Gadgetwise Blog: A Tower Pleasing to the Ears and Eyes

The Zikmu Solo, a stereo speaker tower from Parrot, a mobile-products maker based in Paris, has a sleek, monolithic look that is sure to turn heads at parties.Designed by Philippe Starck, the French product designer and architect, the tower produces balanced stereo sound through an acoustic configuration that puts a speaker on each side, a third in the front and a woofer in the base. Atop the tower,...

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U.S. Is Weighing Stronger Action in Syrian Conflict

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRebels in northern Syria celebrated on Wednesday next to what was reported to be a government fighter jet. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, hoping that the conflict in Syria has reached a turning point, is considering deeper intervention to help push President Bashar al-Assad from power, according to government officials involved in the discussions....

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DealBook: Getco Offers to Buy Knight for $3.50 a Share

Getco on Wednesday offered to buy the Knight Capital Group in a deal that values the firm at about $635 million, three months after it helped rescue the trading concern from the brink of bankruptcy.The buyout bid is one of at least two expected for Knight this week, with a second offer expected from another trading firm, Virtu Financial. Both companies are keenly interested in Knight’s market-making...

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The New Old Age Blog: Doctor's Orders? Another Test

It is no longer news that Americans, and older Americans in particular, get more routine screening tests than they need, more than are useful. Prostate tests for men over 75, annual Pap smears for women over 65 and colonoscopies for anyone over 75 — all are overused, large-scale studies have shown.Now it appears that many older patients are also subjected to too-frequent use of the other kind of testing,...

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The New Old Age Blog: Doctor's Orders? Another Test

It is no longer news that Americans, and older Americans in particular, get more routine screening tests than they need, more than are useful. Prostate tests for men over 75, annual Pap smears for women over 65 and colonoscopies for anyone over 75 — all are overused, large-scale studies have shown.Now it appears that many older patients are also subjected to too-frequent use of the other kind of testing,...

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Ex-NASA Scientist’s Data Fears Come True

In 2007, Robert M. Nelson, an astronomer, and 27 other scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory sued NASA arguing that the space agency’s background checks of employees of government contractors were unnecessarily invasive and violated their privacy rights. Privacy advocates chimed in as well, contending that the space agency would not be able to protect the confidential details it was...

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News Analysis: Sunni Leaders Gaining Clout in Mideast

Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto AgencyA Palestinian woman in Gaza City on Tuesday walked amid the rubble left from eight days of fighting that ended in a cease-fire. RAMALLAH, West Bank — For years, the United States and its Middle East allies were challenged by the rising might of the so-called Shiite crescent, a political and ideological alliance backed by Iran that linked regional actors deeply...

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News Analysis: St. Jude Medical Suffers for Redacting a Product Name

Peter Muhly for The New York TimesDr. Ernest Lau holds a Durata lead from a St. Jude Medical Fortify ICD, an implanted heart defibrillator. IS covering a product’s name in a public document a sign that a company has something to hide? And how should doctors, patients and investors react if the product at issue is one on which peoples’ lives and a company’s fortunes depend? Such questions...

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Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly. Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a...

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Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly. Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a...

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