Consumers Win Some Mortgage Safety in New Rules

WASHINGTON — Banks and other lenders will be prohibited from making home loans that offer deceptive teaser rates or require no documentation from borrowers, and will be required to take more steps to ensure that borrowers can repay, under new consumer protections to be announced on Thursday. The rules, being laid out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and taking effect next January,...

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News Analysis: Obama Nominees in Step on Light Footprint

Carolyn Kaster/Associated PressPresident Obama named John O. Brennan, right, as his choice for C.I.A. director and chose Chuck Hagel, left, to be his next defense secretary. WASHINGTON — With the selection of a new national security team deeply suspicious of the wisdom of American military interventions around the world, President Obama appears to have ended, at least for the moment, many of the internal...

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Panasonic considers headcount savings, asset sales in revival plan

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Japan‘s Panasonic Corp may see its headcount fall further and may sell non-core money-making business units to raise cash, president Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters at the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.Hammered by competition from South Korean rivals such as Samsung Electronics, Panasonic may also squeeze wages and seek joint ventures in its semiconductors...

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Judgment day for Bonds, Clemens, Sosa at Hall

NEW YORK (AP) — Judgment day has arrived for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa to find out their Hall of Fame fates.With the cloud of steroids shrouding many candidacies, baseball writers may fail for the only the second time in more than four decades to elect anyone to the Hall.About 600 people are eligible to vote in the BBWAA election, all members of the organization for 10 consecutive...

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Recipes for Health: Cauliflower and Tuna Salad — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesI have added tuna to a classic Italian antipasto of cauliflower and capers dressed with vinegar and olive oil. For the best results give the cauliflower lots of time to marinate. 1 large or 2 small or medium cauliflowers, broken into small florets 1 5-ounce can water-packed light (not albacore) tuna, drained 1 plump garlic clove, minced...

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Safety of Boeing 787 Dreamliner Called Into Question

NEW YORK — For Boeing, much rides on the success of its newest and most sophisticated jet, the 787 Dreamliner. But a spate of mishaps is reviving concerns about the plane’s reliability and safety. The plane had a new problem Wednesday when the Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways cancelled a domestic flight after a computer on board erroneously showed problems with the aircraft’s brakes. A...

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Faceoff in Chinese City Over Censorship of Newspaper

Jonah M. Kessel for The New York TimesA free speech advocate outside of Southern Weekend newspaper in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday. GUANGZHOU, China – Protests over censorship at one of China’s most liberal newspapers descended into ideological confrontation on Tuesday, pitting advocates of free speech against supporters of Communist Party control who wielded red flags and portraits of Mao Zedong....

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals...

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'Bama bashes Notre Dame 42-14 in BCS title game

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Barely taking time to celebrate their latest national championship, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to get back to work.That's how they make it look so easy.In what must be an increasingly frustrating scene for the rest of college football, another season ended with Saban and his players frolicking in the middle of a confetti-strewn field. Eddie Lacy ran...

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The New Old Age Blog: Who Should Receive Organ Transplants?

Joe Gammalo had been contending with pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs, for more than a decade when he came to the Cleveland Clinic in 2008 seeking a lung transplant.“It had gotten to the point where I was on oxygen all the time and in a wheelchair,” he told me in an interview. “I didn’t expect to live.”Lung transplants are a dicey proposition, involving a huge surgical procedure, arduous...

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