Faceoff in Chinese City Over Censorship of Newspaper

Jonah M. Kessel for The New York TimesA free speech advocate outside of Southern Weekend newspaper in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday. GUANGZHOU, China – Protests over censorship at one of China’s most liberal newspapers descended into ideological confrontation on Tuesday, pitting advocates of free speech against supporters of Communist Party control who wielded red flags and portraits of Mao Zedong....

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals...

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'Bama bashes Notre Dame 42-14 in BCS title game

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Barely taking time to celebrate their latest national championship, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to get back to work.That's how they make it look so easy.In what must be an increasingly frustrating scene for the rest of college football, another season ended with Saban and his players frolicking in the middle of a confetti-strewn field. Eddie Lacy ran...

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The New Old Age Blog: Who Should Receive Organ Transplants?

Joe Gammalo had been contending with pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs, for more than a decade when he came to the Cleveland Clinic in 2008 seeking a lung transplant.“It had gotten to the point where I was on oxygen all the time and in a wheelchair,” he told me in an interview. “I didn’t expect to live.”Lung transplants are a dicey proposition, involving a huge surgical procedure, arduous...

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Richard Ben Cramer, Wrote of Presidential Politics, Dies at 62

Richard Ben Cramer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of “What it Takes,” a superbly detailed account of the 1988 presidential election considered among the finest books about American politics ever written, died in Baltimore on Monday night. He was 62. His daughter, Ruby Cramer, said he died of complications from lung cancer at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. ...

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News Analysis: Chinese Newspaper, Southern Weekend, Challenges Censors

Pool photo by REUTERS/Wang ZhaoXi Jinping at a meeting in Beijing in December. Unrest at an influential newspaper, Southern Weekend, has caught the public’s attention. BEIJING — Turmoil at one of China’s leading newspapers is posing an early challenge to the measured political program of the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, pitting a pent-up popular demand for change against the Communist Party’s desire...

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Here come the big boys

Here come the big boys.The NFL's wild-card weekend is over, with nary an upset. Moving on are division winners Green Bay, Houston and Baltimore, along with NFC West runner-up Seattle and the only rookie quarterback still standing: Russell Wilson.Ahead are some daunting challenges as the Ravens visit Denver, the Texans go to New England, the Packers head to San Francisco and the Seahawks journey to...

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Alarm in Albuquerque Over Plan to End Methadone for Inmates

Mark Holm for The New York TimesOfficials at New Mexico’s largest jail want to end its methadone program. Addicts like Penny Strayer hope otherwise. ALBUQUERQUE — It has been almost four decades since Betty Jo Lopez started using heroin. Her face gray and wizened well beyond her 59 years, Ms. Lopez would almost certainly still be addicted, if not for the fact that she is locked away in jail,...

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At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales)

ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine Walt Disney World with no entry turnstiles. Cash? Passé: Visitors would wear rubber bracelets encoded with credit card information, snapping up corn dogs and Mickey Mouse ears with a tap of the wrist. Smartphone alerts would signal when it is time to ride Space Mountain without standing in line. Fantasyland? Hardly. It happens starting this spring. Disney in...

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Pakistan Says 1 Dead in Border Clash With India

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan and India traded accusations Sunday of violating the cease-fire in the disputed northern region of Kashmir, with Islamabad accusing Indian troops of a cross-border raid that killed one of its soldiers and India charging that Pakistani shelling destroyed a home on its side. The accusation of a border crossing resulting in military deaths is unusual in Kashmir, where...

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