A wild Washington Post story reports that the Obama administration has been developing plans to "institutionalize" its extrajudicial assassination program. The lede is bonkers: Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a…

It's a good thing that Mitt Romney endorsed President Obama's counterterrorism agenda. Should he win the election in two weeks, Romney will inherit an institutionalized, bureaucratic machine for using lethal robots to target and kill suspected terrorists and their allies. Killing Osama bin Laden was…

The federal government filed a civil lawsuit against Bank of America Corp., alleging the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets and its Countrywide Financial Corp. unit saddled taxpayers with losses by misrepresenting the quality of home loans they sold to mortgage-finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie…

Unarmed and Gunned Down by Homeowner in His ‘Castle’ OCT. 23, 2012 The house, right, where Dan Fredenberg, looking for his wife, was fatally shot by Brice Harper last month in Kalispell, Mont. Rajah Bose for The New York Times KALISPELL, Mont. — The last mistake Dan Fredenberg made was getting…

CLARIFICATION: The original headline for this piece, 'Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,' did not accurately reflect the findings of the Dialog poll. The question to which most respondents answered in the negative did not relate to the current situation, but to a hypothetical…

Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue OCT. 23, 2012 WASHINGTON — Taxes and government spending. Health care. Immigration . Financial regulation. They are the issues that have dominated the political debate in recent years and have played a prominent role in this presidential…

Editor’s note: This project, based on interviews with dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others, examines evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies and the practice of targeted killing. This is the first of three stories. Over the past two years, the…

Tuesday's fatal shark attack in Santa Barbara County -- the third fatal shark attack in California in the last four years -- has prompted a renewed interest in beach and water safety on West Coast beaches. But while the number of shark sightings and attacks have increased in recent years, some…

Former BBC Head Says He Had No Role in Squelching Program OCT. 23, 2012 Mark Thompson, the former head of the British Broadcasting Corporation who has been drawn into the scandal involving allegations of sexual abuse against the former television personality Jimmy Savile, reiterated in an interview…

OCT. 24, 2012 Stamatis Moraitis tending his vineyard and olive grove on Ikaria. Andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto for The New York Times In 1943, a Greek war veteran named Stamatis Moraitis came to the United States for treatment of a combat-mangled arm. He’d survived a gunshot wound, escaped to Turkey and…

Series: Foreclosure Crisis How Banks and Government Fail Homeowners The big bank settlement over mortgage servicing abuses was finalized last week, detailing the agreement’s actual terms. Bank of America, Citigroup, Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) and JPMorgan Chase are on the hook for billions,…

Credit Card Data Breach at Barnes & Noble Stores OCT. 23, 2012 WASHINGTON — Hackers have stolen credit card information for customers who shopped as recently as last month at 63 Barnes & Noble stores across the country, including stores in New York City, San Diego, Miami and Chicago, according to…

How do people deal with the torrent of information pouring down on us all? What sources can't they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts, and the literary world to hear their answers. This is drawn from an email exchange with Rembert…

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images No mention of climate change: people gathered at the Ehsan Center in Los Angeles to watch the final presidential campaign debate. A mountain of scientific evidence points to climate change as a serious risk for the human future. The Pentagon sees it as a threat to…

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Five years after the onset of the2007 subprime financial crisis, U.S. gross domestic product percapita remains below its initial level. Unemployment, thoughdown from its peak, is still about 8 percent. Rather than the V-shaped recovery that is typical of most postwar…

$2.50 Base Fare for Subways and Buses Is Likely, Transit Chairman Suggests OCT. 22, 2012 The base fare for subways and buses “probably will go up,” the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Monday, supplying the most telling signal yet about how next year’s planned fare…

In Jerusalem, Carter Derides Netanyahu and Obama OCT. 22, 2012 Former President Jimmy Carter in Jerusalem on Monday. He is visiting on behalf of the Elders, a left-leaning human rights group. Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times JERUSALEM — Three decades after leaving the White House, former…

At a Bodega in Brooklyn, Candy and Contraband OCT. 22, 2012 Abdel Jawad on Sunday standing outside the grocery store owned by his son Ralph Jawad, who the police said sold drugs to an undercover agent. Robert Stolarik for The New York Times In a certain small section of Brooklyn, Ralph Jawad’s…

OCT. 22, 2012 Mandy Chan checks online prices with her phone while shopping at a Target in Las Vegas with her daughter Mia. Isaac Brekken for The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO — Intel made its fortune on the chips that power personal computers, and Microsoft on the software that goes inside. Google…

Barack Obama didn’t win tonight’s foreign policy debate. Neither did Mitt Romney . George W. Bush did.Bush won it because the framework for understanding the world that he put in place after Sept. 11 still holds, even though it wildly distorts the world that the next president will actually face.…

October 23, 11:47 a.m. | Updated The lead news article in Sunday’s Times raised questions for a number of readers, who were either puzzled or angered by its apparent contradictions. In the “bulldog” edition, published Saturday afternoon, The Times reported that Iran and the United States had agreed…

Scant Gains for Romney in a Poll of Young Voters OCT. 17, 2012 For all the Republican efforts to cast President Obama as a failed leader who created a lost generation of young people with diminished prospects for financial success, Mr. Obama has maintained a strong advantage over Mitt Romney among…

OCT. 16, 2012 Paul Ryan at a rally in Fishersville, Va. Josh Haner/The New York Times On a Monday night in late September, Paul Ryan sat on the edge of a couch in his suite at the Cincinnatian Hotel , his left fist clenched so tightly around the neck of his bottle of Miller Lite that I could see the…

Photo RZA stars in "The Man With the Iron Fists," a kung-fu adventure that he directed and co-wrote. Credit Chan Kam Chuen/Universal Pictures When one has an ample block of time to probe the mind of Robert Diggs, the hip-hop star, actor, filmmaker and chess master better known as the RZA, the…

The debate over Wall Street regulation has tended to divide politicians along party lines. But on one issue at least, two senators, a Democrat and a Republican, see eye to eye. In a new letter to be sent to regulators on Wednesday, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, and Senator David Vitter,…

OCT. 13, 2012 UNDERSTANDING American drone strikes is like a deadly version of the old telephone game: I whisper to you and you whisper to someone else, and eventually all meaning is lost. You start with uncertain information from dubious sources. Pass it along, run it through the media blender, add…

Election-Year Stakes Overshadow Nuances of Libya Investigation OCT. 15, 2012 CAIRO — After a month of conflicting statements and partisan criticism, the circumstances surrounding the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya , on Sept. 11 have become clouded in…

The BlackBerry as Black Sheep OCT. 15, 2012 Ryan Hutto often depends on his wife, Shannon, for phone queries. “I kind of feel like his personal assistant,” she said. Peter DaSilva for The New York Times Rachel Crosby speaks about her BlackBerry phone the way someone might speak of an embarrassing…

Big Ideas Sometimes the best way to improve your performance is to do nothing at all. The creative benefits of calming your mental chatter. 0 If you depend on your creativity for your living, then your most valuable piece of equipment is not your computer, smartphone, camera, or any other hi-tech…

Report Describes How Armstrong and His Team Eluded Doping Tests OCT. 11, 2012 Lance Armstrong exiting a doping control van during the 2001 Tour de France. Avoiding a drug test could be as simple as not answering a door, the report said. Peter Dejong/Associated Press Throughout his career, Lance…

Editor’s note: The day after The Nation published this video, it sparked a heated debate during a meeting of the City Council’s public safety committee. Since then, the New York Police Department’s stop, question and frisk tactic gained national notoriety and became a major factor in the city’s 2013…

1 U.S. Paul Manafort’s Trail of Scandals 2 Opinion My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes 3 Opinion Ten Meter Tower 4 Opinion Between Sound and Silence 5 Opinion Coal Miner to Trump: “Coal Mining Isn’t Coming Back” 6 T Magazine House Tour | Cary Leibowitz 7 Opinion Sanctuary City Hotline 8 World 2011: Arab…

A.C.L.U. Sues Morgan Stanley Over Mortgage Loans OCT. 15, 2012 The American Civil Liberties Union is accusing Morgan Stanley of fueling the production of risky, expensive loans that targeted African-American borrowers. In the lawsuit, filed on Monday, the A.C.L.U. claims that Morgan Stanley is…

Panetta Warns ofDire Threat ofCyberattack on U.S. OCT. 11, 2012 Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Thursday that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s power grid,…

In Haiti, Little Can Be Found of a Hip-Hop Artist’s Charity OCT. 11, 2012 The charity Yéle allotted $230,000 for the revitalization of this Port-au-Prince plaza in the Cité Soleil slum, with no lasting results. Richard Perry/The New York Times PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — In a new memoir, Wyclef Jean ,…

The West’s Stalwart Ally in the War on Drugs: Iran (Yes, That Iran) OCT. 11, 2012 Iranian border guards displayed packets of seized drugs near the border with Afghanistan. Abedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency HIRMAN, Iran — Sitting next to the half-open door of a Russian-made Mi-17…

OCT. 11, 2012 PARIS — A year after the United States cut off its financing to Unesco , following a vote to make Palestine a full member , the organization remains engaged in a frantic effort to cut back programs, reduce costs and raise emergency money. Unesco’s director general, Irina Bokova , has…