The Washington, D.C., police are investigating whether NBC and David Gregory, the anchor of “Meet the Press,†broke the district's gun laws during an exclusive interview with Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, Michael S. Schmidt reported. Mr. Gregory brandished an empty magazine that can hold up to 30 bullets while asking Mr. LaPierre what harm would come from banning such equipment. However, in Washington, possessing even an empty magazine is against the law, and, according to the police, NBC asked for permission to display the magazine and was told that it could not. NBC has declined to comment on the matter.
The Journal News in Westchester County has created an interactive map showing the name and address of people licensed to carry a handgun in its readership area, angering many of the people who are on that map, J. David Goodman reported. The decision to create the map was prompted by the killings in nearby Newtown, Conn., according to Janet Hasson, the president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group, who said she knew that the move would be criticized. The information is publicly available, but some gun owners advocates said it would unnecessarily put a spotlight on police officers, judges and battered women.
Netflix streaming service was down for much of Christmas Eve, when families were huddled around the TV, Brian X. Chen writes. The failure, which was because of problems with Amazon's cloud computing services, was another example of how dependent consumers are on such remote centers that can be affected by weather or simply overuse. The problem with Netflix was fixed by late Christmas Eve, but not before social networks were overrun with complaints from disappointed subscribers.
Joan Kron, an editor-at-large at Allure magazine, prowls the plastic surgery beat, Christine Haughney writes. Her coverage can feature dark twists, and she describes in often gory detail the risks these surgeries carry, including burns and nerve injuries. But she is a plastic surgery veteran herself, and understands why women go through with it. Asked if women should keep wrinkles because they earned them, Ms. Kr on, who turns 85 in January, replied, “That is totally ridiculous.â€
For some celebrities who are on their third or fourth acts, social networks like Twitter and Facebook offer another chance to reach an audience, Joe Pompeo writes. Among the unlikely candidates for social-network stardom are a pair of septuagenarians: Sally Jessy Raphael, a former TV show host who is sassy and relentlessly contemporary in her references, including spoofs of “Jersey Shore†and Kim Kardashian; and George Takei, who has kindled his fame for the original “Star Trek†series in the 1960s into more than 3.7 million followers of Twitter and Facebook combined.
Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blog. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.
