Vast Rally in Moscow Is a Challenge to Putin's Power
By ELLEN BARRY and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Moscow for the second time this month, a victory for activists seeking to forge a burst of energy into a lasting force against Vladimir V. Putin.
The Lede: Video of Protests
U.S. Embraces Low-Key Plan as Turmoil in Iraq Deepens
By HELENE COOPER and THOM SHANKER
President Obama says he has no intention of sending troops back to Iraq, even if the recent violence and political turmoil devolves into civil war. "--- WASHINGTON — As Iraq erupted in recent days, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in constant phone contact with the leaders of the country’s dueling sects. He called the Shiite prime minister and the Sunni speaker of the Parliament on Tuesday, and the Kurdish leader on Thursday, urging them to try to resolve the political crisis.---". >> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/world/middleeast/us-loses-leverage-in-iraq-now-that-troops-are-out.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
The Long Run
At Harvard, a Master's in Problem Solving
By JODI KANTOR
Pragmatic, data-driven and hard-working - the person Mitt Romney was in the mid-70s in graduate school is the person he is now, his former classmates say.
Documents: Notes From Mitt Romney's 1978 Presentation
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
"We will have a difficult year. But it will be an interesting year. It will be our year."
BORIS AKUNIN, a novelist, addressing antigovernment protesters in Moscow.
Business
Slide Show: A Boom for Bourbon
Sales of bourbon are rising rapidly, helped by premium small-batch and single-barrel products and flavor infusions like honey, cherry and spice.
Related Article
Sunday Review
Interactive Feature: 2011: The Year in Pictures
From Joplin, Mo., to the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, it was a year of upheaval both natural and man-made. Text by Colum McCann.
WORLD
A Quake-Scarred Nation Tries a Rural Road to Recovery
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Seeing an opportunity to fix the structural problems that have kept Haiti stuck in poverty, planners are trying to revive the country's desiccated, disused farmland.
Italy Tries Raising the Social Stigma on Tax Evaders
By RACHEL DONADIO and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Tax authorities say Italy, which has a $2.5 trillion public debt, loses an estimated $150 billion a year in undeclared revenues.
Royalists Step Up Campaign to Stifle Criticism of the Monarchy in Thailand
By THOMAS FULLER
The government has intensified its crackdown on criticism of the Thai monarchy, prosecuting a record number of people charged with insulting the royal family.
• More World News
U.S.
News Analysis
Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Facing political hostility and lacking adequate financing, scientists are struggling to report on the causes of a concentrated span of extreme weather in the United States.
Ruling by Justice Dept. Opens a Door on Online Gambling
By EDWARD WYATT
New York officials welcomed a legal opinion removing a big obstacle for states that want to sanction Internet gaming to help fix their budget deficits.
Image Tarnished by Scandals, Washington Council Overhauls Ethics Rules
By THEO EMERY
The Washington city council passed an ethics overhaul package, including a new process for expelling members accused of wrongdoing, after a series of damaging accusations.
• More U.S. News »
POLITICS
Political Memo
Escape to Hawaii, After a Tricky Week in Washington
By MARK LANDLER
A political stalemate in Washington had threatened to derail the president's annual Christmas holiday in Hawaii.
Gingrich's Ballot Miss Could Shake Voters' Confidence
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The failure to qualify for the Republican primary ballot in Virginia poses several problems for Newt Gingrich's campaign.
FiveThirtyEight: Paul's Influence Doesn't Just Depend on Him
Pentagon Finds No Fault in Ties to TV Analysts
By DAVID BARSTOW
The Pentagon cultivated close ties with retired officers who worked as analysts for television and radio networks.
• More Political News
BUSINESS
Bourbon's All-American Roar
By MICKEY MEECE
Sales of bourbon are rising, helped by premium small-batch and single-barrel products and flavor infusions like honey, cherry and spice. Now distillers are looking to extend their overseas reach.
Slide Show: A Boom for Bourbon
Essay
 |
| Ernest Shackleton's failed quest to reach the South Pole is still a management tutorial in how to face repeated crises. The crew of his ship, the Endurance, was photographed in July 1915 while trapped by an ice floe. |
Leadership Lessons From the Shackleton Expedition
By NANCY F. KOEHN
When his ship was stranded for two years, the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton faced compelling leadership decisions that offer many lessons for the business struggles of today.
"--- A HUNDRED years ago this month, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and four teammates became the first men to reach the South Pole, arriving in triumph five weeks ahead of Robert Falcon Scott. The Amundsen crew would return safely to its base, but, heartbreakingly, Scott and his four British companions died on the return journey.---" >> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/business/leadership-lessons-from-the-shackleton-expedition.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
France Télécom in Deal to Sell Swiss Mobile-Phone Unit
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
The deal is the first major step in the chief executive's plan to unload slow-growing European operations to focus on faster-growing markets.
• More Business News
TECHNOLOGY
Prototype
If These Moms Can't Find It, They Invent It
By NICOLE LAPORTE
The rise of "mompreneurs" has been helped by the rise of Internet and social media, which allow child-raising women to exchange ideas without having to leave the house.
Digital Domain
Publishers vs. Libraries: An E-Book Tug of War
By RANDALL STROSS
Several publishers have barred libraries from buying their e-books, saying that allowing unlimited e-reading isn't a sustainable business model. But one publisher is trying a different approach.
Corner Office
Ori Hadomi
Every Team Should Have a Devil's Advocate
By ADAM BRYANT
Ori Hadomi, the chief executive of Mazor Robotics, an Israeli medical technology company, says businesses run the risk of becoming too optimistic, so it's important for someone to ask critical questions.
• More Technology News
SPORTS
Giants 29, Jets 14
Stating Their Case and Silencing Jets
By BEN SHPIGEL
The Jets saw the Giants as an obstacle to the playoffs and the Super Bowl, but Saturday's game showed a much bigger impediment stands in their way: the Jets themselves.
Slide Show: Jets-Giants Replay: Week 16
Box Score
The Fifth Down: Playoff Picture Clear for Giants, Complex for Jets
Analysis
 |
| The Raiders' 16-13 defeat of the Chiefs ended Kansas City's playoff hopes and pulled the Raiders into a tie atop the A.F.C. West. |
A Look at Who's on Top as the Season Wraps Up
By JUDY BATTISTA
Saturday's games set up several matchups that will decide who makes the playoffs or determine playoff positioning.
Off the Dribble
Which Teams Will Have the Stamina for a 66-Game Sprint?
By BENJAMIN HOFFMAN
After a prolonged lockout, the N.B.A. returns on Christmas Day with what promises to be a 66-game regular-season sprint to the playoffs.
Graphic: A Flurry of Changes
• More Sports News »
ARTS
Dance
Hard to Grasp, but Harder to Say Farewell
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY
Two years after Merce Cunningham's death, his dance company will give its final performance on New Year's Eve.
Movies
 |
| Ms. Streep as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain (inte lik originalet; Meryl Streep ser ju hyfsat bra ut) |
Streep Dons Thatcher's Armor
By CHARLES McGRATH
When offered the role of Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady," Meryl Streep explained, "To say, 'No, I'm not interested' would just be ridiculous. There is no other opportunity like it."
Streep on Her Messy Process
More on The Carpetbagger
Movies
New Directors Flesh Out Black America, All of It
By NELSON GEORGE
"Pariah," a movie about black lesbians, is part of a mini-movement of young black filmmakers telling stories that complicate assumptions about what "black film" can be.
The New Black Wave
• More Arts News
NEW YORK / REGION
 |
| The Empire State Building attracts four million visitors a year, with ticket prices as high as $55. |
Nice View, and the Profits Surpass All Horizons
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
A rare glimpse of the Empire State Building's balance sheet illustrates how observatories have become moneymakers for tall office buildings.
The Bank Around the Corner
By ALAN FEUER
The Bank of Cattaraugus, New York State's smallest bank by asset size, plays an outsize role in a village of 950.
 |
| MEDIA Loren Munk with some of his paintings showing sites tied to art. |
Via YouTube, Leading Tours of the City's Art Scene
By JED LIPINSKI
Loren Munk, using the pseudonym James Kalm, has made videos viewed nearly two million times.
Video Feature: Highlights From the James Kalm Report
• More New York / Region News
MAGAZINE
The Lives They Lived
"The Lives They Lived is not a greatest-hits issue.
Instead, we gravitated to those lives with an untold tale.Maybe it seems this way every year, but 2011 felt marked by more than its fair allotment of iconic deaths. Steve Jobs, Betty Ford,Elizabeth Taylor, Geraldine Ferraro and Christopher Hitchens, as well as Osama bin Laden and Muammar el-Qaddafi. You will not read about them in these pages. The Lives They Lived is not a greatest-hits issue. Instead, we gravitated to those lives with an untold tale.
For storytelling expertise, we enlisted Ira Glass and his team from “This American Life” to edit a special section devoted to ordinary people. And through social media, we put out a request to readers for pictures of loved ones. Samples of the hundreds of submissions we received are beautiful evidence that every life is a story worth remembering." >> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-lives-they-lived.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210
Reality-TV Stars
By JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
Mike Starr, b. 1966, Jeff Conaway, b. 1950, Ryan Dunn, b. 1977 and Russell Armstrong, b. 1963.
Ruth Stone, b. 1915
By PHILIP LEVINE
We have never had an effective means to discover the best poets among us, and Ruth never learned how to play the game. "--- Ruth lived in the only world of poetry that matters, the one without publishers, awards, prestige, competition, jealousy, money — the one we might call “poetry eternal,” the same world the great poems live in. Now she is there forever.---" >> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-lives-they-lived.html#view=ruth_stone
• More From the Magazine
EDITORIALS
Editorial
Deportation Without Representation
A new report reveals a severe shortage of competent legal assistance for tens of thousands of people held in immigration detention.
Editorial
Injustice in Murder Cases
A new study concludes that defendants with court-appointed lawyers often get inadequate counsel and are vulnerable to greater punishment.
Editorial
Verizon's Worrisome Cable Deals
AT&T's decision to drop its bid for T-Mobile is a victory for consumers. But a look at recent agreements made by Verizon suggests the battle to defend competition in telecommunications is hardly over.
• More Opinion
SUNDAY REVIEW
Op-Ed Columnist
Silent Night? Not With Us
By FRANK BRUNI
What says Christmas to me is a chorus of voices, all talking at once.
Columnist Page
Op-Ed Columnist
A Victorian Christmas
By MAUREEN DOWD
Long before Newt Gingrich's counterfactual novels and Dickensian proposals, Dickens himself was brilliantly exploring "what ifs" and class inequities.
" --- AT the end of his life, Charles Dickens did not have great expectations for Christmas. He had separated from his wife, describing his marriage as “blighted and wasted.” His mistress was not around. He was disappointed that his sons lacked his ambition. His final Christmas, he wrote a colleague, was painful and miserable. “The Inimitable,” as he had christened himself when he was young and celebrated, was drained from traveling to give paid readings and suffering from such severe gout that he could not write clearly or walk well. He was confined to bed all Christmas Day and through dinner, bleak in his house. ---" >> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/opinion/sunday/dowd-a-victorian-christmas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
Columnist Page
Op-Ed Columnist
The Cratchit Tax Credit
By ROSS DOUTHAT
What a stressed-out mom and dad really want for Christmas is some help.
Columnist Page - Blog
• More Opinion
ON THIS DAY
On Dec. 25, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on TV to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a Communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.
From the net:
Poems by Ruth Stone: http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/waiwen/stone.htm
Ruth Stone avled förra månaden, 96 år gammal.
