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New research suggests most people could easily lose up to two pounds a month simply by eating off smaller plates and focusing more on their food during mealtimes. In one study, people ate 45 percent more popcorn when they were given a larger size of the snack food, and diners given a “bottomless bowl” of soup that automatically refilled ate 73 percent more without even realizing it.

Two unions representing 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike Sunday over stalled contract negotiations. The Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents service techs, customer service reps and operators at the New York-based phone company. The unions plan to hold more than 100 rallies from Massachusetts to Washington D.C. on Monday. Read Mo

Here’s a look at some notable birthdays being celebrated today: Dustin Hoffman Age: 74 Occupation: Actor Known For: A half-century of work on stage and screen, including the films ‘The Graduate’ and ‘Tootsie,’ and Academy Awards for his roles in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ and ‘Rain Man’ Robin Quivers Age: 58 Occupation: Radio Personality Known For: Working with Howard Stern for almost three decades wit

With financial markets in disarray and the US suffering from a debt downgrade, investors turned to precious metals for a safe-haven asset. Gold futures soared to an all-time high of $1,718.20 per ounce Monday at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising three percent in morning trading.

When photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing suspected Iraqi insurgents were released to the public in 2004, they caused an international outcry. Over the weekend, the man who orchestrated the abuses at Abu Ghraib was released from prison.

The loose-knit international hacking collective known as Anonymous claims it hacked into around 70 US law enforcement websites, stealing 10 gigabytes worth of data. To prove it, this weekend the group posted items such as police emails, tips that seemed to come from members of the public, and credit card numbers. Anonymous said the move was in retaliation for the arrests of its sympathizers in the

According to a multi-national survey of over 9,000 adults by the World Health Organization, France and the United States are the two most mentally depressed countries in the world. Twenty-one percent of French citizens have had a major depressive episode, followed by the United States, at 19.2 percent. Belgium, New Zealand and The Netherlands are also among world’s most depressed nations, by this

After less than a year on the job, all 20 members of the police force in the northern Mexican town of Ascension resigned on Thursday. The move came in response to months of violent exchanges with drug traffickers.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association states women who’ve been the victim of rape, sexual assault, stalking, or intimate-partner violence are much more likely to develop a mental disorder. In the study, researchers in Australia found 57 percent of women who’d suffered at least one incident of abuse also had a history of depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress,

Summer school has met the national pastime in Boston. The tuition-free summer MIT Science of Baseball program teaches 30 inner-city teenage boys “baseball-related math and physics” during morning classes and then show the players how to translate those lessons to the diamond during afternoon games, reports The Boston Globe.

Four years after the nation’s deadliest school shooting, a report of another armed man on the grounds of Virginia Tech sparked an all-day manhunt Thursday. A campus-wide lockdown was instituted just 28 minutes after three teens attending a summer program at Virginia Tech reported seeing a man carrying a weapon. While officers searched some 150 buildings for the suspect, the university activated a

Annette Charles, who played Sandy Olson’s dancing rival Cha Cha DiGregorio in the 1978 movie-musical ‘Grease,’ died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 63. Charles, who was initially hospitalized for pneumonia, died from complications from cancer, her rep confirmed to TMZ.