India Ink: Five Accused in Delhi Gang Rape Case Plead 'Not Guilty'

The five men accused in a brutal  gang rape that led to nationwide protests entered not guilty pleas on Saturday to the 13 charges filed against them.The charges  —  including gang rape, murder, kidnapping and conspiracy  —  stem from the Dec. 16 rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who later died from her injuries. Reports of the attack led to days of protests in India...

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Netflix CEO fights for the right to post company milestones on Facebook

It may not seem like the most pressing matter in an era of massive financial scandals, but the Securities and Exchange Commission has decided to go after Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings for posting information about Netflix company milestones on his Facebook (FB) page. According to Bloomberg, the SEC believes that Hastings’ Facebook post, which announced that Netflix users had watched more than...

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Jenna Miscavige Hill Pens Revealing Scientology Book

02/01/2013 at 08:00 PM EST Jenna Miscavige and her uncle David inset Michael Murphree; Inset: Polaris What was it like to grow up inside Sea Org, the Church of Scientology's most elite body? In her memoir Beyond Belief, excerpted exclusively below, Jenna Miscavige...

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out...

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Stock futures point to higher open after payrolls data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were poised to open higher Friday as a slight disappointment in the January payroll report was offset by a strong upward revision for jobs in December. Employment grew modestly in January, with 157,000 added in the month, slightly below expectations for 160,000. Still, the December report was revised upward to 196,000 from 155,000, supporting views the...

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IHT Rendezvous: What's in a Name, Hurricane?

LONDON — Congratulations are in order for Blær Bjarkardóttir, the 15-year-old Icelandic girl who this week won the legal right to keep her given name in defiance of the despotic-sounding Icelandic Naming Committee.Blær — its means “light breeze” in Icelandic — had sued authorities who refused to register her name because it was not on an approved list of 1,853 names that parents are allowed to give...

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3 Things That Still Worry Me About BlackBerry

BlackBerry put on a pretty good show on Wednesday when it revealed the Z10 and the Q10, its first new smartphones in a year and a half. The demos were crisp, and the new BlackBerry 10 software looked clever. At the very least, it seems that BlackBerry has finally joined the modern smartphone era.But despite my interest in BlackBerry’s new phones, I’m still worried about the future of the platform,...

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Drew Barrymore Wears Sweatpants She Finds on the Floor

Stylewatch Style News Now 01/31/2013 at 09:00 AM ET Daniel Jackson for Harper’s BAZAARIf you take away the fact that she’s a multi-talented movie star, producer, former CoverGirl and current cosmetics mogul who got married in Chanel,...

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health officials on Thursday...

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Stock futures flat as earnings roll in; data on tap

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were little changed on Thursday ahead of data on the labor market and a slew of corporate earnings reports. Facebook Inc shares lost 4.6 percent to $29.83 in premarket trading. The company doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter but that growth trailed some of Wall Street's most aggressive estimates. Qualcomm Inc gained...

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U.N. Panel Says Israeli Settlement Policy Violates Law

GENEVA — Israel has used the expansion of Jewish settlements to pursue a creeping annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories and committed multiple violations of international law in its treatment of Palestinians, the United Nations Human Rights Council said in a report on Thursday that called for an immediate halt to all settlement activity. Presenting its findings after a nearly...

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Facebook slumps as mobile ad growth fails to impress

(Reuters) – Shares of Facebook Inc were set to open 7 percent lower on Thursday as a surge in fourth-quarter mobile advertising revenue failed to live up to Wall Street’s high expectations.Three brokerages downgraded the stock of the No. 1 social network, which has struggled to develop a full-fledged mobile advertising business.Facebook has long established itself as one of the most important websites,...

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Kendra Wilkinson Fondly Remembers Hugh Hefner's Late Secretary

By Tim Nudd 01/31/2013 at 08:30 AM EST Kendra Wilkinson and (inset) Mary O'Connor Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic; Inset: Elayne Lodge A friend, a confidante, a shoulder to cry on. Someone who brought a welcome dose of levity when things got heavy. Mary O'Connor was many...

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting...

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Stock futures point to lower open after weak GDP read

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a slightly weaker open on Wednesday following an unexpected contraction in fourth-quarter economic activity. The first read showed gross domestic product fell 0.1 percent, far below expectations for growth of 1.1 percent. However, a read on private sector employment topped forecasts, with the ADP National Employment report showing 192,000...

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IHT Rendezvous: A Story Known Far and Wide, in Denmark at Least

Until this month, if the Danish director and screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel was known at all in the English-speaking world, it was as the co-writer of the screenplay for the original version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” But after winning two prizes at the Berlin Film Festival a year ago, the latest film he directed, “A Royal Affair,” is now getting attention in Hollywood as one of the five contenders...

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Yandex puts mobile app blocked by Facebook on hold

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian internet company Yandex has put an experimental application that allows users to search social networking sites from mobile devices on hold after it was blocked by Facebook.Facebook, which launched its own search tool earlier this month, blocked the Wonder app three hours after its launch on January 24 for U.S. users.The application allows users to look for recommendations...

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'Kid President' Has a Pep Talk for the World

By Dahvi Shira and Stephen M. Silverman 01/30/2013 at 08:30 AM EST "Kid President" Robbie Novak Listen up! Kid President has some words of wisdom to share.The young, self-proclaimed child chief of the United States doesn't identify himself by name in his video,...

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after...

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Stock futures lower; Ford volatile in premarket

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures edged lower on Tuesday as investors took profits following an extended rally and waited for earnings and data on consumer confidence and housing. Equities have been on a tear lately, with the S&P 500 ending an eight-day streak of gains in Monday's session. The index remained above 1,500, suggesting there was still support for a market that...

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IHT Rendezvous: As Asia Grows, So Do Prizes

BEIJING — A new Asian prize that pays more than the Nobel Prize will launch next year, joining an expanding list of cash-rich awards in the region as prosperity and philanthropy grow. Yet one prize – China’s Confucius Peace Prize – set up in 2010 in apparently outraged response to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo – seems to be unable to establish itself....

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Children’s magazine promotes adult video games

LONDON (Reuters) – A British magazine distributed by a joint venture of Conde Nast and Hearst Corporation and aimed at primary school children has been featuring images of adult-rated video games.The most recent issue of Cool Kidz, which is published by privately-owned LCD Publishing, contained images of five games that carried age ratings of 18 years, under the European gaming industry’s PEGI rating...

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Soldier talks about his new arms after transplant

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in an Iraq roadside bombing has two new arms following a double transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital.Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Marrocco along with the surgeons who treated him will be at the Baltimore hospital on Tuesday to discuss the new limbs.The transplants are only the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant ever conducted in the United...

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Futures point to gains after data and Caterpillar

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a modestly higher open on Monday following strong data and results from Caterpillar, though gains were slight after a rally that took the S&P 500 above 1,500 for the first time in more than five years. A strong start to the earnings season has boosted equities, with major averages rising for four straight weeks. The S&P has gained...

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Jan. 28

NEWS A fire ignited by a flare from a band’s pyrotechnics spectacle swept through a nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early on Sunday morning in Santa Maria, a city in southern Brazil, killing at least 233 people, officials said. Simon Romero reports from Rio de Janeiro.President Mohamed Morsi declared a state of emergency and a curfew in three major cities on Sunday, as escalating...

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Apple reportedly prepping new 128GB fourth-gen iPad

It isn’t the “next big thing” Apple (AAPL) investors are said to be waiting for as the company’s share price continues to plummet, but Apple is reportedly prepping a new iPad that will be its first iOS device to pack more than 64GB of storage. 9to5Mac reports that Apple has a new fourth-generation iPad SKU that will soon hit the shelves at one of its retail partners’ stores. Details are slim but the...

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