Questcor Finds Profits, at $28,000 a Vial DEC. 29, 2012 Christina Culver with her son Tyler, 6, at home in Colorado Springs this month. In 2007, Tyler was hospitalized when the price of Acthar soared. Kevin Moloney for The New York Times ANAHEIM, Calif. THE doctor was dumbfounded: a drug that used…

Federal Power to Intercept Messages Is Extended DEC. 28, 2012 WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Friday to a bill extending the government’s power to intercept electronic communications of spy and terrorism suspects, after the Senate voted down proposals from several Democrats and…

First thing in the morning, the king of Hollywood receives a phone call. The call always comes from New York. The reason is simple. New York, being three hours ahead of Los Angeles, always has The Numbers. And The Numbers—daily accountings of every dollar spent, every box-office receipt—are all that…

Betrayed While Asleep, Afghan Police Die at Hands of Their Countrymen DEC. 27, 2012 A graduation ceremony for Afghan police officers in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Thursday. Rahmat Gul/Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan — A wave of betrayal has left at least 17 Afghan policemen dead in the…

Rare Choreography of Cooperation for Riders Caught Between an F and an M DEC. 27, 2012 The F and M trains, which stop at the same platform in much of Manhattan, are a level apart at the Delancey and Essex Streets station, where riders team up to monitor train screeches and displaced air to…

DEC. 27, 2012 Fontella Bass in 1995. Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos Fontella Bass, the singer whose 1965 hit “Rescue Me” was an indelible example of the decade’s finest pop-soul, died on Wednesday in St. Louis. She was 72. The cause was complications of a recent heart attack, her daughter Neuka…

Arber Tasimi is a 23-year-old researcher at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center, where he studies the moral inclinations of babies—how the littlest children understand right and wrong, before language and culture exert their deep influence.“What are we at our core, before anything, before…

Photo A screengrab of The Journal News's gun-permit map, which is concentrated in Westchester County. Credit 8:45 p.m. | Updated In the days after the Connecticut school killings, a newspaper in nearby Westchester County, N.Y., decided to respond by publishing the names and addresses of handgun…

A rickety Toyota truck packed with 14 people rumbled down a desert road from the town of Radda, which al-Qaeda militants once controlled. Suddenly a missile hurtled from the sky and flipped the vehicle over. Chaos. Flames. Corpses. Then, a second missile struck. Within seconds, 11 of the passengers…

A video from a May fund-raiser in Florida showed Romney characterizing nearly half of Americans as “victims’’ who want government aid. (Associated Press photo of Mother Jones video) –Associated Press photo of Mother Jones video It was two weeks before Election Day when Mitt Romney’s political…

F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement, Records Show DEC. 24, 2012 A group of protesters gathered in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 17, 2011, the day that the Occupy Wall Street movement began. Robert Stolarik for The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation used…

China Opens Longest High-Speed Rail Line DEC. 26, 2012 China’s high-speed trains at a maintenance area in Wuhan. European Pressphoto Agency HONG KONG — China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that…

DEC. 25, 2012 With the retirement of Senator Daniel K. Akaka, center, the top alphabetical spot falls to another. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times WASHINGTON — It is a name that has echoed prominently through the Senate for years, even though most Americans know very little about the person…

For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall DEC. 22, 2012 GALVESTON, Tex. — Angelica Gonzales marched through high school in Goth armor — black boots, chains and cargo pants — but undermined her pose of alienation with a place on the honor roll. She nicknamed herself after a metal band and…

With a Click, a Meal and a Story DEC. 21, 2012 HOME COOKING Lany Phlong is one of the chefs available through Kitchensurfing. Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times She had never worked in a restaurant or gone to culinary school, but there she was on a recent Thursday night, buzzing up to a stranger’s…

Marijuana, Not Yet Legal for Californians, Might as Well Be DEC. 20, 2012 At a San Francisco concert in 2010, marijuana use was general while signatures were collected for a measure to decriminalize it. Jim Wilson/The New York Times LOS ANGELES — Let Colorado and Washington be the marijuana…

The portrait for the carte-de-visite of Sojourner Truth, the African-American abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, was taken in Battle Creek, Mich., in the 1860s ( Slide 5 ). She wears an elegant silk dress and shawl. With one hand resting on her hip, the other on the arm of the chair, her pose…

Looking for America Gail Collins DEC. 14, 2012 “I’m sorry,” said Representative Carolyn McCarthy , her voice breaking. “I’m having a really tough time.” She’s the former nurse from Long Island who ran for Congress in 1996 as a crusader against gun violence after her husband and son were victims of a…

Study Finds One in 6 Follows No Religion DEC. 18, 2012 A global study of religious adherence released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that about one of every six people worldwide has no religious affiliation. This makes the “unaffiliated,” as the study calls them, the third-largest group…

Seeking Comfort in Song Amid the Whiz of Bullets DEC. 17, 2012 Town residents grieved after the Newtown shooting. The second graders had just finished their yoga poses and jumping jacks when the gunshots began. Their teacher, Carol Wexler, herded the children — 18 of them — into a corner of the…

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would…

Good Name Is Restored in Terrain Known for Tea DEC. 16, 2012 A woman on the Sungma Tea Estate in Darjeeling, India, where growers have followed the example of Scottish whisky distillers and French wineries in limiting the use of certain geographic names to products from those places. Enrico Fabian…

Expand Photo: Kim Badaw/Getty Images for CNN Arwa Damon’s fearless reporting from the Middle East has made her a star at CNN. What she uncovered in Libya sparked a national furor. The Manhattan apartment CNN’s Arwa Damon has been camping out in this past week is a disaster zone. Among the flock of…

Magazine

A Fed Focused on the Value of Clarity DEC. 13, 2012 WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve ’s decision on Wednesday to announce specific economic objectives for its policies would have stunned and dismayed earlier generations of central bankers, who regarded secrecy as a virtue and obfuscation as a prized…

We encourage viewing this slideshow in “full-screen” mode. Along a stretch of elevated train tracks on Westchester Avenue in the Bronx, Henry Chalfant encountered the Ghost of Christmas Past in 1977. It was faded, yet stunning — though it wasn’t quite a Dickensian tableau rendered by strokes of a…

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. Counterterrorism officials…

A Halfway House Built on Exaggerated Claims DEC. 12, 2012 Some residents of a halfway house, left, run by Community First Services on Gold Street say it offers little more than meals and a bed, not counseling and job-search help. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Seeking an operator for a major…

Maps App for iPhone Steers Right It was one of the biggest tech headlines of the year: in September, Apple dropped its contract with Google , which had always supplied the data for the iPhone ’s Maps app. For various strategic reasons, Apple preferred to write a new app, based on a new database of…

For Lesser Crimes, Rethinking Life Behind Bars DEC. 11, 2012 LEFT BEHIND Wendy Evil raised her sister's three children when her sister, Stephanie George, went to prison. William Widmer for The New York Times TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Stephanie George and Judge Roger Vinson had quite different opinions…

Border Agents’ Power to Search Devices Is Facing Increasing Challenges in Court DEC. 3, 2012 “We’re getting more into whether this is targeting political speech,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing plaintiffs in two lawsuits challenging digital…

Sen. Ron Wyden insists he doesn’t have a grudge against fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California. What he does have, though, is a hold on her two legislative priorities of the lame-duck session — and he has, in fact, placed a hold on every major bill coming out of her Intelligence Committee in…

The more the word is used metaphorically, the more people lose touch with what it really means. The rape metaphors are flying, of late, like Cabbage Patch dolls off shelves during a holiday stampede. The latest inappropriate rape metaphor was volleyed on Monday by Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View…

New Love: A Short Shelf Life DEC. 1, 2012 Graham Roumieu IN fairy tales, marriages last happily ever after. Science, however, tells us that wedded bliss has but a limited shelf life. American and European researchers tracked 1,761 people who got married and stayed married over the course of 15…

DEC. 1, 2012 John McAfee, right, a pioneer in computer security who lives in Belize, is a “person of interest” in the murder of his neighbor. Photo Illustration by The New York Times AMBERGRIS CAYE, Belize DANIEL GUERRERO promised during his campaign for mayor here to clean up San Pedro, the only…

A Feisty Start-Up Is Met With Regulatory Snarl DEC. 2, 2012 The Uber car-hiring app was introduced in Sydney last month. Jack Atley for The New York Times WASHINGTON — Summoning a taxi or car service with your smartphone feels like the future. City governments around the world can agree on that. But…

Holiday Bonus: A Beloved Aunt With Cash NOV. 30, 2012 IT’S the holiday phrase that children learned to dread growing up — “Open this present. It’s from your aunt” — as dreams of tube socks and itchy sweaters danced wearily in their heads. Dr. Joyce Lee, 34, is having none of that. Considering what…

How the Coastline Became a Place to Put the Poor DEC. 3, 2012 In retrospect, after the storm, it looked like a perverse stroke of urban planning. Many of New York City’s most vulnerable people had been housed in its most vulnerable places: public housing projects along the water, in areas like the…

A Closely Guarded Secret: When the Camels Go for a Walk The three camels starring in a Christmas show Nativity scene, from left, are Ted, Gabby and Carol. Michael Appleton for The New York Times Walking down 51st Street on Thursday morning, Brenda Clarke talked to herself out loud — just once — when…

Homeless Man Is Grateful for Officer’s Gift of Boots. But He Again Is Barefoot. DEC. 2, 2012 After Officer Lawrence DePrimo knelt beside a barefoot man on a bitterly cold November night in Times Square, giving him a pair of boots, a photo of his random act of good will quickly took on a life of its…