Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all. A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this...

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Narendra Modi, Polarizing Indian Politician, Gains Power

ReutersSupporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party waved party flags and lighted firecrackers on Thursday as they celebrated outside a vote-counting center. More Photos »NEW DELHI — The polarizing leader of the western state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, inched closer on Thursday to becoming the leading political challenger to India’s dominant Gandhi family by winning a resounding re-election as chief minister....

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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $ 1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people you most likely...

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Michelle Obama Tells Newtown the Nation Is 'Holding You in Our Hearts'

By Stephen M. Silverman 12/21/2012 at 07:35 AM EST Angels on Churchill Road in Newtown, Conn., representing the 27 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Howard Simmons/NY Daily News/Getty As another day of painful funerals is scheduled to take place on Friday, seven days after...

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.But since then, Big Pharma has been...

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Stock futures tumble, tax bill failure may make deal unlikely

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were sharply lower on Friday, dropping more than 1 percent after a Republican proposal for averting the "fiscal cliff" failed to pass, further eroding optimism that a deal would be reached quickly. * Late Thursday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner conceded there were insufficient votes from his party to pass a tax bill, dubbed "Plan B," to help...

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Park Geun-hye, South Korean President-Elect, Calls for Reconciliation

Yonhap/European Pressphoto AgencyPresident-elect Park Geun-hye met with Koro Bessho, Japan's ambassador to South Korea, on Thursday. SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president-elect, Park Geun-hye, called for national reconciliation on Thursday and met with foreign envoys in Seoul, a day after she was elected the country’s first female leader in a close contest that reflected generational and regional...

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Blake Lively: How I Make the Holidays Meaningful

She may not offer specifics – but it's a safe bet that Ryan Reynolds is going to get a meaningful holiday gift from his wife Blake Lively this season. "The holidays, for me, is just the time that I'm excited to do nothing but spend time with my family," the Gossip Girl star says in a new video interview to promote the fragrance Gucci Première, for which she's a spokesperson. Speaking generally...

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid...

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Stock futures flat on uncertainty over "fiscal cliff" talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were flat on Thursday amid uncertainty over U.S. fiscal negotiations, as President Barack Obama threatened to veto a controversial Republican plan, suggesting a deal wouldn't come as soon as many investors had hoped. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, in a brief press conference Wednesday, said his chamber would pass a proposal that...

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