IHT Rendezvous: 2012: The Year of Extreme Weather

The weather reports are in. 2012 was the hottest and the most extreme year on record in many places.While parts of China are enduring the harshest winter in 30 years, the Antarctic is warming at an alarming rate. In Australia, out of control bushfires are the partially the result of record-breaking weather (new colors were added to weather forecast maps, to account for the new kind of heat). In the...

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BlackBerry service outage hits Europe [updated]

BlackBerry subscribers using Vodafone in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were hit with a service outage on Friday morning that left many with no access to data services. Vodafone confirmed the outage to ZDNet but did not indicate what might have caused the service interruption. “We are aware that some BlackBerry customers are experiencing issues,” Vodafone said in a statement. “Vodafone is...

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Robin Roberts: 'I'm Coming Home'

TV Watch By Andrea Billups and Sharon Cotliar 01/14/2013 at 09:25 AM EST She's healthy and coming back to television soon!"It's a matter of weeks, not months," Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, speaking from her apartment, told viewers live on Monday's show. "I'm coming home." Looking healthy and resplendent...

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest...

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Wall Street edges lower at open as Apple drags

MELBOURNE, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A nervous Sam Stosur survived the first test of her annual battle with stage-fright at the Australian Open, but the spotlight is set to focus on the ninth seed after all of her compatriots were dumped from the first round on Monday. Australia's hopes of a home-bred champion at the year's first grand slam have gone unfulfilled for 34 years and, with Lleyton Hewitt crashing...

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Thousands of Russians Rally Against Adoption Ban

MOSCOW – Thousands of Russians marched on Sunday in condemnation of the Russian Parliament’s move to ban adoption of Russian children by American families, an event dubbed a “March Against Scoundrels,” where participants chanted, “Take your hands off children,” and carried posters showing the faces of lawmakers stamped with the word “Shame.” Marchers flooded tree-lined boulevards for many...

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Facebook tests $100 charge to message Zuckerberg

NEW YORK (AP) — Would you pay $ 100 to message Mark Zuckerberg? Facebook says it’s testing some “extreme price points” to let users pay to have their messages seen by people who are not their friends.The tech blog Mashable reported early Friday that some users trying to message Zuckerberg are offered the option to pay $ 100 to ensure that their missive reaches the Facebook CEO’s inbox. Without paying,...

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What's the Big Trend We Expect to See on the Red Carpet Tonight?

Stylewatch Style News Now 01/12/2013 at 09:00 AM ET Jason Merritt/Getty; AP (2)This week’s People’s Choice Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards offered stars lots of choices (ha!) in the fashion department — chances to experiment with prints, designers, trends and more. Overall, we liked what we saw … and...

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest...

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street. The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets. ...

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