‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘Breakfast Club’ director Hughes dead at 59

John Hughes, the producer, writer and director whose 1980s films such as "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" offered a sharp-eyed look at teenagers and their social habits, has died, according to a statement from his representative. He was 59. Hughes died of a heart attack while taking a morning walk in Manhattan, according to the statement.

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License Plate Scanners: Fighting Crime or Invading Privacy?

If you are behind the wheel of your car, someone may be on to you. More and more cities are equipping patrolmen, toll booths and even access roads with computer sidekicks that can keep track of vehicle movements; but by doing so, they are not only changing the face of 21st century law enforcement but sparking debate over privacy issues

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Bariatric Surgery: Does the Weight-Loss Procedure Work?

As popular as bariatric surgery has become — each year, more than 200,000 people undergo stomach-shrinking procedures in an effort to lose weight — the reality is that there is still little information about which patients should be getting the surgeries or how effective they really are as a treatment for obesity. That may change with BOLD, the Bariatric Outcomes Longitudinal Database, the first repository of patient information and outcomes related to bariatric surgery — procedures that include gastric bypass, in which the bulk of the stomach is tied off and food is rerouted directly to the bottom half of the intestine, and gastric banding, in which the stomach is simply squeezed into a smaller size with a rubber-band-like device

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FAA relents, will open database on airplane-bird collisions to public

After getting pelted by criticism from everyone from airline passengers to federal accident investigators, the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday reversed course and said it will publicly reveal its records on bird strikes. The FAA said it will make its entire bird-strike database available on a public Web site on Friday, and is withdrawing a proposal to keep certain data confidential. The FAA had argued that protecting certain information, such as the names of airlines and airports involved in bird mishaps, would encourage airlines to participate in the voluntary reporting program

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Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie

Woody Harrelson defended his clash with a photographer at a New York airport Wednesday night as a case of mistaken identity — he says he mistook the cameraman for a zombie. The TMZ photographer filed a complaint with police claiming the actor damaged his camera and pushed him in the face at La Guardia Airport, according to an airport spokesman.

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Fujitsu’s New Reader: A Step Toward the Post-Web World

Good news for old-media sufferers! On Wednesday, Fujitsu announced the world’s first color e-reader. It renders text as cleanly as a printed page, displays 260,000 colors, weighs three-quarters of a pound and is connected to the Net via WiFi. It costs $1,000, a price tag that’s probably three times too high, which is typical for products aimed at early adopters

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Actress Richardson taken to hospital, sent to U.S. after ski fall

Actress Natasha Richardson was hospitalized after she fell on a ski slope at a Quebec resort, a resort spokeswoman said in a statement Tuesday. Richardson was taken to a hospital near Station Mont Tremblant before she was transferred to Hopital du Sacre-Coeur in Montreal following her fall on Monday, according to the statement.

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