Algeria says 37 foreigners died in siege led by Canadian

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A total of 37 foreigners and an Algerian died at a desert gas plant and five are still missing after a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadian gunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday. Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant on Saturday, and...

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Rumored Xbox 720 specs: 8-core processor, 8GB of RAM, 800MHz GPU

Console gamers frustrated that their Xbox isn’t holding up well compared to high-end gaming PCs can relax a bit, because it looks like the next-generation Xbox is going to be a monster. It seems that website VGleaks has gotten ahold of leaked specifications for the Xbox 720, which it says will include an 8-core 1.6GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, an 800MHz graphics processor, a 50GB 6x Blu-ray Disc...

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Prince Harry 'Thrilled' Over Royal Pregnancy

By Simon Perry 01/21/2013 at 02:40 PM EST Prince Harry is on his way home from the war zone and says he "can't wait" to become an uncle."Obviously I'm thrilled for both of them," Harry, 28, says of his brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate, joking, "It's about time." In an interview in Afghanistan, where he served since September,...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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European shares test two-year highs, yen volatile before BOJ

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares inched towards two-year highs on Monday, as a political attempt to break a budget impasse in the United States and expectations of aggressive Japanese stimulus bolstered the appetite for shares. U.S. House Republican leaders said on Friday they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority in the coming days to buy time for...

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Veteran jihadist claims bloody Algeria siege for al Qaeda

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - A veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the Algerian hostage crisis, a regional website reported on Sunday, tying the bloody desert siege to France's intervention across the Sahara in Mali. Algeria said it expected to raise its preliminary death tolls of 23 hostages and 32 militants killed in the four-day siege...

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Notre Dame football star says he was not in on hoax – ESPN

(Reuters) – Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o has denied ever being in on an elaborate hoax, telling ESPN he had believed his relationship with a woman who turned out to be an online fabrication was real.The tragic story of his girlfriend and her injuries from a car accident and death from leukemia was one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports stories last year as Notre Dame made a drive toward...

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Bethenny Frankel & Warren Lichtenstein Are Just 'Great Friends': Report

Buzz By Alison Schwartz 01/20/2013 at 01:45 PM EST Bettheny Frankel and Warren G. Lichtenstein Gary Gershoff/Getty; Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Getty As Bethenny Frankel focuses on healing after filing for divorce from husband Jason Hoppy, she seems to have a very special...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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Euro zone surveys to offer hope as Japan eases

LONDON (Reuters) - The prospect of stronger European manufacturing surveys and decisive monetary easing in Japan this week ought to bolster confidence that the global economy can look forward to better days. It is definitely not yet time to break open the champagne. The index derived from polls of purchasing managers across the euro zone, though recovering, is likely to remain...

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