China's smog taints economy, health

BEIJING — When a thick quilt of smog enveloped swaths of China earlier this month, it set in motion a costly chain reaction...

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Crazy Alien Weather: Lightning-Filled Rocket Dust Storms of Mars

Scientists have modeled the internal workings of lightning-filled “rocket dust storms” on Mars that rise at speeds 100 times faster than ordinary storms and inject dust high into the Martian atmosphere.The Red Planet is a very dry and dusty place, with global storms that sometimes obscure the entire surface. Satellites orbiting Mars have seen persistent dust layers reaching very high altitudes,...

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Lorne Michaels comedy pilot lands at NBC

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels is broadening his relationship with NBC via a new comedy pilot.The untitled project will star stand-up comic (and “SNL” writer) John Mulaney, and is loosely based on his life.Mulaney will also write and executive-produce the project, with Michaels, Andrew Singer, Dave Becky and David Miner also executive-producing.The project will...

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Religious Groups and Employers Battle Contraception Mandate

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto AgencyPresident Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year. In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom...

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Diner’s Journal Blog: PepsiCo Will Halt Use of Additive in Gatorade

PepsiCo announced on Friday that it would no longer use an ingredient in Gatorade after consumers complained.The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, which was used in citrus versions of the sports drink to prevent the flavorings from separating, was the object of a petition started on Change.org by Sarah Kavanagh, a 15-year-old from Hattiesburg, Miss., who became concerned about the ingredient after...

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Court rules Obama recess appointments unconstitutional

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court, dealing a defeat to President Obama, has sharply limited the chief executive’s power to...

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Smartphone Sorcery: The Best Fantasy RPGs for Mobiles

Get your spell-caster on, explore castles, and lop off heads. Lop off lots of heads.Battle for WesnothPosition your elven archers so they can take down orcs on horseback. Send scouts across the river and behind enemy lines. You’ve got to fight if you’re going to rule the land of Wesnoth. If you’re new to the moving-pieces-around-a-map strategy genre, this isn’t the place to start. Our army...

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Booker winner Mantel says play next “logical step”

LONDON (Reuters) – Double Booker prize-winning author Hilary Mantel said the characters in her historical novels about the rise of Thomas Cromwell will take the next “logical step” to a stage adaptation at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) this year.Mantel said in a video interview on the RSC website this week that she has always longed to give “solid form” to her depictions of Cromwell, Henry VIII...

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Living With Cancer: The Good Patient Syndrome

I remember when being good seemed strategic.After the technician took out a pad to draw an inscrutable diagram, I nodded and pretended to recognize a squiggle at the center of what looked like a snail. I discussed my oncologist’s research projects, instead of complaining about pain. Generally I answered a nurse’s opening query — “So how are you?”– with a cheery “Good! How are you?” Grumbles about...

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Wealth Matters: What the Small Player Can Expect When Using a Lobbyist

Robert Caplin for The New York TimesDomenic Rom, a senior vice president at Technicolor, a postproduction company for film and television, became part of a group of similar companies that wanted to lobby for a tax credit. IF there is one thing most small-business owners have in common, it is that they have far less ability than big corporations to affect what happens to them politically. ...

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Principal ignored earlier report of abuse by teacher, Deasy says

The principal of a Wilmington elementary school received an allegation about four years ago that a teacher behaved inappropriately...

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Lookin' Hot in the Cold: Technical Outerwear for Winter

Winter outerwear has come a long way from the clammy straight-jackets your mom would wrap around you every time you wanted to go outside.Every year, we see jackets, shells, bibs and pants that are more breathable, lighter, stretchier, and just plain better-looking than last year's crop. We sifted through the countless options on the racks and selected a dozen or...

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Aretha Franklin Approves of Beyonce’s ‘Beautiful’ Inaugural Lip-Syncing

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Aretha Franklin r-e-s-p-e-c-t’s Beyoncé’s decision to use a “beautiful” pre-recorded rendition of the national anthem during President Barack Obama‘s inaugural ceremony on Monday.The Queen of Soul, who sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” during Obama‘s inauguration in 2009, told ABC News that the cold weather warranted Beyoncé lip-syncing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”“The weather...

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Well: The Drawn Out Process of the Medical Lawsuit

She was one of the most highly sought radiologists in her hospital, a doctor with the uncanny ability to divine the source of maladies from the shadows of black and white X-ray films.But one afternoon my colleague revealed that she had been named in a lawsuit, accused of overlooking an irregularity on a scan several years earlier. The patient suing believed she had missed the first sign of a now rampant...

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DealBook: Choice for S.E.C. Is Ex-Prosecutor, in Signal to Wall St.

President Obama is tapping Mary Jo White, a former United States attorney turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the White House.Mr. Obama is set to announce the nomination at the White House on Thursday afternoon. As part of the event, the White House will also renominate Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial...

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Clinton takes responsibility for Benghazi failures

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing tough questions from Senate Republicans on the deadly Sept....

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How People Smell Themselves

By Sarah C.P. Williams, ScienceNOWYou might not be able to pick your fingerprint out of an inky lineup, but your brain knows what you smell like. For the first time, scientists have shown that people recognize their own scent based on their particular combination of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins, molecules similar to those used by animals to choose their mates. The discovery...

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Live Nation to rock London Olympic park in 2013

LONDON (Reuters) – Live Nation Entertainment said on Tuesday it had secured exclusive rights to host major music concerts in London’s Olympic Park and Stadium complex in 2013.Live Nation, which hosted more than 400 concerts and performances across Europe in the past year, said it has already planned to hold its Wireless Festival and Hard Rock Calling events at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the...

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Well: Have a Health Question? Ask Well

The Well section of The New York Times is starting a new online featured called Ask Well. If you have a question about fitness, nutrition, illness or family health, the staff of The New York Times Health section is ready to help you find the answer.How do you solve the problem of back pain caused by sitting in an office chair all day? Do you still need the flu shot even if you’ve had the flu? What’s...

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Bits Blog: Keeping the Internet Safe From Governments

Even before the World Conference on International Telecommunications took place last month in Dubai, Internet activists anticipated trouble. So did Congress, which issued a resolution calling it “essential” that the Internet remain “stable, secure and free from governmental control.”The worries proved prescient. The conference, which supposedly was going to modernize some ancient regulations, instead...

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County official calls car leasing contract procedure 'embarrassing'

Auditors reviewing a $1.75-million car leasing contract given to a company with a politically connected lobbying firm found...

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Video: Darpa's Robots Practice Scavenging Space Junk From Satellites

One day, robots will ascend into the heavens, take working parts off of dead satellites, and use them to construct new ones. That’s the dream of the Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers, and they’ve already gotten started in the laboratory.The video above, released by Darpa on Tuesday, displays the initial stages of Darpa’s Phoenix project, an effort that began last year to make satellites cheaper....

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Rolling Stones nominated for four NME music awards

LONDON (Reuters) – Veteran British rockers The Rolling Stones, who celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, were nominated for four NME music awards on Monday.The Stones, back in the limelight after a photo book, greatest hits album, documentary film and mini tour to mark their 2012 golden jubilee, were shortlisted for best live band, best book, music moment of the year and best music film.They...

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