Banks, regulators reach mortgage settlements

In two of the biggest civil settlements since the financial crisis, the nation's biggest banks agreed Monday to cough up nearly...

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 8

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.SPOILER WARNING:We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer....

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“Downton Abbey” sets PBS record with 7.9 million viewers

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British period drama “Downton Abbey” scored rave reviews and a record 7.9 million viewers for public broadcasting channel PBS as viewers tuned in to watch a wedding and financial calamity during the award-winning show’s third season U.S. premiere on Sunday.Fans witnessed the wedding of Matthew and Lady Mary Crawley, after two seasons in which viewers were kept wondering if...

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Questions for Mississippi Doctor After Thousands of Autopsies

JACKSON, Miss. — For a long time, if a body turned up in Mississippi it had a four-in-five chance of ending up in front of Dr. Steven T. Hayne. Between the late 1980s and the late 2000s, Dr. Hayne had the field of forensic pathology in Mississippi almost to himself, performing thousands of autopsies and delivering his findings around the state as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases....

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Japan’s Cleanup After a Nuclear Accident Is Denounced

Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesBags of contaminated soil outside the Naraha-Minami school near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. NARAHA, Japan — The decontamination crews at a deserted elementary school here are at the forefront of what Japan says is the most ambitious radiological cleanup the world has seen, one that promised to draw on cutting-edge technology from across the globe. ...

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Critics slam Chuck Hagel's likely nomination as Defense secretary

WASHINGTON— ...

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 7

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.SPOILER WARNING:We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer....

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Award-season hopefuls stop in Palm Springs

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — The Award Season Express made its first stop of the new year in the middle of the desert a couple hours east of Hollywood at the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival gala.A blast of Golden Globe nominees and Oscar hopefuls walked the press gauntlet Saturday night, including Naomi Watts (“The Impossible”), Helen Hunt and John Hawkes (“The Sessions”), Ben Affleck...

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Tehran Is Choked by Annual Buildup of Air Pollution

TEHRAN — Already battered by international threats against their nation’s nuclear program, sanctions and a broken economy, Iranians living here in the capital are now trying to cope with what has become an annual pollution peril: a yellowish haze that engulfs Tehran this time of year. For nearly a week, officials here and in other large cities have been calling on residents to remain indoors...

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Looking Ahead: Economic Reports for the Week of Jan. 7

ECONOMIC REPORTS Data to be released this week includes consumer credit for November (Tuesday); weekly jobless claims and wholesale trade inventories for November (Thursday); and the trade deficit for November and import prices for December (Friday). CORPORATE EARNINGS Companies scheduled to release quarterly earnings reports include Monsanto and Alcoa (Tuesday); Constellation Brands...

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