Welcome back from summer vacation. It's time to get back to work. What have you been missing? Below, The Wall Street Journal provides an overview of nine segments of business, ranging from the mining industry to the tablet wars. These aren't "while you were out" memos, but rather previews of the…

T he great criticism of Mitt Romney , from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn’t stand for anything. He’s a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who’ll say anything to get elected. The critics couldn’t be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man.…

Last Plea on School Loans: Proving a Hopeless Future Doug Wallace Jr. was left legally blind and unemployed just a few years after graduating from Eastern Kentucky University, with $89,000 in student loans. Ty William Wright for The New York Times PLAIN CITY, Ohio — It isn’t easy to stand up in an…

No Charges Filed on Harsh Tactics Used by the C.I.A. AUG. 30, 2012 Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced Thursday that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003, eliminating the last possibility that any criminal charges will…

It seemed like a simple enough idea for an iPhone app: Send users a pop-up notice whenever a flying robots kills someone in one of America’s many undeclared wars. But Apple keeps blocking the Drones+ program from its App Store — and therefore, from iPhones everywhere. The Cupertino company says the…

Severe Diet Doesn’t Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys AUG. 29, 2012 For 25 years, the rhesus monkeys were kept semi-starved, lean and hungry. The males’ weights were so low they were the equivalent of a 6-foot-tall man who tipped the scales at just 120 to 133 pounds. The hope was that if the monkeys…

Powell Was More Skeptical About Iraq Than Previously Thought, Annan Says AUG. 30, 2012 Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was the secretary general of the United Nations. Christoph Bangert for The New York Times Colin L. Powell , who as secretary of state famously made the…

Series: Buying Your Vote Dark Money and Big Data Oct. 9: This post has been corrected. Last week, the website Gawker published more than 900 pages of documents from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mitt Romney founded, and headed from 1984 until 1999. The document dump didn't reveal much about…

Men, Who Needs Them? AUG. 24, 2012 Boise, Idaho MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits,…

AUG. 26, 2012 If some New Yorkers were baffled about why their Consolidated Edison bills were so high last month, they are not alone: Even the utility is confused. The confusion stems from the company’s surprising decision to lock out all the members of its biggest union on July 1 when the union’s…

The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy AUG. 25, 2012 Todd Jason Rutherford inside his home in Bixby, Okla. He says that he is now suspicious of all online reviews — whether of books or of anything else. Nick Oxford for The New York Times TULSA , Okla. TODD RUTHERFORD was 7 years old when he first…

AUG. 22, 2012 Attempts to make sweeping changes to a popular type of mutual fund that played a central role in the 2008 financial crisis have been derailed. The chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission , Mary L. Schapiro , wanted to bring her vision for regulating money market mutual…

Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility AUG. 22, 2012 Exelon’s nuclear plant in Byron, Ill. Company officials say its relationship with the Obama administration reflects a shared vision of moving the nation toward a cleaner energy future. Robert Ray/Associated Press WASHINGTON — Early in the…

The Program It took me a few days to work up the nerve to phone William Binney. As someone already a “target” of the United States government, I found it difficult not to worry about the chain of unintended consequences I might unleash by calling Mr. Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National…

AUG. 23, 2012 Damon Winter/The New York Times; Stylist: Deborah Afshani. Hair: Angela Meadows. Makeup (Serena): Sheika Daley. Makeup (Venus): Kazumi Brown. There’s video that exists of Venus and Serena Williams playing tennis when they were kids — 8 and 7, respectively — in the late ’80s, on…

AUG. 21, 2012 WASHINGTON — Despite President Obama’s warning to Syria not to use its arsenal of chemical weapons or allow them to fall into the hands of extremists, the administration’s options for intervening remain limited by what its officials have described as a simple calculus: It would make…

AUG. 22, 2012 Unbeliever Jerry DeWitt, converted atheist, in a church where he once preached in DeRidder, La. Julie Glassberg for The New York Times Late one night in early May 2011, a preacher named Jerry DeWitt was lying in bed in DeRidder, La., when his phone rang. He picked it up and heard an…

You Plan, I’ll Cook: Leaving the Menu to Others AUG. 21, 2012 VALUE SHOPPING Lindsey Swank Meili, left, at a farmers' market in Athens, Ohio. She uses a meal-planning service that provides dinner recipes. Dustin Franz for The New York Times AFTER her first daughter was born, Lindsey Swank Meili…

Guard of Sea Life, Armed With Pen and Brush See how this article appeared when it was originally published on NYTimes.com Richard Ellis was playing tennis in Little Compton, R.I., during the summer of “Jaws” when he got a call from fishermen in nearby Sakonnet. They had a dead shark. Would he like…

Majority in City See Police as Favoring Whites, Poll Finds AUG. 20, 2012 A street mural in East New York, Brooklyn, depicts police officers using the stop-and-frisk tactic, which has been heavily criticized. Robert Stolarik for The New York Times A significant majority of New Yorkers say the Police…

Young Israelis Held in Attack on Arabs AUG. 20, 2012 JERUSALEM — Seven Israeli teenagers were in custody on Monday, accused of what a police official and several witnesses described as an attempted lynching of several Palestinian youths, laying bare the undercurrent of tension in this ethnically…

With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook AUG. 15, 2012 A shopper browsing Nets' merchandise bearing logos that Jay-Z helped design. Todd Heisler/The New York Times When the developer Bruce Ratner set out to buy the New Jersey Nets and build an arena for them in Brooklyn , he…

Years After Haiti Quake, Safe Housing Is a Dream for Many AUG. 15, 2012 A boy inside a new home in rural Leogane, which was the epicenter of the earthquake in Haiti. Damon Winter/The New York Times PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Since the earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010 , a scrappy 12-year-old boy named…

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up … our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.” In 2008, Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928–May 28, 2014) — one of the greatest spirits of the past century — penned Letter to My Daughter ( public library ), a collection of 28…

Rerouted to Syria, Travelers Are Asked To Pass the Hat AUG. 17, 2012 PARIS — The anxieties of an unexpected landing in war-ravaged Syria were compounded for passengers on an Air France flight when they were asked by the crew if they couldn’t possibly, you know, come up with some cash to help out…

Study of Judges Finds Evidence From Brain Scans Led to Lighter Sentences AUG. 16, 2012 Judges who learned that a convicted assailant was genetically predisposed to violence imposed lighter sentences in a hypothetical case than they otherwise would have, researchers reported on Thursday, in the most…

Two Americans Killed by Afghan Recruit AUG. 17, 2012 KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American Special Forces members were shot to death on Friday by a new Afghan local police recruit they were training at a small outpost in western Afghanistan. In a second “green-on-blue” attack on Friday, in the south, an…

The San Francisco Police Department has underreported the arrest rates of the city's two largest minority groups for years, misclassifying Latino arrestees as "white" and Asian arrestees as “Chinese," The Bay Citizen has learned. The state has been publishing the erroneous statistics in a report…

AUG. 16, 2012 DALLAS — An outbreak of West Nile virus has engulfed Dallas County, with nearly 200 cases of human infection and 10 deaths, leading the mayor of Dallas to declare a state of emergency and to authorize the first aerial spraying of a pesticide in the city since 1966. The high number of…

How’s this for a conspiracy of silence? With less than three months to go until Election Day, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have successfully avoided saying almost anything about America’s war in Afghanistan. Remember that war? You will at some point, however little the two candidates talk…

A Giant Hospital Chain Is Blazing a Profit Trail AUG. 14, 2012 A WHISTLE-BLOWER Dr. Abraham Awwad’s complaints over the safety of the dialysis programs at two HCA-owned hospitals prompted state investigations. Edward Linsmier for The New York Times During the Great Recession, when many hospitals…

Obama-Ryan Battle Intensifies Over Medicare Savings AUG. 14, 2012 Representative Paul D. Ryan, at a campaign stop Tuesday in Colorado, says Medicare is “a debate we want to have.” Evan Semon/Reuters WASHINGTON — Representative Paul D. Ryan ’s budget blueprint assumes the same amount of Medicare…

The rover Curiosity survived its famed “seven minutes of terror” and has touched down on the surface of Mars, and the world cheered. Getting people to the Red Planet hasn’t been a success story, however. “Landing humans on Mars has been 20 or 30 years away for the last 40 years or so,” the rover…

Police Sought Cellphones for Video of Times Square Shooting AUG. 14, 2012 An onlooker captured vivid images of the Times Square confrontation using a cellphone. Other photos were copied by the police. Marc Steiner for The New York Times Dozens of bystanders grabbed their cellphones and hit the…

Ryan Meets Casino Mogul and Major G.O.P. Donor AUG. 14, 2012 LAS VEGAS — Four days after his announcement as Mitt Romney ’s running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan was not in Florida talking Medicare with elderly voters or in drought-ridden Iowa talking about a farm bill . He traveled to the…