Babson College

It was standing-room only in the lobby of Anaheim City Hall, with civic leaders and baseball executives gathering for a celebratory news conference. The Walt Disney Co. had agreed to buy the Angels, keep them in town for decades and pay for most of an ambitious and costly stadium renovation. And, as city officials happily noted on that sunny afternoon in 1996, their team no longer would be known as the California Angels.

Responding to the lure of discounts and promotions, cautious consumers flocked to stores nationwide Friday to determine if the early bird gets the bargain, but many ended up being only window-shoppers. On what is traditionally the launch to the holiday shopping season, sales were fairly strong across much of the nation, but business was not as brisk as last year--a sign that consumers are increasingly holding out for end-of-the-season sales.

Since she was 13, electroplating dipsticks for U.S. Army tanks in the basement of her family's Wisconsin home, Tiffany S. Haugen has been intrigued with small businesses and innovative operations. Her parents founded 8-K Finishing Co. as a way for their eight children to work after school and earn money for college. The 8-K stood for "eight kids."

Julian Sirull is restless. He wants to be an elected official in the hurly-burly of public life. Instead, he sells commercial insurance. He loves the outdoors, where he can meet people and discuss current events. But he spends his days in an office staring at a computer screen, answering phone calls. Sirull's political aspirations aren't just Walter Mitty-ish fantasy. He ran for the California Assembly in 1994 against incumbent Debra Bowen in the South Bay.

John Sculley, the soft-drink marketeer turned high-tech executive who led Apple Computer through 10 years of explosive growth, said Friday he has stepped down as chief executive. His replacement is Apple President and Chief Operating Officer Michael H. Spindler, who has been running the company on a day-to-day basis for some time. Sculley will remain chairman.

OK, so the guy sitting next to you conducts every phone conversation as if he were in a hurricane. So the boss doesn't even nod back when you wish her a good morning. So all the folks in your department dip into the Kleenex box on your desk when they have the sniffles and not one of them has ever bought you a new box. So what? These are just petty workplace grievances, and everybody has to endure a certain amount of rudeness, right? Wrong.

While much of the nation shivered in cold, snowy weather Friday, Orange County residents took advantage of balmy weather to hit the malls in search of holiday bargains. Brisk afternoon business at local shopping centers prompted recession-weary retailers to declare an end to the economic slump that has held down sales during holiday seasons recently past. "There's a line 10 people deep at the Orange Julius," said Julie Garvey, manager of Leah's Fabric Gallery at Mission Viejo Mall.

An innovative experiment by the Japanese government to unlock the secret of America's entrepreneurial energies has gotten off to a rocky start. By placing a handful of their most promising high-tech start-ups in American business incubators for several years of intensive parenting, the Japanese hoped to pick up some tips on high-tech nurturing and, with luck, grow the world's next technology giant-killer.

In an auditorium on America Online's rolling campus, a glorious expanse of the heavens is projected on a big screen. Reggie Evans, a former Redskin running back turned emissary of Christ, has come to spread the Holy Word in the secular corridors of one of the biggest, richest Internet companies in the world. He has brought along some football cards and a stack of Bibles. About 75 Christian workers listen raptly as Evans advises them to carry out their work as if Jesus were sitting next to them.

As Exhibit A for the thesis that money, especially on Wall Street, sometimes buys nothing but problems, let us introduce the two Peter N. Brants. The Peter Brant on display the last two weeks as chief prosecution witness in the stock-fraud trial of former Wall Street Journal reporter R. Foster Winans is a very different man from the one known to many of his older friends and clients and to Winans himself.