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 appeared to be a Glee version of the Sir Mix-A-Lot song “Baby Got Back.” The problem? It was almost identical to Coulton’s very distinctive cover arrangement...

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John Powers, author who wrote about growing up Catholic, dies

(Reuters) – John Powers, a U.S. author and motivational speaker who wrote about his experiences growing up Catholic in Chicago including the novel “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” has died, his family said on Thursday.Powers, 67, died late Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, his daughter Jacey Powers said.A product of a working-class neighborhood, Powers...

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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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DealBook: Despite Improving Profits, Morgan Stanley's Path Is Uncertain

8:40 p.m. | Updated Morgan Stanley has taken aggressive action to bolster profit. Over the last year, the Wall Street bank has cut thousands of employees, sold costly assets and retooled major businesses.Those efforts worked. In the fourth quarter, Morgan Stanley reported earnings of $481 million, in contrast to a loss of $275 million in 2011. Profit was equally strong for the year.But the path to...

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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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Eclectic opening for Sundance with films about Mideast, Chile, U.S. Southwest

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) – The Sundance Film Festival opens Thursday with movies and documentaries from around the world, including a feature that examines the cultural divide between the Middle East and the United States.The 10-day Sundance Film Festival, founded by actor-director Robert Redford and now in its 35th year, will showcase 119 films from 32 countries.“May in the Summer,” the U.S. dramatic...

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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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Chinese Economy Picks Up Steam in Last Quarter

HONG KONG — The giant Chinese economy picked up some steam during the last few months of 2012, closely watched data from Beijing on Friday confirmed. But at the same time the figures underlined the view that the pace of future growth is likely to remain well below that seen in recent years. China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.9 percent during the final quarter of last year, compared...

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