Asia stocks gain after Fed official signals slow rate rises

BEIJING — Asian stocks rose Tuesday after Wall Street gained on a jump in crude prices and expectations the Federal Reserve will put off an interest rate hike until late in the year.

KEEPING SCORE: The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.8 percent to 3,933.49 and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 1.3 percent to 19,653.15. Taipei, Singapore, Jakarta and Bangkok also rose. Seoul's Kospi was steady at 2,047.11 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 climbed 1.1 percent to 5,961.10. Hong Kong was closed for a holiday.

U.S. ECONOMY: U.S. investors were reassured by a comment from William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve's New York branch, that rate increases will be "shallow." That helped to buoy sentiment that was dented by Friday's weak employment numbers.

ANALYST'S TAKE: Dudley's comment that a negative reaction by stock markets to an interest rate hike would "slow us down" was confirmation the Fed has used monetary policy to create a "wealth effect," said Evan Lucas of IG Markets in a report. "It's a simple idea: make people feel wealthier and they will consume more," Lucas said. "It is why the market is pricing in an October move and why most now believe, as Mr Dudley himself stated, that the rate rise will be shallow."

WALL STREET: A jump in the price of U.S. crude set off a rally in energy stocks. Transocean, an operator of drilling rigs, soared 10 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 13.66 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 2,080.62. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 117.61 points, or 0.7 percent, to 17,880.85, and the Nasdaq composite rose 30.38 points, or 0.6 percent, to 4,917.32.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude sank 35 cents to $51.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained $1 on Monday to close at $52.14. Brent crude, used to price international oils, shed 57 cents to $57.55 per barrel in London after soaring $3.17 on Monday to $58.12.

CURRENCY: The dollar gained to 119.64 yen from Monday's 119.48 yen. The euro edged up to $1.0941 from the previous session's $1.0937.

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Business Protocol: In the office, just say ‘no’ to being like Joe Biden

Don't be the office Joe Biden.

Too much touching can land you in the human resources office faster than you can say, "Give me a hug."

The trend of having more open workspaces with big kitchens, free food and lots of "team spirit" doesn't mean you can intrude on personal space.

Colleagues still need their comfort zones. Biden felt the heat recently for getting too close to Stephanie Carter, the wife of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Nuzzling her neck from behind while grabbing her shoulders was, well, invading her space.

Comfort zones change from country to country, culture to culture, and there are different office cultures. For example, a Silicon Valley startup might encourage lighthearted casual physical contact versus a more professional setting in, say, a buttoned-down investment firm.

Generally speaking, we here in the U.S. prefer one arm's length distance for our comfort zone, while those in England prefer more like two arms' lengths of distance, and those in Asia and Arab countries prefer more like three arm's lengths of distance for their comfort zone. Latin countries prefer more like 3 inches. (American businesswomen: Please be aware of this. It's just their way.)

Remember, the all-embracing goal in business is to get to know, like and then trust. You need to earn the right to cross that line to kiss, hug and embrace and (technically) violate unspoken boundaries of personal space.

Be careful, as some advances are unwanted, and sexual harassment issues are real. Be conscious of this and condition yourself to read body language before it's too late.

If the action is already underway, go with it — you can't really push them away. Also, especially go with it after a big project completion, huge sale, a major life announcement or a personal loss.

Here's how to avoid unwanted intimacy:

• Take Control. Extend a rigid handshake to keep someone at arm's length.

• Just say you're not a touchy person.

• Maintain a barrier — a desk, even a portfolio — until the moment passes.

If you must, here's how to embrace, safely:

• Ask for a "big hug" and just give a warm squeeze.

•   Don't close your eyes.

•   Don't hug from behind.

Just ask Joe Biden how breaking that rule went.

Judith Bowman is president and founder of Protocol Consultants International and author of "Don't Take the Last Donut: New rules of Business Etiquette" and "How to Stand Apart @ Work … Transforming 'Fine' to Fabulous!" Email her at Judith
@protocolconsultants.com.

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Discredited rape story a test for Wenner, Rolling Stone

NEW YORK — Through decades of digging into the private lives of rock stars and providing a forum for colorful writers like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke, Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner has never been afraid to push boundaries.

Now Wenner, who founded the magazine as a 20-year-old college dropout, is weathering the stiffest test of Rolling Stone's credibility that the magazine has faced in its 48-year history.

On Sunday, the magazine retracted last November's story on sexual assault at the University of Virginia in advance of the release of a damning Columbia University report about its reporting and editing, and on Monday, a fraternity named in the story threatened a lawsuit.

The magazine also faced criticism Monday for what some critics deemed a muted response to the problems outlined in Columbia's exhaustive report.

The sharply funny O'Rourke, who worked at Rolling Stone from 1985 to 2000, said he found the editing and fact-checking there to be as rigorous as the legendarily tough New Yorker magazine.

"When Hunter S. Thompson dies and I leave, and the factual reliability of a publication goes down, there must be something wrong with modern media," he said.

Rolling Stone's unique niche in magazines was an outgrowth of Wenner's interests, a mixture of authoritative music and cultural coverage with tough investigative reporting, usually from a liberal world view. The magazine's circulation of just under 1.5 million copies an issue has been consistent over the past three years, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

The music coverage now bears the hallmark of a clumsy 50-year-old struggling to stay hip. Cover subjects can range wildly from Miley Cyrus and Kanye West to Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr as Rolling Stone tries to cater to all tastes.

Specialty websites like Pitchfork offer sharper music coverage. Like many media organizations founded in a different era, Rolling Stone has struggled to become an influential online presence, said veteran music writer Alan Light, a former Rolling Stone employee and still occasional contributor.

Yet the magazine has survived and thrived as once-hip competitors Spin, Vibe and Blender fell out of publishing.

The music coverage coexists with the long-form journalism, from Thompson's drug-fueled political coverage to an investigative report that forced the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2010. Rolling Stone has aggressively covered climate change and the impact of money in politics. The Virginia story had an immediate impact: Its 2.7 million online views were more than any non-celebrity story the magazine ever published.

The Columbia report criticized Rolling Stone for failing to establish that a man accused of orchestrating a fraternity house gang rape even existed, failing to contact the accuser's friends and not pushing hard to investigate information that might contradict its narrative.

The episode doesn't erase Rolling Stone's legacy, but it's a significant blow, Light said.

"Obviously the greatest risk is that this becomes so associated with their name and this kind of a story," he said. "It's bad for everyone — it's bad for the magazine, it's bad for the readers, it's bad for the issue that they were setting out to address in the first place."

Like many publications, Rolling Stone has suffered with the online explosion. Its editorial staff, not including people working in art and photo, has dropped by 25 percent since 2008, according to the Columbia report. But the examination said Rolling Stone's failures in the Virginia story had nothing to do with being short-staffed.

The magazine's managing editor, Will Dana, took responsibility for the retracted story, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. In a note to readers — Rolling Stone published the full Columbia report on its website — Dana called it painful reading and said the magazine was committing itself to a series of recommendations about improved journalistic practices that was recommended.

At least initially, no one — Dana, Erdely or Sean Woods, the principal editor on the story — lost their jobs. That has surprised many long-time observers of Wenner, who's been known for having a quick trigger finger for employees who don't meet his standards, and speaks to his respect for veteran employees Dana and Woods.

Asked at a news conference on Monday about whether he thought the incident should cost someone their job, Columbia University School of Journalism Dean Steve Coll, one of three authors of the report, declined to offer his opinion, saying he didn't know the work of the journalists involved beyond the one story.

"We're not the D.A.'s office," Coll said. "We're not a special prosecutor."

It's a tough call, since there's no evidence the journalists involved were intentionally deceitful, said Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute. The initial response suggests Rolling Stone is putting its own self-interest ahead of its readers, she said.

"That's a completely reasonable management reaction to this," she said. "But you also have to look at what the audience needs to trust you."

Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi journalism professor who publishes an annual guide to consumer magazines, said it was a master stroke by Wenner to invite Columbia in to investigate Rolling Stone's practices.

"It takes guts to apologize for everything that has gone down," Husni said. "The only person that can save Rolling Stone is Jann Wenner. By going outside and doing what he did, he was able to contain the story."

The lasting damage may be if Rolling Stone decides to pull back from investigative pieces. It already feels that this has happened to a certain extent while the magazine waited for the Columbia report to come out, said Aileen Gallagher, an assistant professor in the magazine department at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Wenner, 69, is at the stage of his career where legacy is an important issue. New York magazine writer Joe Hagan recently signed to write a biography, with Wenner's cooperation, to coincide with the magazine's 50th anniversary. Wenner's son Gus is a potential successor at the company that also includes Us Weekly and Men's Journal, works at Rolling Stone if his father opts to leave things in the family.

Gallagher said that ultimately, writer Erdely's career will suffer more than Rolling Stone as an institution.

"The writer always takes the heat for these things," she said. "The magazines do at the beginning, they apologize and lessons are learned. Are people not going to read Rolling Stone anymore? I don't think so."

___

Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder

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Rolling Stone rape story discredited, retracted

A belated Rolling Stone retraction of its controversial University of Virginia rape article — published yesterday with a Columbia University report that called it "avoidable" — opens the door to legal damage claims and raises questions about how the university handled the situation, media watchers and victim advocates said.

"If I was that fraternity, I'd have a lot of big legal offices on my speed dial and I would just be teeing them up," said Tobe Berkovitz, a media expert at Boston University. "The University of Virginia is, I think, also responsible for not thoroughly investigating and sort of going beyond what would be responsible for an administration to make sure that justice is served. I think they have failed on pretty much every level."

The report released last night by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism called the story behind the article "A Rape on Campus," published in Rolling Stone last November, a "story of journalistic failure that was avoidable."

"The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking," said the report, which was posted on the magazine's website, accompanied by an apology from Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana, who also announced that the publication was officially retracting the story.

The article focused on a student identified only as "Jackie" who said she was raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house more than two years earlier. Police, who received no cooperation from Jackie, found no evidence to support the claims.

The report found that people Jackie offered to corroborate her story weren't interviewed, and cast serious doubts on Jackie's claims when located and interviewed by Columbia's researchers.

"If these stories are going to be written about, then they have to based on facts. I don't think it does anybody any favors if they're not," said Laurie Meyers, founder of Community VOICES, a victim advocate group who has extensive experience counseling rape victims. "But on the other side of it, as a person who works with victims ... most often they did not want to go and file a police report, so there was never documentation there. But did it mean to me that they weren't sexually assaulted? No, and it was my job to assist them. I don't even know what to say at this point."

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who was critical of the Rolling Stone story, said "all the results of this story are bad."

"On the one hand, women who are actually raped are going to find that people are going to be much more skeptical of them because they have seen yet another lurid campus rape story explode," Reynolds said. "Second of all, it has tarred men as presumptive rapists on campus, particularly fraternities, and that created greater gender divisions. Even though this story has collapsed, that division will probably remain."

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Mophie shows power 
with supplemental battery

Mophie Powerstation Plus 2X ($79.95 and up, various retailers)

Now that you might actually want to venture outdoors for more than a millisecond, you might consider a supplemental battery for your smartphone or tablet. There are tons of external batteries on the market, and Mophie has the best reputation around.

The good: This slim, compact power station features two cable choices: a Micro USB or Lightning cable for Apple users. It is also available in higher capacities of up to 8X battery life, but that comes with more bulk and a higher price tag.

The bad: The price is a bit on the high end.

The bottom line: At this price, you're paying for the reliability that comes with a Mophie. The Powerstation Plus delivers as a consistent supplemental battery device.

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Watch war: Apple smartwatch entries available for pre-order at week-end

The smartwatch wars kick off in earnest this week as Apple's hotly anticipated new wrist candy becomes available for pre-order on Friday, setting the stage for the latest arm-wrestling match between Android and iOS.

The Apple Watch debut provides the first real litmus test for smartwatches: Will Baby Boomers — who remember a time when having a watch was as crucial as having a toothbrush — embrace this reimagined version of the relic that does much more than just tell time? Will Millennials, who never lived in a world where watches were necessary, find them novel, trendy — maybe even ironic enough to be cool? And will the richest few who still regard high-end watches as a status symbol be impressed enough with Apple's design chops to make the investment?

Apple has a lot riding on the answer to all three key questions being an emphatic "yes," having designed an unprecedented 20 models of its Apple Watch, which come in two sizes and start at $349 for the "Sport" version. The "Apple Watch Edition" costs an eye-popping $12,000 for the 42 mm, 18-karat rose gold version, signaling a bold play for the market of bejeweled luxury timepieces.

So while both Apple and Android-makers battle for hearts and wrists, only Apple has essentially expanded into the business of selling jewelry. It shouldn't surprise anyone if Apple Stores take on a look similar to Tiffany & Co. on April 24, when watches finally ship and become available.

On the Android side, Samsung has had its foot on the gas for well over a year, churning out the Galaxy Gear, Gear 2, Gear Fit, Gear 2 Neo, Gear S and Gear Live. Each successive smartwatch from Samsung has its own niche. And to an extent, its panoptic strategy to pre-empt Apple has paid off, resulting in a respectable 1.2 million smartwatches sold in the U.S. in 2014. But analysts say Apple could sell millions of its watches in the first month alone.

Samsung is taking a wait-and-see approach to the Apple debut. With no public plans for a new Gear model on tap, Samsung wants to see how the market evolves and expands this month.

The newest Samsung watches have a healthy stable of apps, voice recognition and the ability to make calls and answer them. Kickstarter-enabled Pebble also remains a player, with the Pebble Time Steel bearing a striking resemblance to the Apple Watch and boasting a seven-day battery compared to Apple's 18 hours of power. And the Pebble works with iOS and Android devices, while the Apple Watch is a closed platform.

Some companies have decided the only way to win the smartwatch wars is not to play. The highly reviewed Microsoft Band is much more function over form, and unmistakably a band. And successful manufacturers of fitness-tracking devices like Jawbone and Nike don't appear to be switching up their formula of focused wellness devices anytime soon, and Apple is probably hoping to peel off some of those customers this week.

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Area hospital to use new security device

Newton-Wellesley Hospital will be rolling out new, non-lethal devices for its security staff in the coming weeks, as hospitals across the country have seen an increase in violent attacks by patients.

"As the services in the community decrease, more folks turn to the emergency room for their needs," said Dave Corbin, director of public safety at Newton-Wellesley. "(Hospitals are) all saying we're seeing more violence, and if any hospital turns around and says they're immune to it, they're either in the middle of nowhere or they're lying. It's certainly a trend across health care."

Violent crime in U.S. hospitals increased by 25 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to an International Healthcare Security and Safety Foundation report, and disorderly conduct has increased by 40 percent over the same time period. In January, a cardiovascular surgeon was shot and killed in his office at Brigham and Women's Hospital by the son of a former patient.

Newton-Wellesley is training its officers to use the Pro V2, a high-tech device designed specifically for security staff.

"It was built with this layered defense concept in mind, as the situation intensifies it is able to escalate and meet that threat, without getting carried away," said Paul Hughes, chief operating officer for Guardian 8, an Arizona-based company that sells the devices.

Guardian 8 will be at the ASIS International Boston Security Expo 2015 on Thursday in Boxboro to show off the Pro V2.

The Pro V2 has three phases to respond to escalating threats.

The first phase simply records audio and video — Newton-Wellesley will only record video thanks to the state's wiretapping laws. The second stage emits a strobe light and a siren, intended to catch an aggressive person off-guard. The last phase shoots a concentrated stream of pepper spray, which the company says is more reliable and precise than traditional pepper spray canisters.

"This is purely a defensive tool," Hughes said.

Corbin said the decision to use the device was not based on a single incident, but was part of a regular evaluation of the hospital security practices. Newton-Wellesley had planned to get pepper spray canisters for its security staff, but decided the Pro V2 was a better fit for the hospital.

"It takes the old-school pepper spray can, which is a dumb device," Corbin said, "and wraps it in technology."

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5 years after coal mine blast, explosion risks persist

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The nation's worst coal mine disaster in decades exposed lax safety measures at some Appalachian mines, issues that persist five years later despite the crackdown that followed, according to an Associated Press review of federal inspection records.

Excess methane gas and flammable coal dust fueled a fireball that raced through the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia on April 5, 2010, killing 29 men. The explosion and mass casualties rocked the mining community, which had just recorded its safest year ever in coal mines.

The revelation that inspectors repeatedly had cited the mine for buildups of coal dust and methane, with little disruption to the mine's operations, drove calls for greater accountability. Federal authorities responded by stiffening safety rules, stepping up inspection raids and going after company higher-ups.

Prosecutors have won four convictions against former officials at Massey Energy, the company that owned Upper Big Branch, and secured a rare indictment on conspiracy charges against Don Blankenship, the former CEO. He has pleaded not guilty and is set for trial April 20.

In 2014, the nation again set a new low for coal mining deaths — 16 — in part because about a hundred underground mines have closed in West Virginia and Kentucky over the last five years as the energy industry has moved away from Appalachian coal.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration also credits its revamped approach to inspections. After Upper Big Branch, MSHA began sending teams of inspectors to target problem mines, many of them underground operations in West Virginia and Kentucky, which are still home to nearly half of the nation's coal mines. Federal inspectors have written nearly 14,000 citations during those visits, called impact inspections.

MSHA chief Joe Main has said the increased enforcement has reduced serious violations that could lead to injury or death by about 60 percent in mines that MSHA has kept a close watch over since 2010.

Yet some mines consistently fail to follow rules meant to curb explosion risks, including some owned by the company that took over Massey's operations.

In January, federal officials found excess methane and coal dust at Mill Branch Coal Corp.'s Osaka mine in Wise County, Virginia. The mine is owned by Alpha Natural Resources, which bought Massey's mines in 2011. During the visit, inspectors pulled miners out of two working sections, temporarily shutting down production. The January visit to Osaka was the fifth impact inspection at the mine.

At another Wise County mine in November, inspectors found 2-foot deep accumulations of combustible materials and coal dust in working areas of Regent Allied Carbon Energy's No. 2 mine. MSHA ordered the belt lines shut down since the mine had not followed an approved ventilation plan, and officials noted that the water supply to sprayers that suppress coal dust were not turned on.

A worker at the Regent Allied mine referred questions to company president Ervin Stiltner, but calls to two numbers listed in his name were not answered.

MSHA named six more mines in an August report that have had repeated problems meeting ventilation and dust control standards since Upper Big Branch. Five are in West Virginia and one is in eastern Kentucky.

"You just have to shake your head and wonder what in the world are these mines doing?" said Celeste Monforton, a former MSHA official and a member of a special investigative panel that compiled a report on Upper Big Branch for the West Virginia governor.

The fact that some mine operators continue to create conditions similar to those at Upper Big Branch should "really send chills up peoples' spines, knowing that these situations are still occurring," she said.

As with many regulatory agencies, MSHA's enforcement powers are limited. It can levy fines and temporarily shut down a mine, but getting a mine closed for good requires asking a federal judge. MSHA has almost never taken it that far.

MSHA chief Joe Main declined to comment, with an agency spokeswoman citing Blankenship's approaching trial.

Data provided by MSHA indicates a crackdown in West Virginia on ventilation and combustible material problems after Upper Big Branch. Federal inspectors wrote an average of about 700 more of those citations annually from 2010 to 2014 than they did in the five years before the tragic explosion. West Virginia has about 30 fewer underground coal mines operating today than in 2010. For all U.S. coal mines, those same types of citations and orders decreased after Upper Big Branch, as MSHA wrote about 1,500 fewer per year from 2010 to 2014 compared to the five years before.

Other mines found to have explosion risks have recently shown safety improvements.

Another Alpha-owned operation, the Camp Creek underground mine in Wayne County, West Virginia, had been cited 64 times in the last two years for failing to follow its ventilation plan, MSHA said last year. The vent plan is designed to keep air moving and flammable gas from concentrating underground.

Bristol, Virginia-based Alpha said that Mill Branch and Rocksprings Development, which runs the Camp Creek mine, addressed the problems found during the impact inspections. A follow-up impact inspection in November at the Camp Creek mine, a huge operation with 400 employees, ended with three citations, an improvement over the problems found in August.

"Alpha's affiliated operations receive mine inspections almost daily and take nothing more seriously than safety," the company said in an email to the AP.

After acquiring Massey's mines, Alpha agreed in 2011 to pay $210 million to compensate the victims' families, pay for safety improvements and settle years of Massey fines.

The ventilation plan problems cited in recent inspections were also a problem at Upper Big Branch, as contaminated air stagnated where miners worked. Gas in the mine forced workers out from underground the day before the explosion, Pam Napper recalled. She got a call from her son Josh that day, after he left the mine.

"I could just tell he was really thinking about something really hard," Napper said. "Apparently he knew something was going on but he wasn't sure what it was all about."

The next day, sparks from machinery cutting into rock ignited gas in the mine. Water sprays on the machinery were defective, meaning the flame wasn't immediately put out. The fiery blast moved through the mine, growing as it touched flammable coal dust that had built up in underground shafts.

When it was over, Josh Napper and 28 other miners were dead.

It was a staggering number, the highest death toll in an American mine since 1970.

Three hundred feet underground when it happened, Stanley "Goose" Stewart later recalled trying to revive some of his fallen co-workers, then covering their bodies with blankets, their faces obscured by black soot.

"It's always in the back of your head, and often times it comes to the front of your head," said Stewart, who retired shortly after.

The mine, he told Congress during an investigation, was a "ticking time bomb."

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Verizon to contribute total of $1.5M to three local startups

Three local startups will receive a total of $1.5 million this month as winners of Verizon's Powerful Answers Award.

Vaxess Technologies of Cambridge will receive $1 million, and Aldatu Biosciences and School Yourself, both of Boston, will each receive $250,000 at the Saturday grand opening of Verizon's Boylston Street store for their part in a challenge that encourages entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions in education, health care, sustainability and transportation.

"These winners were chosen by panels of industry experts based on their ability to leverage cutting-edge technology to create solutions that deliver social good," said Michael Murphy, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless New England.

Each year, about 2.4 million people around the world die from vaccine-preventable diseases. And every vaccine on the market has to be either refrigerated or frozen. Vaxess Technologies hopes to either eliminate the need for refrigeration — or expand the range of temperatures at which vaccines could be kept — by combining them with fibroin, a protein found in silk, via the work of Tufts University researchers David Kaplan and Fiorenzo Omenetto.

"The nice thing about the (Verizon) money is that it allows us to pursue vaccine candidates, such as ones for polio, that will be very impactful from a global health standpoint," said CEO Michael Schrader, who co-founded Vaxess in 2012.

Eventually, the company may also use the same silk protein to make orthopedic screws, instead of titanium ones, that could dissolve in the body over time, as well as a micro-needle patch, similar to a postage-stamp-sized piece of velcro, that could be used for drug delivery, eliminating the need for a needle and a syringe, Schrader said.

Aldatu Biosciences will use its award money to help grow the company as it prepares to move to Cambridge and develops a kit to detect HIV drug-resistance in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"It will not only improve health outcomes, but it will also help health care systems save money," said Iain MacLeod, Aldatu's co-founder and chief scientific officer.

The company hopes to start a clinical trial in Botswana by the end of this year, MacLeod said.

School Yourself, an online learning platform developed by MIT alumni Zach Wissner-Gross and John Lee, this spring launched AlgebraX and GeometryX, which have become the highest-rated interactive math courses on edX, with a combined 25,000 students enrolled.

"Personally, I think how a scrappy, four-person startup, rather than a huge university with unlimited resources, has created the top two math MOOCs (massive open online courses) is an interesting story," said Wissner-Gross, School Yourself's CEO. "We'll be using the prize money to release a public version of the powerful authoring tools we developed along the way, so that anyone can make interactive, personalized lessons like ours."

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Benz with 449 hp is a head-turner

Here's what a friend of mine had to say about the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S550 4­Matic Coupe: "It looks like it's going 100 mph sitting still!"

This handsome and fast coupe's interior is elegantly trimmed in "Designo" Napa leather with piano black lacquer solid surfaces and is a dream to drive. Whether set in the Econ/Comfort or performance-minded Sport mode, the S550 — formerly badged the CL — is lightning-quick and exquisitely precise.

The front seats automatically adjust as you swing through turns, keeping you and your passenger snug in the racing-inspired leather. The front seats also electronically slide forward, revealing a smallish back seat. Although it's more than a two-seater, folks in the back might be a bit squeezed. The panoramic sunroof gives the cabin an airy feeling but maintains the feline shape and slick aerodynamics of the body.

Powered by a 449-hp V­8 4.7-liter twin turbo and mated to a silky smooth seven-speed automatic transmission, the Mercedes­-Benz powers from a stop and has plenty extra when you boot the sport-styled accelerator pedal looking to move through traffic. Reset the driving mode to Sport and you feel the air-suspension stiffen and the shift-points change to make this a formidable full-sized grand tourer.

Don't mistake the S550 for a lithe sports car, though this more than 4,500-pound machine is only eight inches shorter than the full four-door sedan it shares the class with.

The all-wheel-drive melds the car to the road, providing you a sense of complete control and confidence in the car. Sweeping on and off ramps, the S550 flattens out nicely, so maintaining a good head of steam through them is a snap. Rain and wet roads are no issue and snowy terrain is easily handled with winter-mounted 
Pirelli performance snow tires. And the accurate and sure braking keeps this two-door safely grounded.

Speaking of safety, the S550 has a full array of sensors and alerts to help keep you in your lane, awake at the wheel and at an appropriate distance from cars in front of and behind you. Bird's-eye, front and rear cameras, head's-up display and blind-spot monitors help you pilot the Mercedes free and clear of danger.

Despite what appears to be a daunting electronic display, managing your listening needs, navigation and Bluetooth integration is straightforward and simple. The "Command" system only takes a short time to learn and with audible and steering wheel controls, in addition to a center stack mouse and controller wheel, setting your favorites is quick and pain-free. Cellphone integration is a one-click setup and there's no need to raise your voice to talk. The whisper-quiet interior is only interrupted when you ask the beefy engine to get going, but the reward is a gutsy roar that settles into a dynamic hum even at highway speeds.

I took it on a coast run to Portland, Maine, in Econ mode and got a reasonable 24 mpg while managing about 16 in local driving. It loves super high test gas but only requires 91 octane to keep the fuel lines happy.

With all the technology, creature comforts, craftsmanship and performance, this classy car has a delivered MSRP of $149,875 and competes in class with the BMW 6 Series and Bentley GT.

Sadly, I had to turn the test car back in, and they had to pry the key from my fingers.

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