Personal Health: Quitting Smoking for Good

Few smokers would claim that it’s easy to quit. The addiction to nicotine is strong and repeatedly reinforced by circumstances that prompt smokers to light up.Yet the millions who have successfully quit are proof that a smoke-free life is achievable, even by those who have been regular, even heavy, smokers for decades.Today, 19 percent of American adults smoke, down from more than 42 percent half...

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5-Hour Energy Is Cited in 13 Death Reports

Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths over the last four years that cited the possible involvement of 5-Hour Energy, a highly caffeinated energy shot, according to Food and Drug Administration records and an interview with an agency official. The disclosure of the reports is the second time in recent weeks that F.D.A. filings citing energy drinks and deaths have emerged. Last...

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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

President Obama has faith in Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair. “The president...

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Zynga Executive Defects to Facebook

NEW YORK (AP) — Zynga's finance chief is leaving the troubled online game company to join Facebook. San Francisco-based Zynga Inc. said Tuesday that David Wehner will take a "senior finance position" at the social networking company. His exact title will be vice president of corporate finance and business planning, Facebook said. Chief accounting officer, Mark Vranesh, is replacing...

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‘Dream Team’ of Behavioral Scientists Advised Obama Campaign

Chris Keane/ReutersDOOR TO DOOR Ricky Hall, an Obama volunteer, in Charlotte, N.C., last week. Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session. “He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ”...

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‘Dream Team’ of Behavioral Scientists Advised Obama Campaign

Chris Keane/ReutersDOOR TO DOOR Ricky Hall, an Obama volunteer, in Charlotte, N.C., last week. Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session. “He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ”...

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I.H.T. Special Report | Oil & Money: After Years of Waiting, Virginia Wants to Make Its Name in Oil

Jason Hirschfeld/Associated PressHurricane Sandy pounding the coastline last month in Virginia Beach, Va. The state is the new epicenter of efforts by energy companies to get a toehold in the potentially vast resources hidden beneath the Atlantic. WASHINGTON — When Doug Domenech looks out at the Atlantic Ocean, he sees oil and natural gas and jobs and revenue. Standing between him and those prizes...

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Ismail Khan, Powerful Afghan, Stokes Concern in Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York TimesSupporters of Ismail Khan gathered outside Herat city on Nov. 1. HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful former mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built...

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Slipstream: Biometric Data-Gathering Sets Off a Privacy Debate

“PLEASE put your hand on the scanner,” a receptionist at a doctor’s office at New York University Langone Medical Center said to me recently, pointing to a small plastic device on the counter between us. “I need to take a palm scan for your file.” I balked. As a reporter who has been covering the growing business of data collection, I know the potential drawbacks — like customer profiling...

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Alzheimer’s Precursors Founds at Earlier Age

Scientists studying Alzheimer’s disease are increasingly finding clues that the brain begins to deteriorate years before a person shows symptoms of dementia. Now, research on a large extended family of 5,000 people in Colombia with a genetically driven form of Alzheimer’s has found evidence that the precursors of the disease begin even earlier than previously thought, and that this early...

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