Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street. The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets. ...

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French Airstrikes Push Back Islamist Rebels in Mali

PARIS — French airstrikes in Mali appeared to halt an Islamist rebel advance, France said Saturday, as West African nations authorized what they said would be a fast deployment of troops in support of the weak Malian government. Britain also announced late Saturday that it would help to transport foreign troops and equipment to Mali, though would not send its own soldiers. France first...

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December video game retail sales drop 22 percent

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. retail sales of video games and gaming systems fell 22 percent in December, capping a year of declining sales for the industry.Research firm NPD Group said Thursday that overall sales fell to $ 3.21 billion from $ 4.1 billion in December 2011. NPD estimates that sales of new game hardware, software and accessories account for about half of what consumers spend on gaming.Sales...

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Inside Story: Life Without Lauren Spierer

By Kristen Mascia and Jeff Truesdell 01/12/2013 at 06:30 PM EST Lauren Spierer Jeremy Hogan/Bloomington Herald-Times/Polaris It's the little things, say Robert and Charlene Spierer, that hurt the most. For Robert it's the flash of a blonde ponytail on a city street...

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Q&A: Scramble for vaccine as flu season heats up

WASHINGTON (AP) — Missed flu-shot day at the office last fall? And all those "get vaccinated" ads? A scramble for shots is under way as late-comers seek protection from a miserable flu strain already spreading through much of the country.Federal health officials said Friday that there is still some flu vaccine available and it's not too late to benefit from it. But people may have to call around to...

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street. The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets. ...

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Syrian Rebels Say They Seized Key Base in North

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian rebels, led by jihadist battalions, said Friday that they seized the largest helicopter base in the north of the country, a potentially significant blow against the government’s escalating air war that also highlighted lingering questions about the prominent role of Islamic extremist in the uprising. Edlib News Network via Associated PressThis image provided by...

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Canada natives block Harper’s office, threaten unrest

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Aboriginal protesters blocked the main entrance to a building where Canada’s prime minister was preparing to meet some native leaders on Friday, highlighting a deep divide within the country’s First Nations on how to push Ottawa to heed their demands.The noisy blockade, which lasted about an hour, ended just before Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his aides met with about 20 native...

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Britney Spears and Jason Trawick Split

People Exclusive By Marisa Laudadio UPDATED 01/11/2013 at 07:20 PM EST • Originally published 01/11/2013 at 07:20 PM EST Britney Spears and Jason Trawick Kevin Mazur/WireImage It's official: Britney Spears and Jason Trawick have called it quits."Britney...

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says."If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes...

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Wall Street climbs as China data puts S&P back at five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Thursday and the S&P 500 ended at a fresh five-year high as stronger-than-expected exports from China spurred optimism about global growth prospects. Buying accelerated late in the day after the S&P 500 broke through technical resistance at 1,466.47, which was the market's closing level last Friday and the highest level since December 2007....

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The Lede Blog: Winter Brings Misery to Syria Refugees

For Syrian refugees in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, winter has brought bitter new hardship and at least one death.More than 50,000 people are estimated to live in the Zaatari camp, roughly one-third of the nearly 150,000 Syrians who have sought refuge in Jordan from the 22-month-long conflict gripping their country. As my colleagues Rick Gladstone and Nick Cumming-Bruce have reported, wind...

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A Tale of 2 Strategies: The Twitter Genius of Chuck Grassley and Cory Booker

If you’re on Twitter and not following Sen. Chuck Grassley, you’re not using Twitter correctly.The Iowa Republican is known for his colorful and personal Twitter feed. Take a gander: He personally tweets about everything from the History Channel to “Obamacare” to an incident in which he hit a deer with his car  (“assume dead”). Grassley’s tweets take us along for a ride, one that’s often...

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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend

By Elizabeth McNeil 01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985 Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew. She thought...

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until...

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Wall Street rises after Alcoa reports earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, rebounding from two days of losses, as investors turned their focus to the first prominent results of the earnings season. Stocks had retreated at the start of the week from the S&P 500's highest point in five years, hit last Friday, on worries about possible earnings weakness. Shares of Alcoa Inc were down 0.5 percent to...

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Venezuelan Court: Chávez Swearing-In Can Be Postponed

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's Supreme Court chief on Wednesday endorsed putting off President Hugo Chavez's inauguration, siding with the government in a heated dispute with the opposition while the ailing leader struggles with complications a month after cancer surgery in Cuba. Supreme Court President Luisa Estella Morales made the statement after the opposition urged the top court...

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Go Ahead, Keep Being Mean to Celebrities on Twitter

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:  RELATED: The Honey Boo Boo Nature Special; Everyone’s Favorite Sleepwalking MomWe usually don’t condone...

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Adele Plans to Attend the Golden Globe Awards

01/09/2013 at 07:10 PM EST Adele is about to emerge!The Grammy-winning vocalist, 24 – who is nominated for a Golden Globe for her James Bond theme "Skyfall" – will attend the awards show in L.A. on Sunday, PEOPLE has learned. This will be the first public appearance for the star since giving birth to a son last October.Another source previously...

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in...

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Wall Street slips as earnings season gets under way

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday, retreating from last week's rally on the "fiscal cliff" deal in Washington, as companies started to report results for the fourth quarter. After a 4.3 percent jump in the two sessions around the close of the fiscal cliff negotiations, the S&P has declined a bit, with investors finding few catalysts to extend the rally that took the benchmark...

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As Asian-Americans’ Numbers Grow, So Does Their Philanthropy

About 800 people gathered in November in a ballroom in Midtown Manhattan for one of the year’s more elegant galas. They dined on beef tenderloin with truffle butter, bid on ski and golf vacations in a charity auction, and gave more than $1 million to a nonprofit group based in New York. But this was not an old-money event. The donors were largely Korean immigrants and their children. ...

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