Dec
31

Tentative Accord Reached to Raise Taxes on Wealthy

Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived for a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats on Monday evening. WASHINGTON — Furious last-minute negotiations between the White House and the Senate Republican leadership on Monday secured a tentative agreement to allow tax rates to rise on affluent Americans, but the measure was not going to pass in time for Congress to meet...
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Letters: Recovery After Trauma

To the Editor: Re “A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress” (Mind, Dec. 25): Social contexts are well-established predictors of adjustment following trauma. Sexual abuse survivors who are believed and supported following an abuse disclosure fare better than those who are not, and returning veterans’ social support predicts P.T.S.D. over and above the extent of military trauma exposure....
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Letters: Recovery After Trauma

To the Editor: Re “A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress” (Mind, Dec. 25): Social contexts are well-established predictors of adjustment following trauma. Sexual abuse survivors who are believed and supported following an abuse disclosure fare better than those who are not, and returning veterans’ social support predicts P.T.S.D. over and above the extent of military trauma exposure....
Read More..

Antivirus Makers Work on Software to Catch Malware More Effectively

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York TimesAmichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva. The data security firm recently found that antivirus software programs perform poorly against new viruses. SAN FRANCISCO — The antivirus industry has a dirty little secret: its products are often not very good at stopping viruses. SymantecSecurity experts at the Symantec Security Operation...
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Ruthless Smuggling Rings Put Rhinos in Cross Hairs

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa — They definitely did not look like ordinary big-game hunters, the stream of slender young Thai women who showed up on the veld wearing tight bluejeans and sneakers. But the rhinoceros carcasses kept piling up around them, and it was only after dozens of these hulking, relatively rare animals were dead and their precious horns sawed off that an extravagant...
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Dec
30

Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York TimesDNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition. The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm. The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete...
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Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York TimesDNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition. The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm. The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete...
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Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York TimesDNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition. The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm. The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete...
Read More..

Questcor Finds Profit for Acthar Drug, at $28,000 a Vial

Kevin Moloney for The New York TimesChristina Culver with her son Tyler, 6, at home in Colorado Springs this month. In 2007, Tyler was hospitalized when the price of Acthar soared. THE doctor was dumbfounded: a drug that used to cost $50 was now selling for $28,000 for a 5-milliliter vial. The physician, Dr. Ladislas Lazaro IV, remembered occasionally prescribing this anti-inflammatory, named...
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Cold-Weather Aid Trickles Into Afghan Camps

But camp leaders and Afghan government officials criticized the aid delivery as inadequate to protect residents from the weather and to prevent more deaths. Last winter, more than 100 children died of the cold in refugee camps around Kabul, with 26 dying in the Charahi Qambar camp alone. That is the same camp where the 3-year-old died Friday; it was the first confirmed death because of the...
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Dec
29

Unboxed: Big Data Is Great, but Don’t Forget Intuition

Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, led off the conference by saying that Big Data would be “the next big chapter of our business history.” Next on stage was Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor and director of the M.I.T. center and a co-author of the article with Dr. McAfee. Big Data, said Professor Brynjolfsson, will “replace ideas, paradigms, organizations...
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Questcor Finds Profit for Acthar Drug, at $28,000 a Vial

Kevin Moloney for The New York TimesChristina Culver with her son Tyler, 6, at home in Colorado Springs this month. In 2007, Tyler was hospitalized when the price of Acthar soared. THE doctor was dumbfounded: a drug that used to cost $50 was now selling for $28,000 for a 5-milliliter vial. The physician, Dr. Ladislas Lazaro IV, remembered occasionally prescribing this anti-inflammatory, named...
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Corner Office: Karen May of Google, on Conquering Fears of Giving Feedback

This interview with Karen May, vice president for people development at Google, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Earl Wilson/The New York TimesKaren May says that earlier in her career, she learned to realize “that one of the most valuable things I could do for somebody is tell them exactly what nobody else had told them before.” Every Sunday,...
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To Save Wildlife, and Tourism, Kenyans Take Up Arms

ARCHER’S POST, Kenya — Julius Lokinyi was one of the most notorious poachers in this part of Kenya, accused of single-handedly killing as many as 100 elephants and selling the tusks by the side of the road in the dead of night, pumping vast amounts of ivory into a shadowy global underground trade. But after being hounded, shamed, browbeaten and finally persuaded by his elders, he recently...
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Dec
28

China Toughens Restrictions on Internet Use

How Hwee Young/European Pressphoto AgencyNew measures by the Chinese government could chill some of the vibrant discourse on Twitter-like microblogs. HONG KONG — The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the...
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Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists

Lance Murphey for The New York TimesThe Shelby Farms Greenline, which replaced a Memphis rail line. MEMPHIS — John Jordan, a 64-year-old condo appraiser here, has been pedaling his cruiser bicycle around town nearly every day, tooling about at lunchtime or zipping to downtown appointments. “It’s my cholesterol-lowering device,” said Mr. Jordan, clad in a leather vest and wearing a bright...
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Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists

Lance Murphey for The New York TimesThe Shelby Farms Greenline, which replaced a Memphis rail line. MEMPHIS — John Jordan, a 64-year-old condo appraiser here, has been pedaling his cruiser bicycle around town nearly every day, tooling about at lunchtime or zipping to downtown appointments. “It’s my cholesterol-lowering device,” said Mr. Jordan, clad in a leather vest and wearing a bright...
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