DealBook: Office Depot and OfficeMax Announce Plans to Merge, After Erroneous Release

11:12 a.m. | Updated Office Depot and OfficeMax announced plans to merge on Wednesday, just hours after an erroneous news release about the deal surfaced briefly.Under the terms of the deal, Office Depot said it would issue 2.69 new shares of common stock for each share of OfficeMax. At that level, the transaction would value OfficeMax at $13.50, or roughly $1.19 billion, a premium of more than 25...

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Ask an Expert: Questions About Hearing Loss? A Help Desk

This week’s Ask the Expert features Neil J. DiSarno, who will answer questions about hearing loss. Dr. DiSarno is the chief staff officer for audiology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. From 1998 to 2012 he was chairman of the department of communication sciences and disorders at Missouri State University. Following are the types of questions that Dr. DiSarno is prepared to answer....

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Ask an Expert: Questions About Hearing Loss? A Help Desk

This week’s Ask the Expert features Neil J. DiSarno, who will answer questions about hearing loss. Dr. DiSarno is the chief staff officer for audiology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. From 1998 to 2012 he was chairman of the department of communication sciences and disorders at Missouri State University. Following are the types of questions that Dr. DiSarno is prepared to answer....

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DealBook: Court Gives Investor an Edge in a Lawsuit Against Apple

7:47 p.m. | Updated In the battle between Apple and the hedge fund manager David Einhorn, score a point for the billionaire who is taking up the mantle of shareholder advocate.A federal judge said on Tuesday that he was leaning toward Mr. Einhorn’s contention that Apple had violated securities regulations by bundling several shareholder proposals into one matter.A lawsuit by Mr. Einhorn’s Greenlight...

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IHT Rendezvous: True or False? The Tussle Over Ping Fu's Memoir

Did Ping Fu, a prominent Chinese-American businesswoman and author of a recent memoir, “Bend, not Break,” make up her horrible experiences during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution in order to gain United States citizenship? Did they help her become an American by claiming political asylum?That’s what her critics, many of them fellow Chinese-Americans, say. It’s an accusation that can stick. As a recent...

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Media Decoder Blog: NBC News Hires David Axelrod as Political Analyst

NBC News announced Tuesday that it had hired David Axelrod, the chief political strategist for both of Barack Obama’s presidential elections, as a full-time political analyst for the news organization.He will appear on news programs for NBC’s broadcast network and for its cable news channel MSNBC. That channel has positioned itself aggressively as the liberal counterpart to the conservative-leaning...

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Well: Susan Love's Illness Gives New Focus to Her Cause

During a talk last spring in San Francisco, Dr. Susan Love, the well-known breast cancer book author and patient advocate, chided the research establishment for ignoring the needs of people with cancer. “The only difference between a researcher and a patient is a diagnosis,” she told the crowd. “We’re all patients.”It was an eerily prescient lecture. Less than two months later, Dr. Love was given...

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Well: Susan Love's Illness Gives New Focus to Her Cause

During a talk last spring in San Francisco, Dr. Susan Love, the well-known breast cancer book author and patient advocate, chided the research establishment for ignoring the needs of people with cancer. “The only difference between a researcher and a patient is a diagnosis,” she told the crowd. “We’re all patients.”It was an eerily prescient lecture. Less than two months later, Dr. Love was given...

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Bits Blog: Tech Predictions for 2013: It's All About Mobile

If there is one theme that will be the topic of digital business this year, it is mobile.ComScore, which tracks Web and mobile usage, published a report about what happened in 2012, and what to expect in 2013.It shows that the effects of a movement toward mobile are everywhere, from shopping to media to search. According to the report, “2013 could spell a very rocky economic transition,” and businesses...

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French Family of 7 Kidnapped in Cameroon

PARIS (AP) — A French family of seven — including four children — was kidnapped on Tuesday in northern Cameroon, and officials suggested that the Islamic extremist sect Boko Haram was behind it. Details of the kidnapping were not immediately clear. However, President Francois Hollande, speaking during a visit to Greece, noted that France is engaged in a military campaign in Mali to rout out...

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