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CBS Returns, Triumphant, to Cable Box

The agreement between the two sides restored the CBS network and its related channels, including Showtime, to millions of cable subscribers largely in three major cities: New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The outcome underscored the leverage that the owners of important television content, especially sports like N.F.L. football, retain over distributors like cable systems. The looming National Football League season, which starts this week, includes key games every week on CBS.

“It was hugely important,” an executive involved in the negotiation said Monday night. (The executive asked not to be identified because the participants agreed not to offer details on the agreement beyond the official announcement.) Indeed, Time Warner Cable executives had said earlier that a reason the company decided to remove the CBS stations in early August was because of the recognition that it would lose leverage the closer it got to the N.F.L. season.

David Bank, a media analyst for RBC Capital Markets said, “With the content, especially the N.F.L. and CBS being the No. 1 network in the ratings, you just have to believe they are going to win every time.”

The two sides did not release any specific information on the terms of the agreement. They had battled for exactly a month over an increase in fees CBS was seeking for the right to retransmit CBS stations in the three major cities and some other locations on Time Warner Cable systems. Another crucial issue was whether CBS would retain the digital rights to its content, which it wanted to sell to Web-based distributors like Netflix and Amazon.

Executives on both sides acknowledged early in the talks that CBS was seeking an increase to about $2 per subscriber, up from about $1. Separate statements from the chief executives of each company indicated that the outcome apparently tipped heavily toward CBS. Its president, Leslie Moonves, said in a memo to the company staff that the network had secured virtually all of what it was seeking.

“We are receiving fair compensation for CBS content,” Mr. Moonves said. He specifically included not only additional fees for CBS content, but also the retention of the digital rights.

Glenn A. Britt, Time Warner Cable’s chairman and chief executive, conceded that “we certainly didn’t get everything we wanted.”

CBS did make “some minor concessions” to get the deal settled, the executive involved in the negotiation said. The talks extended until 3 a.m. Monday.

In his statement, Mr. Britt said Time Warner Cable ultimately “ended up in a much better place than when we started,” though he did not specify how. He also again pushed for some kind of change in the rule that granted networks the rights to compensation from cable companies for their programming

“The rules are woefully out of date, are the primary reason cable bills are rising,” Mr. Britt said. “We sincerely hope that policy makers heed that call and take action to prevent these unfortunate blackouts soon.”

Time Warner Cable pressed throughout the monthlong impasse after it removed CBS’s stations from its systems for some form of government intervention, from either the Federal Communications Commission or Congress, but none materialized.

While the acting F.C.C. chairwoman, Mignon L. Clyburn, said on Aug. 9 that she was distressed at the standoff and was “ready to consider appropriate action if this dispute continues,” it continued for another three weeks without her intervening. Several media analysts said early in the dispute that the commission’s options were limited because the right of a station owner to seek retransmission compensation was granted in a law passed by Congress in 1992.

Monday evening, Ms. Clyburn issued a statement saying: “I am pleased CBS and Time Warner Cable have resolved their retransmission consent negotiations, which for too long have deprived millions of consumers of access to CBS programming. At the end of the day, media companies should accept shared responsibility for putting their audience’s interests above other interests and do all they can to avoid these kinds of disputes in the future.”

Both sides hurled accusations during the standoff. CBS executives said Time Warner Cable removed their stations unnecessarily (including Showtime, which requires a separate fee from subscribers) and negotiated in a dysfunctional manner, and Time Warner Cable accused CBS of making exorbitant demands and performing a disservice to all Time Warner Cable subscribers by blocking the CBS.com Web site. But the settlement was ultimately a financial arrangement between two partners, one of which had content the other needed to satisfy its customers.

Mr. Bank said that, if anything, the deal may make it easier for networks to press cable and other distributors like satellite systems to squeeze out more favorable fees, without all the noise and recriminations this dispute inspired. CBS quietly renegotiated a deal with the FiOS bundled Internet phone and television service owned by Verizon in the midst of its conflict with Time Warner Cable.

“I think the Verizon deal happening when it did was not helpful to Time Warner,” Mr. Bank said. “It was probably really damaging.”

Boeing Jet Returns to the Air, but It’s Only a Start

“We kept on checking the voltage again and again, because we were so nervous,” he said in an interview after the 787 jet landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, apparently without incident. “Everything was fine, absolutely fine.”

Mr. Ogami may have gotten over his own jitters, but he and his colleagues at All Nippon, the largest operator of Boeing’s 787 batteries, now must convince an uneasy public of the reliability of the jets — most of which were grounded for three months because of concerns that the batteries crucial to the planes’ sophisticated electrical systems might catch fire.

Even as Boeing and the operators of its Dreamliners move swiftly toward getting the jets back in the air, they now face the delicate task of selling passengers on the idea that the jet is safe, even though engineers have still not figured out what exactly caused batteries to burn on two separate planes earlier this year.

In the past week, regulators in the United States, Europe and Japan — all of which grounded the 787 fleet after those incidents — signed off on fixes to the batteries proposed by Boeing.

Smaller airlines are already moving ahead in reintroducing the jet to their fleets, including Ethiopian Airlines, which used a 787 on Saturday on a two-hour commercial flight from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to Nairobi.

But the resumption of 787 flights at All Nippon and Japan Airlines, which together own nearly half the 50 Dreamliner jets Boeing has delivered so far, will prove the real test of whether the modified batteries will eliminate further mishaps.

So both Japanese airlines are being cautious about bringing the Dreamliners back into service, saying they hope to resume scheduled commercial flights only in June. That will give them more time to conduct test flights, retrain their crew and to educate the public about the safety of the improved batteries. (All Nippon said it might introduce Dreamliners on some flights before June, however.)

“It’s up to us to explain how we’ve made these planes safer,” Shinichiro Ito, chief executive of All Nippon and Mr. Ogami’s boss, said at a press conference after flying on the test jet, together with executives from Boeing. “We won’t decide to resume commercial flights until we’re sure our passengers are comfortable with boarding a 787.”

The other airlines that already own 787s are all eager to resume service, although the timing varies. United has scheduled its 787s to start flying domestic routes on May 31 and plans to begin international flights on June 10, from Denver to Tokyo and Houston to London. The airline will then fly its 787s in August from Houston to Lagos, as well as from Los Angeles to Shanghai and Tokyo.

LOT, the Polish national airline, plans to begin commercial 787 flights on June 5 between Warsaw and Chicago. Later, it expects to fly its planes to New York, Toronto and Beijing.

Air India said it hoped to have flights by mid-May. The other airlines that own 787s are Qatar Airlines and LAN of Chile.

But it is in Japan where the 787 has a particularly difficult task in winning back confidence. The Japanese public has been subject to intense coverage of what first appeared to be teething problems of Boeing’s next-generation 787 jet: a cracked cockpit window and a fuel leak.

Then a battery fire on a parked Japan Airlines jet in Boston in January, followed closely by a meltdown of batteries aboard a domestic All Nippon flight, catapulted the story into the nation’s top headlines.

The All Nippon incident, which prompted an emergency landing, has been particularly damaging to the 787’s image in Japan. All day, TV stations played footage of the incident, emergency chutes splayed on the tarmac, with testimony from distressed passengers to boot.

“I was terrified. I didn’t feel alive,” Masaaki Ishikawa, a 40-year-old office worker, told the Sankei newspaper at the time.

Now, some Japanese are understandably worried.

Boeing 787 at Boston Airport Returns to Gate After Fuel Leak

The 787 in the previous incident experienced an electrical fire Monday at Logan, said Richard Walsh, a Massport spokesman. That plane also was operated by Japan Airlines.

The plane leaking fuel had left the gate in preparation for takeoff on a flight to Tokyo when the spill of about 40 gallons was discovered, Walsh said. No fire or injuries occurred, he said.

The Dreamliner was towed back to the gate, where passengers disembarked and were waiting for a decision on the status of the flight, he said.

"The airline will make that determination," Walsh said.

A Japan Airlines spokeswoman, Carol Anderson, said the plane returned to the gate because of a mechanical issue, but said exact details were yet to be confirmed.

Boeing said it was aware of the issue and was working with its customer. Boeing stock dropped 3.8 percent to $73.24 in afternoon trading, following a 2 percent decline on Monday.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal, citing a source, reported that United Airlines found a wiring problem on one of its 787s, an issue that affects the same electrical system that caused the fire aboard a Japan Airlines 787 in Boston on Monday.

United spokeswoman Christen David said United inspected its 787s after the Boston fire incident, but she declined to discuss the findings, or to confirm the Journal report.

The Journal reported that the airline found improperly installed wiring in electrical components associated with the auxiliary power unit.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that the battery in the auxiliary power unit aboard the Japan Airlines jet had "severe fire damage" and that surrounding damage was limited to components and structures within about 20 inches. It said the power unit was operating when the fire was discovered.

The agency sent one investigator on Monday and added two more on Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing, the Japan Transport Safety Board and Japan Airlines also are involved in the probe.

The NTSB said Tuesday's fuel leak would not warrant an investigation because there was no accident.

The leak comes after the FAA in December ordered inspections of all 787s after fuel leaks were found on two aircraft operated by foreign airlines. The leaks stemmed from incorrectly assembled fuel line couplings, which could result in loss of power or an engine fire, the FAA said.

Walsh, the Massport spokesman, said the leak in Boston was noticed at 12:25 p.m. ET Tuesday, as JAL flight 007 was taxiing toward the runway for takeoff. Crews used an absorbent to soak up the spilled fuel, Walsh said.

Some analysts had raised concerns about Boeing's 787 after the electrical fire onboard the JAL jet on Monday. Today's fuel leak caused further alarm about the impact on public perception of Boeing and the Dreamliner.

"We're getting to a tipping point where they go from needing to rectify problems to doing major damage control to the image of the company and the plane," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense and aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia.

"While they delivered a large and unexpected number of 787s last year, it's possible that they should have instead focused on identifying glitches and flaws, rather than pushing ahead with volume production," he said.

Aboulafia said there is still no indication that the plane itself is flawed.

"It's just a question of how quickly they can get all the onboard technologies right, and whether or not the 787 and Boeing brands will be badly damaged," he said.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott in New York and Karen Jacobs in Atlanta.; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Cynthia Osterman, Andrew Hay and Gunna Dickson)

Former AUSA Returns to Head Northern District of California Civil Division

A veteran of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco has returned to federal government as the new chief of civil litigation.

Alex Tse, until recently a deputy city attorney for San Francisco, steps into the role long held by Joann Swanson, who retired September 28 after three decades in the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Tse joined the city attorney's office in 2007 and served as chief of neighborhood and resident safety. In 2010 he led a legal action to stop a guerilla marketing campaign on behalf of the online gaming company Zynga Inc. that left thousands of fake $25,000 bills glued to city sidewalks.

He previously spent 12 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and served as Swanson's deputy from 2001 to 2006. After graduating from UC-Hastings law school, Tse worked as an associate at the firm then known as Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges and then at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who got to know Tse when both were line attorneys in the office, said she is "delighted" with his return.

"If I had to lose my civil chief, who has done such a tremendous job, I feel fortunate that Alex was available to come back," Haag said.

Tse did not return a call seeking comment.

Ironically, a recent civil win for Swanson's division came in litigation against Tse's former office over postal delivery service to the city's single-room-occupancy hotels.

The San Francisco city attorney's office and tenants' rights groups sued the postal service to require delivery to individual mailboxes in the hotels, which serve as residences to many poor and disabled people. A federal judge dismissed the action last year.

Haag called the Northern District of California a popular venue for claims against the federal government and said Tse's caseload would be "interesting and varied."

She added: "The Civil Division here doesn't always get the attention that the Criminal Division does, but folks in our Civil Division do incredibly important work."