NORAD Santa trackers draw record number of phone calls, social media followers

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – NORAD says it drew a record number of phone calls and social media followers during its NORAD Tracks Santa operation on Christmas Eve.The North American Aerospace Defence Command said Friday volunteers answered more than 114,000 calls, up 12,000 from 2011.NORAD’s Santa Facebook page had more than 1.2 million followers, up from about 1 million last year. More than 129,000...

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Matt Damon tackles “fracking” issue in the “Promised Land”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The hot-button topic of “fracking” has finally made its way to Hollywood in the new movie “Promised Land,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, with actors Matt Damon and John Krasinski teaming up to further the debate on the energy drilling technique.The film explores the social impact of hydraulic fracturing drilling technique, or “fracking,” which has sparked nation-wide environmental...

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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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Wall Street ends sour week with 5th straight decline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell for a fifth straight day on Friday, dropping 1 percent and marking the S&P 500's longest...

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Snow buries parts of Northeast, flights canceled

BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - A powerful winter storm pushed through the U.S. Northeast on Thursday, forcing the cancellation...

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iOS apps see Christmas sales spike shrink in 2012

Distimo just released its statistics on Christmas Day app downloads and revenue growth… and the download spike is far smaller than it was last year. Back in 2011, Christmas Day iOS app download volume spiked 230% above the December average. This year, the increase was just 87% — far below industry expectations. The revenue spike came in at 70%.[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps...

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“Rescue Me” singer Fontella Bass dies aged 72

(Reuters) – American soul singer Fontella Bass, who topped the R&B chart in 1965 with the song “Rescue Me,” died in St. Louis. She was 72.Bass died in hospice care on Wednesday night from complications of a heart attack she suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, told Reuters. Bass had also suffered from strokes in recent years.“She’s going to be missed,” Mitchell said. “Her big...

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Well: Too Young to Have a Heart Attack

The foreshadowing escaped me: The night before we left for our summer vacation in Michigan, I accidentally stepped on my Kindle — which, like my heart, I cannot live without — and broke it. Reduced to reading novels on my iPhone, I made the best of it several days later, sitting in a sunroom overlooking Eight Point Lake, where my family gathers each year with friends.The day before, proving to my...

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Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens...

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One of Chicago's most feared mobsters dies in prison

Frank Calabrese Jr., ex-mobster and author of the book Family Secrets, speaks to the Chicago Tribune's John Kass on March 14, 2011, at Bella Luna cafe in Chicago. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2011) ...

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Samsung expects to ship more than half a billion phones in 2013

Title Post: Samsung expects to ship more than half a billion phones in 2013Rating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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Q & A: Should Older Adults Be Vaccinated Against Chickenpox?

Q. Should a 65-year-old who has never had chickenpox be vaccinated against it? A. In someone who has never had chickenpox, the vaccine would protect against a disease that is far more serious in adults than it is in children, said Dr. Mark S. Lachs, director of geriatrics for the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. After...

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Toyota agrees to settle acceleration cases for over $1 billion

A Toyota Logo is pictured on a Prius car at a Toyota dealership in west London ...

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NY man who shot firefighters: Killing 'what I like doing best'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A gunman who killed two volunteer firefighters and wounded two others in a Christmas Eve ambush in upstate...

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Netflix suffers Christmas Eve outage, points to Amazon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An outage at one of Amazon‘s web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc.’s streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies...

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Queen delivers 1st Christmas message in 3D

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has hailed the holidays in a new dimension, delivering her Christmas message for the first time in 3D.In the annual, prerecorded broadcast, the monarch paid tribute to the armed forces, “whose sense of duty takes them away from family and friends” over the holidays, and expressed gratitude for the outpouring of enthusiasm for her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.The queen...

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Rumored iPad 5 to be thinner

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Police: NY gunman set 'trap' for firefighters

An ex-con gunned down two firefighters after luring them to...

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Thousands sign US petition to deport Piers Morgan

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his “Piers Morgan Tonight” show an “unbelievably stupid man.”Now, gun...

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Measles: Measles Epidemic Is Spreading in Central Africa

Jehad Nga for The New York TimesAn internally displaced persons camp in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to recent violence in the country, a spreading measles epidemic is further endangering the lives of thousands of children there. A large measles epidemic is spreading in Central Africa, endangering the lives of thousands of children, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders...

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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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Sri Lanka arrests 100 Chinese for cyber fraud, police say

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka on Saturday arrested at least 100 Chinese nationals accused of an internet fraud scheme targeting people in their home country, a police spokesman said.The accused, all in Sri Lanka on tourist visas, are suspected of hacking into computers in China and then demanding their owners transfer them money, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakodi told Reuters.Chinese police requested...

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CBS’ ”The Job” Gets Premiere Date

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Survivor” maestro Mark Burnett‘s latest reality TV venture, “The Job,” will premiere February 8 at 8 p.m. on CBS, the network said Thursday.The series, executive produced by Burnett and Michael Davies (of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” renown) and Jay Bienstock, will give contestants the chance to score jobs at prestigious American companies through several rounds of...

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Genetic Gamble : Drugs Aim to Make Several Types of Cancer Self-Destruct

C.J. Gunther for The New York TimesDr. Donald Bergstrom is a cancer specialist at Sanofi, one of three companies working on a drug to restore a tendency of damaged cells to self-destruct. For the first time ever, three pharmaceutical companies are poised to test whether new drugs can work against a wide range of cancers independently of where they originated — breast, prostate, liver, lung. The drugs...

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