DealBook: BlackRock Reports 29% Increase in Earnings

4:41 p.m. | Updated The giant money manager BlackRock said that investors are showing an increasing willingness to take on risk after years of shying away from it, helping the firm post record profits for the final quarter of 2012.Over the last few months, BlackRock’s customers have been opting for stocks, or equities, instead of the apparently low-risk investments in bonds that they have favored...

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Algeria attackers reportedly led by one-eyed militant

Islamist militants attacked and occupied a natural gas complex partly operated by energy company BP in southern Algeria. WASHINGTON...

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Leaked Document: RIM Targeting 'Crazy Multi-Taskers' for BlackBerry 10

The people who will be selling RIM’s make-or-break BlackBerry 10 phone must push the device on “crazy multi-taskers” and “people who want to be successful,” according to an internal training document that’s leaked ahead of the phone’s January 30 launch.The directives are contained within what appears to be a 37-page PowerPoint training document from Canadian carrier...

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Obama calls for research on media in gun violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood and the video game industry received scant attention Wednesday when President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.The White House pressed most forcefully for a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines...

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Study Links Segregation and Lung Cancer Deaths in Blacks

African-Americans who live in highly segregated counties are considerably more likely to die from lung cancer than those in counties that are less segregated, a new study has found. The study was the first to look at segregation as a factor in lung cancer mortality. Its authors said they could not fully explain why it worsens the odds of survival for African-Americans, but hypothesized...

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Bits Blog: Facebook Unveils a New Search Tool

8:53 p.m. | Updated MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook has spent eight years nudging its users to share everything they like and everything they do. Now, the company is betting it has enough data so that people can find whatever they want on Facebook. And on Tuesday, it unveiled a new tool to help them dig for it.The tool, which the company calls graph search, is Facebook’s most ambitious stab at overturning...

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L.A. City Council drops $3-billion bond measure for this year

The Los Angeles City Council scrapped plans Tuesday for placing a $3-billion bond measure on the May 21 ballot, opting instead...

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes of life’s struggles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a memoir to be published on Tuesday, Sonia Sotomayor writes of the chronic disease, troubled family relationships and failed marriage that accompanied her rise from a housing project in the Bronx to a seat on America’s highest court.The first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, the 58-year-old justice, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009,...

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Well: How to Go Vegan

When I first heard former President Bill Clinton talk about his vegan diet, I was inspired to make the switch myself. After all, if a man with a penchant for fast-food burgers and Southern cooking could go vegan, surely I could too.At the grocery store, I stocked up on vegan foods, including almond milk (that was the presidential recommendation), and faux turkey and cheese to replicate my daughter’s...

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The Caucus: Credit Rating Agency Warns of Downgrade if Debt Limit Is Not Raised

Fitch Ratings Ltd. warned on Tuesday that Congress’s failure to raise the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit would “very likely” prompt a downgrading of the United States Government’s credit rating, and the agency seemed to suggest that Congress should simply do away with the debt ceiling altogether.In a pointed statement, Fitch dismissed the assurances of some Republicans that the Treasury...

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