Business
2:31 am
Wed February 29, 2012

Identity Theft A Growing Concern For Businesses

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Fake business listings and other forms of business identity theft are a growing concern, causing real business owners to worry about protecting reputations and losing customers.

You've heard of identity theft — someone using a person's credit information or a Social Security number for ill-gotten gains. Well, experts say similar crimes are also affecting businesses.

Business identity theft involves posing as a legitimate business in order to get access to credit lines or steal customers. Experts believe that the practice has become more prevalent in the past two years.

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The Salt
2:27 am
Wed February 29, 2012

Newfoundland Gives Whole New Meaning To Ice Cold Beer

The year the Quidi Vidi Brewing Co. started brewing beer with iceberg water, a giant iceberg floated up against the cliffs around St. John's, Newfoundland.

"It was a big berg and it jammed right across the harbor here," says Charlie Rees, the brewery's tour guide.

Rees says Newfoundlanders have a curious relationship with icebergs. On the one hand, they're a fact of life. On the other, when that iceberg was in the harbor's mouth, hundreds of people came down to gawk. He took pictures.

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Economy
2:25 am
Wed February 29, 2012

Record Low Interest Rates Raise Inflation Concerns

The goal of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy is to juice the economic recovery. The low rates should make it easier for people to borrow money, which they'll hopefully spend; the increased demand for goods and services is then supposed to translate into more hiring.

That's what the Fed is banking on. It hopes low interest rates will help with its mandate of achieving maximum employment, but it also has another mandate: to keep prices stable.

"In many cases, those two conflict," says economist Joe Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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The Record
11:08 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Music In Political Campaigns 101

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Kid Rock performs during a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Michigan Monday night. Romney asked for, and was given, permission to use the Detroit rocker's song "Born Free" in his campaign.
All Tech Considered
11:01 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Nailing Down The Appeal Of Pinterest

Credit Pinterest
A visit to the Pinterest home page reveals images of what some say are stereotypically female interests, from women's fashions to recipes.

To the list of weird-sounding hybrid words of the digital age, like Googling and tweeting, we can now add "pinning." As in Pinterest. It's sort of an online scrapbook or bulletin board, and it's one of the fastest-growing websites in history.

Last month, more than 10 million unique visitors signed on to Pinterest. But some of them, like Billy Winburn, are still trying to get the hang of it. At an office in Alexandria, Va., Jennifer Folsom, who works a few desks away, is walking him through the process.

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Europe
11:01 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

For Leap Day Only, A Rare Newspaper Goes To Print

Credit Patrick Hertzog / AFP/Getty Images
A man reads a copy of the satirical newspaper La Bougie du Sapeur (The Sapper's Candle), published every leap day, in a Parisian cafe on Feb. 29, 2008. The paper's tagline is "without reproach."

At newsstands across France on Wednesday, readers will delight to a humorous broadsheet published every four years on leap day.

At news shops in Paris and around France, readers look forward to their copy of La Bougie du Sapeur every Feb. 29. Published since 1980, the satirical journal is now in its ninth edition. Its title, which translates as "sapper's candle," is taken from an old French comic-book figure who was born on that fateful last day of February.

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Sweetness And Light
11:01 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

100 Points, One Game: A Basketball Record Turns 50

Credit Paul Vathis / AP
Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors poses in the dressing room after he scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers on March 2, 1962.

Originally published on Wed February 29, 2012 2:23 am

Dave Zinkoff — or simply "The Zink" — was perhaps the most distinctive public address announcer in sports when, years ago, he called games in Philadelphia, especially for the city's NBA teams. Just his declaring that there were two minutes left in the quarter made you feel that, never mind that quarter, doomsday was but 120 seconds away.

But nothing The Zink cried out was so resounding as when Wilt Chamberlain would make an emphatic slam.

"Dipper dunk!" he would holler.

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The Two-Way
5:20 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Leap Day: Any Plans?

Something that only comes around once every four years and doesn't involve either politics or Olympic competition deserves its own mention:

Wednesday is Feb. 29.

Leap day, that is.

Our friend Linton Weeks has put together a handy list of 24 things you could do with the extra 24 hours. (And yes, we know that some of you have already started your day; but, hey, we're an East Coast-based blog.)

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Shots - Health Blog
5:15 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Dental Visits To ERs Are On The Rise

Credit istockphoto.com
Toothache? The ER doctor will see you now.

Originally published on Tue February 28, 2012 5:18 pm

Americans who turn up in the emergency room to get dental care aren't lost, they're probably just running out of options.

According to a new report from the Pew Center on the States, more than 800,000 visits to the ER in 2009 were for toothaches and other avoidable dental ailments.

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Politics
5:05 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Found Time: How To Spend The 24 Hours Of Leap Day

Found time! An extra day. How will you use it? Here are 24 ideas. None of them takes longer than an hour. Because time is tight, time is of the essence, time is money. And if you don't have time to get to everything on the list, don't worry. Maybe in 2016.

Feb. 29, 2012 Hour By Hour:

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