Around the Nation
5:46 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

When Hyphen Boy Meets Hyphen Girl, Names Pile Up

Originally published on Fri July 20, 2012 8:43 pm

Those born at the height of the name-hyphenating craze will be the first to tell you — having two last names can be more trouble than it's worth. There's the perennial confusion at school and at the doctor's office, and the challenge of squeezing your name onto forms.

And now that the hyphenated generation is marrying and parenting, a whole host of new tricky situations has emerged.

Take Leila and Brendan. Their story is one of those fairy tale stories of love at first sight. She was in the lobby of her apartment building when this cute guy started moving in.

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The Two-Way
5:46 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

A First As A Public Company, Microsoft Reports Quarterly Loss

Credit Damian Dovarganes / AP
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer comments on the Windows 8 operating system before unveiling Surface, a tablet computer to compete with Apple's iPad.

Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 6:18 pm

Microsoft made a $6.2 billion accounting adjustment this quarter that threw it into negative territory for the first time as a public company, the AP reports.

Microsoft took the charge mostly based on the acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company Microsoft acquired in 2007.

As MSNBC reports, the "charge was an acknowledgement that the company's struggling online services division — which lost about half a billion dollars in the previous quarter — is a significant financial drag on the company." Microsoft, remember, is the owner of the search engine Bing.

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The Salt
5:19 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

As Drought Kills Corn, Farmers Fight Over Ethanol

Credit Nati Harnik / AP
Stunted corn grows in a field next to a cattle feed lot in rural Springfield, Omaha, Neb.

We often talk about the "farm lobby" as though farmers spoke with a unified voice. And it's true, they usually try to.

But an unusually bitter and public fight is breaking out right now between the farmers who grow corn and other farmers who need to buy that corn.

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Ella Taylor is a free-lance film critic, book reviewer and feature writer living in Los Angeles.

Born in Israel and raised in London, Taylor taught media studies at the University of Washington in Seattle; her book Prime Time Families: Television Culture in Post-War America was published by the University of California Press.

Taylor has written for Village Voice Media, the LA Weekly, The New York Times, Elle magazine and other publications, and was a regular contributor to KPCC-Los Angeles' weekly film-review show FilmWeek.

The Veepstakes
5:10 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

From Rival To Running Mate? Possible For Pawlenty

Credit Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaign in Las Vegas on Oct. 17, 2011.

Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 6:38 pm

As he shadowed President Obama's bus tour in Pennsylvania early this month, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave a pretty good impression of a man auditioning for a job.

There was Pawlenty as attack dog, one of the traditional roles of a running mate.

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Movie Reviews
5:07 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

In Troubled Times, A 'Dark Knight' Returns

Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 6:38 pm

Before a hero can rise, he must suffer a fall, and fall the Dark Knight quite spectacularly did the last time around, taking the rap for crimes he didn't commit, marking himself as a vigilante pariah and even letting Heath Ledger steal the reviews. No way that's happening in this last installment. A comic-book tale that has gotten darker than anyone thought possible is now careening toward a burst of light — possibly a nuclear blast — at the end of the tunnel.

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The Two-Way
5:04 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

$20K For Drumsticks? GSA Back In Limelight For Conference Spending

Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 6:56 pm

The General Services Administration, which is tasked with developing the rules followed by other government agencies, is back in the limelight for the money it spent on a one-day event in the Washington, D.C. area.

In a letter to House members, the agency's inspector general says it has launched an investigation after its initial findings showed the GSA spent $268,732 on the event.

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Movie Reviews
5:03 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

'Hara-Kiri': A Samurai's Bluff Hides A Revenge Plot

Japanese cinematic extremist Takashi Miike is known for movies that go too far — often because they can't figure out where else to go. So it was revealing when last year's 13 Assassins, a remake of a 1963 samurai adventure, demonstrated a traditionalist streak in Miike's tastes. But that movie is a crystal-meth freakout compared with the director's latest effort, the stately Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai.

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Movie Reviews
5:03 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

It's Little Guy Vs. The Man, Never Mind The Issues

Maybe we have Frank Capra to thank for the notion that in politics, at least as it plays out in the movies, the little guy is always the good guy. Stephen Gyllenhaal swallows that idea hook, line and sinker in Grassroots, in which an out-of-work Seattle music critic (Joel David Moore) runs for city council without bothering to think the issues through: He assumes he'll automatically change the status quo by donning a polar-bear costume and making an impassioned plea for extending the city's monorail system.

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Movie Reviews
5:03 pm
Thu July 19, 2012

After The Recession, An American Versailles On Hold

When director Lauren Greenfield started filming The Queen of Versailles, a documentary about 74-year-old David Siegel, a billionaire timeshare magnate from Orlando, and Jackie, a trophy wife 30 years his junior, they had outgrown their 26,000-square-foot home.

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