House Republicans balk at "fiscal cliff" deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington's last-minute scramble to step back from a "fiscal cliff" ran into trouble on Tuesday as Republicans in the House of Representatives balked at a deal to avert a budget crisis. Republican leaders in the House said they might try to change the bill approved by the Senate which voted to raise taxes on the wealthy in a late-night show of unity. ...

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Laos May Bear Cost of a Chinese Railroad

OUDOM XAI, Laos — Wang Quan, the new Chinese owner of a hotel in this farm town tucked into the tropical mountains of northern Laos, is hoping that the first of 20,000 Chinese workers will arrive here soon to start construction on a new railroad. Justin Mott for The New York TimesA Chinese construction truck passed through a small Hmong village on Route 13 in Oudom Xai Province, Laos....

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Sony No Longer Shipping PlayStation 2 in Japan

You may have grown up with it. Your children may have, too.Sony‘s PlayStation 2 home game console, released in 2000, was one of the most popular game consoles of all time, rivaled in sales only by the different kinds of Nintendo DS handheld console. It continued to be sold new on store shelves until just recently, even years after Sony launched its PlayStation 3 successor.Now, however, Sony’s sent...

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Kim Kardashian: From Divorce Drama to Baby Mama in 5 Clicks

Follow her odyssey from her messy split with Kris Humphries to her great expectation with Kanye West Credit: INF Updated: Monday Dec 31, 2012 | 11:45 AM EST Subscribe Now ...

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.But since then, Big Pharma has been...

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Wall Street ends 2012 riding high on "cliff" deal optimism

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks closed out 2012 with their strongest day in more than a month, putting the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year, as lawmakers in Washington closed in on a resolution to the "fiscal cliff" negotiations. The S&P 500's gain for the year marks its best performance since 2009, as stocks navigated through debt crises in Europe and the United States that...

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Rape Incites Women to Fight Culture in India

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA candlelight gathering after the cremation on Sunday blocked a road in New Delhi, the city where the Dec. 16 rape occurred. NEW DELHI — Neha Kaul Mehra says she was only 7 years old the first time she was sexually harassed. She was walking to a dance class in an affluent neighborhood of New Delhi when a man confronted her and began openly...

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Autonomy’s Lynch defends record as HP confirms Federal probe

LONDON (Reuters) – Mike Lynch, the founder of the software firm sold to Hewlett-Packard last year in a deal tainted by accusations of accounting fraud, said he would defend the company’s accounts to U.S. Federal investigators.HP confirmed in a filing late on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating Autonomy‘s books.The PC and printer maker bought the British company for $ 11...

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Dick Clark New Year's Eve Love Story - Same Couple Dancing Since 1972

By Dahvi Shira 12/30/2012 at 02:45 PM EST This New Year's Eve will be just like any other for Kathy and Louie Novoa, except without their dear friend Dick Clark, who passed away in April.The pair met on American Bandstand and have since taken part in every one of his New Year's Rockin' Eves since they began...

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated...

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