George H.W. Bush hospitalized for bronchitis

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At Long Last, iTunes 11 Is Available — And We Dig It

So long, iTunes 10. Apple begins rolling out the 11th iteration of its iTunes media player and store today, and we’re digging the redesigned interface, improved search, ability to play content straight from iCloud and sync playback across devices.For the most part, the new iTunes feels like the old iTunes. The experience is much faster though and has a decidedly more modern, streamlined user...

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“Homeland” in, “Boardwalk Empire” out in PGA TV nominations

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning dramas “Homeland”, “Mad Men” and British period piece “Downton Abbey” will compete for the annual Producers Guild Awards for the top shows on U.S. television, organizers announced on Wednesday.But last year’s winner – HBO’s lavish Prohibition-era gangster drama “Boardwalk Empire” – failed to make the cut this year with the Producers Guild of America, one of the...

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Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly. Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a...

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Chamber Competes to Be Heard in Fiscal Debate

WASHINGTON — After months of sparring with President Obama in the heat of the campaign season, Chamber of Commerce executives came to the White House this week with a far more conciliatory tone, offering up suggestions to avert large budget cuts without having to raise taxes. Jim Young/ReutersTom Donahue, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, with President Obama last year. The two...

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Norquist: GOP concern over tax pledge just 'impure thoughts'

Grover Norquist on Wednesday rebuffed claims that his anti-tax crusade is losing steam, calling statements from prominent Republicans...

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Pentagon Cries Poor, Starts $10 Billion Nuclear Weapon Upgrade

The Pentagon is facing its worst cash crunch in more than a decade, with potential cuts of up to a half-trillion dollars over the next decade if Congress doesn’t act soon. Yet the U.S. military still somehow found the money on Tuesday to put a down payment on a $10 billion upgrade of its nuclear weapons in Europe — y’know, just in case there’s another Cold War.The $178 million, three-year...

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Former boxing champ Mike Tyson to take one-man show on the road

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson plans to take his one-man theater show on the road across the United States early next year.Tyson, 45, made the announcement on ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.“Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth” is an autobiographical monologue performed by Tyson in which he reflects upon his tough childhood in Brooklyn, the absence...

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Well: Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term

Weight loss surgery, which in recent years has been seen as an increasingly attractive option for treating Type 2 diabetes, may not be as effective against the disease as it was initially thought to be, according to a new report. The study found that many obese Type 2 diabetics who undergo gastric bypass surgery do not experience a remission of their disease, and of those that do, about a third redevelop...

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State of the Art: Tablets Are Hot Holiday Gifts, but Which One to Buy? — Review

From left: J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times, Jim Wilson/The New York Times, Everett Kennedy Brown/European Pressphoto AgencyFrom left, the Kindle PaperWhite, the iPad Mini and the  Nexus 7. The other day, I joined NPR for a segment about high-tech holiday gifts. I was ready for the calls from listeners. I’d brushed up on cameras, phones, laptops, music players and game consoles. I was...

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Alleged WikiLeaks source says he was illegally punished in jail

A key pretrial hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of giving classified material to the website WikiLeaks, which then...

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Siri 'Eyes Free' Hops Aboard Chevy Spark

Voice activation in automobiles for the most part sucks. You push a button on the steering wheel, ask for the nearest gas station and the system asks if you want to find a Chinese restaurant. (That’s a real-world example.) Apple wants to make it all better — while also making a sly play to control search on the road — by integrating Siri into the car.Apple announced...

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Turkish PM fumes over steamy Ottoman soap opera

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A hit TV show about the Ottoman Empire‘s longest-reigning Sultan has raised a political storm in Turkey, with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urging legal action over historical inaccuracies and the opposition accusing him of artistic tyranny.Erdogan tore into the weekly soap opera “Magnificent Century”, which attracts an audience of up to 150 million people in Turkey as well as...

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Global Update: Investing in Eyeglasses for Poor Would Boost International Economy

BSIP/UIG Via Getty ImagesEliminating the worldwide shortage of eyeglasses could cost up to $28 billion, but would add more than $200 billion to the global economy, according to a study published last month in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. The $28 billion would cover the cost of training 65,000 optometrists and equipping clinics where they could prescribe eyeglasses, which...

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Jeffrey Zucker Expected to Be Next President of CNN

In the days to come, when Time Warner appoints a new leader of CNN Worldwide for the first time in a decade, he or she will face an identity crisis unlike any other in corporate America. Though CNN over all is on track to have its most profitable year ever, its flagship channel in the United States is seemingly rudderless, run by layers of producers and executives — many with competing...

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Congress returns as 'fiscal cliff' talks slow

WASHINGTON – Congress returned in a lame duck session with no signs of quick compromise to prevent a tax hike for most Americans...

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Pentagon: A Human Will Always Decide When a Robot Kills You

The Pentagon wants to make perfectly clear that every time one of its flying robots releases its lethal payload, it’s the result of a decision made by an accountable human being in a lawful chain of command. Human rights groups and nervous citizens fear that technological advances in autonomy will slowly lead to the day when robots make that critical decision for themselves. But according...

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Actor: CBS comedy ‘Two and a Half Men’ is ‘filth’

NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who plays the half in the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men” says it’s “filth” and through a video posted by a Christian church has urged viewers not to watch it.Nineteen-year-old Angus T. Jones has been on the show since he was 10 but says he doesn’t want to be on it. He says, “Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth.”The video was posted...

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Amid Hurricane Sandy, a Race to Get a Liver Transplant

It was the best possible news, at the worst possible time. The phone call from the hospital brought the message that Dolores and Vin Dreeland had long hoped for, ever since their daughter Natalia, 4, had been put on the waiting list for a liver transplant. The time had come. They bundled her into the car for the 50-mile trip from their home in Long Valley, N.J., to NewYork-Presbyterian...

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DealBook: Mortgage Interest Deduction Is Now Seen as Vulnerable

A tax break that has long been untouchable could soon be in for some serious scrutiny.Many home buyers deduct their mortgage interest when assessing their tax bill, a perk that has helped bolster the income of millions of families — and the broader housing market.But as President Obama and Congress try to hash out a deal to reduce the budget deficit, the mortgage interest deduction will likely be...

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