Jan
02

Enraged Chris Christie attacks Boehner, House GOP over Sandy aid

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered a spirited condemnation of Republican House leadership for its reluctance to vote on a relief bill for Hurricane Sandy. ...
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Why the Zipcar-Avis Deal Means You'll Finally Be Able to Give Up Your Car

While Zipcar investors count their cash from today’s half-billion-dollar acquisition by Avis, the rest of us can start counting the days until we can say good riddance to one of the least rewarding aspects of city life: car ownership.Zipcar said Tuesday that Avis had agreed to purchase the Cambridge, Mass.-based company for $12.25 per share, or about $500 million. The deal brings Avis the...
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From “Les Misérables” to “The Hobbit,” holiday movies are getting longer

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Moviegoers rushing out to catch “Django Unchained” or “The Hobbit” over New Year’s should consider packing an overnight bag.The average length of a holiday movie has been larded up by nearly 10 minutes since 2011, according to a survey of the running times of the top 10 box office films of the final weekend of the year. They ran well over two hours.Moreover, the top 10...
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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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It's the Economy: What Will the Economy’s New ‘Normal’ Look Like in 2013?

Illustration by Jasper RietmanBack in the mid-2000s, the U.S. consumer economy was undergoing a serious change. After decades of favoring low prices (even when they promised low quality), consumers began paying more for all sorts of premium features like single-serve packaging and pretty much anything “green” or “organic.” Then came the financial crisis and the drop in consumer demand. ...
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Jan
01

Ruling over bumper-car injury supports amusement park

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court, protecting providers of risky recreational activities from lawsuits, decided Monday...
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The Future Is Now: What We Imagined for 2013 — 10 Years Ago

Predicting the future is hard, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’re Wired, after all. Ten years ago, we boldly declared that we’d be living with phones on our wrists, data-driven goggles on our eyes and gadgets that would safety-test our food for us. Turns out, a lot of the things Sonia Zjawinski conceptualized in our “Living in 2013” feature way back in 2003...
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Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.Playboy said on Tuesday...
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Study Suggests Lower Death Risk for the Overweight

A century ago, Elsie Scheel was the perfect woman. So said a 1912 article in The New York Times about how Miss Scheel, 24, was chosen by the “medical examiner of the 400 'co-eds'” at Cornell University as a woman “whose very presence bespeaks perfect health.” Miss Scheel, however, was hardly model-thin. At 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, she would, by today's medical standards, be clearly overweight....
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Shell Oil Rig Runs Aground in Alaska

An enormous Shell Oil offshore drilling rig ran aground on an island in the Gulf of Alaska on Monday night after it broke free from tow ships in rough seas, officials said. The rig, the Kulluk, which was used for test drilling in the Arctic last summer, is carrying about 139,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid, the officials said. A...
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