Nov
29

As downtown L.A. grows trendier, Spring Street Arcade is left behind

The salesmen at the Spring Street Arcade spend their day gazing out at a city that's passing them by.All around, a trendy downtown...
Read More..

Scanadu Scout Wants to Be Your Personal Health Tricorder

You know in Star Trek when Bones runs a mobile scanning device over some poor red-shirted schlub and comes back seconds later with a diagnosis? Well, that futuristic Star Trek tricorder is a step closer to reality today thanks to the Scanadu Scout, a handheld medical scanning device that works in conjunction with a smartphone to take all five vital signs in just 10 seconds. It will cost $150...
Read More..

R&B star Mary J. Blige sued for defaulting on $2.2 million loan

(Reuters) – R&B star Mary J. Blige was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging the Grammy winner and her husband defaulted on a $ 2.2 million bank loan.According to court documents filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Signature Bank is seeking to recoup the original loan plus $ 58,000 in interest.Blige, 41, who has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, and her husband Martin...
Read More..

Cost of Brand-Name Prescription Medicines Soaring

The price of brand-name prescription medicines is rising far faster than the inflation rate, while the price of generic drugs has plummeted, creating the largest gap so far between the two, according to a report published Wednesday by the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts. The report tracked an index of commonly used drugs and found that the price of brand-name medicines increased...
Read More..

The Next War: In Federal Budget Cutting, F-35 Fighter Jet Is at Risk

Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesVice Adm. David Venlet was named to lead the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2010 after problems had left it behind schedule and over budget. LEXINGTON PARK, Md. — The Marine version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, already more than a decade in the making, was facing a crucial question: Could the jet, which can soar well past the speed of sound, land at sea like...
Read More..
Nov
28

Twin car bombs in Damascus kill at least 34 people

AMMAN, Jordan— ...
Read More..

Geek Researcher Spends Three Years Living With Hackers

When you’re starting off as an anthropologist, you aim is to explore a subculture your peers have yet to uncover, spending years living with the locals and learning their ways.That’s what Gabriella Coleman did. She went to San Francisco and lived with the hackers.Coleman, an anthropologist who teaches at McGill University, spent three years living in the Bay Area, studying the community that...
Read More..

Leads, director of Motown musical visit Hitsville

DETROIT (AP) — The stars of the upcoming Broadway musical about Motown Records have read pretty much every book about and listened to every song from that golden era of American music.The research only took them so far, so they decided to come and see Hitsville, U.S.A., for themselves.Brandon Victor Dixon, who portrays the label’s founder, Berry Gordy, and Valisia LeKae, who plays its signature songstress,...
Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: Doctor's Orders? Another Test

It is no longer news that Americans, and older Americans in particular, get more routine screening tests than they need, more than are useful. Prostate tests for men over 75, annual Pap smears for women over 65 and colonoscopies for anyone over 75 — all are overused, large-scale studies have shown.Now it appears that many older patients are also subjected to too-frequent use of the other kind of testing,...
Read More..

Facebook Gift Store Urges Users to Shop While They Share

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is already privy to its users’ e-mail addresses, wedding pictures and political beliefs. Now the company is nudging them to share a bit more: credit card numbers and offline addresses. James Best Jr./The New York TimesFacebook Gifts is a service that prompts users to buy things for friends on the social network. Sharing Even MoreWhat...
Read More..
Nov
27

Program opens door to citizenship for immigrants

Ricardo Sepida gets emotional when he sees his son-in-law in a Navy uniform. Even aircraft carriers make him misty-eyed. There...
Read More..

Munich Subway Photos Resemble Abandoned Kubrickian Spacecraft

Nick Frank likes to summarize his approach to photography with one phrase: “Reduce to the max.”Get to the point. Remove all distractions. It’s a framework that lends itself well to Frank’s series on subway stations in Munich, Germany, where he lives.“Pictures are often overloaded with information so what I’m doing is trying to flatten the image until you see the essence of the main subject,”...
Read More..

New Zealand becomes Middle Earth as Hobbit mania takes hold

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand‘s capital city was rushing to complete its transformation into a haven for hairy feet and pointed ears on Tuesday as stars jetted in for the long-awaited world premiere of the first movie of the Hobbit trilogy.Wellington, where director Peter Jackson and much of the post production is based, has renamed itself “the Middle of Middle Earth“, as fans held costume parties...
Read More..

Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly. Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a...
Read More..
Nov
26

States crack down on campaigning nonprofits

WASHINGTON — Tax-exempt advocacy groups that played an aggressive role in this year's election are coming under increasing scrutiny...
Read More..

Alt Text: How to Tell Real SEALs From Basement-Dwelling Posers

The White House recently congratulated the makers of Troop ID, a service designed to help online merchants securely identify members of the armed forces. This was a significant recommendation, the first software application to be publicly praised by the president since he canceled a 2009 press conference in order to play Doodle Jump.While I’m happy that troops will be able to claim their 10...
Read More..

Dog bite sidelines ‘Dirty Dozen’ trumpeter Towns

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Dirty Dozen Brass Band trumpeter Efrem Towns is recovering at home in New Orleans from a vicious attack by a Rottweiler at an Atlanta motel.He missed performances in Colorado and New Orleans after the attack on Nov. 18, and doesn’t know if he’ll make the band’s next scheduled gig on Dec. 28, The Times-Picayune (http://bit.ly/XOJoNr) reported.He and baritone sax player Roger Lewis...
Read More..

Agency Investigates Deaths and Injuries Associated With Bed Rails

Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesGloria Black’s mother died in her bed at a care facility. In November 2006, when Clara Marshall began suffering from the effects of dementia, her family moved her into the Waterford at Fairway Village, an assisted living home in Vancouver, Wash. The facility offered round-the-clock care for Ms. Marshall, who had wandered away from home several times. Her husband...
Read More..
Nov
25

Solar power plants burden the counties that host them

When it comes to attracting business to California's eastern deserts, Inyo County is none too choosy.Since the 19th century...
Read More..