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HONG KONG—Investors in the first dollar-denominated Asian bonds that comply with tough new global capital rules will lose all their money if regulators decide the bank can't survive, according to a term sheet seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The offering, by a Hong Kong unit of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. 601398.SH +0.29% Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. China: Shanghai ¥3.45 +0.01 +0.29% July 14, 2014 12:16 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 22.60M P/E Ratio 4.54 Market Cap ¥1256.25 Billion Dividend Yield 7.59% Rev. per Employee ¥2,150,120 07/11/14 China Aircraft Leasing Fails t... 07/10/14 Chinese Snap Up Government Sav... 07/10/14 Standard Bank Starts Legal Act... More quote details and news » . will be the first dollar bond in the region to comply with Basel III bank-capital rules, so it has been closely watched by investors and other potential issuers. Investors are waiting to see how the ICBC unit prices the bond, given that the debt is seen as riskier than other offerings.

According to the term sheet, the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Ltd. will sell about $500 million worth of bonds with a 10-year maturity, redeemable by ICBC Asia after five years. The deal differs from past offerings by Asian banks in that bondholders' principal would be wiped out ahead of that of other debtholders if the bank fails.

Under Basel III rules, ICBC Asia bondholders' principal would be wipedout ahead of that of other debtholders if the bank fails. Bloomberg News

The Basel III rules, named for the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, call for tougher global standards on bank capital and liquidity. The regulations, to be phased in by national governments through 2018, are intended to strengthen banks, avoiding the need for governments to use taxpayer money to prop them up and making financial crises less likely.

ICBC Asia's term sheet indicates that bondholders will lose the full value of their investments should the bank's regulators rule that it needs to be written off or if the bank needs a bailout. The provisions, in effect, would make bondholders bear the burden of a bank failure before government funds are tapped.

Banking watchdogs in Hong Kong and mainland China—regulators of both the bond issuer and its parent—have discretion to decide if the lender isn't viable, according to the terms. The actual risk of a bank failure is small because ICBC, China's biggest lender by assets, is 70% owned by the Chinese government, said bankers and analysts.

Fitch granted ICBC Asia's planned bond a provisional rating of triple-B-plus. That is an investment-grade rating, and the same as its parent's; the ratings company said it believes ICBC Asia is a "core subsidiary" and "would benefit from timely parental support, if necessary."

The fundraising comes as Chinese banks scramble to strengthen their balance sheets ahead of an expected rise in bad loans, coupled with slower earnings growth. A person close to the deal said the ICBC Asia issuance is mainly to build a war chest for future business growth.

Other Asian lenders, such as Malaysia's CIMB Bank and Singapore's United Overseas Bank, U11.SG -0.21% United Overseas Bank Ltd. Singapore: SGX $23.98 -0.05 -0.21% July 14, 2014 12:21 pm Volume (Delayed 20m) : 880,000 P/E Ratio 7.59 Market Cap $38.80 Billion Dividend Yield 4.17% Rev. per Employee N/A 07/11/14 Indonesia's XL Axiata Plans $5... 07/10/14 Three Malaysian Banks in Merge... 06/24/14 Singapore Sets Tougher Banking... More quote details and news » have issued Basel III-compliant bonds but those were denominated in local currencies.

Dollar-denominated bonds in Asia are usually targeted at overseas investors, so ICBC Asia's issuance will be closely watched in the international investment community. More such dollar bonds are in the pipeline.

The Philippines' Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. MBT.PH -1.01% Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. Philippines: Manilla PHP88.60 -0.90 -1.01% July 14, 2014 11:59 am Volume (Delayed 15m) : 424,290 P/E Ratio 14.92 Market Cap PHP245.66 Billion Dividend Yield 1.13% Rev. per Employee PHP7,357,100 More quote details and news » , or Metrobank, one of the country's biggest banks, is awaiting central bank approval for a planned sale of $500 million in Basel III-compliant debt. .

While the coupon of ICBC Asia's bond is yet to be determined, the interest rate will be fixed for the first five years after the bond is issued, the term sheet showed. After that, it will be reset at a certain rate above the prevailing five-year U.S. Treasury yield.

ICBC, the parent company of the issuer, is coordinating the sale, the term sheet said. Other banks helping with the offering include Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. ANZ.AU +0.54% Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. Australia: Sydney $33.53 +0.18 +0.54% July 14, 2014 2:12 pm Volume (Delayed 20m) : 1.62M P/E Ratio 14.01 Market Cap $91.93 Billion Dividend Yield 4.95% Rev. per Employee $719,818 06/25/14 Australia Universities Turn to... 06/19/14 Citi Names New Investment-Bank... 06/16/14 China Banks Win PBOC Backing t... More quote details and news » , Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.39% Bank of America Corp. U.S.: NYSE $15.38 -0.06 -0.39% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 56.13M AFTER HOURS $15.40 +0.02 +0.13% July 11, 2014 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): P/E Ratio 19.47 Market Cap $161.73 Billion Dividend Yield 0.26% Rev. per Employee $409,537 07/13/14 Spanish Bad-Debt Data Tell Div... 07/11/14 Senate Committee Is Investigat... 07/11/14 A New Wave of Apps for Wealthy... More quote details and news » , Citigroup Inc., C +0.21% Citigroup Inc. U.S.: NYSE $47.00 +0.10 +0.21% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 15.09M AFTER HOURS $47.01 +0.01 +0.02% July 11, 2014 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): P/E Ratio 10.76 Market Cap $142.78 Billion Dividend Yield 0.09% Rev. per Employee $364,594 07/13/14 Aecom to Acquire Fellow Engine... 07/13/14 Behind the Scenes of Citigroup... 07/11/14 A New Wave of Apps for Wealthy... More quote details and news » Crédit Agricole S.A. ACA.FR -1.02% Credit Agricole S.A. France: Paris 9.90 -0.10 -1.02% July 11, 2014 5:37 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 8.93M P/E Ratio 6.00 Market Cap €25.50 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee €316,885 07/07/14 Federal Judge Deals Blow to Ma... 07/06/14 French Banks Not Endangered by... 07/04/14 Malaysian Ringgit Hits High Fo... More quote details and news » , Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank AG DBK.XE -0.22% Deutsche Bank AG Germany: Xetra 25.45 -0.06 -0.22% July 11, 2014 5:35 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 6.42M P/E Ratio 533.54 Market Cap €35.10 Billion Dividend Yield 2.95% Rev. per Employee €419,861 07/13/14 Bitcoin Joint Venture to Bid f... 07/13/14 Little Heed Paid to Market's E... 07/11/14 Healthy Banking Diagnosis from... More quote details and news » , Goldman Sachs Group Inc., GS +0.84% Goldman Sachs Group Inc. U.S.: NYSE $164.80 +1.38 +0.84% July 11, 2014 4:01 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2.26M AFTER HOURS $164.80 0.00 0.00% July 11, 2014 6:32 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): P/E Ratio 10.34 Market Cap $73.69 Billion Dividend Yield 1.33% Rev. per Employee $1,145,930 07/11/14 Silver Lake Agrees to $29.5 Mi... 07/11/14 D-Wave Wins More Funding For Q... 07/11/14 Goldman Sachs on Oil Companies... More quote details and news » HSBC Holdings HSBA.LN +0.56% HSBC Holdings PLC (UK Reg) U.K.: London GBp592.30 +3.30 +0.56% July 11, 2014 5:07 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 17.21M P/E Ratio 11.80 Market Cap GBp113.13 Billion Dividend Yield 0.40% Rev. per Employee GBp186,219 07/14/14 Barclays Names Co-Heads of Asi... 07/10/14 Legal Maze Gives Old Hand New ... 07/10/14 China Exports Strengthen on U.... More quote details and news » PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group RBS.LN -0.25% Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC U.K.: London GBp314.10 -0.80 -0.25% July 11, 2014 5:06 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 7.95M P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap GBp35.86 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee GBp222,411 07/13/14 Little Heed Paid to Market's E... 07/10/14 Markets Plunge on Portuguese B... 07/09/14 Greece Sets Out Plans for Seco... More quote details and news » PLC and UBS AG UBSN.VX +0.06% UBS AG Switzerland: SWX Europe CHF16.26 +0.01 +0.06% July 11, 2014 5:30 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 9.70M P/E Ratio 19.13 Market Cap CHF62.50 Billion Dividend Yield 1.54% Rev. per Employee CHF592,658 More quote details and news » , the term sheet said.


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Google Shifts Tack on Android

Direct Sales, Expanded Partnerships Mark Bid to Increase Control Over Devices

Updated May 15, 2012 7:05 p.m. ET

Google Inc. is shifting its strategy for its Android mobile operating system, in a bid to create a united front with smartphone and tablet makers to take on rivals like Apple Inc. and prevent wireless carriers from controlling the devices.

Google plans to give multiple mobile-device makers early access to new releases of Android and to sell those devices directly to consumers, said people familiar with the matter. That is a shift from Google's previous practice, when it joined with with only one hardware maker at a time...

Available to Subscribers

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China News

China to Further Pressure North Korea Over Nuclear Program

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Says He Received Firm Commitments From China

Updated Feb. 14, 2014 8:37 a.m. ET

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday he received firm commitments from Chinese leaders to take additional steps to pressure North Korea over its nuclear program.

Mr. Kerry met in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, seeking to tamp down regional tensions over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and China's more assertive military posture.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua...

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Illustration by Riki Blanco

We've all had that moment. The cellphone slips from your hand, you fumble to catch it, but it hits the ground.

If you are lucky, the phone survives unscathed. But there is a very good chance you'll be left with an ugly fissure or a shattered screen on your most-used device.

Time for a new cellphone? Not necessarily. A number of repair companies, from walk-in to mobile and mail-in, are happy for your business.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we found lots of options for fixing four friends' broken phones.

An iPhone 4s we borrowed had a spider web of cracks after falling from a chair and hitting the metal legs. We decided to try, a mobile service with 360 technicians around the country. The site asks for location and the type of problem: battery replacement, water damage or broken screen. We entered our contact information and waited.

Eric Ross, above, a Bay Area technician for cellphone-repair service iCracked, replaced the screen on an iPhone 4s at a local Starbucks in about 35 minutes. Credit: Elizabeth Garone for The Wall Street Journal

Two days later, we got a text from Eric Ross, a local iCracked tech. He suggested we meet at a local Starbucks in two days. Eric arrived 10 minutes before our scheduled appointment. We recognized him from his photo on the dispatch page, along with his iCracked toolbox and polo shirt. He examined the phone and said the problem was quite common and could be fixed right away. He gave us an estimate and had us sign electronically directly on his phone before getting started.

The whole repair took about 35 minutes. Eric seemed really knowledgeable. He said he could tell that the phone had been repaired before by some loose and missing screws. He took everything out and put it on the table on a red antistatic mat. Before putting it back together, he tested the new screen. When he was done, the phone worked great and looked brand new. We were happy with the service—and iCracked's lifetime warranty on the new screen.

A friend's Samsung Galaxy S3 had major screen damage when it fell out of a pocket while she was gathering wood scraps for a home project. After calling a number of companies, we settled on CPR Cell Phone Repair, a national chain with several Bay Area locations and a low price. It is important to call ahead, we learned, because parts in certain colors must be ordered a few days in advance. The technician had the part for our pebble-blue phone in stock.

When we dropped the phone off at 11 a.m. at the strip-mall location we were informed the repair would take a few hours and our technician would call. We were also warned there might be scratches on the LCD as a result of the repair, because Galaxy S3 screens are glued on and have to be peeled off.

Four hours later, our technician called. When we picked up the phone, we didn't see any scratches. He told us we were lucky.

A friend's iPhone 5 sustained significant damage when it slammed to the cement as he got out of his car. We decided to make an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Emeryville, Calif., Apple AAPL +0.19% Apple Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $95.22 +0.18 +0.19% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 33.68M AFTER HOURS $95.31 +0.09 +0.09% July 11, 2014 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 339,864 P/E Ratio 15.83 Market Cap $574.14 Billion Dividend Yield 1.97% Rev. per Employee $2,185,850 07/13/14 China Labels Apple iPhone a Se... 07/13/14 Thomas W. Hazlett and Joshua D... 07/13/14 Intel's Answer to iPad: Cheap ... More quote details and news » store and found we had a two-day wait.

When we got there, we noticed the person checking in arriving customers took a walk-in customer ahead of us and that person saw a technician before we did.

A customer-service associate arrived 10 minutes after our scheduled time and asked to look at the phone. Almost immediately, she told us the phone most likely wasn't repairable because the metal casing was slightly dented, meaning the screen wouldn't calibrate correctly.

A technician might be willing to give it a shot for a repair fee of $150, she said. If the repair didn't work, Apple would replace the phone with the same model at an additional charge of $119. We would need to agree up front to the replacement. We decided to pass.

We learned Apple replaces screens on certain models but not on the iPhone 4 series. Screen repair on the 4 series is time-consuming and labor-intensive compared with on the 5 series.

We also learned that if we had the repair done, there was a good chance our data would be lost—which is why Apple recommends backing up all data in advance of any repair.

Asked why we were seen after a walk-in customer despite our appointment, an Apple spokesperson said, "Our teams are working hard to make sure every customer has a great experience, whether they make an appointment online or decide they need help on the spot."

We tried a mail-in repair for a Samsung Galaxy S3 with a crack right down its center as a result of a fall. JCD Repair offers mail-in and walk-in repairs for iPhones, iPads, Samsung Galaxy phones, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Kindle Fire, with stores in Seattle and Redmond, Wash., Madison, Wis, and Chicago.

After we chose the mail-in option on the company's site, we were taken to a checkout screen, where we could pay for the repair in advance. The screen also gave instructions for where and how to send the phone.

We wrapped it in Bubble Wrap and mailed it off to Redmond. Roughly a week later, the phone arrived back at our house, the screen repaired and the phone working fine.

Write to Elizabeth Garone at

Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this story and graphic misspelled the name of the Samsung Galaxy S3.


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Job seekers wait to speak to recruiters in San Diego. David Maung/Bloomberg News

SAN FRANCISCO—California's economic recovery is kicking into higher gear, with unexpectedly strong job growth propelled by a pickup in technology hiring, as the nation's biggest and richest state starts to beat back its formidable budget deficit.

The state added 90,600 jobs in the first quarter, more than the increase of 82,600 for all of 2010, according to seasonally adjusted data from its Employment Development Department that exceeded most analysts' estimates. That put California, a poster state for American economies hobbled by the housing bust, above the national average, with a year-over-year increase in employment of 1.2% in the first quarter, compared with 1% nationwide.

And it puts a balanced budget within dreaming distance. California's deficit stood at $26 billion just a few weeks ago, before lawmakers agreed to $11 billion in spending cuts. If the jobs machine keeps revving, it could shave as much as $6 billion off the remaining $15 billion deficit through fiscal 2012, said Justin Garosi, an economist for the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Gov. Jerry Brown Associated Press

"If you sustain the jobs growth, we would be back to normal in the foreseeable future," Mr. Garosi said.

The 0.7% quarterly rise in nonfarm jobs from the fourth quarter was the highest percentage growth California has seen since 2004, according to the government's analysis of the data based on quarterly averages.

Economists warn that the state isn't out of the woods. California's 12% unemployment rate in March remained well above the national rate of 8.8% then, while two of the state's biggest economic sectors, construction and government, were either roughly flat or down slightly in job growth that month from a year earlier. A 1.7% decline in government workers came amid public-sector cutbacks nationwide, while a 0.5% increase in construction jobs came as that industry continued to struggle with a lackluster housing market.

National employment in April grew more than analysts expected. California's employment numbers for the month don't come out until May 25.

But the state's brightened employment picture will help Gov. Jerry Brown in his struggle to close the budget gap. As of the end of April, state tax revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30 was $2.5 billion higher than previous projections, according to estimates by the Legislative Analysts' Office.

California is subject to sharp swings in its fortunes, partly because of the volatile revenue streams of income and sales tax on which it has depended since its voters imposed a limit on property taxes in 1978. The first quarter's jump in jobs swelled those revenue streams.

A ship delivers container cranes to the Port of Los Angeles. Bloomberg News

For now, the job growth is largely being fueled by "the three T's—tech, trade and tourism," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, a think tank in Palo Alto, Calif.

The recovery has been strongest in the northern part of the state, where the technology industry is most concentrated. Southern California was hit particularly hard by the housing slump.

"It's a selective recovery so far, but there's good reason to believe those gains will lead to gains in retail and other sectors," Mr. Levy said.

An increase of 5.3% in information technology jobs in March outpaced all other industries, as companies, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, continued to expand amid booming demand for social networking, clean technology and other services.

LinkedIn Corp., for instance, said it had nearly tripled its global work force to 1,300 as of the end of the first quarter from 500 at the beginning of 2010, with most of the gains at the social-networking firm's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. LinkedIn saw its revenue roughly double over the same time, said Steve Cadigan, vice president of people operations.

Solaria Corp., a maker of photovoltaic solar panels in Fremont, Calif., has boosted its payroll to 110 from 40 a year ago and plans to hire as many as 40 more people by the end of 2011, amid soaring demand for solar energy, said Chief Executive Dan Shugar.

The tech growth is boosting retail businesses in Silicon Valley. The vacancy rate for major shopping centers in Santa Clara County has dropped to 5.5% this year from 6.7% in 2010 and 7.1% in 2009, according to estimates by Terranomics, a retail research arm of commercial real-estate concern Cassidy Turley Inc.

Southern California's employment growth remains behind the Bay Area's, but economists said they were encouraged by the fact that major markets like Los Angeles County, which holds about one-third of the state's population, began adding jobs again in the first quarter after more than two years of declines. The increase of 31,300 jobs, or 0.6%, from a year earlier was heavily fueled by growth in international trade and tourism, as well as expansion in Hollywood, all due largely to the strengthening U.S. economy, said Nancy D. Sedhu, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

The number of overnight visitors to Los Angeles County jumped 8% to 25.7 million in 2010 from 23.8 million in 2009, nearing a 2005 high of 25.8 million, according to estimates by LA Inc., the local convention and visitors bureau.

Meanwhile, the number of cargo containers handled at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach rose 9.8% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, a trade group based in San Francisco.

The increased business is fueling interest in vacant warehouses. Seventh Street Development is selling a 20,000-square-foot warehouse it built in the Los Angeles County city of Pomona in 2007 but hasn't been able to sell until now, said Craig Furniss, president of the Long Beach developer. "A lot of people have held off" on buying warehouses, Mr. Furniss said. "But it seems like now manufacturers are getting more confidence."

Write to Jim Carlton at


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With the Senate having passed the measure last week, President Barack Obama signed the bill into law.

Democrats highlighted their willingness to interrupt election campaigns to make sure that more than 140,000 teachers—as well as many police officers and firefighters—could keep their jobs in a tough economy. "The new school year is just around the corner," noted Rep. Jared Polis (D., Colo.).

Republicans mocked the session as theater, saying Democrats were showing their addiction to spending. "There's a national emergency—apparently Congress has not spent enough money," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas).

The House rarely returns to the Capitol during its breaks. It did so in 2008 to grapple with the auto-industry collapse, and in 2005 to tackle the case of Terri Schiavo, a woman in a vegetative state whose husband wanted to disconnect her feeding tube.

The session was set up by last week's surprise Senate passage of the $26 billion measure after House members had already departed. Democratic leaders concluded it was worth returning to pass a bill they said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs overall. Democrats say states would have had to offset Medicaid payments by laying off police officers and firefighters, but now won't have to.

The final vote was 247-161, largely along party lines.

The legislation provides $16 billion for Medicaid and $10 billion to avert teacher layoffs. It is funded by cutting some food-stamp payments that were raised by the stimulus bill, and by limiting the foreign tax credits that are used by U.S.-based multinationals to lower the taxes they pay in this country.

Many lawmakers were unhappy interrupting vacations or time with voters. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D., Nev.), who represents Las Vegas, laughed when asked about leaving the casinos. "It wasn't easy coming back here, believe me," she said.

"I think we need to finish and get out of here," said Rep. John Lewis (D., Ga.). "It's too much silly season."

Some Democrats were unhappy that Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) upstaged their economic message somewhat with a long, colorful speech in the middle of the debate defending himself against ethics charges.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) interrupted a family vacation in Hawaii that was a year in the planning. He estimated it would take six flights to get to Washington from Hawaii and back over a 54-hour period. "I'm happy to come back and vote no," he said. "No sour grapes."

Democrats said the bill was needed to rescue struggling state budgets, and they noted that governors of both parties supported it. Republicans said it was just another bailout.

Democrats said the food-stamp cuts—accepted only grudgingly by many in the party—would save $11.9 billion, while the limits on foreign tax credits would raise $9.6 billion.

Democrats repeatedly claimed the bill would not increase the deficit, while Republicans called it a financial shell game.

"I don't know if this is stimulus-bill part three or bailout-bill part four," Mr. Hensarling said. "There have been so many of them, it's hard to keep track."

Other Republicans called it a special-interest bill and a payoff to teachers' unions, a complaint dismissed by Mr. Obama. "I suppose if America's children and the safety of our communities are your special interest, then it is a special-interest bill," he said.

The session was full of partisan pique. Republicans mocked what they said was a sloppiness characterizing this year's legislative flurry, noting that Democrats had mistakenly neglected to name the measure. "Today's underlying bill doesn't even have a title, thanks to their haphazard way of doing business," said Rep. David Dreier (R., Calif.). "They literally neglected to fill in the blanks.God only knows what other mistakes are in here."

The House also approved a $600 million bill to add 1,500 agents to the Southwest border. The Senate passed the measure last week, but under the Constitution, revenue bills must originate in the House. The plan is for as few as three senators to return within days and approve it by "unanimous consent" so that it can become law.

—Laura Meckler and Stephanie Banchero contributed to this article.

Write to Corey Boles at


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Mr. Pachauri presided as IPCC chairman over the preparation of a 2007 report that declared climate change "unequivocal" and "very likely" caused by human activity. Over the past year, a few errors in that report have surfaced, prompting criticism of the IPCC and calls by some for Mr. Pachauri to step down.

A review earlier this year by the InterAcademy Council, a global consortium of national science academies, called for "fundamental reform" at the IPCC, including limiting the terms of the panel's chairman and other top officials. The report didn't question the panel's basic conclusions about the causes of climate change, but it recommended several changes at the IPCC to minimize the chance for future errors.

Among those recommendations: The council said top IPCC officials should serve only six years, roughly the length of time the panel typically takes to prepare one of its major climate-science reports.

An IPCC meeting in South Korea that ended Thursday focused largely on responding to the council's recommendations. Mr. Pachauri said in a news conference that the IPCC had effectively endorsed his continuing as chairman through the completion of the panel's next major climate-science report, called the Fifth Assessment Report.

"I have every intention of staying right till I've completed the mission that I've accepted to carry out—namely, the completion of the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014," he said.

The IPCC is appointing a task force to consider the InterAcademy Council's recommendations that the chairman and other top officials be limited to one term, Mr. Pachauri he said. But aAny term-limit decision won't apply to people now in office, including him.

The IPCC agreed to several recommendations from the council, including tighter policies to reflect scientific uncertainty in its reports and to ferret out and fix any errors in them, panel officials said.

In particular, it will be more careful about ensuring that it lays out the evidence for any assertion it makes about the likelihood of any effect of climate change, said Chris Field, a U.S. scientist and a leader of the panel's 2014 report.

In the past, he said, IPCC reports sometimes projected the likelihood of potential climate-change effects, such as melting glaciers, without enough evidence. "There were some weaknesses in the application," he said.

Write to Jeffrey Ball at


text:
NY Crime

Man Poisons Wife Then Himself, Police Say

Updated March 15, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

A Bronx man injected his wife with a poisonous liquid causing her to lapse into a coma then drank it himself and later died, police say.

Erlendy Flores called 911 and yelled for help out the window to her brother who was waiting for her to collect some of her belongings from her Bronx apartment, police say.

The brother, Dixon Flores, ran...

Available to Subscribers


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Reorganizing your home office is great exercise. So is walking your daughter up four flights of stairs to her classroom every morning. Also wandering through the maze that is IKEA looking for a pair of Torva Fjäril curtains. That's what I learned from the three fitness trackers that I wore simultaneously for about a week.

There were dozens of these contraptions to choose from, but I selected newer models that are discreet and easy to wear: the just-released Striiv Play Smart Pedometer, the soon-to-be-released Fitbit One and the Nike+ FuelBand, which hit stores earlier this year and now comes in two new translucent finishes.

GET FIT | 1) Fuelband; 2) Striiv Play; and 3) Fitbit F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by DSM

Functionally, the trackers are similar. They all count your steps and display an estimate of calories burned and other stats. They can also send the information wirelessly to iPhone apps that graph your activity over time. The apps double as cheerleaders, letting you set a daily goal or compete with friends to see who can move the most.

Unlike their predecessors, these new devices don't require downloading data to a computer, as long as you have a compatible smartphone. The Fitbit One and Striiv Play use a new version of Bluetooth to stay continually connected to an iPhone 4S, 5 or the latest iPod Touch. The FuelBand doesn't sync automatically—you need to push and hold a button (the exercise is good for you)—but it works with an iPhone 3GS as well as newer models. (Android apps for these devices are in the works.)

The trackers have also gotten sleeker and easier to wear. The Nike+ FuelBand is the biggest commitment fashion-wise: It's essentially a rubber bracelet. If discretion is a concern, the Fitbit One should be your go-to. You can slip it in your pocket, or put it in a silicone sleeve that can be clipped to a waistband or bra. The Striiv Play is also small and light, but its clip is permanently attached. If the egg-shape gizmo is too futuristic for your corporate dress code, you can put it in your pocket.

I didn't expect the effect of wearing a tracker to be so profound, but knowing that I would get credit for every step I took encouraged me to find small ways to walk more—like exploring lunch options beyond a one-block radius from my office or exiting the subway at an express stop instead of transferring to a local. The benefits weren't just physical. I spend most of my life staring at a screen, especially while riding public transportation, and any opportunity to get outside and enjoy the 3D world is good for my spirit.

Design isn't the only way the trackers differ. The FuelBand doesn't track stairs climbed, as the other two do, but it translates any activity that involves wrist movement (walking, dancing, directing traffic) into a metric it calls NikeFuel. And if you strap the Fitbit One to your wrist with the included armband, the device will monitor your sleep quality and wake you in the morning by vibrating. But the most important difference is each one's unique approach to motivation. Their coaching styles run the gamut from punctilious to playful. Here's a quick guide to finding the tracker that best suits your fitness personality.

The Nike+ FuelBand iPhone app. F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal

If you need a coach:

Slap on a Nike+FuelBand(1).

While the other trackers require launching an app or squinting at a tiny screen clipped to your waist, the FuelBand puts all of the key info right on your wrist. Gazing at the FuelBand's display is exhilarating. Its crisp scoreboard font somehow transforms basic data into stats that make you want to stand up and cheer. A strip of colored LEDs makes it clear, at a glance, how close you are to meeting your target level of physical activity each day. When you hit your mark, "GOAL" flashes before your eyes as if your wrist were a Jumbotron at half time. With this much fanfare, it's hard to sit still. $149,

The Striiv Play app.

If you like a good game:

Try the Striiv Play Smart Pedometer (2).

The Striiv Play is for people who find pie charts and bar graphs as much fun as, well, working up a sweat. When you open the app, you're presented with a challenge: Walk 200 steps in 10 minutes, for instance—or it might tell you to stay active for another five minutes. If you do as told, you earn "energy points" that can be used to play MyLand, a game in the Striiv app where you grow plants and erect buildings on an island populated with centaurs. I'm not one for games like this, but if you're the type who finds them highly addictive (Farmville, anyone?), buy yourself an extra pair of sneakers. $70,

The Fitbit app

If you're stat-obsessed:

Get a Fitbit One (3).

The Fitbit app graphs your data in bright colors and lets you log a number of details about your physical existence: the specific foods you eat, the amount of water you drink and any activity that can conceivably burn calories ("Serving food, setting table" and "Mowing lawn, riding mower" are options you can enter). As you'd expect from an app this fastidious, its tone is more matter-of-fact than cheerleadery. When the Fitbit app told me that I had taken 11,342 steps in one day, the information triggered more of a chin rub than a fist pump. But sometimes you just want a tiny tracker that tells it like it is. For that, the Fitbit One knocks it out of the park. $100,

Write to Michael Hsu at


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Asian Business News

Online and TV Shopping Reshape South Korean Retailing

Department-Store Market, Notoriously Difficult to Crack, Starts Opening Up

April 15, 2013 1:08 p.m. ET

SEOUL—The look of South Korean retailing, long a stranglehold of big department stores, is being reshaped partly by cable-TV shopping and smartphones.

A decade ago, it took Lee Jie-on three years to persuade South Korean biggest retailers to stock a line of children's skin-care products from the U.S. But the product distributor, recently had an easier time persuading them to sell U.S.-made accessories online for new moms.

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Autos - Industry

Wanxiang Won't Gut A123

Chinese Auto-Parts Maker Would Keep Plants, Hire Staff

Updated Nov. 19, 2012 6:10 p.m. ET

Wanxiang America Corp., the Chinese-owned auto parts company looking to acquire assets of advanced battery-maker A123 Systems Inc. in bankruptcy court, said it would employ the firm's U.S. workers and plants if its bid is accepted.

Wanxiang America, which bidding alongside Milwaukee's Johnson Controls Inc. and others, said its offer would best preserve the "integrity" of the battery maker and the jobs of A123's 2,400...

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Heard on the Street

China's Property Landed in Trouble

Dec. 4, 2012 11:41 p.m. ET

China's decade-long real estate boom has been built on a nationwide land grab that's seen millions of farmers kicked off their land with little or no compensation.

Local governments are the main beneficiaries. Last year alone, they racked up a cool one trillion yuan ($161 billion) in net land sales—equal to about 10% of total revenue.

Real-estate developers also benefit from abundant supply and low prices for land, driving...

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The first weekend of the NCAA tournament ramped up the crazy, but nothing was as wild as the Sweet 16 berth clinched Sunday by Florida Gulf Coast, a college not even old enough to apply to college.

Its improbable run started Friday night when the Eagles beat Georgetown, 78-68, to become the seventh No. 15 seed in NCAA tournament history to knock off a No. 2 seed. The upset was just as impressive as Florida Gulf Coast's brash style. Unlike other Cinderellas, the Atlantic Sun Conference champion didn't slow down the game or hit a whole lot of three-pointers. Instead, they ran all over the Hoyas and rubbed it in with outrageous dunks and alley-oops.

Related Video

With March Madness in full swing, MarketWatch's Christopher Noble looks at five things that NCAA basketball won't tell you. (Photo: Getty Images)

None of the No. 15 seeds had ever made it to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament—until Sunday. Florida Gulf Coast followed its first upset by burying No. 7 seed San Diego State, 81-71, under a pile of even more outrageous dunks and alley-oops. "Our goal is to make history," Florida Gulf Coast coach Andy Enfield said, "and we did it."

So why hadn't you heard of Florida Gulf Coast before this weekend? Because it has only been a university since 1997 and a Division I basketball team for two seasons. Now up next for the Eagles is a slightly bigger school down the road: the University of Florida.

—Ben Cohen

So Much for Denver: Dumervil Goes to Baltimore

Defensive end Elvis Dumervil, a three-time Pro Bowl selection who was famously dumped by the Denver Broncos due to a fax-machine mixup, signed with the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

Dumervil, regarded as one of the NFL's best pass rushers, was set to accept a reduced contract to stay with the Broncos, lowering his salary to $8 million from $12 million. He missed a deadline to accept the contract, though, and the Broncos were forced to cut him. According to reports, Dumervil's new deal is incentive-based but could reach the heights of his old salary. The Broncos expressed interest in re-signing Dumervil at this week's owners meetings but lost the bidding war.

With the Ravens, Dumervil will provide a rare veteran face on a team depleted by salary-cap troubles. Safety Ed Reed, linebackers Dannell Ellerbe and Paul Kruger and defensive back Bernard Pollard are all off to new teams, while star linebacker Ray Lewis retired. Dumervil had 11 sacks last season.

—Kevin Clark


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Conservative Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio withdrew from delivering the benediction at President Barack Obama’s Jan. 21 swearing-in after a sermon he delivered in the mid-1990s against the “aggressive agenda of many in the homosexual community” came to light.

Mr. Giglio and his wife, Shelley, are founders of Passion Conferences, a 15-year-old movement that attracts tens of thousands of young people to pray together and discuss problems such as human slavery and trafficking. In 2008, the Giglios founded Passion City Church, based in Atlanta.

Louie Giglio, left with Chris Tomlin at the Grammy Awards in 2012, has withdrawn from the inauguration after antigay comments of his from many years ago resurfaced. Getty Images

“Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration,” Mr. Giglio said in a statement delivered to the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Committee spokeswoman Addie Whisenant responded in a statement that the committee hadn’t known of Mr. Giglio’s remarks at the time he was selected, and that “they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this inaugural.”

She added that as the committee works to “select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.”

Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council circulated a news release objecting to Mr. Giglio’s removal from the program. “Catholic, Evangelical Protestant and Orthodox churches all actively proclaim that sexual intimacy within the marriage of one man and one woman is the only biblically-sanctioned human sexual behavior,” Mr. Perkins said in the statement. “What is shocking is the intolerance of the Obama team.”

Write to Elizabeth Williamson at


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World News

U.S., Europe Seek to Cool Currency Jitters

Amid Worries Over Japan Policy, Some G-7 Officials Discuss Underlining Commitment to Market-Driven Exchange Rates

Updated Feb. 11, 2013 3:42 a.m. ET

U.S. and European financial policy makers are discussing issuing a joint message designed to head off a potentially destabilizing round of currency devaluations, according to people familiar with the talks.

The discussions follow comments in recent months from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his aides implying they were targeting a specific exchange rate. This rhetoric, and a sharp drop in the yen, have sparked warnings from...

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Arts & Entertainment

Why They Love to Boo at the Cannes Film Festival

On the French Riviera, those rowdy movie crowds are not saying 'beau'

May 2, 2013 6:46 p.m. ET

When they boo movies and directors at Cannes, you don't need subtitles to understand how the audience feels. It happens a lot—enough that the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMcinématek has assembled "Booed at Cannes," a 15-film series highlighting movies, many now considered classics, whose makers were razzed at the French film festival. "Booed" runs May 8 through 23, overlapping with this year's actual Cannes festivities.

"It feels like every year now there are reports of films being booed at their...

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NEW YORK—A person who works at the U.S. Tennis Association says Maria Sharapova is withdrawing from the U.S. Open because of a right shoulder injury.

The person spoke to the Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because Sharapova's withdrawal had not yet been announced.

Sharapova has played only one match on tour since her second-round loss at Wimbledon in June.

Sharapova, the 2006 champion, was seeded third at the U.S. Open.

The draw for the year's last Grand Slam tournament is Thursday. Play begins Monday.


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Push Against Unions Flares In Michigan

Dec. 3, 2012 8:08 p.m. ET

Unions in Michigan are trying to fend off a push by Republican lawmakers to pass right-to-work legislation—the latest in a string of challenges to organized labor in one of its traditional Midwestern strongholds.

Separate right-to-work bills that would ban contracts requiring employees to pay union dues are drafted and could be introduced in the...

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China News

Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party

Updated Dec. 29, 2012 9:45 p.m. ET

When the Communist Party elite gathered last month to anoint China's new leaders, some of the nation's richest people occupied coveted seats in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Liang Wengen, with an estimated fortune of $7.3 billion, took one of the seats. His construction-equipment maker Sany Heavy Industry Co. competes with Caterpillar Inc. Zhou Haijiang, a clothing mogul with an estimated $1.3 billion family fortune, also had...

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Credit Markets

Treasurys Stall Amid Fiscal Negotiations

Updated Nov. 29, 2012 4:06 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—Treasurys bobbed sideways as the tug and pull of varying comments from Washington regarding the country's fiscal negotiations left the safe-haven market flat.

Europe's debt crisis and economic signals played second fiddle to the U.S. "fiscal cliff"—a set of year-end deadlines that threaten to send the economy into recession if higher taxes and reduced government spending strike all at once. Growth in the coming...

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Global View

To China's Censors, With Love

What is it like to know the truth while trying to keep your countrymen ignorant?

March 11, 2013 7:11 p.m. ET

I picture the Chinese hacker who spent part of last year perusing internal Wall Street Journal emails as a scrawny 23-year-old lieutenant with bad English, bad acne and a uniform that is a half-size too large for his frame. He works for a branch of the People's Liberation Army known as Unit 61398. His office is a nondescript building near Datong Road in Shanghai.

I call him Feng. I wonder what Feng does for fun.

I also have a...

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Now, Homes Fuel Economy

Real Estate, Once a Drag on Growth, Reverses Course as Other Sectors Tail Off

Updated Nov. 27, 2012 7:58 p.m. ET

The U.S. housing market, which plunged the economy into recession five years ago and was a persistent drag on the recovery, is now a key economic driver at a time when other sectors are slowing.

Economists project U.S. gross domestic product growth will slow in the final three months of the year from the sluggish 2% annual rate in the third quarter. Businesses, unnerved by the prospect of federal tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff" taking effect in January, have slowed their pace of...

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Counterforce braces aim to alleviate elbow pain caused by repetitive motions such as swinging a golf club, above. Getty Images/Fuse

The Ache: With golf, tennis and other activities that involve repetitive motions, tendons in the elbow can become painful and inflamed. The pain can get so bad that mobility of the hands and wrist is impaired.

The Claim: Braces that apply pressure on the muscles below the elbow can help relieve "golfer's elbow," pain on the inside of the elbow, and "tennis elbow," pain on the outside.

The Verdict: While the braces, generically called "counterforce braces," haven't been adequately vetted in well-designed studies, doctors and physical therapists say they seem to ease the agony for some of their patients.

A full elbow brace from McDavid Inc. McDavid, Inc.

The elbow joint is packed tight with muscles and tendons, making it prone to inflammation called tendinitis—particularly as we age, says Jonathan Chang, clinical associate professor of orthopedics at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. While golfer's and tennis elbows are named as such because they can often be caused by playing those sports, they can be precipitated by a variety of repetitive motions—from typing to activities such as painting and gardening.

Elbow tendinitis takes a long time to heal—often seven or eight months—and usually requires a multipronged approach, including icing, anti-inflammatory medications and physical therapy, Dr. Chang says. "No one single thing is going to get rid of the problem," he says.

Counterforce braces, available from many companies, are generally simple straps worn 1 to 3 inches below the elbow. Another style is a full-elbow sleeve, with a strap to tighten around the forearm. It isn't exactly known how they work, but one theory is the braces help reduce tension on the painful tendons, clinicians say. It also may "confuse" nerves into not sending pain signals, Dr. Chang says. You can wear the braces either during activities that cause pain, such as golfing, or throughout the day, doctors say. You shouldn't wear them to bed, they add.

About 50% of patients with golfer's or tennis elbow seem to get relief from the braces, says Edward McFarland, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. "They are not expensive and if they don't work, they don't cause harm. I encourage people to try them," adds Dr. McFarland, a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Strap braces from McDavid Inc. McDavid, Inc.

The type of brace you choose—a strap or a full elbow sleeve—is primarily about personal preference and comfort, says Richard Avis, an athletic trainer and director of global marketing for brace maker McDavid Inc., Woodridge, Ill. The company's elbow sleeve, $16.99, helps keep the elbow warm, which may help blood flow, Mr. Avis adds. The strap brace, $19.99, has special pads that dampen vibrations, which customers whose elbows hurt from vibrations—such as using a hand drill or bicycling—may prefer. McDavid says it hasn't done clinical studies on its products.

Wrist braces—which limit motion of hand and wrist muscles connected to painful elbow tendons—also can be helpful, say physicians and physical therapists.

Even if you use a counterforce or wrist brace, the most important thing is to identify what caused your problem and fix it, says Ross Brakeville, chairman of the American Physical Therapy Association's Golf and Golf Performance Special Interest Group. For example, if your golf swing is relying too much on your wrist, which could be causing elbow pain, he adds, you should work with a golf pro to correct the problem. To perfectly position a counterforce brace, you may need to experiment, clinicians say. Many people notice a slight increase in grip strength when they find the perfect position and tightness for the counterforce braces, McDavid's Mr. Avis says.

Write to Laura Johannes at


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Gilt's Flash Hunt: New Chief for IPO

Updated Nov. 8, 2012 7:53 p.m. ET

Online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe Inc. quietly launched a search for a new chief executive to replace co-founder Kevin Ryan as its strives to shore up its financial performance to support a possible initial public offering.

The search comes as Mr. Ryan's aggressive plan to expand the five-year-old Internet darling into new business lines has stumbled. The members-only site grew quickly in the wake of the recession by selling women's luxury gear at a discount, and that strong buzz helped it land a valuation of $1 billion...

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Apple executive Eddy Cue, right, arrived at court Thursday with a member of the company's legal team. Reuters

The Justice Department, in a civil trial being heard in federal court in Manhattan, has accused Apple of colluding with five major publishers to raise the price of e-books in 2010 in response to Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +5.57% Amazon.com Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq $346.20 +18.28 +5.57% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 8.17M AFTER HOURS $346.50 +0.30 +0.09% July 11, 2014 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 137,937 P/E Ratio 540.94 Market Cap $159.31 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $666,019 07/11/14 Amazon Asks FAA for Permission... 07/11/14 Amazon's New Mobile Services U... 07/11/14 HEARD ON THE STREET: The Case ... More quote details and news » 's discount pricing of $9.99 for best-selling and newly released e-books.

On Thursday, Eddy Cue, an Apple executive who played a key role in negotiating the deals with the publishers, told the court that the company acted in the best interest of consumers, including providing the public a better technology interface and e-books that were found nowhere else at the time.

"We gave them [consumers] a great offer," Mr. Cue said.

The government has argued that prices for e-book best sellers rose to $12.99 and $14.99 following the alleged collusion, forcing consumers to pay "hundreds of millions of dollars more than they would have." The negotiations between Apple and the publishers took place over about six weeks in late 2009 and early 2010 ahead of the company's launch of its first iPad tablet.

The publishers have all since entered into settlements with the Justice Department as well as in a separate lawsuit by a group of state attorneys general. Apple denies the allegations that it engaged in price fixing and collusion.

Mr. Cue, who serves as Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, has been with Apple for more than two decades and worked closely with Steve Jobs, the company's former chief executive and co-founder who died in 2011.

As part of the evidence in the case, Justice Department lawyers introduced several emails written by Mr. Jobs in 2010, including communications while the company was negotiating with the publishers.

In one exchange from February 2010, Mr. Jobs responded to an unsolicited email from a college student who was complaining about the rising cost of e-books since Apple announced it would begin selling them.

"With Apple strong arming Amazon into raising e-book prices, this is detrimental to my reading as a college student. You have so much," the student wrote. "Wouldn't it be OK for us little guys to have something?"

"It's the publishers that are raising prices, not Apple," Mr. Jobs said.

In an email to Mr. Cue a few days earlier in January 2010, Mr. Jobs responded to a news report that publisher Macmillan and Amazon were in a dispute about pricing in which Macmillan titles were removed from the Amazon website: "Wow, we have really lit a fuse on a powder keg," Mr. Jobs wrote.

In a group email at Apple the next day, Mr. Jobs said: "We have definitely helped stir things up in the publishing world."

The civil antitrust trial against Apple, which began June 3, is expected to last about three weeks and is being heard by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who said in May that she believed the government will likely be able to prove its case. Apple last year settled an antitrust case with the European Commission over e-book pricing but didn't admit any wrongdoing.

The five publishing companies—HarperCollins, Lagardere MMB.FR +0.04% Lagardere S.C.A. France: Paris 23.16 +0.01 +0.04% July 11, 2014 5:35 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 266,635 P/E Ratio 2.30 Market Cap €3.04 Billion Dividend Yield 5.61% Rev. per Employee €300,592 07/10/14 Authors Guild Dismisses Amazon... 07/10/14 Amazon Shelves French Book Dis... 07/08/14 Amazon Dangles E-Book Offer Am... More quote details and news » SCA's Hachette, CBS Corp.'s CBS -0.73% CBS Corp. Cl B U.S.: NYSE $61.35 -0.45 -0.73% July 11, 2014 4:03 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 8.46M AFTER HOURS $61.35 0.00 0.00% July 11, 2014 4:26 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 117,522 P/E Ratio 20.94 Market Cap $35.01 Billion Dividend Yield 0.78% Rev. per Employee $611,336 07/06/14 A New Media Landscape in Sun V... 07/01/14 Amazon Defends Its Stance Agai... 06/29/14 Aereo to Suspend Operations Fo... More quote details and news » Simon & Schuster, Pearson PSON.LN -0.46% Pearson PLC U.K.: London GBp1087.00 -5.00 -0.46% July 11, 2014 4:35 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1.93M P/E Ratio 0.16 Market Cap GBp8.90 Billion Dividend Yield 5.89% Rev. per Employee GBp120,361 06/29/14 Bertelsmann Getting Out of Boo... 06/27/14 U.K. Media and Housebuilders a... 06/26/14 London Stock Exchange to Buy U... More quote details and news » PLC's Penguin Group (USA) and Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH's Macmillan—have terminated their 2010 agreements with Apple as part of the settlements. HarperCollins is owned by News Corp. NWSA +0.56% News Corp Cl A U.S.: Nasdaq $18.09 +0.10 +0.56% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2.52M AFTER HOURS $18.09 0.00 0.00% July 11, 2014 5:01 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 3,298 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap $10.37 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $362,750 07/06/14 A New Media Landscape in Sun V... 07/04/14 Andy Coulson Sentenced to 18 M... 06/30/14 Andy Coulson to Face Retrial o... More quote details and news » , as is The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Cue showed a feisty side Thursday as Lawrence Buterman, a Justice Department lawyer, pressed him on whether Apple's decision to shift to a so-called agency model in which publishers, rather retailers, set the price of e-books, was in the best interest of the general public.

As part of its deals with the publishers, Apple received a 30% commission on each book sold and was allowed to match the price of a competitor if the competitor's price was lower.

"I didn't raise prices," Mr. Cue said.

"You just gave them [the publishers] the opportunity to raise prices?" Mr. Buterman said.

"The publishers set the prices," Mr. Cue said.

Apple's lawyer has disputed that the company colluded with the publishers, saying it negotiated aggressively.

Mr. Cue said Thursday that he wasn't aware that the publishers were meeting to discuss their pacts with Apple, prior to the government filing its lawsuit last year.

"I struggled and fought with them about many, many things," Mr. Cue said. "If they had been talking to each other, I would assume I would've had a much easier time getting those deals done."

Write to Chad Bray at chad.bray@wsj.com


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Politics and Policy

Lawmakers Craft Border-Security Plan Aimed at GOP

Updated June 13, 2013 5:58 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—A group of lawmakers who crafted the Senate immigration bill are privately working on a border-security plan designed to win over GOP votes.

Immigration supporters are hashing out a compromise that is expected to flesh out the details of a plan that needs to be filed before illegal immigrants can gain provisional legal status.

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European Business News

SAP's Software Innovations Drive Sales

Jan. 15, 2013 11:41 a.m. ET

FRANKFURT—SAP AG, the German business software giant, on Tuesday delivered strong fourth-quarter sales growth, driven by demand for its web-based and database products, showing the company's investment in new technology is paying off.

SAP competes with Oracle Corp. to develop software that helps some of the world's largest companies manage their sales, costs, customers and staff. Its customers include Ford Motor Co., Samsung...

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Russia News

In New U.S. List, 18 Russians Face Sanctions

Updated April 12, 2013 6:08 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration published a list of 18 Russians whom the U.S. will slap with financial and visa restrictions for suspected human-rights violations, most them allegedly linked to the death of a whistle-blowing tax attorney in a Moscow prison four years ago.

The list, which sprang from a law passed by Congress last December, promises to be a fresh irritant to relations with Moscow, which warned Washington that it...

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Microsoft: 60 Million Windows 8 Licenses Sold

Jan. 8, 2013 4:36 p.m. ET

A Microsoft Corp. executive said Tuesday the company has sold 60 million licenses for its new Windows 8 operating system, a trajectory that is similar to the prior version of Windows.

Windows Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller gave the figure at a technology event Tuesday, and the company also disclosed the sales number in a blog post.

According to the blog post, Ms. Reller said the 60 million licenses reflect sales to people...

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One recent Sunday morning, Chuck Callan was taking out the garbage from his stately Victorian home and clad only in dirty gardening shorts when a motorist startled him by leaning out her car window and snapping pictures.

Living in the Past

Winter White House: John Castle paid nearly $11 million to buy and renovate the Kennedy clan's 14,500-square-foot former beachfront estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Jessica Klewicki Glynn for The Wall Street Journal

"Had I known, I would have dressed,'' said Mr. Callan, a senior vice president of Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. The gawker wasn't interested in the half-naked executive. Her subject was his Grand view-on-Hudson home—a residence where Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique,'' the groundbreaking 1963 book that launched the modern feminist movement.

Owning a famous figure's home offers both perils and pleasures. Tourists eat into privacy, and contractors savvy about historically sensitive renovations eat into the pocketbook. On the other hand, there's the unique thrill of living under the same roof as someone who made an indelible mark on U.S. history. And experts say a well-preserved historic house generally gains value.

Robert Carr, chief executive of Heartland Payment Systems Inc., ended up with Woodrow Wilson's 1896 Tudor in Princeton, N.J., after his 2011 divorce. His ex-wife, Jill Carr, said she left him the house because she couldn't afford its $70,000 annual property taxes and costly upkeep. The Carrs spent 51 months restoring the home where the future U.S. president lived until 1902 while a university professor. The effort, he said, is an example for "how history should be preserved for others.''

John Castle, CEO of private-equity firm Castle Harlan Inc., shelled out nearly $11 million to buy and renovate the Kennedy clan's former beachfront estate in Palm Beach, Fla. The project, which included adding bathrooms No. 14 and 15, required 300 inspections.

President John F. Kennedy wrote his inaugural address at the 14,500-square foot mansion, called the Winter White House during his term. Mr. Castle kept the same unlisted phone number that JFK had used there.

America's historical housing stock depends on owners like Messrs. Castle, Carr and Callan continuing to see more upside than headache. "The bulk of historic houses in America are preserved by virtue of the private individuals who own them,'' said Tom Mayes, deputy general counsel at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "They feel the connection that place brings.''

The Friedan Mystique

Chuck Callan paid $1.63 million in 2005 to buy the Italianate home in Grand View-on-Hudson, N.Y., once owned by feminist author Betty Friedan. Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Callan paid $1.63 million in 2005 to buy the high-ceilinged Italianate home once owned by Ms. Friedan in part to inspire his four daughters to become capable women "standing on their own two feet,'' he said. The Friedan link "was a selling point.''

The six-bedroom house, built in about 1868, overlooks the Hudson River. Ms. Friedan moved in with her husband and three children in 1958. There, she wrote about the "feminine mystique" that kept educated women in domestic isolation. She worked in longhand on yellow legal pads at a living room desk or table in the octagonal dining room, said her daughter Emily, now a pediatrician.

The instant best seller transformed the frustrated suburban housewife into an activist. Ms. Friedan co-founded and became the first president of the National Organization for Women in 1966.

Betty Friedan wrote 'The Feminine Mystique,' her groundbreaking 1963 book, at the Grand View-on-Hudson home. CSU Archives/Everett Collection

The weekend after she died in 2006, nearly 100 Friedan fans turned up at her former residence. Mr. Callan encountered several of them on his front porch. "They started to turn red and left,'' he said. "Others wandered into the driveway.''

The homeowner soon locked horns with NOW over a proposed memorial to the famous feminist. Mr. Callan said the organization wanted to adorn his curbside sandstone wall with a large marker complete with bas-relief sculpture of Ms. Friedan.

"I didn't want undue attention," he said. Muriel Fox, a co-founder of NOW, said the organization only proposed a small plaque.

Instead, a large marker with the sculpture was erected near the village hall a year ago. Emily Friedan and Ms. Fox still yearn to see a plaque placed on the home—perhaps after the Callans move. "Something great happened in that house that changed the world,'' the physician said.

For Sale: Following the Footsteps of the Rich and Famous

The 71-year-old Mr. Castle, a millionaire merchant banker by age 28, already owned three residences before he acquired the furnished Kennedy estate as his primary residence. He likes to show off President Kennedy's narrow bed with its carved Gothic oak headboard and a walk-in closet drawer labeled in the careful script of matriarch Rose Kennedy "black underwear."

John F. Kennedy interviewed most cabinet candidates in the library of the stark white Mediterranean compound and swam in the Olympic-size pool the weekend before his 1963 assassination. In 1991, the compound was the scene of an alleged rape by William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of JFK's who was ultimately acquitted.

The Kennedys sold the property in 1995, and Palm Beach declared part of the mansion a landmark after Mr. Castle bought it. Designation as a local landmark or placement in a historic district typically limits a homeowner's ability to make exterior changes. In Mr. Castle's case, he had to agree not to alter a 60-foot portion of the wall where the president occasionally gave news conferences.

Mr. Castle said souvenir hunters frequently showed up during his $6 million renovation of the 11-bedroom mansion, "put chunks of brick in their car, and drove away.'' He also had to cope with strict demands from local officials. "We had an inspection every day,'' he said.

One inspection failed, he said, because a screw near an electrical connection "was one-eighth of an inch out of alignment.'' Another time, preservation officials limited the height of the new indoor/outdoor spiral staircase that Mr. Castle was building to enjoy a grander view of his 205-foot oceanfront.

Today, Mr. Castle relishes living amid 62 years of Kennedy family history. He especially likes to unravel knotty work problems while seated in the mansion's outdoor loggia, where President Kennedy crafted his inaugural speech and overlooking the sea.

''You get an enormous sense of inspiration,'' Mr. Castle said.

Presidential Preservation

Robert Carr bought Woodrow Wilson's 1896 Tudor in Princeton, N.J., in 2003 for about $2.1 million. It took about 51 months and more than $7 million to restore it. Scott Lewis for The Wall Street Journal

Restoring the Wilson residence turned into a lengthy labor of love for Mr. Carr, a longtime U.S. history buff who bought it in 2003 for about $2.1 million.

The house had remained vacant for two years and gone through 19 owners since Woodrow and Ellen Wilson left. "There was very little preserved," he said.

Mr. Carr wanted to recapture much of the house's original character and update its amenities. His efforts were guided in part by his review of Wilson's correspondence about the home's construction. The renovation cost more than $7 million and lasted until spring 2007.

"There was no budget and no time restrictions,'' Mr. Carr said. "It seemed like the right thing to do as the custodian of a bit of history."

Woodrow Wilson lived at the Princeton, N.J., estate until 1902 while he was a university professor. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Except for a new solarium, the three-story residence with pale-lemon stucco walls looks from the outside as it did 110 years ago. Mr. Carr even pulled up the concrete circle driveway and replaced it with the type of red stones used by the Wilsons.

While showing a visitor around, Mr. Carr paused in the unusual foyer with a fireplace where Mr. Wilson, a Princeton University professor, often taught his students as a fire roared. To restore the foyer to its original condition, contractors disassembled, structurally reinforced and reassembled the room using the same individual pieces of vertical-grain fir.

Mr. Carr in the foyer. The pocket doors with their stained glass inserts were part of the original house. Scott Lewis for The Wall Street Journal

"This room and the ceiling are exactly the way they were when Woodrow Wilson lived here,'' the chief executive said.

Despite his attention to detail, Mr. Carr worries about Princeton's proposed creation of a historic district that would cover the Wilson home. "People tell you if you can paint your house,'' he said. "It may not help the resale value.'' He and other disgruntled owners wrote a letter protesting that the district would "significantly chill the market for owning and investing in these homes.''

Princeton officials declined to comment, but in a September report recommending creation of the district, the town's Historic Preservation Review Committee said supporters cited studies showing "a positive effect of historic districting on property values.''

Meanwhile, the executive loves to celebrate his home's famous former owner. He threw a 150th birthday party for the former president at his home in December 2006. He gives talks about Mr. Wilson's life at local schools. And in October, he hosted a centennial celebration of President Wilson's election. As an extra treat, his 530 guests could view a newly framed note in Mrs. Wilson's handwriting that restoration workers found behind a fireplace frame.

"It's a privilege to live in a house like this,'' Mr. Carr said.


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A Revitalized Car Industry Cranks Up U.S. Exports

Updated July 2, 2013 12:03 a.m. ET

MARYSVILLE, Ohio—The U.S. auto industry, in tatters just four years ago, is emerging as an export powerhouse, driven by favorable exchange rates and labor costs in a trend experts say could drive business for many years.

In a sign of the turnaround, Honda Motor Co., once a big importer of Japanese-made cars, says it expects to export more vehicles from North America—with nearly all of them coming from its U.S. factories—than it brings...

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Banks' Health on the Mend

Updated March 8, 2013 12:01 a.m. ET

The Federal Reserve served notice that the financial industry's health continues to improve, potentially clearing the way for large U.S. banks to funnel tens of billions of dollars to investors in increased dividend payments and share buybacks.

The central bank said 17 of the 18 largest U.S. banks have enough capital to keep lending in a hypothetical sharp economic downturn, a sign the financial system is better prepared to weather a...

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Never in the field of government bailouts have so many lost so much credibility over such a small sum of money.

The European Central Bank in Frankfurt. AFP/Getty Images

That is one of the critical conclusions being drawn as the dust settles from last month's Cyprus bailout. Negotiating rescue packages for bankrupt governments is never easy. But in the wake of the chaotic talks and confidence-damaging proposals, it has become clear that all of those involved were losers.

This may matter for the future. The institutions involved—the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the governments of the euro zone—must continue to work together to manage countries in existing bailout programs and any future rescue packages. The bruising experience of Cyprus—where for the first time in the euro zone's financial crisis depositors took losses—won't make that task easier.

"There are absolutely no winners from the Cyprus agreement. Every major country and institutional constituency has been hurt, creating the potential for even more toxic and difficult negotiations going forward," said Mujtaba Rahman, director at Eurasia Group in New York.

Even if observers don't see much credit to go around, some institutions were still able to assert their authority. Germany and the IMF prevailed—the IMF largely because Germany insisted onits presence in the agreement—in keeping the size of the bailout down to €10 billion ($13 billion).

The ECB also reasserted its centrality in crisis management. It brought months of desultory talks over a Cyprus bailout to a head when it threatened to withdraw liquidity from Cypriot banks unless its deadlines were met. It also limited the fallout to other countries with its previous promise of the Outright Monetary Transactions program, which could underwrite shaky government bond markets.

Still, at what cost? The official economic forecasts, suggesting the Cypriot economy will shrink nearly 9% this year followed by a contraction of almost 4% in 2014, look highly optimistic to most observers. That isn't an auspicious start for a government that isn't much more than a month old and that made its own important contribution to increasing the costs of the rescue by holding out for a better deal before taking one that deeply hurt depositors in its top banks.

In country after country facing debt troubles, euro-zone crisis management—a focus on austerity, and brinkmanship in negotiations—has devastated growth and confidence. The usual policy options to revive economies—monetary, fiscal or exchange-rate policy—aren't available to euro-zone countries that need it.

Capital controls are now in place in Cyprus, anathema in a region in which free movement of capital has been an article of faith. In these circumstances in other countries in the past, a parallel exchange rate has emerged, not a healthy development for a currency union.

The ECB may have been central but, like other institutions, it signed off on an initial agreement that was widely criticized because it would have taxed all depositors in Cyprus banks, even those with small accounts. Bringing the crisis to a head may have forced the hands of recalcitrant politicians in Cyprus and the euro zone alike, who acted only months after it became clear that Cyprus would need help. But the question analysts are asking is whether the ECB's leverage was used to good effect. Whatever the answer to that, an institution supposedly free of political interference is certainly making decisions of major political significance.

The depositor losses were an IMF initiative from the start, officials say. Staff at the Washington-based institution are seen as bruised from having signed off on the initial Greek bailout deal in 2010—and are determined not to put their name to another accord that balloons a country's debt to levels unlikely to be repaid. But some of its negotiating partners argue that in the Cypriot talks, the IMF swung too far the other way.

Some senior officials at the European Commission would have been happy to leave the IMF out of Cyprus—but that wasn't ever likely to happen, in part because German politicians wanted the IMF's imprimatur to help them secure domestic political support for any deal. And the commission didn't set the agenda or garner support for its own preferred solution, a less drastic assortment of proposals that would have made Cyprus's banking-sector adjustments more gradual.

Furthermore, euro-zone financial decision-making was also revealed as lacking. Decisions over bailout programs' terms are supposed to be made by euro-zone finance ministers—and subsequently signed off by euro-zone leaders. In the end, finance ministers were largely bystanders as others, including European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, negotiated the final deal.

Meetings among euro-zone finance ministers are presided over by Jeroem Dijsselbloem, the new Dutch finance minister. But much of the tough technical work is the product of meetings of senior officials in the so-called Eurogroup Working Group overseen by Austrian Thomas Wieser, who has no staff of his own.

Peter Ludlow, a long-standing Brussels insider specialist in EU affairs and executive president of the European Strategy Forum, describes the current system of decision-making as "ramshackle." He points out that Mr. Wieser—whom he praises—has no clear reporting line to Mr. Van Rompuy, who is chairman of EU leaders' meetings.

Mr. Wieser, meanwhile, has a "telephone-based link with his part-time boss in The Hague, who, to make matters worse, has his own staff and his own parliament which expects him to report to it on his euro-area activities, as well as his conduct of Dutch policy," Mr. Ludlow writes in an evaluation of the Cyprus agreement published this week. This, he suggests, needs addressing.

But, of all the weaknesses revealed by the Cyprus rescue—economies that stand to be stagnant for years, institutions and governments with huge differences in priorities—the bureaucratic tangles surrounding decision-making by euro-zone ministers are likely to be by far the easiest to address.

Write to Stephen Fidler at


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Major U.S. banks are pressing for government action to block what they say is an intensifying Iranian campaign of cyberattacks against American financial institutions, Siobahn Gorman discusses on digits. Photo: Getty Images.

Financial firms have spent millions of dollars responding to the attacks, according to bank officials, who add that they can't be expected to fend off attacks from a foreign government.

Defense officials have said Iran's government is behind the assault. Officials from several affected banks, including PNC Financial Services Group Inc., PNC +0.41% PNC Financial Services Group Inc. U.S.: NYSE $87.33 +0.36 +0.41% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1.66M AFTER HOURS $87.43 +0.10 +0.11% July 11, 2014 5:54 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 18,403 P/E Ratio 11.54 Market Cap $46.65 Billion Dividend Yield 2.20% Rev. per Employee $298,404 07/09/14 China's June CPI Up 2.3% On-Ye... 07/03/14 China Service Sector Grows 06/23/14 DOJ Scammer Payment Probe Adva... More quote details and news » SunTrust Banks Inc. STI +0.50% SunTrust Banks Inc. U.S.: NYSE $39.85 +0.20 +0.50% July 11, 2014 4:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2.42M AFTER HOURS $39.85 0.00 0.00% July 11, 2014 4:26 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 80,050 P/E Ratio 15.75 Market Cap $21.23 Billion Dividend Yield 2.01% Rev. per Employee $310,909 07/04/14 SunTrust Mortgage Agrees to $3... 06/17/14 U.S. Reaches $968 Million Sett... 05/27/14 Mortgage Probes Shift to Small... More quote details and news » and BB&T Corp. BBT +0.23% BB&T Corp. U.S.: NYSE $39.69 +0.09 +0.23% July 11, 2014 4:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2.96M AFTER HOURS $39.60 -0.09 -0.23% July 11, 2014 4:26 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 41,344 P/E Ratio 15.15 Market Cap $28.52 Billion Dividend Yield 2.42% Rev. per Employee $307,270 04/22/14 Popular Inc. in Talks to Sell ... 04/17/14 BB&T Just Misses Street Estima... 04/17/14 Morning MoneyBeat: Big Blue's ... More quote details and news » , are urging the U.S. government to stop or mitigate the attacks, according to investigators.

The outcry is particularly significant from an industry that usually seeks to keep the government at arm's length. Financial-services groups opposed a legislative effort last year to establish cybersecurity standards for key private-sector businesses, saying it could undermine protections already in place.

"The financial sector has historically been so sophisticated and organized in its security approach," said Kiersten Todt Coon, a former staff member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and now president of Liberty Group Ventures LLC, a risk-management firm. "When they choose to go to the government, that shows how strong the severity of this threat is."

The Iranian government "categorically denies" any involvement in the attacks, said Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations. "The malicious, false allegations against Iran are aimed at demonizing Iran and provide the excuse for further actions," he added. Tehran has complained to the U.N. about foreign cyberattacks against Iran.

U.S. officials have been weighing options, including whether to retaliate against Iran, officials say. The topic was discussed at a high-level White House meeting a few weeks ago, a U.S. official said, adding, "All options are on the table."

U.S. officials believe they have some time to assess options, because the assaults haven't escalated to the destruction or manipulation of bank data, the official said. But the affected banks, seeing an unending assault that is soaking up profits and undermining consumer confidence, say the problem is urgent. "We'd like them to act," one bank official said.

The incidents are believed to have begun early last year as unusually potent "denial-of-service" strikes on Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.39% Bank of America Corp. U.S.: NYSE $15.38 -0.06 -0.39% July 11, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 56.13M AFTER HOURS $15.40 +0.02 +0.13% July 11, 2014 7:59 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 724,171 P/E Ratio 19.47 Market Cap $161.73 Billion Dividend Yield 0.26% Rev. per Employee $409,537 07/13/14 Spanish Bad-Debt Data Tell Div... 07/11/14 Senate Committee Is Investigat... 07/11/14 A New Wave of Apps for Wealthy... More quote details and news » , investigators say. Such attacks aim to knock an organization offline by bombarding its website with electronic requests. Because of the complex execution of these high-end denial-of-service attacks, it was difficult to immediately defend against it, a telecom-industry specialist said.

The hacking network surfaced again over the summer, attacking oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf.

In September, the group turned back to U.S. banks. The next month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned the perpetrators to cease, but the U.S. government hasn't acted to put a stop to the attacks.

Initially, the assaults on individual banks were announced by hackers in advance. But lately, they have targeted multiple banks simultaneously without specific warning. The attacks have affected most of the top dozen U.S. banks, investigators and bank officials say.

The group's most recent Internet announcement boasted its resiliency. "Despite the high cost of U.S. banks to deal with these attacks, the attacks cannot go under control and are unstoppable," the group wrote on Jan. 8.

The hackers are using a network of tens of thousands of infected computers running corporate websites, investigators say. The attacks are considered more difficult to stop because they are coming from computers that could have legitimate reasons to communicate with the banks, said one bank official. Roughly half of those computers are overseas and out of the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

Bank representatives have discussed the attacks with officials from a range of U.S. agencies, including the White House, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and Treasury Department.

Treasury officials held a series of meetings with individual bank representatives in December to ensure that all parties were working from the same set of information about the attacks, an investigator said. The FBI has been providing updates and warnings to banks of impending attacks as it continues an investigation. In some cases, U.S. officials have visited banks to assess their data, the investigator said.

A number of affected banks would like the government to either block the attacks or take down the network of computers mounting them, bank officials said. Other options for government action include complaining through diplomatic channels and counterattacks, said industry officials familiar with the investigation.

The U.S. government also could work with Internet providers to block traffic coming from computers in Iran tied to the network, a former U.S. official said.

Overall the financial services industry is still split over whether Washington should take on a more forceful role.

Last month, financial services executives, regulators and officials from the departments of Treasury and Homeland Security officials gathered at a meeting in the Washington suburbs to discuss the latest round of attacks. Some argued that U.S. government should go after the hackers, while others cautioned that offensive action could lead to retaliation, additional attacks against the banks, or unforeseen consequences, said one security executive who attended the meeting.

Most of the banks declined to comment. PNC, which has acknowledged the attacks, referred to its statement to customers that the bank "has taken steps to block this [attack] traffic and maintain online and mobile banking access for the vast majority of its customers." A SunTrust spokesman said the company wouldn't comment "on security-related matters."

An Obama administration official said the U.S. government has been "a very active partner" in working with the private sector. The Treasury Department, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation either declined to comment or referred questions elsewhere.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at and Danny Yadron at


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Commercial Real Estate

Norway's Oil Fund Buys into U.S. Real Estate

Feb. 11, 2013 12:30 p.m. ET

OSLO—Norway's $700 billion oil fund has jumped into the U.S. real estate market, snapping up half of a $1.2 billion block of five upscale office buildings on the East Coast owned by pension fund manager TIAA-CREF, including a pair of office buildings in the heart of the nation's capital.

The investment places the Nordic sovereign-wealth fund in three hot commercial real estate markets: Manhattan, Washington, D.C. and Boston. Norway's oil fund—the world's largest sovereign-wealth fund—has committed to pump as much as 5% of...

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It was a recent hit in office cubicles around the world: a 3½-minute Internet video of two art students from China lip-synching a Backstreet Boys song. Now, some TV companies are hoping that the grainy clips zapped around the Internet can be something more: a cheap source of content, preapproved by a Web audience of millions.

Two channels have recently created 21st-century equivalents of "America's Funniest Home Videos." The new shows, on cable channels VH1 and Bravo, compile so-called "viral" videos that circulate on the Web. At a time when networks are moving to make TV shows more available on the Internet (this week, episodes of two CBS sitcoms went up on Yahoo), it's an illustration of the reverse phenomenon of the Web's inroads into TV.

On Jan. 13, VH1 will begin airing a new series, "Web Junk 20," showcasing clips compiled by iFilm, an online clearinghouse for amateur videos and movie trailers. MTV Networks, which owns VH1, acquired iFilm in the fall. The weekly countdown show on VH1 will blend some of the site's hits with commentary by comedian Patrice O'Neal. And Bravo has just ordered a six-episode run of "Outrageous and Contagious: Viral Videos," after showing it as a special last month.

VH1 hopes that its TV show will in turn send viewers to its online channel, VSpot, for on-demand viewing. "If ['Web Junk 20'] does average on air but drives a million streams on VSpot, that's still a win for us," says Brian Graden, president of entertainment for MTV Networks Music Group.

Examples of such crossover are increasing. Recently, a video clip that aired on "Saturday Night Live" of two "SNL" cast members rapping about their plans to see "The Chronicles of Narnia" was circulated around the Web, generating more buzz about the show than anything it has shown on TV all season.

But there are challenges to translating Internet entertainment to TV. For example, on TV, a Web clip of a narcoleptic dachshund collapsing in sleep mid-scamper looks and sounds muddy. But creators of "Web Junk 20" knew that when they came up with the title. "We're trying to do a show that doesn't aspire to do anything more than show what's working on the Web," says Mr. Graden.


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What's the biggest day of the NFL season? If you picked tomorrow, you're not far off the mark. Months after the Super Bowl and long before the training camps, the NFL draft, which starts tomorrow, will play a big part in determining pro football's balance of power this season and in years to come.

And while it's almost certain that top prospects such as LSU's JaMarcus Russell, Notre Dame's Brady Quinn and Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson will go early in the first round -- and get rich in the process -- the guarantees stop there. Sometimes, being picked first, as Carson Palmer of the Cincinnati Bengals was in 2003, is a first stop on the road to stardom. But that's not always the case. Just ask David Carr, picked first overall in 2002 by the Houston Texans, and released after five disappointing seasons.

Star Search

So, in general, how well does the NFL draft do in finding future stars? A look at the All-Pro teams of the past five years reveals some surprises. Of the 80 position players who made the All-Pro teams since 2002, 35, or 44%, were not drafted in the first round. That means that practically every NFL team passed on them at least once. And 21 All-Pros weren't picked until the third round -- or later.

How many No. 1 draft picks were All-Pros over that period? One: Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Five players who went totally undrafted -- running back Priest Holmes, tight end Antonio Gates, fullback Mack Strong, center Jeff Saturday and offensive lineman Brian Waters -- earned that honor.

But, obviously, some teams do a better job of identifying talent on draft day than others. One way to figure out which teams they are is to count the number of All-Pros a team has drafted, or signed as a free agent after the draft. By that count, the Baltimore Ravens come out on top. Between 1996 and 2002, they put seven draftees on All-Pro teams. Just behind were Pittsburgh and San Diego with six each and Indianapolis with five.

It's no coincidence that these teams have all had big successes on the field. The Ravens, Steelers and Colts have each won the Super Bowl, while the Chargers had the NFL's best regular-season record in 2006. The top NFC team? The Carolina Panthers, NFC champions in 2003-04, with four All-Pros.

Even more important than spending first-round picks wisely is being able to tab superstars in the later rounds. To measure that we'll use APDA, or All-Pro Draft Average, which averages the overall draft slot for a team's All-Pros. (Undrafted players are ranked as if they were taken after the last player drafted that year.)

Diamonds in the Rough

Which team found the most diamonds in the rough? The San Diego Chargers -- with an 80.3 ranking. They selected four All-Pros after round two, including Mr. Gates, a three-time All-Pro. The Ravens were next at 70.9, thanks largely to drafting linebacker Adalius Thomas in the sixth round and signing undrafted running back Priest Holmes (who would achieve fame with the Kansas City Chiefs). The NFC leader: the Panthers (40.8), followed by the New York Giants (36.5).

In terms of positions, the draft-day bargains (players taken in the second round or later) were well-distributed: six defensive linemen and six offensive linemen (it's only fair to say that linemen rarely go in the first round), six cornerbacks and safeties, five linebackers, two quarterbacks, six running backs and four wide receivers.

So if your favorite team doesn't have a top pick, don't sweat it. APDA reveals that in today's NFL, potential superstars are available in the second round -- or second day of the draft. The trick, as the league's most successful teams know, is to find them.

Later Picks, Better Values

Some superstars, such as Peyton Manning, are drafted first in the first round. Others go in later rounds -- or are signed as free agents after the draft. To show which teams find hidden superstars, we use All-Pro Draft Average, which calculates the average draft slot of the All-Pros a team selects or signs. (Free agents are assigned the number below the last player drafted in a given year.)

San Diego Chargers6480.3
Baltimore Ravens7270.9
Indianapolis Colts5265.8
Carolina Panthers4340.8
New York Giants4336.5
Pittsburgh Steelers6126

Write to Allen St. John at allen.stjohn@wsj.com