Baseball-Nationals convince LaRoche to extend Washington stay

Jan 8 (Reuters) - The Washington Nationals finally persuaded Adam LaRoche to put pen to paper on Tuesday after spending the first half of the off-season courting their lead slugger.The free agent inked a two-year deal worth $24 million with an option for a third season, adding solidity to an improving Nationals team and rewarding the franchise for their patience.The 33-year-old had earlier declined...

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Nationals convince LaRoche to extend Washington stay

(Reuters) - The Washington Nationals finally persuaded Adam LaRoche to put pen to paper on Tuesday after spending the first half of the off-season courting their lead slugger.The free agent inked a two-year deal worth $24 million with an option for a third season, adding solidity to an improving Nationals team and rewarding the franchise for their patience.The 33-year-old had earlier declined to...

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Baseball-Record earnings for South Korean league

Jan 9 (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...

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Alleged Ohio rapists may not get fair trial: defendant's lawyer

(Reuters) - Two Ohio high-school football players accused of raping a teenage girl may not get a fair trial after a photo and video allegedly associated with the case were posted on the Internet by the computer hacking group Anonymous, a lawyer for one of the accused said on Friday.Ma'lik Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with...

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Leader of Online Movie Group IMAGiNE Gets five Years for Piracy

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jeremiah B. Perkins, the former leader of internet movie group IMAGiNE, was sentenced to five years in prison on a piracy charge, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.Perkins, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement in August.In addition to the prison sentence, Perkins was sentenced to three years of supervised release...

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New Jersey man accused of trying to hire "cannibal cop" to kidnap woman

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey man offered to pay $5,000 to the so-called "cannibal cop" to kidnap a woman and deliver her to be raped, U.S. officials alleged on Friday.Federal authorities arrested Michael Vanhise, 23, and charged him with conspiracy to commit kidnapping with Gilberto Valle III, a New York police officer who was arrested in October and charged with conspiring to kidnap, torture,...

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Three approaches for managing pre-Obamacare healthcare costs

(This is part of a six-story package on household finance. Lou Carlozo is a Reuters contributor and the opinions are his own.)New York (Reuters) - Having just earned his master's degree in written communication, Eric Kaplan should feel triumphant. But his academic success has been tempered by a failure outside the classroom: He can't find health insurance he can afford on his earnings as a freelance...

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Markets cautious ahead of US corporate earnings

LONDON (AP) — Global stock markets mostly fell on Tuesday as investors prepared for the start of the U.S. corporate earnings season and digested a mixed batch of European economic indicators.The markets will get a feel for the health of corporate America as earnings reports start coming in. Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. will be the first major company to release results for the fourth quarter of 2012...

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Oil down slightly, natural gas continues to drop

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices ended a little lower on Tuesday, as traders took their cue from U.S. stock markets and investors awaited the start of the earnings season.Natural gas prices fell again following a report showing production is at record levels and mild early winter weather.Benchmark oil fell 4 cents to finish at $93.15 a barrel in New York. The price was close to $94 a barrel earlier, but...

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Rex, Woody excited for Jets' new 'beginning'

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Rex Ryan and Woody Johnson met the media Tuesday, wearing Jets-green ties and presenting an unusually united front for a coach and owner coming off an abysmal season that produced far more in the way of turbulence than touchdowns.The general manager is gone, along with the offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators.Ryan isn't going anywhere because Johnson really...

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UPDATE 1-Golf-Johnson wins windswept PGA season-opener at Kapalua

* Matches Tiger Woods for consecutive wins out of college* Johnson holds off charge by defending champion Stricker (Adds quotes, detail)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, who had a three-shot overnight lead, fired a five-under...

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Johnson wins windswept PGA season-opener at Kapalua

(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, who had a three-shot overnight lead, fired a five-under 68 for a 16-under 203 total on another blustery day at the Kapalua Resort to finish four shots clear of defending champion Steve Stricker...

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RIM shares jump in Toronto, rebound from sharp decline

TORONTO (Reuters) - Shares of Research In Motion Ltd jumped nearly 10 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday, following similar gains in New York on Wednesday, in a rebound from last week's sharp decline.Last Friday, the volatile stock plunged more than 20 percent after the company said on an earnings conference call that it was rolling out a new fee structure for its services segment,...

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A surprisingly good vintage as market logs gains

If you'd told investors what was going to happen in 2012 — U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate earnings growth — and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year.But that's just what they got.The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's...

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Eli Lilly banks on cost controls for higher 2013 profit

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co said on Friday it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.Lilly, whose shares were up nearly 4 percent on Friday, said 2013 sales will be flat to a bit higher, despite the loss of patent on its $5 billion-a-year antidepressant, Cymbalta, in December.The Indianapolis-based...

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Pope makes longtime aide a bishop in St. Peter's

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has rewarded his longtime loyal secretary by making him a bishop in an elaborate ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica.The pontiff and Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, a fellow German, embraced warmly. Benedict, 85, held up well during the nearly three-hour long service Sunday, which also marked Epiphany, a Catholic feast day.Gaenswein, 56, has been Benedict's closest aide...

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Orthodox believers celebrate Epiphany with icy dip

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Thousands of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria and Romania 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 Bulgarian city of Kalofer, 350 men in traditional...

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Cameron plays down status of top credit rating

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said the credibility of his deficit-cutting policy was more important than the judgment of credit rating agencies, as the threat of third recession since the financial crisis looms.Britain has held onto its top triple-A credit rating while the United States and France have suffered downgrades, but that endorsement has looked increasingly shaky as the...

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