State prisons not ready to end court oversight, official says

SACRAMENTO — A court-appointed monitor said Friday that Gov. Jerry Brown's quest to end judicial oversight in state prisons...

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Sunset on Mars

On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of...

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Barbra Streisand to receive Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Barbra Streisand will add the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award to her roster of honors, in recognition of her achievement as a director, writer, producer and film star, the group said on Friday.Streisand, who shot to fame in the 1960s on Broadway and as a major recording star, will receive the honor at the 40th Annual Chaplin Award gala in New York on April 22 which...

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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control

Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency...

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Analysis: Amid Tears Lance Armstrong Leaves Unanswered Questions in Oprah Winfrey Interview

In an extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey that was shown over two nights, Lance Armstrong admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his cycling career. He revealed that all seven of his Tour de France victories were fueled by doping, that he never felt bad about cheating, and that he had covered up a positive drug test at the 1999 Tour with a backdated doctor’s prescription...

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Colorado movie theater reopens after shooting

AURORA, Colo. — A quiet crowd gathered Thursday at what is now Century Aurora for an "evening of remembrance." Young employees...

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Turn Your Facebook Data Into a 3-D Printed Desktop Ornament

Your Facebook profile contains some of your most private photos and communications. It traces your past and current relationships and has become the focus for an ongoing debate about privacy, advertising, and security in the time of social media. But is it art?In a new partnership announced yesterday between Shapeways and The Creators Project, it has the potential to be. Three artists have...

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Sorry, Spike: “Django Unchained” is now Quentin Tarantino’s highest-grossing movie

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Maybe Spike Lee helped “Django Unchained” more than he hurt it.Despite Lee’s plea that audiences stay away from Quentin Tarantino’s violent slave-revenge film for being “disrespectful to my ancestors,” “Django” has become Tarantino’s highest grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, the Weinstein Company announced Thursday.It has taken in nearly $ 129 million since...

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The Neediest Cases: Medical Bills Crush Brooklyn Man’s Hope of Retiring

Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesJohn Concepcion and his wife, Maria, in their home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. They are awaiting even more medical bills. Retirement was just about a year away, or so John Concepcion thought, when a sudden health crisis put his plans in doubt. For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families...

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DealBook: Michael Dell’s Empire in a Buyout Spotlight

The computer empire of Michael S. Dell spreads across a campus of low-slung buildings in Round Rock, Tex.But his financial empire — estimated at $16 billion — occupies the 21st floor of a dark glass skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.It is there that MSD Capital, started by Mr. Dell 15 years ago to manage his fortune, has quietly built a reputation as one of the smartest investors on Wall Street....

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European regulators ground the Boeing 787 Dreamliner

European regulators ordered all Boeing 787 Dreamliners grounded Thursday, following the lead of U.S. aviation safety officials....

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Secret Nuclear Redesign Will Keep U.S. Subs Running Silently for 50 Years

The U.S. Navy is betting the future of its submarine force on a secret and revolutionary nuclear drive system that aspires to be more efficient and quieter than anything under the water today.The heart of the planned ballistic missile Ohio Replacement (OR) program will be built around a drive that will not need to be refueled for the 50-year life of the boats and cuts out potentially noisy...

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Sniping, then singing as ‘American Idol’ returns

LOS ANGELES (AP) — There was no hair-pulling between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj on the season debut of “American Idol,” although some viewers may have been reduced to it.The pop divas exchanged insults worthy of middle schoolers, fellow freshman judge Keith Urban looked trapped between them, and there was a whiff of make-believe Wednesday about the show’s touted feud.“We can have accessories. I...

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The New Old Age Blog: Officials Say Checks Won't Be in the Mail

The jig is up.Two years ago, the Treasury Department initiated its Go Direct campaign to persuade people still receiving paper checks for their Social Security, Veterans Affairs, S.S.I. and other federal benefits to switch to direct deposit.“At that point, we were issuing approximately 11 million checks each month,” or about 15 percent of the total, Walt Henderson, director of the campaign, told me.After...

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Regulators Around the Globe Ground Boeing 787s

Kyodo News, via ReutersThe 787 that made an emergency landing in Japan on Wednesday. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated safely. Regulators around the globe ordered the grounding of Boeing 787s on Thursday until they could determine what caused a new type of battery to catch fire on two planes in recent days. The directives in Europe, India and Japan followed an order Wednesday...

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Confession could be bad for Lance Armstrong's bank account

Now that Lance Armstrong has finally admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during his storied athletic career, the shamed...

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Here They Are — The Best Comic Books of 2013!

Okay, fine: Comic books aren’t the most predictable things ever. We've seen fantastic comics take a sudden turn and become all but unreadable, and seen comics no one heard of until two seconds ago skyrocket to greatness. But we can still make some pretty good guesses about the most promising comics, graphic novels, and collected editions on the horizon -- or even if we can’t, we’re about to give it...

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A Minute With: Patti Smith on her photography show

TORONTO (Reuters) – Singer Patti Smith is best known for her rock ‘n’ roll songs from the punk era of the 1970s, but visitors to a new photo exhibition will see a different side of the musician, poet and artist.The 70 photos in Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) “Camera Solo” show, which runs from February 9 to May 19, include poetic images of gravestones, religious iconography and objects that...

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The New Old Age Blog: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Do face masks help prevent people from getting the flu? And if so, how much protection do they give?You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious...

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DealBook: Analyst Sentenced to 4 Years in a Turbulent Insider Case

For two years, John Kinnucan waged a nasty battle with the Justice Department, mocking F.B.I. agents and threatening prosecutors as they investigated him for insider trading.On Tuesday, the government secured a victory in its war with Mr. Kinnucan when a judge sentenced him to four years and three months in prison. He appeared in Federal District Court in Manhattan before Judge Deborah A. Batts, who...

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SoCal Edison destroyed downed poles before inspection

A state probe into the widespread power outages caused by a furious 2011 windstorm was unable to determine whether toppled utility...

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Vintage Manuals Reveal The DIY Ethos of Classic Gear

We love to fix things. And we figured we're not alone. It's a habit of the inquisitive mind — see how something works, learn its quirks, and figure out why it's busted and what to do about it. Sometimes you need a little help, though, and an instruction manual can go a long way. Yeah, yeah, manuals are all PDFs now. But there's nothing like an old, preferably grease-stained...

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Variance Films Picks Up Jay-Z Produced ‘An Oversimplification of Her Beauty’

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Variance Films has acquired North American distributions rights to “An Oversimplification of Her Beauty,” Terence Nance‘s debut film executive produced by Jay-Z, Dream Hampton, Joy Bryant and comedian Wyatt Cenac.Variance will release the movie in theaters April 12 while Cinema Guild handles downstream releases, such as DVD and digital.Nance’s film explores the relationship...

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