This bus' next stop: doing good

Maybe you want to help others. Maybe you long to lend a hand. But you're not sure where and you're not sure how and you don't...

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Maker Mom Builds Cookie-Cutter Empire With 3-D Printers

Athey Moravetz is doing some tasty work with her 3-D printers. The video game designer has worked on PlayStation games like Resistance Retribution and Uncharted Golden Abyss. She's also a self-described "jack-of-all-trades," skilled with 3-D modeling tools like Maya, and knows how to design compelling characters with them. After having two children she decided to work from home, and in addition...

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Slave-Revenge Film ‘Django Unchained’ Tracking Strongly With African-Americans

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Django Unchained” – about a bounty hunter who partners with a freed slave to take down a plantation owner – is tracking extremely well with African Americans, the Weinstein Company said Thursday.Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the violent Western, which stars Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. Opening on Christmas Day, it’s a front-runner...

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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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Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation

Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers’ reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine. After several well-publicized cases involving writers buying or manipulating their reviews, Amazon is cracking down. Writers say thousands of reviews have been deleted from the shopping site in recent months. Amazon...

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Party leaders in Senate trade accusations of blame for Plan B failure

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed Democrats for forcing House leaders to pull a vote on the Plan B...

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The NRA Solution to Gun Violence: More Guns, Fewer Videogames

The National Rifle Association had an entire week following the tragedy in Sandy Hook to craft a response that reflected the complex, difficult and long-overdue conversation taking place around the nation regarding gun ownership, the availability of high-speed weaponry and mental illness in the United States.Instead NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre stood up at a press conference this morning and...

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BMG Scores Rights to Nirvana, Tears for Fears Songs

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – BMG has acquired the worldwide rights to several music catalogues, a deal that will give it songs from artists including Kurt Cobain, Tears for Fears, The Human League, Iggy Pop, and Take That.The company announced Friday that it will purchase the rights for the Virgin Music Publishing Companies, Famous UK Music Publishing and selected current songwriters from Sony/ATV and...

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The New Old Age Blog: The Ex-Wives Club

Weather permitting, Kappy Lundy and Barbara Thompson are heading out to Vancouver, Wash., on Saturday night to have a holiday dinner with the parents of their daughter’s husband.Yes, these women both mothered the same children — now grown and with children of their own. Ms. Lundy is their biological parent; Ms. Thompson is the stepmother who married their father after he and Ms. Lundy divorced.But...

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DealBook: Former SAC Trader Is Indicted

A former SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager was indicted on Friday on securities fraud and conspiracy charges in a case that federal prosecutors have called the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever uncovered.A federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted the former portfolio manager, Mathew Martoma, a month after the government arrested on him charges that he used inside tips about a clinical...

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Boehner rejects Democrats' push for immediate vote on gun bill

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner rejected calls from Democrats to schedule a vote on new gun restrictions before...

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Net Neutrality, Data-Cap Legislation Lands in Senate

A proposal forbidding internet service providers from turning the data-cap meter off to grant a so-called internet fast lane to preferential online services was introduced Thursday in the Senate.The bill by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) comes a week after a report found that the institutionalization of data caps by ISPs is geared toward profiteering rather than the stated goal of managing traffic...

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Putin offers French tax row actor Depardieu a Russian passport

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin offered French actor Gerard Depardieu a Russian passport on Thursday, saying he would welcome the 63-year-old celebrity who is embroiled in a bitter tax row with France‘s socialist government.Weighing into a dispute over a hike in taxes, Putin heaped praise on Depardieu, making the offer of citizenship in response to a question during his annual televised...

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The Consumer: Grapefruit and Drugs Often Don't Mix

The patient didn’t overdose on medication. She overdosed on grapefruit juice.The 42-year-old was barely responding when her husband brought her to the emergency room. Her heart rate was slowing, and her blood pressure was falling. Doctors had to insert a breathing tube, and then a pacemaker, to revive her.They were mystified: The patient’s husband said she suffered from migraines and was taking a...

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Madoff's Younger Brother Sentenced to 10 Years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Peter Madoff will serve 10 years in prison for his role in his older brother's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, a U.S. judge said on Thursday. Peter Madoff, 67, pleaded guilty in June to criminal charges including conspiracy to commit securities fraud for falsifying the books and records of the investment advisory company founded by his brother, Bernard Madoff. ...

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Army seeks death for Sgt. Robert Bales in Afghan shooting rampage

SEATTLE -- The commanders at Joint Base Lewis-McChord have decided to refer the case against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales for...

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Cosmo Strikes Again, Taking Over Another Westboro Twitter Account

It feels a little bit like hacker Groundhog Day. After hijacking a Westboro Baptist Church leader’s Twitter account on Monday, Wired has confirmed that the 15-year-old hacker known as Cosmo the God took over another account belonging to one of the of the same church members on Wednesday, using much the same method.A source with direct knowledge of the attack who spoke...

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“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” “Bully” first theatrical releases to win duPont awards

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Two documentary films were among the 14 winners of the 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, making them the first theatrical releases to be honored with the prize. USA Today also won its first duPont award.“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” Alison Klayman‘s profile of the Chinese artist-activist, and Emmy-winning filmmaker Lee Hirsch‘s tale of schoolyard torment, “Bully,”...

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F.D.A. and States Meet About Regulation of Drug Compounders

Mary Calvert/ReutersMargaret Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, testified on the fungal meningitis outbreak before Congress in November. Dr. Hamburg addressed the need for greater federal oversight of large compounding pharmacies, which mix up batches of drugs on their own, often for much lower prices than major manufacturers charge. SILVER SPRING, Md. – The Food and Drug Administration conferred with...

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Challenging France to Do Business Differently

Pool photo by Bertrand LangloisPresident Francois Hollande, at the Élysée Palace this week, turned to the prominent industrialist Louis Gallois for advice on how to put corporate France on a more competitive footing with the rest of Europe. PARIS — Louis Gallois, one of France’s most influential industrialists, knew he was about to make waves for the country’s Socialist president. It was...

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Philippine Congress OKs bill to offer birth control to poor women

MANILA — Ignoring the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines' warning that "contraception corrupts the soul," the Philippine...

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Judge Denies Apple's Request to Ban 8 Samsung Phones

Samsung can continue selling eight smartphones, including the Galaxy S II, that infringed on Apple’s patents, a federal judge has ruled, handing the Korean company a small victory in its ongoing patent war with Apple.It didn’t all go Samsung’s way, however. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh also denied the company’s request for a retrial in the case, in which the two sides accused each other of...

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