Thirty-one killed as militants attack Pakistan checkpoint

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants attacked an isolated army checkpoint in Pakistan's restive northwest on Saturday, with at least 31 people killed in the initial assault, subsequent crossfire and a rocket attack on a house, officials said. The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in response to a U.S. drone strike in neighboring North Waziristan...

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BlackBerry doesn’t need to catch up with Android and iOS overnight, it needs to live to fight another day

The biggest criticism of BlackBerry’s (RIMM) revamped mobile operating system and smartphone line so far is that they don’t give iOS or Android users any compelling reasons to switch brands. And this is certainly true — BlackBerry 10, for all its virtues, doesn’t do anything significantly better than the top two mobile operating systems and seems designed mostly to please the faithful and not...

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Jenna Miscavige Hill Pens Revealing Scientology Book

02/01/2013 at 08:00 PM EST Jenna Miscavige and her uncle David inset Michael Murphree; Inset: Polaris What was it like to grow up inside Sea Org, the Church of Scientology's most elite body? In her memoir Beyond Belief, excerpted exclusively below, Jenna Miscavige...

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out...

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights. That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January. Late-stage bull markets...

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Mexico rescue workers search for survivors after Pemex blast kills 25

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Emergency services worked into the early hours of Friday to find people trapped in rubble under state oil company Pemex's headquarters in Mexico City after an explosion that killed at least 25 people and injured more than 100. Scenes of confusion and chaos at the downtown tower dealt yet another blow to Pemex's image as Mexico's new president courts outside investment...

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Steven Tyler Auditions in Drag for American Idol

TV Watch American Idol By Steve Helling 01/31/2013 at 10:35 PM EST Steven Tyler sings before the AFC Championship NFL football game, Jan, 22, 2012 Elise Amendola/AP Former judge Steven Tyler made a surprise cameo on American Idol Thursday night – dressed as a woman....

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health officials on Thursday...

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Stock index futures rise, focus on jobs data

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.4 to 0.5 percent. U.S. job growth likely picked up modestly in January and the unemployment rate held steady, supporting views a sluggish economic recovery was on track despite a surprise contraction in the final three months...

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Syrian rebels make slow headway in south

AMMAN (Reuters) - The revolt against President Bashar al-Assad first flared in Deraa, but the southern border city now epitomizes the bloody stalemate gripping Syria after 22 months of violence and 60,000 dead. Jordan next door has little sympathy with Assad, but is wary of spillover from the upheaval in its bigger neighbor. It has tightened control of its 370-km (230-mile) border with...

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Dr. Phil says Manti Te’o hoaxer admits to love for linebacker

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California man who has admitted to fabricating Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te‘o’s fake girlfriend in an elaborate hoax told talk show host Phil McGraw he felt a deep romantic love for the football player, McGraw said on Wednesday.“Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love,” McGraw told the television morning show “Today” to discuss his two part interview...

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American Idol Discovers Big Talent in Texas and California

TV Watch American Idol By Jamie Bufalino 01/30/2013 at 11:00 PM EST From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban Michael Becker/FOX. It's the final week of American Idol's cross-country talent search. And as the judges head...

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting...

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German jitters hit European shares, euro

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares fell for a second straight day and the euro halted its recent rally, as weak German retail sales and poor earnings at its biggest bank added to investors' nerves after a shock fourth quarter contraction in the U.S. economy. Data on Wednesday showed U.S. GDP slipped back 0.1 percent, though the country's central bank, the Federal Reserve, indicated the...

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Mursi heads to Germany on trip cut back by Egypt crisis

CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi flew to Germany on Wednesday to convince Europe of his democratic credentials, leaving behind a country in crisis after a wave of violence that has killed more than 50 people. The Egyptian army chief warned on Tuesday that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end the street battles...

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Facebook Graph Search Still Doesn’t Speak Human

Despite hiring a couple of linguists to get its new search engine to move “beyond ‘Robospeak” and actually understand how people talk, Facebook hasn’t actually taught Graph Search how to do that very well just yet. And that’s a problem, no matter which way the social network spins it. Unlike Google‘s pattern-matching search engine, Facebook’s new recommendation-based social search platform tries to...

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Ashley Judd Splits from Husband Dario Franchitti

01/29/2013 at 08:05 PM EST Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti Robin Marchant/Wireimage Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti are splitting after more than a decade of marriage."We have mutually decided to end our marriage. We'll always be family and continue to cherish...

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after...

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Euro surges to 14-month high, Fed decision awaited

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro hit its highest level in over a year on Wednesday and shares, oil and metals were also on the rise, as confidence in the global economic outlook strengthened ahead of European data and the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest policy decision. The Fed is expected to maintain asset buying at $85 billion a month when it concludes its meeting later and retain its commitment...

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Army says political tussle taking Egypt to brink

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief said political strife was pushing the state to the brink of collapse - a stark warning from the institution that ran the country until last year, as Cairo's first elected leader struggles to contain bloody street violence. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, appointed by President Mohamed Mursi last year to head the military, added in a statement...

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Yahoo sees revenue climb this year, but long road ahead

(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc forecast a modest uptick in revenue for the current year as it revamps its family of websites but Chief Executive Marissa Mayer warned it would be a long journey to revive the Internet company‘s fortunes.In Yahoo‘s first financial outlook since Mayer became CEO in July, the company outlined a plan to trigger a “chain reaction of growth” by overhauling a dozen of its online services...

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Soldier talks about his new arms after transplant

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in an Iraq roadside bombing has two new arms following a double transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital.Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Marrocco along with the surgeons who treated him will be at the Baltimore hospital on Tuesday to discuss the new limbs.The transplants are only the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant ever conducted in the United...

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