NEW YORK - With crude prices still near historic highs and the    Federal Reserve holding steady on interest rates, investors have been looking forward to the start of earnings season to see whether corporate America can still deliver strong profits.
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The markets sold off heavily last week

PASADENA, Calif. - A    NASA space probe was bearing down on its comet target Sunday in a suicide mission scientists hoped would provide new insight into the origins of the solar system.
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The 820-pound copper probe was on course to intercept Tempel 1, a pickle-shaped comet half the size of

BEIJING - The 12 teenagers and young adults, some in ripped jeans and baggy T-shirts, sit in a circle, chewing gum and fidgeting as they shyly introduce themselves. "I'm 12 years old," one boy announces with a smile. "I love playing computer games. That's it." "It's been good to sleep" says another, a 17-year-old with spiky hair, now that he's n

PARIS - Frenchman Ladji Doucoure caused a major upset at the opening Golden League meeting here, outpacing China's Olympic gold medallist Liu Xiang and four-time world champion Allen Johnson of the United States to win the 110m hurdles.

PHOENIX - Lance Niekro hit a three-run homer and winning pitcher Noah Lowry singled in two runs Thursday night, helping

Microsoft will send experts to 30 software parks across the nation this year to help software makers develop enterprise-level applications, a senior company official said yesterday.
"Our biggest investment in China this year, regarding software... is that we are offering support to the software parks, 30 in number across the country... thro

Domestic cotton prices will stay relatively steady with possible slight rises in the near future, while the long-term outlook is unclear, according to a veteran market observer.
"Cotton spinners and textile enterprises' demand for cotton this year has surpassed domestic supply," said Yang Zhaoliang, deputy secretary-general of the China Cot

The European Union and China plunged into a second trade row on Thursday -- this time over shoes -- but Brussels said a deal was still possible over Beijing's surging footwear exports.
The European Commission, in charge of trade policy in the 25-nation bloc, began an investigation into whether Chinese and Indian reinforced shoes were be

"Sex just once a week is totally unbearable," reads complaint letter to a popular newspaper based in Shenzhen, a boomtown in South China's Guangdong Province that is built on the shoulders of countless migrant workers.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A seller of online marketing tools said on Wednesday it sued Google Inc., charging that the Web search giant has failed to protect users of its advertising program from "click fraud," costing them at least $5 million.
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Click Defense Inc. filed its lawsuit, which also seeks class action

By GREG SANDOVAL, AP Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is throwing the doors open on the technology used to power the search engine's mapping service, allowing developers to create Web sites and software applications that merge Google's mapping information with data elsewhere.
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The decision

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government has issued postage stamps depicting an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin, just weeks after remarks by President    Vicente Fox angered U.S. blacks.
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The series of five stamps released Wednesday depicts a hapless boy drawn with ex

The Norwegian hacker who cracked the encryption mechanism used by DVDs has turned his attention to Google's new Video Viewer.
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Video Viewer, released Monday, is a modified version of the open-source VLC (VideoLAN Client) software that can play only video files hosted on Google's servers. In a Weblog posting publ

San Francisco (InfoWorld) - In a move that is sure to be welcomed by IT organizations and supply-chain managers contemplating a flood of RFID data and additional RFID infrastructure to manage, Sun Microsystems announced Wednesday a new class of intelligent readers with embedded versions of either Java SE (Server Edition) or Java J2ME (Micro Edit

Yahoo has enhanced its My Web personal search service to enable users to share their personal Web index of pages and links.
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My Web 2.0, which is in test (or beta) mode, was launched late on Tuesday and will be available here on a first-come first-serve basis to a limited number of users.
Yahoo launched