The Onion apologizes for 'crude' actress tweet

NEW YORK (AP) — The Onion is apologizing for calling the 9-year-old star of "Beasts of the Southern Wild" a vulgar and offensive name on Twitter, an attack that led to a firestorm online.The satirical newspaper on Sunday referred to Quvenzhane Wallis with an expletive intended to denigrate women. The Onion was lambasted overnight and asked for forgiveness Monday."It was crude and offensive — not to...

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Recipes for Health: Root Vegetable Sweetness — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesLast week I got a Facebook message from a Recipes for Health fan that said: “Help! Drowning in pounds of root vegetables from CSA…would love recipes for sweet potatoes, yellow potatoes, and carrots…” Since root vegetables and tubers keep well and can be cooked up into something delicious even after they have begun to go limp in the refrigerator, this week’s Recipes...

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NBC’s Ratings Plummet From First to Worst

Will Hart/NBCMegan Hilty, left, and Katharine McPhee in “Smash,” which is back for a second season but is still struggling. With every passing week, the sudden blossoming of prime-time success that NBC experienced last fall is looking more like a mirage. Patrick Harbron/NBC“Do No Harm,” with Stephanie Roth Haberle and Steven Pasquale, was canceled quickly. ...

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Karzai Orders U.S. Forces Out of Afghan Province

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's president on Sunday ordered all U.S. special forces to leave a strategically important eastern province within two weeks because of allegations that Afghans working with them are torturing and abusing other Afghans. The decision seems to have caught the coalition and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, a separate command, by surprise. Americans have frequently...

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Oscars have clear favorites, wild-card MacFarlane

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some firsts and other rarities are possible at Sunday night's Academy Awards. But if the Oscars could be just a little less predictable, the show might really be one for the record books.Ben Affleck's "Argo" looks like it will uniquely claim best picture without a directing nomination, while "Lincoln" filmmaker Steven Spielberg and star Daniel Day-Lewis are favored to join exclusive...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps...

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North Korea Threatens U.S. Over Military Drill

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday warned the top American military commander in South Korea that if the United States pressed ahead with joint military exercises with South Korea scheduled to begin next month, it could set off a war in which American forces would “meet a miserable destruction.” The warning came as the United States and South Korean militaries planned to kick off...

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Oscars expand social media outreach for 85th show

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is encouraging celebrities to tweet during the Oscars.The film organization has expanded its digital outreach for the 85th Academy Awards with a new feature that lets stars to snap photos of themselves backstage during Sunday's ceremony and instantly post them online.What Twitter calls a "Magic Mirror" will take photo-booth-style pictures...

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve HortonCapt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq. The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones. “Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors...

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Many States Say Cuts Would Burden Fragile Recovery

States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington’s latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession. Some states, like Maryland and Virginia, are vulnerable because their economies are heavily dependent on federal workers,...

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