Dec
11

Big tech boosts S&P 500 to best close since election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by gains in technology companies, helping the S&P 500 end at its highest level since Election Day. A 2.2 percent gain to $541.39 in Apple's stock lifted the Nasdaq, as the largest U.S. company by market value rebounded from a week in which investors took profits before a possible tax rise next year. Prior to Tuesday's trading, Apple...
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Dec
10

Chinese Police Detain Two Tibetans in Self-Immolation Protests

BEIJING — Chinese police officials have detained a Tibetan monk and his nephew and accused them of playing a role in a series of self-immolations, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The move appeared to be part of a campaign to prosecute Tibetans who are accused of aiding others who set fire to themselves in protest of Chinese rule. The police said the monk who was detained — Lorang...
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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld....
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Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi & Mitt Romney Attend Las Vegas Boxing Match

Caught in the Act By Mark Gray 12/10/2012 at 06:30 PM EST Mitt Romney and Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi Danny Moloshok/Reuters/Landov; D Dipasupil/Getty Where would a former presidential candidate and a pint-sized reality star cross paths?Vegas, baby! With the campaign...
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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed...
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Wall Street gets small lift from technology and McDonald's

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Monday as technology shares bounced back after recent weakness and McDonald's posted strong monthly sales. Technology stocks were led by Hewlett-Packard Co , which climbed 2.6 percent to $14.16 on rumors that activist investor Carl Icahn is building a stake in the PC maker. The stock is down 44.5 percent for the year and ranks as the Dow's worst...
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Dec
09

Fear of Fighting Haunts Once-Tranquil Damascus

Muzaffar Salman/ReutersA member of Syria's symphony orchestra ahead of a concert in Damascus in November. DAMASCUS, Syria — Business has been terrible for Abu Tareq, a taxi driver, so last week, without telling his wife, he agreed to drive a man to the Damascus airport for 10 times the usual rate. But, he said later, he will not be doing that again. On the airport road, he could hear the...
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Wall St Week Ahead: "Cliff" worries may drive tax selling

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors typically sell stocks to cut their losses at year end. But worries about the "fiscal cliff" - and the possibility of higher taxes in 2013 - may act as the greatest incentive to sell both winners and losers by December 31. The $600 billion of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled for the beginning of next year includes higher rates for capital...
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Dec
08

For Afghan Officials, Prospect of Death Comes With Territory

Bryan Denton for The New York TimesAbdul Majid Khogyani, center, the governor of Wardak Province, touring government buildings damaged by a suicide truck bombing two days earlier. KABUL, Afghanistan — There are so many ways for an Afghan official to die: car bombs, suicide attacks, a volley of bullets or, in the case of one particularly enterprising assassin, a handgun hidden in the sole of a shoe....
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James Cameron Relives Voyage to Ocean’s Deepest Spot

SAN FRANCISCO — The first thing James Cameron saw 7 miles below the sea was man-made: tracks from a remotely operated vehicle.“When I got to the bottom, I saw skid marks from the ROV,” Cameron said yesterday (Dec. 4) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, referring to a 2009 survey by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Scientific results of the film director’s expedition...
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