Gap

PHILADELPHIA - You often hear players say that it's more rewarding to win with defense than with a big hit or a big pitching performance. So little is made of great defense, but the Red Sox won Saturday night's game because Ryan Sweeney made a great catch in the gap in right-center field to rob Carlos Ruiz of extra bases in the seventh inning and prevent two runs from scoring. The Sox led, 7-4, at the time and eventually won, 7-5. When the Sox had their players-only meeting some 10 days ago, one of the things discussed was playing all out, all the time, doing your respective part to contribute to winning.

A day after Mitt Romney addressed the Latino Coalition , the presumptive Republican nominee released a second Spanish-language ad outlining the agenda for his first day in office. But Romney's attempts to court Latino voters -- with whom he is unpopular -- appear half-hearted, according to some observers. The ads indicate Romney's early to-do list does not include immigration reform, a subject he also ignored Wednesday when speaking to Latino business owners at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

It's late on a recent Friday afternoon when Jeffrey Fortunato, who performs as Moufy (pronounced Mao-Fee), arrives at the Christian Science Center in Back Bay. The sun is quickly fading behind the buildings and security staff are patrolling, meaning he and his two-person photography crew have to work quickly to record some footage for "Boston Lights," the first video from his mixtape of the same name. Moving over to the reflecting pool, the cameraman points at Moufy as he switches on to perform.

PHILADELPHIA - You often hear players say that it's more rewarding to win with defense than with a big hit or a big pitching performance. So little is made of great defense, but the Red Sox won Saturday night's game because Ryan Sweeney made a great catch in the gap in right-center field to rob Carlos Ruiz of extra bases in the seventh inning and prevent two runs from scoring. The Sox led, 7-4, at the time and eventually won, 7-5. When the Sox had their players-only meeting some 10 days ago, one of the things discussed was playing all out, all the time, doing your respective part to...

The largest US apparel chain reported that sales at its stores open more than one year fell 6 percent, more than the 3.9 percent decline analysts had estimated. The San Francisco company's stock declined 3 percent, the most since Aug. 18. Gap Inc., which has long been struggling with a sales malaise, said the declines were across all its brands, including its namesake stores, Banana Republic, and Old Navy.

Gap Inc. is betting big on China, announcing plans to triple the number of its namesake stores in that region by the end of next year. The company will have opened about 15 stores by year-end and plans to have a total of 45 by the end of 2012. The clothing chain said Thursday that it's on track to reduce its overall square footage by 10 percent by fiscal 2012, when compared with 2007. That includes shrinking space at its namesake stores in North America by 34 percent, resulting in a total of 700 Gap locations by the end of 2013.

FOXBOROUGH - Like many teams, the Patriots have generally followed a three-step process that has contributed to their winning ways in recent years. First, they focus intensely on their breakdowns and areas that gave them the most trouble. Then they identify why it happened and practice it. The final step is making those corrections on the field in the next game. At this point, the Patriots are in the midst of Step 2. It didn't take them long to pinpoint run defense as the primary trouble spot in Monday night's win over the Ravens.

At a recent joint meeting with the Finance Committee, the School Committee adopted a proposed budget of $16.3 million for next fiscal year. The two boards then discussed several options for presenting a balanced budget to Town Meeting in May, which will require finding a way to deal with a $386,461 shortfall based on the Finance Committee's projections. Options under discussion include dipping into school reserves, increasing school user fees, cutting the school budget, or finding cuts in the municipal operations.

Declaring the American dream under siege, President Barack Obama delivered a populist challenge Tuesday night to shrink the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes. Seeking re-election and needing results, the president invited Republicans to join him but warned, "I intend to fight. " In an emphatic State of the Union address, Obama said ensuring a fair shot for all Americans is "the defining issue of our time.

U.S. clothing giant GAP Inc. says it is opening it first stores in southern Africa less than six months after it entered northern markets in Egypt and Morocco. GAP said in a statement that store franchises were opening in Johannesburg on Monday and Cape Town on Tuesday as the "next step in our expansion on the continent. " It said several other new international markets are planned for this year. GAP already has 180 franchise stores in 25 countries and expects to double that to about 400 stores by 2014.

PHILADELPHIA - You often hear players say that it's more rewarding to win with defense than with a big hit or a big pitching performance. So little is made of great defense, but the Red Sox won Saturday night's game because Ryan Sweeney made a great catch in the gap in right-center field to rob Carlos Ruiz of extra bases in the seventh inning and prevent two runs from scoring. The Sox led, 7-4, at the time and eventually won, 7-5. When the Sox had their players-only meeting some 10 days ago, one of the things discussed was playing all out, all the time, doing your respective part to contribute to winning.

Federal officials are auditing Roxbury Community College for suspected lapses in its reporting of crimes committed on campus - the latest in a series of controversies for college president Terrence Gomes. Officials with the US Department of Education were expected to arrive on campus Tuesday seeking to find out why the college has failed to report serious allegations of crimes on campus. The officials have unofficially learned of at least three reports by students of such crimes, including sexual assault, over the past several years, according...

Besides trying to translate a cartoon movie into a theatrical production, promoter Michael Cohl had other concerns about bringing "How To Train Your Dragon" to the stage — like keeping the audience from being set ablaze. "When you try to make a dragon with a 40-foot wingspan fly and shoot down fire and not burn the audience and not burn the other dragons in the show so you don't have to throw one out every night, that's a challenge," said Cohl in a phone interview on Wednesday.

RE "Massachusetts schools: Time to talk about special ed" (Editorial, April 26): As the parent of a special-needs child who went through the public school system and since has graduated from college, the one piece of advice I consistently heard from parents whose children were a few years farther along in the system than my daughter was "Fight, fight, fight, and never stop fighting for the rights of your child. " These turned out to be valuable words of advice to our family ­— so valuable that, as a result of following them, my daughter eventually...

There is nothing new under the sun, including politicians who seek to win votes by milking the gap between rich and poor. Today it's Barack Obama, demanding a "Buffett rule" and decrying the harm caused when "the gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider. " Not so long ago it was John Edwards, intent on riding his "Two Americas" stump speech ("One America does the work while another America reaps the reward") all the way to the White House.

Mitt Romney's boast that he closed a $3 billion budget gap as Massachusetts governor without raising taxes is a cornerstone of his White House campaign, a way to highlight his pitch for lower taxes and leaner government in a race where federal budget deficits and the slumping economy are hot issues. What he rarely mentions is how he did it. The presumptive Republican nominee and Democratic state lawmakers raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cash-strapped state coffers by approving new and higher fees on everything from marriage licenses to real estate transactions to gun...

The largest US specialty apparel chain is bringing back former executive Tracy Gardner, who left in 2004 for J. Crew Group. She will be an adviser at the company's creative center in New York in an attempt to turn around the women's business. Gap's December same-store sales fell 4 percent. Gardner, said Dorothy Lakner, at Caris & Co., "was widely regarded as having a hand in the past success of both Gap and J. Crew. " The stock rose the most since Nov. 30.

WASHINGTON - Secret Service agents are often portrayed in popular culture as disciplined, unflappable, loyal - and male. A spiraling prostitution scandal that has highlighted the dearth of women in the agency that protects the president and dignitaries has many wondering: Would more females in the ranks prevent future dishonor? Only about a tenth of field agents and uniformed officers are women, a shortage some attribute to travel demands that can be especially taxing on women balancing families and careers.

Likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has closed the gap between himself and President Obama, pulling into a tie among registered voters, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed Wednesday. A month after he trailed the president, 47 percent to 44 percent, Romney is now in a 46-46 deadlock with Obama. The biggest boon for Romney, the survey showed, was the exit of his toughest GOP challenger, Rick Santorum. With the former senator from Pennsylvania out of the race, 54 percent of Republican primary voters say they want Romney to be the party's...