A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/politics/leaning-right-in-hollywood-under-a-lens.html?hp Now the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the […]

The chemical spill that left 300,000 West Virginia residents without usable water involved more chemicals than the company responsible had previously reported, officials revealed this week, leading the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to order that company to give a full accounting of the chemicals that had leaked into the Elk River. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/a-second-chemical-was-part-of-west-virginia-chemical-spill-company-reveals.html?ref=us&_r=0 The newly […]

An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/politics/watchdog-report-says-nsa-program-is-illegal-and-should-end.html?hp&_r=0 The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York […]

Members of the Chinese elite, including some of the country’s most politically connected figures, have set up a large number of offshore companies that allow them to conceal billions of dollars abroad, according to a new report released Wednesday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based group that works with a number of […]

Edward J. Snowden on Tuesday adamantly denied as “absurd” and “smears” the suggestion by the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that he might have been a Russian spy when he downloaded archives of classified National Security Agency documents and leaked them to journalists. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/world/snowden-denies-suggestions-that-he-was-a-spy-for-russia.html?ref=world In an interview with The New Yorker, Mr. […]

Highly radioactive water found in a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant offers new evidence that the reactor’s containment vessel was breached during the accident, the plant’s operator said Monday. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/world/asia/japan-new-leak-detected-at-crippled-reactor.html?ref=world The operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said a remote-controlled robot had found water on the floor of the heavily contaminated No. […]

The Ukrainian government used telephone technology to pinpoint the locations of cellphones in use near clashes between riot police officers and protesters early on Tuesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/world/europe/ukraine-protests.html?ref=world People near the fighting between riot police and protesters received a text message shortly after midnight saying “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.” […]

Filthy emissions from China’s export industries are carried across the Pacific Ocean and contribute to air pollution in the Western United States, according to a paper published Monday by a prominent American science journal. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/world/asia/china-also-exports-pollution-to-western-us-study-finds.html?ref=world&_r=0 The research is the first to quantify how air pollution in the United States is affected by China’s production of […]

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has collected and stored almost 200 million text messages a day from around the world, UK media report. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25770313 The NSA extracts and stores data from the SMS messages, and UK spies have had access to some of the information, the Guardian and Channel 4 News say. The reporting […]

Google has said it’s testing of a “smart contact lens” is to help measure glucose levels.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25771907?print=true “It’s still early days for this technology, but we’ve completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype,” the firm said in a blogpost. Many global firms have been looking to expand in the wearable […]

McGuire took 15 minutes to die by lethal injection Thursday morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Eyewitness accounts differ slightly on how much Mr. McGuire, 53, struggled and gasped in those final minutes. But because the execution took unusually long and because Ohio was using a new, untested cocktail of drugs in […]

With new vigor, Greek prosecutors working independently of politicians — and sometimes in the face of passive resistance from them — are pursuing corruption cases against a widening pool of current and former high-ranking state officials and members of the business elite once deemed untouchable. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/world/europe/greek-prosecutors-focus-on-corruption-at-the-top.html?ribbon-ad-idx=7&rref=world/europe&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Europe&pgtype=article In country after country, officials have had difficulty deciding […]

The Vatican faced a barrage of pointed questions from a United Nations panel on Thursday about how it had handled decades of reports of clergy sexual abuse, the first such prolonged interrogation by an international body and a moment long awaited by abuse victims in many countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/world/europe/un-sex-abuse-panel-questions-vatican-officials.html?ref=world Vatican representatives insisted that abuse cases were […]

The Ukrainian Parliament on Thursday pushed through sweeping legislation outlawing the installation of unauthorized tents in public spaces and imposing other new restrictions on protests that seemed aimed at authorizing the government to clear hundreds of demonstrators occupying Independence Square in Kiev, the capital. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/world/europe/sweeping-new-restrictions-take-aim-at-protesters-camped-out-in-kiev.html?ref=world The law, hustled through Parliament in a surprise move by […]

A US federal appeals court has rejected rules intended to prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from prioritising certain types of content. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25743200 Net neutrality is the principle that ISPs should not block web traffic for customers who pay less to give faster speeds to those who pay more. The US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) adopted […]

The National Labor Relations Board, in a sweeping complaint filed on Wednesday, said that Walmart illegally disciplined and fired employees after strikes and protests for better pay. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/business/walmart-is-facing-claims-that-it-fired-protesters.html?ref=us The complaint listed violations of federal law in 14 states involving more than 60 workers and 34 stores. It said Walmart fired 19 employees for taking part […]

The District of Columbia on Wednesday moved closer to easing restrictions on marijuana, as city lawmakers advanced a measure that would decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of the drug. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us/dc-lawmakers-advance-measure-to-loosen-marijuana-law.html?ref=us In a unanimous voice vote, the City Council’s public safety committee sent the full Council a measure that would make possessing marijuana a […]

A coalition airstrike in a province north of Kabul killed at least two Afghan villagers on Wednesday morning, prompting President Hamid Karzai to order an official inquiry and escalating tensions yet again between the allies over civilian deaths. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/world/asia/us-afghan-tensions-increase-as-airstrike-kills-more-civilians.html?ref=world The civilian deaths on Wednesday are likely to worsen the relationship between the Afghans and Americans, […]