Business Briefing | Retailing: Best Buy Shares Rally on Improved Holiday Sales

The Best Buy Company had better-than-expected holiday sales, setting off a gain of $2, or 16.4 percent, in its stock price, to $14.21 a share on Friday. The holiday quarter accounted for about a third of Best Buy’s revenue last year. The chain said that revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.4 percent for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5. The company’s performance in the United States was flat....

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Former Lab Technician Denies Faulty DNA Work in Rape Cases

A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure. The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s. “My work?” Ms. Mitchell said....

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Drivers With Hands Full Get a Backup: The Car

Annie Tritt for The New York TimesJesse Levinson of Stanford develops safety and self-driving systems like one on this Volkswagen Toureg that detects obstacles. PALO ALTO, Calif. — Driving around a college campus can be treacherous. Bikes and scooters zip out of nowhere, distracted students wander into traffic, and stopped cars and speed bumps suddenly appear. It takes a vigilant driver to avoid catastrophe....

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IHT Rendezvous: Hostages Caught Up in France's African Intervention

LONDON — The widespread satisfaction expressed in France at the government’s decision to intervene militarily against Islamic militants in Mali was tempered on Saturday by news of a failed overnight French hostage rescue mission on the other side of Africa.After reports emerged from Somalia of a helicopter-borne commando raid in the south of the country, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defense minister...

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DealBook: Wells Fargo Profit Jumps 24% in Quarter, Driven by Mortgage Gains

8:46 a.m. | Updated Wells Fargo reported $5.1 billion in profit for the fourth quarter on Friday, a 24 percent increase, driven by the bank’s lucrative mortgage business.Seizing on low-interest rates that have spurred a flurry of refinancing activity, the bank again notched record profits. For the last 12 quarters, profits at the bank have increased.In this latest quarter, Wells Fargo, based in San...

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The New Old Age Blog: Taking a Zen Approach to Caregiving

You try to help your elderly father. Irritated and defensive, he snaps at you instead of going along with your suggestion. And you think “this is so unfair” and feel a rising tide of anger.How to handle situations like this, which arise often and create so much angst for caregivers?Jennifer Block finds the answer in what she calls “contemplative caregiving” — the application of Buddhist principles...

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The New Old Age Blog: Taking a Zen Approach to Caregiving

You try to help your elderly father. Irritated and defensive, he snaps at you instead of going along with your suggestion. And you think “this is so unfair” and feel a rising tide of anger.How to handle situations like this, which arise often and create so much angst for caregivers?Jennifer Block finds the answer in what she calls “contemplative caregiving” — the application of Buddhist principles...

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Visit by Google Chairman May Benefit North Korea

BEIJING — As a work of propaganda, the images that North Korea circulated this week showing Google’s executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, touring a high-tech incubation center are hard to beat. Adrian Bradshaw/European Pressphoto AgencyEric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, at left wearing a tie, and former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico spoke to reporters in Beijing on Thursday...

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India Ink: Insurgents in Jharkhand Plant Bombs Inside Dead Bodies

Maoist insurgents in Jharkhand state have started to hide explosive devices in the bodies of their enemies, police officials said, a new tactic in the long battle between Indian security forces and the insurgents.On Monday, rebels killed nine Central Reserve Police Force paramilitary soldiers and three villagers in an ambush in the Karmatiya forest area of Latehar district, about 150 kilometers (90...

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Wall Street Flattens Out

Stocks rose ever so slightly on Wall Street on Thursday as stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world’s second-biggest economy, raised hopes for a more robust recovery in the global economy this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index added 0.2 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.1 percent and the Nasdaq composite index was flat in morning trading. ...

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Institute of Medicine Studying Concussions in Young Athletes

The Institute of Medicine, a federally financed research group, has started a 15-month investigation into sports-related concussions sustained by young athletes. An ad hoc committee of scientists, which held its first meeting Monday, “will conduct a study on sports-related concussions in youth, from elementary school through young adulthood, including military personnel and their dependents,”...

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Institute of Medicine Studying Concussions in Young Athletes

The Institute of Medicine, a federally financed research group, has started a 15-month investigation into sports-related concussions sustained by young athletes. An ad hoc committee of scientists, which held its first meeting Monday, “will conduct a study on sports-related concussions in youth, from elementary school through young adulthood, including military personnel and their dependents,”...

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Baseball Dumping Dugout-to-Bullpen Landlines

The reserve clause is dead. And so are wool uniforms. There are no longer eight teams in each league. And the Houston Astros have departed the National League.  Major League Baseball is now about to disconnect the landlines that link dugouts to bullpens. Long after the rest of society embraced cellphones, managers and coaches will soon be able to discuss pitching changes on Samsung Galaxy...

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Three Kurdish Activists Killed in Central Paris

Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMembers of the Kurdish community in France protested on Thursday near the institute in Paris where three Kurdish women were found killed. PARIS — Three Kurdish women, including a founding member of a leading militant group fighting for autonomy in Turkey, were shot to death at a Kurdish institute in central Paris, police officials said on Thursday,...

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Analysts Skeptical as Majority Owner Takes Role as Chief Executive of Sears

Elise Amendola/Associated PressA Sears in Peabody, Mass. Just hours after a board discussion on Monday, a note went out to Sears Holdings employees from Edward S. Lampert, the company’s majority owner and chairman, that he would now be its chief executive. “I believe in our company,” Mr. Lampert wrote. But not everyone shares his optimism. Seven years after he engineered the...

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Gaps Seen in Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers

Most adolescents who plan or attempt suicide have already received at least some mental health treatment, raising questions about the effectiveness of current approaches to helping troubled youths, according to the largest in-depth analysis to date of suicidal behaviors in American teenagers. The study, in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received...

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Gaps Seen in Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers

Most adolescents who plan or attempt suicide have already received at least some mental health treatment, raising questions about the effectiveness of current approaches to helping troubled youths, according to the largest in-depth analysis to date of suicidal behaviors in American teenagers. The study, in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received...

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Chinese Man Pleads Guilty in Copyright Violation Case

Nearly five years ago, a Chinese man named Xiang Li registered several domain names, including www.crack99.com, and embarked on an ambitious, and ultimately illegal, venture. Mr. Li, who was based in Chengdu, paid a network of computer experts to scour the Internet to find commercial software they could “crack,” meaning they bypassed security protocols designed to prevent unauthorized...

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The Lede Blog: Armstrong Set to Appear on Oprah Next Week, as New Allegation Surfaces

Last Updated, Wednesday, 10:48 a.m. The year before his seventh and final Tour de France victory, Lance Armstrong offered to donate “in excess of $150,000″ to the antidoping agency in charge of keeping American athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs, according to the organization’s chief executive.The latest accusation against Armstrong, the disgraced former cyclist, was made by the current...

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Frequent Flier: When Even 4 Hours of Layover Time Isn’t Enough

William Boutelle cycling on Lismore Isle in Scotland. He is  a psychiatrist at ServiceNet, which provides clinical services in Northampton, Mass. Q. How often do you fly for business?A. About twice a month, mostly domestic.Q. What’s your least favorite airport?A. Philadelphia International. Something always gets messed up there, without fail.Q. Of all the places...

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