The 20 Most-Shared Ads of 2012

1. Kony 2012 (Invisible Children)Most Americans had never heard of Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, before. This March video from advocacy group Invisible Children changed that.Click here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: The 12 Most Memorable Marketing Campaigns of 2012]Is Kony 2012 an ad? If so, it was the most-viral ad of the year. If not, it was just an extremely...

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“Walking Dead” midseason finale preview: attack of the bloodthirsty killers, aka our heroes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – (Spoiler warning: Don’t read this if you don’t want to know what happened this season on “The Walking Dead” or in the comics. We’re also giving some general details about Sunday’s midseason finale.)As eventful as this season of “The Walking Dead” has been, they’re just getting to the best stuff.Showrunner Glen Mazzara tells TheWrap that Sunday’s midseason finale will include...

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Investigation underway into N.J. train derailment, chemical leak

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Federal transportation investigators have begun interviewing the crew of a train that was carrying hazardous materials when it derailed on a railroad bridge in New Jersey, officials said on Saturday.National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said the agency would spend the next two weeks preparing a preliminary report on Friday’s accident in the industrial...

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PM says Greek pension funds won’t join debt buy-back

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek pension funds will not take part in a debt buy-back that is a key part of the country’s international bailout, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in a newspaper interview.Greece must conduct the deal by December 13, before it receives more than 30 billion euros ($ 39 billion) in bailout payments from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.Athens has said...

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Egypt’s Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt‘s President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the...

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Jelly Bean update for DROID RAZR HD and MAXX HD set to roll out next week

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Katy Perry, Carly Rae Jepsen get Billboard honors

NEW YORK (AP) — Billboard named Katy Perry its woman of the year, but the pop star thought her year was 2011.Perry was interviewed by Jon Stewart at Billboard’s Women in Music event Friday in New York City. The singer said she thought her moment had passed. Perry released “Teenage Dream” in 2010, and it sparked five No. 1 hits on the Billboard charts that spilled over to 2011. This year, she rereleased...

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Supreme Court to review lawsuits over flaws in generic drugs

(Reuters) – The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether generic drug manufacturers can be subjected to personal injury lawsuits that allege flaws in the design of drugs, even if federal law would not allow such cases to go forward.The court agreed to review a bid by Mutual Pharmaceutical Co to overturn a $ 21 million jury award to Karen Bartlett, a New Hampshire woman who had taken its...

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S&P 500 posts second week of gains

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 wrapped up its second positive week in a row on Friday, although it ended the day flat as politicians remain at odds about how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 3.22 points, or 0.02 percent, to finish unofficially at 13,025.04. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX>...

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during...

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Sony sells over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles over Black Friday week

Both Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo (NTDOY) had a big week of console sales during Black Friday’s week of shopping madness in the U.S. So how did Sony (SNE) do in comparison? Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton announced on Thursday that the company sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 consoles and 160,000 PS Vita handhelds during the Black Friday week. Overall PlayStation sales...

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FDA approves Exelixis’ cabozantinib for thyroid cancer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Exelixis Inc‘s cabozantinib as a treatment for medullary thyroid cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.Cabozantinib, the company’s lead product candidate, is an oral drug designed to limit blood supply to tumors as well as block two segments of a pathway used by cancer cells to grow and spread.The FDA announcement...

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US growth rate revised up to 2.7%

29 November 2012 Last updated at 10:58 ETThe US economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.7% in the third quarter of the year, revised data has suggested.The figure is significantly higher than the 2% initial estimate that the Commerce Department released just before the presidential election.Much of the growth was due to companies rebuilding their inventories, and is not expected to be sustained.The...

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens...

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Microsoft CEO defends its innovation record, financial results

BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company’s record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders’ meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc‘s iPad.Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world’s largest software company, was one of the first...

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Some women overwhelmed by cancer treatment options

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – More than one in five women with early-stage breast cancer in a new study said they were given too much responsibility for treatment-related decisions – and those patients were more likely to end up regretting the choices they made.The findings don’t mean women should not be fully informed about their treatment options, researchers said, but rather that doctors may need...

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Tunisia secures more loans as protests hit deprived town

TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia, struggling to ease economic difficulties that have provoked unrest since its democratic revolution, said on Wednesday it had secured more international lending to cover its 2013 spending.Tunisia’s new, elected Islamist-led government has sought to revive the economy in the face of a decline in trade with the crisis-hit euro zone and disputes between secularists and hardline...

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Rapper PSY wants Tom Cruise to go ‘Gangnam Style’

BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.PSY’s comments Wednesday...

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Welcome to the Twisted Age of the Twitter Death Threat

Never believe anyone who tells you that the Internet is all nice or all terrible. Just like real life, there are good people and bad ones here. The majority of people behave badly occasionally and decently most of the time. Yes, there are some truly horrible people lurking and behaving in ways consistent to their form, but the thing is, we’re complicated creatures, online and off. So I don’t buy into...

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AIDS fighting spirit flagging, will miss 2015 targets: charity

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world has lost momentum in the fight against the AIDS epidemic, with millions of new people infected last year, the ONE foundation said in a report given on Tuesday.The conclusion contrasts with a UN report last week, which found that an end to AIDS was in sight due to better access to drugs.But ONE says “the beginning of the end of the AIDS” remains out of reach, as the...

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King warns euro risk has grown

27 November 2012 Last updated at 08:46 ETPlease turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Sir Mervyn King: “Mark Carney was the outstanding candidate”The risk posed by the eurozone has grown, the departing Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King has warned.The governor said problems in the eurozone, as well as the US and Asia, lay behind the Bank’s recent pessimism about UK growth prospects...

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Rugby-England add flyhalf Burns to squad for All Blacks’ test

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – England called up uncapped Gloucester flyhalf Freddie Burns on Tuesday to their squad for Saturday’s test against New Zealand in place of the injured Toby Flood.Flood sustained ligament damage to a big toe during the 16-15 loss to South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday.Owen Farrell, whose last start was in the first test in South Africa this year, is set to replace Flood...

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ChannelAdvisor says eBay sales up 57 percent early on Cyber Monday

(Reuters) – ChannelAdvisor said client sales on eBay Inc‘s online marketplace jumped 57 percent from a year before early on Cyber Monday.The sales growth rate was five times higher than during the same period last year, said ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more on websites including Amazon.com Inc and eBay.com.Client sales on Amazon.com were up 52 percent during the first part of Cyber...

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Actor: CBS comedy ‘Two and a Half Men’ is ‘filth’

NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who plays the half in the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men” says it’s “filth” and through a video posted by a Christian church has urged viewers not to watch it.Nineteen-year-old Angus T. Jones has been on the show since he was 10 but says he doesn’t want to be on it. He says, “Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth.”The video was posted...

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U.S. kids getting recommended amount of sleep: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children in the U.S. appear to be getting as much shut-eye as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends, according to a new study.“We can’t say this is the amount that they should be sleeping,” said Jessica Williams, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles.“All we could really do is compare our...

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Feds charge Intrade with illegally allowing bets

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Monday sued Intrade, the online prediction market that gained popularity as an informal oddsmaker for the presidential election, saying it illegally let customers bet on future economic data, the price of gold and even acts of war.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a complaint in federal court that Intrade and its operator solicited customers to trade...

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