Charlie Brown’s Christmas Reunion Will Ruin Your Childhood

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:RELATED: A ‘Straight’ Protest Against Chick-Fil-A; Mark Hamill’s ‘Star Wars’ AuditionSometimes we don’t get...

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‘Hobbit’ bests ‘Rings’ with $84.8 million opening

NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Jackson‘s “The Hobbit” led the box office with a haul of $ 84.8 million, a record-setting opening better than the three previous “Lord of the Rings” films.The Warner Bros. Middle Earth epic was the biggest December opening ever, surpassing Will Smith’s “I Am Legend,” which opened with $ 77.2 million in 2007, according to studio estimates Sunday. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”...

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Daylight savings tied to bump in heart attack rates

(Reuters) – Setting the clock ahead for daylight savings time may set the scene for a small increase in heart attacks the next day, according to a U.S. study – which suggests that sleep deprivation may be to blame.Researchers at two hospitals in the U.S. state of Michigan, whose findings appeared in the American Journal of Cardiology, reviewed six years of records and found that they treated an average...

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Abe’s challenge: Can he give Japan what money can’t buy

TOKYO (Reuters) – Even before Japanese voters returned Shinzo Abe‘s party to power, he had already won over financial markets with an economic revival plan as seductively simple as economists say it is risky: print money and spend it. Lots of it.The Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide on Sunday is likely to sustain a market rally fuelled by economic stimulus hopes, but Abe’s economic legacy will...

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Egyptians hand Islamists narrow win in constitution vote

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptians voted in favor of a constitution shaped by Islamists but opposed by other groups who fear it will divide the Arab world’s biggest nation, officials in rival camps said on Sunday after the first round of a two-stage referendum.Next week’s second round is likely to give another “yes” vote as it includes districts seen as more sympathetic towards Islamists, analysts say, meaning...

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Be Careful When Downloading Your Twitter Archive

Twitter is rolling out the long-awaited feature of downloading your entire tweet history, it seems, but be careful. You might not like what you find in there. Sometimes we remember our tweets with rose-colored lenses.RELATED: ‘Human Virus’ Snakes Through TwitterThe Next Web was the first to notice a few users posting about being able to download their tweet history this weekend. Not everyone...

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Chicano rock pioneers Los Lobos marking 40 years

LOS ANGELES (AP) — They are seen as the progenitors of Chicano rock ‘n’ roll, the first band that had the boldness, and some might even say the naiveté, to fuse punk rock with Mexican folk tunes.It was a group called Los Lobos that had the unusual idea of putting an accordion, a saxophone and something called a bajo sexto alongside drums and Fender Stratocaster guitars and then blasting a ranchera-flavored...

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California home for developmentally disabled faces abuse inquiry

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California health officials have threatened to shut down part of the state’s oldest home for developmentally disabled adults due to evidence of physical abuse and neglect, in a move that could displace nearly 300 of its residents.The state-run Sonoma Developmental Center could lose its license to run one unit if it does not fix the problems, according to a letter the state...

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The VIPs of Ironman Misery

On the Thursday before the 2012 Ironman World Championship in Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii, Troy Ford stood in the lobby of the King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel. Around him were several gaunt men with shaved legs, hands steadying their composite bicycles costing upwards of $ 10,000 each. Ford is the director of the Ironman Executive Challenge program, or XC, as everyone calls it. For $ 9,000,...

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger...

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