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

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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...

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Afghan singer’s star is rising, as are the threats

KABUL (Reuters) – With a scarf loosely covering a fancy television hairstyle, Latifa Azizi raised her arms in victory after surviving another elimination round on the hit talent show, “Afghan Star“.But the victory pales into insignificance when compared with the larger battle 17-year-old Azizi is fighting – to pursue her dream of becoming a famous singer despite the censure of ultra-conservative Afghan...

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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...

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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...

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BofA online and phone service disrupted

Bank of America Corp. scrambled to restore service late Friday to its enormous customer base — 40 million households — which...

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Twitter Hacked; Company Says 250K Users May Have Been Affected

Following a string of revelations this week from several media companies who announced they had been recently hacked, Twitter announced on Friday that it had also been the target of a sophisticated attack.The company wrote in a blog post ironically titled “Keeping our users secure” that it detected unusual patterns this week that led it to identify attempts to access user data.“We discovered...

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Julia Stiles Joins Mary Pickford Biopic ‘The First’

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Julia Stiles has joined the cast of the Mary Pickford biopic “The First” to play famed screenwriter Frances Marion, Poverty Row Entertainment announced Thursday.Marion was the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, taking the prize in 1930 for “The Big House.” She collaborated often with Pickford, writing the scripts for “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” and “The...

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The New Old Age: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked...

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Washington Posts Joins List of Media Hacked by the Chinese

SAN FRANCISCO — The question is no longer who has been hacked. It’s who hasn’t? The Washington Post can be added to the growing list of American news organizations whose computers have been penetrated by Chinese hackers. After The New York Times reported on Wednesday that its computers as well as those of Bloomberg News had been attacked by Chinese hackers, The Wall Street Journal...

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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...

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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 Feb. 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...

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“Gomer Pyle” actor Jim Nabors weds longtime male partner

SEATTLE (Reuters) – American actor Jim Nabors, the star of 1960s television comedy “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” married his longtime male partner at a Seattle hotel this month.Nabors, 82, also a singer, wed 64-year-old Stan Cadwallader, his partner of some 38 years, in a ceremony before a judge on January 15 at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, where the couple traveled after same sex marriage became legal in...

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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...

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DealBook: Justice Dept. Seeks to Block $20 Billion Merger of Brewers

8:57 p.m. | Updated For more than a decade, the world’s biggest brewers have been swallowing competitor after competitor as they grapple with slowing growth in many markets. Now, the Obama administration wants to cut them off.The Justice Department on Thursday sued to block Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $20.1 billion deal to buy Grupo Modelo, the Mexican maker of Corona beer, saying that the merger would...

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Big money gets in on Cabinet nomination fights

WASHINGTON — As former Sen. Chuck Hagel seeks to fend off critics aiming to derail his confirmation as Defense secretary, he...

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Boeing's Batteries Draw Criticism as Dreamliner Probe Continues

Boeing’s chief executive said the company is working around the clock investigating a battery problem that has grounded 787 Dreamliners worldwide, saying the company “will get to the bottom of it.” The comments come two weeks after the fleet was grounded, and concern is growing on the cost to airlines with earth-bound airplanes, and to the reputation of the airplane and Boeing itself.Company...

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Well: Myths of Weight Loss Are Plentiful, Researcher Says

If schools reinstated physical education classes, a lot of fat children would lose weight. And they might never have gotten fat in the first place if their mothers had just breast fed them when they were babies. But be warned: obese people should definitely steer clear of crash diets. And they can lose more than 50 pounds in five years simply by walking a mile a day.Those are among...

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Facebook Beats Forecasts on Earnings and Revenue

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook made a lot of money in the last quarter. It also spent a lot. And that made investors once again cautious about the company. After an eight-month roller coaster ride on the public markets, Facebook did well in the fourth quarter of 2012 by aggressively ramping up advertisements aimed at its users, including on mobile phones. In its financial report on Wednesday,...

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