Dec
25

Tajikistan blocks scores of websites as election looms

DUSHANBE (Reuters) – Tajikistan blocked access to more than 100 websites on Tuesday, in what a government source said was a dress rehearsal for a crackdown on online dissent before next year’s election when President Imomali Rakhmon will again run for office.Rakhmon, a 60-year-old former head of a Soviet cotton farm, has ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation of 7.5 million for 20 years. He has...
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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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Corporate tax rate overhaul may be part of a 'fiscal cliff' deal

WASHINGTON — Amid the wrangling over the so-called fiscal cliff, President Obama and congressional Republicans can agree on...
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Dec
24

Actor Jack Klugman of 'The Odd Couple,' dies at 90

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Emmy-winning actor Jack Klugman, a versatile, raspy-voiced mainstay of U.S. television during...
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Find room for God in fast-paced world, pope says on Christmas eve

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, leading the world’s Roman Catholics into Christmas, on Monday urged people to find room for God in their fast-paced lives filled with the latest technological gadgets.The 85-year-old pope, marking the eighth Christmas season of his pontificate, celebrated a solemn Christmas Eve mass in St Peter’s Basilica, during which he appealed for a solution to the Arab-Israeli...
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‘Not Fade Away’: An Age Gap Defined by the Rolling Stones

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – For David Chase, the counterculture revolution that consumed the 1960s was a generational conflict that played out against a soundtrack of killer rock songs.“The Sopranos” creator is poised to make his film directing debut this week with the release of “Not Fade Away” at the age of 67, but for his first foray into big screen entertainment he is fixated on a younger generation,...
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Gifts That Keep Giving (if Not Exploding)

Gregory Tobias/Chemical Heritage Foundation CollectionsA Chemcraft set from the mid-1950s. More Photos »Ask scientists of a certain age about their childhood memories, and odds are they’ll start yarning about the stink bombs and gunpowder they concocted with their chemistry sets. Dangerous? Yes, but fun. “Admittedly, I have blown some things up in my time,” said William L. Whittaker, 64,...
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Kraft targets men, millennials

The pot pie kit comes with pouches of Velveeta cheese, biscuit topping, vegetables and seasoning. The cook sautes chicken until...
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Dec
23

RIM’s biggest problem: It’s still scrambling to catch yesterday’s hottest mobile app

The moment I first realized that RIM (RIMM) was truly in enormous trouble was back in 2010 when I heard then co-CEO Jim Balsillie downplay the importance of apps. Yes, you read that correctly. Balsillie actually told attendees at a Web 2.0 summit in 2010 that the Internet itself was the most important “app” for mobile devices and contended that the “Web needs a platform that allows...
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‘Hobbit’ extends No. 1 journey with $36.7 million

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins is running circles around some of the biggest names in Hollywood.Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” took in $ 36.7 million to remain No. 1 at the box office for the second-straight weekend, easily beating a rush of top-name holiday newcomers.Part one of Jackson’s prelude to his “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the Warner Bros. release raised...
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