Today's Yahoo! News - Latest News & Headlines:
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Consumer confidence perks up, house prices sag
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:44 PM PST
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Improving labor market conditions lifted U.S. consumer confidence to an eight month high in December, but persistently weak house prices remain an obstacle to faster economic growth. The sharp rise in sentiment reported by the Conference Board on Tuesday offered hope for a pick-up in consumer spending after an anemic performance in November. "It suggests there is some real improvement in the economy. Consumer confidence really boils down to how people feel about the labor market," said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North ...
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Sears closing up to 120 stores as sales slide
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:05 PM PST
Reuters -  (Reuters) - Sears Holdings Corp will close as many as 120 of its Kmart and Sears discount and department stores after its holiday sales slumped, sending its shares sliding more than 27 percent to their lowest level in three years. The retailer, which is controlled by its chairman, the hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, has seen sales decline every year since the $11 billion merger of the two chains in 2005, and likely faces further closings to cut expenses, preserve cash and push back against rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc, analysts said. ...
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Obama taps economist, banker as Fed governors
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:46 PM PST
Reuters -  HONOLULU/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will nominate Harvard economist Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell, an investment banker and former Treasury official, to the two empty seats on the Federal Reserve's policy-setting board of governors. The White House's pick of candidates, who have Democratic and Republican credentials respectively, may help speed their nomination through Congress amid a sluggish economic recovery that has failed to put a major dent in the unemployment rate, now at 8.6 percent. ...
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Democrat Nelson to retire from Senate
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:18 PM PST
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Senator Ben Nelson said on Tuesday that he will retire next year, dealing a significant blow to his party's hopes of keeping control of the Senate after the November 2012 elections. Nelson, a former Nebraska governor, said he felt it was time for him to leave elective office and seek new ways to serve his state and his country. "I'm announcing today that I will not seek re-election. Simply put, it's time to move on," Nelson, 70, said in a video statement. ...
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Mass anti-Assad protest in Homs as monitors visit
Tue,27 Dec 2011 04:40 PM PST
Reuters -  BEIRUT (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Syrians have taken to the streets in the flashpoint city of Homs to rally against President Bashar al-Assad and plead for newly-arrived Arab peace monitors to bear witness to their plight. About 70,000 protesters marched towards the city centre on Tuesday where security forces fired at them and lobbed teargas, activists said. The military withdrew some tanks, in what the activists called a ploy to persuade the monitors that the city was calm. Footage on the Internet showed monitors confronted by residents as gunfire crackled around them. ...
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More trouble for Gingrich as Iowa campaign quickens
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:47 PM PST
Reuters -  DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's campaign struggled to fend off more bad news on Tuesday after he was quoted supporting main rival Mitt Romney's healthcare reform in Massachusetts. Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has seen his poll numbers drop in the early-voting state of Iowa under a blitz of negative ads accusing him of being an unreliable Washington insider. He tried to regain some of his lost momentum in a pugnacious interview with CNN in which he used some of his strongest language yet to attack his main opponents. ...
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Iran threatens to stop Gulf oil if sanctions widened
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:47 PM PST
Reuters -  TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran threatened on Tuesday to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil. Western tensions with Iran have increased since a November 8 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. ...
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Putin ejects Kremlin "puppet master" after protests
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:48 PM PST
Reuters -  MOSCOW (Reuters) - The architect of Vladimir Putin's tightly controlled political system became one of its most senior victims on Tuesday when he was shunted out of the Kremlin in the wake of the biggest opposition protests of Putin's 12-year rule. The sacrifice of Vladislav Surkov, branded the Kremlin's 'puppet master' by enemies and friends alike, is also a rare admission of failure for Russia's 'alpha dog' leader: Surkov's system was Putin's system. ...
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Hackers say to publish emails stolen from Stratfor
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:02 PM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group said they are getting ready to publish emails stolen from private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting Inc, whose clients include the U.S. military, Wall Street banks and other corporations. Strategic Forecasting Inc, which is also known as Stratfor, disclosed over the weekend that its website had been hacked and that some information about its corporate subscribers had been made public. The hacking group known as Antisec has claimed responsibility for the attack and promised to cause "mayhem" by releasing stolen documents. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: U.S. rental demand lifts housing sector
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:48 PM PST
Reuters -  (Reuters) - Brian Keith is busier than ever as the architecture firm he works for rushes to wrap up work on a 300-unit apartment complex in Dallas. The project is one of dozens the firm, JHP Architecture, has on its hands -- a surge of business driven by a rise in demand in the United States for rental properties. The increased demand has forced JHP to expand, and it expects to keep hiring at least through the first quarter. "We're seeing overall work come back and there's a backlog of contracts to go through," said Keith, director of urban design and planning at JHP. ...
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Democrat Nelson to retire from Senate
Tue,27 Dec 2011 02:51 PM PST
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Senator Ben Nelson said on Tuesday he will retire next year, dealing a significant blow to his party's hopes of keeping control of the Senate in the November 2012 election. Nelson's decision not to seek re-election puts his seat in heavily Republican Nebraska up for grabs, boosting Republicans' hopes of wresting control of the chamber from Democrats. Republicans already have a majority in the House of Representatives, where they have heavily resisted many of President Barack Obama's spending plans over concerns about a build-up of U.S. deficits and debt ...
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Sears closing more stores as holiday sales slide
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:45 PM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - Sears Holdings Corp will close as many as 120 of its Kmart and Sears discount and department stores after its holiday sales slumped, sending its shares sliding more than 27 percent to their lowest level in three years. The retailer, which is controlled by its chairman, the hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, has seen sales decline every year since the $11 billion merger of the two chains in 2005, and likely faces further closings to cut expenses, preserve cash and push back against rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc, analysts said. ...
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Mass anti-Assad protest in Homs as monitors visit
Tue,27 Dec 2011 03:52 PM PST
Reuters -  BEIRUT (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Syrians in Homs rallied on Tuesday against President Bashar al-Assad, emboldened by Arab peace monitors' first tour of the flashpoint city, after the army withdrew some tanks following days of unrest. Some 70,000 protesters marched towards the city centre where security forces fired at them and lobbed teargas, activists said. ...
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Funeral for North Korean leader amid worry about future
Tue,27 Dec 2011 11:07 AM PST
Reuters -  SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea will hold a funeral procession on Wednesday for its deceased "dear leader", Kim Jong-il, making way for his son, Kim Jong-un, to become the third member of the family to run the isolated and unpredictable Asian country. The coming year was supposed to mark North Korea's self-proclaimed transformation into a "strong and prosperous" nation, but it faces a dangerous transition to a young, untested leader at a time when dictatorships across the world have tumbled. ...
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Insight: FDA warned PIP on breast implant safety in 2000
Tue,27 Dec 2011 10:20 AM PST
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As early as 2000, U.S. health authorities raised concerns about the French breast implant maker at the heart of a scandal affecting hundreds of thousands of women worldwide. That was almost 10 years before the company came under scrutiny from European regulators. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent an investigator to inspect a plant run by the manufacturer, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), at La Seyne Sur Mer in southeastern France in May 2000. ...
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Dems scramble as Sen. Nelson announces retirement
Tue,27 Dec 2011 06:13 PM PST
Associated Press -  Democrats on Tuesday lamented Sen. Ben Nelson's decision to retire rather than seek a third term in Nebraska, fearing the move sets up Republicans for an easy and crucial victory in their effort to reclaim control of the chamber next year.
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Mass protests in Syrian city as monitors arrive
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:07 PM PST
Associated Press -  Tens of thousands of defiant Syrian protesters thronged the streets of Homs Tuesday, calling for the execution of President Bashar Assad shortly after his army pulled its tanks back and allowed Arab League monitors in for the first time to the city at the heart of the anti-government uprising.
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Romney looks past Iowa rivals to criticize Obama
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:37 PM PST
Associated Press -  Projecting the confidence of a front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney swept into Iowa on Tuesday ahead of next week's presidential caucuses, looked past his Republican rivals and accused President Barack Obama of "misguided policies and weak leadership" in the White House.
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Old fireplace embers caused deadly Conn. fire
Tue,27 Dec 2011 07:43 PM PST
Associated Press -  Two of the little sisters who died in a furious house fire early Christmas morning lost their way as a family friend tried to lead them to safety. Their other sister died just feet from escape, trapped inside as her grandfather perished during his rescue attempt. Outside, their mother frantically tried to direct firefighters to her doomed family.
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New fee coming for medical effectiveness research
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:08 PM PST
Associated Press - Starting in 2012, the government will charge a new fee to your health insurance plan for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. But what will Americans do with the answers? Full Story | Top |
Payton not divulging plan for Brees in finale
Tue,27 Dec 2011 05:02 PM PST
Associated Press -  A day after Sean Payton helped Drew Brees break the NFL's single-season passing record the coach wouldn't divulge whether he'd enable his star quarterback to maintain that distinction.
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