Gadgetwise Blog: Is January the Time to Buy Electronics?

At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, manufacturers tantalized consumers with new electronics soon to hit the shelves. But what does that do to the prices of current models that are being replaced? Is this a golden buying opportunity?Yes and no. Yes for TVs, no for laptops. I’ll explain.Decide.com, which tracks the price of electronics, studied what happened...

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Religious Groups and Employers Battle Contraception Mandate

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto AgencyPresident Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year. In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom...

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The Haggler: When Customer Service Is a Dead-End Street

SEVERAL readers have surprised the Haggler by rising to the defense of McDonald’s and its in-store ad for the McRib sandwich — “It’s real pork!” — as described in our last episode. The ad suggests that McDonald’s thinks that its customers have pathetically low expectations about the chain’s raw materials. Just as bad, it breaks the Haggler’s unwritten rule that companies should never boast about the...

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From Front Lines, Women Offer Evidence on Ability in Combat

Stacy PearsallStaff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall, who was a photographer in Iraq, in a self-portrait over Baghdad during her first deployment in 2003. During her second deployment to Iraq, Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall of the Air Force found herself attached to an Army ground unit that was clearing roadside bombs. They had just found their 26th device of the day when one of their armored personnel carriers exploded....

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DealBook: Compuware Rejects Elliott's $2.3 Billion Bid

11:46 a.m. | Updated Compuware said on Friday that its board had rejected a $2.3 billion takeover bid by Elliott Management, arguing that the hedge fund’s offer was too low.Instead, the business software maker said that it was focused on its own corporate turnaround blueprint, including a three-year plan to cut costs and an effort to spin off its Covisint business communication products arm. It also...

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F.D.A. Panel to Vote on Restricting Hydrocodone Products Like Vicodin

Trying to stem the scourge of prescription drug abuse in the United States, an advisory panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration plans to vote Friday on whether to toughen restrictions on hydrocodone products like Vicodin, the most widely used narcotic painkillers in the country. The recommendation, which the F.D.A. would likely follow, would limit access to the drugs by making...

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DealBook: Rumble on Basic Cable, as Ackman Takes On Icahn Live

For about 15 minutes on Friday afternoon, all of Wall Street was tuned into the battle that everyone wanted to see: William A. Ackman taking on Carl C. Icahn, live on air.And the battle proved even stranger than anyone would have expected: Profanities were dropped; old battles were refought; taunts were slung.Years of bad blood between the two hedge fund magnates spilled publicly onto CNBC’s airwaves,...

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India Ink: India Rape Trial Starts With Renewed Ban on Media Coverage

The trial of five men accused in the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in New Delhi is being watched closely as a symbol of India’s commitment to justice for women, but information about the ongoing court proceedings may be scarce.As court proceedings began Thursday, the presiding judge said  there would be a blanket ban on reporting on the trial. The judge, Yogesh Khanna,  also...

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Media Decoder Blog: A Resurgent Netflix Beats Projections, Even Its Own

1:51 p.m. | Updated For all those who have doubted its business acumen, Netflix had a resounding answer on Wednesday: 27.15 million.That’s the number of American homes that were subscribers to the streaming service by the end of 2012, beating the company’s own projections for the fourth quarter after a couple of quarters of underwhelming results.Netflix’s growth spurt in streaming — up by 2.05 million...

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Question Mark: Why Am I Making So Many Pit Stops?

There are those who have suggested that this feature appears to take an unseemly delight in the decline of the human body: ears that don't hear as well, spines that compress and curve, nose sensors that fade. And did we mention those hairs that start growing out of places other than the head? So we are happy to report on one thing baby boomers may find they do as well as well as ever: urinating. In...

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