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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Armstrong to admit doping in Oprah interview

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong will make a limited confession to doping during his televised interview with Oprah Winfrey next week, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.Armstrong, who has long denied doping, will also offer an apology during the interview scheduled to be taped Monday at his home in Austin, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because...

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Missing DNA in Rape Cases, Iran’s ‘Argo’, and Extreme Weather

Behind the New York Times pay wall, you only get 10 free clicks a month. For those worried about hitting their limit, we’re taking a look through the paper each morning to find the stories that can make your clicks count.RELATED: Newtown’s Nationwide Impact, the Rape and the Football Team, Nelson MandelaTop Stories: When diagnosed with cancer, a graduate at the nursing...

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Abandoning Afghanistan a bad idea

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines Regiment start their patrol in Helmand Province on June 27. STORY HIGHLIGHTSWhite House aide suggested all U.S. troops could be withdrawn from AfghanistanPeter Bergen said the idea would be dangerous and send the wrong messageHe says U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan before and saw the rise of the TalibanBergen: U.S. is seeking agreement that military will...

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Chicago's top cop calls for more gun laws

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy today called for tougher gun laws and reiterated his opposition to legalizing the...

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Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed...

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Wall Street flat, pressured by Wells Fargo, banks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended little changed on Friday as investors took a step back from buying ahead of next week's busy corporate earnings calendar. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 17.51 points, or 0.13 percent, at 13,488.73. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 0.04 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,472.08. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic>...

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Alabama's Lacy, Milliner, Fluker enter NFL draft

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama tailback Eddie Lacy, cornerback Dee Milliner and right tackle D.J. Fluker are entering the NFL draft after helping lead the Crimson Tide to a second straight national title.Lacy and Milliner announced their plans to skip their senior seasons Friday at a news conference. Fluker couldn't be there for the announcement because he was traveling.It's another exodus of talented...

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Space Rock Star: Astronaut Chris Hadfield Becoming Canadian Celebrity

While Chris Hadfield continues to rack up mileage in space, the Canadian captain-to-be of the International Space Station also reached a different milestone Wednesday (Jan. 9): 150,000 Twitter followers.Hadfield’s growth on the social network exploded since launching to the space station Dec. 19. According to the Canadian Space Agency, Hadfield’s followers numbered about 20,000 at the start of his...

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Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTSSaudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan womanShe was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaidThis was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accidentBecker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of...

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Exhumation ordered in lottery winner's death

He won the lottery, then he was poisoned to death. A judge's ruling Friday to have Urooj Khan's body exhumed could give his family and police answers about how cyanide got into his system. ...

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U.S. forces to move to Afghan support role in spring: Obama

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on Friday to speed up the handover of combat operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces this year, underscoring Obama's determination to move decisively to wind down the long, unpopular war. Signaling a narrowing of differences, Karzai appeared to give ground in White House talks on U.S. demands for...

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Wall Street climbs on China data; S&P nears resistance

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday on optimism about global growth spurred by stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world's second-biggest economy, and the S&P 500 hovered around a five-year high. Financial and energy stocks were the day's top gainers in afternoon trading. The financial sector index <.gspf> rose 1 percent and the energy sector <.gspe>...

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NFL star Junior Seau suffered from brain disease

Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., said Seau's brain revealed abnormalities consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE....

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Killer Whales May Have Been Trapped by Climate Change

Whale lovers around the world held their breath as a family of orcas, trapped in the ice of Canada’s frozen Hudson Bay, were left with an ever-shrinking opening in the icy surface as their only breathing hole.The two adult killer whales and nine younger orcas have now been freed by an apparent shift in the sea ice that trapped them, according to NBC News. It’s believed that a change in the current...

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Wife of poisoned lottery winner: 'No one would dare kill him'

The wife of Urooj Khan – the million-dollar lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning – said today that Chicago police detectives...

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String of bombings kill 101, injure 200 in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 101 people were killed in bombings in two Pakistani cities on Thursday in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years, officials said, with most casualties caused by sectarian attacks in Quetta. The bombings underscored the myriad threats Pakistani security forces face from homegrown Sunni extremist groups, the Taliban insurgency in the northwest...

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Wall Street ends with slim gains on Alcoa results

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, as the first group of earnings reports started to trickle in. While Alcoa Inc gave a bullish demand outlook, the results didn't give a clear direction of how well corporations did during the fourth quarter. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 61.97 points, or 0.46 percent, at 13,390.82. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index...

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Bonds, Clemens rejected; no one elected to BB Hall

NEW YORK (AP) — Steroid-tainted stars Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa were denied entry to baseball's Hall of Fame, with voters failing to elect any candidates for only the second time in four decades.In a vote that keeps the game's career home run leader and one of its greatest pitchers out of Cooperstown — at least for now — Bonds received just 36.2 percent of the vote and Clemens 37.6...

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Dazzling Comet of 2013 May Be Among Brightest Ever Seen

Excitement continues to rise among both professional and amateur astronomers about Comet ISON, which on Nov. 28 of this year might become one of the brightest comets ever seen, outshining such recent dazzlers as Comet Hale-Bopp (1997) and Comet McNaught (2007). Fortunately, Comet ISON was discovered 14 months before this perihelion passage — its closest point to the sun — while still distant...

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