Venezuela’s Chavez has “full intellectual capacity” after surgery

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recovered “full intellectual capacity” after a six-hour cancer operation in Cuba this week, an official said on Saturday, but offered few details on the socialist firebrand’s physical condition.Chavez’s health weakened sharply after his October re-election, casting doubt on the future of his “21st century socialism,” which has won broad popular...

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Sandy Hook shooter a mystery to neighbors and former classmates

Police prohibited access on Saturday to the neighborhood where gunman Adam Lanza lived. (Jason Sickles/Yahoo N …[Updated at 8:10 p.m. ET]NEWTOWN, CONN. -- Even to his neighbors, the gunman who massacred 26 kids and educators at an elementary school here still remains somewhat of a mystery."I want to know more," said Len Strocchia, who lives less than half mile away from the shooter's house.Authorities...

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Bayer seeks FDA approval for cancer drug radium-223

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Bayer said on Friday it requested approval from U.S. regulators for an experimental prostate cancer drug that could eventually generate more than 1 billion euros ($ 1.31 billion) in annual sales.Radium-223 dichloride, which Bayer used to call Alpharadin, is designed to target bone metastases from prostate cancer that cannot be treated by standard hormone therapy.Bayer...

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent...

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20 children, 6 adults killed at Conn. school shooting

Twenty children died today when a heavily armed man invaded a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and sprayed staff and students with bullets.The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead in the school.Lt. Paul Vance said 18 children died in the school and two more died later in a hospital. Six adults were also slain, bringing the total to 26.In addition to the casualties at the school, Lanza's...

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Obama, Boehner hold “frank” meeting amid ‘fiscal cliff’ frustration

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a “frank” face-to-face meeting on Thursday in an effort to break an impasse in talks to avert the “fiscal cliff” of steep tax increases and spending cuts.With an end-of-year deadline looming, the two leaders talked at the White House as frustration mounted over the recent lack of progress in negotiations...

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Angry Birds beats Samsung in viral marketing as mobile interest surged in 2012

This past year has shown us how effective leading smartphone and mobile app companies have become at leveraging viral videos. In Ad Age’s top-10 viral videos list for 2012, Samsung (005930) and Rovio each hog two spots. The Angry Birds Space video racked up 109 million views and the Angry Birds Star Wars hit the 41 million view mark. Meanwhile, Samsung managed to get 79 million views for its...

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Why Rice took her name off the list

Ambassador Susan Rice stunned Washington Thursday afternoon by withdrawing her name for consideration as secretary of State. President Obama accepted her decision.Currently the US envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Rice was widely seen as a top prospect to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is retiring at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. But her star was tarnished in September...

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C-section babies more likely to become overweight

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children born via cesarean section are slightly more likely than babies delivered vaginally to become heavy or obese, according to a new review of studies.The results don’t prove that c-sections cause kids to put on weight, but Dr. Jianmeng Liu, one of the authors of the study and a professor at Peking University Health Science Center in China, said the link between the...

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Taylor Swift reclaims top spot on Billboard 200

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country-pop star Taylor Swift reclaimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with her hit album “Red,” keeping three new entries from the No.1 position.“Red” landed back at No. 1 for the fourth time after selling 167,000 copies last week according to Nielsen SoundScan, ousting Alicia Keys‘ “Girl on Fire,” which fell to No. 7 this week.New entries this...

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‘Dishonored’ tops a diverse year in video games

The video game universe in 2012 is a study in extremes.At one end, you have the old guard striving to produce mass-appeal blockbusters. At the other end, you have a thriving community of independent game developers scrambling to find an audience for their idiosyncratic visions. Can’t we all just get along?Turns out, we can. For while some industry leaders are worried (and not without cause) about...

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Public's response saved lives in rampage

Citizens' coolheadedness and individual preparation for coping with gunfire in public settings may have curtailed the casualty count from Tuesday's shooting at a Portland, Ore., shopping mall, law officers suggested on the day after the tragedy.Two people died and one was critically wounded before the shooter, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts of Portland, killed himself a few minutes after running...

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Obama, Boehner talk and exchange new offers on “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Negotiations to avert the “fiscal cliff” ahead of a year-end deadline intensified as President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone on Tuesday after exchanging new proposals.It was latest sign of possible progress in efforts to avoid the automatic steep tax hikes and spending cuts set for January 1 unless Congress intervenes.White...

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Mexico: Rivera’s plane hit with ‘terrible’ impact

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The plane carrying Mexican-American music superstar Jenni Rivera plunged almost vertically from more than 28,000 feet and hit the ground in a nose-dive at a speed that may have exceeded 600 miles per hour, Mexico‘s top transportation official said Tuesday.In the first detailed account of the moments leading up to the crash that killed Rivera and six other people, Secretary of Communications...

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White House, Boehner quietly swap offers

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner spoke Tuesday after privately exchanging a new round of rival proposals for keeping the economy from tumbling off the "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1, aides to both men told Yahoo News. The fresh discussion signaled a welcome bit of movement in negotiations that had appeared stalled for several days."The speaker...

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Who’s living past 100 in the U.S.? Mostly white women

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Women have long been known to live longer than men, but when it comes to hitting the century mark the difference is stark: just 2 out of 10 Americans who live to 100 or longer are male.Of the 53,364 Americans age 100 and older, more than 80 percent are women, a U.S. Census Bureau report released on Monday showed.The agency’s findings, based on data collected from its 2010 census,...

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Andy Serkis plays dual role in ‘Hobbit’ – Gollum and director

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Andy Serkis reprises his role as Gollum in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” to be released worldwide this week, but his main role this time was as a second unit director, shooting battle sequences in 3D for director Peter Jackson.The British-born actor, 48, who rose to fame as the obsessive Gollum in Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, spoke with Reuters about playing...

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The Wii U uses less than half the power of the Xbox 360 and the PS3

Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii prided itself for being a super energy-efficient console that ran nearly silent and sipped very little electricity. And although Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360 was originally a loud monster with a penchant for Red-Ring-of-Death-ing itself, the amount of power it consumed was never as much as Sony’s (SNE) launch PlayStation 3, which used more power than...

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Obama tax plan no small deal to small business owners

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's plan to increase taxes on top earners would have only a small impact on the nation's economy, according to congressional budget experts. But don't tell that to small business owners facing a tax hike.Obama's proposal would hit about 940,000 people who report business income on their individual or household returns, says the Joint Committee on Taxation, the...

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Health workers march in Spain’s capital against cuts, reforms

MADRID (Reuters) – Thousands of health workers, on strike since last month, marched on Sunday in Madrid to protest against budget cuts and plans from the Spanish capital’s regional government to privatize the management of public hospitals and medical centers.It was the third time doctors, nurses and health workers have rallied since the local authorities put forward a plan in October to place six...

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Mother of News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch dies at 103

MELBOURNE/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, matriarch of the Murdoch media empire and mother of News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, was both an inspiration and outspoken critic of her tumultuous family and balm to some of its excesses.A philanthropist and tireless charity worker regarded for years in her homeland as a national treasure, Murdoch died on Wednesday night at her sprawling home...

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Obama meets with Boehner to discuss 'fiscal cliff'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama met with Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner on Sunday at the White House to negotiate ways to avoid the "fiscal cliff," according to White House officials and a congressional aide. The two sides declined to provide further details about the unannounced meeting. Obama and Boehner aides used the same language to...

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