VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader’s condition.Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes...

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Netflix blames Amazon for Christmas Eve outage

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An outage at one of Amazon‘s web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc‘s streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas Day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and...

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Ticket rush: Film fans hand Hollywood record cash

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The big deal for Hollywood is not the record $ 10.8 billion that studios took in domestically in 2012. It’s the fact that the number of tickets sold went up for the first time in three years.Thanks to inflation, revenue generally rises in Hollywood as admission prices climb each year. The real story is told in tickets, whose sales have been on a general decline for a decade, bottoming...

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Study finds spiritual care still rare at end of life

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Physicians and nurses at four Boston medical centers cited a lack of training to explain why they rarely provide spiritual care for terminally ill cancer patients – although most considered it an important part of treatment at the end of life.“I was quite surprised that it was really just lack of training that dominated the reasons why,” senior author Dr. Tracy Balboni,...

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As winter storm bears down on Midwest, death toll climbs

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A powerful storm system that erupted Christmas Day with Gulf Coast tornadoes and snow in the nation's midsection headed for the Northeast on Wednesday, spreading blizzard conditions that slowed holiday travel. The death toll rose to six with car accidents on snow and sleet-slickened highways in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Post-Christmas travelers braced...

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U.N. General Assembly voices concern for Myanmar’s Muslims

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly expressed serious concern on Monday over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and called upon its government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Myanmar said last month contained a “litany of sweeping allegations,...

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Queen delivers 1st Christmas message in 3D

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has hailed the holidays in a new dimension, delivering her Christmas message for the first time in 3D.In the annual, prerecorded broadcast, the monarch paid tribute to the armed forces, “whose sense of duty takes them away from family and friends” over the holidays, and expressed gratitude for the outpouring of enthusiasm for her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.The queen...

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‘Bumping’ Your Way to Safer Sex With a Smartphone App

Reported by Dr. Lauren Browne:Let’s face it.  Teens have sex.  Parents may choose to ignore it, and teens may choose to deny it, but almost 50 percent of American high school students are having sex, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. And each year, millions of those sexually active teens contract sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea,...

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Egypt constitution passes with 63.8 percent

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's disputed Islamist-backed constitution passed with a 63.8 percent "yes" in a referendum, the election commission announced Tuesday, rejecting opposition allegations of significant vote fraud.Turnout of 32.9 percent of Egypt's nearly 52 million registered voters was quite a bit lower than most other elections since the uprising nearly two years ago that ousted authoritarian leader...

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New Zealand level series thanks to Guptill century

EAST LONDON, South Africa (Reuters) – A brilliant, unbeaten century from opener Martin Guptill led New Zealand to an eight-wicket victory off the final ball against South Africa in the second T20 international on Sunday.Chasing 169 for victory in 19 overs at Buffalo Park, Guptill helped erase the memory of Friday’s embarrassing capitulation to 86 all out in Durban with a stunning batting display as...

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