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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Foreigners still trapped in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were captive or missing inside a desert gas plant on Saturday, nearly two days after the Algerian army launched an assault to free them that saw many hostages killed. The standoff between the army and al Qaeda-linked gunmen - one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades - entered its fourth day, having thrust...

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How Your Great-Grandmother’s Hobby Is Transforming One Alabama Town

Natalie Chanin’s life-changing epiphany struck while standing on a New York City street corner.For days, she had traversed throughout the city with a trash bag of her deconstructed T-shirts, seeking a manufacturer to help her make them. None of them, however, understood what kind of stitching she wanted on her creations, which had become popular in New York fashion circles after she made one on a...

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Marla Sokoloff Blogs: Adventures in Baby Traveling

Shady ladies in Hawaii – Courtesy Marla Sokoloff Our celebrity blogger Marla Sokoloff is a new mama!Since audiences first got to know her at age 12 as Gia on Full House, Sokoloff has had many memorable TV roles — Jody on Party of Five, Lucy on The Practice, Claire on Desperate Housewives – as well as turns on the big screen in Whatever It Takes, Dude, Where’s My Car? and Sugar & Spice.Sokoloff,...

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate...

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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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Hostages still held after Sahara assault

ALGIERS (Reuters) - At least 22 foreign hostages remained unaccounted for on Friday after Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist gunmen, an operation in which dozens of the hostages were killed. With Western leaders clamoring for details of the assault they said Algeria had launched on Thursday without consulting them, a local source...

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Inspiring Singers Outshine American Idol's Feuding Judges

TV Watch American Idol By Steve Helling 01/17/2013 at 11:00 PM EST From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban George Holz/FOX The second episode of American Idol delivered more drama, but a handful of singers managed to eclipse...

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Chinese, U.S. data push global shares to twenty-month high

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares hit a 20-month high on Friday as encouraging data from the United States and China boosted prospects for the global economy, while the yen hit new lows ahead of next week's Bank of Japan meeting. China's economy grew at a slightly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, the latest sign it is pulling out of a post-global financial...

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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global

ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist gunmen holding dozens of Western hostages and scores of Algerians at a gas plant deep in the Sahara desert let some them speak to the media on Thursday to warn that they would be blown up if the site is stormed. Governments around the globe were holding emergency meetings to respond to one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, which...

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