Panel seeks solutions to school absenteeism

At a West Side town hall meeting Saturday, a panel of elected officials and community activists decried Chicago’s crisis in...

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Afghan singer’s star is rising, as are the threats

KABUL (Reuters) – With a scarf loosely covering a fancy television hairstyle, Latifa Azizi raised her arms in victory after surviving another elimination round on the hit talent show, “Afghan Star“.But the victory pales into insignificance when compared with the larger battle 17-year-old Azizi is fighting – to pursue her dream of becoming a famous singer despite the censure of ultra-conservative Afghan...

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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 Fayetteville, Ga. He was 90. The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap...

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Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.The...

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Apple TV Is Running Late

So, Apple‘s big plan to talk cable companies into making the iPod of the television industry thus far involves getting Time Warner to let it put HBO Go on its box (if you buy a cable subscription!), something other similar boxes already do. How very unexciting. It’s surprising that Apple TV doesn’t already offer HBO Go, since its biggest competitors Roku and Xbox 360...

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Killer fired at least 10 times at woman on Lake Shore Drive

A 32-year-old woman was shot and killed inside a Dodge mini-van...

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Julia Stiles Joins Mary Pickford Biopic ‘The First’

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Julia Stiles has joined the cast of the Mary Pickford biopic “The First” to play famed screenwriter Frances Marion, Poverty Row Entertainment announced Thursday.Marion was the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, taking the prize in 1930 for “The Big House.” She collaborated often with Pickford, writing the scripts for “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” and “The...

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The New Old Age: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked...

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Apple phones outsell Samsung in the U.S. in the fourth quarter

Bolstered by sales of its iPhone 5, Apple sold more mobile phones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter than any other maker, including...

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Google moves closer to resolving EU investigation

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google has offered to take specific steps to allay competition regulators’ concerns about its business practices, in a major move towards ending a two-year investigation and avoiding billions of dollars in fines.The European Commission said on Friday it had received detailed proposals from the world’s most popular search engine, which has been under investigation following complaints...

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