Newtown celebrates Christmas amid signs of mourning

NEWTOWN, Conn. - Newtown celebrated Christmas amid piles of snow-covered teddy bears and heaps of flowers as volunteers manned a 24-hour candlelight vigil in memory of the 20 children and six adults shot to death in the second-largest school shooting in U.S. history.Well-wishers from around the country showed up Tuesday morning to hang ornaments on memorial Christmas trees, while police officers from...

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Bolivia’s Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

HAVANA (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn’t confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came “to express his support” for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales’...

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Facebook Shrugs Off Instagram’s New Class Action Lawsuit

For Instagram, there’s good news and there’s bad news about the class action lawsuit just filed against them. Bad news first: Somebody just filed a class action lawsuit. Good news: the lawyers from Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, have plenty of practice getting rid of these pesky things. That might explain why they’re so dismissive about the legal inconvenience a group of disgruntled Instagram...

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Thousands sign U.S. petition to deport Piers Morgan over gun comments

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – More than 48,000 people have signed a petition that they posted on the White House website demanding that British CNN talk show host Piers Morgan be deported over comments he made on air about gun control.Morgan last week lambasted pro-gun guests on his show, after the December 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman shot dead...

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Allergies, extra weight tied to bullying

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Kids who have food allergies or are overweight may be especially likely to get bullied by their peers, two new studies suggest.Not surprisingly, researchers also found targets of bullying were more distressed and anxious and had a worse quality of life, in general, than those who weren’t picked on.Bullying has become a concern among parents, doctors and school administrators...

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Nasty weather threatens Gulf Coast for Christmas

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nasty weather, including a chance of strong tornadoes and howling thunderstorms, could be on the way for Christmas Day along the Gulf Coast from east Texas to north Florida.The storms held off long enough, though, to let Christmas Eve bonfires light the way for Pere Noel along the Mississippi River, officials said.Farther north, much of Oklahoma and Arkansas were under a winter...

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Syria jets kill tens as international envoy visits

BEIRUT (AP) — A government airstrike on a bakery in a rebel-held town in central Syria killed more than 60 people on Sunday, activists said, casting a pall over a visit by the international envoy charged with negotiating an end to the country’s civil war.The strike on the town of Halfaya left scattered bodies and debris up and down a street, and more than a dozen dead and wounded were trapped in tangled...

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Barbra Streisand goes on a “Guilt Trip” with Seth Rogen

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Road-trip movies have been dominated by teenagers on wild adventures or “Hangover” style bro-mances, but Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen are driving the genre into new territories with mother-son comedy “The Guilt Trip” to usher in the holiday season.“The Guilt Trip,” which hits U.S. theaters this week, follows struggling novice inventor Andy (Seth Rogen), who is guilted in...

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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm,...

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NRA chief LaPierre fires back at his critics

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre fired back at his critics today, defending his proposal to put armed guards in every school in the country as a way to prevent future tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults."If it's crazy to call for armed officers in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," the head of...

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