Wall Street edges up as defensive stocks extend rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Tuesday, led by defensive sectors, in a sign the cash piles recently moving into the market are being put to use by cautious investors to pick up more gains. The S&P 500 is on track to post its best monthly performance since October 2011 and its best January since 1997 as investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded...

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The Lede Blog: Under Attack, Cairo Hotel Sends S O S via Twitter

Video of unidentified men streaming into the lobby of Cairo’s Semiramis InterContinental hotel was shown live on Egypt’s ONTV early on Tuesday.Last Updated, 2:56 p.m. As our colleagues Kareem Fahim, David Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh report, the mayhem on Cairo’s streets briefly spilled into the lobby of one of the city’s luxury hotels, the Semiramis InterContinental, during intense clashes between...

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Crucial, long-overdue BlackBerry makeover arrives

TORONTO (AP) — The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is promising a speedy browser, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone, the fruit of a crucial, long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company.Thorsten Heins, chief executive of Research In Motion Ltd., will reveal the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on...

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Drew Barrymore: Why I Have Embraced Judaism

lberto E. Rodriguez/GettyDrew Barrymore has finally found her Ever After — and she’s not about to let her fairytale ending slip away.During a Friday appearance on The View, the actress admitted her relationship with husband Will Kopelman is one she will never take for granted.“You know me, I would never have messed this up. This is the most important thing I’ll ever do with my life,” she said. “I...

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Dow, S&P 500 near flat after rally; Apple boosts Nasdaq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 were nearly flat on Monday as a four-week rally stalled, while a rebound in Apple shares helped buoy the Nasdaq. Caterpillar shares helped cap losses in the Dow industrials even as the company posted a 55 percent drop in quarterly profit due to a charge connected with accounting fraud at a Chinese subsidiary and weak demand among its dealers....

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The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Medics in Brazil rushed to care for the victims of a deadly fire at a nightclub on Sunday.Last Updated, Monday, 3:36 p.m. An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror, with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and on the street. At least 233 people were killed, many of them students in the agronomy...

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Adam Levine & Friends Have 'Laid Back' Lunch in N.Y.C.

Caught in the Act 01/27/2013 at 03:30 PM EST Before Adam Levine proved he was hilarious when he hosted Saturday Night Live, he kept his friends in stitches in New York on Monday.Levine was spotted at The Mercer Kitchen around 2 p.m., an onlooker tells PEOPLE. "He looked really laid back and seemed to be in a...

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very...

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Fed waits for job market to perk up

LONDON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is a root cause of the "currency wars" that some see as a looming threat to the world economy, but don't expect the U.S. central bank to signal a shift back to normal any time soon. The Fed, whose policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, said just last month that it expects...

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The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Victims of the fire are attended by medics. An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror, with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and on the street.At least 232 people were killed, many of them students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs at a local university, police officials...

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