Wall Street slides as fiscal deal unlikely before 2013

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled more than 1 percent on Friday after a Republican proposal for averting the "fiscal cliff" failed to pass, diminishing hopes that a deal would be reached soon in Washington. Trading was volatile as investors reckoned a fiscal agreement between the White House and Republicans before the end of the year was unlikely. Lower volume ahead of the Christmas...

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said. The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect...

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Nokia, RIM settle old disputes in new patent pact

HELSINKI (AP) — Nokia Corp. and Canadian smartphone rival Research In Motion have agreed on a new patent licensing pact which will end all existing litigation between the two struggling companies, the Finnish firm said Friday.The agreement includes a “one-time payment and on-going payments, all from RIM to Nokia,” Nokia said, but did not disclose “confidential” terms.Last month, Nokia sued the Blackberry...

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The Words Exclusive DVD Bonus Features Clip

Bradley Cooper has built his career on playing men stuck between a rock and a hard place -- from The Hangover to Limitless, audiences simply adore watching the actor wriggle out of sticky situations. RELATED - Bradley Cooper Talks The Words The Words promises to elate his fans once again as Cooper plays Rory Jansen, a struggling writer who finally achieves literary success after publishing what is...

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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 flat amid stalemate in fiscal talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Thursday as investors fretted that a deal on the U.S. budget wouldn't come as soon as they had hoped after President Barack Obama threatened to veto a controversial Republican plan. NYSE Euronext was the star of the day, surging more than 30 percent as the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, after IntercontinentalExchange Inc ...

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said. The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect...

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Nintendo’s amazing triumph in Japan may doom the company internationally

According to Japanese gaming bible Famitsu, Nintendo (NTDOY) 3DS sold 333,000 units in the week ending December 16, while Sony’s (SNE) PS Vita limped along at 13,000 units, the new Wii U did an okay 130,000 units and the PlayStation 3 managed to sell 46,000 units.  The utter hardware domination of the 3DS is reshaping the Japanese software market. Franchises that were thought to be fading have...

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Oscars Flashback: Russell Crowe 2001

At the 2001 Academy Awards, Russell Crowe won his first Oscar for Gladiator, a film that created a significant appetite for epic dramas that still exists today. However, Crowe wasn't exactly on cloud nine after winning the award, as he is unyieldingly sarcastic and standoffish in his pressroom session.Crowe, who had been nominated for an Oscar for The Insider prior to his portrayal of "Maximus," sets...

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid...

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