A man who took a commercial flight from Liberia that landed in Dallas on Sept. 20 has been found to have the Ebola virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. He is the first traveler to have brought the virus to the United States on a passenger plane. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/health/airline-passenger-with-ebola-is-under-treatment-in-dallas.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=21060182&pgtype=Homepage He was […]

Americans have no idea how much the Masters of the Universe are paid, a finding very much in line with evidence that Americans vastly underestimate the concentration of wealth at the top. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/opinion/paul-krugman-our-invisible-rich.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss The supposedly well informed often seem comparably out of touch. Until the Occupy movement turned the “1 percent” into a catchphrase, it […]

The Obama administration plans to announce Tuesday that it has recruited new federal agencies and a number of universities, foundations and businesses to help pursue the goals of the Brain Initiative, which the president started in 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/us/more-groups-join-project-on-the-brain.html?ref=us Tom Kalil, deputy director for technology and innovation, in the White House Office of Science and Technology […]

The decision by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join air strikes in Syria reflects an increasingly muscular foreign policy by the Gulf Arab heavyweights that has already started to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East.  http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/09/30/world/middleeast/30reuters-mideast-crisis-saudi-emirates.html?ref=world With Egypt, Syria and Iraq – where the Arab world’s armed might […]

An obscure federal contract for a company charged with routing millions of phone calls and text messages in the United States has prompted an unusual lobbying battle in which intelligence officials are arguing that the nation’s surveillance secrets could be at risk. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/spy-agencies-urge-caution-on-phone-deal.html?ref=us&_r=0  The contractor that wins the bid would essentially act as the air […]

A South Carolina state trooper shoot an unarmed man whom he had seconds earlier pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29373115 Sean Groubert, 31, who is white, is seen on dashboard video shooting Levar Jones, 35, who is black. Mr Jones was struck in the hip and has been released from hospital. Mr Groubert […]

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has frustrated and confounded even his staunchest allies for his views on civil liberties. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/us/politics/a-champion-of-civil-rights-if-not-of-civil-liberties-just-like-his-hero.html?ref=us Mr. Holder approved of the National Security Agency’s authority to sweep up millions of phone records of Americans accused of no crime. He subpoenaed journalists and led a crackdown on their sources. He defended […]

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran delivered a searing indictment of Western and Arab states on Thursday in his annual speech to the United Nations, blaming them for sowing the seeds of extremism in the Middle East with “strategic blunders” that have given rise to the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/middleeast/hassan-rouhani-iran-united-nations.html?ref=world “Certain intelligence […]

In the late 1980s and the 90s, Prozac was widely viewed as a miracle pill, a life preserver thrown to those who felt themselves drowning in the high waters of mental anguish. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/selling-prozac-as-the-life-enhancing-cure-for-mental-woes.html?ref=us It was the star in a class of new pharmaceuticals known as S.S.R.I.s — selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Underlying their use is […]

The Obama administration increased the pressure on states to expand Medicaid on Wednesday, citing new evidence that hospitals reap financial benefits and gain more paying customers when states broaden eligibility.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/health-act-cuts-spending-at-hospitals-report-finds.html?ref=us In states that have expanded Medicaid, the White House said, hospitals are seeing substantial reductions in “uncompensated care” as more patients have Medicaid coverage […]

Top executives at General Motors and Ally Financial, both of which received bailouts from the United States Treasury Department in 2009, were paid excessively even as taxpayers lost money, according to a special inspector general report. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/business/report-rebukes-treasury-for-bailout-pay-packages.html?ref=us The report, released Wednesday, criticized the Treasury Department for loosening its own restrictions on executive pay for G.M. […]

The Fire Department of New York says three retired firefighters who worked at ground zero have died on the same day from 9/11-related illnesses. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/09/25/us/ap-us-sept-11-firefighters-die.html?ref=us Lt. Howard Bischoff and firefighters Robert Leaver and Daniel Heglund died Monday. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro says their deaths are “a painful reminder that 13 years later we continue to […]

“We know about who made Daesh,” said Bahaa al-Araji, a deputy prime minister, using an Arabic shorthand for the Islamic State on Saturday at a demonstration called by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr to warn against the possible deployment of American ground troops. Mr. Sadr publicly blamed the C.I.A. for creating the Islamic State in […]

Authorities hunkered down early Saturday in the neighborhood where a man suspected in the fatal shooting of a Pennsylvania State Police trooper lived with his parents, raising hopes they had him cornered a week after the ambush outside a rural police barracks. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/09/20/us/ap-us-police-barracks-shooting.html?ref=us For a second night, authorities closed roads near the home in a […]

The Senate gave overwhelming approval on Thursday to the training and arming of Syrian rebels, then fled the Capitol with the House for the fall campaign, sidestepping the debate over the extent of American military action until the lame-duck session of Congress later this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/world/middleeast/senate-approves-isis-bill-avoiding-bigger-war-debate.html?ref=us The training measure was pushed hard by President Obama, […]

Mufid A Elfgeeh, 30, a naturalised citizen from Yemen, was arrested in May after an undercover operation.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29257424?print=true Elfgeeh is accused of planning to assist the Islamic State militant group and attempting to murder US soldiers has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He allegedly planned to kill Shia Muslims and American military personnel returning from […]

In a contentious hearing before Congress, a senior official from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ watchdog agency acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that delays in care had contributed to the deaths of patients at the department’s medical center in Phoenix.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/us/va-officials-acknowledge-link-between-delays-and-patient-deaths.html?ref=us The disclosure by an official from the department’s inspector general’s office, coming […]

Artificial sweeteners disrupt the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, causing metabolic changes that can be a precursor to diabetes, researchers are reporting. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/artificial-sweeteners-may-disrupt-bodys-blood-sugar-controls/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=us&_r=0 That is “the very same condition that we often aim to prevent” by consuming sweeteners instead of sugar, said Dr. Eran Elinav, an immunologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in […]

The Agriculture Department has approved the commercial planting of corn and soybeans genetically engineered to survive being sprayed by the herbicide known as 2,4-D, according to documents it posted on a federal regulatory website on Wednesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/business/altered-to-withstand-herbicide-corn-and-soybeans-gain-approval.html?ref=us Some weeds can no longer be killed by Roundup, known generically as glyphosate, the usual herbicide of choice. […]

An improperly mixed measles vaccine has killed as many as 50 children in insurgent-held areas of northwestern Syria, volunteer medical organizations and physicians reported Wednesday, forcing the suspension of a large-scale United Nations vaccination campaign intended to stop the spread of measles, rubella and polio. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/middleeast/syrian-children-die-after-vaccinations.html?ref=world The victims, some of them infants, apparently all died […]