China's smog taints economy, health

BEIJING — When a thick quilt of smog enveloped swaths of China earlier this month, it set in motion a costly chain reaction...

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Crazy Alien Weather: Lightning-Filled Rocket Dust Storms of Mars

Scientists have modeled the internal workings of lightning-filled “rocket dust storms” on Mars that rise at speeds 100 times faster than ordinary storms and inject dust high into the Martian atmosphere.The Red Planet is a very dry and dusty place, with global storms that sometimes obscure the entire surface. Satellites orbiting Mars have seen persistent dust layers reaching very high altitudes,...

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Singer Barry Manilow ill, Broadway comeback delayed

(Reuters) – Singer Barry Manilow on Thursday canceled the opening night and three other performances of his Broadway comeback run after coming down with bronchitis, according to Manilow‘s website.The cancellations threaten to upend the “Could It Be Magic” singer’s return to Broadway following a more than two-decade absence.The concerts, which had been slated for Thursday through Sunday, will be made...

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Religious Groups and Employers Battle Contraception Mandate

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto AgencyPresident Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year. In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom...

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Diner’s Journal Blog: PepsiCo Will Halt Use of Additive in Gatorade

PepsiCo announced on Friday that it would no longer use an ingredient in Gatorade after consumers complained.The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, which was used in citrus versions of the sports drink to prevent the flavorings from separating, was the object of a petition started on Change.org by Sarah Kavanagh, a 15-year-old from Hattiesburg, Miss., who became concerned about the ingredient after...

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Protesters slam Egypt government two years after revolution

CAIRO -- Young men and boys clashed with security forces as tens of thousands of Egyptians protested Friday against the Islamist-led...

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How Volkswagen Turns Tennessee Sunshine Into Passats

Volkswagen has been dedicated to getting solar power at its plants around the world, and now it can stake a claim to the single largest solar installation of any automotive manufacturing facility in the U.S. at the company’s compound in Chattanooga. And it’s also VW’s largest photovoltaic array anywhere in the world.During a dedication ceremony at the site this week,...

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Veteran showman Dick Van Dyke reflects on lifetime’s work

(Reuters) – From “Mary Poppins” to “Night at the Museum” and his own long-running TV comedy, Dick Van Dyke has done it all during a show business career spanning seven decades.On Sunday, Van Dyke, 87, gets a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles, just a year after his 1960s “Dick Van Dyke Show” co-star Mary Tyler Moore received the same honor.Reuters spoke to Van Dyke...

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F.D.A. to Vote on Restricting Hydrocodone Products Like Vicodin

Trying to stem the scourge of prescription drug abuse in the United States, an advisory panel of experts to the Food and Drug Administration plans to vote Friday on whether to toughen restrictions on hydrocodone products like Vicodin, the most widely used narcotic painkillers in the country. The recommendation, which the F.D.A. would likely follow, would limit access to the drugs by making...

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DealBook: Rumble on Basic Cable, as Ackman Takes on Icahn Live

For about 15 minutes on Friday afternoon, all of Wall Street was tuned into the battle that everyone wanted to see: William A. Ackman taking on Carl C. Icahn, live on air.And the battle proved even stranger than anyone would have expected: Profanities were dropped; old battles were refought; taunts were slung.Years of bad blood between the two hedge fund magnates spilled publicly onto CNBC’s airwaves,...

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'California did the impossible,' Brown says in State of the State

SACRAMENTO -- In a strident and sweeping State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown declared Thursday morning that "California...

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Beyonce lets others do talking on lip-synch drama

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Beyonce‘s lips remained sealed on Wednesday over her headline-making rendition of the U.S. national anthem at President Barack Obama‘s inauguration, leaving others to do the talking over whether she lip-synched to a pre-recorded track.Celebrity magazine Us Weekly quoted a source saying the Grammy-winning artist was disappointed by the controversy she stirred by singing “The...

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New Mutations Discovered in Melanomas

In a leap forward in understanding the basic science of one of the most lethal cancers, two groups of researchers have found mutations in most melanomas that are unlike any they have seen before in cancer. The changes are in regions that control genes, not in the genes themselves. The mutations are exactly the type caused by exposure to ultraviolet light, indicating they might be among the first DNA...

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DealBook: Choice for S.E.C. Is Ex-Prosecutor, in Signal to Wall St.

2:48 p.m. | Updated President Obama tapped Mary Jo White, a former United States attorney turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.Mr. Obama announced the nomination at the White House on Thursday afternoon. As part of the event, the White House also renominated Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a role he...

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House approves short-term suspension of debt ceiling

WASHINGTON – House Republicans approved a temporary suspension of the $16.4-trillion ceiling on the nation’s debt Wednesday,...

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Coming This Year to Afghanistan: Way More Artillery Strikes

As the U.S. tries to hand over responsibility for the Afghan war to the new Afghan military it’s built, some very old weapons systems are poised to become crucial: the mortar and the howitzer. The plan for 2013 is for the 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to draw down to an as-yet-undecided size at an as-yet-undecided pace. Those that remain will take a back seat to Afghans by the spring,...

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Shia LaBeouf’s “Charlie Countryman” finds love in gritty Romania

Park City, Utah (Reuters) – Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood spin a twist on classic fairytales in their new film “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman,” a modern day love story that swaps castles in the sky for the underbelly of Romania’s capital, Bucharest.The film, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival this week, is a dark story of love unfolding between two unlikely people against the...

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Well: Can You Read the Face of Victory?

Picture a tennis player in the moment he scores a critical point and wins a tournament. Now picture his opponent in the instant he loses the point that narrowly cost him the title. Can you tell one facial expression from the other, the look of defeat from the face of victory?Try your hand at the images below, of professional tennis players at competitive tournaments. All were included in a new study...

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DealBook: Live Q. & A. on Wall Street's Untouchables

On Tuesday, “Frontline” investigated why the leaders of Wall Street had escaped prosecution for their role in the country’s financial crisis.Peter Eavis of DealBook is moderating a conversation beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern time with the show’s producer, Martin Smith. Watch the show above and submit your questions n...

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Shooting reported at Houston college, at least two wounded

Shooting at Lone Star College Raw ...

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From Death Star Petitions to AMAs: Great Moments of Obama's Meme Presidency

Even when he was running for president before his first term, many geeks speculated that Barack Obama was, well, One of Us. In the intervening four years since his election, this has proven to be all too true. Occasionally Vice President Joe Biden even gets in on the fun. From inviting Wookiees to the White House to throwing up the Vulcan salute in the Oval Office, America's first Meme President has...

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Walters expects to leave hospital soon

NEW YORK (AP) — Barbara Walters says she expects to be home from the hospital soon after taking a spill at a Saturday night party at the British ambassador’s home in Washington.The veteran ABC newswoman thanked people who expressed concern in a statement read Monday on “The View.”She says she’s running a low-grade fever and doctors don’t want to release her until her temperature is normal. She says...

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Well Pets: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor house cat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated —...

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