Syrian Flood Into Lebanon Stirs Fear of Looming Disaster

QAA, Lebanon — Quietly but inexorably, a human tide has crept into Lebanon, Syria’s smallest and most vulnerable neighbor. As Syrians fleeing civil war pour over the border, the village priest here, Elian Nasrallah, trudges through muddy fields to deliver blankets. His family runs a medical clinic for refugees. When Christian villagers fret about the flood of Sunni Muslims, he replies that...

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Predict the Oscar Winners!

Facebook Tweet Facebook Tweet Cast your vote for who will be the night's big winners Click here to download a printable ballot. Click here to download a printable ballot. Pollscompleted:...

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent...

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Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large. Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling. Talks on the U.S. budget...

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The Saturday Profile: Pavel Astakhov: The Man Behind U.S. Adoption Ban

Mikhail Metzel/Associated PressPavel A. Astakhov at a news conference in Moscow last month. MOSCOW — Long before joining the federal government as Russia’s child rights commissioner and, more recently, becoming the leading force behind a ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans, Pavel A. Astakhov transformed himself into a celebrity lawyer with mass market appeal — no small trick in a...

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Danica Patrick Opens Up About Dating Competitor Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

By Dahvi Shira 02/22/2013 at 07:25 PM EST Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Tom Pennington/NASCAR/Getty Danica Patrick knows mixing business with pleasure isn't wise, but it's not stopping her."I don't think it was a good idea. [But] there was nothing I...

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent...

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Wall Street rebounds on HP results, Fed officials' views

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday as Dow component Hewlett-Packard surged on strong results and comments from Fed officials allayed fears that the central bank would curtail its stimulus measures. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke downplayed worries that the Fed has fueled asset bubbles that could hurt the economy in a private meeting with bond dealers and investors...

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The Lede: Police Brutality, Catalyst for Egypt’s Revolution, Continues Under Morsi

More than two years after tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets on Police Day to demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and an end to impunity for the security forces, activists report that civilians continue to be raped, tortured and killed in police custody.As one of the protesters who marched that day, Adel Abdel Ghafar, recalled in a post for The Lede last year, anger over routine...

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Cressida 'Cress' Bonas: 5 Things About Prince Harry's New Squeeze

By Simon Perry 02/21/2013 at 07:50 PM EST Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas Bauer-Griffin; Splash News Online It's love on the slopes for Prince Harry – who has been spending some of his downtime since returning from Afghanistan rekindling his relationship with society gal Cressida Bonas.With...

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APNewsBreak: Govs to hear Oregon health care plan

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber will brief other state leaders this weekend on his plan to lower Medicaid costs, touting an overhaul that President Barack Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address for its potential to lower the deficit even as health care expenses climb.The Oregon Democrat leaves for Washington, D.C., on Friday to pitch his plan that changes the way doctors...

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Wall Street ends lower on growth worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell for a second straight day on Thursday and the S&P 500 posted its worst two-day loss since November after reports cast doubt over the health of the U.S. and euro-zone economies. But a late-day rally helped stocks erase some of their losses with most of the pullback concentrated in the technology- heavy Nasdaq. The move suggested investors were...

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Cyprus Trial Offers a Rare Look Inside Hezbollah

LIMASSOL, Cyprus — In a little-watched trial in a small courtroom here on Wednesday, a 24-year-old man provided a rare look inside a covert global war between Israel and Iran, admitting that he is an operative of the militant group Hezbollah, for which he acted as a courier in Europe and staked out locations in this port city that Israelis were known to frequent. Breaking with the group’s...

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Oscar Preview: Les Mis, Chicago Casts to Sing & Dance

By Stephen M. Silverman 02/20/2013 at 07:00 PM EST From left: Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, in Les Misérables, and Catherine Zeta Jones, in Chicago Universal (2); Miramax Strike up the band, for Sunday night's Oscars promise to be very musical.In the most detailed preview yet of what is...

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Agency checks water after body found in hotel tank

LOS ANGELES (AP) — British tourist Michael Baugh and his wife said water had only dribbled out of the taps at the downtown Cecil Hotel for days.On Tuesday, after showering, brushing their teeth and drinking some of the tap water, they headed down to the lobby and found out why.The body of a Canadian woman had been discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near...

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Wall Street ends down sharply after Fed minutes

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't...

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Pistorius Denies Murdering Girlfriend

PRETORIA, South Africa — Early on Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius says, he heard a strange noise coming from inside his bathroom, climbed out of bed, grabbed his 9-millimeter pistol, hobbled on his stumps to the door and fired four shots. “I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated,” Mr. Pistorius said in an affidavit read Tuesday to a packed courtroom by his...

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What's Next for Mindy McCready's Two Young Boys?

By Steve Helling 02/19/2013 at 07:00 PM EST Mindy McCready's apparent suicide on Sunday has left her two young sons in custodial limbo.The boys – Zander, 6, and Zayne, 10 months – had been in state custody since Feb. 7, when McCready called police to ask for help in making her father and stepmother leave her...

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines."The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed...

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M&A deals lift Wall Street shares nearer a record high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as this year's ongoing surge in merger activity suggested investors were still finding value in the market even as indexes closed in on all-time highs. Office Depot Inc surged 9.4 percent to $5.02 after a person familiar with the matter said the No. 2 U.S. office supply retailer was in advanced talks to merge with smaller rival OfficeMax...

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For His Second Act, Japanese Premier Plays It Safe, With Early Results

Toru Hanai/ReutersPrime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose policies have sent the Tokyo stock market up, will visit Washington this week. TOKYO — Since taking office less than two months ago, Japan’s outspokenly hawkish new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has been in what some political analysts are calling “safe driving mode.” He has carefully avoided saying or doing anything to provoke other Asian nations,...

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Mindy McCready: Under Police Scrutiny at Time of Suicide?

By Steve Helling and Mike Fleeman 02/18/2013 at 06:00 PM EST Mindy McCready and David Wilson Courtesy Mindy McCready When Mindy McCready talked to police in recent weeks, her account of how her boyfriend came to be found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head...

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models...

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