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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Fox News, Palin cutting ties

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel is parting ways with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, ending her three-year tenure as a contributor on the network.While Palin’s time at Fox was occasionally rocky, the network’s news executive, Bill Shine, said Friday that “we have thoroughly enjoyed our association” with her.“We wish her the best in her future endeavors,” said Shine, Fox’s...

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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York TimesPro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday. WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday...

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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration could appeal the court ruling, but no announcement was made on Friday. If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States...

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Palmdale woman accused of torturing her children

Neighbors of a Palmdale woman charged with assaulting and torturing two of her children said Thursday that they never even realized...

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The Truth About Weight-Loss Pills and Energy Drinks, for Knowledge and Profit

Between medications and food, there’s a huge swath of edible products that don’t need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, including energy drinks, vitamins, weight-loss pills, and other supplements. And while the companies that make those goods test their products for safety, they don’t usually offer test results that vouch for efficacy or mention the less savory ingredients that...

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Voice of Te’o prankster? Couric plays voicemails

NEW YORK (AP) — The person Manti Te’o says was pretending to be his online girlfriend told the Notre Dame linebacker “I love you” in voicemails that were played during his interview with Katie Couric.Taped earlier this week and broadcast Thursday, the hour-long talk show featured three voicemails that Te‘o claims were left for him last year. Te’o said they were from the person he believed to be Lennay...

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The New Old Age Blog: Time to Recognize Mild Cognitive Disorder?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published and periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, is one of those documents few laypeople ever read, but many of us are affected by.It can make it easier or harder to get an insurance company or Medicare to cover treatments, for example. It factors into a variety of legal and governmental decisions.And on a personal...

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Stocks Push Higher

Stock climbed in New York on Friday, buoyed by rosy earnings from Procter & Gamble amid a backdrop of sturdy corporate results. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 0.3 percent in early trading. The S.&P. 500 was poised for an eighth day of gains, its longest winning streak in eight years. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.3...

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Initial jobless claims drop again, hit new five-year low

WASHINGTON -- Initial jobless claims fell again last week, to 330,000, a fresh five-year low, as the labor market continued...

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Lookin' Hot in the Cold: Technical Outerwear for Winter

Winter outerwear has come a long way from the clammy straight-jackets your mom would wrap around you every time you wanted to go outside.Every year, we see jackets, shells, bibs and pants that are more breathable, lighter, stretchier, and just plain better-looking than last year's crop. We sifted through the countless options on the racks and selected a dozen or...

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Country singer Gary Allan’s new album gets label’s early push

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – The release of country music singer Gary Allan’s new album “Set You Free,” this week, his first since undergoing vocal surgery in 2010, was not meant to happen so soon.But when his record label, MCA Nashville, saw his new song “Every Storm (Runs out of Rain),” race up the charts in September, the label pushed the album’s release up two months from March.“I’ve been...

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Mind: Avoiding Cold Feet Down the Aisle

His charisma was big enough to make his bad habits seem small, more like quirks than flaws. The cigarettes on his breath; the extra weight around the middle; the indifference to clothing and appearances — surely these were minor things, correctable in time.In the months leading up to the wedding, in 1988, even the fact that he’d been living with his mother at age 38 seemed somehow explainable, if...

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Markets Mixed in Early Trading

Wall Street markets opened mixed on Thursday as Apple slid more than 10 percent following a revenue miss, and analysts said equities may be due for a pullback after a six-day rally. Apple missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for a third consecutive quarter after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of consumer electronics was slipping. The shares began...

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Dodgers near TV rights deal with Time Warner Cable

The Los Angeles Dodgers have negotiated a long-term television deal that would pay the team $7 billion to $8 billion, a move...

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Why Subtraction Is the Hardest Math in Product Design

Simple doesn’t just sell, it sticks. Simple made hits of the Nest thermostat, Fitbit, and TiVo. Simple brought Apple back from the dead. It’s why you have Netflix. The Fisher Space Pen, the Swiss Army Knife, and the Rolex Oyster Perpetual are some of our most enduring products. All are marvels of simplicity.Yet while many mechanical marvels of simplicity remain true to their original form,...

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“Cyborg Foundation” wins $100K Focus Forward prize

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Spanish director Rafel Duran Torrent has won the $ 100,000 cash prize in the Focus Forward Filmmaker Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The awards, the most lucrative ever given to short documentaries, went to five different shorts, with the top one being Duran Torrent’s “Cyborg Foundation.”The director will also be invited to a Sundance Institute ShortsLab program...

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The New Old Age Blog: Study Links Cognitive Deficits, Hearing Loss

There’s another reason to be concerned about hearing loss — one of the most common health conditions in older adults and one of the most widely undertreated. A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that elderly people with compromised hearing are at risk of developing cognitive deficits — problems with memory and thinking — sooner than those whose hearing is intact.The study...

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Bits Blog: Keeping the Internet Safe From Governments

Even before the World Conference on International Telecommunications took place last month in Dubai, Internet activists anticipated trouble. So did Congress, which issued a resolution calling it “essential” that the Internet remain “stable, secure and free from governmental control.”The worries proved prescient. The conference, which supposedly was going to modernize some ancient regulations, instead...

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County official calls car leasing contract procedure 'embarrassing'

Auditors reviewing a $1.75-million car leasing contract given to a company with a politically connected lobbying firm found...

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Strut Your Digital Design Skills in Wired's 3-D Print-Off

.ac-container div input {display:none !important;}.ac-container div ul {display: none !important;}.ac-container div label {display: none !important;}.ac-container div input {display:none !important;}.ac-container div ul {display: none !important;}.ac-container div label {display: none !important;}No need to buy a gift box when you can 3-D print one. Design: Alia Hasan3-D printing puts manufacturing...

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Michelle Obama wears Wu to the balls again

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama made it a fashion tradition Monday night, wearing a custom-made Jason Wu gown to the inauguration balls. The ruby-colored dress was a follow-up to the white gown Wu made for her four years ago when she was new to Washington, the pomp and circumstance, and the fashion press.She now emerged in velvet and chiffon as a bona fide trendsetter.“I can’t believe it. It’s crazy,”...

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