Economic Frustration Simmers Again in Tunisia

Moises Saman for The New York TimesPeople in Tunis and across the country are struggling with high unemployment and inflation. TUNIS — Tahar Bayahi, who runs Tunisia’s largest grocery store chain, spent the days right after the revolution toting up his losses: one-quarter of his 60 stores nationwide incinerated and another quarter pillaged. Yet his company, Magasins Général, turned right...

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Police: Chiefs' Belcher kills girlfriend, self

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — It began like any other Saturday for the Kansas City Chiefs during the NFL season, their general manager and coach at work early to put final touches on this weekend's gameplan. Then they got a call to hurry to the parking lot.The two men rushed through the glass doors of Chiefs headquarters and came face-to-face with linebacker Jovan Belcher, holding a handgun to his head.Belcher...

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Unboxed: Stand-Up Desks Gaining Favor in the Workplace

THE health studies that conclude that people should sit less, and get up and move around more, have always struck me as fitting into the “well, duh” category. But a closer look at the accumulating research on sitting reveals something more intriguing, and disturbing: the health hazards of sitting for long stretches are significant even for people who are quite active when they’re not...

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After Moves on New Constitution, Protesters Gather in Cairo

CAIRO — In the second potent showing of opposition rage in less than a week, tens of thousands of people streamed into Tahrir Square on Friday, angrily denouncing Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, and the hasty passage earlier in the day of a draft constitution written by an Islamist assembly. The gathering on Friday was smaller than one that packed the square on Tuesday, raising the question...

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Is Facebook planning to develop its own games? Revised Zynga terms open the door

As Zynga (ZNGA) continues its free fall into irrelevancy with layoffs and its one-hit social games, the gaming company has revised its contract with Facebook (FB) to free it from being “forced to launch games exclusively on the Facebook platform” and “obligated to use Facebook Credits for Zynga game pages,” according to AllThingsD. The change of terms filed with the SEC also...

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NBA fines Spurs $250,000 for sending starters home

Gregg Popovich sent his best players home, deciding they reached the end of the road before the trip was over.For that, and for keeping it a secret, the San Antonio Spurs were fined $250,000 by the NBA on Friday.Commissioner David Stern said the Spurs "did a disservice to the league and our fans" when they didn't bring Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili or Danny Green to Miami for the final game...

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General Assembly Grants Palestine Upgraded Status in U.N.

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesPresident Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority spoke at the United Nations before the General Assembly voted on Palestine's status as a “nonmember observer state” on Thursday. UNITED NATIONS — More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke...

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Thousands touched by photograph of New York cop helping shoeless man

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A photograph of a New York City police officer crouching by a shoeless panhandler to give him a new pair of boots on a cold night in Times Square has drawn a deluge of praise after it was published on the police department‘s Facebook page this week.By Thursday afternoon, nearly 394,000 people had clicked a button on the department’s Facebook page to indicate that they “liked”...

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Steelers QB Roethlisberger testing hurt shoulder

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Ben Roethlisberger can hold his newborn son Ben Jr. in his injured right arm just fine, thanks.When the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback will be able to say the same about a football, even he's not sure.Roethlisberger practiced in a limited role Thursday and appears a long shot to return for Sunday's game in Baltimore."There's always a chance," Roethlisberger offered somewhat hopefully.The...

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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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DealBook: Vinod Khosla Keeps Long-Term Bet on Clean Technology

Vinod Khosla crowed about the clean energy industry last year. Three of the biofuel start-ups in his venture capital portfolio had just gone public, and the stocks had risen considerably after their debuts. “I challenge anybody to claim that clean tech done right is a disaster,” Mr. Khosla said at a conference, rebuffing recent criticism. “We’ve generated more profits there than anybody has.”Since...

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As Opposition Coalition Meets in Cairo, More Violence Kills Dozens in Syria

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRebels celebrated on top of a downed Syrian jet in Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo, on Wednesday. In its first major effort to show that it can be a viable political force, the newly formed Syrian opposition coalition started talks in Egypt on Wednesday aimed at forming an alternative to the government of President Bashar al-Assad and...

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Obama takes “fiscal cliff” battle to Twitter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama opened a new front on Wednesday in the battle between Democrats and Republicans over the best way to avoid the year-end “fiscal cliff” – Twitter.The web-savvy Obama administration launched a social media campaign that asks Twitter users to add the “#my2k” hashtag to messages with examples of what $ 2,000 means to them.The amount is roughly what a middle-class...

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Bonds, Clemens, Sosa on Hall ballot for first time

NEW YORK (AP) — The most polarizing Hall of Fame debate since Pete Rose will now be decided by the baseball shrine's voters: Do Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa belong in Cooperstown despite drug allegations that tainted their huge numbers?In a monthlong election sure to become a referendum on the Steroids Era, the Hall ballot was released Wednesday, and Bonds, Clemens and Sosa are on it...

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Well: Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term

Weight loss surgery, which in recent years has been seen as an increasingly attractive option for treating Type 2 diabetes, may not be as effective against the disease as it was initially thought to be, according to a new report. The study found that many obese Type 2 diabetics who undergo gastric bypass surgery do not experience a remission of their disease, and of those that do, about a third redevelop...

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United Is Struggling Two Years After Its Merger With Continental

Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressA United 787 Dreamliner at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. United lost $103 million through the third quarter of 2012. CHICAGO — It was supposed to be a moment for celebration: United Airlines observing the delivery of its second Boeing 787 Dreamliner with a flight from Seattle to Chicago earlier this month for a select group of employees, while senior officers,...

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