[U of C Irvine's Center for Virus Research director Luis P.] Villarreal predicts that, without an effective AIDS vaccine, nearly the entire population of Africa will eventually perish. "We can also expect at least a few humans to survive,'' he wrote. They would be people who have been infected with H.I.V. yet, for some reason, do not get sick. "These survivors would thus be left to repopulate the continent. However, the resulting human population would be distinct" from those whom H.I.V. makes sick.

Ad revenue for the New York Times Media Group decreased 2.9 percent from July 2006—which is actually not bad. Take the New England Media Group, where apparently the Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus in the Natick Mall have yet to open and save the world: Ad revenues are down 4.9 percent compared to last July. The bad news came from the Regional Media Group, whose ad revenues are down a cringe-worthy 10.9 percent, "mainly because of softness in home furnishing, home improvement and department store advertising. Classified advertising revenues decreased due to weakness in real estate, help-wanted and automotive advertising." Hi, Craigslist!

All of those numbers are marginally better than the June results, when the Times was down 3 percent, the New England Media Group was down 11.8 percent, and the Regional Media Group was down 12.2 percent.

The bright spot, as always, is Internet revenue, which grew 19.3 percent over last July. But while impressive, the rate of Internet growth is also slowing. In the second quarter, Internet revenue grew 23.4 percent; in June, Internet revenues were up 22 percent over last year.

We assume that a lot of that growth came from the About Group, whose ad revenues rose 34.7 percent in July (About's ad revenues are bundled into the calculations for the Internet group, but also broken out separately, presumably because they're a spot of good news). It seems that as the months go by, the company is looking for other, mostly online-based, ways to make money to support its sinking newspaper business. Bill Keller doesn't work for free, ya know! But now his salary is being paid by stuff like "What Not to Play At Your Wedding."

New York Times Company: Press Releases [NYT Co.]

The plan for Portfolio is 200,000 copies sold at the newsstand this year, according to a source at a competing publication (grain of salt taken!). This person also tells us that the first issue has, so far, sold 30,000 copies—although "these are like early returns in an election. The number could change." So 30K for this issue, when the next issue is due in August and monthly thereafter, according to the Times, might conceivably hit 200K. This source describes the situation this way: "I hear that Portfolio—given all the hype and hoopla—pretty much bombed at newsstand. Of course, when we all saw the issue we figured it would be weak, since it isn't newsstand tweaked AT ALL—like, say, the New Yorker—so obviously it's too early to declare victory. But Portfolio has got to be going into a major rethink."

A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman had this to say: "Portfolio has been on sale for less than a month, so it's really too soon to get a good read on it. However, some of our New York City stores have had great early sales." We like to read between the lines and wonder how the stores not in New York City did with it.

A Portfolio spokeswoman told us that it's "too early for any numbers." She added: "And just so you know, in general, we don't release any numbers." Sure. After all, why would a business magazine want to release anything like numbers? —Doree