Deepwater Horizon Owner Settles With U.S. Over Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

The driller whose floating Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew out in 2010, causing a massive oil spill, has agreed to settle civil and criminal claims with the federal government for $1.4 billion, the Justice Department announced Thursday. The Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank in April 2010. Eleven men were killed and millions of gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and fouled...

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...

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Obama Signs Defense Bill, With Conditions

WASHINGTON — President Obama set aside his veto threat and late Wednesday signed a defense bill that imposes restrictions on transferring detainees out of military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But Mr. Obama attached a signing statement claiming that he has the constitutional power to override the limits in the law. His move awakened a dormant issue from Mr. Obama’s first...

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In Victory for Google, U.S. Ends Antitrust Investigation

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday found that Google had not violated antitrust or anticompetition statutes in the way it structures its Web search application — handing a big victory to the search giant in its ongoing dispute with regulators. But the commission found that Google had misused its broad patents on cellphone technology, and ordered Google to make that technology...

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It's the Economy: What Will the Economy’s New ‘Normal’ Look Like in 2013?

Illustration by Jasper RietmanBack in the mid-2000s, the U.S. consumer economy was undergoing a serious change. After decades of favoring low prices (even when they promised low quality), consumers began paying more for all sorts of premium features like single-serve packaging and pretty much anything “green” or “organic.” Then came the financial crisis and the drop in consumer demand. ...

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Chinese Groups Slowly Carve Out Space in Work Against H.I.V./AIDS

Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesIn October, a student gave blood for an H.I.V. test at the Lingnan Health Center in Guangzhou. The center tries to be a safe space for gay men in an environment that can be hostile toward them. GUANGZHOU, China — As he waited to give blood for an H.I.V. test one recent afternoon, Le, a 25-year-old marketing professional, explained why he was there. “I was aware...

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Chinese Groups Slowly Carve Out Space in Work Against H.I.V./AIDS

Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesIn October, a student gave blood for an H.I.V. test at the Lingnan Health Center in Guangzhou. The center tries to be a safe space for gay men in an environment that can be hostile toward them. GUANGZHOU, China — As he waited to give blood for an H.I.V. test one recent afternoon, Le, a 25-year-old marketing professional, explained why he was there. “I was aware...

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Dozens of Syrians Killed in Explosions Around Damascus

Andoni Lubaki/Associated PressRebel fighters patrol a neighborhood in Aleppo on Wednesday. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Dozens of Syrians were killed or wounded in an explosion at a gas station east of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Wednesday, and explosions in another Damascus suburb killed at least six people and wounded many more, including women and children, according to videos and reports from antigovernment...

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Tech Giants, Learning the Ways of Washington, Brace for More Scrutiny

Mario Tama/Getty ImagesNadine Wolf demonstrated against online piracy legislation a year ago in New York. The measures were defeated. SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley lobbied hard in Washington in 2012, and despite some friction with regulators, fared fairly well. In 2013, though, government scrutiny is likely to grow. And with this scrutiny will come even greater efforts by the tech industry to press...

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