The iEconomy: As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living

Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York TimesShawn and Stephanie Grimes’s efforts have cost $200,000 in lost income and savings, but their apps have earned less than $5,000 this year. ROSEDALE, Md. — Shawn and Stephanie Grimes spent much of the last two years pursuing their dream of doing research and development for Apple, the world’s most successful corporation. But they did not actually have...

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Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesA man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person. GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs before dawn. The...

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The iEconomy: As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living

Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York TimesShawn and Stephanie Grimes’s efforts have cost $200,000 in lost income and savings, but their apps have earned less than $5,000 this year. ROSEDALE, Md. — Shawn and Stephanie Grimes spent much of the last two years pursuing their dream of doing research and development for Apple, the world’s most successful corporation. But they did not actually have...

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil

For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug. “I had a rough road,” he said. Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks,...

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil

For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug. “I had a rough road,” he said. Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks,...

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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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Shortcuts: The Meaning in a Drawer Full of Old Family Snapshots

Eric Thayer/ReutersA resident found photos as she sifted the debris of a house destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in Union Beach, N.J. I WASN’T going to write about Hurricane Sandy. I was going to write about the changing nature of photographs and our relationship to them in this digital age. Doug Mills/The New York TimesPicture-taking is now mainly digital, making prints of photos uncommon....

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States Decline to Set Up Exchanges for Insurance

WASHINGTON — Georgia, Ohio and Wisconsin joined more than a dozen other states on Friday in saying they would not establish health insurance exchanges, while a handful of other states said they would take advantage of an extra month allowed by the Obama administration to make decisions. The exchanges — online markets where consumers can shop for private insurance subsidized by the federal...

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States Decline to Set Up Exchanges for Insurance

WASHINGTON — Georgia, Ohio and Wisconsin joined more than a dozen other states on Friday in saying they would not establish health insurance exchanges, while a handful of other states said they would take advantage of an extra month allowed by the Obama administration to make decisions. The exchanges — online markets where consumers can shop for private insurance subsidized by the federal...

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In BP Indictments, U.S. Shifts to Hold Individuals Accountable

HOUSTON — Donald J. Vidrine and Robert Kaluza were the two BP supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon rig who made the last critical decisions before it exploded. David Rainey was a celebrated BP deepwater explorer who testified to members of Congress about how many barrels of oil were spewing daily in the offshore disaster. Mr. Vidrine, 65, of Lafayette, La., and Mr. Kaluza, 62, of Henderson,...

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Protesters in Jordan Call for Ending King Abdullah II’s Rule

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York TimesJordanians in the northern city of Irbid, about 60 miles from Amman, the capital, shouted slogans Thursday in the third night of protests against King Abdullah II. IRBID, Jordan — Thousands of young men poured into the streets of Jordan’s cities and towns for a third night of scattered protests against King Abdullah II, as the United States expressed support...

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Critic’s Notebook: Nintendo’s Wii U, With New Touch-Screen Controller

UbisoftA scene from Ubisoft’s ZombiU, one of the games available to play on Nintendo’s Wii U console, to be released on Sunday. The Wii U is Nintendo’s capitulation to the screen, the tyrant of the digital age. As the follow-up to the original Wii — the nearly 100-million-selling, get-off-your-couch console that upended the video game industry six years ago — the Wii U does not deliver the sensation...

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Change Rattles Leading Health-Funding Agency

Major changes erupted at one of the world’s leading health-funding agencies Thursday as it hired a new director, dismissed the inspector general who had clashed with a previous director and announced a new approach to making grants. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesDr. Mark Dybul, who led the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2007. Dr. Mark Dybul, the...

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Change Rattles Leading Health-Funding Agency

Major changes erupted at one of the world’s leading health-funding agencies Thursday as it hired a new director, dismissed the inspector general who had clashed with a previous director and announced a new approach to making grants. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesDr. Mark Dybul, who led the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2007. Dr. Mark Dybul, the...

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Obama Meets C.E.O.’s as Fiscal Reckoning Nears

Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesUrsula M. Burns, chief of Xerox, said the president discussed few specifics of a potential agreement but emphasized that “we cannot go over the fiscal cliff.” WASHINGTON — President Obama extended an olive branch to business leaders Wednesday, seeking their support as he prepared to negotiate with Congressional Republicans over the fiscal impasse in Washington....

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BBC Failures Show Limits of Guidelines

LONDON — It was 2004, and the British Broadcasting Corporation was gripped by a crisis over journalistic standards that had led to Parliamentary hearings, public recrimination and the resignations of its two top officials. Vowing change, the corporation established elaborate bureaucratic procedures that placed more formal responsibility for delicate decisions in the hands not of individual managers,...

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