Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal. The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations. Sector indexes in transportation...

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Fiery Orioles manager Earl Weaver dead at 82

BALTIMORE (AP) — Loved in Baltimore long after he ended his Hall of Fame career, Earl Weaver remained an Oriole to the end.The notoriously peppery Hall of Fame manager died at age 82 on a Caribbean cruise associated with the Orioles, his marketing agent said Saturday.The Duke of Earl, as he was affectionately known in Baltimore, took the Orioles to the World Series four times over 17 seasons but won...

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The 10 Weirdest Inaugurations in US History

President Barack Obama will put his hand on a Bible for the 57th inauguration ceremony Monday (Jan. 21) and kick off his next four years in office. And while everything may come off without a hitch, inaugurations haven’t always gone smoothly. From Richard Nixon‘s parade of dead birds to Calvin Coolidge‘s impromptu inauguration, here are some of the most bizarre swearing-in days in U.S. history.Drunken...

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Why Africa backs French in Mali

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2 shot to death in separate attacks on South, Northwest sides

About 9:15 p.m., a man was shot to death inside a Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen, 5500 W. North Ave. (January 19, 2013) Two young...

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Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamic militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday, killing 11 al Qaeda-linked gunmen after they took the lives of seven more foreign hostages, the state news agency said. The state oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said the militants who attacked the plant on Wednesday and took...

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Wall Street slips after disappointing Intel results

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Friday from a five-year high for the S&P 500 as a weak outlook from tech heavyweight Intel offset a better-than-expected quarterly profit at Morgan Stanley. But the S&P 500 was still on track to end higher for a third consecutive week. Shares of Intel Corp slumped nearly 7 percent to $21.11 a day after it forecast quarterly...

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Hamilton: Armstrong must tell everything he knows

Tyler Hamilton recognized what he saw during Lance Armstrong's televised confession to doping."He's broken. He's broken," Hamilton said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "I've never seen him even remotely like that. It doesn't please me to see that."Hamilton rode for Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team during his first three Tour de France titles. Hamilton's public confessions to...

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Scientist Proposes to Girlfriend in Amazing Northern Lights Time-Lapse Video

Dazzling green, purple and turquoise auroras glimmer in the sky over Iceland while a man proposes to his girlfriend in a new time-lapse video.Neuroscientist Alex Rivest shot the amazing aurora time-lapse video, which featured his own proposal, over several days and nights in September 2012.“On a trip to Iceland I asked my girlfriend to marry me under the aurora borealis,” Rivest wrote in...

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U.S. 'needs tougher child labor rules'

Cristina Traina says in his second term, Obama must address weaknesses in child farm labor standards STORY HIGHLIGHTSCristina Traina: Obama should strengthen child farm labor standardsShe says Labor Dept. rules allow kids to work long hours for little pay on commercial farmsShe says Obama administration scrapped Labor Dept. chief's proposal for tightening rulesShe says Labor Dept. must fix lax standards...

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Autopsy today for lottery winner poisoned by cyanide

The body of poisoned lottery winner Urooj Khan is in the hands of the Cook County medical examiner in hopes to learn more about how he died. ...

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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants, who threatened to attack other energy installations. Thirty hostages, including at least seven Westerners, were killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their...

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Economy, eBay profit lift Wall Street to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Thursday, with the S&P 500 hitting a five-year intraday high, on improved housing and jobs data as well as better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay . The data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week, while groundbreaking for homes rose to the fastest pace...

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Hawaii hometown backs Te'o after girlfriend hoax

LAIE, Hawaii (AP) — People in the small Hawaii hometown of Manti Te'o are offering support for the Notre Dame linebacker, after the story of his girlfriend and her death from leukemia were revealed as a hoax.No one answered the door Wednesday evening and no one appeared to be inside the modest, single-story wood home of Te'o's parents, Brian and Ottilia Te'o, in the small coastal town of Laie on Oahu's...

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Ancient ‘Killer Walrus’ Not So Deadly After All

A “killer walrus” thought to have terrorized the North Pacific 15 million years ago may not have been such a savvy slayer after all, researchers say.A new analysis of fossil evidence of the prehistoric beast shows it was more of a fish-eater than an apex predator with a bone-crushing bite.Traces of the middle Miocene walrus, named Pelagiarctos thomasi, were first found in the 1980s in the Sharktooth...

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Did Scientology ad cross line?

The Church of Scientology is also at fault for thinking the advertorial would survive The Atlantic readers' scrutiny, Ian Schafer says.STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe Atlantic published and pulled a sponsored Scientology "story"Ian Schafer: On several levels, the ad was a mistakeHe says the content was heavy-handed and comments were being moderatedSchafer: Experimenting to raise revenue makes sense, but standards...

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