UNITED STATES

Stocks rallied for a second day on Tuesday as better-than-expected earnings and encouraging data calmed investors after the market's recent sell-off.

Former Wall Street hedge fund manager David Slaine pleaded guilty last December to charges of insider trading that reaped profits of $3 million, U.S. prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Stocks rallied for a second day on Tuesday as better-than-expected earnings and encouraging data calmed investors after the market's recent sell-off.

Home buyers in much of the United States paid thousands of dollars below asking prices in December and for the first time in 11 months gained negotiating power, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

Ford Motor Co posted a 24 percent increase in U.S. sales for January and outsold Toyota Motor Corp as the Japanese automaker was sent reeling by a massive recall of some of its top-selling vehicles.

Former minister Clare Short accused Tony Blair of lying over the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and stifling discussion in the British cabinet in the run-up to the war.

President Barack Obama still plans to meet the Dalai Lama, the White House said on Tuesday, despite China's warning that such a meeting would hurt ties already strained by U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

A federal court dismissed fraud claims brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against three Cohmad Securities Corp executives accused of helping Bernard Madoff conduct a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

In releasing his fiscal 2011 budget on Monday, President Barack Obama said his proposal includes funds to lay the groundwork for these reforms. Instead of dramatic action, the plan seeks to boost health information technology, cheaper generic drugs and certain Medicare payment changes.

Stocks gained on Tuesday, helped by encouraging earnings, and as a rise in pending home sales helped calm fears of weakness in the housing market.

U.S. prosecutors apparently made the mistake of giving wiretap recordings gathered against Galleon hedge fund insider trading defendants to securities regulators, legal briefs said, potentially compounding a fight over confidential evidence central to the case.

Funding to fight diseases including parasites that cause disfiguring elephantiasis, hookworms and a blinding eye infection called trachoma, would more than double under the 2011 budget proposal, to $155 million from $65 million.

Consolidation among online gaming firms is set to spark into life in 2010 with a possible deal between PartyGaming and Austria's bwin seen as the potential catalyst for a wave of takeover activity.

A Democratic senator said on Tuesday he has asked 30 U.S. companies, including Apple, Facebook and Skype, for information on their human rights practices in China in the aftermath of Google's decision to no longer cooperate with Chinese Internet censorship efforts.

Recent cyber attacks on Google are a wake-up call and neither the U.S. government nor the private sector can fully protect the American cyber infrastructure, the director of U.S. national intelligence said on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday after encouraging earnings reports from economic bellwether United Parcel Service and industrial conglomerate Emerson Electric.

American International Group Inc , which was bailed out with a $182.3 billion U.S. aid package, named a former top Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc lawyer as general counsel on Tuesday.

The Obama administration is prepared to impose fees on financial firms for as long as necessary to ensure that every cent spent on bailing out banks is repaid, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday.

Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday its U.S. sales rose 24 percent in January, a month when the industry was rocked by Toyota Motor Corp's massive recall of some of its top-selling vehicles.

Home buyers in much of the United States paid thousands of dollars below asking prices in December and for the first time in 11 months gained negotiating power, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

White House economic adviser Paul Volcker, whose star is rising in the Obama administration, will urge Congress on Tuesday to rein in risky investing by big banks, according to testimony obtained by Reuters.