Flu outbreak remains high, but waning, CDC says

Claude Flanagan receives a flu shot from Geneva Hill, a licensed vocational nurse, during a free flu vaccine clinic this...

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Netflix's <i>House of Cards</i> Offers an Uneven But Promising Look at TV's Future

It’s hard to imagine the happiness at Netflix when they realized that House of Cards — the company’s much-heralded premiere of self-produced original programming – would debut its complete 13-episode run on the same week that the U.S. Senate held hearing to confirm John Kerry as Secretary of State. After all, the updated American version of the 1990s BBC political drama launches...

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“30 Rock” closes its doors with a sentimental farewell

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning TV comedy “30 Rock” bowed out after seven seasons on Thursday with bittersweet farewells but giving all its zany characters a happy ending.The satirical show-within-a-show about the inside workings of a fictional television sketch series saw Tina Fey‘s hapless writer Liz Lemon try to round up her unruly cast for a last hurrah.Along the way, unpredictable sketch...

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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...

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Bits Blog: The Origins of 'Big Data' : An Etymological Detective Story

Words and phrases are fundamental building blocks of language and culture, much as genes and cells are to the biology of life. And words are how we express ideas, so tracing their origin, development and spread is not merely an academic pursuit but a window into a society’s intellectual evolution.Digital technology is changing both how words and ideas are created and proliferate, and how they are...

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Senate Democrats huddle on gun measures

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday with Senate Democrats to brief the caucus about the rationale behind the...

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Amazon.com Goes Down, Takes Break From Retail Biz

Amazon hosted a new kind of online door-crasher sale on Thursday. That is to say, its front door crashed.For about a half-hour, starting just before noon Pacific time on Thursday, the main Amazon.com webpage was inaccessible to web surfers.Visitors were greeted with a white page and the error: “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.”The problem appeared to affect only the front...

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A Minute With: Rapper T.I. dips into comedy in “Identity Thief”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris has seen and done it all – three Grammy Awards, a novel, time in jail, a fashion line, TV reality show, businessman and several movies.Now the Atlanta-based singer is dipping into comedy, appearing in the film “Identity Thief” as an armed enforcer on the trail of a character played by Melissa McCarthy who is on the run from many of those she’s swindled.T.I.,...

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common...

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Anti-Wal-Mart Labor Groups Agree to Stop Picketing the Chain

(Reuters) - Labor groups that have long spoken out against Wal-Mart Stores Inc will stop much of their picketing against the world's largest retailer, though they still plan to continue to push the company to improve working conditions. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or UFCW, and OUR Walmart reached an agreement with the National Labor Relations Board, the groups...

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