Twitter, Washington Post targeted by hackers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Social media giant Twitter is among the latest U.S. companies to acknowledge that it is among a growing list of victims of Internet security attacks, saying that hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users. And now, The Washington Post is joining the chorus, saying that it discovered that it was the target of a sophisticated...

Read More..

Last of 1940s hitmakers Andrews Sisters dies in California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of popular The Andrews Sisters singing trio of the 1940s and 1950s, has died in California at the age of 94, her spokesman said on Wednesday.Alan Eichler said Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Northridge area of Los Angeles.Patty Andrews was the youngest of the threesome who made up The Andrews Sisters, whose tight harmonies...

Read More..

Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90. The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore...

Read More..

Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.The...

Read More..

March planned for Hadiya Pendleton; reward up to $30K

As community members marched in memory of Hadiya Pendleton today, officials announced the reward for information in the slaying...

Read More..

This Week’s Social Media Power Rankings: The Return of Swatch

The social media sphere is an increasingly noisy place, especially for brands. But hiding somewhere in the static are strong signals from companies reaching their customers in innovative ways. The Social Business Index from the Dachis Group provides a (free) real-time ranking of more than 30,000 global brands based on their social performance. Every week we’re taking a tally...

Read More..

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis score unlikely hit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The rapper Macklemore thinks there’s a simple reason the hit “Thrift Shop” appears to be going viral: It dares to be different.“There’s a certain sound that has kind of flooded the mainstream airwaves as far as hip-hop music,” he said a few hours after taping a performance on “Late Show with David Letterman” on Thursday night with producing partner Ryan Lewis. “The beat doesn’t...

Read More..

Well: Gluten-Free Muffin Recipes

For people who need to eliminate gluten from their diet, baking becomes a challenge. Beginners often find gluten-free baked goods too dense. Even the Recipes for Health columnist Martha Rose Shulman didn’t like the flavor of a commercial gluten-free flour mix, which left her gluten-free cookies and tart-shells with a strong taste of bean flour. As a result, she created her own gluten-free mix for...

Read More..

Jobless rate climbs to 7.9% in January

U.S. job growth grew modestly in January and gains in the prior two months were bigger than initially reported, supporting views...

Read More..

Huge fire out at Wis. plant: 'There are 300 workers without a job'

More than 300 firefighters from 80 departments across two states...

Read More..

Glut of R-rated movies putting Box Office on overload

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Bullet to the Head,” the guns-blazing, axe-swinging action film from Sylvester Stallone, arrives Friday and is the latest violent, R-rated movie to open in January. The month itself could be rated “R” – for Repetitious.Nine of the 11 movies released widely since the start of the year and Friday are rated “R.” Of last weekend’s top 10 films, eight carried the restricted...

Read More..

During Trial, New Details Emerge on DuPuy Hip

When Johnson & Johnson announced the appointment in 2011 of an executive to head the troubled orthopedics division whose badly flawed artificial hip had been recalled, the company billed the move as a fresh start. But that same executive, it turns out, had supervised the implant’s introduction in the United States and had been told by a top company consultant three years before the device...

Read More..

Slot maker WMS Ind. to be sold for $1.5B

Gaming machines maker WMS Industries Inc. is being swallowed up by larger rival Scientific Games Corp. for $1.42 billion in...

Read More..

Ryan sent home after spending just hours at halfway house

Former Gov. George Ryan spent just hours at a halfway house on Chicago’s West Side this morning before he was released and sent...

Read More..

The Z10 is a good first step, but BlackBerry still has to fix its app problem

BlackBerry, a.k.a., the Company Formerly Known as RIM, made good with its first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Wednesday. While the new devices are far from perfect, they will at the very least make long-suffering BlackBerry fans very happy and should provide a needed boost to a company in desperate need of growth. That said, BlackBerry still has a major problem that it will have to fix if it ever...

Read More..

Musical comedy “The Sapphires” sparkles at Aussie Oscars

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Home-grown romantic musical comedy “The Sapphires” shone at Australia‘s film industry awards on Wednesday, picking up best film and lead acting trophies for Deborah Mailman and “Bridesmaids” star Chris O’Dowd.Awards host Russell Crowe, an Oscar winner for “Gladiator,” led a star-studded evening whose theme was pride in Australia’s outsized success on the international film stage.“The...

Read More..

The Consumer: The Drug-Dose Gender Gap

Most sleeping pills are designed to knock you out for eight hours. When the Food and Drug Administration was evaluating a new short-acting pill for people to take when they wake up in the middle of the night, agency scientists wanted to know how much of the drug would still be in users’ systems come morning.Blood tests uncovered a gender gap: Men metabolized the drug, Intermezzo, faster than women....

Read More..

Blackberry 10 launches after long wait

Research In Motion Ltd unveiled the long-delayed line of smartphones it hopes will put it on the comeback trail on Wednesday...

Read More..

1 dead, 2 wounded in Grand Crossing shooting

Chicago Police investigate near the body of a shooting victim on S. Champlain Avenue near 75th Street in Chicago. ...

Read More..

Apple announces iPad with double storage capacity

(Reuters) – Apple Inc said on Tuesday that it will sell a version of its iPad tablet computer with 128 gigabytes of storage, which is twice the capacity of its existing models.Apple, which has sold more than 120 million iPads so far, said that the new iPad will go on sale February 5, in black or white, for a suggested retail price of $ 799 for the iPad with just Wi-Fi model, and $ 929 for the version...

Read More..

Clinton coy about political future in joint interview with Obama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sidestepped questions about whether she would run for president in 2016 in a CBS television interview done jointly with President Barack Obama, her rival in the 2008 race.Clinton, 65, denied there were any political tea leaves to read in the unusual joint interview for the CBS show “60 Minutes,” and acknowledged that she still...

Read More..