The Lede Blog: Two Iranian Space Monkeys Got Confused, an Official Says

A senior official at Iran’s space agency confirmed on Saturday that state media reports on the launching of a monkey into the thermosphere had used images of two different monkeys. The official insisted, however, that the monkey had survived the journey and that Iran was not trying to cover up a failed flight.As The Lede explained on Friday, doubts about Iran’s claim that the monkey had survived the...

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Sony likely to unveil next PlayStation on Feb. 20

NEW YORK (AP) — Sony is poised to unveil the next PlayStation game console on Feb. 20, a date that would give the Japanese electronics company a head start over Microsoft‘s expected announcement of an Xbox 360 successor in June.Sony Corp. invited journalists to an evening press event in New York City. The company has not said what it plans to show off, but signs indicate that it’ll be the PlayStation...

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Parcells, Sapp, Carter among 7 Hall inductees

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Coach Bill Parcells, Warren Sapp, Cris Carter, Jonathan Ogden and Larry Allen were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.The class of 2013 also included a pair of senior selections, Curley Culp and Dave Robinson. The announcement was made in New Orleans, site of Sunday's Super Bowl.Five players failed to get in on the final vote: Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Andre...

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 90. The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap...

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Americans Closest to Retirement Were Hardest Hit by Recession

David Maxwell for The New York TimesSusan Zimmerman, 62, has three part-time jobs. Michael Stravato for The New York TimesArynita Armstrong, 60, at her home in Willis, Tex. She last worked five years ago. “When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” she says. In the current listless economy, every generation has a claim to having been most...

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Novella’s Sympathetic Portrayal of Armenians Causes Uproar in Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan —A novella by an Azeri author that portrays ethnic Armenians sympathetically has provoked an uproar in Azerbaijan, with Azeri lawmakers denouncing the work and protesters burning the author’s portrait outside his house. The novella, “Stone Dreams,” was published in mid-December by Ekrem Eylisli, a former lawmaker, but condemnation grew strident only over the last week, after...

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Coming soon to Facebook- more action, battle games

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When nWay began a trial of its dark, sci-fi combat game “ChronoBlade” on Facebook last year, the San Francisco-based startup felt sure it had a hit on its hands.“First of all, what comes is, ‘Wow, I had no idea you could actually do a game of this quality on Facebook,’” said Dave Jones, Chief Creative Officer of nWay, who has worked on “Grand Theft Auto.”Then came some resistance:...

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NFL's Goodell aims to share blame on player safety

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to share the blame."Safety," he said at his annual Super Bowl news conference, "is all of our responsibilities."Not surprisingly, given that thousands of former players are suing the league about its handling of concussions, the topics of player health and improved safety dominated Goodell's 45-minute session Friday. And he often sounded like...

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Auvi-Q Challenges EpiPen With a New Shape and Size

Twin brothers Eric and Evan Edwards grew up with serious food allergies and were under doctor’s orders to carry their medicine everywhere they went. But as they entered their teenage years in suburban Virginia, they found the advice increasingly hard to follow. The device they carried to inject the medicine, known as an EpiPen, was shaped like a large felt-tip marker and they would frequently...

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DealBook: Amid Bank's Legal Problems, Barclays Chief Gives Up Bonus

Antony P. Jenkins, the new chief executive of Barclays, said on Friday that he would forgo his bonus as the British bank struggled to rebuild its reputation after recent missteps.British regulators are investigating new accusations that Barclays failed to properly disclose to shareholders a loan to a group of Qatari investors that gave the British bank a cash infusion during the financial crisis,...

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Metropolitan Museum Collaborates With Chinese Museum

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CHINA, which opened two years ago to much fanfare as the Communist Party unveiled this mammoth showpiece to project its cultural ambitions, has now taken another step in trying to establish its legitimacy in the art world. The museum, reinvented from past incarnations and criticized by some for its party-approved depictions of modern Chinese history, on Friday will open...

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U.S. tablet shipments soar during holidays, threaten to surpass PCs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook’s prediction that tablets would one day outsell personal computers appears to be coming true.Holiday season shipments of tablet computers touched a record 52.5 million, up 75 percent from a year ago, as consumers snapped up a wide range of the touch-enabled mobile devices and lower priced offerings, according to International Data Corp (IDC),...

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5 Super Bowl ads that enlist viewer help

Advertisers are finding new ways to get viewers into the game during Super Bowl XLVII, which airs on CBS on Sunday. Here are 5 campaigns that enlist viewer help in one form or another.1. Coca-Cola created an online game that pits a troupe of showgirls, biker-style "badlanders" and cowboys against each other in a race to find a Coke in the desert. Viewers are encouraged to vote for their favorite group...

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common...

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DealBook: Deutsche Bank Posts Surprise $3 Billion Loss

FRANKFURT — Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, reported a surprise quarterly net loss of $3 billion on Thursday, as new management tallied the cost of past mistakes and tried to draw a line under the bank’s troubled past.The fourth-quarter loss of 2.2 billion euros included about 1 billion euros the bank set aside to cover legal proceedings and investigations, including accusations that Deutsche...

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The Lede Blog: Piecing Together Accounts of a Massacre in Syria

As my colleagues Hania Mourtada and Alan Cowell report, the bodies of dozens of young men, shot in the head from close range with their hands bound, were found in a narrow river in a neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday.The bodies were found in the Queiq River, which skirts the front line and de facto border between government-held areas of Aleppo and territory controlled by rebel fighters in...

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Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?

Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that’s...

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Lewis says he's 'agitated,' not angry about story

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Smiling, even laughing, at questions about a report linking him to a company that purports to make performance-enhancers, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said Wednesday he "never, ever took" the stuff.Lewis described himself as "agitated," not angry, that the story has become part of the Super Bowl-week prelude to Baltimore's game against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.He...

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Illness Walks the Runway

A top fashion designer quarantines a sneezing underling, forcing her to work in a closet. An industry P.R. executive makes colleagues douse their hands with Purell. Germ-phobic magazine editors are powerblasting offices with antiseptic wipes and Lysol. Such is the dread gripping the fashion world as it prepares for New York Fashion Week, beginning Feb. 7, with a killer flu and a stomach-bug...

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