Michigan moves to No. 1 in AP poll

Michigan is No. 1 in The Associated Press' college basketball poll for the first time since its Fab Five days 20 years ago.For the second straight week the No. 1 team lost. This time it was Duke, which was routed 90-63 by Miami in the third-worst defeat by a top-ranked team.Michigan received 51 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel Monday. Kansas moved up one spot to No. 2 and...

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Well: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have...

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The Media Equation: ‘South Park’ Creators Fortify Their Content Empire

When it comes to success stories in the entertainment world, it doesn’t get much better than the one about a pair of regular guys from Colorado, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who took cutout paper dolls, animated them and triumphed on cable television, on the Web, at the multiplex and on Broadway. Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMatt Stone, left, and Trey Parker are...

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The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Victims of the fire are attended by medics. An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror, with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and on the street.At least 232 people were killed, many of them students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs at a local university, police officials...

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Smartphone pioneer RIM looks to put recent hardships behind it with BB10

TORONTO, Cananda – Once a leader but now derided as a laggard, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion hopes to regain the confidence of cynical smartphone users this week as the curtain is lifted on its much-anticipated new smartphones.The stakes are high for the unveiling, which many observers say will determine whether RIM survives to see the launch of another BlackBerry smartphone.It has been a steep...

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Celtics PG Rondo tore right ACL; surgery expected

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Celtics star point guard Rajon Rondo has torn his anterior cruciate ligament.The injury usually takes up to a year for recovery, and he is expected to have surgery on his right knee.The Celtics had lost six straight games heading into the Sunday afternoon meeting with the Miami Heat. Rondo reported to the arena for a pregame shootaround but was taken to a hospital after complaining...

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Brain Aging Linked to Sleep-Related Memory Decline

For decades scientists have known that the ability to remember newly learned information declines with age, but it was not clear why. A new study may provide part of the answer. The report, posted online on Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience, suggests that structural brain changes occurring naturally over time interfere with sleep quality, which in turn blunts the ability to store...

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Unboxed: Literary History, Seen Through Big Data’s Lens

ANY list of the leading novelists of the 19th century, writing in English, would almost surely include Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain. But they do not appear at the top of a list of the most influential writers of their time. Instead, a recent study has found, Jane Austen, author of “Pride and Prejudice, “ and Sir Walter Scott, the creator...

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Riots Grip Egyptian City After Soccer Verdict

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Hackers claim attack on Justice Department website

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hackers sympathetic to the late computer prodigy Aaron Swartz claimed on Saturday to have infiltrated the website of the U.S. Justice Department’s Sentencing Commission, and said they planned to release government data.The Sentencing Commission site, www.ussc.gov , was shut down early Saturday.Identifying themselves as Anonymous, a loosely organized group of unknown provenance...

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