Somber Chávez to Have Surgery and Names Successor

ORURO, Bolivia — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela announced Saturday in Caracas that he would have to undergo another operation for cancer, and he designated his vice president, Nicolás Maduro, as his successor if he should prove unable to continue to lead the country. Mr. Chávez, appearing somber and contemplative, made the announcement in a televised address from the presidential palace....

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Jason Aldean's Holiday Plans: Visiting Santa with His Kids

By Eileen Finan 12/08/2012 at 06:30 PM EST Jessica Ussery and Jason Aldean Bauer-Griffin After a year of professional highs – and personal lows – Jason Aldean is looking forward to a quiet holiday with family."I'm on the road so much during the year, so what I...

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they...

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Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter AnymoreIf we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s...

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Rebel Groups in Syria Make Framework for Military

ANTALYA, Turkey — Military commanders of the main Free Syrian Army units from all over Syria agreed Friday to a unified command structure, bowing to intense pressure from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who the fighters said promised more advanced weapons once a central military council was in place. The agreement, the product of three days of intensive talks among more than 260 rebel commanders,...

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Susan Powell's Father-in-Law Secretly Took 4,500 Pictures of Her

12/07/2012 at 07:30 PM EST Wrapping up a year that has brought unimaginable frustration and heartbreak, Susan Powell's family marked the three-year anniversary of her disappearance at a ceremony this week near where her two sons are buried."It's a hard time of year," Susan's father, Chuck Cox, tells PEOPLE....

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Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter.Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Internet search company‘s corporate development group, which oversees mergers and acquisitions, said the source, who spoke...

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Wall Street Week Ahead: "Cliff" worries may drive tax selling

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors typically sell stocks to cut their losses at year end. But worries about the "fiscal cliff" - and the possibility of higher taxes in 2013 - may act as the greatest incentive to sell both winners and losers by December 31. The $600 billion of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled for the beginning of next year includes higher rates for capital...

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The Human Price: Bangladesh Fire Exposes Safety Gap in Supply Chain

ASHULIA, Bangladesh — The fire alarm shattered the monotony of the Tazreen Fashions factory. Hundreds of seamstresses looked up from their machines, startled. On the third floor, Shima Akhter Pakhi had been stitching hoods onto fleece jackets. Now she ran to a staircase. But two managers were blocking the way. Ignore the alarm, they ordered. It was just a test. Back to work. A few women laughed...

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The X Factor Reveals Its Four Semi-Finalists

TV Watch The X Factor By Aaron Parsley 12/06/2012 at 09:20 PM EST There were tears on The X Factor Thursday night. With only four spots in next week's semi-finals, the six acts who performed two songs each Wednesday night were a tense bunch. Especially after last week's shocking elimination that sent home fan...

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans...

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Minecraft sells almost 4.5 million copies on Xbox 360 as other indie games continue to struggle

Big-budget games such as Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II might brag about how they rule the Xbox 360 in terms of sales, but indie games can also compete – if they’re addictive enough and offer enough value. Take Minecraft, an indie game developed by Markus “Notch” Persson’s company Mojang. According to Mojang, Minecraft, an indie game originally made for PC and...

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Asia shares edge higher, focus on U.S. jobs

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares touched fresh 16-month highs on Friday following modest overnight gains in global equities as investors watched progress in U.S. budget talks with expectations for an eventual deal and awaited U.S. nonfarm payrolls data later in the day. The euro hovered near a one-week low against the dollar, having fallen after the European Central Bank painted a bleak...

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3 Walmart Suppliers Made Goods in Bangladesh Factory

Khurshed Rinku/Associated PressBurials on Nov. 27 for some of the 112 victims of the garment factory fire in Bangladesh. Documents found at the Tazreen apparel factory in Bangladesh, where 112 workers died in a fire nearly two weeks ago, indicate that three American garment companies were using the factory during the past year to supply goods to Walmart and its Sam’s Club subsidiary. The...

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST James and Pippa Middleton Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where...

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities...

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In brewing rivalry, Instagram trims ties to Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram removed a key element of its integration with Twitter, signaling a deepening rift between two of the Web’s dominant social media companies.Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said Wednesday his company turned off support for Twitter “cards” in order to drive Twitter users to Instagram’s own website. Twitter...

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Changing of the Guard: How Crash Cover-Up Altered China’s Succession

BEIJING — “Thank you. I’m well. Don’t worry,” read the post on a Chinese social networking site. The brief comment, published in June, appeared to come from Ling Gu, the 23-year-old son of a high-powered aide to China’s president, and it helped quash reports that he had been killed in a Ferrari crash after a night of partying. It only later emerged that the message was a sham, posted by someone...

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The Voice Reveals Top Four Contestants

TV Watch By Julia Haskins 12/04/2012 at 09:35 PM EST The Voice"'s top six contestants were under double pressure Monday night when they had to sing two songs each. But there was even more stress at Tuesday's elimination. "It went as well as it could have gone," Team Blake's Terry McDermott said on Monday of his...

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require...

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Wall Street slips as investors seek cliff progress

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act. Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes and federal spending cuts that would begin January 1 and could push the economy into recession. ...

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Larissa Journal: Greek Brothel Owner Rescues Larissa Soccer Club

Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesMs. Alevridou's support of Voukefalas has caused an uproar. LARISSA, Greece — Her soccer club looked ragged. Strikers jumped up for headers only to miss the ball entirely. Players tumbled over one another, shouting out accusations that they had been fouled. But in the bleachers, Soula Alevridou, or “Madam Soula,” as she is known in these parts, watched...

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PHOTO: See Molly Mesnick's Baby Belly

Noah GrahamHappy holidays! Celebrities gathered to celebrate the season Saturday, attending the Second Annual Santa’s Secret Workshop in West Hollywood, Calif. Presented by Bill Horn and Scout Masterson and held at the Andaz Hotel, the event benefitted L.A. Family Housing.Among the revelers: Bachelor alums Jason and Molly Mesnick — whose first child together is due in March — attending their first...

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