Hollywood hacker honed his skills for years

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Long before Christopher Chaney made headlines by hacking into the email accounts of such stars as Scarlett Johansson and Christina Aguilera, two other women say he harassed and stalked them online.The women, who both knew Chaney, say their lives have been irreparably damaged by his actions. One has anxiety and panic attacks; the other is depressed and paranoid. Both say Chaney was...

Read More..

Debating Gun Control, Post-Newtown

The Newtown (Conn.) elementary school massacre has reignited the debate about gun control. Firearm skeptics demand new restrictions. Gun proponents insist on respect for Second Amendment rights. Like abortion, guns evoke irreconcilable political and cultural cleavages. We live in a big country. Our conflicting values cannot all be neatly squared.Still, rational discussion could lead to better...

Read More..

Keep thimerosal in vaccines: pediatricians

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A mercury-containing preservative should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial.In its statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed calls from a World Health Organization (WHO) committee that the preservative, thimerosal, not be considered a hazardous source of mercury that could be...

Read More..

Kat Von D Accepts DJ Deadmau5′s Marriage Proposal — Via Twitter

Saturday was just another crazy day in the love life of Kat Von D – you know, marriage proposals via Tweet, etc.After a two-month hot and heavy romance with Canadian DJ Deadmau5 (followed by a November breakup), the pair is not only back together, they’re engaged — and it all went down on Twitter.PLAY IT NOW: Meet The Six Little McGhees“I can’t wait for Christmas so…. Katherine Von Drachenberg, will...

Read More..

Iran media: Son of ex-president released on bail

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media say the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been released on bail.Several papers, including the pro-reform Etemad daily, say Mahdi Hashemi was released late Sunday and immediately went to his father’s home.Authorities arrested the younger Hashemi in late September, a day after he returned to Iran from Britain.He is held on charges of fomenting...

Read More..

Robert Zemeckis on taking “Flight” with Denzel Washington – and his socks

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – When director Robert Zemeckis read the script for “Flight,” he knew he was ready to make another live-action movie.The filmmaker’s previous three films – “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf” and “A Christmas Carol” – were shot in the motion-capture technique, in which human actions are recorded, then used to digitally animate computer characters.“When this screenplay came along,...

Read More..

E-Hailing Comes to New York City

Catching a cab in midtown Manhattan at 4:30 on a weekday afternoon is the closest most New Yorkers will ever get to hunting. You have to know the patterns of your prey: its favorite haunts, its preferred routes, its tendency to vanish when your need is most acute (during rainstorms, for example). You have to outwit all the cab-poachers lurking in the shadows.Yesterday, however, New York City emerged...

Read More..

Child deaths and bitter cold in Syrian refugee camps

ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) – One-year-old Ali Ghazawi, born with a heart defect, faced a battle for survival even before his family fled Syria‘s civil war. It was a struggle he lost two weeks ago in the bitter winter cold of a tented refugee camp in north Jordan.Ali died two days after undergoing a heart operation in Zaatari camp, which houses at least 32,000 refugees who escaped fierce bombardment...

Read More..

Tumblr Users Flock to Mashable Comment Thread

Tumblr Is DownWhen Tumblr went down Wednesday evening, users flocked to Mashable to express their rage and disbelief.Click here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: Mysterious Package Addressed to Indiana Jones Arrives at UChicago]Where were you the day that Tumblr went down? Whether you were at home, at work or on the move, it’s possible that you somehow ended up on Mashable. That was the case...

Read More..

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...

Read More..