Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has...

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Judge who named Starr to probe Clinton to retire

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The conservative U.S. federal judge who helped to appoint Kenneth Starr as an independent counsel to investigate President Bill Clinton, prompting first lady Hillary Clinton to complain of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” is planning a partial retirement in February.The decision by Judge David Sentelle, an anchor of the conservative side of the federal judiciary, will open a...

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Talking Turkey at the Butterball Hot Line

On Thanksgiving morning, real estate agent Marty Van Ness woke up at 4 a.m. By 6 a.m. she was at the Butterball company test kitchen and offices in Naperville, Ill., where for the next eight hours she sat at a desk in a large, brightly lit room and, with the help of 59 other trained Butterball cooks, answered as many of the 12,000 calls to Butterball’s toll-free hot line as she could. Van...

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Cargo plane crashes in Brazzaville, 3 dead

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A cargo plane owned by a private company crashed Friday near the airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, killing at least three people, officials said.The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 belonged to Trans Air Congo and appeared to be transporting merchandise, not people, said an aviation official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized...

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Facebook Powerball frenzy: Purported winner offers to ‘share’ $1 million

His name is Nolan Daniels, and he’s just about to give some random dude or dudette $ 1 million. Or so he claims.Purporting to be the second Powerball winner in Wednesday’s $ 588 million payout, Mr. Daniels posted a Facebook photo late Thursday of himself holding a ticket showing the winning numbers. The photo is the only one visible on Daniels’s account, which dates to 2008.“Looks like I’m not going...

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Putin aide denies Russian president has health problems

TOKYO/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin is in good health, his chief of staff said on Friday after Japanese media said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had postponed a visit to Moscow next month because the Russian president had a health problem.A former KGB officer who enjoys vast authority in Russia, Putin has long cultivated a tough-guy image, and health issues could damage that. His condition though...

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The Economy of Surgery

When I was twelve, my sister and I accompanied my grandparents to their annual yoga retreat in the hilly ranges of southern India. We had never been before, but the summer heat was particularly blistering that year, so we persuaded our grandparents to take us along. I envisioned a blissful two-week vacation in a photogenic little hamlet, nestled among tea plantations, in temperatures that were thirty...

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News Corp to name Thomson as Publishing Co CEO next week: sources

(Reuters) – News Corp is expected to name Robert Thomson, a close confidant of Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, to lead its new publishing company by the end of next week, according to sources familiar with News Corp’s plans.Thomson is currently managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of its publisher Dow Jones & Co, which News Corp acquired in 2007. Gerard Baker, currently...

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Gotye wins big at Australia’s Aria music awards

SYDNEY (AP) — Gotye has taken home album of the year at Australia‘s Aria music awards for his internationally acclaimed “Making Mirrors.”The album features the Belgian-born, Australian-raised singer’s multiplatinum hit “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which was the top song of the year on digital music service Spotify.Gotye won three other awards at Thursday night’s Arias, including best pop release,...

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AIDS drug roll-out boosts South African life expectancy

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa has achieved a “stunning” increase in life expectancy in the last three years due to a government push to roll out antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to people with HIV/AIDS, researchers said on Thursday.The average South African is now likely to live to the age of 60, a study in the Lancet medical journal said, compared with just 56.5 in 2009 when President Jacob Zuma...

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