Regulators ask Edison questions about San Onofre restart plan

Federal regulators have sent Southern California Edison a new set of detailed questions that will help them evaluate the feasibility...

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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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Obamas join military families for kids’ concert

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia are rocking out with hundreds of kids from military families and Washington-area public schools at the Kids’ Inaugural Concert.Pop star Usher started off the proceedings Saturday evening with his hit song “Yeah.” The concert is chock-full of A-list talent, including Katy Perry, Mindless Behavior and members of the cast of the...

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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 looked and sounded like a Glee remix of the Sir Mix-A-Lot song “Baby Got Back.” The problem? It was almost identical to Coulton’s very distinctive cover...

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Schilling to sell bloody sock worn in Red Sox 2004 World Series

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) – Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, owner of a bankrupt video game company, plans to auction off a blood-stained sock he wore in the historic 2004 World Series championship.The sock, worn by Schilling in Game Two of the first World Series won by the Red Sox in 86 years, is expected to fetch more than $ 100,000 when it hits the auction block next month,...

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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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With Graph Search, Facebook Bets on More Sharing

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook’s greatest triumph has been to persuade a seventh of the world’s population to share their personal lives online. Now the social network is taking on its archrival, Google, with a search tool to mine that personal information, just as people are growing more cautious about sharing on the Internet and even occasionally removing what they have already put up. ...

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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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Minaj, Carey fail to boost “American Idol” audience

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The audience for “American Idol” slumped 19 percent to 17.9 million viewers, its lowest season opener, despite the debut of judges Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban, according to early ratings data released on Thursday.The two-hour premiere of the show’s 12th season on Fox television also lost 19 percent of the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers, Nielsen figures...

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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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State of the Art: Imagining Ho-Hum C.E.S. as an Action Movie - State of the Art

Hi boss! I’m back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. You assigned me to report on what’s new and exciting, but I have some bad news. The answer is: almost nothing. I mean, think about it: Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook don’t even attend C.E.S.; they’d rather make their product announcements on their own schedules without being locked into this every-January thing. It’s...

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L.A. pension boards asked to end investments in assault gun firms

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday that he has asked the city's three pension funds to review all investments...

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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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“American Idol” returns with feuds, fame, fortune

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “American Idol” returns on Wednesday with the tantalizing promise of fame, fortune and feuds – and that’s just among the celebrity panel hired to find the next pop music sensation.Singer Mariah Carey, rapper Nicki Minaj and country artist Keith Urban make their debut as judges when the TV talent contest begins its 12th season on Fox.“All three judges are eminently qualified....

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F.D.A. to Tighten Regulation of All-Metal Hip Implants

After an estimated 500,000 patients in the United States have received a type of artificial hip that is failing early in many cases, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing rules that could stop manufacturers from selling such implants. Under the proposal, which the agency is expected to announce on Thursday, makers of artificial hips with all-metal components would have to prove the...

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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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Supreme Court upholds state laws on floating homes

WASHINGTON — A house that floats on the water and has no power to move on its own is a home, not a vessel, the Supreme Court...

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Syria Dropped Hallucinogen Weapon on Rebels, Secret Cable Says

The Syrian military used an exotic chemical weapon on rebels during an attack in the city of Homs, U.S. officials now believe.The 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 officialsin the hours after the December 23 strike. But after interviews...

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