UPDATE 1-NBA-Thunder let big lead slip but hold on for win

* Thunder win without injured Ibaka, Sefolosha* Blazers' nine-game home win streak endsJan 13 (Reuters) - The Oklahoma City Thunder almost blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter but dug deep to turn back the Portland Trail Blazers 87-83 on Sunday.Kevin Durant, who had 42 points against the Lakers on Friday, stepped up with 33 against the Trail Blazers but his team saw their 10-point advantage...

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Thunder let big lead slip but hold on for win

(35) defends, during the first quarter of their NBA basketball game in Portland, …more (Reuters) - The Oklahoma City Thunder almost blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter but dug deep to turn back the Portland Trail Blazers 87-83 on Sunday.Kevin Durant, who had 42 points against the Lakers on Friday, stepped up with 33 against the Trail Blazers but his team saw their 10-point advantage with 3...

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NBA-Spurs guard Ginobili out 10-14 days with injury

Jan 14 (Reuters) - San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili is expected to miss 10-14 days due to a strained left hamstring, the National Basketball Association team said on Monday.The third-leading scorer on the Southwest division-leading Spurs was injured in the final minute of the first half of San Antonio's 106-88 victory over Minnesota on Sunday.Ginobili, 35, who has already dealt with back spasms,...

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Thousands march to protest Russia's adoption ban

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia's new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that outrage over the ban has breathed some life into the dispirited anti-Kremlin opposition movement.Shouting "shame on the scum," protesters carried posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia's...

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Beaches, bombs and gangsters _ Corsica's dilemma

AJACCIO, Corsica (AP) — The bombs exploded across hundreds of miles of Corsican coastline, gutting two dozen villas nearly simultaneously on some of Europe's most beautiful — and valuable — land. Elsewhere on the same French island off the Mediterranean coast, a young man was shot to death in his car, his stepson wounded beside him.The night of violence in early December epitomized the problems of...

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Gay marriage protest converges on Eiffel Tower

PARIS (AP) — Holding aloft ancient flags and young children, hundreds of thousands of people converged Sunday on the Eiffel Tower to protest the French president's plan to legalize gay marriage and thus allow same-sex couples to adopt and conceive children.The opposition to President Francois Hollande's plan has underscored divisions among the secular-but-Catholic French, especially more traditional...

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Record earnings for South Korean league

(Reuters) - South Korean baseball underlined its continuing growth by posting a record $33 million in revenue last year, local media reported on Wednesday.Winning gold at the Beijing Olympics and finishing runners-up at the 2009 World Baseball Classic boosted baseball's popularity and attendances crossed the 7 million-mark for the first time last year, Yonhap News agency reported.The league pocketed...

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Column: No suspense for Bonds, Clemens in HOF vote

Barry Bonds can go for a bike ride. Roger Clemens might want to head to the gym for one of those famous workouts that used to make him pitch like he was 22 when he was 42.If the polls are right — and my guess is they're pretty spot on — there's no need for either to wait by the phone Wednesday when baseball writers weigh in with their first verdict on what is arguably the greatest class of Hall of...

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Soccer-41 players get life bans for South Korea match-fixing

Jan 9 (Reuters) - Forty one South Korean players have been handed worldwide lifetime bans following a match-fixing scandal in the country's K-League, world governing body FIFA said on Wednesday.The 41, charged after a domestic match-fixing investigation dating back to 2011, received lifetime bans from all football activity by the K-League and the Korea Football Association's disciplinary committee...

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Zynga carries out planned games shutdown, including "Petville"

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with "Petville" being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform...

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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc's lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc's use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon's motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple's false advertising allegations. Apple...

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China shuts website of leading reformist magazine

BEIJING (Reuters) - China shut the website of a leading pro-reform magazine on Friday, apparently because it ran an article calling for political reform and constitutional government, sensitive topics for the ruling Communist Party which brooks no dissent."Yanhuang Chunqiu" (China Through the Ages) is an influential Beijing magazine that features essays from reformist retired officials.In a message...

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US stocks fall ahead of earnings season kickoff

U.S. stocks closed lower Tuesday as traders awaited the start of the corporate earnings season.The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 55.44 points, or 0.4 percent, to 13,328.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 4.74, or 0.3 percent, to 1,457.15. The Nasdaq composite index shed 7.01, or 0.2 percent, to 3,091.81.Alcoa reported its fourth-quarter financial results after the market closed,...

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TSX flat as Goldcorp offsets softer energy stocks

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index finished little changed on Tuesday, with weakness in the energy sector offset by Goldcorp Inc stock, following an update on the company's production outlook and a plan to be more transparent on how it reports mining costs.Investor sentiment was cautious at the start of the U.S. earnings season with U.S. stocks retreating from last week's rally to five-year...

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Alcoa earnings as expected, revenue tops forecasts

NEW YORK (AP) — Alcoa Inc. on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings that met Wall Street's expectations, and the company said it expects slightly higher demand for aluminum this year.The sluggish global economy has weakened prices for aluminum used in everything from airplanes to soda cans.But Alcoa forecast demand growing 7 percent in 2013, up from a 6 percent gain in 2012. It sees the best prospects...

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UPDATE 1-Golf-U.S. PGA Tour Tournament of Champions scores

Jan 8 (Infostrada Sports) - Scores from the U.S. PGA Tour Tournament of Champions at the par-73 course on Tuesday in Kapalua, Hawaii203 Dustin Johnson (U.S.) 69 66 68207 Steve Stricker (U.S.) 71 67 69209 Brandt Snedeker (U.S.) 70 70 69210 Bubba Watson (U.S.) 70 69 71Keegan Bradley (U.S.) 71 69 70211 Rickie Fowler (U.S.) 70 74 67Tommy Gainey (U.S.) 72 69 70212 Carl Pettersson (Sweden) 70 72 70214...

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Golf-Johnson wins windswept PGA season-opener at Kapalua

Jan 8 (Reuters) - It required a lot patience and overtime but American Dustin Johnson opened the PGA Tour season with a comfortable victory at the windswept Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Tuesday.Johnson fired a five-under 68 on another blustery day at the Kapalua Resort to finish four shots clear of defending champion Steve Stricker (69).With the win, Johnson becomes the first player since...

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Rose, Sugar will host 1st semifinals in playoff

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) — The first semifinal games in the new college football playoff system will be played in the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2015.The BCS conference commissioners announced the dates and rotation for all 12 years of the upcoming postseason format after a meeting in Key Biscayne on Monday, the day after the BCS championship game in Miami."It was not a one-year decision,...

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Lilly 2013 profit forecast tops expectations

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Eli Lilly and Co. unveiled a better-than-expected 2013 earnings forecast Friday, in part because the pharmaceutical company expects growth from several established drugs to help make up for revenue lost to generic competition.The Indianapolis drug developer saw sales for its all-time best-selling drug, the antipsychotics Zyprexa, crater in 2012 after it lost U.S. patent protection....

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IMF cuts Malawi 2013 growth forecast on inflation, drought

The International Monetary Fund expects Malawi's economy to grow by 5.5 percent this year, more than double the rate estimated for 2012, but slightly lower than the 5.7 percent the IMF had previously projected.IMF head Christine Lagarde said a spike in inflation, lower-than-expected foreign exchange earnings and a drought that has cut into farm production have hurt the economy. But she was optimistic...

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Nepali charged with torture appears in UK court

LONDON (AP) — A British court on Saturday denied bail to a colonel in the Nepalese army facing charges of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation's civil war.Kumar Lama, 46, was arrested Thursday at a residential address in the English town of St. Leonards-on-Sea, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of London. He was later charged with intentionally "inflicting severe pain or...

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Missoni scion on small plane missing in Venezuela

ROME (AP) — Rescue crews used boats and aircraft on Saturday to search for a small plane that disappeared in Venezuela carrying the CEO of Italy's iconic Missoni fashion house and five other people.But 24 hours after the BN-2 Islander aircraft disappeared from radar screens on its short flight from Venzuela's coastal resort island of Los Roques to Caracas, the capital, no sign of the plane had been...

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Bulgarians celebrate Epiphany with an icy dip

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Thousands of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes cast by priests in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany.By tradition, a wooden cross is cast into the water and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits.In the central city of Kalofer, 350 men in traditional dress waded into the icy...

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RIM shares fall at the open after earnings

TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd fell in early trading on Friday following the BlackBerry maker's Thursday earnings announcement, when the company outlined plans to change the way it charges for services.RIM, pushing to revive its fortunes with the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 devices next month, surprised investors when it said it plans to alter its service revenue model, a move that...

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Walgreen fiscal 1Q profit sinks nearly 26 pct

Walgreen's fiscal first-quarter earnings sank nearly 26 percent as costs tied to a couple big deals and Superstorm Sandy helped put a bigger-than-expected dent in the drugstore chain's performance.CEO Greg Wasson told analysts he saw the quarter as a "turning point" for the Deerfield, Ill., company, which has been working to recapture customers it lost during a contract dispute with Express Scripts...

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Nigeria's Dangote Cement expects 38 pct rise in Q1 profit

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria's biggest listed company, Dangote Cement, expects pretax profit to rise 38.9 percent year-on-year to 42.09 billion naira in the first three months of next year, it said in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange.Dangote Cement, Nigeria's biggest cement producer, said it expected turnover of around 81.6 billion naira in the first quarter, compared with 64.1 billion naira...

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Falklands again? Why Argentina's Kirchner keeps pushing the issue with Britain.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner relaunched her offensive over the Falkland Islands today, a move that coincides with the 180th anniversary of Britain’s allegedly illegal usurpation of the South Atlantic archipelago.President Kirchner published an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron in British newspapers imploring him to respect a United Nations resolution that calls...

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Libyan cop in Benghazi kidnapped

Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi, the head of Benghazi's criminal investigation department, was kidnapped on his way to work today by gunmen at an intersection in Libya's second largest city.Benghazi was the heart of the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and since then it has failed to bring the militias that fought on the side of the revolution – some Islamist, some not – under any kind of government...

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Amid bloodshed and chaos, Syrian wages a war for neutral reporting

While Syria's state-run news outlets run a steady stream of reports about "terrorists" and international conspiracies against President Bashar al-Assad, opposition activists roll out their own endless barrage of footage highlighting atrocities and destruction by regime forces, with little in the way of context.With media access difficult or impossible in most of the country and no tradition of balanced...

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Good Taliban, Bad Taliban? Pakistani commander's killing exposes blurry lines

The US drone killing of Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir threatens to unleash new anti-government violence against the country’s weak government or civilian targets, and expose fractures in the country’s military and security forces, analysts say.Mr. Nazir was traveling in a car in troubled South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, Thursday, when his vehicle was hit by a missile, according...

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Could gang-rape protests mark beginning of an age of activism for India?

The large-scale protests triggered by the gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi has renewed debate over the rise of a new urban middle-class activism in India. The strength and longevity of those protests, sustained as they were over several weeks and undeterred by police water cannons and teargas, took many by surprise. Student activism has generally been on the...

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