The Saturday Profile: In Cindy From Marzahn, an Offbeat Comedian of the People

WHEN a career counselor in the East German town of Luckenwalde asked Ilka Bessin what she wanted to be when she grew up, the teenager answered that she had always wanted to be a clown. “Cook” was also a creative job, the counselor suggested, and a lot more realistic. It was still a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Ms. Bessin (pronounced bess-EEN) ended up an apprentice chef...

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Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) – Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India’s Airtel and South Africa’s MTN on Saturday in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.“The...

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See If You Can Spot the One Color That Popped on the Carpet This Week

Stylewatch Style News Now 12/21/2012 at 12:00 PM ET Getty; Splash News Online; WireImageEven though we didn’t see as many stars on the red carpet this week as last — it’s quiet in Hollywood this holiday season! — we still saw some...

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including...

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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all. A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this...

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IHT Rendezvous: How Was Your Doomsday?

LONDON — One of the most alarming things to have emerged from the hullabaloo over the so-called Mayan doomsday prophecy is how many people in the world actually believed it.A poll earlier this year indicated 1 in 10 people feared the world would end on Friday. That included 1 in 5 Chinese and 1 in 8 Americans.And we skeptical, rational Europeans have no reason to smirk. The Ipsos survey, carried out...

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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $ 1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people you most likely...

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The X Factor: Who Won the Show?

The X Factor 12/20/2012 at 10:10 PM EST from left: Fifth Harmony, Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar Ray Mickshaw/FOX The X Factor ended on a particularly high note for one of the show's finalists Thursday night.L.A. Reid's "Over 25" contestant Tate Stevens,...

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.But since then, Big Pharma has been...

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Fiscal cliff setback rattles global shares, euro

LONDON (Reuters) - Global stock markets weakened on Friday and both the euro and gold slipped, as a new setback in talks to avert a U.S. fiscal crisis and evidence of Europe's ongoing economic difficulties stoked investor nerves. A proposal from Republican leader John Boehner to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff failed to get support from his party on Thursday, casting fresh uncertainty...

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Lebanon’s Shiites and Sunnis Fight in Syria, but Not at Home

Natalie Naccache for The New York TimesA Lebanese man who had been in Homs, Syria, fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. ARSAL, Lebanon — The patchwork of Sunni Muslim and Shiite villages arrayed along the northern border with Syria are heavily embroiled in the protracted struggle there, but with a distinctive twist. Fighters from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement, cross...

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Nexus 4 ad touts Photo Sphere as the go-to app for avoiding holiday family photo headaches [video]

Title Post: Nexus 4 ad touts Photo Sphere as the go-to app for avoiding holiday family photo headaches [video]Rating: 100%based on 99998 ratings.5 user reviews.Author: Fluser SeoLinkThanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comm...

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The X Factor: Finalists Sing for Votes One Last Time

TV Watch The X Factor By Aaron Parsley 12/19/2012 at 10:40 PM EST from left: Fifth Harmony, Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar Ray Mickshaw/FOX Who's going to get a $5 million recording contract?The X Factor's season 2 finale got underway Wednesday night with...

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid...

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Stock index futures point to flat-to-lower start

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-lower open on Wall Street on Thursday. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones were down 0.1 percent, while contracts for the Nasdaq 100 were flat at 5.01 a.m. ET. Japan's Nikkei average dropped on Thursday in active trade after the central bank's third dose of monetary stimulus disappointed the market and...

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