7 hostages reported dead in 'final assault' on Algerian refinery

CAIRO — Algerian troops raided a remote natural gas refinery Saturday, killing 11 Islamic militants but not before extremists...

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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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AP Source: Lady Gaga to perform at inaugural ball

WASHINGTON (AP) — Watch out Beyonce (bee-AHN’-say) and Katy Perry. There’s another diva set to perform during the inauguration festivities — Lady Gaga.A person familiar with the inauguration tells The Associated Press that the pop star will perform at Tuesday’s ball for White House staffers. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn’t authorized to publicly reveal the information.The...

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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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Corner Office: Kon Leong of ZL Technologies, on Encouraging Creativity

This interview with Kon Leong, co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies, an e-mail and file archiving company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. Tell me about some important leadership lessons you’ve learned. A. One of my early jobs was selling computer hardware. What I learned about selling was probably more valuable than my M.B.A. I had seen selling...

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House leaders offer short-term debt increase

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – House Republicans announced Friday that they will vote next week to authorize a temporary extension of the...

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Premiere: Hear Twin Shadow's Synthpop Remix of 'Everything Is Embarrassing' by Sky Ferreira

In the waning days of last summer, Sky Ferreira’s “Everything Is Embarrassing” became the perfect sugary pop jam to ride out the sun-soaked final days of the season. Now, as if to get us pumped for the coming spring, synthpop artist Twin Shadow has given it a bass-bouncing remix ready for the dance floor.For the remix Twin Shadow pulls out the track’s wry “Maybe if...

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Bob Dylan considering Dylan Thomas centenary show in Wales

LONDON (Reuters) – American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan may play a special concert in Wales to mark the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet after whom he may or may not have named himself.The member of parliament for West Swansea, Geraint Davies, said he had asked Dylan if he would perform in the city as part of a series of commemorative events next year.“Bob Dylan named himself...

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Flu Season ‘Worse Than Average,’ Officials Say

This year’s flu season is shaping up to be “worse than average and particularly bad for the elderly,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the nation’s top federal disease-control official, said Friday. But the season appears to have peaked, added Dr. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with new cases declining over most of the nation except for the far West. ...

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Your Money: Finding Investment Advice for More Modest Retirement Accounts

If you’re perfectly capable of running your own retirement savings, selecting the right mix of low-cost investments, rebalancing at the right time and not buying and selling out of fear or greed, then good for you. But the majority of people — maybe the vast majority — are not like that. They may be smart enough to do the right thing, in theory, but they forget or slip up or are taken in...

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'Dear Abby' advice columnist Pauline Phillips dies at 94

Pauline Friedman Phillips, who as Abigail Van Buren -- "Dear Abby" — for more than 40 years dispensed advice to newspaper readers...

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Amazon MP3 Store Comes to iOS — Without the In-App Purchase Tax

In an effort to side-step Apple’s native iOS app restrictions and its 30 percent fee structure for in-app purchases, Amazon has come up with a new strategy to better sell MP3s to customers with iPhones.The workaround is quite simple: it uses the open web.On Thursday, Amazon announced that the Amazon MP3 Store has been optimized for Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Amazon customers with...

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“Diff’rent Strokes” star Conrad Bain dies at 89

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Conrad Bain, best known for his role on the 1970s and ’80s television comedy “Diff’rent Strokes” as a wealthy, white New Yorker who adopts two young black boys from Harlem, has died at age 89, his daughter said on Wednesday.Bain, who starred opposite the young Gary Coleman on the NBC sitcom as his adoptive father, Philip Drummond, died of natural causes at a comfort-care...

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Well: Life, Interrupted: Brotherly Love

Life, InterruptedSuleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.There are a lot of things about having cancer in your 20s that feel absurd. One of those instances was when I found myself calling my brother Adam on Skype while he was studying abroad in Argentina to tell him that I had just been diagnosed with leukemia and that — no pressure — he was my only hope for a cure.Today,...

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With Debt to Sell, Troubled Euro Nations Find Willing Buyers

MADRID — January is turning out to be a bumper month for Spain and some of the euro zone economies most in need of debt financing, with governments and companies flooding the market with bonds that have sold at significantly lower interest rates than just a few months ago. On Thursday, the Spanish Treasury sold €4.5 billion, or $5.9 billion, of debt, including bonds with a maturity of as...

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Woman held captive in Nordstrom Rack raped 'multiple times'

Prosecutors said one of the five people charged in connection with the take-over robbery at a Nordstrom Rack department store...

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Video: Discovery of the Spider That Builds Spider Decoys

In December, we reported on a new species of spider discovered in Peru. Tiny, and likely a new member of the genus Cyclosa, the spider builds large, spider-shaped decoys — and vibrates its web, acting as a master puppeteer.Here is a video shot at the moment the spiders were discovered.“I don’t know of any potential species discovery that has been caught on video to...

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Cotillard named Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard (koh-tee-YAR’) has been named the 2013 Harvard University Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year.The French actress, who won the 2007 best actress Oscar for her role in “La Vie En Rose,” will be honored with a parade and roast, and given her ceremonial pudding pot, at Harvard on Jan. 31.The 37-year-old Cotillard has appeared...

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Ask Well: Help for the Deskbound

One of the problems with office work is that many of us are using chairs that don’t fit our bodies very well or give adequate support to the back, said Jack Dennerlein, a professor at Northeastern’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences in Boston who specializes in ergonomics and safety. If you are experiencing back pain, you may be able to adjust your chair to increase its lumbar support. A good office...

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DealBook: Goldman Sachs Earnings Soar

9:46 a.m. | Updated Goldman Sachs on Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter profit of $2.89 billion, or $5.60 a share, a significant jump from the period a year earlier.The per-share figure is after the company paid preferred dividends, and comes in well ahead of analysts’ expectations of $3.78 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Analysts had been anticipating a fairly decent quarter for Goldman,...

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L.A. City Council drops $3-billion bond measure for this year

The Los Angeles City Council scrapped plans Tuesday for placing a $3-billion bond measure on the May 21 ballot, opting instead...

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Disney's Biggest Stars Join Forces for <cite>Skylanders</cite>-Style Gaming Mash-Up

A wide range of Disney and Pixar characters will appear in Disney Infinity, with toys and game levels released throughout 2013 and beyond.If you’re at all familiar with the success of Skylanders, the colossally successful mash-up of videogames and collectible toys, you won’t be too surprised by Disney’s latest gaming initiative.On Tuesday, the company announced Disney Infinity, a multi-platform...

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Netflix to carry more Time Warner shows

(Reuters) – Netflix Inc will carry more shows from Time Warner Inc, intensifying efforts by the video streaming company to attract more subscribers and beat back competition.Netflix signed licensing deals with Warner Bros Television (WBTVG) and Turner Broadcasting System Inc for previous seasons of shows from Cartoon Network, Warner Bros Animation and Adult Swim for U.S. subscribers.Shows such as...

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Vital Signs: Nutrition: Vitamin D Doesn’t Reduce Knee Pain

About 27 million people in the United States have osteoarthritis, an incurable condition with few effective treatments beyond pain control. Some observational evidence suggests that vitamin D supplements might slow progression of the disease.But a two-year randomized placebo-controlled study found that vitamin D did not reduce knee pain or restore cartilage.In an article published in The Journal of...

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Bits Blog: Facebook Unveils a New Search Tool

3:22 p.m. | Updated Facebook on Tuesday took a stab at cracking a big, elusive problem of its own making: How to help its one billion users find what they’re looking for in the jumble of posts, pictures and blue thumbs-up “likes” they share every day.At an event at company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, announced a tool the company...

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An Anaheim woman demands respect for her neighborhood

Yesenia Rojas, vibrant in her purple shawl, sang with a voice so powerful it rose above the rest of the procession as they shuffled...

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