Son of Nick Van Exel sentenced to 60 years on murder conviction

...

Read More..

The World's Tweets Light Up the Globe in Stunning Live Visualization

It’s simple, but lovely. Web designer Franck Ernewein‘s real-time Twitter visualization, Tweetping, drops a bright pixel at the location of every tweet in the world, starting as soon as you open the page.The result is a constantly changing image that grows to look like a nighttime satellite shot, bright spots swarming over the most developed areas. But Ernewein has packaged it all in a subtly...

Read More..

Mary Wells, singer of ‘My Guy,’ gets posthumous Rock Hall push

(Reuters) – Mary Wells, Motown Records‘ first female star who paved the way for the success of Diana Ross and The Supremes, shot to fame in the early 1960s only to fade away as a footnote of the longtime Detroit record label.Now, some two decades after Wells’ death in 1992 at age 49, the singer who scored a No. 1 hit with “My Guy,” is receiving a push for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Peter...

Read More..

Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 90. The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap...

Read More..

Americans Closest to Retirement Were Hardest Hit by Recession

David Maxwell for The New York TimesSusan Zimmerman, 62, has three part-time jobs. Michael Stravato for The New York TimesArynita Armstrong, 60, at her home in Willis, Tex. She last worked five years ago. “When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” she says. In the current listless economy, every generation has a claim to having been most...

Read More..

Cardinal Mahony says he wasn't equipped to handle priest abuse

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony responded Friday to Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez's decision to relieve him of all public duties...

Read More..

Here's What Your $97 Million Drug War in Central America Actually Bought

The U.S. isn’t just shoveling cash to stem the tide of narcotics in Mexico and Colombia. Quietly, it’s built up its drug war in Central America, too — spending nearly $100 million over four years on advanced gear for local forces. Not that Washington has any idea what it’s gotten for its money.A new report from the Government Accountability Office provides a rare glimpse into the Central American...

Read More..

Wispelwey: Loneliness of the long-distance cellist

LEIDEN, Netherlands (Reuters) – Dutch cellist Peter Wispelwey has recorded the haunting, delightful and soul-uplifting Bach Six Suites for Solo Cello three times and still he’s not finished.His next, he says, is his “Lost in Translation” version, referring to the Bill Murray movie about an actor coming to terms with an alien culture in Tokyo.Wispelwey is doing the same, flying into the Japanese capital...

Read More..

Auvi-Q Challenges EpiPen With a New Shape and Size

Twin brothers Eric and Evan Edwards grew up with serious food allergies and were under doctor’s orders to carry their medicine everywhere they went. But as they entered their teenage years in suburban Virginia, they found the advice increasingly hard to follow. The device they carried to inject the medicine, known as an EpiPen, was shaped like a large felt-tip marker and they would frequently...

Read More..

DealBook: Amid Bank's Legal Problems, Barclays Chief Gives Up Bonus

Antony P. Jenkins, the new chief executive of Barclays, said on Friday that he would forgo his bonus as the British bank struggled to rebuild its reputation after recent missteps.British regulators are investigating new accusations that Barclays failed to properly disclose to shareholders a loan to a group of Qatari investors that gave the British bank a cash infusion during the financial crisis,...

Read More..

Senate Democrats huddle on gun measures

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday with Senate Democrats to brief the caucus about the rationale behind the...

Read More..

Is PlayStation 4 Nearly Here? Sony Plans Mysterious Feb. 20 Press Conference

Is the next next-generation console almost here? Wired just received an invitation to “PlayStation Meeting 2013,” a press briefing to be held in New York City on February 20, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern time. It was accompanied by the cryptic video above and contained no further information.With Sony heavily rumored to be announcing (and possibly releasing) its next-generation...

Read More..

Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace in talks for Soviet thriller

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are in talks to star in “Child 44,” a thriller that Ridley Scott and Michael Costigan are producing for Scott Free Productions, individuals with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap. “Safe House” filmmaker Daniel Espinosa will direct from a script by Richard Price, who is adapting Tom Rob Smith‘s novel.Set in Josef Stalin‘s Soviet Union, the story...

Read More..

Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common...

Read More..

DealBook: Deutsche Bank Posts Surprise $3 Billion Loss

FRANKFURT — Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, reported a surprise quarterly net loss of $3 billion on Thursday, as new management tallied the cost of past mistakes and tried to draw a line under the bank’s troubled past.The fourth-quarter loss of 2.2 billion euros included about 1 billion euros the bank set aside to cover legal proceedings and investigations, including accusations that Deutsche...

Read More..

China's ethnic Manchus rediscovering their roots

BEIJING — Nobody would suspect that this impish toddler is of noble lineage. Yiyi has the same buzz cut as other 3-year-old...

Read More..

There's No Place for Fear When Riding a 100-Foot Wave

Garrett McNamara felt many things as the monster wave approached. Excitement. Awe. Joy. The one thing he did not feel, however, is fear.That might seem unusual, given that he was about to ride what is believed to have been a 100-foot wave on Monday. But there was no place in his heart, or mind, for such things. He was focused utterly on the moment.“If you have fear then it means you are not...

Read More..

Despite previous beating, Rihanna back with Chris Brown

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s official: R&B diva Rihanna says she is back together with Chris Brown, who is still on probation for assaulting her in 2009, saying “It’s different now.”“I decided it was more important for me to be happy,” Rihanna told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview published on Wednesday on its website.“I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if...

Read More..

Illness Walks the Runway

A top fashion designer quarantines a sneezing underling, forcing her to work in a closet. An industry P.R. executive makes colleagues douse their hands with Purell. Germ-phobic magazine editors are powerblasting offices with antiseptic wipes and Lysol. Such is the dread gripping the fashion world as it prepares for New York Fashion Week, beginning Feb. 7, with a killer flu and a stomach-bug...

Read More..

DealBook: Top Federal Prosecutor of Corporate Crime Resigns

1:42 p.m. | Updated with formal announcementLanny A. Breuer, the federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s response to corporate crime in the wake of the financial crisis, announced on Wednesday that he is stepping down after nearly four years in the post.As head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, one of the most senior roles at the agency, Mr. Breuer tackled corporate bribery...

Read More..