China November inflation bounces off 33-month lows

BEIJING (Reuters) – China‘s annual consumer inflation rebounded from 33-month lows to 2 percent in November, dimming the chance for more monetary policy easing as its economy recovers.Sunday’s data missed analysts’ expectations for November inflation to quicken to five-month highs of 2.1 percent from October’s 1.7 percent. Food was the key driver of consumer prices last month, with vegetable prices...

Read More..

Anger at Australian radio station over royal hoax

LONDON (AP) — It started out as a joke, but ended in tragedy.The sudden death of a nurse who unwittingly accepted a prank call to a London hospital about Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate has shocked Britain and Australia, and sparked an angry backlash Saturday from some who argue the DJs who carried out the hoax should be held responsible.At first, the call by two irreverent Australian DJs posing...

Read More..

Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter AnymoreIf we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s...

Read More..

Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter AnymoreIf we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s...

Read More..

“Freaks and Geeks” revisited: “Everybody was so talented and nobody knew it yet”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Looking back on “Freaks and Geeks,” Linda Cardellini – who led the (now) star-studded cast as Lindsay Weir – sums up the short-lived NBC series in one simple sentence: “Everybody was so talented and nobody knew it yet.”Thanks to Judd Apatow, the director of “Knocked Up” and sort-of-sequel “This Is 40,” everybody knows it now.And Vanity Fair’s in-depth oral history of the...

Read More..

Booze, smokes on agenda for quirky gov’t group

BELTSVILLE, Md. (AP) — Deep in a secure laboratory just outside Washington sits the federal government‘s heaviest smoker.It is a half-ton hulk of a machine, all brushed aluminum and gasping smoke holes, like a retrofit of equipment used on an Industrial Revolution production line. It can smoke 20 cigarettes at once and conclude which are unsafe because they are counterfeit and which are unsafe merely...

Read More..

Canada jobs surge surprise offers hope for fourth quarter

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada‘s economy churned out far more jobs than expected in November in a surprising comeback at a time of sluggish growth, offering hope of stronger fourth quarter economic showing.However, Statistics Canada‘s report on Friday was accompanied by a negative report on the labor productivity of Canadian businesses, which fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, in contrast to a 0.6...

Read More..

Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi‘s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly...

Read More..

Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter.Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Internet search company‘s corporate development group, which oversees mergers and acquisitions, said the source, who spoke...

Read More..

Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter.Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Internet search company‘s corporate development group, which oversees mergers and acquisitions, said the source, who spoke...

Read More..

Billionaire Aldi heir dies aged 58

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German billionaire Berthold Albrecht, heir to the Aldi supermarket chain and one of Germany‘s richest men, has died aged 58, his family announced on Friday.Together with his brother Theo Jr, Albrecht’s fortune was estimated at $ 17.8 billion, according to Forbes. That placed them at 32 in the list of Forbes billionaires and second for Germany.“Berthold was a fighter, and full...

Read More..

Judge rejects bid to block Washington state “stoned driving” rules

OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) – A judge on Friday rejected a request by a medical marijuana user to block Washington state from enforcing tougher “stoned driving” rules after it became one of the first U.S. states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.Washington state voters last month approved marijuana legalization by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent, making the state, along with Colorado,...

Read More..

Asia stocks rise as US employment claims dip

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian stock markets rose Friday after the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week, offsetting a somber economic forecast by the European Central Bank for a bleak year ahead in the region.The U.S. Labor Department said Thursday that applications dropped 25,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 370,000, a level consistent with modest hiring. The number of people...

Read More..

Toronto mayor to stay in power pending appeal of ouster

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford can stay in power pending an appeal of a conflict of interest ruling that ordered him out of his job as leader of Canada’s biggest city, a court ruled on Wednesday.Madam Justice Gladys Pardu of the Ontario Divisional Court suspended a previous court ruling that said Ford should be ousted. Ford’s appeal of that ruling is set to be heard on January 7, but a...

Read More..

Minecraft sells almost 4.5 million copies on Xbox 360 as other indie games continue to struggle

Big-budget games such as Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II might brag about how they rule the Xbox 360 in terms of sales, but indie games can also compete – if they’re addictive enough and offer enough value. Take Minecraft, an indie game developed by Markus “Notch” Persson’s company Mojang. According to Mojang, Minecraft, an indie game originally made for PC and...

Read More..

Minecraft sells almost 4.5 million copies on Xbox 360 as other indie games continue to struggle

Big-budget games such as Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II might brag about how they rule the Xbox 360 in terms of sales, but indie games can also compete – if they’re addictive enough and offer enough value. Take Minecraft, an indie game developed by Markus “Notch” Persson’s company Mojang. According to Mojang, Minecraft, an indie game originally made for PC and...

Read More..

George Zimmerman sues NBC and reporters

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three reporters covering the...

Read More..

Both sides hint at renewed talks on U.S. “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the “fiscal cliff” but refused to divulge details.A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives,...

Read More..

Asia stocks mixed on Obama remarks

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian stock markets remained in a holding pattern Thursday as investors assessed President Barack Obama‘s comments that reaching a budget deal to prevent the U.S. from a possible recession was “not that tough” and could even be done quickly.Obama’s remarks follow days of contentious negotiations between the White House and Congress on a deal to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” of...

Read More..

Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides,...

Read More..

In brewing rivalry, Instagram trims ties to Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram removed a key element of its integration with Twitter, signaling a deepening rift between two of the Web’s dominant social media companies.Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said Wednesday his company turned off support for Twitter “cards” in order to drive Twitter users to Instagram’s own website. Twitter...

Read More..

In brewing rivalry, Instagram trims ties to Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram removed a key element of its integration with Twitter, signaling a deepening rift between two of the Web’s dominant social media companies.Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said Wednesday his company turned off support for Twitter “cards” in order to drive Twitter users to Instagram’s own website. Twitter...

Read More..