Some Arctic seals now officially listed as threatened with extinction

First came the polar bear. Now, the federal government has added two other marine mammals to the list of creatures threatened...

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So Last Year: RIM Dumps Cloud Hosting Acquisition

Last year, RIM — maker of the BlackBerry smartphone line — acquired NewBay, a cloud hosting service for $100 million. But on Friday, Synchronoss, a mobile software company, announced that is buying NewBay from RIM for $55 million cash.The New Bay acquisition was seen as a way for RIM to compete with other file hosting and sync services, such as Apple iCloud, Amazon...

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Actress Katie Holmes’ Broadway show to close

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actress Katie Holmes‘ return to Broadway has been cut short, with producers announcing that the play “Dead Accounts” in which she co-stars will close on January 6, nearly two months early.Holmes, the ex-wife of actor Tom Cruise, played Lorna, a wan, beaten-down woman living with her parents in the five-character play by Theresa Rebeck which opened on November 29 to mostly negative...

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Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSenator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center. NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients. While the medical center had been treating...

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Obama to Urge Fiscal Vote in Senate if Two-Party Talks Fail

Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesIn a televised statement at the White House after meeting with Congressional leaders on Friday, President Obama said he was “modestly optimistic” that an agreement could be reached. WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday evening that progress had been made in make-or-break talks on the fiscal crisis and pronounced himself cautiously “optimistic,” as Senate leaders...

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Hewlett-Packard reports Justice Department fraud probe at Autonomy

The U.S. Department of Justice has officially opened an investigation into allegations made by Hewlett-Packard that...

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No One Uses Smart TV Internet Because It Sucks

People aren’t using their internet-connected smart TVs for anything beyond, well, watching TV. It turns out, nobody wants to tweet from their TV. Or read books. Or do whatever it is people do on LinkedIn. Worse, more than 40 percent of the people who buy a connected TV aren’t even using it for its ostensible primary purpose: getting online video onto the biggest screen in your home. What gives?We...

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It’s husband No. 3 for actress Kate Winslet

NEW YORK (AP) — Kate Winslet has tied the knot again.The Oscar-winning actress wed Ned Rocknroll in New York earlier this month. The private ceremony was attended by Winslet‘s two children as well as a few friends and family members, her representative said Thursday.It is the third marriage for the 37-year-old Winslet. She was previously married to film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes.The...

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7-Eleven Stores Focus on Healthier Food Options

The chain that is home of the Slurpee, Big Gulp and self-serve nachos with chili and cheese is betting that consumers will stop in for yogurt parfaits, crudité and lean turkey on whole wheat bread. 7-Eleven, the convenience store chain, is restocking its shelves with an eye toward health. Over the last year, the retailer has introduced a line of fresh foods for the calorie conscious and trimmed...

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Former President George H.W. Bush in intensive care

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Google Music Self-Censoring Naughty Lyrics for Some Users

Cee-Lo’s F*#$ You has a great beat and all, but it’s not the type of thing you want queuing up with grandma in the room. No worries. Google’s got you covered. Some Google Music users complain the service is randomly replacing expletive-intensive songs with the duller, cleaner versions.The Google Music Scan and Match feature has earned the wrath of some users by replacing...

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Natalie Portman, Kristen Stewart most bankable Hollywood stars

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actresses Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart are Hollywood’s most bankable stars and provide studios with the highest average returns for their films, according to Forbes.com.Academy award winner Portman topped the list of best actors for the buck, providing about $ 42.70 for every dollar she earns.“Black Swan,” for which she won her best actress Oscar, was produced for an estimated...

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Q & A: Should Older Adults Be Vaccinated Against Chickenpox?

Q. Should a 65-year-old who has never had chickenpox be vaccinated against it? A. In someone who has never had chickenpox, the vaccine would protect against a disease that is far more serious in adults than it is in children, said Dr. Mark S. Lachs, director of geriatrics for the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. After...

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NBC’s Display of a 30-Shot Gun Magazine Prompts a Police Inquiry

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Police Department said on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into whether NBC and David Gregory, the host of “Meet the Press,” broke the law when Mr. Gregory displayed a high-capacity gun magazine during an interview on Sunday with the vice president of the National Rifle Association. NBC had asked the police for permission to use a high-capacity magazine...

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Lakers snap Christmas Day streak with win over Knicks

Lakers 100, Knicks 94 (final)The Lakers closed out the New York Knicks on Christmas Day to win their fifth in a row, avenging...

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A Look Inside Tarantino's <em>Django Unchained</em> Comic Book

Django Unchained opens in theaters today, but the big screen isn’t the only way to see the newest work by Quentin Tarantino. The issue of the Django Unchained comic book mini-series from DC/Vertigo Comics is available now in comic book stores (and online), and in advance of tomorrow’s film debut, Wired has a look at the Tarantino’s introduction to...

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Jessica Simpson’s Christmas gift: She’s pregnant

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Simpson‘s daughter has the news all spelled out: “Big Sis.”Simpson on Tuesday tweeted a photo of her baby daughter Maxwell playing in the sand, the words “Big Sis” spelled out.The 32-year-old old singer and personality has been rumored to be expecting again. The tweet appears to confirm the rumors.“Merry Christmas from my family to yours” is the picture’s caption. Simpson used...

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Netflix Fixes a Disruption to Its Video Streaming

A disruption at one of Amazon’s Web service centers hit users of Netflix’s streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas Day, a Netflix spokesman said on Tuesday. The disruption affected Netflix subscribers across the United States, Canada and Latin America and blacked out various devices — including video game consoles and DVD players — that enable...

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Dueling Santa trackers are off and running

A screen grab from Google's Santa Tracker. (Google / December 24, 2012)...

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Army Goes Goth With 'Super-Black' Materials

Get ready to break out the eyeliner and the candelabras, because the Army is going goth.In its latest round of solicitations for small businesses, the Army is asking for proposals for super-black material. That is, material so black that it absorbs 99 percent of all light. But it isn’t really black paint, exactly. The plan is to use either an “antireflective coating or surface treatment process...

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‘Not Fade Away’: An Age Gap Defined by the Rolling Stones

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – For David Chase, the counterculture revolution that consumed the 1960s was a generational conflict that played out against a soundtrack of killer rock songs.“The Sopranos” creator is poised to make his film directing debut this week with the release of “Not Fade Away” at the age of 67, but for his first foray into big screen entertainment he is fixated on a younger generation,...

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News Analysis: Getting Polio Campaigns Back on Track

How in the world did something as innocuous as the sugary pink polio vaccine turn into a flash point between Islamic militants and Western “crusaders,” flaring into a confrontation so ugly that teenage girls — whose only “offense” is that they are protecting children — are gunned down in the streets? Nine vaccine workers were killed in Pakistan last week in a terrorist campaign that brought...

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