Gunman Kills 20 Children at School in Connecticut; 28 Dead in All

Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesConnecticut State Police stood guard outside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Saturday morning. A gunman who killed 26 people in a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., before committing suicide forced his way into the building, the authorities said on Saturday morning. The medical examiner’s office was still finalizing its work before...

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School shooting postpones Cruise premiere in Pa.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. premiere of the Tom Cruise action movie "Jack Reacher" is being postponed following the deadly Connecticut school shooting.Paramount Pictures says "out of honor and respect for the families of the victims" the premiere won't take place Saturday in Pittsburgh, where "Jack Reacher" was filmed.The premiere would've been Cruise's first U.S. media appearance since his split from...

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School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians

T. Lynne Pixley for The New York TimesMiriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift,...

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Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft. Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its...

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Mandela Remains Hospitalized as Questions Grow

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Where is Nelson Mandela? As the 94-year-old patriarch of South Africa's democracy entered his seventh day of hospitalization Friday for a recurring lung infection, confusion grew as the government appeared to contradict itself over where he is being treated. Journalists on Friday saw a convoy of presidential security cars and an ambulance pass through South Africa's...

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From 'Sherlock' to 'Star Trek' for Cumberbatch

LONDON (AP) — Benedict Cumberbatch has had a busy 24 hours.The British actor was nominated for a Golden Globe, chased by the paparazzi in London and unveiled the first nine minutes of the new "Star Trek" movie Friday.At a special IMAX presentation of the footage in London, Cumberbatch's menacing character John Harrison was introduced at the beginning of the much-anticipated "Star Trek Into Darkness."The...

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HealthBridge Managemant Ordered to Reinstate Striking Workers

A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed. Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management, had broken the law by refusing...

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DealBook: Best Buy Gives Founder More Time to Make a Bid

Best Buy plans to give its founder a reprieve from holiday shopping.The electronics retailer said on Friday that it would give its founder, Richard Schulze, until Feb. 28 to make a takeover bid for the company. That will give Mr. Schulze and his private equity partners the chance to review holiday sales before making their bid.Best Buy cautioned that its founder may not make a bid, and that it may...

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Barneys Remakes Itself for the New New York

Barbel Schmidt for The New York TimesThe new shoe floor of Barneys New York. The elevator door opened in the Sutton Place penthouse of Richard Perry, the hedge-fund manager, and there he stood in the white foyer wearing a black knit suit whose slumping shoulders made him look like a bony country parson. Perry is a man of meticulous habit, a super-athlete who prides himself on his sophisticated sense...

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Lidl Christmas dinner offer goes viral on Twitter

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Discount retailer Lidl faces a 200,000-euro ($ 260,000) Christmas dinner bill after an offer of chicken vol-au-vents and ice cream cake for the poor went viral.The supermarket launched a Twitter campaign in Belgium on Monday, saying it would hand out five four-course Christmas dinners to food banks for each tweet on a hash tag.Lidl had expected to hand out about 1,000 of the 20-euro...

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'Lincoln' leads Golden Globes with 7 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic "Lincoln" led the Golden Globes on Thursday with seven nominations, among them best drama, best director for Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.Tied for second-place with five nominations each, including best drama are Ben Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and Quentin Tarantino's...

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Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil

James Edward Bates for The New York TimesSarah Kavanagh, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., started an online petition asking PepsiCo to change Gatorade’s formula. Sarah Kavanagh and her little brother were looking forward to the bottles of Gatorade they had put in the refrigerator after playing outdoors one hot, humid afternoon last month in Hattiesburg, Miss. But before she took a sip, Sarah, a...

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State of the Art: Google Maps App for iPhone Goes in the Right Direction - Review

It was one of the biggest tech headlines of the year: in September, Apple dropped its contract with Google, which had always supplied the data for the iPhone’s Maps app. For various strategic reasons, Apple preferred to write a new app, based on a new database of the world that Apple intended to assemble itself. As everybody knows by now, Apple got lost along the way. It was like a 22-car...

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'Lincoln,' 'Les Mis,' 'Playbook' lead SAG awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga "Lincoln," musical "Les Miserables" and comic drama "Silver Linings Playbook" boosted their Academy Awards prospects Wednesday with four nominations apiece for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.All three films were nominated for overall performance by their casts. Also nominated for best ensemble cast were the Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and the British retiree...

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Chris Bliss Builds Monument to Bill of Rights

PHOENIX — It started as a joke about 10 years ago. Chris Bliss, a juggler and stand-up comedian of viral Internet fame, had been scanning the headlines for inspiration and discovered the controversy over a granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of Alabama’s state judicial building. “Instead of arguing over whether to leave up or take down these displays of the Ten Commandments,”...

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WebMD to cut 14 percent of workforce to reduce expenses

(Reuters) – Health information website WebMD Health Corp said it will cut around 250 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs.The company, which had about 1700 employees according to Thomson Reuters data, said it would take a charge of about $ 6 million to $ 8 million in the fourth quarter, primarily on severance and other restructuring-related costs.WebMD, which is a popular and long-trusted...

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Luke Bryan cleans up at ACAs with 9 awards

Luke Bryan didn't want the American Country Awards to end.He cleaned up during the fan-voted show, earning nine awards, including artist and album of the year. His smash hit "I Don't Want This Night To End" was named single and music video of the year.Miranda Lambert took home the second most guitar trophies with three. Jason Aldean was named touring artist of the year. Carrie Underwood won female...

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Mind: A Compromise on Defining and Diagnosing Mental Disorders

They plotted a revolution, fell to debating among themselves, and in the end overturned very little except their own expectations. But the effort itself was a valuable guide for anyone who has received a psychiatric diagnosis, or anyone who might get one. This month, the American Psychiatric Association announced that its board of trustees had approved the fifth edition of the association’s...

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Moroccans Fear That Flickers of Democracy Are Fading

TANGIER, Morocco — Until recently, politics in Morocco involved red carpets and speeches in high Arabic that the average citizen could not understand. But on a campaign swing this fall through a working-class area of this port city, Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane stood on a makeshift podium in a muddy vacant lot. He spoke without notes, kissed babies passed forward by the crowd and promised,...

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Hug It Out: Public Charter and District Schools Given $25 Million to Get Along

If you need a loan, ask Bill and Melinda Gates. Or better yet, ask one of the seven cities that are splitting a new $ 25 million grant courtesy of the couple’s philanthropic foundation.The funds are going to promote cross collaboration between charter and district schools, which have previously operated in a strict and contentious independence from one another.The foundation announced the award this...

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Singer feared dead in Mexican plane crash

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's music world mourned Jenni Rivera, the U.S.-born singer presumed killed in a plane crash whose soulful voice and openness about her personal troubles had made her a Mexican-American superstar.Authorities have not confirmed her death, but Rivera's relatives in the U.S. say they have few doubts that she was on the Learjet 25 that disintegrated on impact Sunday in rugged...

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