Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated...

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Dow Ends Above 14,000 For Year’s Highest Close

The Dow Jones industrial average rose to its highest close of the year Tuesday, putting it within 1 percent of its record. Stocks gained after two big consumer brands posted impressive quarterly results. The Dow closed up 47.46 points, or 0.34 percent, to 14,018.70 Tuesday. That is 146 points from its record close of 14,164.53 set in October 2007. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index...

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Tests of Some Deadly Diseases on Mice Mislead, Report Says

Evan McGlinn for The New York TimesDr. H. Shaw Warren is one of the authors of a new study that questions the use of laboratory mice as models for all human diseases. For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a...

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'Identity Thief' grabs $34.6M to debut at No. 1

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy's "Identity Thief" has made off with the weekend box-office title with a $34.6 million debut.The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:1....

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Personal Health: Getting the Right Addiction Treatment

“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four intense treatment experiences over five years” before he broke free of alcohol and drugs.As the son of Judith and Bill Moyers, successful parents who watched...

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U.S. Markets Edge Back From Recent Rally

The stock market drifted lower in thin trading on Monday, pulling the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index back from a five-year high. With little in the way of market-moving news, the S.& P. 500 slipped 0.92 of a point to close at 1,517.01. Last week, the broad-market index edged up slightly to its highest level since November 2007. Seven of the 10 industry groups within...

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Paterno Family Challenges Accusation of Cover-Up

The 238-page report, which was compiled by a team led by Richard Thornburgh, a former United States attorney general, and released Sunday, said an even larger investigation into the scandal by Louis J. Freeh, a former F.B.I. director, was “factually wrong, speculative and fundamentally flawed.” According to the Thornburgh report, the Freeh inquiry, which was ordered by the Penn State board...

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The Black Keys, Skrillex share early Grammys lead

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys is not such a lonely boy after all.The singer-guitarist took the early lead at the Grammy Awards, picking up three trophies and assisting with a fourth during the pre-telecast show. Auerbach won producer of the year alone and best rock song for "Lonely Boy" and rock album for "El Camino" with his bandmate Patrick Carney, joining electronic dance music...

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help? Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. In her 20s, after a more...

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Samsung Challenges Apple’s Cool Factor

Apple, for the first time in years, is hearing footsteps. The maker of iPhones, iPads and iPods has never faced a challenger able to make a truly popular and profitable smartphone or tablet — not Dell, not Hewlett-Packard, not Nokia, not BlackBerry — until Samsung Electronics. The Korean manufacturer’s Galaxy S III smartphone is the first device to run neck and neck with Apple’s...

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