Russia Detains 271 in St. Petersburg Security Raid

MOSCOW — Russian police and security officials in St. Petersburg detained 271 people, mostly migrants from Central Asia and the North Caucasus region, during a raid on Friday on Muslim prayer rooms at a central market. They said the raid was carried out to check residency permits and to eliminate networks of religious extremists planning terrorist attacks. A statement published Friday night...

Read More..

John E. Karlin, 1918-2013: John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way to All-Digit Dialing, Dies at 94

Courtesy of Alcatel-Lucent USAJohn E. Karlin, a researcher at Bell Labs, studied ways to make the telephone easier to use. A generation ago, when the poetry of PEnnsylvania and BUtterfield was about to give way to telephone numbers in unpoetic strings, a critical question arose: Would people be able to remember all seven digits long enough to dial them? And when, not long afterward, the dial...

Read More..

In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said. The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio. Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of...

Read More..

In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said. The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio. Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of...

Read More..

Career Couch: Moving On From a Job That Has Defined You

Q. You want to move into management or a higher executive position, but you’re so good at your current job that you’re now defined by it. How can you find a way out of this pigeonhole? A. Start with some self-reflection, says Michael L. Buckman, managing director of executive advisory services at the BPI Group, a management consulting firm in Chicago. You can’t just walk into your boss’s...

Read More..

The Lede: Social Media Images From Tunisia, as an Opposition Leader Is Buried

Video of Friday’s funeral for Chokri Belaid, a Tunisian opposition leader assassinated two days ago, from the independent news site Nawaat.Last Updated, 3:44 p.m. Activists, bloggers and journalists in Tunisia posted a stream of images on social networks Friday, showing thousands of mourners packed into the largest cemetery in the capital, Tunis, for the funeral of Chokri Belaid, a leading opposition...

Read More..

State of the Art: Microsoft’s Surface Pro Works Like a Tablet and a PC

For decades, Microsoft has subsisted on the milk of its two cash cows: Windows and Office. The company’s occasional ventures into hardware generally haven’t ended well: *cough* Zune, Kin Phone, Spot Watch *cough*. But the new Surface Pro tablet, which goes on sale Saturday, seemed to have more going for it than any Microsoft hardware since the Xbox. Everybody knows what a tablet is,...

Read More..

The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes...

Read More..

The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes...

Read More..

Venezuela Announces Currency Devaluation

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's government announced Friday that is devaluing the country's currency, a change expected to push up prices in the heavily import-reliant economy. Officials said the fixed exchange rate is changing from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. The devaluation had been widely expected by analysts in recent months. It was the first...

Read More..

At War Blog: U.S. and Allies Conduct Drills in Persian Gulf, a Signal to Iran

Deterring Iran is a delicate balance of diplomacy, sanctions and military muscle-flexing, all intended to send a strong signal – without proving so provocative that the region is pushed toward war. One piece of the effort – halting the proliferation of illicit weapons – got a practice run in the Persian Gulf this week.Although the exercise did not explicitly name an adversary, geography certainly...

Read More..

Television Review: ‘Silicon Valley,’ on ‘American Experience’ on PBS

“Silicon Valley” is a deceptively grand title for the new “American Experience” documentary Tuesday night on PBS. “Fairchild Semiconductor” would be more accurate. It could even be called “Robert Noyce” or, with a musical score and some dance numbers, “Noyce!” ...

Read More..

Well: The 'Monday Morning' Medical Screaming Match

I did not think I would ever see another “morbidity and mortality” conference in which senior doctors publicly attacked their younger colleagues for making medical errors. These types of heated meetings were commonplace when I was a medical student but have largely been abandoned.Yet here they were again on “Monday Mornings,” a new medical drama on the TNT network, based on a novel by Dr. Sanjay Gupta,...

Read More..

Well: The 'Monday Morning' Medical Screaming Match

I did not think I would ever see another “morbidity and mortality” conference in which senior doctors publicly attacked their younger colleagues for making medical errors. These types of heated meetings were commonplace when I was a medical student but have largely been abandoned.Yet here they were again on “Monday Mornings,” a new medical drama on the TNT network, based on a novel by Dr. Sanjay Gupta,...

Read More..

DealBook: Ackman to Herbalife: You're Not the Girl Scouts

William A. Ackman is not letting his adversary compare itself to the Girl Scouts.Mr. Ackman, head of the hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, issued a fresh challenge on Thursday to Herbalife, the nutritional supplements company that he is betting against.In a document posted online, Pershing Square takes aim at Herbalife’s disclosures about its business model. The company, which Mr. Ackman...

Read More..

The Lede: Video of Protests Across Tunisia After an Opposition Leader Is Gunned Down

Video of a protest outside the interior ministry in Tunis on Wednesday from the blog Nawaat.As my colleagues Monica Marks and Kareem Fahim report, there were protests across Tunisia on Wednesday following the assassination of Chokri Belaid, a leader of the secular opposition.Video shot by activist bloggers for the independent Tunisian site Nawaat showed protesters rallying outside the interior ministry...

Read More..

Bits Blog: Most Facebook Users Have Taken a Break From the Site, Survey Finds

Facebook is the most popular social network in America — roughly two-thirds of adults in the country use it on a regular basis.But that doesn’t mean they don’t get sick of it.A new survey by the Pew Research Center‘s Internet and American Life Project, conducted in December, found that 61 percent of current Facebook users admitted that they had voluntarily taken breaks from the site, for as many...

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: For Women, Reduced Access to Long-Term Care Insurance

“This was a very, very good business for a short time, with people buying long-term care insurance like it was candy in a candy store,’’ said Michael Perry, a vice president at the Opus Advisory Group, a strategic financial planning firm in Purchase, N.Y.No more. Mr. Perry has sold only one long-term care policy in the last six months and is “backing off from marketing’’ them as he watches this corner...

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: For Women, Reduced Access to Long-Term Care Insurance

“This was a very, very good business for a short time, with people buying long-term care insurance like it was candy in a candy store,’’ said Michael Perry, a vice president at the Opus Advisory Group, a strategic financial planning firm in Purchase, N.Y.No more. Mr. Perry has sold only one long-term care policy in the last six months and is “backing off from marketing’’ them as he watches this corner...

Read More..

DealBook: R.B.S. to Pay $612 Million Over Rate Rigging

LONDON – The Royal Bank of Scotland on Wednesday struck a combined $612 million settlement with American and British authorities over accusations that it manipulated interest rates, the latest case to emerge from a broad international investigation.In an embarrassing blow to the bank, its Japanese subsidiary also pleaded guilty to criminal wrongdoing in its settlement with the Justice Department....

Read More..