Wall Street slightly higher on China data; S&P near resistance level

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks inched higher on Thursday, helped by stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world's second-biggest economy, but gains were capped as the S&P 500 hovered near a 5-year high. Financial and telecommunications stocks were the day's top gainers, while the material sector was the biggest drag. The S&P 500 material sector index <.gspm> was...

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Would-Be Inauguration in Venezuela for Chávez

Ariana Cubillos/Associated PressA woman walked past a wall plastered with election campaign posters of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in Caracas on Wednesday. CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez’s supporters have not ruled out swearing him in from his hospital in Havana. His detractors are calling for government investigators to go check his pulse themselves. The justices whom Mr. Chávez’s...

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Amazon steps up digital music competition with Apple

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc unveiled a service that increases competition with Apple Inc’s dominant iTunes store.Amazon launched Amazon AutoRip, which gives customers free digital versions of music CDs they purchase from the world’s largest Internet retailer.The digital music files are automatically stored in customer libraries in remote datacenters run by Amazon, where they are available...

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Britney Spears Is Leaving The X Factor

TV Watch The X Factor By Tim Nudd 01/10/2013 at 11:35 AM EST Baby, one more time? Not for Britney Spears. The pop superstar is leaving The X Factor after a single season as a judge alongside Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato and L.A. Reid. "She has made the decision that she won't be returning," a source close to the...

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in...

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Wall Street rises as Alcoa gives lift to earnings season

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Wednesday after Alcoa got the earnings season under way with better-than-expected revenue and an encouraging outlook for the year. Alcoa Inc said it expects global demand for aluminum will continue to grow in 2013, though the company kept a cautious tone as worries lingered over a looming U.S. budget confrontation. Shares of Alcoa, the largest...

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World Briefing | Americas: Colombia: Former President’s Ties to Militia Under Investigation

Colombia’s chief prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary criminal investigation into former President Álvaro Uribe over allegations he sponsored a deadly far-right militia as a regional governor in the 1990s. The inquiry ordered last Wednesday was made public Tuesday by Mr. Uribe’s lawyer, Jaime Granados. Mr. Uribe denounced it on Twitter as defamation based on the testimony of “manipulated...

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Lawyers in Ohio football rape case want trial moved

(Reuters) – Attorneys for two Ohio teenage football players accused of raping a 16-year-old student have asked that the trial be moved because potential witnesses are afraid to come forward in defense of the boys, one of the lawyers said on Monday.Walter Madison, the attorney for one of the accused rapists, Ma’lik Richmon, said social media efforts to bring the alleged rape into the national spotlight...

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Ned Wertimer, The Jeffersons' Ralph the Doorman, Dies at 89

By Stephen M. Silverman 01/09/2013 at 11:45 AM EST The cast of The Jeffersons, with Ned Wertimer (back row, far right) Everett TV has lost one of its most familiar character actors: Ned Wertimer, best known as the tip-hungry Ralph the doorman on The Jeffersons,...

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer."There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer...

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