Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street. The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets. ...

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Armstrong to admit doping in Oprah interview

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong will make a limited confession to doping during his televised interview with Oprah Winfrey next week, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.Armstrong, who has long denied doping, will also offer an apology during the interview scheduled to be taped Monday at his home in Austin, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because...

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Have Astronomers Found Chemical Precursor to Life?

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Astronomers have found tentative traces of a precursor chemical to the building blocks of life near a star-forming region about 1,000 light-years from Earth.The signal from the molecule, hydroxylamine, which is made up of atoms of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, still needs to be verified. But, if confirmed, it would mean scientists had found a chemical that could potentially seed...

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Abandoning Afghanistan a bad idea

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines Regiment start their patrol in Helmand Province on June 27. STORY HIGHLIGHTSWhite House aide suggested all U.S. troops could be withdrawn from AfghanistanPeter Bergen said the idea would be dangerous and send the wrong messageHe says U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan before and saw the rise of the TalibanBergen: U.S. is seeking agreement that military will...

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Winter weather returning to Chicagoland today

Friday evening 7 day forecast ...

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Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed...

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Wall Street falls, pressured by Wells Fargo, banks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Friday after Wells Fargo & Co , the first major bank to kick off fourth-quarter earnings season for the financial sector, reported a decline in net interest margin despite a record profit in the latest quarter. Wells Fargo, the fourth-biggest U.S. bank and the nation's largest home lender, said its fourth-quarter net interest margin - a key...

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Eager Chudzinski takes over new-look Browns

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Browns have always been a part of Rob Chudzinski's life. Now, he's the man in charge.Chudzinski, who spent the past two seasons as Carolina's offensive coordinator, was introduced as the club's sixth fulltime coach on Friday, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the 44-year-old who as a kid pretended he played tight end for the Browns during games in his backyard in Toledo, Ohio."It...

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High Schoolers Control Satellites Aboard Space Station

Would you trust a 16-year-old in space? NASA evidently does. Just after the sun rose on the East Coast today (Jan. 11), astronauts aboard the International Space Station ran computer instructions, written by high school students, in bowling ball-size satellites floating inside the ISS cabin. The students’ code told the satellites exactly where to go to complete challenges such as spitting out dust...

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Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTSSaudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan womanShe was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaidThis was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accidentBecker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of...

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NFL analyst: Bears hiring Trestman as head coach

Chicago Tribune sports reporter Brad Biggs discusses the rumors surrounding the Bears...

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France launches air strike in Mali

PARIS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - The French air force carried out an air strike in Mali on Friday in support of government forces trying to push back Islamist rebels, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. The raid came as France launched a military intervention in the west African state to help the government resist a push south by rebel forces. Western powers fear the alliance...

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Wall Street climbs on China data; S&P nears resistance

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday on optimism about global growth spurred by stronger-than-expected exports in China, the world's second-biggest economy, though gains in the S&P 500 were capped at a resistance level near a 5-year high. Financial and energy stocks were the day's top gainers in afternoon trading. The financial sector index <.gspf> rose 0.8 percent...

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Jaguars fire Mularkey after team's worst season

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars fired coach Mike Mularkey on Thursday after just one season, the worst in franchise history.New general manager David Caldwell made the announcement two days after he was hired, giving him a clean slate heading into 2013. Caldwell said he wants to immediately explore every avenue possible to turn the Jaguars around."For that to happen as seamlessly...

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Atmosphere of Venus Has Strange Magnetic ‘Ropes’

Strange, newly discovered structures in Venus’ atmosphere are redrawing scientists’ perceptions of the planet’s magnetic environment.The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft spotted these enormous magnetic entities — called flux ropes — stretching for hundreds of miles in the planet’s upper atmosphere, above the poles.Flux ropes have been seen before around other planets, including...

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'Lincoln' leads Academy Award contenders with 12 nominations

With a conspicuous diss of Kathryn Bigelow, the un-nominated director of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the Academy Awards nominations were announced Thursday morning.“Zero Dark Thirty” was one of nine films given the best picture nomination nod. The others: “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; “Silver Linings Playbook”; “Lincoln”; “Les Miserables”; “Life of Pi”;...

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Syria denounces peace envoy who hinted Assad must go

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria denounced international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as "flagrantly biased" on Thursday, casting doubt on how long the U.N.-Arab League mediator can pursue his peace mission. The Syrian Foreign Ministry was responding to remarks by Brahimi a day earlier in which he ruled out a role for President Bashar al-Assad in a transitional government and effectively called for...

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Wall Street modestly higher as Alcoa beats revenue estimates

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged up on Wednesday after Alcoa got the earnings season under way with better-than-expected revenue and an encouraging outlook for the year. The market's rise came after two-days of declines, with few catalysts to give direction and investors fretting about the start of earnings season after the prior quarter's lackluster performance. Alcoa Inc...

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AP Source: RG3 surgery repairs damage to ACL, LCL

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Griffin III had surgery to repair two ligaments in his troublesome right knee Wednesday morning, said a person familiar with the situation.The Washington Redskins quarterback had his knee repaired by orthopedist James Andrews in Florida. The doctor had already diagnosed a torn lateral collateral ligament in his right knee. The person said Andrews also found and repaired damage...

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NASA to Announce Launch of New Earth-Observing Satellite

NASA plans to announce tomorrow (Jan. 10) the launch of a new satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), to monitor Earth’s landscape and the changes to it.The new satellite, scheduled to launch Feb. 11, will replace the Landsat 5 satellite, which is to be decommissioned in the coming months, the U.S. Geological Survey reported in December.The announcement will be made at 1 p.m. EST at...

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