Memo From Afghanistan: YouTube Ban Is Shrugged Off in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — When it comes to YouTube, the government of Afghanistan intends to keep its hand on the switch for now. More than two months after the Afghan government banned YouTube to prevent the spread of an anti-Islamic video, it has yet to restore access to the popular video Web site. While officials say they hope to lift the block “as soon as possible,” they have offered only...

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3 Walmart Suppliers Made Goods in Bangladesh Factory

Khurshed Rinku/Associated PressBurials on Nov. 27 for some of the 112 victims of the garment factory fire in Bangladesh. Documents found at the Tazreen apparel factory in Bangladesh, where 112 workers died in a fire nearly two weeks ago, indicate that three American garment companies were using the factory during the past year to supply goods to Walmart and its Sam’s Club subsidiary. The...

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Rhode Island Judge Has Stake in Pension Case Outcome

Can a judge rule impartially on pension cuts when her mother, her son, her uncle and even she herself all have a stake in preserving the status quo? Rhode Island, the site of a sweeping pension overhaul last year, has brought in a prominent New York lawyer to litigate the question: David Boies, perhaps best known for representing Al Gore in the fight over the 2000 presidential election and...

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Willis Whitfield, Clean Room Inventor, Dies at 92

The enemy was very small but it was everywhere. World peace, medical advancement, iTunes — all would eventually be threatened. Half a century ago, as a rapidly changing world sought increasingly smaller mechanical and electrical components and more sanitary hospital conditions, one of the biggest obstacles to progress was air, and the dust and germs it contains. Stray particles a few...

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Willis Whitfield, Clean Room Inventor, Dies at 92

The enemy was very small but it was everywhere. World peace, medical advancement, iTunes — all would eventually be threatened. Half a century ago, as a rapidly changing world sought increasingly smaller mechanical and electrical components and more sanitary hospital conditions, one of the biggest obstacles to progress was air, and the dust and germs it contains. Stray particles a few...

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Video Games: Little Inferno; Hitman; Assassin’s Creed III; Persona 4 Golden; Angry Birds Star Wars; My Little Pony

UbisoftRatonhnhaké:ton is a half-British, half-Mohawk assassin in Revolutionary America. Released on Nov. 18 Developed by Tomorrow Corporation For PC, Mac, Linux and Wii U Rated T for Teen (drug reference and crude humor) Here’s an odd one. Little Inferno is an interactive fireplace. It’s an emotional, interactive fireplace with a story line and some notions about the...

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Changing of the Guard: How Crash Cover-Up Altered China’s Succession

BEIJING — “Thank you. I’m well. Don’t worry,” read the post on a Chinese social networking site. The brief comment, published in June, appeared to come from Ling Gu, the 23-year-old son of a high-powered aide to China’s president, and it helped quash reports that he had been killed in a Ferrari crash after a night of partying. It only later emerged that the message was a sham, posted by someone...

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More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers

Barbies are for girls and construction sets are for boys. Or are they? For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that...

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With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane Sandy, Others Pick Up Slack

A month after Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, unexpectedly shutting down several hospitals, one Upper East Side medical center had so many more emergency room patients than usual that it was parking them in its lobby. White and blue plastic screens had been set up between the front door and the elevator banks in the East 68th Street building of that hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill...

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With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane Sandy, Others Pick Up Slack

A month after Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, unexpectedly shutting down several hospitals, one Upper East Side medical center had so many more emergency room patients than usual that it was parking them in its lobby. White and blue plastic screens had been set up between the front door and the elevator banks in the East 68th Street building of that hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill...

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