Webster, N.Y., sniper's ex-neighbor charged with buying him guns

WASHINGTON — A former neighbor of the Webster, N.Y., sniper who killed two volunteer firefighters on Christmas Eve illegally...

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China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING (Reuters) – China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain “illegal” information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online...

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Fans to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl

NEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce onstage at the upcoming Super Bowl.Pepsi announced Friday that 100 fans will hit the stage when the Grammy-winning diva performs on Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet...

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Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSenator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center. NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients. While the medical center had been treating...

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Senate Leaders Set to Work on a Last-Minute Tax Agreement

Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesIn a televised statement at the White House after meeting with Congressional leaders on Friday, President Obama said he was “modestly optimistic” that an agreement could be reached. WASHINGTON — At the urging of President Obama, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate set to work Friday night to assemble a last-minute tax deal that could pass both chambers...

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Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf dies at 78

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who topped an illustrious military career by commanding the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces...

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Analysis: For tech investors, it’s hard to know when to bolt

(Reuters) – When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $ 11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big deal would play out.To short seller Jim Chanos, who had been raising red flags on Autonomy for years and had started shorting shares of HP in 2011, the deal was another nail in the coffin of the Silicon...

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‘Rescue Me’ singer Fontella Bass dies

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Fontella Bass, a St. Louis-born soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with “Rescue Me” in 1965, has died. She was 72.Bass died Wednesday night at a St. Louis hospice of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, said. Bass had also suffered a series of strokes over the past seven years.“She was an outgoing person,” Mitchell...

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7-Eleven Stores Focus on Healthier Food Options

The chain that is home of the Slurpee, Big Gulp and self-serve nachos with chili and cheese is betting that consumers will stop in for yogurt parfaits, crudité and lean turkey on whole wheat bread. 7-Eleven, the convenience store chain, is restocking its shelves with an eye toward health. Over the last year, the retailer has introduced a line of fresh foods for the calorie conscious and trimmed...

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Latest Netflix Disruption Highlights Challenges of Cloud Computing

For some on Christmas Eve, “White Christmas” was a blackout on Netflix. That’s because problems with Amazon’s cloud computing service, which provides storage and computing power for all kinds of Web sites and services, caused Netflix to go down for much of the day. In updates on a Web site that reports on the status of its online services, Amazon traced the trouble to Elastic Load...

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Deadly storm moves on to Northeast

A massive storm system upended post-Christmas travel plans Wednesday as it marched toward the Northeast after dumping snow and...

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Nokia Lumia 920′s fascinating Christmas sets stage for battle with BlackBerry 10

The Chinese version of Nokia’s (NOK) new flagship Windows Phone model recently debuted in Shanghai. According to pictures posted to Chinese websites, the Lumia 920T drew a big crowd… and sold out in two hours. So the debate over whether there is wide mass market demand for the model rages on.[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]The very limited...

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Police investigate NBC News anchor for showing gun clip

(Reuters) – NBC News anchor David Gregory is being investigated by police after displaying what he said was a high-capacity gun clip on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press,” Washington‘s Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday.Gregory held up what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine – which would be barred under Washington municipal code – while hosting the nationally broadcast interview...

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New York’s Mental Health System Thrashed by Services Lost to Storm

Marcus Yam for The New York TimesDr. Richard Rosenthal of Continuum Health Partners, which owns Beth Israel, Roosevelt and St. Luke's hospitals, said he noticed more mentally ill people in the streets now  than he had in years. When a young woman in the grip of paranoid delusions threatened a neighbor with a meat cleaver one Saturday last month, the police took her by ambulance to the nearest...

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The iEconomy: Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

The iEconomy: Factory Upgrade: Small changes are made at two factories in China.CHENGDU, China — One day last summer, Pu Xiaolan was halfway through a shift inspecting iPad cases when she received a beige wooden chair with white stripes and a high, sturdy back. At first, Ms. Pu wondered if someone had made a mistake. But when her bosses walked by, they just nodded curtly. So Ms. Pu gently...

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Lakers snap Christmas Day streak with win over Knicks

Lakers 100, Knicks 94 (final)The Lakers closed out the New York Knicks on Christmas Day to win their fifth in a row, avenging...

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Boston Cop Rescues Drowning Woman

A Boston police officer is being hailed a hero after he jumped into the frigid cold water to rescue a drowning woman.Cell phone video showed police officer Edward Norton plunging into Fort Point channel Friday afternoon during a torrential downpour to rescue the unidentified woman who’d reportedly fallen in by accident.Norton, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, says he didn’t...

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Jessica Simpson’s Christmas gift: She’s pregnant

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Simpson‘s daughter has the news all spelled out: “Big Sis.”Simpson on Tuesday tweeted a photo of her baby daughter Maxwell playing in the sand, the words “Big Sis” spelled out.The 32-year-old old singer and personality has been rumored to be expecting again. The tweet appears to confirm the rumors.“Merry Christmas from my family to yours” is the picture’s caption. Simpson used...

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Op-Ed Contributor: Our Failed Approach to Schizophrenia

TOO many pendulums have swung in the wrong directions in the United States. I am not referring only to the bizarre all-or-nothing rhetoric around gun control, but to the swing in mental health care over the past 50 years: too little institutionalizing of teenagers and young adults (particularly men, generally more prone to violence) who have had a recent onset of schizophrenia; too little education...

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Square Feet: Pier 17 Mall Has Upgrades Planned After Hurricane Sandy

SHoP ArchitectsA rendering shows plans to transform the Pier 17 shopping mall at South Street Seaport. Nearly two months after Hurricane Sandy devastated the South Street Seaport on the East River in Lower Manhattan, Dumpsters still line its cobblestone streets and nearly all of the stores west of Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive remain closed. But the storm surge largely spared Pier 17, the seaport’s...

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