallowed whole by eight losses in the next 10 games. Losses and all, Bradford has completed 71.3 percent of his passes (370 of 519). If he can hold that form in one more game, he will break Drew Brees’s single-season record of a 71.2 percent completion rate. Bradford can also surpass Daunte Culpepper’s franchise-record 379 completions. The Bears own the worst 15-game record in franchise bookkeeping. That’s what happens when you combine an N.F.L.-low 10 takeaways with none in the past six weeks. Pick: Vikings Bills (7-8) at Jets (4-11) 1 p.m. Line: Bills by 3 ½ The Bills have galactic expectations for a team that hasn’t reached the playoffs in 17 years. They fired Coach Rex Ryan on Tuesday after he went 15-16 — one win away from producing the team’s best two-year run of the 2000s. Bills management — not the interim coach Anthony Lynn, who said it wasn’t his call — benched quarterback Tyrod Taylor in favor of the former first-round draft pick E. J. Manuel, who hasn’t won a start since Sept. 14, 2014. The Jets ended last season with a playoff-killing loss to the Bills, 22-17. They have yet to bounce back. Pick: Bills Image With a balanced offense that features running back Ezekiel Elliott, the Cowboys are the No. 1 playoff seed in the N.F.C. Credit Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto Agency Cowboys (13-2) at Eagles (6-9) 1 p.m. Line: Eagles by 4 A balanced offense is a primary reason the Cowboys are the No. 1 seed in the N.F.C. playoffs. The lack of one is why the Eagles will post consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1998-99. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has 13 wins, tying for an N.F.L. rookie record, after throwing for 3,630 yards against defenses that seem more concerned with speed-bumping the rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott and his league-best 1,631 yards. That defensive plan is not working. Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz has thrown a franchise-record 352 completions, a byproduct of losing three running backs to season-ending injuries. That offensive plan is not working, either. Pick: Cowboys Browns (1-14) at Steelers (10-5) 1 p.m. Line: Steelers by 6 The Steelers are set as the No. 3 seed in the A.F.C. playoffs. The Browns can clinch the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2017 with a loss. Who would have guessed that Cleveland would be the only team with something to play for in this regular-season curtain call? The Browns beat the Chargers, 20-17, on Dec. 24 to end a 17-game losing streak. The next great skid to halt: a 12-game losing streak at Heinz Field, where the Browns are 1-15. They most likely won’t face Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who is 20-2 against the Browns but is expected to get some rest before the playoffs. Pick: Steelers Panthers (6-9) at Buccaneers (8-7) 1 p.m. Line: Buccaneers by 5 ½ So you’re saying there’s a chance. The Buccaneers can earn the 12th and final spot in the playoffs if they win, the Packers lose, the Redskins tie, the Cowboys win, the Colts win, the Titans win and the 49ers win. All this, without running back Doug Martin, who just began a four-game suspension for violating the league’s drug policy. For the second time in franchise history, the Panthers have failed to make the playoffs after reaching (and losing in) the Super Bowl. They will finish last in a division they had won three straight years. Time to see the depth of their playing pride. Pick: Panthers Texans (9-6) at Titans (8-7) 1 p.m. Line: Titans by 3 The Texans, who won the A.F.C. South, are the second Super Bowl host in 16 years to reach the playoffs. They have a 7-1 record at NRG Stadium, but they are the No. 4 seed in the A.F.C. because they do not travel well. Houston will play all its starters to get better at winning on the road, where it has been held to 13 points or fewer in four of seven games. Nashville may not be so tough on the visitors now that the Titans have lost quarterback Marcus Mariota to a broken leg. They’ll turn to the backup Matt Cassel to end a five-game losing streak to Houston. Pick: Texans Seahawks (9-5-1) at 49ers (2-13) 4:25 p.m. Line: Seahawks by 9 ½ The Seahawks have almost played themselves out of the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye. To get it back, they must beat the 49ers and hope the Falcons lose. Getting past the 49ers is the easy part. The Seahawks have outscored the 49ers by 86-34 in three wins since the 49ers fired Coach Jim Harbaugh after the 2014 season. The 49ers are facing their seventh straight loss to the Seahawks, which would be a franchise worst in the series. They just ended a franchise-worst 13-game losing streak, so who knows? Pick: Seahawks Saints (7-8) at Falcons (10-5) 4:25 p.m. Line: Falcons by 7 The Falcons are one win away from earning the No. 2 seed in the N.F.C. and the bye that comes with it. If this game doesn’t do it, they have to hope that the Seahawks lose to the pitiful 49ers. In other words, the Falcons are pretty much on their own. This would be a good game for fantasy football players to rest their running backs and defenses. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan has a league-high 115.5 passer rating and has thrown touchdown passes to 13 players, an N.F.L. single-season record. Saints quarterback Drew Brees is 66 passing yards from his fifth 5,000-yard season, which no other N.F.L. quarterback has managed twice. Pick: Falcons Raiders (12-3) at Broncos (8-7) 4:25 p.m. Line: Broncos by 1 Raiders quarterback Derek Carr’s leg was broken during a fourth-quarter pass play with his team leading by 19 points at home on Dec. 24. The team’s infamous “tuck rule” playoff loss to the Patriots 15 years ago seems so less cruel and unusual in a comparison of season-impaling events. The Raiders must count on the backup quarterback Matt McGloin to win the A.F.C. West. Bundle a win with a Patriots loss, and Oakland gets the No. 1 seed in A.F.C. Couple a loss with a Chiefs win, and Oakland is a wild-card team. The Super Bowl champion Broncos will not return to the playoffs. But, oh, how they despise the Raiders — more than enough to stick one last finger in their eye patch. Pick: Broncos Cardinals (6-8-1) at Rams (4-11) 4:25 p.m. Line: Cardinals by 6 The Cardinals lost to the Rams, 17-13, on Oct. 2. That was the first sign they would not be headed back to the conference championship game. Don’t blame wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. At age 33, he is second in the league with 102 catches (and has the third-most catches in a career). He alone is reason to watch. Rams quarterback Jared Goff, the No. 1 overall draft pick of 2016, gets a seventh chance to pick up win No. 1 as a starter. His 61.7 passer rating isn’t the worst in the league because he hasn’t played enough to qualify. Pick: Cardinals Chiefs (11-4) at Chargers (5-10) 4:25 p.m. Line: Chiefs by 5 ½ How could it get any worse for the Chargers after a loss to the previously winless Browns? A loss to Kansas City in what could be their final game in San Diego. The Chargers have until Jan. 15 to decide if they want to move north and share a new stadium with the Rams. As farewells go, a fifth straight loss would not be a good look for the Chargers, except that it would reinforce the necessity of an exit. If they beat the Chargers and the Raiders lose to the Broncos, the Chiefs can move from wild-card team to the A.F.C. West champion with a first-round bye. Pick: Chiefs Giants (10-5) at Redskins (8-6-1) 4:25 p.m. Line: Redskins by 8 The Redskins will make the playoffs as a wild-card team if they beat the Giants and the Lions-Packers game does not finish in a tie. How the Washington Redskins Can Make the Playoffs An interactive calculator that lets you explore the Washington Redskins’ end-of-season scenarios like a champ. What are the odds of a tie? Ask a Washington team that has a tie this season. If the Redskins had just beaten the Bengals on Oct. 30 in London, instead of playing to a 27-27 draw, beating the Giants would be playoff-clinching enough. The Giants are bolted to the No. 5 seed regardless of Sunday’s results, but they will play their starters as usual. Eliminating the Redskins will only make it that much more fun. Pick: Redskins


April Fools’ Undo: Gmail Removes Its ‘Mic Drop’ Feature

Abstract: Gmail, a pioneer in the grand tradition of elaborate April Fools’ jokes, scrambled to undo its latest one after disgruntled users complained that they had accidentally sent photos of mic-dropping Minions, the little yellow creatures from the movie “Despicable Me,” to their business contacts. The feature was called the Mic Drop, and it was billed as a way to have the last word in long email chains by sending a GIF of a regal-looking Minion character literally dropping a microphone. “Simply reply to any email using the new ‘Send + Mic Drop’ button. Everyone will get your message, but that’s the last you’ll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won’t see it,” said a Gmail blog post about the feature. Get the last word with Gmail Mic Drop https://t.co/v3wbrqglOZ pic.twitter.com/PRfgLO9Mzw — Gmail (@gmail) March 31, 2016 For some, the Mic Drop sounded like the perfect passive-aggressive office behavior. But this is April Fools’ Day , the worst day of the year and a fertile ground for hoaxes, which are so numerous that many news organizations are live-blogging them . Many unsuspecting Gmail users were simply not in the mood for Minions. Since the Mic Drop button was placed a little too close to the Send button, users lamented their misfiring of the cartoon character when dealing with bosses and co-workers. “Unfortunately some of my very intelligent friends are senior engineers in Google,” one incensed user named Yihsun Lin wrote in Gmail’s product forum. “I almost picked up the phone and shout at them because of this stupid creation made me sound so rude to one important customer when I made a mistake to click this stupid button.” Another user named Connie Mitchell wrote : “If I wanted juvenile prank crap on my computer I would be on Facebook wasting time.” (Facebook, a high-traffic zone for Minions and the people who love them , does not appear to have released a prank this year. But the day is young.) Usually, Gmail is beloved for its forays into office humor. In 2007, the service introduced Gmail Paper , which advertised print deliveries of a user’s inbox (“Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post.”) In 2011, there was Gmail Autopilot , which offered to analyze and reply to emails automatically, and even came with a special breakup function. And Gmail itself was launched on April 1, 2004 . This year, Gmail said in a statement that it had gone too far this time: “Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”

April Fools
Email
Google
Hoaxes and Pranks


Minaya Still Watches the Mets, Who Failed on His Watch

Abstract: The real test will come Friday night, when the Mets open their season. Omar Minaya plans to watch at home. Up to now, he has not missed baseball so much because there have been no official games since the postseason, and the Mets were surely not involved in those October games anyway — which is why Minaya has plenty of time to watch Friday’s game at home. “In this town, you cannot go two years without being a contender,” Minaya was saying Thursday over lunch. The Yanks were playing up at the Stadium, but there was no trace of that game in Antonucci Café on East 81st Street since that restaurant plays Buena Vista Social Club rather than John Sterling. Minaya, 52, was at ease, but then again, he is almost always at ease. He thinks the Mets, who open in Florida on Friday night, will be better than people expect.  “I’m a glass-half-full guy,” Minaya said. “I’m attached to those guys. I may be wrong, but I think they’re capable of contending. On opening day they might have seven home-grown players in the starting lineup.” He mentioned Mike Pelfrey, Ike Davis, Josh Thole, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Angel Pagan and Lucas Duda, although Duda, it turns out, will be on the bench. He is a scout at heart, and thinks the Mets can compete with the Braves (“a good club, but there’s the Bobby Cox factor”) and the Marlins (“they are still a young club”) and the Phillies (he acknowledged their starters, but also their injuries). Minaya, was dismissed the day after the regular season ended after six years as general manager. He is being paid for the two years left on his contract, but his enthusiasm for the Mets seemed to come without a price tag. He admires his replacement, Sandy Alderson, and he likes the new manager, Terry Collins, whom he brought into the organization. He doesn’t know the new batting coach, Dave Hudgens , but he thinks the new man must be doing a good job because he has noticed Davis’s shorter swing. “I think Ike could hit 30 home runs this year,” Minaya said. He remains an optimist, even in reverse. The only thing he will not discuss is the dreadful financial status of the owners after the villainy of Bernard L. Madoff. Minaya acknowledges that things went downhill on his watch. “We set attendance records, we won a lot of games, but we didn’t close it out,” he said. With a great reputation for finding talent, Minaya brought in many Latino stars and itinerants. “Look, obviously, Luis Castillo and Ollie Perez didn’t work out,” he said of the second baseman and pitcher who were finally cut adrift this past month, at considerable ongoing cost. “But I can’t tell you in retrospect I wouldn’t have done it,” he added. He brought in R. A. Dickey, the knuckleballer he liked from their days in the Texas system, and Dickey became the Mets’ best pitcher last season and a role model to young players. And, no, Minaya has no regrets about being sacked. It was time to go, he said. He has talked to other organizations, but shudders about going far from Mama’s deli in Corona, Queens, or Dominican places in Washington Heights.  Minaya looks upon his leisure time as a gift to him, his wife, Rachel, and their sons Teddy, 17, and Justin, 12. He has done volunteer work for Esperanza International , which provides seed money for female entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic, and Voices Against Brain Cancer , in honor of a family friend. He went to Haiti for the first time, seeking to provide wells after the earthquake. And he and his wife traveled to Madrid and Barcelona, where they sampled the architecture of Gaudi and the art of Picasso. Minaya talks of reading the good old Village Voice back when he was an athlete at Newtown High in Queens, and how he came to be friendly with Jack Newfield, the great reporter of the Voice. In Newfield’s memory, Minaya holds an occasional roundtable of friends to discuss issues of the day. “But I’m a working man,” he said Thursday. “I need to work at something.” He plans to watch, preferably with the sound down, nothing against analysts, just that he wants to see the game for himself. He will certainly root for the Mets, “at least unless I am working for another team.” He is not sure how his wife will like him in heavy partisan gear, at home. “She hasn’t thrown me out, yet,” he said.


Postal Chief Says Congress and Unions Block Progress

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Critical changes needed to turn around the financially troubled United States Postal Service have been held up by Congress and by opposition from postal labor unions that want to preserve jobs and benefits, the postmaster general said Tuesday. The agency has lost nearly $26 billion over the last three years, the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in a speech at the National Press Club. “What’s holding us up? Myopia, shortsightedness,” Mr. Donahoe said. “We never get past the narrow set of interests that are determined to preserve the status quo.” Union leaders heatedly responded that Mr. Donahoe was responsible for problems at the Postal Service. They said he had pushed for cuts like the elimination of Saturday mail delivery that would undermine service and cut revenues. The dispute between Mr. Donahoe and the postal unions continues a debate about the future of the 200-year-old agency in the Internet age. As revenues have declined, the Postal Service has consolidated 305 mail-processing plants, cut thousands of delivery routes and eliminated 212,000 jobs. The Postal Service enacted more cuts on Monday that will eliminate overnight delivery of first-class mail. The post office said the changes would save a total of about $16 billion. But the postal unions said the changes would damage the agency’s reputation and push businesses and consumers to seek out alternatives. “Patrick Donahoe wants to cut and cut with a slash-and-burn strategy that is driving business away from the Postal Service,” said Mark Dimondstein, the president of American Postal Workers Union. Much of the Postal Service’s financial troubles stem from a sharp decline in mail volume caused by Americans’ increasing reliance on the Internet for their communication needs and to pay bills. Mail volume, particularly first-class mail, the post office’s biggest revenue generator, has decreased by more than 35 percent over the past 10 years. Despite postal officials’ warnings and the agency’s growing debt, Congress has yet to act, and the postal agency does not appear to be high on its list of priorities. Postal officials and the unions acknowledge the role that technology has played in the agency’s growing debt and its other problems. But they say the largest financial problem is a measure passed by Congress in 2006 that requires the post office to pay about $5 billion a year into a retiree health fund. The agency has defaulted on the payments for the last three years. Postal Service and union officials have asked Congress to remove or restructure the funding requirement. But efforts have stalled largely because many Republicans oppose the measure, criticizing the idea as a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. Lawmakers from both parties also oppose bipartisan plans that would involve service cuts like ending Saturday deliveries and closing post offices, many of them in rural communities. Despite its financial troubles , the post office has seen rapid growth in its package-delivery business, whose revenue has increased 18 percent since 2012. A new deal with the online retailer Amazon.com to deliver packages on Sunday is also expected to bring in additional income. The agency is also experimenting with grocery deliveries in San Francisco. Still, Mr. Donahoe said Tuesday that none of those efforts would offset the losses in revenue unless Congress gave the agency more authority over its operations, like the ability to raise stamp prices. “At some point in time, people need to step back and think about the future,” he said. “You can’t just worry about today.” Mr. Donahoe, who has worked at the Postal Service for 40 years and was appointed postmaster general in 2010, will step down on Feb. 1. He will be replaced by Megan J. Brennan , the chief operating officer. Ms. Brennan will be the first woman to lead the post office.

Congress
Congress
Postal Service
Labor Unions
Patrick R Donahoe
Postal Service US
House of Representatives
Senate


Fraternity Sues Wesleyan University Over Order to Admit Women

Abstract: Almost five months after fraternities at Wesleyan University in Connecticut were ordered to admit women as both members and residents, one organization announced on Thursday that it was suing the university , saying the policy put in place in the name of equality was, in fact, discriminatory. The fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon , along with its alumni organization, Kent Literary Club, filed the lawsuit seeking a temporary injunction in Superior Court in Middletown. While there are only two fraternities on campus, with about 50 members, the order by the university — which has long had a reputation as one of the nation’s most liberal institutions of higher learning — came as many schools were struggling with issues related to heavy drinking, dangerous behavior and sexual assault at fraternities and sororities. Joshua Boger, the chairman of Wesleyan’s board of trustees, and Michael S. Roth, the university’s president, issued the order in September and said the fraternities had three years to comply. “The trustees and administration recognize that residential fraternities have contributed greatly to Wesleyan over a long period of time, but we also believe they must change to continue to benefit their members and the larger campus community,” they wrote in a letter to the student body. “Women as well as men must be full members and well represented in the body and leadership of the organization.” However, Delta Kappa Epsilon maintains that the university is trying to fast-track the assimilation of women into the fraternity. The fraternity said it had presented a plan to allow some women to live at the house, possibly as members of a sorority who would share the building but not as members of Delta Kappa Epsilon. But Wesleyan rejected it, and said the fraternity could not offer “program housing” for the coming academic year. “Discrimination is abhorrent in whatever form it may exist,” Scott Karsten, the spokesman for the fraternity’s alumni organization, said in a statement . “President Roth’s pursuit of selective discrimination is an egregious example of political correctness gone wrong, and does a disservice to the high ideals upon which Wesleyan was founded.” Wesleyan said in a statement that the fraternity “failed to take any meaningful steps or make any reasonable commitments toward residential coeducation” before the date students began choosing their housing for next year. “The D.K.E. house has historically operated very differently than other special-interest program houses at Wesleyan in many ways, but notably that it explicitly prohibits residence by females,” it continued. “This must change.” The lawsuit argues that Wesleyan “gives students the opportunity to live collectively in a house or hall, fraternity or society, based on shared hobbies, experiences, cultural interests and identities” and makes single-sex housing available for those who desire. The lawsuit cites several options, including the Women of Color House for “all who are committed to women of color on campus,” the Turath House , which “provides a space for Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim students to articulate their views and affirm their culture and religion without fear of harassment and discrimination,” and the Light House , which provides an “open-minded Christian presence on campus.” To single out Greek organizations, the lawsuit contends, is discriminatory and unfair.

Wesleyan
Discrimination
Delta Kappa Epsilon
Lawsuits
College
Fraternities,Sororites
Women and Girls
Middletown CT


Seeking to Ban Online Betting, G.O.P. Donor Tests Influence

Abstract: A push by the billionaire casino magnate Sheldon G. Adelson to outlaw online gambling has ignited a bitter civil war in the gambling industry, dividing one of Washington’s most powerful interest groups and posing a major test of the Republican donor’s political clout. Mr. Adelson’s effort officially kicked off on Wednesday, when lawmakers, including a senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the businessman and his family, introduced legislation originally drafted with Mr. Adelson’s lobbyist. The bill would close a three-year-old loophole in federal law by banning online gambling — a growing industry that Mr. Adelson argues is bad for casinos and gamblers — and shutting down online gambling in a handful states that recently legalized it. The dispute has already largely sidelined the industry’s powerful trade group, the American Gaming Association, after Mr. Adelson threatened to withdraw from the organization if it continued to back expanded online gambling, according to several industry executives. Mr. Adelson’s political prominence will be on display Thursday in Las Vegas at the start of the four-day meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition — an event that has attracted several 2016 presidential prospects, including Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin; and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio. Mr. Adelson, whose $38 billion fortune makes him among the richest men in the world, poured roughly $100 million into Republican campaigns in 2012, and he is known for pushing ideological fights in Washington. The battle over online gambling shows how he also lobbies for his business. Dueling branches of the casino industry are now entering the fray, employing a half-dozen former elected officials and a clutch of lobbyists and public relations strategists through a pair of strange-bedfellows coalitions. Image Sheldon Adelson’s push against online betting has set off a battle in the gambling industry. Credit Associated Press/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher A new group bankrolled by Mr. Adelson, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling , is wooing socially conservative lawmakers opposed to gambling, along with some Democrats who are worried about possible online gambling by minors. But it also features a former New York governor, George E. Pataki, a Republican who presided over a sweeping expansion of gambling in that state, including online bets on horse racing. Rival casinos and online poker companies are counterattacking through the Coalition for Consumer and Online Protection . The group has signed up two Republican former House members, Michael G. Oxley of Ohio, who a decade ago led efforts to outlaw online betting and accused companies selling such games of “ gobbling up victims in the United States,” and Mary Bono of California. Mr. Oxley, who retired from Congress in 2007 and now works as a lobbyist, said in an interview that he believed state-regulated online gambling was now the best hope of countering the rapid expansion of illegal online gambling. “The world has changed dramatically in the last 10 years,” Mr. Oxley said. “I have come to the conclusion you can’t try to control the Internet and the like.” Other hires include Jim Messina, President Obama’s former campaign manager, and Haley Barbour, a former governor of Mississippi and prominent Republican lobbyist, who helped Republican “super PACs” raise millions of dollars in the effort to beat Mr. Obama in 2012. Among the coalition’s arguments against a ban on online gambling is one that also figured in Republicans’ battle against Mr. Obama’s health care expansion: that it violates states’ rights. Some in the industry worry that a brawl between its biggest players could threaten the painstakingly built image of family-friendly entertainment the casino resorts have worked to promote. “It is unfortunate, when an industry undermines itself,” said Jan L. Jones, a former mayor of Las Vegas who is now the head of government relations at Caesars Entertainment, which is opposed to the bill. “This fight is tarnishing the entire industry. You just raise a whole specter of negativity that I think is unfortunate and inappropriate, after we have spent the last three decades with a message that gaming is just entertainment enjoyed by responsible adults.” What is clear is that an enormous amount of money is at stake: Morgan Stanley, an investment banking firm that tracks the industry, has estimated that by 2020, online gambling could be worth $8 billion a year — about 12 percent of the overall current gambling revenues at commercial and Native American casinos nationwide. Online gambling was long deemed illegal under a federal law known as the Wire Act. But in 2011, the Justice Department issued an opinion that the law allowed individual states to permit online gambling. Three states have since moved to legalize some form of Internet gambling — New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada — and several other states are now considering it, in part as a way to bring much-needed revenue into state coffers. Image “It is unfortunate, when an industry undermines itself,” said Jan Jones of Caesars Entertainment. Credit Isaac Brekken for The New York Times The legislation backed by Mr. Adelson would in effect reinstate the ban, though the legislation proposed Wednesday would exclude horse racing, a significant industry in Kentucky, the home state of the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. The dispute over the legislation largely traces the diverging economic fortunes of different gambling companies. Casino operators like Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International view online gambling as a way to bring in a new generation of gamblers to their American-based resorts. Caesars, which also owns the popular World Series of Poker, is under particular financial pressure to bring in new revenue. The company’s biggest investors include hedge fund executives who, like Mr. Adelson, are major players in political fund-raising and super PACs. Also supporting expansion are firms that manufacture betting equipment and software, and who see online gambling as a lucrative new market, along with online poker companies. On the other side is Mr. Adelson’s casino resort company, Las Vegas Sands Corporation , which is among the world’s biggest and most profitable, buoyed by its enormously lucrative expansion into Asia, where it earns the vast majority of its profits. Mr. Adelson has been joined by executives of some local casino companies and Native American-run casinos, who face a more direct threat from online gambling because their casinos do not typically offer the kind of destination resort experience associated with Las Vegas establishments. Las Vegas Sands pursued online gambling itself as recently as 2003, when a subsidiary received a license to run an offshore gambling center on the British island of Alderney. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported that it had spent $1.3 million exploring the feasibility of operating an Internet gambling site there. But more recently, Mr. Adelson has warned that widespread online gambling would be impossible to effectively regulate, with operators having far less incentive to obey regulations than brick-and-mortar casinos with billions of dollars worth of capital investments at stake. In an interview, Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands’ vice president for government relations, said the company had no interest in building the kind of online gambling platform that would be outlawed by the new bill. “We aren’t interested in the marketplace,” he said. Image Representative Jason Chaffetz discussed legislation that would ban most forms of online gambling on Wednesday at a press conference that also included, from left to right, Senator Kelly Ayotte, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Mike Lee. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times The other major industry power player — Steve Wynn, whose gambling and entertainment empire includes Wynn Las Vegas and Wynn Macau in Asia — has been much less vocal on his opinion of online gambling. But in recent weeks, he has hinted that he may be on Mr. Adelson’s side as he too is worried that the industry could end up a target of criticism if under-age players get on to an online poker site, among other complications. “Where is the business opportunity?” Mr. Wynn told the prominent Nevada reporter Jon Ralston last month. “The big problem I see is I don’t see the government letting us keep the money.” Now the industry appears poised to deploy in Washington the kind of money it already lavishes on state capitals, where most gambling regulations are drafted. In New Jersey, firms and lobbyists working on online gambling issues were paid more than $ 50 million leading up to the state’s 2013 decision to legalize some forms of Internet gambling. Mr. Adelson has not been shy about using his wealth and prestige to muster allies and deter opponents in his latest fight. A year ago, the American Gaming Association prominently defended the 2011 ruling, prompting Las Vegas Sands officials to question why the company’s member dues should pay for advocacy it strongly opposed. “They are now like Switzerland,” one casino executive said. “They have been ordered to stay neutral.” The ban was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday by Mr. Graham, who has not been a vocal opponent of online gambling but faces a primary challenge from the right in his re-election effort this year. Mr. Adelson and his wife hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Graham in Las Vegas last April, and Mr. Adelson has in the past written six- and seven-figure checks to super PACs like one now backing Mr. Graham’s re-election campaign. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Graham was asked if he and other co-sponsors were operating merely as Mr. Adelson’s emissaries. “I would say that Sheldon has aligned himself with most Baptists in South Carolina,” Mr. Graham replied. “I am on solid footing in South Carolina with people I represent. The fact that Sheldon is on board is a good thing.”

Gambling
Lobbying
Las Vegas Sands
Sheldon G Adelson
American Gaming Assn
Regulation and Deregulation
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Yahoo’s First Quarter Adds Urgency to Sale Option

Abstract: Yahoo’s first quarter is the last straw. An 11 percent drop in revenue for the first three months of the year puts an exclamation point on the lack of progress in almost four years with Marissa Mayer as chief executive. Google and Facebook are cleaning up in digital advertising, especially mobile. It’s time to offload Yahoo’s core business before bidders like Verizon lose interest. Video Jeffrey Smith, the chief executive of Starboard Value, last week discussed tensions between Yahoo and its most outspoken shareholder. Credit Credit CNBC Ms. Mayer’s enthusiasm is unflagging. Even after the poor showing reported on Tuesday, which included an operating loss of $167 million, she keeps talking about her ability to kick-start growth while considering other alternatives. It’s hard to see what options are left. Yahoo’s so-called mavens are moving at an analog pace. This Mayer-named collection of mobile, social, native and video ads represent a little more than a third of Yahoo’s top line and grew only 7 percent in the first quarter. By comparison, Facebook’s mobile-ad revenue increased 81 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and accounted for nearly the entire $5.8 billion generated. Most companies put a gloss on themselves when they are up for sale to woo suitors. Yahoo, a $35 billion company that has lurched from strategy to strategy, is struggling to manage even that. Ms. Mayer is making potential bidders listen to prerecorded messages while providing little financial detail, according to media reports. It suggests that there may be something messy inside or that the chief executive isn’t especially keen to sell. Despite having to press for the pitch book, suitors are showing interest nonetheless. The telecom titan Verizon Communications signaled it would bid in an attempt to marry Yahoo with AOL, which it acquired last year for $4 billion. The private-equity firm TPG Capital and the digital-advertising remains of the phone-book publisher Yellow Pages also may be in the mix. Some potential bidders have already hung up on Yahoo. Comcast, AT&T, Time and Barry Diller’s Internet hodgepodge IAC are among those that media reports say considered making offers but did not. Yahoo expects the second quarter to be even worse, with at least a 12 percent decline in sales from a year ago. Given that outlook, Ms. Mayer has only one last job to do at Yahoo. She may be running short on time, however, to get this one right.

Marissa Mayer
Verizon Communications
Mergers and Acquisitions
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Yahoo!


Communities Become Home Buyers to Fight Decay

Abstract: BOSTON — As a wave of home foreclosures courses through the United States , some of the nation’s hardest hit cities think they have found a way to ease the blight left on their communities by the crisis. Using taxpayer and private money, Boston, Minneapolis , San Diego and a handful of other places are buying foreclosed properties to refurbish and resell them to developers and homeowners in an effort to prevent troubled neighborhoods from sliding into urban decay. The efforts so far have been taken on a small scale. But local officials say they can become an important pillar of any housing recovery with the help of $4 billion in federal grants that were part of a housing bill Congress approved in July. Indeed, the sale of foreclosed homes — not just to city governments but more broadly to investors and homeowners — contributed to a 3.1 percent increase in existing home sales in July, the highest level in five months, according to data released on Monday by the National Association of Realtors . That hardly means that the housing crisis is over, because the number of homes for sale climbed to another record level as more people put their homes on the market. But without buyers taking foreclosed homes at steeply discounted prices, the problem would be even worse. Some advocates of free markets say those increased sales should address the rising heaps of distressed properties. But many mayors say the market is not moving quickly enough because lenders overwhelmed by foreclosures are not able to sell repossessed properties fast enough. Many developers and home buyers are also not willing to take a chance on dilapidated properties in distressed neighborhoods. With some homes staying vacant for months or even years, the government, they say, needs to act as an intermediary. In a distressed patch of the Dorchester section of Boston, the city recently bought four foreclosed houses on Hendry Street and resold them to a local developer who will refurbish them and put them back on the market. At the same time, the city has increased street cleanings and police patrols, and has hired more social workers to help residents. Although the area was constantly torn by gang violence and chronic joblessness, property prices surged at the height of the housing boom, providing hope of a better future. But the collapse in property values left an unmistakable bruise: The four homes, two of which sold for $550,000 each at the market’s peak, were bought for a total of $314,000 by the city. Standing in front of darkened and boarded up houses, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said these types of interventions would breathe new life into neighborhoods riddled with foreclosed property. “Our job as the city government is to restore these neighborhoods,” he said. “We can’t let this cancer continue.” Residents like Luis Rodriguez, a native of the Dominican Republic who earlier bought a fixer-upper across the street, expect the city’s efforts to lift real estate values, and earn him a tidy profit if he decides to sell. “With the mayor’s help, I think the neighborhood will be a lot better,” he said. Antonio Gonçalves, a 36-year-old electrical worker who lives in the neighborhood, was less sure. He is interested in a home in the area, but the slowdown in construction means that he is not always working full time. “Even though prices have come down, who knows what is going to happen in two years?” said Mr. Gonçalves, a native of Cape Verde , the island nation off the west coast of Africa . The ailments plaguing parts of Boston are not the same as elsewhere in the country, and each community requires a tailored approach. In Cleveland , Detroit and other places in the Midwest, the effects on neighborhoods from the mortgage crisis are exacerbated by a shrinking population, which is forcing officials to turn to grimmer solutions. Some officials there have concluded that the only way to revitalize certain neighborhoods is to demolish run-down homes and turn the land into small parks or side yards for neighbors who remain. That approach was pioneered by Genesee County in Michigan , which is also plagued by a declining population and a struggling auto industry. It created a land bank to acquire properties on which owners had not paid local taxes. The land bank has acquired 7,400 properties since it was created in 2002, including about a third of all vacant homes in the county, said Daniel T. Kildee, the county treasurer who oversees the project. The bank has turned 2,500 of them into parks, yards or refurbished homes; it is holding onto the rest until it finds a use for them. Inspired by Genesee County’s success, officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio , which includes Cleveland, have asked the state legislature to let local governments create similar land banks. In the Southwest and in Florida , cities whose housing markets are among the worst-hit, are eager to buy foreclosed properties for resale, but must wait for federal money. While long-term prospects in these places are somewhat better because the population is still growing, they face an immediate challenge from a decline in property tax revenue. Many of the hardest-hit areas also are far from job centers. San Diego, a city grappling with swaths of foreclosures, is better positioned to take a more sweeping approach. Officials there are raising private money to acquire, refurbish and resell hundreds of properties. Investors including the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the Washington Mutual bank have committed $20 million so far, said Jim Bliesner, director of the San Diego Reinvestment Task Force, which plans buy its first homes by the end of the year. “This has to be large enough to deal with the problem at scale,” Mr. Bliesner said. “We have 14,000 properties in foreclosure. If we fix up four of them, it doesn’t make a difference.” The involvement of local governments has not been free from controversy. The White House, for instance, opposed the $4 billion in federal grants. Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute , argued that the task of putting families back in foreclosed homes should be left to banks and real estate buyers. The hand of government, he added, would distort the market and siphon capital away from better uses. “The more government is involved, the more political and bureaucratic decisions are made,” he said. “The more the market is involved, the more efficiency is used.” Local officials say they are trying to jump-start the housing market, not supplant it. In Minneapolis, some homes in the lower-income north side of the city have been vacant for up to five years. The Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation has trouble locating officials at mortgage companies who have the authority to sell the properties, said Carolyn E. Olson, president of the group. The effort, which is financed by the city of Minneapolis and the state housing agency, is similar to Boston’s approach. Still, it has bought 75 homes in an area that had 1,500 foreclosures last year and has about 500 vacant homes; it hopes to do more with the federal grants. Ms. Olson said the group would have to buy and improve only a fraction of the vacant houses, and the market would do the rest. “You try to strategically do what you think you can and where it will work,” Ms. Olson said. Mortgage industry officials acknowledge that they have struggled to deal with the unprecedented number of foreclosed homes. A group of banks has been working on streamlining the process of selling homes to local governments and community groups through the Housing Partnership Network, a Boston-based umbrella group for local community groups. JPMorgan Chase is one of the banks talking with the group. A spokesman said negotiations with cities and community groups often boiled down to a disagreement about home prices. Local officials often want to pay less than what other home buyers will bid. The housing bill, in fact, stipulates that federal money be used only to buy homes at below-market prices. “We want to get somebody to buy it and have the house occupied and keep the community moving forward,” said Thomas A. Kelly, a spokesman for the home lending division of JPMorgan Chase. “But we have an obligation to our investors to get as high a price as we can.” Lenders and public officials will have to come up with a workable compromise for these nascent efforts to be successful, said Michael A. Stegman, director of policy and housing at the MacArthur Foundation , a nonprofit grant-making organization. “This really is a question of balancing price discounts, losses and prices with what is in the best interest of the community.”


For Keflezighi, It’s Wait, Wait and Win

Abstract: For all of Meb Keflezighi ’s preparation and strategizing, his bid to win the New York City Marathon almost came undone before he reached the starting line. As he went to dress for the race Sunday in the athletes’ village at Fort Wadsworth, he found his singlet, sleeves and socks sopping wet because he had inadvertently laid them on a damp surface. No matter how well he understood his opponents or how fit he felt, starting the race in drenched gear would be a handicap. But after some emergency drying — courtesy of race volunteers and giant heaters — Keflezighi was ready to put his strategy to work. And although he reaped the benefits of dry gear immediately, it took more than 23 miles of pounding the streets for Keflezighi’s game plan to pay off. Other runners surged ahead at different points, but Keflezighi kept reminding himself to remain patient. If he could stay within 150 yards of the leaders, he figured, he could catch them later, on his own terms. “It’s such a great field, you have to be careful when you make a move,” he said Monday in an interview. “So for the first hour, I was telling myself, ‘Almost fall asleep.’ ” Before he won his first New York title in 2 hours 9 minutes 15 seconds, Keflezighi was familiar with the risks of pushing too hard at the front of the pack. In 2002, he wore himself out on First Avenue, which starts at about Mile 16, and dropped from the lead to a ninth-place finish. In 2004, he took the lead around Mile 21 with a stitch in his side and faded in his fourth marathon in 13 months. A year later, he remained in a pack of three leaders until Mile 25, when his calves tightened and he settled for third place. So on Sunday, he was happy to sit in the pack with another American, Ryan Hall, early on. But around Mile 9, Hall shifted up through the gears — one too many for Keflezighi’s liking. As he let Hall drift away, Keflezighi stayed determined to save his energy for Central Park. In the meantime, Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco was threatening to pull away with his own solo assaults. Keflezighi, safely within the pack, just watched him go. The pack would reel Bouramdane back in, and the threat would vanish. Even on First Avenue, when Bouramdane, Hendrick Ramaala, James Kwambai and Jackson Kipkoech broke away with Ramaala urging them to go faster still, Keflezighi looked on. Everyone from his coach to his wife had warned him to stay back. Besides, with winds gusting up to 14 miles per hour, he saw little sense in exposing himself. Keflezighi was willing to spot the leaders 100 to 150 yards as long as he could stay there until they reached Central Park. By the time they had looped through the Bronx and were heading down Fifth Avenue, Keflezighi was locked in a battle with only Robert Cheruiyot. With a few waves of the arm, Cheruiyot tried to make Keflezighi run in front, but Keflezighi refused. “I was saying, ‘Let’s just get to that finish line,’ ” Keflezighi said he told Cheruiyot. “I didn’t have any obligation to do the work or lead.” As they approached the park, the 5-foot-7-inch Keflezighi tucked in to draft behind the 6-3 Cheruiyot. But when they made two quick turns at 90th Street, Keflezighi was surprised to spot an opportunity for a move. “He turned right, then left, and I didn’t think he was going to let me through,” said Keflezighi, who took a diagonal route straight through the corners. “But he let me through.” If he had not pulled it off, Keflezighi said, he was going to try around the spot in the park, between Miles 24 and 25, where Ryan Shay collapsed during the Olympic trials in 2007. “My intention was to go hard for 30 seconds, just to get away,” he said. Instead, Keflezighi found himself running from the front in the last couple of miles, with an increasingly comfortable gap. He took a moment to honor Shay, making the sign of the cross, and several more moments to enjoy the final small bend before he broke the tape. “Just to be able to extend the lead a little more and a little more,” Keflezighi said, “that gives you a little cushion towards the end to savor it.”

New York City Marathon
Strategy
Running
Keflezighi Mebrahtom
Marathon Running


McDonald’s Introduces Screen Ordering and Table Service

Abstract: Welcome to McDonald’s! May I take your order — and bring it to your table? McDonald’s on Thursday announced changes that could reshape the diner’s experience, saying that it would expand its digital self-serve ordering stations and table service to all of its 14,000 American restaurants. The company said once people order at one of the stations — sleek, vertical touchscreens — they will get a digital location device and can take a seat. When their burgers and fries are ready, the technology will guide a server to the table to deliver the food with a big smile and a thank you. “Typically, the majority of our crew is behind the counter, and that counter literally has been a barrier between our crew and the customer,” Steve Easterbrook, chief executive of McDonald’s, said at an event Thursday in a newly renovated and outfitted McDonald’s on Chambers Street in New York. Customers will still be able to order food the old-fashioned way, at the counter. But the move to self-order systems and table service is one way to address one of the biggest problems the company’s restaurants have faced in recent years: slower food delivery to customers, caused by more items on the menu. The thinking is that customers will be more willing to wait if they are sitting at a table instead of waiting at a counter. But it also raises some questions for the company: What does it mean for workers, and is the chain up for a change this big? Mr. Easterbrook said the new system would not reduce costs. But it would mean that workers might have slightly different jobs. “We’ve not cutting crew; we’re redeploying them,” he said. McDonald’s has tested the order system in 500 revamped restaurants, or what it calls its “just-for-you experience,” in New York, Florida and Southern California and is now introducing them in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Chicago. Around the globe, the new program is in some 2,600 McDonald’s restaurants. Mr. Easterbrook and other company executives said some 44,000 customers have been served at tables using the new system in the United States. Families and groups have been the biggest users, but the company expects the screens to attract customers of all kinds as they become more widespread. The self-serve stations, the company says, make it easier to customize an order. “This is a huge opportunity for us to personalize and elevate the experience of our customers in the United States,” said Chris Kempczinski, the new president of United States operations. Many of the company’s customers, though, do not enter the restaurant. About 60 to 70 percent of sales come from its drive-through lanes. “A lot of customers are never going to see this technology,” Dick Adams, a restaurant consultant, said. “It’s just not going to be that big a factor for most franchisees outside big cities.” The company also announced that it would roll out a mobile order-and-pay system that would also change the way customers get their orders, including customers ordering from their cars. Much of what is coming to the United States has already been tried in markets like Canada, Australia and Britain, where roughly one-quarter of transactions are done on in-store screens. How quickly the restaurants change remains to be seen. The vast majority of McDonald’s locations are owned by franchisees, and they will be responsible for paying for the changes. Equipment and installation of the eight order screens at the event on Thursday, at a location in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan, cost $56,000, said Terri Hickey, a spokeswoman for McDonald’s. The costs for a store with lower sales volume would probably be about $28,000. Franchisees may be loath to make such investments at a time when restaurant sales are lackluster at best — same-store sales in McDonald’s American restaurants rose a paltry 1.3 percent in the third quarter of this year. Many of the company’s stores in Britain have already undergone such a reboot, and in a video, Paul Pomroy, the chief executive of the business in Britain, said the investment was worth it. “The customer’s perception of the quality of the food has changed,” Mr. Pomroy said. “A Big Mac tastes better in a reimaged restaurant, it just does.”

Restaurant
Steve Easterbrook
McDonald's
Fast food
Franchising


President Saleh of Yemen Is in Talks on Exit

Abstract: SANA, Yemen — As antigovernment demonstrators planned a new round of rallies on Friday, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was engaged in serious negotiations over the timing and conditions for the end of his 32-year rule, Yemeni and American officials said Thursday. But they cautioned that no deal had been reached, and Mr. Saleh struck a defiant pose in a television appearance, speaking scornfully of antigovernment protesters while offering amnesty to military defectors if they would return to the government’s side. Nonetheless, the four-week-old protest movement appeared to be gaining momentum with the defections in the past week of a host of high-level government officials, including senior military commanders and ambassadors, and the protesters’ rejection of Mr. Saleh’s latest offer, to leave office by the end of the year. Mr. Saleh spoke Wednesday night with the country’s most powerful military leader, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, a longtime ally who abandoned the president this week and directed his troops to protect the demonstrators. General Ahmar also spoke on television on Thursday and said he had no interest in political power. “Military rule in the Arab world is outdated,” he declared. Some reports suggested that both men might step down in a matter of days or weeks to make way for a transitional government and the writing of a new constitution. But one senior American official who was following events in Yemen closely said the immense complexity of Yemen’s tribal society, and Mr. Saleh’s history of brinkmanship, argued for caution. “The general assumption is that his days are numbered,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “But he seems determined to decide the number himself.” The official cautioned that the discussions about Mr. Saleh’s exit are “not just talks in a room” but negotiations involving representatives of 20 or more Yemeni factions and interest groups, often through intermediaries. According to several accounts, the talks are being closely monitored by representatives of Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s wealthy northern neighbor, and the United States Embassy, which has relied on Mr. Saleh as an ally against the Qaeda branch in Yemen. “We want to express support for a transition and concern about our security issues,” the American official said. “But we don’t want to take sides.” Another important tribal leader threw his support to the antigovernment movement on Thursday, adding to the pressure on Mr. Saleh. Sheik Sinan Abu Lahoum, a leader in the important Bakil tribal confederation, announced his position via a telephone call to the antigovernment sit-in. Mr. Abu Lahoum, who is in the United States for health reasons, said “my age and my health does not permit me to participate with the youth” and urged all Yemenis to participate in the revolution for the sake of the country. The announcement followed that of the influential tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar, who heads the Hashid confederation, the tribal confederation to which the president belongs. The raft of desertions accelerated after the killing of at least 50 protesters last Friday by government-linked snipers. Analysts said the defections were compelled by the taboo in Yemeni tribal culture against killing innocent, unarmed civilians. Yassin Saeed Noman, the head of the opposition political coalition, said in an interview that Mr. Saleh “wants a peaceful transfer of power.” But the opposition has rejected Mr. Saleh’s offer to step down at year’s end, and Mr. Noman said no transition should leave the president in power more than “one or two months.” Mr. Noman, who has been widely discussed as a possible prime minister in an interim government, said the terms of Mr. Saleh’s departure were no longer up to the political opposition. “It depends on people in the streets,” he said. The demonstrations on Friday are expected to be among the largest for both the anti- and pro-government sides. The antigovernment protesters have called Friday the “Day of Departure” and will gather after prayers at their usual location near Sana University. A week earlier, some 100,000 antigovernment protesters gathered for Friday Prayers just before snipers opened fire on the crowd. A large number of pro-Saleh tribesmen, widely believed to be being paid by the governing party, entered Sana on Wednesday to rally around the president. The official Saba news agency has claimed that two million government supporters will mass in Sana’s main square on Friday morning for what they have called their “Day of Tolerance.” Meanwhile, there were reports of minor clashes around the country between loyalist military forces and those following General Ahmar. In Jawf, a northern province on Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia known for being home to both Houthi rebels and Qaeda militants, local reports have said that all government officials have been forced out of the province. A tribal leader said a popular committee was now running all security and administrative duties. The office of the Arab satellite news station Al Jazeera was closed Wednesday in Sana when the Information Ministry announced it would suspend the channel’s permit, according to Khaled al-Hammadi, a producer for Al Jazeera. “I think they want to do something important during the upcoming few days,” he said by phone. “For that they want to close all the media.” On Wednesday morning, the Yemeni government issued a statement urging “foreign media to exercise maximum accuracy as to what they report and to be professional while covering the situation in Yemen.”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


Star Designers Yield to ‘Chief Creative Officers’

Abstract: PARIS — A postrecession strategy likely to define luxury brand management for the early 21st century has emerged from a week packed with designer changes at European fashion houses. And the message is as clear as the Champagne glasses that are being brought out now that sales figures and profits are rising again: the era of the star designer picked to create buzz and shake up the system in a venerable house is over. As brand managers struggle to wrest control in the world of online sales and blog, Twitter and Facebook commentaries, designer creativity is still cherished. But extravagance in style or financial largess is out of fashion. Today’s role model is not Karl Lagerfeld, appointed designer at Chanel in 1983. Nor is it John Galliano, who has been shaking up Dior since 1996. It is rather the multitasking Christopher Bailey at Burberry, who last year was given the title of “chief creative officer” to encompass his overall role as merchandiser, brand manager, information technology innovator, advertising inspiration and e-commerce controller — all alongside his main day job as design director. Burberry announced this week a net profit of £81 million, or $118 million, in contrast to a loss of £6 million in the previous financial year, and a 6.6 percent growth in sales to £1.8 billion. But perhaps the more significant figure that the chief executive, Angela Ahrendts, produced was the rise in accessories to 36 percent of overall sales, making not the famous Burberry trench coat but other ancillary products the best sellers. The rise of interseason sales and of product diversity is putting into question the role of the designer superstar taking a bow at the end of a twice-yearly catwalk fashion show. Instead, the luxury industry wants to turn down the volume on big names, use a designer as global ambassador and focus on overall brand development. Significantly, in two recent appointments — of Frida Giannini at Gucci and of the design duo at Valentino — the designers were plucked from the accessory creative teams, not from among graduates of the Central Saint Martins fashion and design school. Hermès announced on Wednesday the departure of Jean Paul Gaultier after seven years as creative director of the women’s line. The madcap-turned-classic French designer will concentrate on his own label, in which Hermès holds a 45 percent stake. He is being succeeded by Christophe Lemaire, the low-key designer of Lacoste, famous for its crocodile logo on streamlined sportswear, rather than for rarefied haute luxury. At Alexander McQueen, bereft since the suicide of the designer in February, the parent company Gucci Group announced his successor as Sarah Burton, his loyal deputy since 1996. She also is the woman who turned Mr. McQueen’s hyper-inspiration into sales-floor reality. The blogosphere had proposed Gareth Pugh, a feisty young British designer, as Mr. McQueen’s successor, but the signal from the Gucci management was quite different. Even when Ungaro picked the British designer Giles Deacon on Tuesday, the choice was for a safe pair of hands. Since its founder announced his retirement in 2005, the Paris house has had a revolving door of designers, culminating in disastrous debut last season of the young Hollywood celebrity Lindsay Lohan. By contrast, Mr. Deacon is a 40-year-old designer with a couture sensibility who has developed his own house and could make a serious job of resuscitating the Emanuel Ungaro heritage. At Louis Vuitton, where a decade of the designer Marc Jacobs was celebrated this week with a small retrospective display of clothes at the new Louis Vuitton megastore in London, the message was also clear. Mr. Jacobs plays a crucial creative role, yet the main floor of this 16,000-square-foot, Bond Street emporium does not contain a single garment. Instead it is dedicated to the upscale accessories from the famous LV bags through its travel trunks, fine and costume jewelry or scarves to luxurious gifts like picnic hampers and poker sets. Vuitton of France was in the news for a less desirable reason: a ruling by the British Advertising Standards Authority that its images, resembling Dutch Old Masters with a soft-focus seamstress plying needle and thread, were “misleading” in claiming that “infinite patience protects each overstitch.” In fact, the bags are almost entirely factory-made. That is the story of today’s luxury brands: money-making machines in which a strong designer, leading a team, is crucial for the initial inspiration, originality and imagination. But the creative force is now found in a wired office — not in an ivory tower.

Fashion and Apparel
Luxury Goods
Executives and Management
Bailey Christopher


Clinton’s Tech Policy Targets Young Entrepreneurs

Abstract: Hillary Clinton’s technology policy initiative, released on Tuesday, is a list maker’s dream, a parade of specific proposals covering a spectrum of issues. But its overriding theme is that technology should be an engine of equality rather than elitism. The goal, the summary document declares, is “to create the jobs of the future on Main Street.” Mrs. Clinton’s agenda includes having the federal government step in to help fill a finance gap, as banks have cut their loans to small businesses and venture capital funding is concentrated in a few regions, led by Silicon Valley. Her plan calls for “supporting incubators, accelerators, mentoring and training for 50,000 entrepreneurs in underserved areas,” and increasing funding for several existing programs that offer tax credits and financing for community development and small businesses. “This is a pragmatic plan that could help leverage what happens in Silicon Valley so that there’s innovation and job growth throughout the country,” said Karen Kornbluh, former United States ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, who is an adviser to the Clinton campaign. The Clinton program also links start-ups with the student loan crisis. Under her plan, young entrepreneurs could defer payments on their federal student loans for up to three years. The relief might also apply to the early employees of start-ups, like the first 10 or 20 workers, according to the plan. The deferred payment plan, the campaign document states, could mean that “millions of young Americans” would not have to pay interest or principal on their loans “as they work through the critical start-up phase of new enterprises.” It is clearly a nod to young voters, who overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries. The Clinton plan offers a liberal immigration initiative that has long been a favorite of technology executives and venture capitalists: automatically issuing permanent resident status to people who earn graduate degrees in science, engineering and mathematics from accredited universities. The Clinton program also would dedicate additional funding and resources to Obama administration policies in areas like building broadband networks in rural areas, encouraging computer science education for elementary and high school students, and job training in technology fields. Skeptics questioned spending to “double down” on programs that have not yet proved effective. “No one seems to be evaluating these programs,” said Thomas Lenard, president of the Technology Policy Institute, a nonprofit research foundation. Jeffrey Eisenach, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning policy research group, said, “This isn’t a technology plan, it’s a government spending plan.” But other technology policy experts were impressed by the Clinton campaign document as a whole. “She’s got a technology and innovation agenda, and this suggests it would be a strong focus in a Clinton presidency,” said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit policy research group. “That in itself is a message.”

Hillary Clinton
Small business
Entrepreneurship
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
2016 Presidential Election
Income Inequality


Stock Market Ends Sharply Lower as Worries About Economy Surface

Abstract: It may be time for everyone to take the markets seriously again. As stock prices started tumbling in the first trading days of the year, many Wall Street professionals were tempted to describe the declines as the sort of adjustment that the market has gone through in recent years before moving higher. But that optimism evaporated this week as the selling intensified. Concerns are now growing that the markets are signaling that the United States economy, despite its recent bright spots, is on the verge of a slowdown. The fear is that economic problems in China have set off negative reactions around the world that could ultimately weigh on American households and corporations. On Friday, stocks in the United States touched their lowest levels since late August. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, the main benchmark for the United States market, is now down 8 percent for 2016 and nearly 12 percent below its benchmark high reached last year. Oil prices resumed their decline, settling below $30 a barrel on concerns about China and a potential flood of new oil from Iran . In the face of the market turmoil, investors are showing signs that they are again seeking out safe-haven investments like government bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which falls as its price rises, declined to 2.05 percent from 2.09 percent on Thursday, after earlier falling below 2 percent for the first time since October. “Technically we are in a bear market,” said Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock , the world’s largest money management company. “There is just a broad reassessment of risk right now.” A bear market occurs when stocks are down more than 20 percent from a high. The Russell 2,000, a measure of small-cap stocks, is actually down 23 percent from its peak. It fell 1.75 percent on Friday. The debate now is whether the steep drops in the markets are an indication that the United States economy is falling into a trough that the country’s economic policy makers have not anticipated. The Federal Reserve increased interest rates in December, a move that showed that the Fed was on balance optimistic about the outlook for the United States economy. On the one hand, it is important not to read too much into market moves. Markets often misinterpret what is really going on in the economy. The stock market came roaring back from sharp declines in 2011 and, more recently, from a rout last summer. Image The end of a long trading day, and week, on Friday at the New York Stock Exchange. Credit Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency Also, since the financial crisis of 2008, the United States economy has displayed the ability to power through rough patches in financial markets. Analysts note that the world’s central banks can always increase their stimulus policies if the economies they watch over start to sag again. The global sell-off in stocks started in China, where the main Shanghai index dropped 3.6 percent on Friday. The index has fallen more than 20 percent from its December high. Stocks in London ended down 1.93 percent. Stocks in Frankfurt closed down 2.54 percent. The S.&P. 500 ended Friday down 41.51 points, or 2.16 percent. The much narrower Dow Jones industrial average fell 390.97 points, or 2.39 percent. The Nasdaq composite index declined 2.74 percent. Investors were quick to sell companies that appear most vulnerable to a drop in global growth. Shares of Intel, the giant chip maker, for instance, plummeted over 9 percent on Friday. When reporting earnings Thursday afternoon, Stacy J. Smith, Intel’s chief financial officer, made comments about future sales that unsettled investors. “This outlook represents a soft start to the year as we remain cautious on the level of economic growth, particularly in China,” Mr. Smith said. Investors also shunned shares of companies that had soared in 2015. Netflix, which fell 2.8 percent on Friday, is now down 20 percent from its high in 2015. The turbulence in the markets is causing pessimism over the economy to grow. And economists say they are taking seriously some of the signals they see in markets. Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, asserted that the markets that, in effect, predict interest rates and inflation appear to be doing a better job than, say, officials at the Fed. Such markets have in recent months been more pessimistic, predicting lower interest rates and inflation, both of which can act as an early warning of lower economic growth ahead. “Here’s where I believe the market has it right,” Mr. Bernstein said. A month ago, investors in an interest rates futures market were predicting a nearly 90 percent chance that the Fed would increase interest rates in April, according to Bloomberg. Now that market is predicting only a 32 percent chance. The United States economy is expected to grow 2.5 percent this year, according to a poll by Reuters of over 90 economists. A year ago, they were forecasting growth of 2.8 percent. One school of pessimists asserts that the central banks’ policies used to stimulate slowing economies since the crisis are losing effectiveness. Such policies stoked huge increases in debt that borrowers will now struggle to pay back, causing broader stress on large economies. This threat seems particularly large in China, which unleashed a credit binge after 2008, but the defaults in the United States energy industry are also a sign of how debt-fueled growth can backfire. A less gloomy camp contends that markets are just getting used to a world that is going to grow more slowly than in the past. Stock markets may struggle for a time, they say, but they are not going to crash and they are not signaling a severe global recession. A lukewarm economic outlook could be heard in the comments from the executives of United States banks that are reporting their fourth-quarter earnings. Wells Fargo , which derives the vast majority of its business from the United States, said on Friday that while there were hopeful signs in the domestic housing and auto markets, economic activity was by no means roaring. “There are pockets of strength,” John Stumpf, the Wells Fargo chief executive, in a call with analysts. “I am not going to say it is robust.” The bank’s executives expect lower gas prices to bolster growth more broadly, as consumers and businesses enjoy smaller energy bills. Still, Mr. Stumpf added, consumers “have not spent a lot of their gas savings.” Likewise, Mr. Fink of BlackRock expressed concern that low energy prices here and abroad were not feeding through into the real economy. “We have just not seen the consumer consuming,” he said. “At some point we will find a bottom in energy, and then things will stabilize.” Lower global economic activity can cause prices to fall in the United States, which can erode the profitability of American companies and make their shares less attractive to investors. But the global turbulence may feed more directly into the United States financial system — through country’s largest banks. Citigroup, for instance, has $20.5 billion of loans, mortgages, credit cards and other assets in China, the bank’s executives detailed on Friday . The bank also said that it was carefully monitoring its credit lines to businesses and consumers in Russia and Brazil. Shares of Citigroup were down far more than those of other large United States banks on Friday, falling more than 6 percent. Investors are now on tenterhooks as they wait for data that might clarify the strength of the United States economy and the stance of central banks. Philip J. Orlando, a senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors, a mutual fund company, said he was waiting for the government report on United States gross domestic product , to be released on Jan. 29, and any announcements or utterances from officials at the Fed, whose monetary policy committee will meet on Jan. 26 and Jan 27. “The market is acting as if China is already in recession and is dragging the U.S. into recession and there is nothing we can do about it,” Mr. Orlando said, “and there is nothing you can do to refute it until there are more data points.”

Economy
China
Federal Reserve
Stocks,Bonds
US Economy
Oil and Gasoline
Recession and Depression


Short Attention Spans for Web Videos

Abstract: After watching an online video for a full minute, 44.1 percent of viewers will have clicked away, according to Visible Measures. But an outsize slice of that loss occurs in the first 10 seconds, during which 19.4 percent of a video’s audience defects. This phenomenon, known as “viewer abandonment,” is of intense interest to those who make online videos or advertise alongside them. Visible Measures studied the abandonment rate of 40 million videos over seven billion viewings. Music videos had especially high rates of abandonment, as did videos slow to reach a punchline — for example, a Budweiser ad about a man humiliated while buying pornography, which loses nearly 40 percent of viewers in the first 10 seconds. “It took a shocking 12 seconds to get to the conceit,” said Matt Cutler, the head of research at Visible Measures.

Viewer Abandonment
Computers and the Internet
Recordings and Downloads (Video)


A Russian City’s Wounds Are Dressed in Opera Garb

Abstract: VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — As couples walked arm in arm down this city’s sleepy main drag earlier this month, the news was more of the same. Suicide bombers in Nazran, Islamic extremist camps in Kabardino-Balkaria, 30 arrested in the broad-daylight assassination of the mayor. Built as Russia’s southernmost stronghold, this city of about 300,000 still has the feel of an outpost, permanently braced against the turmoil of the Caucasus. But inside the storefront at No. 14 Prospekt Mira was another world entirely. Sixty-four costumes were needed for the opera “Iolanthe,” in time for an April premiere at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater. A designer had arrived on the morning flight carrying fine black wool for tailcoats and specifications for gold brooches and chiffon scarves in wine and deep gold. Thirty seamstresses bent their heads over a sheaf of drawings, and the clock began ticking toward another deadline. A decade ago, the Mariinsky’s artistic director, Valery Gergiev , decided to open this unlikely branch office of his theater, best known in the West as the Kirov. Mr. Gergiev, an ethnic Ossetian from Vladikavkaz, has gone to extraordinary lengths to project his good fortune onto the troubled region where he grew up. Some of his efforts have been clamorously public, like the concert he conducted amid ruins in Tskhinvali, Georgia, after the war last August. Others are quiet, like this tiny workshop, located in a far corner of Russia 1,400 miles from the Mariinsky’s stage. It is as if the Metropolitan Opera were commissioning tutus from Birmingham, Ala. The Vladikavkaz seamstresses throw themselves reverently into their work. In 2004, when more than 1,100 schoolchildren and parents were held captive by Chechen militants in the nearby town of Beslan, the seamstresses had relatives — in one case, a child — among the hostages. When a bloody explosion of gunfire left more than 300 dead and life halted all over the city, they stayed in their chairs. “Turandot” was due to premiere in St. Petersburg. “We put a television in the workshop, and we worked and wept,” said Zhanna Khetagurova, 46, an embroiderer. “The first night at the theater is something sacred.” In 1999, a search began for the region’s most talented young seamstresses. After six months, the initial group of 20 was culled to 7, who were sent to St. Petersburg to study with the theater’s legendary seamstresses. The St. Petersburg tailors raised their eyebrows at the newcomers, whose experience centered on traditional Ossetian wedding dresses and national costumes, said Izolda Gogichayeva, the studio’s first director. “Not one person in St. Petersburg believed we could do it,” she said. Over time, though, the provincial cousins were brought into the circle of confidence. They learned “things that seem totally impossible,” said Tatyana Filkevich, 38, a tailor’s cutter — how dried buckwheat can be sewn into an unsatisfying bust line, or apron strings made to hover inexplicably in midair. “In theater,” Ms. Filkevich said, “there are secrets that are not taught in institutes.” They live the rhythm of a distant curtain. When a deadline approaches, they sometimes work three days straight, fashioning headdresses that look like birds’ nests, or affixing gilded pears into the folds of a tutu, or sewing bells onto a 15-foot flame-colored robe, rushing them to the airport in boxes. That, Ms. Filkevich said, is when “panic sets in.” “Whether or not you want it, the plane is leaving,” she said. “The posters are up. They’re not going to postpone the show for you.” On ordinary days, the workshop is an island of quiet and focus, qualities in short supply in Vladikavkaz. Ms. Khetagurova, bent over a skein of gold thread, said she never learned to sew as a girl, to her mother’s frustration. She was in her 20s when a tragedy occurred in her family — she would not say exactly what — and needlework gave her relief. “Maybe embroidery had been sitting inside of me, and that woke it up,” she said. Many of the seamstresses have similar stories, Ms. Gogichayeva said, and it has made them all the more valuable. “Work saves us,” she said. And then, on the worst days in North Ossetia, beautiful objects offer relief, Ms. Filkevich said. Beside her was a gown made for “Nutcracker,” of cognac-colored satin overlaid with copper lace and aquamarine ribbon. Jet buttons sparkled in a row down the bodice, and lace spilled down the wrist like thick syrup. “If someone needs a dress like this,” she said, “all is not lost.”

Russia
Opera
Sewing
Gergiev Valery
Costumes Theatrical