Analysis: Amid Tears Lance Armstrong Leaves Unanswered Questions in Oprah Winfrey Interview

In an extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey that was shown over two nights, Lance Armstrong admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his cycling career. He revealed that all seven of his Tour de France victories were fueled by doping, that he never felt bad about cheating, and that he had covered up a positive drug test at the 1999 Tour with a backdated doctor’s prescription...

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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control

Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency...

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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control

Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency...

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With Graph Search, Facebook Bets on More Sharing

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook’s greatest triumph has been to persuade a seventh of the world’s population to share their personal lives online. Now the social network is taking on its archrival, Google, with a search tool to mine that personal information, just as people are growing more cautious about sharing on the Internet and even occasionally removing what they have already put up. ...

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IHT Rendezvous: How Far Will Europeans Support France's Counter-Jihad?

LONDON — It did not require a crystal ball to foresee, as Rendezvous did in our 2013 preview, that Mali would be in the news and that France might be the first to intervene there to counter a perceived terrorist threat to Europe.Less predictable, however, is the extent to which the French can rely on the support of their European allies now that they have decided to go it alone.The crisis had been...

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DealBook: Morgan Stanley's $481 Million 4th-Quarter Profit Beats Estimates

8:23 a.m. | Updated Morgan Stanley reported adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter on Friday that beat analyst estimates, driven by gains in wealth management and stock trading.Including charges, the firm had a fourth-quarter profit of $481 million, or 25 cents a share. That compares with a per-share loss of 15 cents in the year-ago period. The results seem to please investors. Morgan Stanley shares...

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The Neediest Cases: Medical Bills Crush Brooklyn Man’s Hope of Retiring

Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesJohn Concepcion and his wife, Maria, in their home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. They are awaiting even more medical bills. Retirement was just about a year away, or so John Concepcion thought, when a sudden health crisis put his plans in doubt. For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families...

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The Neediest Cases: Medical Bills Crush Brooklyn Man’s Hope of Retiring

Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesJohn Concepcion and his wife, Maria, in their home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. They are awaiting even more medical bills. Retirement was just about a year away, or so John Concepcion thought, when a sudden health crisis put his plans in doubt. For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families...

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DealBook: Michael Dell’s Empire in a Buyout Spotlight

The computer empire of Michael S. Dell spreads across a campus of low-slung buildings in Round Rock, Tex.But his financial empire — estimated at $16 billion — occupies the 21st floor of a dark glass skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.It is there that MSD Capital, started by Mr. Dell 15 years ago to manage his fortune, has quietly built a reputation as one of the smartest investors on Wall Street....

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U.N. Refugee Agency Warns of Crisis in Mali

GENEVA — As French and African troops prepare to escalate their offensive against Islamist forces in the north of Mali, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday it was preparing for around 700,000 people to flee the violence, many to neighboring countries. The U.N. believes more than 400,000 refugees could flee to neighboring countries and another 300,000 are likely to be displaced internally...

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DealBook: Facing Legal Costs, Citigroup Disappoints in 4th Quarter

Citigroup, which has been working to cut costs and unload troubled assets, continues to struggle under the weight of its mortgage woes.The bank reported fourth quarter profit of $1.2 billion or 38 cents a share, significantly below analysts estimates. Excluding one-time time items, earnings amounted to 69 cents a share.Ahead of the bank’s quarterly earnings, analyst estimated earnings at 96 cents...

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.After...

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.After...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Moving from Hotmail to Outlook.com

I want to switch my Hotmail account to an Outlook.com account, but will I have to change my e-mail address?Even if you switch your Hotmail account to the newer mail system at Outlook.com, Microsoft says you can still keep the old @hotmail.com address. (Users with the @live.com or @msn.com accounts can also switch to Outlook.com and keep their original addresses.) You also have the option of adding...

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IHT Rendezvous: Is Something Toxic Buried in China's Financial System?

BEIJING — China’s economy, whizzing ahead as the West struggles, seems quite remarkable. Perhaps a little too remarkable? Like many things too good to be true, is it all a little, well, too good to be true?There will be the yea- and nay-sayers in any debate, and China’s economy provokes plenty of both. So here’s the “yea” side: the forces of urbanization and industrialization unleashed here in the...

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Consumer Prices Unchanged in December

WASHINGTON — Lower gas prices offset more expensive food and higher rents to keep the main measure of consumer inflation flat last month, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Food prices increased 0.2 percent in December from November. Rents and airline fares also rose. Gasoline prices fell a seasonally adjusted 2.3 percent. The flat reading of the December consumer price index...

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The New Old Age Blog: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Do face masks help prevent people from getting the flu? And if so, how much protection do they give?You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious...

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The New Old Age Blog: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Do face masks help prevent people from getting the flu? And if so, how much protection do they give?You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Monitor Your Memory

If your computer seems to be running slowly and acting as if it does not have enough memory installed, you can use software that comes with the operating system to see what is going on under the hood.On a Windows system, open the Task Manager program by right-clicking on the Windows task bar and choosing Start Task Manager. (You can also use the keyboard shortcuts of Control-Alt-Delete or Control-Shift-Escape...

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Meets Pope

Francesco Sforza/Osservatore RomanoDefense Secretary Leon E. Panetta met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Wednesday. ROME — On what is likely his last trip as defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta had an audience on Wednesday morning at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI, who told him, Mr. Panetta said, “Thank you for helping to protect the world.” Mr. Panetta said he replied, “Pray for me.”...

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Retail Sales Improve; Producer Prices Fall

WASHINGTON — Retail sales rose more than expected in December, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, as Americans shrugged off the threat of higher taxes and bought automobiles and a range of other goods, suggesting momentum in consumer spending as the year ended. The government said retail sales increased 0.5 percent after an upwardly revised 0.4 percent rise in November. Sales in November...

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The New Old Age Blog: Study: More to Meal Delivery Than Food

What’s a simpler idea than Meals on Wheels? Older, lower-income people who have trouble driving, cooking or shopping — or paying for food — sign up with a local agency. Each day, volunteers or paid staff come by and drop off a hot lunch. Federal and state dollars and local charities foot the bill.At the Mobile Meals of Essex headquarters in my town in New Jersey on a recent morning, staffers were...

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The New Old Age Blog: Study: More to Meal Delivery Than Food

What’s a simpler idea than Meals on Wheels? Older, lower-income people who have trouble driving, cooking or shopping — or paying for food — sign up with a local agency. Each day, volunteers or paid staff come by and drop off a hot lunch. Federal and state dollars and local charities foot the bill.At the Mobile Meals of Essex headquarters in my town in New Jersey on a recent morning, staffers were...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Translating PDF to Word

I know you can save a Microsoft Word document as a PDF file, but can you go the other way and save a PDF as a Word document that can be edited?Several third-party sites or shareware programs can do the job for free or for a small fee, which may be the best option if you just have a small number of files to convert. The converter page on the PDF Online site, the Smart PDF Converter page and shareware...

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