S&P 500 rises one percent as Wall Street rallies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks hit five-year highs with each of the three major indexes up at least 1 percent on Friday, after jobs and manufacturing data showed the economy's sluggish recovery is still on track. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 139.22 points, or 1.00 percent, to 13,999.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 15.04 points, or 1.00...

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Syria warns of "surprise" response to Israel attack

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria warned on Thursday of a possible "surprise" response to Israel's attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law. Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes", Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against...

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The 7 most dedicated employees

You probably don’t want to forward this roster of tireless go-getters to your bossSome people probably feel they deserve a medal for merely getting up and going to work every day, but only a few actually merit one. Take Deborah Ford, for example. This 64-year-old Detroit postal worker, who recently retired, didn’t use a single sick day in all of her 44 years on the job. Not a single one!...

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Slain School Bus Driver Hailed as Hero After Gunman Demanded Students

True Crime By Stephen M. Silverman 01/31/2013 at 12:50 PM EST Law enforcement personnel and driver Charles Poland (inset) Phil Sears/Landov; Inset: AP When a gunman boarded a stopped school bus in Midland City, Ala., Tuesday afternoon and demanded that all the...

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting...

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Wall Street dips on profit taking, Friday data eyed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Thursday as investors took profit after a mixed bag of economic data, while stellar earnings from Qualcomm helped buoy the Nasdaq. Even with the retreat, the S&P 500 is on track to post its best month since October 2011 and its best start to a year since 1997. Investors are expecting a pullback in equities after recent gains,...

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Egypt curfew scaled back as Mursi seeks end to bloodshed

CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - Authorities in an Egyptian city scaled back a curfew imposed by President Mohamed Mursi, and the Islamist leader cut short a visit to Europe on Wednesday to deal with the deadliest violence in the seven months since he took power. Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Wednesday, a day after the army chief warned that...

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California police probe stunts that shut down freeways

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California Highway Patrol is investigating two apparently unrelated stunts that jammed freeways over the weekend, including one involving hundreds of motorcyclists celebrating a marriage proposal that inconvenienced motorists east of Los Angeles.Both events created a flurry of viral Internet videos, fueling concerns about a repeat performance by copycats.On Interstate 10...

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Karolína Kurková: Why I Chose a Home Waterbirth

Target Presse Agentur Gmbh/GettyFor Karolína Kurková, there was no place like home to welcome her first child.Setting up a birthing suite in the comforts of her Tribeca apartment, the model mama admits her motivation behind her decision to deliver naturally was simple: childbirth is nothing new.“Of course we had the midwife, we had the doula, but that’s something we really did a lot of research on...

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after...

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