Stan Musial dies at 92; Cardinals' Hall of Fame hitter

To generations of baseball fans, he was simply "Stan the Man."Stan Musial, a legendary slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals who...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Sunset on Mars

On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of...

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“Beasts of Southern Wild,” “Les Miz” among Costume Designer Award nominees

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Films as diverse as “Beast of the Southern Wild” and “Les Miserables” were among the nominees for the 15th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards announced Thursday by the organization.Stephani Lewis was nominated for “Beasts” in the contemporary film category, along with Louise Stjernsward for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” Mark Bridges for “Silver Linings Playbook,”...

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in...

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The Boss: New Leaders Inc. C.E.O. on Giving Children a Chance

I AM the youngest of 10 children in my family, and the only one born in the United States. My father was a municipal judge who fled Haiti during the Duvalier regime. He and my mother settled in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, but could not initially afford to bring over my four brothers and five sisters, who stayed in Haiti with relatives. Jean S. Desravines is the chief executive...

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Obama loyalists are now Organizing for Action

WASHINGTON — Underscoring its potential to become a political heavyweight, a new advocacy group launched Friday to push President...

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Did <em>Glee</em> Rip Off a Jonathan Coulton Cover of 'Baby Got Back'?

Musician Jonathan Coulton, best known for his geek-friendly tunes like “Code Monkey” and the two (amazing) theme songs for the Portal videogames, got a bit of a surprise this morning when a Twitter follower sent him a video that appeared to be a Glee version of the Sir Mix-A-Lot song “Baby Got Back.” The problem? It was almost identical to Coulton’s very distinctive cover arrangement...

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John Powers, author who wrote about growing up Catholic, dies

(Reuters) – John Powers, a U.S. author and motivational speaker who wrote about his experiences growing up Catholic in Chicago including the novel “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” has died, his family said on Thursday.Powers, 67, died late Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, his daughter Jacey Powers said.A product of a working-class neighborhood, Powers...

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Well: A Great Grain Adventure

This week, the Recipes for Health columnist Martha Rose Shulman asks readers to go beyond wild rice and get adventurous with their grains. She offers new recipes with some unusual grains you may not have ever cooked or eaten. Her recipes this week include:Millet: Millet can be used in bird seed and animal feed, but the grain is enjoying a renaissance in the United States right now as a great source...

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DealBook: Despite Improving Profits, Morgan Stanley's Path Is Uncertain

8:40 p.m. | Updated Morgan Stanley has taken aggressive action to bolster profit. Over the last year, the Wall Street bank has cut thousands of employees, sold costly assets and retooled major businesses.Those efforts worked. In the fourth quarter, Morgan Stanley reported earnings of $481 million, in contrast to a loss of $275 million in 2011. Profit was equally strong for the year.But the path to...

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White House launches campaign for support of gun control measures

WASHINGTON — A day after President Obama announced a wide-ranging series of gun-control initiatives, the administration kicked...

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Facebook Wants New Breed of Flash Memory for Storing Old Pics

With each passing day, more than 350 million digital photos find their way onto Facebook, joining the more than 240 billion that are already there. Jay Parikh is the man who makes sure all those photos can remain online from now until the end of time, and that’s going pretty well. But he wants a little help. He wants the world to build him a new kind of flash memory ideally suited to storing...

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Eclectic opening for Sundance with films about Mideast, Chile, U.S. Southwest

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) – The Sundance Film Festival opens Thursday with movies and documentaries from around the world, including a feature that examines the cultural divide between the Middle East and the United States.The 10-day Sundance Film Festival, founded by actor-director Robert Redford and now in its 35th year, will showcase 119 films from 32 countries.“May in the Summer,” the U.S. dramatic...

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Personal Health: That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work

When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part. Only the most cynical among us would think, walking down the aisle, that if things don’t work out, “We can always split.”But the divorce rate in the United States is half the marriage rate, and that does not bode well...

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Chinese Economy Picks Up Steam in Last Quarter

HONG KONG — The giant Chinese economy picked up some steam during the last few months of 2012, closely watched data from Beijing on Friday confirmed. But at the same time the figures underlined the view that the pace of future growth is likely to remain well below that seen in recent years. China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.9 percent during the final quarter of last year, compared...

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State agency says U.S. removed wildlife habitat without permit

A state regulatory agency Wednesday said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to obtain a required permit before it removed...

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Judge Tells Apple, Amazon to Try to Settle Their 'Appstore' Beef

The judge presiding over the Apple and Amazon lawsuit over rights to the “appstore” name has told the two companies to sit down and at least try to settle their dispute before trial.San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte issued an order Tuesday telling the two sides to talk it out. This doesn’t mean they’ll come to terms before the August 19 trial, but...

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Pregnant Kim Kardashian wants to be more private

NEW YORK (AP) — As the tabloids speculated about whether Jessica Simpson is expecting again (she is) and the media zeroed in on Kate Middleton‘s acute morning sickness, Kim Kardashian says it was nice to be out of the media spotlight during the early stages of her pregnancy.“I’m obviously so happy for them, but if anything I loved the privacy,” the 32-year-old reality TV star said in an interview...

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Some With Autism Diagnosis Can Recover, Study Finds

Doctors have long believed that disabling autistic disorders last a lifetime, but a new study has found that some children who exhibit signature symptoms of the disorder recover completely. The study, posted online on Wednesday by the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, is the largest to date of such extraordinary cases and is likely to alter the way that scientists and parents...

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DealBook: H.P. Said to Have Suitors for Two Units

Hewlett-Packard has received a number of inquiries from would-be buyers for its Autonomy and Electronic Data Systems units in recent weeks, though the technology company isn’t interested in selling at the moment, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.The volume of calls from potential suitors and bankers picked up after H.P. filed its annual report with regulators on Dec. 28, this person...

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December home prices jump 19.6% in Southern California

Southern California¿s housing market ended last year with sharp home-price gains and the highest sales for a December in three years. ...

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Syria Dropped Hallucinogen Weapon on Rebels, Secret Cable Says

Updated 10:00 p.m.The Syrian military used an exotic chemical weapon on rebels during an attack in the city of Homs, some U.S. diplomats now believe.That conclusion — first reported by Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin and laid out in a secret cable from the U.S. consul general in Istanbul — contradicts preliminary estimates made by American officials in the hours after the December 23...

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Americans favor “Lincoln” for top Oscars: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Director Ben Affleck and “Argo” may have been the big winners at the Golden Globes, but many Americans think Steven Spielberg and “Lincoln” should take home the top Oscars at next month’s awards.Nearly a quarter of Americans questioned in an Ipsos poll for Reuters thought the Civil War drama “Lincoln” should win the Oscar for best picture at the 85th Academy Awards in Los Angeles...

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