When Babies Don’t Fit Plan, Question for Zoos Is, Now What? AUG. 2, 2012 Zookeepers around the world, facing limited capacity and pressure to maintain diverse and vibrant collections of endangered species, are often choosing between two controversial methods: birth control and euthanasia . In the…

A Very Long Journey Was Very Swift AUG. 2, 2012 Gabby Douglas performed in floor exercise, her last discipline en route to the gold medal. Josh Haner/The New York Times LONDON — To become the Olympic champion in the individual all-around event, Gabby Douglas first had to leave everything she knew…

Pile of Bills Is Left Behind as Congress Goes to Campaign AUG. 2, 2012 WASHINGTON — An effort to provide emergency aid for American ranchers and farmers reeling from a year of drought, frost and other calamities collapsed on Thursday as members of Congress departed for their five-week August recess,…

Usain Bolt’s Training Partner May Leave Him Behind AUG. 1, 2012 Yohan Blake modeled a T-shirt with his warning to other Olympic sprinters. He has run the year’s fastest time at 100 meters, 9.75 seconds. LONDON — The sprinter who would dethrone Usain Bolt , his Jamaican training partner known as the…

In Virtual Play, Sex Harassment Is All Too Real Playing and watching a game at a San Diego convention. The video game world is largely male, but that is slowly changing. Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times When Miranda Pakozdi entered the Cross Assault video game tournament this year, she knew she…

Breaking the Mold by Writing a Part for Herself AUG. 1, 2012 Rashida Jones stars in “Celeste and Jesse Forever.” David Lanzenberg/Sony Pictures Classics Rashida Jones has a good sense of how directors see her. “I am generally cast as the dependable, affable, loving, friend-wife-girlfriend,” she…

“I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”

China's Ye Shiwen holds her gold medal after winning the 400m individual medley in world record time. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images Does John Leonard owe Ye Shiwen an apology? 98% Yes 1% No This poll is now closed

For a historic look at spending in America, see our post What America Buys . For more, see our Graphing America series. How do Americans spend their money? And how do budgets change across the income spectrum? The graph below answers these questions. It shows average spending patterns for U.S.…

A New Character Turn, but Still a Familiar Face JULY 27, 2012 THE bulk of Spike Lee ’s new film, “ Red Hook Summer ,” opening in New York on Aug. 10, is a sweet coming-of-age tale set in the Brooklyn neighborhood of the title. The rest of it is something else. Spoiler ethics make it tough even to…

Three Decades of Mistakes and Mistrust JULY 30, 2012 For the United States and Iran the 1979 Iranian revolution — which replaced an American-allied monarchy with a virulently anti-American theocracy — has proved to be the geopolitical divorce from hell. For over three decades, as the two sides have…

Tor Erik Schroder/NTB scanpix, via Associated Press Snoop Dogg performing in Norway in June. Just call him Snoop Lion. Snoop Dogg, the veteran West Coast rapper, says he underwent a spiritual and artistic rebirth while making a new album in Jamaica last February. He abandoned rap as his preferred…

South America Sees Drug Path to Legalization JULY 29, 2012 Marijuana growing in a closet in Uruguay. Personal use has been decriminalized, but drug-related violence is an issue. Matilde Campodonico for The New York Times MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — The agricultural output of this country includes rice,…

A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away JULY 29, 2012 A drone pilot at the base at Hancock Field, near Syracuse, working the controls during a training operation. Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times HANCOCK FIELD AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, N.Y. — From his computer console here in the…

For Potential Table Tennis Star, College May Get in the Way JULY 29, 2012 Ariel Hsing of the U.S. almost upset the No. 2 seed Li Xiaoxia of China. Jed Jacobsohn for The New York Times LONDON — For the last four years, Ariel Hsing , 16, has played table tennis at least three hours a day, six days a…

The Candid Cameras of Teammates Keep Stars Humble JULY 29, 2012 Kevin Love uses a photo-share application to chronicle the actions (and inaction) of his U.S. teammates. The results are not flattering. LONDON — There is a process, Kevin Love said, to capturing the perfect photograph, an…

Skype, the online phone service long favored by political dissidents, criminals and others eager to communicate beyond the reach of governments, has expanded its cooperation with law enforcement authorities to make online chats and other user information available to police, said industry and…

What Can Mississippi Learn From Iran? JULY 27, 2012 Claudia Cox, a nurse visiting Marnie Marshall, who is dying of bone cancer at home. Lynsey Addario/VII for The New York Times One morning this spring, Claudia Cox, a registered nurse in Jackson, Miss., drove toward the countryside to visit some…

Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling JULY 25, 2012 Emergency repairs on a highway that buckled in triple-digit temperatures last month near Cary, N.C. Travis Long/The News & Observer, via Associated Press WASHINGTON — From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois , the…

’70s Portrait of Harlem, Gathered for Today JULY 25, 2012 CHICAGO ONE day in early 1969, a 16-year-old black high school student from Queens named David Smikle decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he had never visited. He’d heard on the radio that people were upset about an…

U.S. Swimmers Go for Gold, and a Tattoo JULY 23, 2012 The swimmer Missy Franklin is a 17-year-old sunbeam who daydreams about getting a tattoo, calling it one of her “big motivations” for making the 2012 United States Olympic swimming team in seven events. Franklin spent months considering where to…

Brand Police Are on the Prowl for Ambush Marketers at London Games JULY 24, 2012 LONDON — It is one of the fiercest contests at the Olympics, but it is not on any list of events. Every two years, the International Olympic Committee and the host city battle companies that want to bask in the Games’…

A Labor Ready outlet in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, July 2006. oddsandwich/Flickr This story was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project . It is still dark when I show up at the Labor Ready storefront in downtown Oakland, California, just a few blocks from the plaza where…

Series: Dragnets Tracking Censorship and Surveillance 7/20/2012: This story has been updated . This story wasco-published with The New York Times. This story is not subject to our Creative Commons license . The device in your purse or jeans that you think is acellphone — guess again. It is a…

The press briefing at State Department on Tuesday, a dialogue between spokesperson Victoria Nuland and AP reporter Matt Lee. Thanks to Idrees Ahmad. VICTORIA NULAND , spokesperson for State Department: Listen, before we leave Syria, I just want to take the opportunity, if you didn’t see it, to draw…

The Worst Marriage in Georgetown JULY 6, 2012 Illustration by Pat Perry Dinners were served in the basement. Ambassadors, generals with many stars, senior White House officials and closely read columnists — all would walk past the yellowing kitchen, which looked as if it hadn’t been updated since…

In the eleven years since the American invasion of Afghanistan, Abdul Nasir has become a modern and prosperous professional. A worldly man in his late thirties, he smokes Marlboros, drives a Toyota, and follows Spanish soccer, rooting for Barcelona. He works in Kabul as a producer for Khurshid TV,…

A handful of local officials in California who say the housing bust is a public blight on their cities may invoke their eminent-domain powers to restructure mortgages as a way to help some borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. Investors holding the current mortgages predict the move…

JULY 5, 2012 Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, with their grandchildren on Thursday on Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, N.H., where the Romneys have a summer home. Charles Dharapak/Associated Press WASHINGTON — Four months before Mitt Romney signed his health care plan into law in Massachusetts in…

Series: Injection Wells The Hidden Risks of Pumping Waste Underground Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geologyas an invisible dumping ground. No company would be…

S ince signing with the Allen Wranglers, Terrell Owens hasn’t exactly been excited to talk to reporters. Back in his Philadelphia days, in the prime of his career, he used to hold press conferences all the time, sometimes in his own driveway. He couldn’t wait to be on camera. He would tell reporters…

Public Exchanges Duel With Newcomers Over Trade Transparency JUNE 26, 2012 While most people trading stocks at home imagine their orders zipping from their brokers onto one of the nation’s stock exchanges, almost none of the trades go anywhere near those public markets. In reality, most trades…

Rude or Polite, City’s Officers Leave Raw Feelings in Stops JUNE 26, 2012 Most of the time, the officers swoop in, hornetlike, with a command to stop: “Yo! You, come here. Get against the wall.” They batter away with questions, sometimes laced with profanity, racial slurs and insults: “Where’s the…

“So just who is Sarah Palin?” This is Keith Olbermann talking, back in the summer of 2008, when the Alaska governor is brand-new to the national scene and Olbermann himself is still in the position he pioneered, as the first great contemporary liberal television pundit, the face of MSNBC. Olbermann,…

Series: Dragnets Tracking Censorship and Surveillance Updates: An article about the reaction to this piece was posted here on July 6. A second update was added on Aug. 16. June 28: This story has been corrected. This story was co-published with Wired . Jonathan Mayer had a hunch. A gifted computer…

A Snitch’s Dilemma JUNE 29, 2012 Eugene Richards for The New York Times Kathryn Johnston was doing pretty well until the night the police showed up. Ever since her sister died, Johnston, 92, had lived alone in a rough part of Atlanta called the Bluff. A niece checked in often. One of the gifts she…

JULY 3, 2012 AUCKLAND — Last month, a New Zealand software developer, Ben Gracewood, replied to a Twitter post from the Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom, founder of the Megaupload file-sharing site that had been shut down by the F.B.I. He asked whether “you guys just drive around in modified electric…

Home News Travel Money Sports Life Tech Weather The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency Home Archives Related topics Forum About Election 2012 Obama aide: Health care penalty is not a tax Obama's day: Camp David By David Jackson , USA TODAY Updated The decision by Chief Justice John Roberts to…