Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal

VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped...

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Books: Gauging Faces and Bodies in the Botox Age

You never know what a little vanity will do for a person’s health. Some people bloom in their quest for physical improvement, others wither, and a few are completely destroyed. Despite centuries’ worth of efforts to penetrate the complicated thickets where health and beauty intertwine, there is always more to explore, as two new books make clear. Dr. Eric Finzi, a dermatologist in the Washington...

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Wall Street Sheds Morning Gains

After beginning the day with a partial rebound from Monday’s steep drop, stocks on Wall Street gave up their gains Tuesday in the course of Congressional testimony by Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. In late morning trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was essentially flat, while the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq composite index...

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Oscars 2013: An 'Argo' night at Academy Awards

For the second straight year, the movie business fell for itself."Argo" — in which a Hollywood producer and makeup artist help...

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Warner Bros. takes home Oscar gold, sales boost for “Argo”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Time Warner Inc‘s Warner Bros. basked in the golden glow of coveted Best Picture Oscar for its Iran hostage drama “Argo” on Sunday, giving the Ben Affleck film a likely boost for its ticket and home entertainment sales.Hollywood‘s big night often proves a boon to studios that take home Oscars, and this year the haul was spread among several major film companies.Among the Best...

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Mediterranean Diet Can Cut Heart Disease, Study Finds

About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study found. The findings, published on the New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site on Monday, were based on the first...

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BP Trial Opens, With Possible Deal in Background

NEW ORLEANS — The long-awaited civil trial against BP and its contractors stemming from the 2010 explosion of a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that left 11 dead and soiled hundreds of beaches began on Monday, even as settlement talks appeared to intensify between the oil company and federal and state goverments. Jim Roy, the lead lawyer of private plaintiffs, started the trial with a...

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Oscars stage manager braces for his final cues to the stars

He delivered a forgotten harmonica to Stevie Wonder onstage at the Grammy Awards, supplied a shoulder to lean on for a post-hip-surgery...

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas MonthlyThe Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims. SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband. Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by...

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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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