UPDATE 1-NBA-Jazz stifle Heat as Miami's road woes continue

(adds quotes)* Miami lead in East down to half a game* LeBron 18 away from 20,000 career pointsJan 14 (Reuters) - The Miami Heat were unable to complete a furious second half fightback as the defending NBA champions continued to struggle on the road, falling to a 104-97 loss to the Jazz in Utah on Monday.LeBron James scored 32 points to help the Heat cut a 21-point deficit to just two when they pulled...

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Jazz stifle Heat as Miami's road woes continue

(Reuters) - The Miami Heat were unable to complete a furious second half fightback as the defending NBA champions continued to struggle on the road, falling to a 104-97 loss to the Jazz in Utah on Monday.LeBron James scored 32 points to help the Heat cut a 21-point deficit to just two when they pulled within 93-91 in the final few minutes, but the Jazz held firm to consign Miami to a third loss in...

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Yankees sign relief ace Rivera for another season

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major League Baseball's all time saves leader Mariano Rivera has signed a one-year contract to return for his 18th season with the New York Yankees, the team said on Friday.The Panama native tore ligaments in his left knee in May while catching fly balls in the outfield before a game and pitched in only nine games in 2012."I didn't want to go out like that," the 43-year-old Rivera...

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4 women strip, protest Vatican gay marriage stance

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Four women have gone topless in St. Peter's Square to protest the Vatican's opposition to gay marriage.Police quickly took the women away Sunday, and the pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza.On their bare backs, the women had painted slogans "In Gay We Trust," and "Shut Up." One of them, Inna...

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Steam train chugs through London's subway system

LONDON (AP) — Tourists waiting for their morning subway train to Madame Tussauds were treated to an unusual sight Sunday: a 19th- century steam engine chugging down the tracks.Transit officials sent the Met Locomotive 1, built in 1898, down London's Metropolitan Line to mark the 150th anniversary of the capital's Tube network, the world's oldest.Hundreds of train fans, costume-wearing enthusiasts,...

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Ahead of failed rescue in Somalia, hostage chained

PARIS (AP) — France's defense minister says the intelligence agent held hostage for more than three years by Islamic militants in Somalia was chained up, mistreated and constantly moved around by his captors ahead of a failed rescue operation.Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday the decision was made to attempt the rescue because the agent, known by his code-name Denis Allex, was finally...

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Bonds, Clemens rejected; no one elected to BB Hall

NEW YORK (AP) — Steroid-tainted stars Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa were denied entry to baseball's Hall of Fame, with voters failing to elect any candidates for only the second time in four decades.In a vote that keeps the game's career home run leader and one of its greatest pitchers out of Cooperstown — at least for now — Bonds received just 36.2 percent of the vote and Clemens 37.6...

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UPDATE 2-Baseball-Bonds, Clemens denied; no players make Hall

* Bonds received 36.2 percent of the vote, Clemens 37.6* First year since 1996 that no players elected to Hall* Former Astro Biggio comes closest, falls 39 votes shy (Adds quotes and details)Jan 9 (Reuters) - No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, with all-time home run leader Barry Bonds and seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens snubbed over suspicion they used performance...

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Bonds, Clemens denied; no players make Hall

(Reuters) - No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, with all-time home run leader Barry Bonds and seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens snubbed over suspicion they used performance enhancing drugs.Craig Biggio, who stroked 3,060 hits in a 20-year career with the Houston Astros, came closest to winning election, named on 68.2 percent of the 569 ballots to fall 39 votes shy...

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Number of e-book readers increasing in United States: survey

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The popularity of electronic books is increasing in the United States, with nearly one-quarter of American bibliophiles reading e-books, according to a survey released on Thursday.The number of e-readers aged 16 years and older jumped from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year, while print readers fell from 72 to 67 percent in 2012, in a survey conducted by the Pew Research...

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China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING (Reuters) - China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online...

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Sri Lanka arrests 100 Chinese for cyber fraud, police say

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka on Saturday arrested at least 100 Chinese nationals accused of an internet fraud scheme targeting people in their home country, a police spokesman said.The accused, all in Sri Lanka on tourist visas, are suspected of hacking into computers in China and then demanding their owners transfer them money, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakodi told Reuters.Chinese police requested...

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World stocks rise as Alcoa sees stronger demand

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets rose Wednesday after the fourth-quarter earnings season got off to a positive start in the U.S. with aluminum giant Alcoa forecasting higher demand for 2013.Demand for aluminum has been hurt by the weak global economy, but Alcoa predicted a 7 percent increase in demand this year, slightly better than the 6 percent increase in 2012. Because Alcoa makes aluminum for...

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Futures rise as earnings season begins in the US

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock futures are rising after a pair of U.S. companies opened the earnings season with a surprisingly strong start.Dow Jones industrial futures are up 13 points to 13,280. The broader S&P futures have added 0.80 points to 1,435.10. Nasdaq futures are up 0.25 points to 2,714.25.After markets closed Tuesday, Alcoa predicted rising demand for its aluminum this year and topped revenue...

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Stocks open higher for first day in three

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose on Wall Street in early trading Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a strong start.The Dow Jones industrial average rose 75 points to 13,403 after the first hour of trading. The Dow is coming off of two days of losses.The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose six to 1,463 and the Nasdaq composite rose 16 to 3,108.Alcoa predicted rising demand for...

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Saban quickly turns to challenges of 2013 season

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — It's becoming a familiar January scene for Nick Saban.The Alabama coach plastered a smile on his face for a series of posed photos next to the various trophies awarded to college football's national champions and then proceeded to talk about the challenges facing his team.Maybe Saban let the Gatorade dry from the celebratory drenching before thinking about the 2013 season....

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AP Source: Browns interviewing CFL's Trestman

 A person familiar with the interview says the Browns are meeting with Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman.Trestman interviewed with the Chicago Bears on Monday night and arrived at the Browns' facility in suburban Berea on Tuesday, said the person who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the search. Trestman is the fifth known candidate...

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Kapalua now in a different golf landscape

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — Paradise can leave a lasting impression.Steve Stricker was just starting to pull himself out of a deep slump in 2006 when he was reminded by his daughter, Bobbi Maria, how long it had been since he last won on the PGA Tour. She was 8 at the time and won a tournament for juniors at their home club in Wisconsin, no more than three or six holes."She comes home all excited and...

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Samsung Says It's Making More Money Than Apple, Now

Riding the wave of gadget goodness from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung released a pretty impressive set of fourth quarter earnings estimates, including a record high profit. The South Korean electronics manufacturer says that it will make $8.3 billion in profits on $52.7 billion in revenue. That's a shade better than Apple's own record high profit of $8.2 billion on just $32...

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Samsung sees record-high 4Q profit

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest technology company by revenue, expects record earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 as shoppers continued to snap up its smartphones and tablets.The company said Tuesday its operating profit for the October-December quarter would be about 8.8 trillion won ($8.3 billion), up 89 percent from a year earlier and higher than expectations....

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Asia stocks down ahead of US corporate earnings

 Asian stock markets headed lower Tuesday as investors turned cautious before U.S. earnings season kicks off this week.Investors will get a feel for corporate America's outlook as earnings reports start coming. Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. will unofficially launch the reporting season for the fourth quarter of 2012 on Tuesday after U.S. markets close.Events during the quarter such as Superstorm...

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5 die in plane crash in French Alps

PARIS (AP) — Police say five people have died after their plane crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in the French Alps.The plane crashed in a forest in an uninhabited area outside Grenoble, a city that is the gateway to the mountain resorts of the Alps in southeastern France.An official with the French gendarmerie said the plane crashed Saturday shortly after it took off from Grenoble's...

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Family of 5 dies in plane crash near French Alps

PARIS (AP) — A Moroccan family of five returning home died Saturday when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport near the French Alps, officials said.The twin-engine plane hit a hill and crashed in a forest in an uninhabited area outside Grenoble, a city that is the gateway to the Alpine resorts in southeastern France.Bruno Charlot, a local government official, said all five aboard...

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6 Russians die in snowmobile crash in Italy

ROME (AP) — Six Russians were killed and two seriously injured when the snowmobile and sled they were riding veered off an Italian Alpine ski slope at night, slammed into a barrier and flew through the air into a ravine.The accident occurred Friday, and when rescuers arrived at the scene six of the victims were found dead on the slope of Mount Cermis, in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast...

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Eli Lilly banks on cost controls for higher 2013 profit

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co said on Friday it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.Lilly, whose shares were up nearly 4 percent on Friday, said 2013 sales will be flat to a bit higher, despite the loss of patent on its $5 billion-a-year antidepressant, Cymbalta, in December.The Indianapolis-based...

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Lilly 2013 profit forecast tops expectations

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Eli Lilly and Co. unveiled a better-than-expected 2013 earnings forecast Friday, in part because the pharmaceutical company expects growth from several established drugs to help make up for revenue lost to generic competition.The Indianapolis drug developer saw sales for its all-time best-selling drug, the antipsychotics Zyprexa, crater in 2012 after it lost U.S. patent protection....

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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 estimates...

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For Egypt's satirists, Morsi's power is no joke

There are few things dictators hate more than satirists, with their uncomfortable habit of piercing hypocrisy and self-importance with just a few well-placed verbal or written barbs.Under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian public's rich horde of satirical memes was an underground phenomenon, the province of cafe talk and SMS messages. That former President Mubarak was commonly called La Vache qui rit ("The...

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Taiwan undersea oil plans raise neighbors' eyebrows

Taiwan, a normally quiet claimant to portions of the disputed South China Sea, plans to explore for undersea oil there, a move likely to test fragile relations with China and upset major Southeast Asian nations.Ringed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and others, the waters are believed to hold as many as 213 billion barrels of oil but competing claims from the six bordering nations have...

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US drone strike in Pakistan kills influential Taliban commander

Key Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir – considered a "good" Taliban by some among the Pakistani military – died in a US drone strike that left at least six dead on Thursday, according to local reports.According to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Taliban and local government officials confirm that Mr. Nazir and at least two of his deputies were killed when a US drone hit their vehicle in South Waziristan,...

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Russia plans biggest war games since Soviet era

The Russian navy has announced that it will hold its biggest war games since Soviet times in the Mediterranean and Black seas later this month.The ambitious exercises, which will involve ships from all four major Russian fleets, are a sign of growing confidence on the part of Russia's military as it begins to enjoy the benefits of President Vladimir Putin's huge budget allocations for renewing and...

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Gerard Depardieu's latest drama: a Russian passport

Vladimir Putin flourished his pen Thursday morning and signed what must be the oddest decree of his long years in power: an order granting a Russian passport to French actor and tax exile Gerard Depardieu.A terse announcement posted on the Kremlin website noted that Mr. Putin acted "to satisfy an application for citizenship of the Russian Federation by Gerard Xavier Depardieu, who was born in 1948...

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Lending to businesses still weak in Europe

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Bank loans to companies fell again in Europe, another sign that the economy remains slack in the 17 European Union countries that use the euro.The European Central Bank said Thursday that loans to non-financial corporations fell by 1.4 percent in November from the year before.It's a sign that businesses remain reluctant to take on risk and borrow, despite the ECB's record...

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German jobless rate up to 6.7 percent

Germany's unemployment rate crept up to 6.7 percent in December due to seasonal factors and a more sluggish economy, but the labor market remained robust and the average number of people out of work last year was the lowest in more than two decades.The unadjusted jobless rate rose from 6.5 percent in November, the Federal Labor Agency said Thursday. Some 2.84 million people were registered unemployed...

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Japan's finance minister in Myanmar with development pledges

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - Japan's new government confirmed its support for the emerging democracy in Myanmar on Thursday when Finance Minister Taro Aso visited the country to reaffirm Japan's intention to cancel debt and help develop a big industrial zone.Myanmar has implemented rapid economic and political reforms since President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government took over from a long-ruling...

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