1. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

2. Being a United States citizen since 1988 and born in Calcutta in 1940, author Bharati Mukherjee has lived in England and Canada, and first came to the United States in 1961 to study at the Iowa Writers’Workshop.

3. As a result of record low temperatures, the water pipes on the third floor froze, which caused the heads of the sprinkler system to burst, which released torrents of water into offices on the second floor.

4. Archaeologists in Ireland believe that a recently discovered chalice, which dates from the eighth century, was probably buried to keep from being stolen by invaders.

5. The bank holds $3 billion in loans that are seriously delinquent or in such trouble that they do not expect payments when due.

6. Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

7. ln the textbook publishing business, the second quarter is historically weak, because revenues are low and marketing expenses are high as companies prepare for the coming school year.

8. Ms. Chambers is among the forecasters who predict that the rate of addition to arable lands will drop while those of loss rise.

9. Less than 400 Sumatran rhinos survive on the Malay peninsula and on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and they occupy a small fraction of the species’ former range.

10. Certain pesticides can become ineffective if used repeatedly in the same place; one reason is suggested by the finding that there are much larger populations of pesticide-degrading microbes in soils with a relatively long history of pesticide use than in soils that are free of such chemicals.