Sequestration Takes Effect, but Impact Is Not Immediate

WASHINGTON — University officials, city managers, day care providers and others spent Saturday assessing how they would absorb their part of the across-the-board cuts in federal spending that began taking effect over the weekend. But even as the institutions that depend on federal money nervously took stock, most Americans were largely unaffected by the cuts, at least for now. At Los Angeles...

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Bits Blog: Judge Slashes Jury Award in Apple-Samsung Case

8:45 p.m. | Updated A federal judge on Friday weakened the blow from Apple’s legal victory in a patent case against Samsung, lopping more than 40 percent off the damages a jury awarded Apple last year.The ruling did not shift the case — one of the most closely watched in the high-tech industry — in Samsung’s favor. While Apple has lost other skirmishes against Samsung in courts around the world,...

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DealBook: As Losses Mount, R.B.S. Unveils Plan to Sell Assets

LONDON – The Royal Bank of Scotland, hammered by losses, announced plans on Thursday to sell assets and pare back its investment banking business, in an effort to appease regulators and its biggest shareholder, the British government.R.B.S. said it planned to sell a stake in the Citizens Financial Group, the American lender it bought in 1988, through an initial public offering in two years. The bank...

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DealBook: Court Approves Dewey Bankruptcy Plan, Officially Dissolving Firm

Nine months ago, when it filed the largest law firm bankruptcy case in United States history, Dewey & LeBoeuf effectively ceased to exist. But its carcass has languished in court, as restructuring experts handled the messy task of unwinding the firm and negotiating a plan to pay back its creditors.On Wednesday, a federal bankruptcy judge confirmed that plan, a decision that officially dissolved...

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BP Executive Testifies That Rig Explosion Was Known Risk

NEW ORLEANS — On the first day of testimony in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, BP’s top executive for North American operations at the time of the disaster acknowledged on Tuesday that a well explosion had been identified as a risk before it happened. “There was a risk identified for a blowout,” said Lamar McKay, the former president of BP America and current chief executive in charge...

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Little Clarity in Italian Vote, Aside from Anger

Italians Head to the Polls: Italians voted Sunday and Monday in a general election that is being closely watched to see whether a clear winner will emerge.ROME — Italian voters delivered a rousing anti-austerity message and a strong rebuke to the existing political order in national elections on Monday, plunging the country into political paralysis after results failed to produce a clear winner. ...

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Many Cruise Ship Lack Backup Power Systems, Vexing Regulators

Denis Poroy/Associated PressThe Carnival Splendor cruise ship was towed into San Diego Bay in 2010, after a fire destroyed its electrical systems. It is becoming a familiar tale: When the cruise ship was towed into port, the endless hours for passengers of sleeping on deck and going without electricity or toilets were finally over. “It was really hell,” said Bernice Spreckman, who is 77 and...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide...

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F.A.A. Sets Terms for Boeing’s Battery Fixes on 787

After meeting with Boeing executives, top federal aviation officials said on Friday that they would not approve any fix to the battery problems on the 787 jetliner until they were certain that the batteries would not fail again. “The safety of the flying public is our top priority and we won’t allow the 787 to return to commercial service until we’re confident that any proposed solution has...

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Citigroup Toughens Executive Bonus Rules

Responding to anger over executive pay, Citigroup is changing the way it calculates the bonuses given to top executives. It announced on Thursday that part of the $11.5 million in compensation awarded to the new chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, would be closely tied to performance. So far, though, the changes are only affecting a small portion of Citigroup’s executive compensation packages without...

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With PlayStation 4, Sony Aims for Return to Glory

For the Sony Corporation, a tech industry also-ran, the moment of reckoning is here. The first three generations of PlayStation sold more than 300 million units, pioneered a new style of serious video games and produced hefty profits. PlayStation 4, introduced by Sony Wednesday evening, is a bold bid to recapture those glory days of innovation and success. The first new PlayStation...

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Obama Turns Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts

Seeking to Avoid the Sequester: The Times’s Michael D. Shear on how President Obama put pressure on Congress to avoid the across-the-board budget cuts.WASHINGTON — Days away from another fiscal crisis and with Congress on vacation, President Obama began marshaling the powers of the presidency on Tuesday to try to shame Republicans into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses...

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DealBook: Reader's Digest Files for Bankruptcy, Again

Executives at Reader’s Digest must be hoping that the magazine’s second trip to bankruptcy court in under four years will be its last.The magazine’s parent, RDA Holding, filed for Chapter 11 protection late on Sunday in another effort to cut down the debt that has plagued the pocket-size publication for years. The company is hoping to convert about $465 million of its debt into equity held by its...

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The Media Equation: In Omaha Manhole Fire Photo, Logging Off in Search of Some Clues

Stephanie SandsThis image, which was taken after an underground fire cut power in half of downtown Omaha, captivated the Web last month. When photographs of spontaneous events miraculously appear on the Web, it generally prompts two responses: wonder and skepticism. So it was with an image of exploding manhole covers in Omaha that took over the Web last month. On Sunday, Jan. 27, an underground...

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The Education Revolution: In China, Families Bet It All on a Child in College

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWu Caoying studied English under her father’s watchful eye in 2006. She is now a sophomore in college. More Photos »HANJING, China — Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education. ...

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Airbus and Boeing on Different Paths on Battery

When it comes to the volatile new lithium-ion battery technology, Boeing and Airbus are heading in different directions. Faced with the potential of a lengthy investigation into what caused batteries on two Boeing 787 jets to ignite or emit smoke last month, Airbus said Friday that it had dropped plans to use the technology on its forthcoming wide-body jet, the A350-XWB, to avoid possible...

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Media Decoder Blog: CBS Reports Record Operating Income for 4th Quarter

The CBS Corporation set records in the fourth quarter for operating income and adjusted operating income, the company said Thursday, but the results were short of some analysts’ expectations and its share price fell in after-hours trading.The adjusted net earnings of $414 million produced earnings of 64 cents a share, also a quarterly record for CBS, though some analysts had forecast income as high...

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WellPoint Hires Joseph Swedish of Trinity Health as C.E.O.

WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, announced on Tuesday that it had chosen an experienced hospital executive to lead it through sweeping changes created by the federal health care overhaul law. Joseph R. Swedish, the 61-year-old chief executive of a major nonprofit Catholic-owned health system, Trinity Health, will become WellPoint’s chief executive on March 25. He will...

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