The Lede: Reeva Steenkamp, Steve Biko and the Quest for Justice in South Africa

LONDON – The title of the presiding judge 35 years ago was the same, chief magistrate of Pretoria, and the venue for the hearing, a converted synagogue, was not far from the modern courthouse seen on television screens around the world in recent days as Oscar Pistorius, the gold medal-winning Paralympic athlete, fought for bail in the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.The case that unfolded...

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Te'o doing tough balancing act at NFL combine

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Manti Te'o wants everyone to know he's over the embarrassment of an online hoax, and he's ready to focus on football.The Heisman Trophy runner-up acknowledges he could have done things to avoid a public spectacle. But he says if he was still embarrassed by it, he wouldn't have taken questions Saturday at the NFL's annual scouting combine.Instead, nearly two dozen television cameras...

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve HortonCapt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq. The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones. “Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors...

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Fair Game: Dell Shareholders Look Hard at Takeover Effort

IS Michael Dell trying to take over the computer company he founded on the cheap? That’s what more and more Dell shareholders appear to believe about the $13.65 per-share price proposed on Feb. 5 by Mr. Dell and Silver Lake Partners, a technology investment firm. Initial objectors to the buyout have been joined by additional shareholders concerned about getting a fair shake. The issue...

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Palestinians Threaten to Boycott Sponsors of Jerusalem Marathon

JERUSALEM — A lawyer representing Palestinian government agencies sent letters this week to an American sneaker company and an international hotel chain threatening a boycott and legal action if they did not withdraw their sponsorship of the Jerusalem marathon, which the Palestinians say violates international law. The letters to New Balance, a footwear company based in Boston, and the InterContinental...

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Oscar Pistorius gets bail as murder trial looms

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius walked out of a South African court Friday a free man — for now — after a magistrate agreed to release him on bail ahead of his premeditated murder trial over the shooting death of his girlfriend.But even as he was driven away from court and chased by videographers and photographers, questions continued to hound the Paralympian about what actually happened...

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Question Mark: Acne Common in Baby Boomers Too

Pimples are no surprise on babies and teenagers, but boomers? You no longer have to gaze over a school lunchroom, hoping to find a seat at a socially acceptable table. You don’t rush to get home at night before your junior license driving restrictions kick in. And you men no longer have to worry that your voice will skip an octave without warning. But if adolescence is over, what is that...

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Pentagon Suspends F-35 Flights Due to Engine Blade Crack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Friday suspended the flights of all 51 F-35 fighter planes after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade in the jet engine of an F-35 test aircraft in California. It was the second grounding of the warplane in two months and marked another setback for the $396 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the Pentagon's biggest weapons...

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The Lede: Assad Denies Starting War in New Interview

Last Updated, Thursday, 3:48 p.m. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, denied in an interview broadcast last week on German television that he was responsible for starting the bloody conflict tearing his country apart.The interview, featured in a new documentary on the conflict in Syria by the filmmaker Hubert Seipel, was conducted in English but later overdubbed in German for broadcast on the network...

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SAfrica police replace top Pistorius investigator

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Ahead of a judge's decision on whether to release Oscar Pistorius on bail, South African police on Thursday appointed a new chief detective in the murder case, replacing a veteran policeman who was himself charged with attempted murder.The sensational twist in the state's troubled investigation fueled growing public fascination with the case against the double-amputee...

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Living With Cancer: Arrivals and Departures

After being nursed and handed over, the baby’s wails rise to a tremolo, but I am determined to give my exhausted daughter and son-in-law a respite on this wintry evening. Commiserating with the little guy’s discomfort — gas, indigestion, colic, ontological insecurity — I swaddle, burp, bink, then cradle him in my arms. I begin walking around the house, swinging and swaying while cooing in soothing...

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Via Video, a Front-Row Seat to a Fashion Show

As the Belstaff runway show began in New York City last week, buyers, designers and bloggers crowded into their seats, jotted notes and took smartphone photos as the models strutted by. But it was another crowd, outside the tents, that Belstaff executives were particularly interested in this season. For the second time, it was live streaming its fashion show. And the Web viewers were...

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Russian Mother of Adopted Boy Who Died in U.S. Wants His Brother Back

MOSCOW — The Russian mother of two young boys who were adopted by a Texas couple requested on Wednesday that the younger child be returned to her, after his brother died under unclear circumstances in a case that has given new impetus to a long-running controversy over foreign adoptions. The older boy, Max Shatto, 3, died in a West Texas hospital in late January. His birth mother, Yulia A....

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Police offer confused testimony in Pistorius case

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — The detective leading the police investigation into Oscar Pistorius' fatal shooting of his girlfriend offered confusing testimony Wednesday, at one point agreeing with the athlete's defense that officers had no evidence challenging the runner's claim he accidentally killed her.Testimony by Detective Warrant Officer Hilton Botha of the South African Police Service left...

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Global Update: New Polio Strains That Protect Vaccine Factory Workers

Scientists have created new strains of polio intended to protect workers in factories that make polio vaccine. The new strains have the same ability to invoke an immune reaction as the live viruses now used to make vaccine do, but there is virtually no risk anyone will get polio if one of the new strains somehow escapes. The research team, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook,...

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American Executive Lashes Out at French Unions, Touching Off Uproar

PARIS — “How stupid do you think we are?” With those choice words, and several more similar in tone, the chief executive of an American tire company touched off a furor in France on Wednesday as he responded to a government plea to take over a recently closed Goodyear factory in northern France. “I have visited the factory a couple of times,” Maurice Taylor Jr., the head of Titan International,...

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At War Blog: Korean War Veteran Is Buried Six Decades After He Disappeared

The passengers aboard Delta Air Lines Flight 2125 didn’t get up when the plane taxied into its gate at Baltimore Washington International Airport earlier this month. They didn’t retrieve their bags from the overhead bins. Instead, they looked out the right side of the aircraft, where an honor guard and black hearse were waiting to escort the remains of Cpl. James R. Hare home, the final portion of...

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Pistorius: Thought lover an intruder in shooting

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius wept Tuesday as his defense lawyer read the athlete's account of how he shot his girlfriend to death on Valentine's Day, claiming he had mistaken her for an intruder.Prosecutors, however, told a packed courtroom that the double-amputee known as the Blade Runner intentionally and mercilessly shot and killed 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp as she cowered inside...

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Personal Health: Health Effects of Smoking for Women

The title of a recent report on smoking and health might well have paraphrased the popular ad campaign for Virginia Slims, introduced in 1968 by Philip Morris and aimed at young professional women: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”Today that slogan should include: “. . . toward a shorter life.” Ten years shorter, in fact.The new report is one of two rather shocking analyses of the hazards of smoking...

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