India Ink: Newswallah: Bharat Edition

Jammu and Kashmir: Due to heavy snowfall in the Kashmir region, state authorities on Friday dispatched police teams to evacuate residents of the avalanche-prone Waltengu Nad area in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, according to a PTI report on the IBN Live web site. This area was badly affected by avalanches in 2005 that killed dozens and displaced hundreds.Assam: The state was awarded the “Krishi...

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How Your Great-Grandmother’s Hobby Is Transforming One Alabama Town

Natalie Chanin’s life-changing epiphany struck while standing on a New York City street corner.For days, she had traversed throughout the city with a trash bag of her deconstructed T-shirts, seeking a manufacturer to help her make them. None of them, however, understood what kind of stitching she wanted on her creations, which had become popular in New York fashion circles after she made one on a...

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Te'o tells ESPN: Not involved in creating hoax

NEW YORK (AP) — Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o insisted he had no role in the bizarre hoax involving his "dead" girlfriend and told ESPN on Friday night that he was duped by a person who has since apologized to him.In an off-camera interview Friday with ESPN, Te'o said Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old acquaintance who lives in California, contacted him two days ago and confessed to the prank. Deadspin.com...

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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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Sergei Filin, Bolshoi Ballet Director, Is Victim of Acid Attack

MOSCOW – A masked man threw acid in the face of Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the legendary Bolshoi Ballet, on Thursday night, leaving him with third-degree burns and possibly threatening his eyesight, Bolshoi officials said on Friday morning. The attack followed a series of anonymous threats to Mr. Filin, 42, a dancer who rose through the ranks of the world’s largest ballet company...

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Let’s Talk

Hi!I’m Mark Atwood, and I’m the Director of Open Source Evangelism for HP Cloud Services.  I’ve been working at HPCS for several months now, getting a feel for HP and our place in the open source and OpenStack® community.I’ve been evangelizing open source for decades, since before “Evangelist” was a technology industry job title, since I was a teenager in high school, when I first read rms’s...

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Armstrong admits doping: 'I'm a flawed character'

CHICAGO (AP) — He did it. He finally admitted it. Lance Armstrong doped.He was light on the details and didn't name names. He mused that he might not have been caught if not for his comeback in 2009. And he was certain his "fate was sealed" when longtime friend, training partner and trusted lieutenant George Hincapie, who was along for the ride on all seven of Armstrong's Tour de France wins from...

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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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Standoff Develops After Militants Seize Hostages in Algeria

Kjetil Alsvik/Statoil, via ReutersAn undated photo of the In Amenas gas field in Algeria, where Islamist militants took at least 20 foreign hostages on Wednesday. BAMAKO, Mali — As the French military assault on Islamist extremists in Mali escalated into a potentially much broader North African conflict, a tense standoff developed on Thursday between Algerian troops and armed attackers who seized...

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You Can Use Facebook for Free Cellphone Calls Now

Wait, what?RELATED: Facebook’s Faster iPhone App Isn’t Fast EnoughYes, theoretically you can kis those talk-time minutes from your cellphone data plan goodbye — as long as you’re content to have all your voice conversation with other Facebook users over data or Wi-Fi by way of your Messenger app. It’s called Voice Over Internet Protocol talking, and it’s the same thing that was supposed to help Skype...

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Manti Te'o girlfriend's death apparently a hoax

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Not long before Notre Dame played Michigan State last fall, word spread that Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te'o had lost his grandmother and girlfriend within hours of each other.Te'o never missed a practice and made a season-high 12 tackles, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery in a 20-3 victory against the Spartans. His inspired play became a stirring story line for...

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Some With Autism Diagnosis Can Recover, Study Finds

Doctors have long believed that disabling autistic disorders last a lifetime, but a new study has found that some children who exhibit signature symptoms of the disorder recover completely. The study, posted online on Wednesday by the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, is the largest to date of such extraordinary cases and is likely to alter the way that scientists and parents...

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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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India Ink: India's Man Problem

As India grapples with what seems like a constant barrage of shocking acts of violence against women, one question is asked again and again: Why is this happening?One answer, some experts say, is India’s gender ratio, distorted by the practice of sex selection in favor of baby boys.A much-cited 2002 study,“A Surplus of Men, a Deficit of Peace,” by Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea den Boer, contends that...

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