Downton Abbey: 5 Best Moments from Season 3 Premiere

TV Watch TV News By Aaron Parsley 01/07/2013 at 09:35 AM EST Dame Maggie Smith and Shirley Maclaine on the set of Downton Abbey Nick Briggs Downton Abbey is back! Sunday's two-hour premiere was full of developments – upstairs, downstairs and outside of the Crawleys'...

Read More..

Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.Wait, what?If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked...

Read More..

Stocks dip at open after five-year high

DEAR ABBY: I spent the afternoon running errands. As I left the shopping center, I saw a young couple with a baby and a toddler holding a sign requesting help with food, as the husband had just been laid off. I drove past, then considered the children and circled back. I had no cash with me, so I stopped and offered them our family's dinner -- a jar of premium spaghetti sauce, a pound of fresh ground...

Read More..

IHT Rendezvous: Hints of Taiwan Leading the Way on Same-Sex Marriage in Asia

BEIJING — Will Taiwan become the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2013?Perhaps, judging from recent developments on the island, where the legislature has held its first hearings on the issue, a move that signifies “a major step towards becoming the first Asian territory to approve marriage equality,” the Shanghai-based Web site Shanghaiist reported, citing Gay Star News.In another...

Read More..

Barnes & Noble sells fewer Nooks, retail revenue falls

(Reuters) – Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook unit reported weak holiday season numbers on Thursday as it sold fewer e-readers and tablets at its own stores, and its e-books sales growth slowed, raising questions about the future of its digital business.The Nook, launched in 2009 to compete with Amazon.com Inc‘s market-leading Kindle, has been the cornerstone of Barnes & Noble‘s strategy to counter...

Read More..

Bethenny Frankel Divorcing Jason Hoppy

By Sarah Michaud 01/05/2013 at 05:00 PM EST Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy Albert Michael/Startraks It's official – Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy's marriage is over.Having announced a separation over the holidays, the reality star began the divorce process...

Read More..

FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are...

Read More..

"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week. Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current...

Read More..

Plane Carrying Vittorio Missoni Lost Near Venezuela

MILAN — The Italian fashion designer Vittorio Missoni, the head of the prominent fashion house, was aboard a small plane that has disappeared off the coast of Venezuela, a company spokeswoman said on Saturday. “The Missoni family has been informed by the Venezuelan Consulate that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing, but we don’t know any more,” the spokeswoman, Maddalena Aspes, said....

Read More..

Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the...

Read More..