Actress Kerry Washington wins big at NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Kerry Washington was the big winner at the NAACP Image Awards on Friday, picking up awards for her roles in the slavery-era Western film “Django Unchained” and television drama “Scandal,” as well as a special honor for professional achievement and public service.But on a night that celebrated the successes of artists of color, actor and activist Harry Belafonte struck...

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90. The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore...

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Media Decoder Blog: In Wake of Restructuring, NBC News President Quits

8:30 p.m. | Updated The longest-serving president of any of the three network news divisions, Steve Capus of NBC News, stepped down from his position on Friday, six months after Comcast restructured its news units in a way that diminished his authority.Pat Fili-Krushel, chairwoman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a brief telephone interview on Friday that she would “cast a wide net” while searching...

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Cardinal Mahony relieved of duties over handling of abuse

In a move unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez announced Thursday that he had relieved...

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How a Boat-Plane Hybrid Shattered the Sound Barrier of Sailing

Seen from across Walvis Bay, the windswept patch of Atlantic Ocean known as Speed Spot is barely more than a sparkle of whitecaps against a long, low sandbar. As we get closer to what is one of the world’s most perfect speed-sailing areas, I scan the shore. It’s featureless save for two small shelters. We motor our zodiac toward the remote beach until we have to kill the outboard and tilt...

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Amazon Orders 5 Children’s Shows to Pilot

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Amazon is continuing to beef up its original programming, ordering five potential children’s series to pilot, including shows from the creators of “Blue Clues” and “Rugrats,” the company announced on Thursday.“Creative Galaxy,” “Oz Adventures,” “Teeny Tiny Dogs,” “Tumbleaf” and an untitled J.J. Johnson project will join six other comedy pilots on Amazon Instant Video. Viewers...

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During Trial, New Details Emerge on DuPuy Hip

When Johnson & Johnson announced the appointment in 2011 of an executive to head the troubled orthopedics division whose badly flawed artificial hip had been recalled, the company billed the move as a fresh start. But that same executive, it turns out, had supervised the implant’s introduction in the United States and had been told by a top company consultant three years before the device...

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DealBook: Doubt Is Cast on Consultants Hired to Fix Banks’ Abuses

Federal authorities are scrutinizing private consultants hired to clean up financial misdeeds like money laundering and foreclosure abuses, taking aim at an industry that is paid billions of dollars by the same banks it is expected to police.The consultants operate with scant supervision and produce mixed results, according to government documents and interviews with prosecutors and regulators. In...

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Man behind Manti Te'o hoax wants to 'heal'

The 22-year-old Palmdale man who created Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend broke his silence for the first time, saying he perpetrated...

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<em>New York Times</em> Hacked Again, This Time Allegedly by Chinese

In a dramatic announcement late Wednesday, the New York Times reported that hackers from China had been routing through the paper’s network for at least four months, stealing the passwords of reporters in an apparent attempt to identify sources and gather other intelligence about stories related to the family of China’s prime minister.The hackers breached the network sometime around Sept....

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