Record Heat Fuels Widespread Fires in Australia

Lukas Coch/European Pressphoto AgencyFirefighters battled a grass fire in Oura, near Wagga Wagga, Australia, on Tuesday. On Monday, Australia’s hottest day on record, the national average was 104.59 degrees. Australia on Wednesday was grappling with an unprecedented heat wave that has sparked raging bushfires across some of the country’s most populated regions – pushing firefighters to their limits,...

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Japan’s Cleanup After a Nuclear Accident Is Denounced

Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesBags of contaminated soil outside the Naraha-Minami school near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. NARAHA, Japan — The decontamination crews at a deserted elementary school here are at the forefront of what Japan says is the most ambitious radiological cleanup the world has seen, one that promised to draw on cutting-edge technology from across the globe. ...

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Vital Signs: Perceptions: Babies Seem to Pick Up Language in Utero

A new study suggests that babies learn bits of their native languages even before they are born.A baby develops the ability to hear by about 30 weeks’ gestation, so he can make out his mother’s voice for the last two months of pregnancy. Researchers tested 40 American and 40 Swedish newborns to see if they could distinguish between English and Swedish vowel sounds. The study is scheduled for future...

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Vital Signs: Perceptions: Babies Seem to Pick Up Language in Utero

A new study suggests that babies learn bits of their native languages even before they are born.A baby develops the ability to hear by about 30 weeks’ gestation, so he can make out his mother’s voice for the last two months of pregnancy. Researchers tested 40 American and 40 Swedish newborns to see if they could distinguish between English and Swedish vowel sounds. The study is scheduled for future...

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Providing a Template to Challenge Apple

TAIPEI — In the China smartphone market, Apple has seen better days. Despite having reported record sales of the iPhone 5, the U.S. technology giant’s presence on the mainland flagged in 2012; it was pushed out of the top five smartphone makers in that market during the third quarter, with just 8 percent of the market, according to the research firm Canalys. As Coolpad, Huawei,...

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Jan. 8

NEWS A battle over media censorship in China intensified Monday with an outpouring of support for journalists at a Guangzhou newspaper who are protesting what they called overbearing censorship by provincial officials. Edward Wong reports from Beijing. Also Monday, state media said China would start reforming its draconian system of re-education through labor, as Andrew Jacobs reports from Beijing.The...

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At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales)

ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine Walt Disney World with no entry turnstiles. Cash? Passé: Visitors would wear rubber bracelets encoded with credit card information, snapping up corn dogs and Mickey Mouse ears with a tap of the wrist. Smartphone alerts would signal when it is time to ride Space Mountain without standing in line. Fantasyland? Hardly. It happens starting this spring. Disney in...

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Alarm in Albuquerque Over Plan to End Methadone for Inmates

Mark Holm for The New York TimesOfficials at New Mexico’s largest jail want to end its methadone program. Addicts like Penny Strayer hope otherwise. ALBUQUERQUE — It has been almost four decades since Betty Jo Lopez started using heroin. Her face gray and wizened well beyond her 59 years, Ms. Lopez would almost certainly still be addicted, if not for the fact that she is locked away in jail,...

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Alarm in Albuquerque Over Plan to End Methadone for Inmates

Mark Holm for The New York TimesOfficials at New Mexico’s largest jail want to end its methadone program. Addicts like Penny Strayer hope otherwise. ALBUQUERQUE — It has been almost four decades since Betty Jo Lopez started using heroin. Her face gray and wizened well beyond her 59 years, Ms. Lopez would almost certainly still be addicted, if not for the fact that she is locked away in jail,...

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Ad Blocking Raises Alarm Among Firms Like Google

PARIS — Xavier Niel, the French technology entrepreneur, has made a career of disrupting the status quo. Now, he has dared to take on Google and other online advertisers in a battle that puts the Web companies under pressure to use the wealth generated by the ads to help pay for the network pipelines that deliver the content. Mr. Niel’s telecommunications company, Free, which has...

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