“Zero Dark Thirty,” about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, won’t open in movie theaters until Wednesday, but it is already dividing screening audiences for its depiction of torture by the United States, and its suggestion that brutal treatment may have produced useful early clues to catching Bin Laden, Scott Shane reports. A new Senate report on C.I.A. interrogations, which has been criticized by the Republican minority, has found that brutal treatment was not “a central component” in finding Bin Laden; the film’s screenwriter, Mark Boal, explained that he was “to compress a program that lasted for years into a few short scenes.” Those scenes, he said, attempted “to reflect a very complex debate about torture that is still going on” and showed that brutal treatment produced both true and false information.
After enduring Apple’s own flawed map service, iPhone users on Thursday were able to download an app for Google Maps, which used to come installed on iPhones. The rare stumble by Apple as it attempted to supplant Google in an area it excels at offered both companies a chance to play for an advantage, Nick Wingfield writes. Would Google purposely withhold its app in order to weaken the iPhone and thus help smartphones that work on its own Android operating system? Would Apple delay the introduction of Google Maps in order to keep a hold on a critical, and potentially lucrative, feature of its phone? In the end, both sides saw the advantage in making the user’s experience better, Mr. Wingfield writes.
- In his review of the new app, David Pogue calls it a “home run” and is blown away by the many new features that have been incorporated into the app, including Street View, which lets you see a picture of an address. He also praises its emphasis on walking directions and public transportation options, in addition to driving:
It’s a lot of features. The big question: How well did Google cram them in without sinking the app with featuritis? This, it turns out, is the best news of all. The brand-new, completely rethought design is slick, simple and coherent. Google admits that it’s even better than Google Maps for Android phones, which has accommodated its evolving feature set mainly by piling on menus.
There was more news from Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper holdings, Amy Chozick reports, including the decision of the editor of The Times of London, James Harding, to step down to clear the way for a new editor. Under the leadership of Mr. Harding, who is considered a golden boy of British journalism, the newspaper took a relatively unstinting stance against its parent company’s handling of the hacking scandal, and speculation arose that this decision may have lead to his ouster.
- Also on Wednesday, it was revealed that Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Mr. Murdoch’s News International who has been charged in the phone-hacking scandal, had received a $17.6 million severance package.
The French actor Gérard Depardieu was criticized by his country’s government for moving to nearby Belgium, apparently seeking the warmth of a lower tax rate, Scott Sayare writes from Paris. The recently elected Socialist government has imposed a 75 percent marginal tax rate for incomes above 1 million euros, or $1.3 million. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault linked Mr. Depardieu’s move to the tax rate, saying in a TV interview that the decision was “rather pathetic,” adding “He’s a great star, everyone loves him as an artist,” but that “to pay a tax is an act of solidarity, a patriotic act.”
Joe L. Allbritton, who built Allbritton Communications, which owns TV stations in Washington and a half-dozen other cities, died in Houston on Tuesday, Robert D. Hershey Jr. reports. His son, Robert, now heads the company and in 2007 founded Politico, the news Web site and newspaper devoted to politics.
In nine years of running a food blog, SmittenKitchen.com, Deb Perelman has built up a devoted following, Leslie Kaufman writes. They appreciate her conversational, self-deprecating writing style, and her coping with a cramped, urban kitchen, all of which can resonate with young women learning to cook. In October, she took the next step, releasing a cookbook — and though she never trained as a chef or even worked in a restaurant, her “The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook” debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times’s best-seller list for hardcover advice and miscellaneous. She has stayed in the Top 5 ever since, where she is accompanied by Ina Garten of “Barefoot Contessa” fame and the chef Thomas Keller.
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