DealBook: Hewlett-Packard Takes $8.8 Billion Charge

Hewlett-Packard said on Tuesday that it had taken an $8.8 billion accounting charge, after discovering “serious accounting improprieties” and “outright misrepresentations” at Autonomy, a British software maker that it bought for $10 billion last year.It is a major setback for H.P., which has been struggling to turn around its operations and remake its business.The charge essentially wiped out its...

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Hamas Leader Dares Israel to Invade Amid Gaza Airstrikes

GAZA CITY — The top leader of Hamas dared Israel on Monday to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and dismissed diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire in the six-day-old conflict, as the Israeli military conducted a new wave of deadly airstrikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave, including a second hit on a 15-story building that houses media outlets. A volley of rockets fired from Gaza into southern...

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Indiana, Louisville still 1-2 in AP poll

Indiana is still a runaway No. 1 in The Associated Press college basketball poll and Louisville is again a solid second. Then come the changes, with Kentucky dropping five spots to eighth.The Hoosiers (3-0) receive 46 first-place votes Monday from the 65-member national media panel. The Cardinals (5-0) get the other 19 No. 1 votes.Ohio State and Michigan both move up one place to third and fourth,...

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Teenage Boys, Worried About Body Image, Take Health Risks

Béatrice de Géa for The New York TimesDavid Abusheikh at a gym in Brooklyn. He goes six days a week and says he uses protein supplements to help build muscle. It is not just girls these days who are consumed by an unattainable body image. Take David Abusheikh. At age 15, he started lifting weights for two hours a day, six days a week. Now that he is a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in...

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News Corporation Looks at Potential Acquisitions

Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesRupert Murdoch, second from left, with his sons, Lachlan, left, and James, second from right, and Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, in July in Sun Valley, Idaho. The media conglomerate, which had been on its heels for more than a year because of the phone hacking scandal in Britain, is looking to make acquisitions again. First...

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Israeli Strike in Gaza Kills at Least 11, Including Children

GAZA CITY — Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a home here on Sunday, as Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave. The airstrike, which the Israeli military said was meant to kill a Palestinian militant involved in the recent...

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Wii U: New console launches in a sea of gadgets

NEW YORK (AP) — In the six years since the last major video game system launched, Apple unveiled the iPhone and the iPad, “Angry Birds” invaded smartphones and Facebook reached a billion users. In the process, scores of video game consoles were left to languish in living rooms alongside dusty VCRs and disc players.On Sunday, Nintendo Co. is launching the...

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Notre Dame No. 1, Alabama No. 2 in AP Top 25

NEW YORK (AP) — Notre Dame is No. 1 and Alabama is No. 2 in The Associated Press college football poll, moving to the top of the rankings after Oregon and Kansas State were upset Saturday night.The Fighting Irish are No. 1 for the first time since Nov. 14, 1993. The Fighting Irish were a unanimous No. 1, getting all 60 first-place votes. They are a victory against rival Southern California away from...

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Ashlyn Blocker, the Girl Who Feels No Pain

Jeff Riedel for The New York TimesAshlyn Blocker, who feels no pain, at home in Patterson, GA. The girl who feels no pain was in the kitchen, stirring ramen noodles, when the spoon slipped from her hand and dropped into the pot of boiling water. It was a school night; the TV was on in the living room, and her mother was folding clothes on the couch. Without thinking, Ashlyn Blocker reached her right...

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Israel Sticks to Tough Approach in Conflict With Hamas

TEL AVIV — With rockets landing on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday and the Egyptian prime minister making a solidarity visit to Gaza, the accelerating conflict between Israel and Hamas — reminiscent in many ways of so many previous battles — has the makings of a new kind of Israeli-Palestinian face-off. The combination of longer-range and far deadlier rockets in the hands...

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