U.S. moves ahead on new downtown L.A. courthouse

Downtown Los Angeles is finally getting its new federal courthouse, and it's going to stand out amid the aging government buildings...

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Q&A: Claire Diaz-Ortiz, the Woman Who Got the Pope on Twitter

At 30, Claire Diaz-Ortiz already has a pretty impressive resume. She works as the Manager of Social Innovation at Twitter, founded a charity to help orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa and literally wrote the book on how to use social networking for philanthropy. But last week she added something rather special to her curriculum vitae: She got the Pope on Twitter.Diaz-Ortiz, who has been...

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Amy Winehouse inquest to be heard again

LONDON (AP) — Officials in London say the inquest into the death of soul singer Amy Winehouse was overseen by a coroner who lacked the proper qualifications and will be re-heard next month.Camden Council says a new hearing will take place on Jan. 8.Winehouse was found dead in her London home in July 2011 at age 27. An inquest in October 2011 found the “Back to Black” singer had died of accidental...

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Experts Say Thimerosal Ban Would Imperil Global Health Efforts

A group of prominent doctors and public health experts warns in articles to be published Monday in the journal Pediatrics that banning thimerosal, a mercury compound used as a preservative in vaccines, would devastate public health efforts in developing countries. Representatives from governments around the world will meet in Geneva next month in a session convened by the United Nations...

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DealBook: First Quantum Offers $5.2 Billion for Inmet Mining

9:30 a.m. | Updated LONDON – The mining company First Quantum Minerals has begun an improved takeover offer of 5.1 billion Canadian dollars, or $5.2 billion, for a rival, Inmet Mining, in its latest effort to buy the copper producer.First Quantum, which operates mines from Australia to Zambia, said late on Sunday that it had offered Inmet Mining’s shareholders a cash-and-stock deal valued at a $72.87...

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Speculation over autism, but shooter's 'why' has no easy answer

Among the details to emerge in the aftermath of the Connecticut elementary school massacre was the possibility that the gunman...

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Stunning Views of Glaciers Seen From Space

To a geologist, glaciers are among the most exciting features on Earth. Though they seem to creep along at impossibly slow speeds, in geologic time glaciers are relatively fast, powerful landscape artists that can carve out valleys and fjords in just a few thousand years.Glaciers also provide an environmental record by trapping air bubbles in ice that reveal atmospheric conditions in the past....

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Actor Depardieu hits back at French PM over tax exile

PARIS (Reuters) – Actor Gerard Depardieu, accused by French government leaders of trying to dodge taxes by buying a house over the border in Belgium, retorted that he was leaving because “success” was now being punished in his homeland.A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old Depardieu is the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter outside his native country after tax increases by...

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Dr. William F. House, Inventor of Cochlear Implant, Dies

Dr. William F. House, a medical researcher who braved skepticism to invent the cochlear implant, an electronic device considered to be the first to restore a human sense, died on Dec. 7 at his home in Aurora, Ore. He was 89. The cause was metastatic melanoma, his daughter, Karen House, said. Dr. House pushed against conventional thinking throughout his career. Over the objections of...

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As Gold Is Spirited Out of Afghanistan, Officials Wonder Why

Zalmai for The New York TimesA Kabul jewelry shop. Officials are concerned about gold being flown out of Afghanistan. KABUL, Afghanistan — Packed into hand luggage and tucked into jacket pockets, roughly hewed bars of gold are being flown out of Kabul with increasing regularity, confounding Afghan and American officials who fear money launderers have found a new way to spirit funds from the country....

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