Report: Lance Armstrong weighing doping confession

Lance Armstrong reportedly is weighing confessing to using performance-enhancing drugs. ...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Colorful Lunar Mare

Galileo false-color image of the Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Serenitatis areas of the Moon. The picture was made from four exposures taken during Galileo's second Earth/Moon flyby. The colors are enhanced to highlight compositional differences.Mare Tranquillitatis at left appears blue due to titanium enrichment. Orange soil in Mare Sarenitatis at lower right indicates lower titanium. Dark purple...

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Boyz II Men to Vegas for extended gig at the Mirage

(Reuters) – One-time boy band Boyz II Men is Vegas-bound for an extended stay at the Mirage hotel and casino, the group said on Friday.The Grammy-award winning R&B trio will begin performances on March 1, with 78 shows slated through December 2013.“We’ve been dreaming of this day since we performed an extended holiday show two years ago in Las Vegas,” said founding member Nathan Morris in a statement,...

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The New Old Age: Murray Span, 1922-2012

One consequence of our elders’ extended lifespans is that we half expect them to keep chugging along forever. My father, a busy yoga practitioner and blackjack player, celebrated his 90th birthday in September in reasonably good health.So when I had the sad task of letting people know that Murray Span died on Dec. 8, after just a few days’ illness, the primary response was disbelief. “No! I just talked...

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After Fiscal Deal, Tax Code May Be Most Progressive Since 1979

WASHINGTON — With 2013 bringing tax increases on the incomes of a small sliver of the richest Americans, the country’s top earners now face a heavier tax burden than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president. The last-minute deal struck by the departing 112th Congress raised taxes on a handful of the highest-earning Americans, with about 99.3 percent of households experiencing no change...

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House approves $9.7 billion in Sandy disaster aid

WASHINGTON — Responding to the political storm over delays in disaster aid to the Northeast, the House on Friday approved a...

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CIA Official Who Destroyed Torture Tapes Squirms at <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em> Abuse

Jose Rodriguez thinks the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden is “well worth seeing.” But the retired CIA veteran has reservations about its gut-churning portrayal of the CIA’s treatment of detainees. Which is rich, coming from the man who destroyed the video footage documenting many of those brutal agency interrogations. In an op-ed for the Washington Post on Friday, the former chief...

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Actor Dempsey: Coffee chain bid appears successful

SEATTLE (AP) — Actor Patrick Dempsey said it appears his bid to buy a small coffee chain has prevailed in a bankruptcy auction that included Starbucks Corp.Late Thursday night, Dempsey announced that his company, Global Baristas LLC, made the winning bid for Tully’s Coffee. He noted in a KOMO-TV interview that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say on Jan. 11. Still, Dempsey tweeted “We got it!...

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...

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U.S. Continues to Add Jobs at Slow Pace, Report Shows

Despite their concerns about looming tax increases and government spending cuts, American employers added 155,000 jobs in December, about apace with job growth over the last year, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The biggest gains were in health care, food services, construction and manufacturing, with the latter two probably helped by rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Government...

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Bieber urges crackdown on paparazzi after photographer's death

Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young...

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School Design May Affect a Child's Grades

By Ian Steadman, Wired UKA study of school design has discovered that school layouts can influence a child’s development by as much as 25 percent — positively or negatively — over the course of an academic year.The 751 pupils using 34 classrooms across seven primary schools in Blackpool were studied over the 2011-12 academic year by the University of Salford’s School of the Built Environment...

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Putin gives tax exile Depardieu Russian citizenship

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star who is quitting his homeland to avoid a tax hike on the rich, the Kremlin said on Thursday.The “Cyrano de Bergerac” actor bought a house across the border in Belgium last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires in France planned by Socialist President Francois Hollande but said...

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The Long Life of the ‘Perfect’ Woman

What did happen to Elsie Scheel, the “perfect” woman mentioned in an article in Wednesday’s New York Times that described how people considered overweight had a slightly lower risk of dying than those of normal weight? A century ago, at age 24, Miss Scheel was the subject of a spate of news media coverage after the “medical examiner of the 400 ‘co-eds’ ” at her college, Cornell University,...

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Car Sales End Strong Year on Modest Note

DETROIT – Automakers ended 2012 with modest sales results in the United States, capping a strong year and promising more growth in 2013. Based on early reports Thursday, analysts predicted a 10 percent increase overall for the industry for December, a gain that would put the year’s sales at about 14.5 million – the best performance since 2007. The three Detroit car companies all posted...

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Dow rallies more than 200 points after passage of 'fiscal cliff' plan

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Architecture Pirates May Finish Copycat Building Before Original

A Beijing building project by London-based architect Zaha Hadid is proving so popular that the structure is being pirated elsewhere in the country.Hadid’s Wangjing Soho is an office and retail complex which uses three curved towers to echo the intricate movements of Chinese fans. But, according to Der Spiegel, the architect’s firm is being forced to compete with...

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Paparazzo killed on freeway after photographing Justin Bieber’s car

(Reuters) – A celebrity photographer was struck and killed by a car on a Los Angeles highway on Tuesday after snapping photographs of a Ferrari registered to pop star Justin Bieber, police said.Bieber wasn’t in his car, which had been pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers on Interstate 405 for suspected speeding, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Cleon Joseph said on Wednesday.Highway...

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Employers Must Offer Family Health Care, Affordable or Not, Administration Says

WASHINGTON — In a long-awaited interpretation of the new health care law, the Obama administration said Monday that employers must offer health insurance to employees and their children, but will not be subject to any penalties if family coverage is unaffordable to workers. The requirement for employers to provide health benefits to employees is a cornerstone of the new law, but the new rules...

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...

Read More..