NEW YORK (AFP) -- Apple shares gained $1.31 percent on Wall Street on Monday and the California gadget-maker closed the day with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion.Apple shares ended the day's trading at $542.44, giving the Cupertino, California-based company a market cap --

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Microsoft is scrambling to preserve what’s left of its kingdom.Since the company released its Windows operating system in 1985, most of the sequels have been variations on the same theme. Not that it mattered much. Regardless of the software’s quality, Microsoft managed to remain at the center of the personal computing universe.The stakes are much different as Microsoft Corp. puts the finishing touches on Windows 8 ― perhaps the most important piece of software the Redmond,

Students and faculty at Harvard University are calling on the school to award posthumous degrees to seven students expelled nearly a century ago for being gay or perceived as gay, and they're timing a rally for their cause to coincide with a visit by Lady Gaga.But Harvard says it doesn't award posth

German reluctance to boost funds to prevent debt contagion pushed the EU on Tuesday into cancelling eurozone talks on the matter despite pressure from G20 ministers.The climate around the eurozone debt crisis blew hot and cold during the day with the EU Commission warning Spain that deficit targets will be applied despite slippage in Spanish progress on public finances.But Portugal passed an EU-IMF audit of its reforms, clearing the way for a new slice of debt rescue aid, although the country ag

Clashes left a dozen people dead in a region of northwestern China that sees periodic violence between Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese, with the latest unrest flaring at a sensitive time just ahead of the national legislature.The bloodshed late Tuesday in the Xinjiang region's Yecheng county

 A wounded British photographer who had been trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was spirited safely into Lebanon on Tuesday in a risky journey that killed 13 rebels who helped him escape the relentless shelling and gunfire.A Syrian diplomat stormed out of an emergency U.N. meeting amid renewed calls for a cease-fire to deliver humanitarian aid. A top human rights official said a U.N. panel‘s report concluded that members of the Damascus regime were responsible for "crimes against humani

At least one teacher at a Florida elementary school says feeding a "special brain snack" to students preparing to take an exam is a "dirty trick."Hagan Road Elementary School in Boynton Beach is feeding a "special brain snack," labeled the "FCAT power bar," to students preparing to take the Florida

PARIS (AFP) ― France’s top court ruled Tuesday that a law backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to punish denial of the Armenian genocide was unconstitutional as it infringed on freedom of expression.Turkey welcomed the ruling but Sarkozy, whose right-wing party had put forward the bill, swiftly vowed to draft a new version of the law that plunged France’s relations with Turkey into crisis.Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed in a 1915-16 genocide by Turkey’s former Ottom

A worst-case scenario sketched out by the Japanese government foresaw the end of Tokyo in a chain of nuclear explosions that would mean evacuating the city, an independent panel said Tuesday. Plans were drawn up for the mass withdrawal from the capital as at least one senior minister fretted that meltdowns at Fukushima might spark crises at reactors all along the coast and engulf the city of 13 million people.The revelations came in a 400-page report published by a panel of experts who were give

U.S. businesses slashed spending on machinery and equipment in January after a tax break expired, pushing orders for long-lasting manufacturing goods down by the largest amount in three years.Orders for durable goods fell 4 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.A big reason for the decline was demand for so-called core capital goods, which are viewed as a good measure of business investment plans, tumbled 4.5 percent. That‘s the biggest drop in a year.Economists attributed muc

A Chinese woman who delayed seeing a doctor for a work injury to avoid losing a $95 bonus for good attendance died of a brain hemorrhage, local media reported.Du Juan, 23, an assembly line worker, had suffered serious injuries when she hit her head on a bathroom door at her Belton Co. workplace in S