Factory Fire Kills 7 Workers in Bangladesh

A.M. Ahad/Associated PressFirefighters and volunteers worked to extinguish the fire at a small garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday. DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the latest blow to Bangladesh’s garment industry, seven workers died on Saturday after a fire swept through a factory here not long after seamstresses had returned from a lunch break. Workers said supervisors had locked one of the...

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Hackers claim attack on Justice Department website

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hackers sympathetic to the late computer prodigy Aaron Swartz claimed on Saturday to have infiltrated the website of the U.S. Justice Department’s Sentencing Commission, and said they planned to release government data.The Sentencing Commission site, www.ussc.gov , was shut down early Saturday.Identifying themselves as Anonymous, a loosely organized group of unknown provenance...

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Ashton Kutcher Parties in Sundance After jOBS Premiere

Caught in the Act 01/26/2013 at 01:50 PM EST Ashton Kutcher's much-hyped movie jOBS premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, and the star was on hand – minus girlfriend Mila Kunis – for all the festivities. Kutcher was one of the first to arrive at the official after party, hosted by Nur Khan Presents...

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very...

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Nude woman hits nude fiance with car, CHP says

Authorities are investigating after a woman in San Bernardino County allegedly struck her fiance with a car. The California Highway Patrol said both were naked at the time of the Thursday incident.CHP officials told KTLA News that the couple were in the parked car on Phelan Road in Phelan when Alberto Giovanni Bravo got out and walked in front of the vehicle. For reasons that are not clear,...

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From Front Lines, Women Offer Evidence on Ability in Combat

Stacy PearsallStaff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall, who was a photographer in Iraq, in a self-portrait over Baghdad during her first deployment in 2003. During her second deployment to Iraq, Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall of the Air Force found herself attached to an Army ground unit that was clearing roadside bombs. They had just found their 26th device of the day when one of their armored personnel carriers exploded....

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Everything You Need to Know About Kim Dotcom’s Mega

Click here to view the gallery: Hands On With MegaMega — the long-anticipated file sharing and cloud storage site from Kim Dotcom — is now open to the public.[More from Mashable: Google Glasses Spotted and Two Other Stories You Need to Know]Thanks to its association with the now-defunct Megaupload — and the legal issues facing its founder Kim Dotcom — the amount of press, user interest and hype surrounding...

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Joe Manganiello Is Dating Model Bridget Peters

By Monica Rizzo 01/25/2013 at 03:45 PM EST Joe Manganiello and Bridget Peters Seth Browarnik/Startraks Joe Manganiello has a new lady love. The True Blood hunk, 36, has been spending time with the beautiful brunette model Bridget Peters, PEOPLE has learned. Manganiello...

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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies...

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Mother beats up daughter's 12-year-old friend; caught on tape, police say

A San Pedro mother has been charged with going to a fight between her 12-year-old daughter and another schoolmate and beating the girl. The incident was captured on a cellphone video.Amber Lee Gutierrez, 33, is facing a charge of felony assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury after she was arrested by Los Angeles police in connection with the Jan. 14 fight in a West Gaffey...

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India Ink: India Rape Trial Starts With Renewed Ban on Media Coverage

The trial of five men accused in the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in New Delhi is being watched closely as a symbol of India’s commitment to justice for women, but information about the ongoing court proceedings may be scarce.As court proceedings began Thursday, the presiding judge said  there would be a blanket ban on reporting on the trial. The judge, Yogesh Khanna,  also...

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Women in Combat Stoke Twitter Debate

The Pentagon’s decision to allow women in combat has elicited some strong and controversial words from opponents of the move.First, Tucker Carlson. Last night, the Daily Caller publisher tweeted: “Feminism’s latest victory: the right to get your limbs blown off in war. Congratulations.”This drew some swift criticism on Twitter, and a counterpoint from The Week’s Marc Ambinder, who noted that one woman...

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Puppy Bowl's Starting Lineup Revealed

People Pets By Amy Jamieson 01/24/2013 at 03:45 PM EST It's time to set your DVRs, people. Animal Planet has revealed Puppy Bowl IX's starting lineup, and it would be a crime to miss this much cuteness.Thirty-five doe-eyed doggies are primed to strut their adorable assets on Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. ET/PT – and each...

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US hit by new stomach bug spreading around globe

NEW YORK (AP) — A new strain of stomach bug sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S., health officials say.Since September, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. It may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different, and many people might not be able to fight off its gut-wrenching effects.Clearly, it's...

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Porn director sexually assaulted teenage girl, police say

A registered sex offender was arrested for allegedly performing a lewd act on a 17-year-old boy while directing a porn film shoot at an abandoned home in Ahaheim, police said Wednesday night.Christopher Glen Phernambucq allegedly convinced the victim and another 17-year-old boy to take part in the film after meeting them on Facebook, Anaheim police said.He told the boys that he directed porn...

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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyThe Lede is following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Earlier today, she testified before...

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Why the Future of TV Still Isn’t Here Yet

As content providers continue to intimidate tech companies with a seemingly endless couch-potato conundrum, the latest innovation in the war to win your living room isn’t some new gadget from Apple or Netflix, or even that exciting à la carte content delivery system from Intel — it’s a protocol that helps our screens better communicate with one another. YouTube and Netflix have teamed up...

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Angelina Jolie: My Kids Keep Me Grounded

By Helen I. Hwang 01/23/2013 at 03:40 PM EST Angelina Jolie and children WENN There's nothing like taking your kids for a "number 2" to bring you back to earth, says Angelina Jolie in an interview in the March edition of Total Film, a British movie magazine."The...

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Scientists to resume work with lab-bred bird flu

WASHINGTON (AP) — International scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu say they are resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.The outcry erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. — reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might...

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Male nurse has sex with female corpse; autopsy planned

Authorities are investigating a nurse who allegedly had sex with a corpse at a Sherman Oaks hospital, police said. Alejandro Razo, 61, of Reseda, was arrested Sunday on a state Health and Safety Code violation, police said. Razo, whose last name was initially released by authorities as Lazo, is free on $20,000 bail, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jail records.The L.A....

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The Lede Blog: Prince Harry Compares War to PlayStation and Taliban Is Not Amused

A Taliban spokesman said on Tuesday that Prince Harry must have “mental problems,” following the broadcast of remarks by the royal in which he said that killing militants from an Apache helicopter was similar to playing video games.As soon as Britain’s Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that Prince Harry had left Afghanistan, ending his four-month deployment there, the British news media rushed...

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Apple slips, BlackBerry slides and Windows Phone stalls in December

Kantar Worldpanel’s December smartphone market share numbers are out. And they are as fascinating as ever. Kantar pegs the BlackBerry market share in America as 1.1% last month, down from 1.4% in November. Surprisingly, Windows Phone’s market share also ticked down to 2.6% in December from 2.7% in November. That might be a statistical artifact, but it is surprising not to see a substantial boost in...

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See Jana Kramer's 5-Carat Sparkler

Stylewatch Style News Now 01/22/2013 at 03:29 PM ET Courtesy of Jana Kramer (2)When country star Brantley Gilbert proposed to his girlfriend of one year, country singer and One Tree Hill actress Jana Kramer, the one thing on his...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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Nurse had sex with corpse, police allege

About L.A. NowL.A. Now is the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news section for Southern California. It is produced by more than 80 reporters and editors in The Times’ Metro section, reporting from the paper’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters as well as bureaus in Costa Mesa, Long Beach, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Riverside, Ventura and West Los Angeles.Have a story tip for L.A. Now?Can I call...

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Syria Opposition Postpones Formation of Transitional Government

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria once again failed to form a transitional government in exile on Monday, deciding instead to postpone the step while new proposals are drawn up. The development at a conference in Istanbul was apparently a setback to the opposition’s plans to fill the power vacuum created by nearly two years of ever bloodier civil war. The National...

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Rumored Xbox 720 specs: 8-core processor, 8GB of RAM, 800MHz GPU

Console gamers frustrated that their Xbox isn’t holding up well compared to high-end gaming PCs can relax a bit, because it looks like the next-generation Xbox is going to be a monster. It seems that website VGleaks has gotten ahold of leaked specifications for the Xbox 720, which it says will include an 8-core 1.6GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, an 800MHz graphics processor, a 50GB 6x Blu-ray Disc...

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Prince Harry 'Thrilled' Over Royal Pregnancy

By Simon Perry 01/21/2013 at 02:40 PM EST Prince Harry is on his way home from the war zone and says he "can't wait" to become an uncle."Obviously I'm thrilled for both of them," Harry, 28, says of his brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate, joking, "It's about time." In an interview in Afghanistan, where he served since September,...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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FBI agent had sex with karaoke bar worker using government money

An FBI agent testified Friday that he had sex with an employee of a karaoke bar in the Philippines whom he met while working undercover on a case involving weapons smuggling.Marc Napolitano was working as a member of a surveillance team during meetings at karaoke bars in which another undercover agent, Charles Ro, spent time with three Filipino nationals now accused of...

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Notre Dame football star says he was not in on hoax – ESPN

(Reuters) – Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o has denied ever being in on an elaborate hoax, telling ESPN he had believed his relationship with a woman who turned out to be an online fabrication was real.The tragic story of his girlfriend and her injuries from a car accident and death from leukemia was one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports stories last year as Notre Dame made a drive toward...

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