Ipswich Journal: Paul Mason Is One-Third the Man He Used to Be

Paul Nixon PhotographyPaul Mason in 2012, two years after gastric bypass surgery stripped him of the unofficial title of “the world’s fattest man.” IPSWICH, England — Who knows what the worst moment was for Paul Mason — there were so many awful milestones, as he grew fatter and fatter — but a good bet might be when he became too vast to leave his room. To get him to the hospital for a hernia operation,...

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The Lede Blog: North Korean Propaganda Video Uses 'Call of Duty' and 'We Are the World' to Imagine a Brighter World, Without Manhattan

Last Updated, 3:52 p.m. |UpdateWhen aliens strike, the climate goes berserk, the Russians invade, an asteroid threatens the Earth, New York City is often the first place to be destroyed. Hollywood has long used the city’s skyline to demonstrate what destruction looks like in action movies and video games. It seems as if North Korea, in seeking to show how an assault on America would play out, also...

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DealBook: $24 Billion Buyout for Dell, Biggest Since 2007

9:32 a.m. | Updated Dell announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to go private in a $24.4 billion deal led by its founder and the investment firm Silver Lake, in the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.Under the terms of the deal, the buyers’ consortium, which also includes Microsoft, will pay $13.65 a share in cash. That is roughly 25 percent above where Dell’s stock traded before...

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DealBook: Dell Nears a Buyout Deal of More Than $23 Billion

Dell Inc. neared an agreement on Monday to sell itself to a group led by its founder and the investment firm Silver Lake for more than $23 billion, people briefed on the matter said, in what would be the biggest buyout since the financial crisis.If completed, a takeover would be the most ambitious attempt yet by Michael S. Dell to revive the company that bears his name. Such is the size of the potential...

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.How I feared chemo, afraidIt would change me.It did.Something dissolved inside me.Tears began a slow drip;I cried at the news storyOf a lost boy found in the...

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.How I feared chemo, afraidIt would change me.It did.Something dissolved inside me.Tears began a slow drip;I cried at the news storyOf a lost boy found in the...

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At War Blog: Veterans in College: Share Your Stories

“Graduate, graduate, graduate,” the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric K. Shinseki, recently implored the audience at a conference of the Student Veterans of America. But what, exactly, will it take to ensure that veterans succeed in college?Since the post-9/11 G.I. Bill took effect in 2009, about 877,000 people, mainly veterans and their dependents, have received tuition and other college benefits...

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TIMESCAST: Super Bowl Ads Recall Days Gone By

February 4, 2013By Fritzie Andrade, Zena Barakat, Emily B. Hager, Erica Berenstein and Pedro Rafael RosadoTimesCast Media+Tech: The successes and failures of this year’s Super Bowl ads. | Ang Lee on the technology behind “Life of Pi.” | An interactive project encourages action against human trafficki...

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DealBook: New Details Suggest a Defense in SAC Case

At the center of the government’s insider trading case against a former portfolio manager at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors is a trade that directly involves Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire owner of the fund.New details about the case have emerged that could cast doubt on the way that trade has been portrayed by the authorities, suggesting a possible line of defense for the portfolio manager...

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Medicines Co. Licenses Rights to Cholesterol Drug

The drug, known as ALN-PCS, inhibits a protein in the body known as PCSK9. Such drugs might one day be used to treat millions of people who do not achieve sufficient cholesterol-lowering from commonly used statins, such as Lipitor. The Medicines Company will pay $25 million initially and as much as $180 million later if certain development and sales goals are met, under the deal expected to...

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