Dismissed as Doomsayers, Advocates for Meteor Detection Feel Vindicated

For decades, scientists have been on the lookout for killer objects from outer space that could devastate the planet. But warnings that they lacked the tools to detect the most serious threats were largely ignored, even as skeptics mocked the worriers as Chicken Littles. Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDr. Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive, has warned...

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Beyoncé's Life Is But a Dream: The Best Moments

TV Watch By Aaron Parsley 02/16/2013 at 11:05 PM EST I am ... still singing!Beyoncé's HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream, aired Saturday night and it was a 90-minute whirlwind of music, dance and emotion. And though the singer, 31, has been everywhere recently (the Inauguration, the Super Bowl halftime show,...

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.Edwards...

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After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance. Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year. ...

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U.S. Embassy Denies Intervening in Mexico Cabinet Choice

The United States Embassy in Mexico on Friday issued a statement denying an article in The New York Times that reported that Ambassador Anthony Wayne had met with senior Mexican officials to discuss American concerns about the possible appointment of Gen. Moisés García Ochoa of Mexico as that country’s defense secretary. “Despite significant reporting in the Mexican press during the presidential...

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Molly Sims: I Nursed a Little Vampire!

Mom & Babies Celebrity Baby Blog 02/15/2013 at 01:00 PM ET Following the birth of her baby boy, Molly Sims was ready to sink her teeth into breastfeeding.The only problem? Her son Brooks Alan had beaten her to it.“Early on in the hospital, they really want you to breastfeed, so I’m trying everything,”...

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States' choices set up national health experiment

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is unfolding as a national experiment with American consumers as the guinea pigs: Who will do a better job getting uninsured people covered, the states or the feds?The nation is about evenly split between states that decided by Friday's deadline they want a say in running new insurance markets and states that are defaulting to federal...

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After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance. Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year. ...

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India Ink: Powering an Enclave With Dosas

Brian Harkin for The New York TimesKrish Doshi, left, with his brother Karan Doshi, both 8, at Usha Foods in Floral Park, Queens. More Photos »After much debate, it was decided: masala dosas all around. The retirees clustered in front of the counter at Usha Foods, then got down to business: Who was paying? Seven credit cards appeared and seven hands waved them at the cashier, until one gray-haired...

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American Idol's Top 40 Revealed

TV Watch American Idol By Steve Helling 02/14/2013 at 10:00 PM EST From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban Michael Becker/FOX. American Idol really, really wants a woman to win this season. At the beginning of Thursday's...

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.The findings, published online Thursday in...

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Wall Street ends slightly higher, helped by acquisitions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eked out a small gain for a third straight session on Thursday, helped by a flurry of merger activity, though investors see no catalysts to lift the market further with major averages near multi-year highs. The market's slowed advance took the S&P 500 to its highest intraday level since November 2007 on Wednesday. While the index notched its third...

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India Ink: Falling Far Short of the Whole Truth

She had been called to the bar in a formal ceremony at Middle Temple Hall, a grand room where little has changed since 1602, when the first known performance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” was staged there. With her dark hair covered by a barrister’s foppish white wig, she signed the registry of barristers who had stood in the same spot across the centuries, including John Rutledge, a signer of...

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Lady Gaga Cancels Born This Way Ball Tour Due to Severe Injury

02/13/2013 at 08:50 PM EST It's a somber week for Lady Gaga – and her Little Monsters.Following Tuesday's Facebook announcement that she was "devastated and sad" because she couldn't walk and had to postpone several Born This Way Ball concerts, the pop star, 26, has officially canceled the remaining dates of...

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went...

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Asian shares gain on improving sentiment, G20 eyed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on improving risk sentiment while the yen steadied ahead of the weekend meeting of G20 finance and central bank officials, whose views on global growth and differences over currencies will be scrutinized by investors. "Asian markets have extended gains with risk sentiment remaining resilient as markets continue to push to new highs. Ahead of the European...

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Thai Soldiers Repel Attack in Major Blow to Insurgents

BANGKOK — Thai soldiers repelled an attack on a military outpost early Wednesday, killing at least 16 gunmen in what appeared to be a significant setback for ethnic insurgent groups leading a bloody uprising now in its ninth year. Col. Pramote Promin, the spokesman of the army’s southern command, said the army had been expecting the attack after being tipped off by villagers and “former insurgents...

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Westminster Names Affenpinscher Banana Joe Best in Show

People Pets By Kiran Hefa & Alison Schwartz 02/12/2013 at 11:55 PM EST Westminster has its top dog!After two days of meticulous primping, prizes and the less-pretty realities of any spirited championship, the 137th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show came to its finale Tuesday night, declaring Affenpinscher...

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Study questions kidney cancer treatment in elderly

In a stunning example of when treatment might be worse than the disease, a large review of Medicare records finds that older people with small kidney tumors were much less likely to die over the next five years if doctors monitored them instead of operating right away.Even though nearly all of these tumors turned out to be cancer, they rarely proved fatal. And surgery roughly doubled patients' risk...

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Firmer yen boosts Korean shares, underpins Asia stocks

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares outside of Japan rose on Wednesday, led by South Korean exporters as the yen firmed amid conflicting interpretations of G7 comments about the currency's recent weakness. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> gained 0.9 percent. Seoul shares <.ks11> outperformed with a 1.5 percent jump while...

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North Korea Is Suspected of Conducting 3rd Nuclear Test

Lee Jin-Man/Associated PressA South Korean watched news reporting about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul on Tuesday. WASHINGTON — North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test, according to the official KCNA news service, posing a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from...

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