NORAD Santa trackers draw record number of phone calls, social media followers

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – NORAD says it drew a record number of phone calls and social media followers during its NORAD Tracks Santa operation on Christmas Eve.The North American Aerospace Defence Command said Friday volunteers answered more than 114,000 calls, up 12,000 from 2011.NORAD’s Santa Facebook page had more than 1.2 million followers, up from about 1 million last year. More than 129,000...

Read More..

Matt Damon tackles “fracking” issue in the “Promised Land”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The hot-button topic of “fracking” has finally made its way to Hollywood in the new movie “Promised Land,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, with actors Matt Damon and John Krasinski teaming up to further the debate on the energy drilling technique.The film explores the social impact of hydraulic fracturing drilling technique, or “fracking,” which has sparked nation-wide environmental...

Read More..

Hospitals, red tape may be limiting tubal ligations

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women in California and Texas have varying access to “getting their tubes tied” immediately after giving birth, according to a new study, but the reasons are still unclear researchers say.Analyzing the records of nearly 890,000 mothers across 499 hospitals in both states, they found that more women in Texas got the voluntary sterilization procedure after delivery in 2009...

Read More..

Reasons to Be Scared of Microsoft Stock

The early days of January are typically a time of unbridled optimism. This will be the year we lose 10 pounds and learn to speak French; Japan will turn itself around; Microsoft (MSFT) stock will pull itself out of a decade of doldrums.Most analysts are betting that the Redmond computer company’s time has come. The company’s fiscal-year revenue has nearly tripled to $ 74 billion in the last 10 years....

Read More..

2 arrested after Guinea treasury chief killed

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials in the West African nation of Guinea say they’ve arrested two suspects in the case of the killing of the country’s treasury chief, who was shot to death nearly two months ago.Authorities paraded the pair in front of journalists Friday. Aissatou Boiro was killed as she was driving home. She had launched an investigation into the loss of 13 million francs ($ 1.8 million)...

Read More..

iOS apps see Christmas sales spike shrink in 2012

Distimo just released its statistics on Christmas Day app downloads and revenue growth… and the download spike is far smaller than it was last year. Back in 2011, Christmas Day iOS app download volume spiked 230% above the December average. This year, the increase was just 87% — far below industry expectations. The revenue spike came in at 70%.[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps...

Read More..

“Rescue Me” singer Fontella Bass dies aged 72

(Reuters) – American soul singer Fontella Bass, who topped the R&B chart in 1965 with the song “Rescue Me,” died in St. Louis. She was 72.Bass died in hospice care on Wednesday night from complications of a heart attack she suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, told Reuters. Bass had also suffered from strokes in recent years.“She’s going to be missed,” Mitchell said. “Her big...

Read More..

Senator McConnell says still time to avert “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republican in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, on Thursday said that there is still time to avert the “fiscal cliff” and a “wholly preventable economic crisis.”In a speech on the Senate floor McConnell warned, however, that Senate Republicans “aren’t about to write a blank check for anything Senate Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of...

Read More..

Factbox: “Fiscal cliff” tax, budget provisions in detail

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The “fiscal cliff” is only days away and efforts to avert it are making little progress, with some U.S. lawmakers predicting the tax increases and federal spending cuts involved will start taking hold in January, unless a deal comes together very quickly.If these jolts to the economy are allowed to occur, a recession could follow, economists have forecast.Consumer spending power...

Read More..

China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China‘s new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.The measures suggest China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors’ anxiety about the Internet’s potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their...

Read More..