DealBook Column: The Election Won't Solve All Puzzles

Here comes more uncertainty.It may sound counterintuitive, but whatever the outcome of the election — whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins — the economy and markets are likely to face more uncertainty, not less, over the coming year.“Uncertainty” has become the watchword over the last several years for many chief executives, politicians and economists as an explanation — or perhaps an excuse...

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Coptic Church Chooses Pope Who Rejects Politics

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York TimesCoptic clergymen at a ceremony on Sunday for choosing a pope. CAIRO — A blindfolded 6-year-old reached into a glass bowl on Sunday to pick the first new Coptic pope in more than 40 years, a patriarch who promises a new era of integration for Egypt’s Christian minority as it grapples with a wave of sectarian violence, new Islamist domination of politics,...

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Chinese Messaging App Gains Ground Elsewhere

BEIJING — Chinese Internet companies have long struggled to establish their products beyond the country’s borders. In 2007 China’s dominant search engine, Baidu, announced an ambitious plan to break into the Japanese search engine market; as of last year, the company said it had lost more than $108 million trying. WeChat, a mobile messaging application created by Tencent Holdings, China’s...

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Chelation Therapy Shows Slight Benefit in Heart Disease Clinical Trial

LOS ANGELES — To the surprise of many cardiologists, a controversial alternative therapy proved beneficial to people with heart disease, reducing the rate of death and cardiovascular problems in a clinical trial, researchers said on Sunday. The benefit of the treatment, known as chelation therapy, barely reached statistical significance, and there were questions about the reliability...

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Chelation Therapy Shows Slight Benefit in Heart Disease Clinical Trial

LOS ANGELES — To the surprise of many cardiologists, a controversial alternative therapy proved beneficial to people with heart disease, reducing the rate of death and cardiovascular problems in a clinical trial, researchers said on Sunday. The benefit of the treatment, known as chelation therapy, barely reached statistical significance, and there were questions about the reliability...

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Fight Growing Over Online Royalties

The debate playing out in Washington has echoes of a presidential race. One side says businesses will suffer unless the government steps in to lower costs. The other accuses jet-set industrialists of a ploy that will cheat the middle class. These attacks, however, are not between candidates for the White House. They are being made in a battle over the obscure but increasingly vital issue...

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Benghazi Attack Raises Doubts About U.S. Abilities in Region

Esam Omran Al-Fetori/ReutersThe attack at the American Mission on Sept. 11, seen here, and an annex in Benghazi, Libya, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for countries swept up in the Arab Spring. WASHINGTON — About three hours after the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack, the Pentagon issued an urgent call for an...

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Bits Blog: How New Yorkers Adjusted to Sudden Smartphone Withdrawal

While Hurricane Sandy left hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without electricity or heat, the loss of one utility left some especially bewildered: cellphone service.“Not having hot water is one thing,” said Kartik Sankar, 29, a technology consultant who lives in the East Village. “But not having a phone? Forget about it.”With only sporadic access to text messaging, Facebook or even landline phone...

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Opinion: Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do

HALLUCINATIONS are very startling and frightening: you suddenly see, or hear or smell something — something that is not there. Your immediate, bewildered feeling is, what is going on? Where is this coming from? The hallucination is convincingly real, produced by the same neural pathways as actual perception, and yet no one else seems to see it. And then you are forced to the conclusion that something...

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Opinion: Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do

HALLUCINATIONS are very startling and frightening: you suddenly see, or hear or smell something — something that is not there. Your immediate, bewildered feeling is, what is going on? Where is this coming from? The hallucination is convincingly real, produced by the same neural pathways as actual perception, and yet no one else seems to see it. And then you are forced to the conclusion that something...

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