Shootings leave 1 dead, 3 hurt

Three shootings in the city since Friday night have left a 21-year-old man dead and three people hurt, Chicago police said.The...

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Sony Teases ‘The Future’ of PlayStation in Short #PlayStation2013 Video

Sony‘s CEO, Kazuo Hirai, said he would let Microsoft “make the first move” when it came to releasing a next-generation game console, according to IGN’s Daniel Krupa. But now the official PlayStation blog is teasing viewers with a video entitled “See the Future,” with the #PlayStation2013 Twitter hashtag.Whatever the future is, it’s apparently got something to do with Feb. 20, the date mentioned in...

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Filmmaker cries censorship as Italy political documentary blocked

ROME (Reuters) – A British filmmaker said on Friday he was a victim of censorship after a leading museum cancelled the Italian premiere of the documentary “Girlfriend in a Coma”, which is highly critical of Italy‘s political and economic situation.The museum where the film was to have been shown on February 13 cancelled the showing and said it could not be held until after the country’s elections...

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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...

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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...

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Reward at $24K for info leading to arrest in shooting of teen

The best friend of Hadiya Pendleton talks about the moments before her friend was shot in Chicago on January 31, 2013. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune) ...

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How I learned to stop worrying and love Twitter

Is anything more uniquely American than our free-wheeling, 140-character missives?Twitter is dead, you guys. Writers used to send pithy tweets across cyberspace, borne on the golden wings of Hermes. Now, as T.S. Eliot would say, “Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless.” Twitter is so uncool, that even if we resurrected the spirits of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and...

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Roseanne Barr to Star in, Produce New Series for NBC

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – NBC is betting on the up-again-down-again Roseanne Barr, signing the television icon to an overall deal that calls for her to develop a show she will star in and produce for the network. She will executive produce the series with Steven Greener, with whom she collaborated on “Roseanne’s Nuts” for Lifetime.As part of the deal, Barr also will guest star in a three-episode arc...

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The New Old Age: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked...

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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...

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80 fire departments battle 8-alarm blaze in Wisconsin

Emergency officials are on the scene of a 5 alarm fire at a...

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ABC orders pilots for “Big Thunder” drama, Gothic soap opera

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – ABC has ordered pilots for the dramas “Big Thunder” and “Gothica,” the network said Tuesday.“Big Thunder,” which is written by “Ice Age” writer Jason Fuchs (pictured) and executive produced by Chris Morgan (“Wanted,” “The Troop”) follows a brilliant doctor in late 19th century New York whose family is given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate to a frontier mining...

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Well: Myths of Weight Loss Are Plentiful, Researcher Says

If schools reinstated physical education classes, a lot of fat children would lose weight. And they might never have gotten fat in the first place if their mothers had just breast fed them when they were babies. But be warned: obese people should definitely steer clear of crash diets. And they can lose more than 50 pounds in five years simply by walking a mile a day.Those are among...

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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...

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At 42 dead, January homicide count is city's worst since 2002

When Kimberly Common visited her mother in the hospital Monday, the two spoke of how much they missed Common's son, Antonio,...

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.They boast...

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Spielberg seen winning director Oscar for “Lincoln”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – American filmmaker Steven Spielberg is clear favorite among the public to win the best director award for his film about President Abraham Lincoln at the Academy Awards this year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.While the race to win best film at the February 24 ceremony was shaken up by “Argo” stealing the thunder of “Lincoln” at two award ceremonies last weekend, the best...

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal...

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Airlines had earlier 787 battery issues

U.S. Transportation regulators are asking Boeing for a complete history of the lithium-ion batteries used on 787 Dreamliners. Battery problems have grounded all 50 787s in use around the world. (Jan. 30) ...

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Woman charged with DUI in crash that killed 2 changing tire

Chicago police are investigating a fatal car accident that...

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Cricket-Australia board play straight bat to Warne twitter rant

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland has defended the organisation following a scathing attack aimed at them by spin great Shane Warne, who panned the board in a series of Twitter rants.Sutherland added that he was prepared to meet with Warne and discuss the 43-year-old’s criticism of CA’s player rotation policy and his claim that “rubbish” decisions were turning...

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Philadelphia opera co.: New name, new vision

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Opera Company of Philadelphia is getting a name change that officials say is in better harmony with its move toward more innovative programming and greater diversity in its repertoire.The company said Tuesday it will now be known simply as Opera Philadelphia. The new name and logo will appear on all of its brochures and ads.The announcement was made in conjunction with the...

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Well: Ask Well: Long-Term Use of Nicotine Gum

In small doses, like those contained in the gum, nicotine is generally considered safe. But it does have stimulant properties that can raise blood pressure, increase heart rate and constrict blood vessels. One large report from 2010 found that compared to people given a placebo, those who used nicotine replacement therapies had a higher risk of heart palpitations and chest pains.That’s one reason...

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Chicago home price recovery lags

The Chicago area's housing recovery continued to lag behind other cities and the nation, as prices in November fell 1.3 percent...

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