Administrators, students and parents at Packer Collegiate Institute said they were punished over a technicality.

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Scores of SAT Taken at Packer Collegiate Institute Are Invalidated

A stark mugshot of domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski briefly took center stage in the increasingly ugly debate over climate change Friday as the Heartland Institute , a libertarian think tank funded by major corporations, launched a billboard campaign equating people convinced that global warming is real to the convicted killer. Read full article > >

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Group pulls plug on billboard linking global warming believers to terrorists

During the Oscars, celebrities dress to impress the public and each other. During the Costume Institute Gala , also called the Met Ball, they dress to impress a far more discerning audience: Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. More than the Oscars or any other event, the Met Ball is where you’ll see fashion that is playful, fresh and risky — well, maybe not Lady Gaga meat dress risky, but asymmetrical/embellished-sleeve/bold-patterned risks, instead. Read full article > >

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Costume Institute Gala: Why the Met steps are the greatest red carpet

Ask oil lobbyists, oil executives, and former employees and board members of the American Petroleum Institute how they describe API President Jack N. Gerard, and one thing they don’t say is soft. One calls him a “hard-nosed guy.” Another says he is “a political animal” who “loves a fight.” Yet another dubs him “Voldemort.” Read full article > >

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Jack Gerard, the force majeure behind Big Oil

An ambitious attempt to effectively bar attack ads by outside groups in the contentious U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts is showing signs of working, at least so far. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) this week agreed to pay a penalty for radio and print ads run by the American Petroleum Institute urging people to contact Brown and ask him to vote against raising taxes on energy firms. Read full article > >

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Pact on third-party ads seems to be working in Massachusetts

The Cato Institute says that Charles Koch’s Republican activism threatens its reputation for independent research.

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Cato Institute and Koch in Rift Over Independence

A wave of what former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan might have called “irrational exuberance” is washing over a great deal of energy analysis these days. One recent headline trumpeted that “Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. as Top Producer.” Another declared “U.S. Nears Milestone: Net Fuel Exporter.” The American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard says that with policies more friendly to the oil and gas industry “there would be no need to import from any other parts of the world.” Read full article > >

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Iran’s saber rattling over oil shows that the energy crisis is still with us

The Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development serves over 5,000 needy New Yorkers a month – and just got a new lease on life. The organization has two locations: in Highbridge and Parkchester, Bronx, providing hunger, health and immigration services. It was in danger of closing its doors on December 31, due to lack of funding, but got a donation just in the nick of time from the Collegiate Church . “It felt really good,” said Nurah Ama’tullah, executive director of the Institute. “It is truly like a blessing.” Ama’tullah said the payroll was disrupted around Labor Day and the Institute’s future was in limbo until the donation came in on December 19. “It was a time of prayer and reflection as to how we would continue,” she recalled. “For someone like myself, it’s always a question as to ‘Is this what Allah wants me to do?’” The $100,000 grant was able to pay off the $50,000 in existing debt and will be used to cover operational expenses through the end of March. But since the middle of December, an additional $49,000 was raised from various sources, so now costs are covered through the end of May. “We are working to raise additional funds,” Ama’tullah said.

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Bronx Interfaith Nonprofit Saved

UK cinema box office takings passed the £1bn mark for the first time last year, according to the British Film Institute (BFI).

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UK box office takes £1bn in 2011

A new think tank launched in the District Monday with the goal of reducing the cost of health care through research and entrepreneurship. The West Health Policy Center is the latest project of Gary and Mary West, the two billionaire philanthropists behind the West Wireless Health Institute and the West Health Investment Fund, a pair of California-based organizations that develop and fund health technology products. Read full article > >

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New think tank wants government to see gold in health technology

A new think tank launched in the District Monday with the goal of reducing the cost of health care through research and entrepreneurship. The West Health Policy Center is the latest project of Gary and Mary West, the two billionaire philanthropists behind the West Wireless Health Institute and the West Health Investment Fund, a pair of California-based organizations that develop and fund health technology products. Read full article > >

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New think tank wants government to see gold in health technology

The Institute of International Finance said on Saturday that talks on a Greek debt swap deal were continuing and its chief’s departure from Athens was scheduled and not unexpected.

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Greek Deal Unlikely Before Next Week

Andy Foster from the Trading Standards Institute explains consumer rights when it comes to unwanted Christmas gifts.

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VIDEO: Unwanted gifts: Your rights

The color of 2012 is a citrus-red hue that will give your weary eyes a break from all of those neutrals. Tangerine Tango , Pantone’s 2012 color of the year, was selected because, “there’s the element of encouragement with orange, it’s building on the ideas of courage and action, that we want to move on to better things. I think it would be a disservice to go with a relaxed, soothing color now,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, told the Associated Press. Read full article > >

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Tangerine Tango: Pantone’s color of the year in fashion

At a black-tie dinner Saturday, former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will receive an award from an outfit especially sympathetic to the rigors of his old job: the Panetta Institute for Public Policy , an academic center co-founded by Gates’s successor at the Pentagon, Leon E. Panetta. Panetta, who took over from Gates in July , has recused himself from direct involvement in the Monterey, Calif.-based institute since 2009, when he returned to government service to lead the CIA. But Panetta is expected to attend the dinner with his wife, Sylvia, who has run the nonprofit institute in his absence. Read full article > >

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Back in Monterey, Panetta’s institute honors a Washington crowd