Jan
04

House approves $9.7 billion in Sandy disaster aid

WASHINGTON — Responding to the political storm over delays in disaster aid to the Northeast, the House on Friday approved a...
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CIA Official Who Destroyed Torture Tapes Squirms at <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em> Abuse

Jose Rodriguez thinks the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is “well worth seeing.” But the retired CIA veteran has reservations about its gut-churning portrayal of the CIA’s treatment of detainees. Which is rich, coming from the man who destroyed the video footage documenting many of those brutal agency interrogations. In an op-ed for the Washington Post on Friday, the former chief...
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Actor Dempsey: Coffee chain bid appears successful

SEATTLE (AP) — Actor Patrick Dempsey said it appears his bid to buy a small coffee chain has prevailed in a bankruptcy auction that included Starbucks Corp.Late Thursday night, Dempsey announced that his company, Global Baristas LLC, made the winning bid for Tully’s Coffee. He noted in a KOMO-TV interview that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say on Jan. 11. Still, Dempsey tweeted “We got it!...
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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...
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U.S. Continues to Add Jobs at Slow Pace, Report Shows

Despite their concerns about looming tax increases and government spending cuts, American employers added 155,000 jobs in December, about apace with job growth over the last year, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The biggest gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, with the latter two probably helped by rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Government...
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Jan
03

Bieber urges crackdown on paparazzi after photographer's death

Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young...
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School Design May Affect a Child's Grades

By Ian Steadman, Wired UKA study of school design has discovered that school layouts can influence a child’s development by as much as 25 percent — positively or negatively — over the course of an academic year.The 751 pupils using 34 classrooms across seven primary schools in Blackpool were studied over the 2011-12 academic year by the University of Salford’s School of the Built Environment...
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Putin gives tax exile Depardieu Russian citizenship

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star who is quitting his homeland to avoid a tax hike on the rich, the Kremlin said on Thursday.The “Cyrano de Bergerac” actor bought a house across the border in Belgium last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires in France planned by Socialist President Francois Hollande but said...
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The Long Life of the ‘Perfect’ Woman

What did happen to Elsie Scheel, the “perfect” woman mentioned in an article in Wednesday’s New York Times that described how people considered overweight had a slightly lower risk of dying than those of normal weight? A century ago, at age 24, Miss Scheel was the subject of a spate of news media coverage after the “medical examiner of the 400 ‘co-eds’ ” at her college, Cornell University,...
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Car Sales End Strong Year on Modest Note

DETROIT – Automakers ended 2012 with modest sales results in the United States, capping a strong year and promising more growth in 2013. Based on early reports Thursday, analysts predicted a 10 percent increase overall for the industry for December, a gain that would put the year’s sales at about 14.5 million – the best performance since 2007. The three Detroit car companies all posted...
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