Black Friday online sales up nearly 21%

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How One <em>Myst</em> Fan Made Himself a Real-Life Linking Book

The classic PC game Myst was known for drawing people in to its massive, surreal world. But maker Mike Ando took a little piece of that world and drew it into ours. He made a lovingly authentic replica of the Linking Book that helps the main character — you — navigate the world.Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game created by Cyan Worlds, made of...

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“Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik, husband divorcing

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “The Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik and her husband are divorcing after nine years of marriage, she said in a statement on her Facebook page.Bialik, who starred in the 1990s sitcom “Blossom,” and Michael Stone have two sons together.“Divorce is terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible for children,” Bialik, 36, said in the statement. “It is not something we have decided...

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Nintendo’s Wii U Takes Aim at a Changed Video Game World

REDMOND, Wash. TUCKED in the woods here, west of State Route 520, is a little piece of the Mario Kingdom. Behind the unassuming doors is the business built by Mario, the pudgy plumber, and Luigi, his lanky brother, as well as characters like Link, wielder of the mystical Master Sword, and Princess Zelda, of the royal family of Hyrule. All of them, and more, are the pixelated children...

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Lining up even earlier for Black Friday becomes a shop priority

In a tradition that seems to take a bigger slice of Thanksgiving every year, hordes of deal-sniffing shoppers descended on Southland...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Celestial Finger Painting

This colour-composite image was obtained by FORS1 on ANTU. It displays a sky area near the Chamaeleon I complex of bright nebulae and hot stars in the constellation of the same name, close to the southern celestial pole.This picture was taken a few days before the Paranal Inauguration and the "hand-over" to the astronomers on April 1, 1999.This colour composite photo...

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Halle Berry’s ex headed to court after Thanksgiving brawl

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The father of Halle Berry‘s daughter is headed to court after he was arrested following a fistfight with her fiancé outside the Oscar winning actress’ Los Angeles home on Thanksgiving, police said.Canadian model Gabriel Aubry, 37, was later released on $ 20,000 bail after being charged with misdemeanor battery following the punch-up with Berry’s fiancé, French actor Olivier...

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday. The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files...

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The Lede Blog: Vignettes of Black Friday

With promotions, discounts and doorbusters already well under way on Thanksgiving Day itself, many big-box retailers are making Black Friday stretch longer than ever. The Lede is checking out the mood of American consumers in occasional vignettes Thursday and Friday as the economically critical holiday shopping season kicks o...

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Gazans sweep up, head home as truce holds through first day

Members of the Attar family, Palestinians who were displaced during the eight-day conflict with Israel, return to their...

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Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner

Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents’ Thanksgiving dinner table.Most everything on your plate has undergone tremendous genetic change under the intense selective pressures of industrial farming. Pilgrims and American Indians ate foods called corn and turkey, but the actual organisms they consumed...

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Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $...

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Documents Show F.D.A.’s Failures in Meningitis Outbreak

Newly released documents add vivid detail to the emerging portrait of the Food and Drug Administration’s ineffective and halting efforts to regulate a Massachusetts company implicated in a national meningitis outbreak that has sickened nearly 500 people and killed 34. In the documents, released on Tuesday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency would threaten to bring...

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The Shrewd Shopper Carries a Smartphone on Black Friday

Tim Gruber for The New York TimesFrom left, Tara Niebeling, Sarah Schmidt, Bridget Jewell and Erin Vande Steeg are members of the social media team at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. Retailers are trying to lure shoppers away from the Internet, where they have increasingly been shopping to avoid Black Friday madness, and back to the stores. The bait is technological tools that will make...

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Jesse Jackson Jr. resigns from Congress, acknowledges federal probe

Rep. Jesse Jackson resigned from Congress Wednesday, saying in a letter that he is cooperating with a federal investigation...

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Video: Watch the World's Oldest Digital Computer Get a Reboot

It runs using gas-filled tubes, mechanical relays, and paper tape. It’s a giant, and it’s slow. But it runs, dammit.On Tuesday, volunteers at Britain’s National Museum of Computing rebooted the Harwell Dekatron — a 2.5-metric-ton monster from the early 1950s — making it the oldest working digital computer in existence.It took about half an hour to warm the machine up. Then the volunteers —...

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A Minute With: Guillermo del Toro on “Rise of the Guardians”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is known for putting a dark twist on super heroes and children’s fantasy, but in “Rise of the Guardians” the producer brings together holiday heroes for a festive adventure.“Rise of the Guardians,” which will be in theaters on Friday, is based on award-winning author William Joyce’s “The Guardians...

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New H.I.V. Cases Falling in Some Poor Nations, but Treatment Still Lags

New infections with H.I.V. have dropped by half in the past decade in 25 poor and middle-income countries, many of them in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS, the United Nations said Tuesday. The greatest success has been in preventing mothers from infecting their babies, but focusing testing and treatment on high-risk groups like gay men, prostitutes and drug addicts has also paid...

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Feds charge former hedge fund manager in big insider-trading case

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a former hedge fund portfolio manager with securities fraud in connection...

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Army Wants to Stop Bombs Using <em>Halo</em>-Style Electric Pulses

Electromagnetic pulse grenades are a favorite of sci-fi storytellers and videogame designers, a la Halo and Call of Duty. The Army evidently doesn’t want to be left out: It’s seeking a real-life version that can blast electromagnetic signals and fry insurgent bombs.To be specific, the Army wants “High Power Microwave (HPM) grenades” to “generate an electromagnetic pulse that could be used...

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