NEWS
June 17, 2013 | By Chico Harlan, Washington Post
SEOUL - North Korea on Sunday proposed wide-ranging "senior-level" talks with the United States, an offer it said Washington should accept without setting any "preconditions" about denuclearization. The North's proposal marked the latest attempt at reconciliation for a family-run police state that spent much of March and April making threats. In a statement issued by its state-run news agency and attributed to the National Defense Commission, a top policy body, North Korea said the talks should be used to defuse "military tensions," draft a peace treaty for the peninsula, and discuss mutual denuclearization.
NEWS
June 9, 2013 | By Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, a candidate in this week's presidential elections, vowed Saturday he will reset the country's economy and reverse President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foreign policy stance if elected. Addressing a campaign rally in Tehran, Hasan Rowhani said his priority in foreign policy would be to "reconcile" with the outside world and distance Iran from Ahmadinejad's combative, hard-line style. Iran's president does not have control of central issues like nuclear policy, but a president who has a close relationship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can wield influence.
NEWS
June 7, 2013 | BY GARY THOMPSON, Daily News Staff Writer thompsg@phillynews.com, 215-854-5992
LAST TIME we saw Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson making mischief together was "Wedding Crashers" - being, as Vaughn put it then, "young and stupid. " Wilson's response: "We're not that young. " And that was eight years ago, before Wilson entered his Brian Wilson-ish "Drillbit Taylor" period, including "Marley and Me" and a gig as the voice of Marmaduke. That would put visible miles on any man. Now the duo is back, turning their over-the-hill-gang status into a running joke in their reunion comedy "The Internship.
NEWS
June 2, 2013 | By Al Haas, For The Inquirer
Over a period of time, automakers engender certain expectations and assumptions. We expect sports cars from Porsche, and comfortable, cosseting luxury sedans from Cadillac and Lexus. We assume that SUVs from Jeep will be useful, go-in-the-snow four-wheelers. But on occasion, automakers get out of character and build rides we didn't anticipate. Driven by a desire to carve out new sales niches in a brutally competitive business, they zig when we expect them to zag. There are a number of these surprising "zigsters" on the market right now. Let's take a quick look at four with particularly high zigosity quotients: Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon ($64,110 with shipping)
NEWS
June 1, 2013 | By Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer
Ling Zhong's parents have come from China to watch her graduate from Swarthmore College on Sunday, and she surely wants them to understand the ceremony. So Zhong, 22, a Beijing native, and a younger classmate, also from China, will set up in a classroom on the third floor of the college's performing arts center, where they will translate the speeches into Mandarin. Zhong's parents and anyone else who cares to hear the Mandarin version can don headsets and listen at both the spacious amphitheater where the event will be held and an auditorium in the performing arts center where it will be projected onto a large screen.
NEWS
May 30, 2013 | By Karl Stark, Inquirer Staff Writer
Jazz keeps getting more international, as this review of recent album releases shows. Top players are coming from Japan and even India - via the American diaspora. At the same time, Philadelphia artists continue to evolve. City native Christian McBride, the über bassist of his generation, continues his string of successes with a new release, while a SEPTA manager, Jawanza Kobie, gets into the act, too, with a credible CD and a release party scheduled June 21 at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
NEWS
May 29, 2013 | By Howard Gensler
THE AMANDA BYNES saga gets more and more bizarre, as if Lindsay Lohan being in rehab has left a void in the actress-out-of-control section of the newspaper that Amanda feels obligated to fill. ( Tattle note: We interviewed Amanda a number of times back in her "She's the One," "Hairspray" days and found her to be one of the most together young actresses we'd ever met. We were sure that by the time she turned 30 she would be running a studio. So what the heck happened?)
NEWS
May 24, 2013 | By Peter Mucha, Philly.com
Freebies from Verizon and Comcast could add to the fun of the Memorial Day Weekend. Verizon's offering a slew of free content for four days, and Comcast's Xfinity is giving away access to thousands of wireless hotspots through Independence Day. From Friday till Tuesday, Verizon subscribers can find more than 1,700 movies and 50 entire TV series through the cable service's 900 channel. That includes such recent theatrical films as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Dark Knight Rises, Bridesmaids, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, The Hunger Games, Hugo, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Moonrise Kingdom, Prometheus , and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows . They're available through Cinemax, ePix, HBO and ViewNow.
BUSINESS
May 24, 2013
Pennsylvania will offer an amnesty program June 1 through Aug. 31 to collect $613 million the state's Department of Labor and Industry is owed in unemployment benefits or taxes. The program covers benefits paid or taxes owed before June 30, 2012. The amnesty covers 130,000 people, who were overpaid $356 million, either because of a mistake or because they submitted false information. Those who submitted false information will only have to pay half of interest and penalties if they pay before Aug. 31. Those who were overpaid through an error will only have to repay half the amount.
BUSINESS
May 22, 2013 | By Barry Wilner, Associated Press
Imagine Sean Payton holding up a Surface tablet instead of a cardboard playsheet on the sideline. Envision Peyton Manning sitting on the bench and dissecting the last series from a variety of camera angles on his handheld device instead of looking at still photos. Or sitting at home and pulling up real-time highlights on a Sunday afternoon. It's coming. The NFL and Microsoft Corp., through its next-generation Xbox device, are combining to upgrade interactive TV viewing of pro football games in a multiyear agreement announced Tuesday.