Hurricane Sandy and the Disaster-Preparedness Economy

Jeffrey Phelps for The New York TimesAn assembly line at a Generac Power Systems plant. Generac makes residential generators, coveted items in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. FOLKS here don’t wish disaster on their fellow Americans. They didn’t pray for Hurricane Sandy to come grinding up the East Coast, tearing lives apart and plunging millions into darkness. But the fact is, disasters are good...

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Slipstream: Biometric Data-Gathering Sets Off a Privacy Debate

“PLEASE put your hand on the scanner,” a receptionist at a doctor’s office at New York University Langone Medical Center said to me recently, pointing to a small plastic device on the counter between us. “I need to take a palm scan for your file.” I balked. As a reporter who has been covering the growing business of data collection, I know the potential drawbacks — like customer profiling...

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Slipstream: Biometric Data-Gathering Sets Off a Privacy Debate

“PLEASE put your hand on the scanner,” a receptionist at a doctor’s office at New York University Langone Medical Center said to me recently, pointing to a small plastic device on the counter between us. “I need to take a palm scan for your file.” I balked. As a reporter who has been covering the growing business of data collection, I know the potential drawbacks — like customer profiling...

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Bits Blog: Apple Settles Patent Suit With HTC

Apple and HTC have brought an end to their lawsuits against each other in the first settlement between Apple and a maker of Android smartphones.In a statement issued Saturday night, the two companies said the settlement includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and sets up a 10-year license agreement that includes rights to current and future patents held by both parties. Apple and HTC, which...

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Changing of the Guard: Chinese Communist Party Faces Calls for Democracy

BEIJING — As the Communist Party’s 18th Congress approached, Li Weidong, a scholar of politics, made plans to observe a historic leadership battle in one of the world’s great nations. Instead of staying in Beijing to monitor China’s once-a-decade transfer of power, Mr. Li boarded a plane. “I’m going to the United States to study the elections,” Mr. Li said in a telephone interview...

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Malaria Vaccine Candidate Produces Disappointing Results in Clinical Trial

The latest clinical trial of the world’s leading malaria vaccine candidate produced disappointing results on Friday. The infants it was given to had only about a third fewer infections than a control group. But researchers said they wanted to press on, assuming they keep getting financial support, because the number of children who die of malaria is so great that even an inefficient vaccine...

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Malaria Vaccine Candidate Produces Disappointing Results in Clinical Trial

The latest clinical trial of the world’s leading malaria vaccine candidate produced disappointing results on Friday. The infants it was given to had only about a third fewer infections than a control group. But researchers said they wanted to press on, assuming they keep getting financial support, because the number of children who die of malaria is so great that even an inefficient vaccine...

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Bits Blog: On Twitter, Steve Jobs Is Immortal

Steve Jobs is gone, but on Twitter his @name lives on. And on.The chief executive of Apple, who died in 2011, is memorialized on Twitter by about a thousand fans, parodists, traffic seekers, unrepentant haters and crypto-historians, among others. The accounts use his name as either as a title or, with many variations, as an address.The copycats include @FakeSteveJobs, @FauxSteve and @SteveJobsFalso,...

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Citing Affair, Petraeus Resigns as C.I.A. Director

WASHINGTON — David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and one of America’s most decorated four-star generals, resigned on Friday after an F.B.I. investigation uncovered evidence that he had been involved in an extramarital affair. Mr. Petraeus issued a statement acknowledging the affair after President Obama accepted his resignation and it was announced by the C.I.A....

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Debt Ceiling Complicates a Tax Shift

WASHINGTON — Come January, should Congress fail to act, the United States will face more than immense tax increases and spending cuts. It will also run out of room to finance its large running deficits. The Treasury Department expects the country to hit its debt ceiling, a legal limit on the amount the government is allowed to borrow, close to the end of the year. That would give Congress...

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States Rush to Meet Tight Health Care Deadlines

After nearly three years of legal and political threats that kept President Obama’s health care law in a constant state of uncertainty, his re-election on Tuesday all but guarantees that the historic legislation will survive. Now comes another big hurdle: making it work. The election came just 10 days before a critical deadline for states in carrying out the law, and many that were...

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States Rush to Meet Tight Health Care Deadlines

After nearly three years of legal and political threats that kept President Obama’s health care law in a constant state of uncertainty, his re-election on Tuesday all but guarantees that the historic legislation will survive. Now comes another big hurdle: making it work. The election came just 10 days before a critical deadline for states in carrying out the law, and many that were...

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A Transfer of Power Begins in China

Military delegates arrived for the 18th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. The weeklong meeting precedes the naming of China’s top leader, who will replace Hu Jintao. The meeting also introduces a new generation of party leade...

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DealBook: On Wall Street, Time to Mend Fences With Obama

Del Frisco’s, an expensive steakhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Boston harbor, was a festive scene on Tuesday evening. The hedge fund billionaires Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb were among the titans of finance there dining among the gray velvet banquettes before heading several blocks away to what they hoped would be a victory party for their presidential candidate,...

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After Loss, Fight to Label Modified Food Continues

LOS ANGELES — Advocates for the labeling of genetically modified food vowed to carry their fight to other states and to the federal government after suffering a defeat in California on Tuesday. A ballot measure that would have made California the first state in the nation to require such labeling was defeated, 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent. Support for the initiative, which polls said once...

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After Loss, Fight to Label Modified Food Continues

LOS ANGELES — Advocates for the labeling of genetically modified food vowed to carry their fight to other states and to the federal government after suffering a defeat in California on Tuesday. A ballot measure that would have made California the first state in the nation to require such labeling was defeated, 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent. Support for the initiative, which polls said once...

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Apple Stock Sinks as Profits and Products Are Questioned

Autumn is traditionally the time of year when people start snapping up Apple products. It’s also when investors, in anticipation of another blockbuster holiday season from the company, do the same with Apple shares. But this year, even though Apple’s iPhones and iPads don’t seem to have lost any of their allure for holiday shoppers, its stock seems headed straight for the discount rack. ...

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China Prepares for Party Congress and Leadership Transition

Diego Azubel/European Pressphoto AgencySoldiers marched past the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday, on the eve of the 18th Communist Party Congress. BEIJING — China’s Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao, defended his decade in power on Thursday and warned that the country faced stark challenges at home and abroad. He spoke at the start of a congress that will culminate in his retirement...

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