Netanyahu, in Germany, Defends Settlement Plans

BERLIN — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel gave no ground on Thursday over his plans to expand Jewish settlements, which have been widely criticized by European allies. Pool photo by Michael SohnPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Germany and Israel remained close friends despite their disagreement over Israeli settlements. Speaking...

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No Grammy love for Justin Bieber, One Direction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Irate fans of Justin Bieber and boy band One Direction took to social media on Thursday to voice their outrage after being snubbed by the Grammys for a chance to win the biggest honors in the music industry.Indie-pop band fun and rapper Frank Ocean led the 2013 nominations, tying with The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z and Kanye West for six nods. But The Recording Academy...

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The X Factor Reveals Its Four Semi-Finalists

TV Watch The X Factor By Aaron Parsley 12/06/2012 at 09:20 PM EST There were tears on The X Factor Thursday night. With only four spots in next week's semi-finals, the six acts who performed two songs each Wednesday night were a tense bunch. Especially after last week's shocking elimination that sent home fan...

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans...

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Apple's gains lift tech in quiet day before jobs data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday, a day ahead of the key monthly jobs report, as a rebound in shares of Apple helped boost technology shares. Traders were reluctant to bet heavily a day before the Friday release of the November employment report. Just 5.62 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, shy of the 6.48 billion daily average this year. ...

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Elisabeth Murdoch, 103, Matriarch of a Journalism Family

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the 103-year-old mother of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the widow of an Australian newspaper baron and one of her nation’s most noted philanthropists, died on Wednesday at her estate near Melbourne. Mr. Murdoch announced her death. Elisabeth Joy Greene was just a teenager, a shy, obedient girl of privilege, rail thin and fashionably coiffed (though not long...

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST James and Pippa Middleton Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where...

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities...

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Dow, S&P rise, but Nasdaq sours with Apple in wild day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A volatile trading session ended with U.S. stocks mostly higher on Wednesday, even as Apple, the most valuable company in the United States, suffered its worst day of losses in almost four years. In a strange occurrence, Apple accounted for the entirety of the Nasdaq 100's <.ndx> fall of 1.1 percent, while the Dow industrials - which do not include Apple as...

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Egyptians Protesting Draft Constitution Are Met With Tear Gas

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York TimesEgyptians protested against President Mohamed Morsi in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. CAIRO — Riot police officers fired brief rounds of tear gas on Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the presidential palace protesting the Islamist-backed draft constitution. It was the clearest evidence yet that the new charter has only widened...

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