Feb
21

On Twitter, a peanut gallery mocks the Oscars

NEW YORK (AP) — You can simply tune into the Oscars. Or you can watch them with the peanut gallery on Twitter.While Hollywood parades in tuxedos and gowns, grandly celebrating itself, a freewheeling cacophony of quips and sarcasm — something like a digital, million-times multiplied version of those balcony Muppet onlookers, Statler and Waldorf — will provide a welcome and riotous counter-narrative...
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Lou Myers, A Different World Actor, Dies

By Tim Nudd 02/21/2013 at 08:25 AM EST TV, film and stage actor Lou Myers, best known for playing Mr. Gaines on the sitcom A Different World in the '80s and early '90s, has died at 77. Myers passed away at the Charleston Area Medical Center in his native state of West Virginia after battling pneumonia for several...
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Adults get 11 percent of calories from fast food

ATLANTA (AP) — On an average day, U.S. adults get roughly 11 percent of their calories from fast food, a government study shows.That's down slightly from the 13 percent reported the last time the government tried to pin down how much of the American diet is coming from fast food. Eating fast food too frequently has been seen as a driver of America's obesity problem.For the research, about 11,000 adults...
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Feb
20

Stock futures edge lower ahead of data, Fed minutes

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Wednesday, ahead of data on the housing market and inflation, as well as minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's January meeting. Housing starts and permits for January along with the January producer price index are due at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey forecast the housing starts...
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China Says Army Is Not Behind Attacks in Report

SHANGHAI — A day after a United States security company accused a People’s Liberation Army unit in Shanghai of engaging in cyberwarfare against American corporations, organizations and government agencies, China’s defense ministry issued a strong denial and insisted that the report was flawed. At a news conference in Beijing Wednesday, the ministry suggested the allegations were destructive...
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Sony set to make pre-emptive strike on Microsoft with PS4

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp is expected to showcase a new PlayStation console on Wednesday in a pre-emptive strike against Microsoft Corp’s bid to make its Xbox the world’s leading hub for household entertainment.The rare PlayStation event in New York comes amid industry speculation that Microsoft is set to unveil the successor to its Xbox 360, which beats the seven-year-old PlayStation 3′s online...
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Oscar Pistorius's House Had Testosterone & Needles, Say Police

Breaking News By Andrea Billups 02/20/2013 at 08:35 AM EST Oscar Pistorius Herman Verwey/City Press/Gallo Images/Getty As a bail hearing continued Wednesday in the murder case of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, new details have emerged as prosecutors outline...
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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines."The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed...
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Feb
19

Stock futures rise on deals, extend seven-week rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures advanced on Tuesday, indicating the S&P 500 will build on its seven-week winning streak on optimism about M&A activity and before data on the housing market. The S&P 500 <.spx> has risen for seven straight weeks, its longest streak since January 2011, and is up 6.6 percent for the year. The strong start to the year...
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India Ink: A Conversation With: Journalist and Author Rahul Pandita

Rahul Pandita, an associate editor with the Open magazine in Delhi, is a journalist and author who belongs to the Kashmiri Pandit community, Hindus who had to flee the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s during a separatist insurgency by the Muslim majority.In his memoir, “Our Moon has Blood Clots,” which was released last month, Mr. Pandita chronicles the loss and suffering of his own family to narrate...
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