Instagram Reversal Doesn’t Appease Everyone

Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesKevin Systrom, right, co-founder of Instagram, with employees in the company office in San Francisco last year. SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook may have quelled a full-scale rebellion by quickly dumping the contentious new terms of use for Instagram, its photo-sharing service. But even as the social network furiously backpedaled, some users said Friday they were carrying...

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Alabama to End Isolation of Inmates With H.I.V.

Jamie Martin/Associated PressThe H.I.V. ward of an Alabama women's prison in 2008. The state was ordered to stop segregating inmates with the virus. A federal judge on Friday ordered Alabama to stop isolating prisoners with H.I.V. Alabama is one of two states, along with South Carolina, where H.I.V.-positive inmates are housed in separate prisons, away from other inmates, in an attempt to...

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Alabama to End Isolation of Inmates With H.I.V.

Jamie Martin/Associated PressThe H.I.V. ward of an Alabama women's prison in 2008. The state was ordered to stop segregating inmates with the virus. A federal judge on Friday ordered Alabama to stop isolating prisoners with H.I.V. Alabama is one of two states, along with South Carolina, where H.I.V.-positive inmates are housed in separate prisons, away from other inmates, in an attempt to...

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Instagram Reversal Doesn’t Appease Everyone

Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesKevin Systrom, right, co-founder of Instagram, with employees in the company office in San Francisco last year. SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook may have quelled a full-scale rebellion by quickly dumping the contentious new terms of use for Instagram, its photo-sharing service. But even as the social network furiously backpedaled, some users said Friday they were carrying...

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 22

NEWS In its first extended comment since the primary-school massacre in Connecticut last week, the United States’ powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, called on Friday for American schools to be patrolled by armed guards. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. vice president. Eric Lichtblau and Motoko Rich report from...

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Boehner Tax Plan in House Is Pulled, Lacking Votes

Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesSpeaker John A. Boehner of Ohio leaving a meeting Thursday with fellow House Republicans on talks over the “fiscal cliff.” WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner’s effort to pass fallback legislation to avert a fiscal crisis in less than two weeks collapsed Thursday night in an embarrassing defeat after conservative Republicans refused to support legislation that...

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U.S. Makes Arrest in Olympus Accounting Scandal

Federal agents arrested a former bank executive in Los Angeles on Thursday in connection with the accounting scandal that erupted last year at Olympus, the Japanese camera and medical equipment maker. Prosecutors in New York said that the executive, Chan Ming Fon, received more than $10 million from Olympus for assisting in its accounting fraud. The Federal Bureau of Investigation...

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Syria Uses Cluster Bombs to Attack as Many Civilians as Possible

MAREA, Syria — The plane came in from the southeast late in the afternoon, releasing its weapons in a single pass. Within seconds, scores of finned bomblets struck and exploded on the homes and narrow streets of this small Syrian town. After the screams and the desperate gathering of the victims, the staff at the local Freedom Hospital counted 4 dead and 23 wounded. All were civilians, doctors...

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Obama and Boehner Split on Fiscal Plan

Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesSpeaker John A. Boehner delivered a cutting response to President Obama on Wednesday. WASHINGTON — Hopes for a broad deficit-reduction agreement faded on Wednesday as President Obama insisted he had offered Republicans “a fair deal” while Speaker John A. Boehner moved for a House vote as early as Thursday on a scaled-down plan to limit tax increases to yearly...

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Iraqi President Is Flown to Germany for Treatment

BERLIN — Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, was flown to Germany on Thursday for medical treatment for a stroke suffered this week, his spokesman said. The president, 79, was said to be in “stable” condition, and the decision to move him was announced after medical specialists from abroad were dispatched to Iraq to assess the possibility of sending him out of the country for further treatment....

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DealBook: As Unit Pleads Guilty, UBS Pays $1.5 Billion Over Rate Rigging

UBS, the Swiss banking giant, announced a record settlement with global authorities on Wednesday, agreeing to a combined $1.5 billion in fines for its role in a multiyear scheme to manipulate interest rates.In a sign that officials are increasingly taking a hard line against financial wrongdoing, the Justice Department also secured a guilty plea from the bank’s Japanese subsidiary, sending a warning...

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The New Old Age Blog: Older People Become What They Think, Study Shows

All of us have beliefs — many of them subconscious, dating back to childhood — about what it means to get older. Psychologists call these “age stereotypes.” And, it turns out, they can have an important effect on seniors’ health.When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care...

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The New Old Age Blog: Older People Become What They Think, Study Shows

All of us have beliefs — many of them subconscious, dating back to childhood — about what it means to get older. Psychologists call these “age stereotypes.” And, it turns out, they can have an important effect on seniors’ health.When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care...

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Report Blames BBC for ‘Chaos,’ Not Cover-Up, in Scandal

LONDON — A report into the sexual abuse crisis that has shaken the British Broadcasting Corporation was strongly critical on Wednesday of the editorial and management decisions that led to the cancellation of a broadcast last year that would have exposed decades of sexual abuse, some of it on BBC premises, by Jimmy Savile, who had been one of Britain’s best-known television personalities. Mr. Savile...

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Poland Finds It’s Not Immune to Euro Crisis

WARSAW — The Fiat factory in Tychy, Poland, has long been considered one of the most productive auto plants in Europe, often singled out for praise by the Italian company’s demanding chief executive, Sergio Marchionne. Rafal Klimkiewicz/The New York TimesThe assembly line at Fiat's Tychy factory in Poland, shown in 2009. Fiat recently announced layoffs at the factory. ...

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The New Old Age Blog: In the Middle: Helping Unhappy Couples

A post on Monday discussed the forces that can make an older couple’s good marriage suddenly go bad — an array of subtle, and often-misunderstood, mental, physical and emotional factors that can upset the equilibrium of even the happiest marriages.Now we have consulted marriage counselors and geriatricians to find out what caregivers — either the grown children of the couple, or one of the spouses...

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