Media mogul and banker Allbritton dies at 87

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Lewis Allbritton, a media mogul and owner of the scandal-plagued Riggs National Bank, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Houston. He was 87.Allbritton died of heart ailments, said Jerald Fritz, a senior vice president of Allbritton Communications.Allbritton’s media empire included newspapers throughout the U.S. Northeast and ABC network affiliates. Allbritton’s son, Robert,...

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Most Googled in 2012: Whitney, PSY, Sandy

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The world’s attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, millions of people searched the Web to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver.Whitney Houston was the “top trending” search of the year, according to Google Inc.’s year-end “zeitgeist” report. Google‘s 12th annual roundup is “an in-depth look at the...

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“Dancing with the Stars” Brooke Burke says she is cancer free

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Dancing with the Stars” co-host Brooke Burke said on Wednesday that medical tests indicate she is free of thyroid cancer.“I just got the results back from all of my tests and great news – the thyroid cancer has been removed from my body and all my lymph nodes are clear,” Burke, 41, said in her blog on the website Modernmom.com.“So I’m hoping that this is the end of the story....

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Police identify Portland mall shooter

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday.Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland mall on Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.The...

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear...

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‘Lincoln,’ ‘Les Mis,’ ‘Playbook’ lead SAG awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga “Lincoln,” the musical “Les Miserables” and the comic drama “Silver Linings Playbook” boosted their Academy Awards prospects Wednesday with four nominations apiece for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.All three films were nominated for overall performance by their casts. Also nominated for best ensemble cast were the Iran hostage-crisis thriller “Argo” and the British...

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Web host Go Daddy appoints former Yahoo executive as CEO

(Reuters) – Go Daddy, one of the world’s biggest Internet hosting firms, appointed Yahoo Inc‘s former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving as chief executive.He will take over from interim CEO Scott Wagner on January 7. Irving left Yahoo, where he headed a centralized products group that straddled several client types, on April 27.“Blake Irving’s deep technology experience and his history of developing...

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Flu Web Searches Predict Disease Outbreaks

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Michigan passes right-to-work bill

LANSING, Michigan (Reuters) - The Republican-majority Michigan legislature gave final approval on Tuesday to "right-to-work" restrictions on public sector unions in a state considered a stronghold of organized labor, as protesters chanted in the gallery and thousands rallied outside. The House passed the measure making membership and payment of union dues voluntary for public sector employees...

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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse’s family

CANBERRA (Reuters) – The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum...

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