Wall Street falls on banks' settlement, doubts on earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as banks agreed to pay billions in a settlement with U.S. regulators and investors speculated that U.S. earnings for the end of 2012 would be only modestly better than in the previous quarter. Financials declined after a group of home mortgage servicers, including major U.S. banks, agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government-ordered,...

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Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’

BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, sounding defiant, confident and, to critics, out of touch with the magnitude of his people’s grievances, proposed Sunday what he called a plan to resolve the country’s 21-month uprising with a new constitution and cabinet. But he offered no new acknowledgment of the gains by the rebels fighting against him, the excesses of his government...

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10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes

Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.Click here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His...

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Jodi Arias Trial: Six Revelations from Week One

By Howard Breuer 01/06/2013 at 01:00 PM EST Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias Courtesy MySpace There was no shortage of drama in the first week of the Phoenix murder trial for Jodi Arias, a photographer whose calm and defiant behavior after her lover's violent murder...

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.Wait, what?If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked...

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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week. Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current...

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Greece Tax Scandal Shifts Focus From Collection Problem

The tax scandal that reignited in Greece over the holidays had all the makings of a grade-B drama. A former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, was accused of scrubbing his relatives’ names from a CD containing the identities of thousands of possible Greek tax dodgers. Within hours, his chief political rival tossed him from their party. Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated PressGeorge...

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The Secret iPad List to Bring Down Boehener

When the failed House Republican revolution came, it came by iPad. Now that House Speaker John Boehner has survived the rebellion, all of D.C. now knows which conservative House members were conspiring to mount a challenge, thanks to a list that one of the coup’s leaders brandished on the House floor during the vote.RELATED: United Nation Fights the ‘Asshole Factor’A Politico photographer captured...

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Hero Lawyer Gives His House to a Homeless Family for a Year

01/05/2013 at 12:00 PM EST Felicia Dukes and her four children had been living in a homeless shelter – but now they have a cozy house all their own – thanks to a Los Angeles lawyer who has temporarily given up his residence to the family in need.Tony Tolbert, 51, decided he wanted to give up his fully furnished...

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FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are...

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