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..

Northeast storm disrupts travel for sports teams

Several professional and college sports teams were forced to rearrange their travel plans as a massive storm swept through the Northeast, dumping a few feet of snow in some areas.The NBA's New York Knicks were stuck in Minnesota after playing the Timberwolves on Friday night, hoping to try to fly home sometime Saturday. The San Antonio Spurs were also staying overnight in Detroit after seeing their...

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..

Strategies: At Dell, a Gamble on a Legacy

IN 1984 — the year Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook creator, was born — Michael S. Dell started a tech company in his dorm room, dropped out of college and changed the world. By making personal computers that were powerful, reliable and inexpensive, and by selling directly to buyers who customized their PC features, Mr. Dell revolutionized his industry. “The original PC industry was long...

Read More..

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

Video from the Tunisian news site Jadal showed clashes on Friday in Tunis during the funeral of an opposition leader.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 figure whose assassination two days ago triggered...

Read More..

AP Source: Hernandez on verge of new deal with M's

SEATTLE (AP) — Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners are working on a $175 million, seven-year contract that would make him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball, according to a person with knowledge of the deal's details.The person spoke to The Associated Press Thursday on condition of anonymity because the agreement has not been completed. USA Today first reported the deal.Seattle would add $134.5...

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..

Japanese Still Seeking Link in 787 Battery Incidents

Japan’s investigation of a battery that was smoking on a Boeing 787 flight there last month has not yet determined if the incident started in the same way as a fire on another 787 in Boston, a Japanese official said Friday. Akinobu Yokoyama, a spokesman for Japan’s Transport Safety Board, said it was still not clear whether a short-circuit or other malfunction occurred within one or more...

Read More..

The Lede: Video Broadcast on State Television Was Downloaded From U.S. Drone, Iran Says

Last Updated, 2:17 p.m. Iran’s state television broadcast Wednesday what it described as video recorded by the American surveillance drone that crash-landed about 140 miles from the country’s border with Afghanistan in late 2011.Video broadcast on Iranian state television, said to have been downloaded from an American surveillance drone that crash-landed in Iran in 2011.As The Associated Press reports...

Read More..

Armstrong sued for $12 million bonus

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Dallas promotions company is suing Lance Armstrong to repay $12 million in bonuses it paid him for winning the Tour de France.Armstrong now admits he used performance-enhancing drugs and has been stripped of those victories.SCA Promotions filed its lawsuit Thursday in Dallas district court. The company tried to withhold the money in 2005 because of doping allegations but ultimately...

Read More..

Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.How I feared chemo, afraidIt would change me.It did.Something dissolved inside me.Tears began a slow drip;I cried at the news storyOf a lost boy found in the...

Read More..

Media Decoder Blog: Led by Celebrity Titles, Magazine Newsstand Sales Slide

2:11 p.m. | Updated As the magazine industry continues to suffer from declining circulation, celebrity gossip magazines and young women’s titles have taken some of the biggest hits.According to data released by the Alliance for Audited Media on Thursday morning, overall paid and verified circulation of magazines declined slightly by 0.3 percent in the second half of 2012. But newsstand sales – which...

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 Kareem Fahim and Gerry Mullany 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..

Braun says he used Fla clinic owner as consultant

NEW YORK (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun said the person who ran the Florida clinic being investigated by Major League Baseball was used only as a consultant on his drug suspension appeal last year."I have nothing to hide," Braun said in a statement released by his representatives on Tuesday night.Earlier in the day, Yahoo Sports reported the 2011 NL MVP's name showed up three times in...

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..

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...

Read More..

Same-Sex Marriage Law Gains in Britain

Luke Macgregor/ReutersDemonstrators Martin Brown, left, and Archie Young were outside Parliament Tuesday in support of gay marriage in England. LONDON — The House of Commons overwhelmingly approved a law on Tuesday permitting same-sex marriage, a major gain for a bill that Prime Minister David Cameron has made a centerpiece of his drive to modernize his Conservative Party. The House of Commons...

Read More..

Lindsey Vonn tears knee ligaments, out for season

SCHLADMING, Austria (AP) — Lindsey Vonn will miss the rest of the ski season after tearing knee ligaments and breaking a bone in her leg in a high-speed crash Tuesday at the world championships. The U.S. team expects her to return for the next World Cup season and the 2014 Sochi Olympics.Vonn lost balance on her right leg while landing a jump in the super-G. She flipped in the air, landed on her back...

Read More..

Well: Warning Too Late for Some Babies

Six weeks after Jack Mahoney was born prematurely on Feb. 3, 2011, the neonatal staff at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., noticed that his heart rate slowed slightly when he ate. They figured he was having difficulty feeding, and they added a thickener to help.When Jack was discharged, his parents were given the thickener, SimplyThick, to mix into his formula. Two weeks later, Jack was back in the...

Read More..

Bucks Blog: Many Relying on Home Equity for Retirement

Even though the housing market has not recovered, nearly half of older working Americans expect to use equity in their homes to help finance their retirement, a new survey finds.Roughly 47 percent of employed Americans ages 50 to 70 said they were relying on equity in their homes, the Retirement Check-In survey from Ameriprise Financial found. The finding is surprising, an accompanying report notes,...

Read More..

High-Level Feud Bares Tensions in Iran

TEHRAN — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated a bitter political fight this week with Iran’s most influential political family by disclosing secret film recordings of what he purported were fraudulent business deals. During a Sunday session of Parliament, broadcast on state radio, Mr. Ahmadinejad singled out the head of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, a political rival with strong links...

Read More..