Top Canada court upholds anti-terrorism law in unanimous ruling

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada‘s Supreme Court on Friday upheld an anti-terrorism law enacted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, ruling unanimously that those who choose to engage in terrorism must “pay a very heavy price.”The law’s constitutionality was challenged by Mohammad Momin Khawaja, convicted in Canada of terrorism for involvement with a British group that had plotted...

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Weight Watchers anniversary cookbook out in May

NEW YORK (AP) — Weight Watchers is marking its 50th year by shedding its old publisher and hoping to expand its audience for an anniversary cookbook.“Weight Watchers 50th Anniversary Cookbook: 270 Delicious Recipes for Every Meal,” will come out in May. The release starts a partnership between the diet company and St. Martin’s Press. Weight Watchers had previously released its cookbooks through Wiley.According...

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Venezuela’s Chavez in satisfactory condition: government

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s President Hugo Chavez is recovering “satisfactorily” from his cancer surgery in Cuba although the process remains slow, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said on Friday.Reading the latest of regular government updates on the socialist leader’s condition, three days after his operation, Villegas said the 58-year-old president had communicated with relatives and sent...

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Police, world wonder about Conn. shooting motive

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — The massacre of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.Investigators were trying to learn more about the gunman, Adam Lanza, and...

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UPDATE 3-Cricket-Hughes shines as Australia reach 299-4

* Hughes falls just short of century* Clarke and Hussey combine for 101* Welegedera takes 3-99 (Adds quotes)HOBART, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Phil Hughes made a solid 86 on his return to test cricket before Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey took up the running and steered Australia to 299 for four at close of play on the first day of the first test against Sri Lanka on Friday.Hughes was the only batsmen to...

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Online gambling companies struggle to clear EU hurdles

LONDON (Reuters) – A partnership stuck on Friday between bwin.party Digital Entertainment and a Belgian casino group has defused one of many disputes pitting online gambling companies against governments across Europe.The agreement came a month after bwin.party’s co-CEO was questioned by Belgian authorities in an escalating license dispute the company said was costing it 700,000 euros ($ 916,000)...

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Sally Struthers enters not guilty plea for DUI

YORK, Maine (AP) — Sally Struthers has entered a not guilty plea on charges she drove drunk in Maine, where she was performing in a musical.The Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/XleJBq) reports the 65-year-old Struthers did not appear in York District Court on Thursday, and entered the plea through her lawyer.Police arrested Struthers on Sept. 12 on U.S. Route 1 in the resort town Ogunquit (oh-GUHNG’-kwit)....

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US faces task of running dozens of health exchanges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fourteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia so far have told the federal government they plan to operate healthcare exchanges under President Barack Obama‘s reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for at least two-thirds of the country.On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges,...

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Marijuana not a high priority, Obama says

President Obama says recreational users of marijuana in states that have legalized the substance should not be a "top priority" of federal law enforcement officials prosecuting the war on drugs."We've got bigger fish to fry," Obama said of pot users in Colorado and Washington during an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters."It would not make sense for us to see...

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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading...

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iPad mini deemed a ‘game changer,’ outgrew Kindle Fire by nearly 50%

Smaller tablets in the 7-inch range have been on the market for more than two years now, but it looks like it took Apple (AAPL) just one month to vault to the top of the category. Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media recently published the findings of a study pitting the iPad mini against Amazon’s (AMZN) popular Kindle Fire, which has been an extremely popular iPad alternative since it first launched...

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Late BBC star Savile suspected of 199 crimes: UK police

LONDON (Reuters) – British television star Jimmy Savile is suspected of carrying out an unprecedented number of sex offences including 31 rapes, police said on Wednesday in their most comprehensive review of the scandal.Revelations about Savile, who died last year, provoked outrage across Britain where he had been a household name since the 1960s.News of Savile’s crimes threw his main employer the...

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Lilly stops rheumatoid arthritis trial for lack of efficacy

(Reuters) – Eli Lilly and Co said it will stop one of three late-stage trials of its rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drug tabalumab due to insufficient efficacy.The decision to stop the trial came after an interim futility analysis of the study, called FLEX-M.The trial was testing the drug in patients with moderate-to-severe RA who had an inadequate response to methotrexate therapy, which is a standard...

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Outgoing husband and wife reps at odds on fiscal cliff deal

Spinners and WinnersHusband-and-wife team Reps. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., got some bad news on November 6. Both lost their elections and are now leaving Congress at the same time. But they've got one foot out the door during one of the most controversial lame duck sessions in recent history. Neither is budging on their votes -- though they don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the...

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear...

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Publisher Bonnier, Flingo partner to make Smart TV Apps

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Bonnier, the publisher of magazines like Savuer and Popular Science, and Flingo, the largest publisher of apps for Smart TVs, have partnered to create a series of apps extending Bonnier’s titles onto Internet-enabled TV sets and set-tops boxes like the Roku.Together, they will release a new app for each magazine, offering videos, images and archival content for fans. Savuer...

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Gilead to buy YM BioSciences for about $465 million

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Defiant North Korea launches long-range rocket into orbit

United States officials confirm that North Korea appears to have carried out the successful launch of a long-range rocket.The move comes as a surprise to the international community, which has consistently called on North Korea to abandon its efforts.Less than 24 hours earlier, the North Koreans had indicated they were grappling with "technical uncertainties" that forced them to extend the launch...

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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse’s family

CANBERRA (Reuters) – The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum...

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BlackBerry Messenger 7 adds free Wi-Fi voice calling, split-screen multitasking and more

Research in Motion (RIMM) updated its BlackBerry Messenger to version 7 on Monday, adding a new key feature called “BBM Voice” that “will allow customers to make free voice calls to their BBM contacts around the world over a Wi-Fi connection.” BBM 7 also introduces multitasking with split-screen, which allows users to BBM, check email, or use other apps while on a BBM Voice call; new compatibility...

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Novo bets on high-price niche for obesity drug

LONDON (Reuters) – Denmark’s Novo Nordisk is sizing up a high-price niche market for its drug liraglutide as a weight-loss treatment, with the United States the prime opportunity.The premium-price approach could turn it into a multibillion-dollar-a-year product, the company believes.Novo is studying the injected drug – already on the market as a treatment for type-2 diabetes under the brand name Victoza...

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Egypt opposition fears violence from Brotherhood

CAIRO (AP) — They showed a military-style precision: Crowds of bearded Islamists proclaiming allegiance to Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi and chanting "God is great" as they descended on tents set up by anti-Morsi protesters outside the presidential palace, swinging clubs and firing rifles. They set up a detention facility, interrogating and beating captured protesters.The scene from bloody clashes...

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McAfee wants to return to US, ‘normal life’

BACALAR, Mexico (AP) — Software company founder John McAfee said Sunday he wants to return to the United States and “settle down to whatever normal life” he can.In a live-stream Internet broadcast from the Guatemalan detention center where he is fighting a government order that he be returned to Belize, the 67-year-old said “I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my...

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#OccupyCheerios: A Facebook Revolt

It wasn’t an obvious forum for an anti-GMO protest.A YouTube video posted on Cheerio’s Facebook page depicts an elderly woman leaning over the highchair of her infant grandchild, cooing about family and the holidays, drawing a map with pieces of cereal representing relative’s far-flung houses. “But don’t you worry,” the grandmother says, pushing two Cheerios together, “we’ll always be together for...

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