S&P 500 ends at five-year high on banks, materials

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank and commodity shares led the Standard & Poor's 500 to a fresh five-year closing high on Tuesday on hopes that the global economy continues to mend. The Dow Jones industrial average also ended at a five-year high, buoyed by an advance in Travelers' shares after the insurer's earnings. The market also gained on signals that Republican leaders in...

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Netanyahu claims election win despite losses

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged the bruised winner of Israel's election on Tuesday, claiming victory despite unexpected losses to resurgent center-left challengers. Exit polls showed the Israeli leader's Likud party, yoked with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, would still be the biggest bloc in the 120-member assembly with 31 seats,...

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Putin orders Russian computers to be protected after spy attacks

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian authorities to protect state computers from hacking attacks, the Kremlin said on Monday, after an Internet security firm said a spy network had infiltrated government and embassy computers across the former Soviet bloc.Dubbed Red October, the network used phishing attacks – or unsolicited emails to intended targets – to infect the computers...

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Chris Hardwick Mandroid Nerdist Interview

Chris Hardwick is kind of like a Nerd Ambassador – he brings enthusiasm and excitement to every topic he covers, whether it's as host of AMC's The Talking Dead (the live discussion follow-up show to The Walking Dead); in his Nerdist.com podcast, where he asks the questions that everyone really wants to hear to such stars as Tom Hanks, Timothy Olyphant or Walking star Andrew Lincoln; or during his...

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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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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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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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Barbara Walters Recovering After Fall

Barbara Walters has been hospitalized after taking a tumble on Saturday night in Washington, D.C., but a rep tells ET that the 83-year-old newswoman looks to be recovering well."Barbara Walters fell on a stair last evening while visiting the British Ambassador's residence and the fall left her with a cut on her forehead," the rep confirmed to ET. "Out of an abundance of caution, she went to the hospital...

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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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