Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

The first soldier to survive after losing all four limbs in the Iraq war has received a double-arm transplant.Brendan Marrocco had the operation on Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday. The 26-year-old Marrocco, who is from New York City, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009.He also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel...

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S&P 500 slips after rally, but Apple lifts Nasdaq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 edged lower on Monday as a four-week rally stalled, while a rebound in Apple shares helped buoy the Nasdaq. Caterpillar shares helped cap losses in the Dow industrials even as the company posted a 55 percent drop in quarterly profit due to a charge connected with accounting fraud at a Chinese subsidiary and weak demand among its dealers. Caterpillar's...

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The Lede Blog: Images of New Clashes in Egypt, Two Years After the Revolution's 'Day of Rage'

Last Updated, 2:47 p.m. This post has been updated throughout the day with reports from bloggers and journalists in Egypt, where protests and clashes continued in major cities despite an attempt to impose emergency rule.As my colleague David Kirkpatrick reports from Egypt, there were protests in the Suez Canal city of Port Said and fresh clashes in Cairo on Monday.Video uploaded to YouTube on Sunday...

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Crucial, long-overdue BlackBerry makeover arrives

TORONTO (AP) — The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is promising a speedy browser, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone, the fruit of a crucial, long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company.Thorsten Heins, chief executive of Research In Motion Ltd., will reveal the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on...

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Justin Bieber: 'I'm Not in the Happiest Place' After Selena Gomez Split

By Maggie Coughlan 01/28/2013 at 02:30 PM EST Breaking up is hard to do – even for Justin Bieber.After his on-again, off-again relationship with Selena Gomez, the 18-year-old pop sensation tells Billboard how he's been handling single life. "There's so many rumors. People say I call Selena every day and she...

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very...

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Fed waits for job market to perk up

LONDON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is a root cause of the "currency wars" that some see as a looming threat to the world economy, but don't expect the U.S. central bank to signal a shift back to normal any time soon. The Fed, whose policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, said just last month that it expects...

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The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Victims of the fire are attended by medics. An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror, with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and on the street.At least 232 people were killed, many of them students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs at a local university, police officials...

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Smartphone pioneer RIM looks to put recent hardships behind it with BB10

TORONTO, Cananda – Once a leader but now derided as a laggard, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion hopes to regain the confidence of cynical smartphone users this week as the curtain is lifted on its much-anticipated new smartphones.The stakes are high for the unveiling, which many observers say will determine whether RIM survives to see the launch of another BlackBerry smartphone.It has been a steep...

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Ailing Jennifer Lawrence Plans to Attend the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Say Sources

By Alison Schwartz 01/27/2013 at 01:40 PM EST Will Jennifer Lawrence walk the red carpet at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards?The Silver Linings Playbook star, who's nominated for her leading role playing troubled girl-next-door Tiffany, is currently sick with pneumonia, according to her costar. But sources tell PEOPLE that Lawrence...

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