Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now. Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock...

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Chinese Officials Fired Over Chongqing Sex Scandal

BEIJING — The young women met the officials for illicit trysts with video cameras hidden in their purses. Every detail of the encounters was recorded. Then a group of men confronted the officials with the video recordings and made demands. China’s state news media reported on Friday details of a sex extortion ring that brazenly operated “honey traps” in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing...

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DUST 514, Online Shooter Set in EVE Online Universe, Enters Open Beta

First announced in 2009, CCP Games’ online first-person shooter tie-in to its popular sci-fi MMO, EVE Online, was finally released as an open beta on Tuesday. Called DUST 514, it allows PlayStation 3 owners to play in the same world as EVE Online, fighting ground battles while EVE Online pilots contest star systems. The results of DUST 514 matches affect worlds and in-game corporations in EVE Online,...

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Newark Mayor Cory Booker Comes to Freezing Dog's Aid

People Pets By Kiran Hefa 01/25/2013 at 12:55 PM EST Have no fear, Cory Booker is here!When Eyewitness News reporter Toni Yates spotted several dogs left outside in the cold in Newark, N.J., on Thursday afternoon, she Tweeted at Newark's mayor to let him know. "Make pet owners get their dogs out of the cold....

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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies...

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Earnings lift Wall Street; S&P 500 advances for eighth day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday as strong Procter & Gamble Co's earnings trumped weak housing numbers and helped carry the Standard & Poor's 500 index higher toward its longest winning streak in more than eight years. Procter & Gamble shares rose 3.9 percent to $73.15 and gave the biggest boost to both the Dow and S&P 500 after the world's top household...

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American Mumbai Plotter Sentenced to 35 Years

CHICAGO (AP) — An American drug dealer who had faced life in prison was sentenced instead to 35 years Thursday for helping plan the deadly 2008 attacks on Mumbai, India — a punishment prosecutors said reflected his broad cooperation with U.S. investigators but that a victim's family member called "an appalling dishonor." It was David Coleman Headley's meticulous scouting missions that facilitated...

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TSX near 18-month high, buoyed by Agrium, RIM

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index hit a near 18-month high on Thursday, as shares of Agrium Inc rose after the fertilizer maker raised its profit forecast and as U.S. manufacturing and labor data drove optimism on the economic outlook of Canada’s largest trade partner.Shares of Research In Motion Ltd also boosted the market, rising more than 3 percent after a report that China’s Lenovo...

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Kristen Bell's Birth Plan Involves Whiskey and a Baseball Bat

Mom & Babies Celebrity Baby Blog 01/24/2013 at 11:00 AM ET Kristen Bell is very much looking forward to childbirth — and all the drugs, alcohol and violence that go with it.“I’ve got nothing to prove,” the House of Lies actress, 32, jokes about her birth plan — and whether she’ll go natural — in...

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CDC: New version of stomach bug causing US illness

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say a new strain of stomach bug that's sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S.In the last four months, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. These kinds of contagious bugs cause bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.The new strain may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different,...

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