Algerian Hostage Standoff Continues; U.S. Victim Identified

Anis Belghoul/Associated PressAn Algerian military truck on a road leading to a Saharan gas field where militants still held at least 10 foreign hostages on Friday. BAMAKO, Mali — Islamic militants in Algeria continued to hold at least 10 and possibly dozens of foreign hostages Saturday, ignoring demands that they surrender peacefully. Among the dozen captives believed to have been killed was an American...

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Samsung, Apple seen pulling ahead in smartphone race: poll

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Samsung and Apple pulled ahead in the global smartphone race last quarter, according to forecasts by analysts in a Reuters poll, while Nokia and others are expected to have fallen further behind.Overall shipments of handsets are expected to have risen in the fourth quarter, with most of that growth dominated by Samsung. Analysts forecast the South Korean company shipped 61 million...

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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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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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Algerian Raid to Free Hostages Turns Deadly

BAMAKO, Mali — Without warning other governments, Algeria mounted an assault on Thursday on the heavily armed fighters holding American and other hostages at a remote Sahara gas field facility, freeing captives and killing kidnappers but leaving some hostages dead and foreign leaders scrambling to find out the fates of their citizens. Almost a day after the raid, there was no official word...

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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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Housing, job data push S&P to five-year high; Intel down late

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stronger-than-expected data on housing starts and jobless claims lit a fire under stocks on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500 to a five-year high and its third day of gains. A pair of economic reports lifted investors' sentiment. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week and housing starts jumped last month...

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Jan. 17

NEWS The U.S. State Department said Americans were among hostages captured by Islamist extremists in Algeria on Wednesday, in what the attackers called retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali. Adam Nossiter and Scott Sayare report.Nearly half of Germany’s gold reserves are held in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — billions of dollars worth of postwar geopolitical history squirreled...

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Mysterious Samsung smartphone pictured with Verizon branding

Earlier this week, a mysterious Samsung (005930) smartphone appeared on GLBenchmark’s database with the model number SCH-I425. The number fell in line with previous Verizon (VZ) devices, leading us to speculate that it could be the Stratosphere III. New images posted by Engadget on Wednesday confirmed that the handset is real, however it does not feature earlier Stratosphere devices’ signature QWERTY...

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American Idol's New Judges Make Their Debut

TV Watch American Idol 01/16/2013 at 11:00 PM EST From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban Michael Becker/FOX. American Idol is back! Season 12 premiered Wednesday night with the first auditions in New York City. And fans...

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Asian shares retreat on caution ahead of Chinese data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Thursday, erasing earlier gains amid worries about the global growth outlook as investors remained cautious ahead of Chinese data on Friday. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.2 percent, extending declines for a third consecutive session, led by a slump in Chinese shares. The index's financial...

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Bomb Strikes Disputed Iraqi City of Kirkuk

BAGHDAD (AP) — A powerful suicide car bomb struck the local headquarters for the party of a key Kurdish leader early Wednesday in the disputed Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least four and wounding dozens, according to officials. The blast outside the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party caused widespread damage, mangling cars and tearing apart storefronts. The KDP is led by Massoud...

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Apple scoops PBS on “Downton Abbey” episodes, but PBS is cool with it

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Apple is making the entire third season of “Downton Abbey” available on iTunes before every episode airs on PBS – and that’s just fine with PBS.Fans who buy a season pass on iTunes beginning January 29 will get to see three episodes before they air on PBS. The Season 3 finale airs February 17.But PBS CEO Paula Kerger isn’t worried that viewers will watch the show online, then...

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It's a Boy for Elton John

Mom & Babies Celebrity Baby Blog 01/15/2013 at 10:00 PM ET George Pimentel/WireImageElton John is a father again!The musician and David Furnish welcomed their second child, son Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, via surrogate on Friday, Jan. 11 in Los Angeles, the couple confirm to HELLO.Born at...

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Asian shares fall on growth caution, Nikkei hit as yen gains

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Wednesday as cautious investors waited for crucial economic data from China later this week, while the yen's extended gains spurred profit taking in Japanese equities after their recent rally. Japan's benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> shed 2.6 percent for its largest daily decline in eight months, sharply reversing Tuesday's rally that lifted...

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Jan. 15

NEWS Despite intensive airstrikes by French warplanes, Islamist fighters overran a strategic village and military post in central Mali on Monday, indicating that the war against extremists who have carved out a jihadist state in the nation’s north could be a long and difficult one. Steven Erlanger, Alan Cowell and Adam Nossiter report.President Barack Obama and Republican Congressional leaders dug...

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Can We Trust CNET Again After a Scandal This Shady?

CNET, one of the Internet’s first and most influential authorities on gadgets and tech news, watched its editorial integrity spiral out of control Monday, with staffers quitting and editors left to explain themselves in the wake of explosive new charges over its annual Consumer Electronics Show awards — a scandal, it would appear, that goes all the way to the top of its corporate umbrella, and could...

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Bachelor Sean Lowe: My Girl Must Love Dogs

For any of the 25 women looking to win over this season's Bachelor, Sean Lowe, here's a tip straight from the source: "The girl I'm dating must be into my dogs," he tells PEOPLE. The proud pet parent to two pooches, a boxer named Lola and a chocolate Labrador named Ellie, Lowe says, "For so long it's just been me and my two dogs, and I'm certainly not going to replace them with any woman." Having...

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Apple drags on S&P, Nasdaq; Dell jumps after report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower on Monday as worries over demand for Apple products drove down its shares and investors braced for earnings disappointments. Running counter to that was Dell Inc's stock which jumped 13 percent to about a five-month high at $12.29 after Bloomberg reported the No. 3 personal computer maker is in talks with private equity firms...

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India Ink: Government Quells Maoist Rebellion in West Bengal

KOLKATA —Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has often called the conflict against the Communist Party of India (Maoist) the greatest internal security threat that India faces. With some 6,000 dead in India’s heartland since 2005 alone, it has certainly been one of the most violent.Mr. Singh’s lingering inability to quell the bloodshed through a “two-pronged strategy” of economic development and armed counterinsurgency...

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Almacenamiento en nubes crecerá y permanecerá por años

(Paquete Tecnológico)México, 13 Ene. (Notimex).- Ante el crecimiento de la industria de almacenamiento en nubes híbridas abiertas y ampliables, se prevé que esta tendencia se mantenga por muchos años más, anticipó Red-Hat.Lo anterior debido al crecimiento de este sector en los últimos años, como consecuencia de la demanda en la aparición de datos no estructurados e implementaciones de nubes híbridas...

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It's Halle Berry vs. Eva Longoria and the Thigh's the Limit

Stylewatch Style News Now 01/13/2013 at 11:25 PM ET Jason Merritt/Getty (2)We could call it pulling an Angelina, but at this point, lots of stars have flashed lots of legs on lots of red carpets — and Halle Berry and Eva Longoria...

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Yen under pressure, Asian stocks drift up

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The yen plumbed a 2-1/2 year low against the dollar on Monday, grabbing the Asian spotlight amid subdued trading for the region's stock markets, with Japan's central bank in focus as it faced unrelenting political pressure to deliver bold stimulus. The euro also notched up handsome gains against the dollar and the yen, helped by waning expectations of any further monetary...

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IHT Rendezvous: Breathing in Beijing: Coping With China's Smog

BEIJING — With Beijing’s air pollution soaring to seemingly new, awful records this weekend, the classic parenting dilemma of “What shall we do with the kids?” had a grimly obvious answer: Slap on the antipollution face masks and go shopping for another air purifier.That’s what we did on Saturday, as the Air Quality Index run by the United States Embassy in Beijing, which uses standards set by the...

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