Employers Must Offer Family Health Care, Affordable or Not, Administration Says

WASHINGTON — In a long-awaited interpretation of the new health care law, the Obama administration said Monday that employers must offer health insurance to employees and their children, but will not be subject to any penalties if family coverage is unaffordable to workers. The requirement for employers to provide health benefits to employees is a cornerstone of the new law, but the new rules...

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It's the Economy: What Will the Economy’s New ‘Normal’ Look Like in 2013?

Illustration by Jasper RietmanBack in the mid-2000s, the U.S. consumer economy was undergoing a serious change. After decades of favoring low prices (even when they promised low quality), consumers began paying more for all sorts of premium features like single-serve packaging and pretty much anything “green” or “organic.” Then came the financial crisis and the drop in consumer demand. ...

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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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The Future Is Now: What We Imagined for 2013 — 10 Years Ago

Predicting the future is hard, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’re Wired, after all. Ten years ago, we boldly declared that we’d be living with phones on our wrists, data-driven goggles on our eyes and gadgets that would safety-test our food for us. Turns out, a lot of the things Sonia Zjawinski conceptualized in our “Living in 2013” feature way back in 2003...

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Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.Playboy said on Tuesday...

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Study Suggests Lower Death Risk for the Overweight

A century ago, Elsie Scheel was the perfect woman. So said a 1912 article in The New York Times about how Miss Scheel, 24, was chosen by the “medical examiner of the 400 'co-eds'” at Cornell University as a woman “whose very presence bespeaks perfect health.” Miss Scheel, however, was hardly model-thin. At 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, she would, by today's medical standards, be clearly overweight....

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Shell Oil Rig Runs Aground in Alaska

An enormous Shell Oil offshore drilling rig ran aground on an island in the Gulf of Alaska on Monday night after it broke free from tow ships in rough seas, officials said. The rig, the Kulluk, which was used for test drilling in the Arctic last summer, is carrying about 139,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid, the officials said. A...

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Body of Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza quietly claimed by his father

Newtown, Conn. shooter Adam Lanza's body has been claimed by his father. The body of Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza...

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The Best of Exploration: Top 8 Stories of Space Exploration in 2012

Our recap of the year’s best exploratory exploits continues today with a look at the biggest developments in space exploration. 2012 saw the stunning debut of new spacecraft (Curiosity), the continued contributions of geriatric ones (Voyager), and the first full year since the end of the Space Shuttle program. Casey Dreier of The Planetary Society nominated 8 particularly meaningful developments from...

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Green Day to get back on road in March

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The members of Green Day said on Monday they will return to the road in March after the punk rock band canceled its fall club tour and postponed later dates as frontman Billie Joe Armstrong underwent treatment for substance abuse.“We want to thank everyone for hanging in with us for the last few months,” the band members said in a statement on their website. “We are very excited...

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