Ten Commandments join Isaac Newton’s notes online

LONDON (Reuters) – A copy of The Ten Commandments dating back two millennia and the earliest written Gaelic are just two of a number of incredibly rare manuscripts now freely available online to the world as part of a Cambridge University digital project.The Nash Papyrus — one of the oldest known manuscripts containing text from the Hebrew Bible — has become one of the latest treasures of humanity...

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Venezuela’s Chavez has “full intellectual capacity” after surgery

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recovered “full intellectual capacity” after a six-hour cancer operation in Cuba this week, an official said on Saturday, but offered few details on the socialist firebrand’s physical condition.Chavez’s health weakened sharply after his October re-election, casting doubt on the future of his “21st century socialism,” which has won broad popular...

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Japan votes in election seen returning LDP to power

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan voted on Sunday in an election expected to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power after a three-year hiatus, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.Polls opened at 0700 a.m. (1700 ET) and will close at 8 p.m. (0600 ET), when major TV broadcasters will issue exit polls forecasting...

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent...

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Roll Up! “Magical Mystery Tour” gets U.S. TV debut

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Give four pop stars turned hippies a movie camera in 1967 and what do you get? The Beatles‘ “Magical Mystery Tour” film, which will receive its long-awaited U.S. broadcast television debut on Friday on PBS.Long a curiosity in the United States, the film will be accompanied by a new documentary about its making. A restored version was released on DVD and blu-ray in October.The...

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Bayer seeks FDA approval for cancer drug radium-223

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Bayer said on Friday it requested approval from U.S. regulators for an experimental prostate cancer drug that could eventually generate more than 1 billion euros ($ 1.31 billion) in annual sales.Radium-223 dichloride, which Bayer used to call Alpharadin, is designed to target bone metastases from prostate cancer that cannot be treated by standard hormone therapy.Bayer...

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong...

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Angry Birds beats Samsung in viral marketing as mobile interest surged in 2012

This past year has shown us how effective leading smartphone and mobile app companies have become at leveraging viral videos. In Ad Age’s top-10 viral videos list for 2012, Samsung (005930) and Rovio each hog two spots. The Angry Birds Space video racked up 109 million views and the Angry Birds Star Wars hit the 41 million view mark. Meanwhile, Samsung managed to get 79 million views for its...

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‘Homeland’ leads old favorites in Golden Globes TV race

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Cable shows got more Golden Globe nominations for television than traditional network programs on Thursday as HBO‘s political movie “Game Change” and Showtime‘s psychological thriller series “Homeland,” – one of last year’s big winners – led the race.“Homeland” led the TV drama category with four nominations including best drama, best actor for Damian Lewis and best actress...

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Obama, Boehner hold “frank” meeting amid ‘fiscal cliff’ frustration

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a “frank” face-to-face meeting on Thursday in an effort to break an impasse in talks to avert the “fiscal cliff” of steep tax increases and spending cuts.With an end-of-year deadline looming, the two leaders talked at the White House as frustration mounted over the recent lack of progress in negotiations...

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Cuban lawmakers meet to consider economy, budget

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban lawmakers are holding the second of their twice-annual sessions with a year-end report expected on the state of the country’s economy.Legislators are also to approve next year’s budget.Cuban leaders have sometimes used the parliamentary gatherings to make important announcements or policy statements.Observers will be watching for word on the progress of President Raul Castro‘s...

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‘Dishonored’ tops a diverse year in video games

The video game universe in 2012 is a study in extremes.At one end, you have the old guard striving to produce mass-appeal blockbusters. At the other end, you have a thriving community of independent game developers scrambling to find an audience for their idiosyncratic visions. Can’t we all just get along?Turns out, we can. For while some industry leaders are worried (and not without cause) about...

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Taylor Swift reclaims top spot on Billboard 200

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country-pop star Taylor Swift reclaimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with her hit album “Red,” keeping three new entries from the No.1 position.“Red” landed back at No. 1 for the fourth time after selling 167,000 copies last week according to Nielsen SoundScan, ousting Alicia Keys‘ “Girl on Fire,” which fell to No. 7 this week.New entries this...

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C-section babies more likely to become overweight

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children born via cesarean section are slightly more likely than babies delivered vaginally to become heavy or obese, according to a new review of studies.The results don’t prove that c-sections cause kids to put on weight, but Dr. Jianmeng Liu, one of the authors of the study and a professor at Peking University Health Science Center in China, said the link between the...

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Rebekah Brooks gets £10.8m payoff

12 December 2012 Last updated at 13:48 ETRebekah Brooks, the former head of News International, was paid £10.8m after she resigned, it has emerged.The figure, compensation for loss of office, appeared in the company’s accounts, released on Wednesday.Mrs Brooks resigned in July 2011 shortly after the News of the World closed because of phone hacking allegations.The accounts for the year to July 2012...

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Mexico: Rivera’s plane hit with ‘terrible’ impact

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The plane carrying Mexican-American music superstar Jenni Rivera plunged almost vertically from more than 28,000 feet and hit the ground in a nose-dive at a speed that may have exceeded 600 miles per hour, Mexico‘s top transportation official said Tuesday.In the first detailed account of the moments leading up to the crash that killed Rivera and six other people, Secretary of Communications...

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Obama, Boehner talk and exchange new offers on “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Negotiations to avert the “fiscal cliff” ahead of a year-end deadline intensified as President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone on Tuesday after exchanging new proposals.It was latest sign of possible progress in efforts to avoid the automatic steep tax hikes and spending cuts set for January 1 unless Congress intervenes.White...

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Corruption probe shrouds Quebec in new darkness

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Half a century ago, a new crop of Quebec leaders sparked the so-called Quiet Revolution to eradicate the “Great Darkness” – decades of corruption that kept Canada‘s French-speaking province under the dominance of one party and the Catholic church.The revolution’s reforms, including cleaning up the way lawmakers were elected and secularizing the education system, seemed to work,...

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The Wii U uses less than half the power of the Xbox 360 and the PS3

Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii prided itself for being a super energy-efficient console that ran nearly silent and sipped very little electricity. And although Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360 was originally a loud monster with a penchant for Red-Ring-of-Death-ing itself, the amount of power it consumed was never as much as Sony’s (SNE) launch PlayStation 3, which used more power than...

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Andy Serkis plays dual role in ‘Hobbit’ – Gollum and director

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Andy Serkis reprises his role as Gollum in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” to be released worldwide this week, but his main role this time was as a second unit director, shooting battle sequences in 3D for director Peter Jackson.The British-born actor, 48, who rose to fame as the obsessive Gollum in Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, spoke with Reuters about playing...

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Who’s living past 100 in the U.S.? Mostly white women

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Women have long been known to live longer than men, but when it comes to hitting the century mark the difference is stark: just 2 out of 10 Americans who live to 100 or longer are male.Of the 53,364 Americans age 100 and older, more than 80 percent are women, a U.S. Census Bureau report released on Monday showed.The agency’s findings, based on data collected from its 2010 census,...

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Egypt army given temporary power to arrest civilians

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Islamist president has given the army temporary power to arrest civilians during a constitutional referendum he is determined to push through despite the risk of bloodshed between his supporters and opponents accusing him of a power grab.Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded last week in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and their critics besieging Mohamed...

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