Wall Street Week Ahead: Going off "cliff" with a bungee cord

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The 1987 crash. The Y2K bug. The debt ceiling debacle of 2011. All these events, in the end, turned out to be buying opportunities for stocks. So will the "fiscal cliff," some investors say as they watch favorite stocks tumble during the political give-and-take happening in Washington. The first round of talks aimed at avoiding the "fiscal cliff" caused...

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Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the "Iron Dome" defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on...

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How new Kindle Fire compares with rivals

Amazon.com Inc. started shipping a larger version of its Kindle Fire HD tablet computer on Thursday. Here’s a look at how it compares with the iPad and other tablets with similar screens.Amazon.com Inc.‘s Kindle Fire HD 8.9″: — Price: $ 299 for 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 369 for 32 GB.— Screen size: 8.9 inches diagonally—...

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President Obama Perfects the McKayla Maroney Scowl

By Kristen Mascia 11/17/2012 at 01:45 PM EST Pete Souza/The White House/Getty Heads up, America: the President is not impressed.During the U.S. women's gymnastics team's visit to the White House on Thursday, president Barack Obama posed with McKayla Maroney,...

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.Meningitis mainly affects infants...

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Washington's upbeat tone cheers Wall Street for a day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hope that politicians would find common ground to steer clear of the "fiscal cliff" boosted stocks on Friday, though the gains were not enough to offset the week's losses. Stocks recovered from early declines after leaders of the Senate and House emerged from a meeting at the White House and indicated they would be flexible in efforts to settle fiscal policy differences....

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Israel moves on reservists after rockets target cities

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day. The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel's Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt's prime minister, denouncing what he described...

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Samsung goes after HTC deal to undercut Apple-filing

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When Apple Inc and HTC Corp last week ended their worldwide legal battles with a 10-year patent licensing agreement, they declined to answer a critical question: whether all of Apple‘s patents were covered by the deal.It’s an enormously important issue for the broader smartphone patent wars. If all the Apple patents are included...

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Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez Reunite in L.A.

By Jessica Herndon 11/16/2012 at 04:00 PM EST Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber in April 2012 Noel Vasquez/Getty Oh, young love.Less than a week after PEOPLE confirmed that Justin Bieber, 18, and Selena Gomez, 20, called it quits, the pair reunited in Los Angeles. On...

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Wall Street ends flat as wary investors stay defensive

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as the prospect of a drawn-out battle over impending tax and spending changes made investors wary of getting into the water, while retailer Wal-Mart tumbled after disappointing sales. The S&P 500 is down nearly 2 percent for the week, adding to last week's selloff and eroding more of the market's gains for the year. ...

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Rockets hit near Tel Aviv as Gaza death toll rises

GAZA (Reuters) - Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip targeted Tel Aviv on Thursday in the first attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years, raising the stakes in a showdown between Israel and the Palestinians that is moving toward all-out war. Earlier, a Hamas rocket killed three Israelis north of the Gaza Strip, drawing the first blood from Israel as the Palestinian death toll...

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GameStop profit beats forecast; cautiously eyes holiday

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – GameStop Corp, the world’s largest retailer of videogame products, reported a stronger-than-expected profit on Thursday but lowered its sales forecast for this year due to uncertainty around the holiday shopping season as the video game market struggles.Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop forecast same-store sales in 2012 would drop...

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Jon Bon Jovi's Daughter: Drug Charges Dropped

By Mike Fleeman 11/15/2012 at 04:40 PM EST Jon Bon Jovi and daughter Stephanie Dave M. Benett/Getty Jon Bon Jovi's daughter, Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, no longer faces drug charges because of New York's law applying to overdose cases in which there was a call for...

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the...

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S&P 500 ends near four-month low on budget, Middle East

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 slid to its lowest level since late July on Wednesday, driven by uncertainty over budget negotiations and an escalation of violence in the Middle East. President Barack Obama, in his first press conference since re-election, held to his position that marginal tax rates will have to rise to tackle the nation's deficits. With talks over solving the U.S....

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Israel launches Gaza offensive, kills Hamas commander

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike and threatening an invasion of the enclave that the Islamist group vowed would "open the gates of hell". The onslaught shattered hopes that a truce mediated on Tuesday by Egypt could pull the two sides back from the brink of war...

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NASCAR’s Keselowski can’t tweet in car anymore

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Brad Keselowski became a social media darling after hopping on Twitter during a lengthy delay in the Daytona 500.Keselowski was the center of attention, and NASCAR seemed trendy and hip — a description its executives surely adored. Turns out, tweeting from the car isn’t cool with NASCAR.Keselowski...

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Peek-a-Boo! Kristen Stewart Stuns in a See-Through Bodysuit

Stylewatch Style News Now 11/14/2012 at 03:30 PM ET Jon Furniss/Invision/APDamn, Kristen!For Wednesday’s London premiere of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, Stewart somehow topped her jaw-dropping Los Angeles premiere dress,...

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Ireland probes death of ill abortion-seeker

DUBLIN (AP) — The debate over legalizing abortion in Ireland flared Wednesday after the government confirmed that a woman in the midst of a miscarriage was refused an abortion and died in an Irish hospital after suffering from blood poisoning.Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17...

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