Chavez swearing-in can be delayed: Venezuelan VP

CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's formal swearing-in for a new six-year term scheduled for January 10 can be postponed if he is unable to attend due to his battle to recover from cancer surgery, Venezuela's vice president said on Friday. Nicolas Maduro's comments were the clearest indication yet that the Venezuelan government is preparing to delay the swearing-in while avoiding...

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Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the...

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Courteney Cox: I'll 'Show My Boobs' on the New Season of Cougar Town

TV Watch 01/04/2013 at 08:00 PM EST Courteney Cox is taking the term "boob tube" literally.The Cougar Town star, 48, whose show moves from ABC to TBS on Jan. 8, eagerly anticipates more um, revealing scenes once the program makes its way to the cable network. "You will not see one scene that I don't show my...

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FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are...

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Wall Street Week Ahead - "Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week. Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current...

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Eleven dead in Damascus gas station blast

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded when a car bomb exploded at a crowded petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, opposition activists said. The station was packed with people queuing for fuel that has become increasingly scarce during the country's 21-month-long insurgency aimed at overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. ...

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Poll finds people want an ‘iPhone 5S’ with new color options

The latest rumor surrounding Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation “iPhone 5S” is that it will launch in May or June with two different screen sizes and five different color options. So said Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White in a research note earlier this week. White has made some good early calls before — he was one of the first to report that Apple was working on the iPad mini — but nothing is...

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George Lucas Engaged to Mellody Hobson

01/03/2013 at 07:35 PM EST George Lucas and Mellody Hobson Mike Coppola/Getty George Lucas is following the Force – right down the aisle.The Star Wars director, 68, is engaged to DreamWorks animation chairman Mellody Hobson, a rep for Lucasfilm confirmed to The...

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Indian court to rule on generic drug industry

NEW DELHI (AP) — From Africa's crowded AIDS clinics to the malarial jungles of Southeast Asia, the lives of millions of ill people in the developing world are hanging in the balance ahead of a legal ruling that will determine whether India's drug companies can continue to provide cheap versions of many life-saving medicines.The case — involving Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's cancer drug Glivec — pits...

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Global shares, oil slip on Fed stimulus nerves

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares edged lower and the dollar rose before U.S. jobs data on Friday which investors will watch even more closely than usual after Fed officials raised concerns about possible side effects of its stimulus program. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's December policy meeting unsettled financial markets on Thursday after they showed some policymakers were worried...

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Myanmar says jets used against Kachin rebels

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has used jets to attacks rebel fighters in northern Kachin state, the government said on Thursday, its first admission of an intensification of a conflict that has raised doubts about its reformist credentials. Rebel sources have reported aerial bombings, shelling and even the use of chemical weapons since December 28 after the Kachin Independence...

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Hillary Clinton Recuperating at Home

By Stephen M. Silverman 01/03/2013 at 06:30 AM EST The state of the Secretary of State has improved.Hillary Rodham Clinton was discharged from New York Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital in Manhattan on Wednesday after checking in on Sunday for treatment of a blood clot in a vein in her head. News photos showed...

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak...

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Global share rally stalls as more U.S. budget battles loom

LONDON (Reuters) - A global share market rally petered out on Thursday as investors focused on U.S. political battles ahead over spending cuts, halting the gains that followed a deal to avoid sharp tax hikes. The MSCI world equity index <.miwd00000pus> dipped from an 18-month high to be down 0.1 percent at 346.7 points while other riskier assets such as oil and the euro also eased....

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Syrian rebels attack military airport in northwest

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels, some from Islamist units, fired machineguns and mortars at helicopters grounded at a northern military air base near the main Aleppo-Damascus highway on Wednesday, a monitoring group said. The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade and other units operating in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib were attacking the Afis military airport...

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Jessica Simpson and Kendall & Kylie Jenner Make Readers Smile - and Frown

01/01/2013 at 07:00 PM EST Splash News Online; Michael Simon/Startraks What's on the minds of PEOPLE readers this week? We love getting your feedback, and as always, you weighed in – even while celebrating during the holidays – with plenty of reactions to all...

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.It's a small study and does not prove...

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Stock futures surge on fiscal deal

During an oddly jokey statement at the White House as the fiscal deadline bore down Monday afternoon, President Obama said, "I'm going to be president for the next four years. I hope." He was warning Republicans that, yes, they'd have to deal with him for a while. But it was, to be sure, a strange moment. Could he actually have been joking about assassination? About impeachment? The apocalypse?...

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North Korean leader seeks end to confrontation with South

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to confrontation between the two Koreas, technically still at war in the absence of a peace treaty to end their 1950-53 conflict, in a surprise New Year speech broadcast on state media. The address by Kim, who took over power in the reclusive state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place...

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Eric Prydz Picks a New Year's Eve Playlist

By Dahvi Shira 12/31/2012 at 06:50 PM EST Unfortunately not everyone can be in Las Vegas when the ball drops this year, but Eric Prydz is bringing the party to PEOPLE.com readers in advance.The DJ and producer, 36 – best known for his 2004 hit single, "Call on Me" – is playing a three-hour extended set at Surrender...

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a...

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Senate approves 'fiscal cliff' deal, crisis eased

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate moved the U.S. economy back from the edge of a "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, voting to avoid imminent tax hikes and spending cuts in a bipartisan deal that could still face stiff challenges in the House of Representatives. In a rare New Year's session at around 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT), senators voted 89-8 to raise some taxes on the wealthy while making permanent...

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In Indian student's gang rape, murder, two worlds collide

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - One of hundreds of attacks reported in New Delhi each year, the gang rape and murder of a medical student caught Indian authorities and political parties flat-footed, slow to see that the assault on a private bus had come to symbolize an epidemic of crime against women. In the moments before the December 16 attack, the 23-year-old woman from India's urban middle...

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