Center-Left Defeats Merkel’s Party in State Vote

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s main rivals pulled off an upset in a regional election, eking out a one-seat majority that will usher the opposition Social Democrats into power in the state of Lower Saxony, months ahead of balloting for the national Parliament. Preliminary results released on Monday showed the center-left bloc of the Social Democrats and the Greens securing a one-seat...

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RIM mulls licensing out software: CEO in paper

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Research in Motion will look into strategic alliances with other technology companies once it has launched its new BlackBerry 10 models, its chief executive told a German newspaper.German-born CEO Thorsten Heins told daily Die Welt in an interview published on Monday that the group’s strategic review could lead to the sale of RIM’s hardware production or the sale of licenses...

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Asian shares retreat from highs, yen volatile before BOJ

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares pulled back from multimonth highs on Monday, while the yen firmed after touching a new low in choppy trade ahead of a Bank of Japan policy decision that is expected to deliver bold monetary easing measures. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> edged down 0.2 percent despite pockets of strength in Australia,...

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IHT Rendezvous: China's "Lamborghini" coefficient: Who's Getting Richer, Who Poorer?

BEIJING — Search the word Gini, or “jini,” for Gini coefficient, the well-known measure of income inequality, on China’s biggest microblogging site and the first result today was for Lamborghini, the Italian luxury sports car (in Chinese, the two words share a similar sound in the last part of the car’s name.)That’s very ironic because the Gini coefficient measures income inequality and the Lamborghini,...

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Jimmy Kimmel Channels a Cooler Bill Nye

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:RELATED: When Chocolate Rain Met ‘Call Me Maybe’; Obama Boy Has a Crush, TooIf our science teachers were...

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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 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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