April 4, 2005

Boston Red Sox pitcher David Wells faces former team and new rival New York Yankees in season-opener at Yankee Stadium (NYC) (M)

Interview with Adam Moss, who has completed his first year as New York magazine editor in chief; magazine has enjoyed some journalistic success under him, but continues to lose money; advertising is up somewhat, circulation is flat and newsstand sales down; single-copy sales graph; photos (M)

Michigan State University defeats Tennessee University, 68-64, to advance to women's NCAA tournament final and face Baylor University; photo (M)

United Nations envoy to Lebanon Terje Roed-Larsen says Syria's leaders promise to pull out all military and intelligence forces from Lebanon by end of April, one month before scheduled nation-wide elections there; makes announcement after meeting with Syrian Pres Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Min Farouk al-Sharaa; Syrian forces have occupied parts of Lebanon since 1976; their withdrawal is one of central demands of Lebanese opposition, whose supporters have staged huge rallies over past six weeks; assassination of former Prime Min Rafik Hariri on Feb 14 and protests that followed set in motion series of events that have been transforming Lebanese politics; many Lebanese blame Syrian government, and its clients in Lebanese government, for Hariri's killing; Lebanese opposition leaders say continuing political impasse may result in delay in nationwide elections; accuse pro-Syrian Prime Min Omar Karami and his Syrian backers of trying to put off elections for as long as possible to extend life of current pro-Syrian Parliament; photo (M)

Cable Companies Brace For Challenge From Bells In the coming months, the Bell telephone companies including SBC and Verizon will start selling television programming in their most recent effort to break into a market in which they have had almost no presence. The cable industry, meeting for its annual trade show, is already bracing for the assault on its prime turf. [Page C4.] Rise in Chinese Textile Imports Imports of Chinese textile and apparel products into the United States soared in the first quarter, offering fresh evidence that the world's clothing trade is being drastically reshaped by the abolition of global quotas. [C3.] Boutique Agencies Win Big Clients Marketers like Mars and Coca-Cola are bypassing big-name agencies to award assignments to smaller, presumably nimbler, independent shops that specialize in nontraditional ideas. For example, Masterfoods USA is introducing a campaign by the Nitro New York office that seeks to stimulate American sales of the Dove line of chocolate products. Stuart Elliott: Advertising. [C6.] Splenda Adds a Brown Sugar Blend The manufacturer of Splenda, the brand name for the chemical sweetener sucralose, is releasing a version that can be used as a replacement for brown sugar. [C6.] Digeo Chooses Samsung for Boxes Digeo, which designs software for set-top boxes used with cable television systems, is set to announce that it has selected Samsung to make its next generation of boxes. [C4.] Hitachi Achieves Storage Record Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce that it has reached a record for storage density on a disk drive. [C4.] Options for Dormant TV Viewers At least two companies are developing speech-recognition products that will let viewers change channels with voice prompts. [C6.] Ruling Against I.R.S. Over Shelters A judge has ruled against the Internal Revenue Service in its effort to prove that the BDO Seidman accounting firm sold and marketed questionable tax shelters in recent years. [C9.] Online Tobacco Sellers Call It Quits Two weeks after credit card companies announced they would no longer accept payment for tobacco products bought online, scores of Internet cigarette merchants have effectively lost the means to do business profitably. Bob Tedeschi: E-Commerce Report. [C5.] Springer Spreads Out to Radio Jerry Springer's morning program began running on Air America Radio, the liberal political network. Mr. Springer says his radio program is about political issues and will be a far cry from his television program.[C8.] A Deal for Greek Phone Stake Two firms are set to announce that they will buy Telecom Italia's controlling stake in a Greek phone company for $1.4 billion, executives involved in the talks said. [C9.]