Square Feet: Pier 17 Mall Has Upgrades Planned After Hurricane Sandy

SHoP ArchitectsA rendering shows plans to transform the Pier 17 shopping mall at South Street Seaport. Nearly two months after Hurricane Sandy devastated the South Street Seaport on the East River in Lower Manhattan, Dumpsters still line its cobblestone streets and nearly all of the stores west of Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive remain closed. But the storm surge largely spared Pier 17, the seaport’s...

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Jack Klugman dies at 90; star of TV's 'The Odd Couple,' 'Quincy'

Jack Klugman, the three-time Emmy Award-winning actor best known for his portrayals of slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV's “The Odd Couple” and the title role...

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Army Goes Goth With 'Super-Black' Materials

Get ready to break out the eyeliner and the candelabras, because the Army is going goth.In its latest round of solicitations for small businesses, the Army is asking for proposals for super-black material. That is, material so black that it absorbs 99 percent of all light. But it isn’t really black paint, exactly. The plan is to use either an “antireflective coating or surface treatment process...

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Holiday music stops at Irving Berlin’s NY door

NEW YORK (AP) — A caroling group that for 35 years has performed the Irving Berlin classic “White Christmas” on Christmas Eve outside the New York City home where he lived has cancelled the tradition.A group spokesman says the plans were abruptly cancelled last week for lack of space at the Manhattan home, which now serves as the Luxembourg consulate.The tradition started in the late 1970s with one...

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News Analysis: Getting Polio Campaigns Back on Track

How in the world did something as innocuous as the sugary pink polio vaccine turn into a flash point between Islamic militants and Western “crusaders,” flaring into a confrontation so ugly that teenage girls — whose only “offense” is that they are protecting children — are gunned down in the streets? Nine vaccine workers were killed in Pakistan last week in a terrorist campaign that brought...

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U.S. Tennis Assn. reinstates umpire who was suspended

Lois "Lolo" Goodman was reinstated last week as a professional tennis umpire in the wake of a decision by prosecutors to drop...

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Dec. 24

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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Bethenny Frankel and husband of 2 years separating

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.The 42-year-old TV personality, chef, author and entrepreneur told The Associated Press Sunday that the split brings her “great sadness.”“This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said. “We have love and respect for one another and will...

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Well: With Help Here and There, Preserving Independence in Old Age

My 92-year-old aunt, who is cognitively impaired and requires a walker or wheelchair to get around, still lives in her own apartment, where round-the-clock home health aides help her get to and from the bathroom, bathe, dress and undress, and go outside each day for some fresh air. The aides shop, prepare and serve meals, do light housekeeping and make sure she takes her medications on time.But last...

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E-Book Price War Has Yet to Arrive

Thor Swift for The New York TimesA Google e-reader is displayed at a bookstore. Sales of e-books for the devices have slowed this year. Right about now, just as millions of e-readers and tablets are being slipped under Christmas trees, there was supposed to be a ferocious price war over e-books. Last spring, the Justice Department sued five major publishers and Apple on e-book price-fixing...

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