May 7, 2005

A federal appeals court handed a major setback to Hollywood and the television networks on Friday when it struck down an antipiracy regulation requiring computer and television makers to use new technology that would make it difficult for consumers to copy and distribute digital programs. The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel, in an important case at the intersection of intellectual property and technology, was a stinging rebuke for the Federal Communications Commission. The court said the commission exceeded its authority when it approved the rules in 2003.

In the days leading to the Kentucky Derby, George Steinbrenner has declined to discuss his remarkable colt, Bellamy Road. But he does not really need to, because his horse, the Derby's morning-line favorite, is the name on the lips of everyone here, whether they love or hate Steinbrenner's New York Yankees. Bellamy Road is the talk of the horse racing world for two simple reasons: he demolished a field of allowance horses by 15 3/4 lengths in his first race this year; and he followed that with a 17 1/2-length romp in the far more prestigious Grade I Wood Memorial, tying the track record at Aqueduct for a mile-and-an-eighth race.

A bookworm since childhood, Susan Desmond-Hellmann says that she coped with job anxiety earlier this year by reading. She pored over the results of old clinical trials of her company's drugs, trying to reassure herself that three important new trials would turn out all right. ''I just kept going back and rereading them,'' said Dr. Desmond-Hellmann, the president for product development at Genentech, the big biotechnology company. ''It's important to be data-driven and not too optimistic.''

As speculators across Asia place ever larger bets on a revaluation of China's currency soon, investors and corporate executives alike are trying to prepare for what a more valuable yuan will mean for stocks and companies. For Romeo Dator, the portfolio manager of the U.S. Global China Region Opportunity Fund, a no-load mutual fund in San Antonio, a 20-minute departure by the yuan from its usual trading range on April 29 was a signal to sell part of the fund's holdings of PetroChina, China's biggest oil producer.

The Yankees somehow sank deeper into despair last night against the Oakland Athletics, teasing their fans into believing that a come-from-behind victory was in the works before losing, 6-3, in 10 innings. The Yankees unearthed a new way to lose as the A's scored three runs in the 10th inning and batted around without getting a ball out of the infield. The Yankees helped them with three errors, two walks and a hit batter in the inning.