Dumped Christmas trees are a gift for Lake Havasu fish

The ghosts of Christmas past can be found in some unusual places. The bottom of Lake Havasu, for instance.There, thousands of...

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Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the...

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'McDreamy' says he beat Starbucks for coffee chain

SEATTLE (AP) — "Grey's Anatomy" star Patrick Dempsey may be the real "McSteamy."The actor, who was dubbed "McDreamy" as a star of the hospital drama while his co-star was called "McSteamy," may soon be serving hot, steaming cups of Joe.Dempsey won a bankruptcy auction to buy Tully's Coffee, a small coffee chain based in Seattle. Among those he beat out is Tully's much bigger Seattle neighbor, Starbucks...

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Scare Amplifies Fears That Clinton’s Work Has Taken Heavy Toll

Pool photo by Brendan SmialowskiHillary Rodham Clinton with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in Cairo in July. WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow after slipping in a State Department garage in June 2009, she returned to work in just a few days. Her arm in a sling, she juggled speeches and a trip to India and Thailand with physical therapy, rebuilding...

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Vast cache of Kaiser patient details was kept in private home

Federal and state officials are investigating whether healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente violated patient privacy in its work...

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Economy maintains job growth as unemployment holds at 7.8%

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. job market continued to show slow and steady improvement in December as employers added 155,000 jobs...

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Huawei launches the Ascend P1 in the U.S. for $450 through Amazon

Despite its attempts to attract new customers with high-end phones, Huawei (002502) remains relatively unknown to U.S. consumers. The company is looking to change that and on Thursday announced the availability of the Ascend P1 smartphone. The Android-powered device is equipped with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The handset...

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Actor Dempsey: Coffee chain bid appears successful

SEATTLE (AP) — Actor Patrick Dempsey said it appears his bid to buy a small coffee chain has prevailed in a bankruptcy auction that included Starbucks Corp.Late Thursday night, Dempsey announced that his company, Global Baristas LLC, made the winning bid for Tully's Coffee. He noted in a KOMO-TV interview that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say on Jan. 11. Still, Dempsey tweeted "We got it!...

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks...

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U.S. unemployment steady at 7.8%; 155,000 jobs added in December

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December, a steady gain that shows hiring held up during tense fiscal cliff...

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Bieber urges crackdown on paparazzi after photographer's death

Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young...

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Fake John le Carré Twitter Account Fakes J.K. Rowling’s Fake Twitter Death

We’ve seen “Cormac McCarthy” Tweet apocalyptic non sequiturs. “Philip Roth” promised us a bite-sized short story. Now a fake Twitter account for British spy novelist John le Carré is spreading bizarre death rumors about J.K. Rowling. After a few days of Tweeting harmless missives, the week-old handle @JLecarre dropped this would-be bombshell on its nearly 2,500 followers Wednesday...

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Depardieu, in tax fight, gets Russian citizenship

MOSCOW (AP) — Gerard Depardieu, the French actor who has waged a battle against a proposed super-tax on millionaires in his native country, has been granted Russian citizenship.A brief announcement on the Kremlin website on Thursday revealed that President Vladimir Putin signed the citizenship grant following an application from the actor.The former Oscar nominee and star of the movie "Green Card"...

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Hillary Clinton Is Discharged From Hospital After Blood Clot

Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose globe-trotting tour as secretary of state was abruptly halted last month by a series of health problems, was discharged from a New York hospital on Wednesday evening after several days of treatment for a blood clot in a vein in her head. The news of her release was the first welcome sign in a troubling month that grounded Mrs. Clinton — preventing her from answering...

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World's 100 richest people got $241 billion richer in 2012

The richest people on the planet got even richer in 2012, adding $241 billion to their collective net worth, according to the...

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Brown plans extensive changes for school funding in 2013

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown will push this year to upend the way schools are funded in California, hoping to shift more money...

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Your Snapchats aren’t safe: How to secretly save videos from Snapchat or Facebook’s ‘Poke’

Argue though its executives might, Snapchat is good for two things: sending photos and videos of yourself making stupid faces, and sending photos and videos of yourself naked. The latter, of course, is the more compelling function since that is exactly what the app was designed for. When users send pictures or videos, the recipient can only view them for a set amount of time before they “self-destruct.”...

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Jon Stewart to host Grammy's MusiCares tribute

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jon Stewart is hosting the MusiCares salute to Bruce Springsteen.The Recording Academy also announced Wednesday that Elton John, Neil Young, Mumford & Sons, Sting, Mavis Staples and Kenny Chesney will be among more than a dozen performers who will help pay tribute to Springsteen during the Feb. 8 benefit concert, held in Los Angeles two days before the Grammy Awards.Springsteen...

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Well: Good and Bad, the Little Things Add Up in Fitness

Phys EdGretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.The past year in fitness has been alternately inspiring, vexing and diverting, as my revisiting of all of the Phys Ed columns published in 2012 makes clear. Taken as a whole, the latest exercise-related science tells us that the right types and amounts of exercise will almost certainly lengthen your life, strengthen your brain, affect your waistline...

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Avis buying Zipcar in deal worth nearly $500M

Avis is buying Zipcar for $491.2 million, expanding its offerings from traditional car rentals to car sharing services. Car...

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Ruling over bumper-car injury supports amusement park

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court, protecting providers of risky recreational activities from lawsuits, decided Monday...

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DiDonato a luminous Mary Stuart at Met

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera may have pretty much turned opening night over to the glamorous Anna Netrebko, but New Year's Eve belongs to a very different diva — Joyce DiDonato.Last year the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano headlined a starry lineup in the baroque pastiche "The Enchanted Island." On Monday night she brought a gala audience to its feet with a luminous performance in the title role...

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