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Romney campaign's missteps have some Republicans grumbling
Thu,5 Jul 2012 07:23 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For months, Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign was a picture of discipline, charting a relatively steady course for the former Massachusetts governor through a bitterly contested primary season. In recent weeks, however, Romney's tight ship has not looked so tight. ...
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California Senate passes "anti-Arizona" immigration bill
Thu,5 Jul 2012 07:17 PM PDT
Reuters - SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - The California Senate on Thursday passed a bill supporters dub the "anti-Arizona" law, which seeks to shield illegal immigrants from status checks by local police and challenges Republican-backed immigration crackdowns in other U.S. states. The Democrat-led state Senate voted 21 to 13 for the California Trust Act, which blocks local police from referring a detainee to immigration officials for deportation unless that person has been convicted of a violent or serious felony. The bill has the backing of about 100 immigrant rights groups, police chiefs and mayors. ... Full Story | Top |
Source of deadly Colorado wildfire located, cause unknown
Thu,5 Jul 2012 07:04 PM PDT
Reuters -  DENVER (Reuters) - Investigators probing the cause of the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history have located the point of ignition but have not concluded how the blaze started, officials said on Thursday. At its height, the 12-day-old blaze forced the evacuation of some 35,000 people in and around Colorado Springs, the state's second most populous city, and threatened the campus of the U.S. Air Force Academy before fire crews gained an upper hand late last week. It destroyed more than 300 homes and killed two people. ...
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Japan's Azumi: government could run out of cash by October
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:54 PM PDT
Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government could run out of money to fund this fiscal year's budget by the end of October, the finance minister said, as a standoff in parliament over a deficit financing bill threatens to wreak havoc with the country's finances. The deficit financing bill, which would allow the government to sell bonds needed to fund almost half of the budget, has languished in parliament as the ruling Democratic Party tussles with opposition parties that can use their control of the upper house to reject legislation. ... Full Story | Top |
California high-speed rail plan faces tough vote in Senate
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:45 PM PDT
Reuters - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California state Assembly on Thursday approved an $8 billion high-speed rail financing plan that likely will face a tougher vote in the Senate over the system's projected $68 billion cost and concerns about its management. The project, expected to take decades to complete, has the backing of Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, who says a bullet train network will boost job creation and provide an alternative to car and plane travel in the country's most populous state. ... Full Story | Top |
California city sued over fatal police beating of homeless man
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:42 PM PDT
Reuters - SANTA ANA, California (Reuters) - The father of a homeless man who died after he was beaten and shocked with a stun gun by police in Southern California filed suit on Thursday, the first anniversary of the incident, seeking unspecified damages from the city of Fullerton. The lawsuit paints a vivid picture of how Kelly Thomas, 37, a transient who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, repeatedly apologized, begged for his life and expressed pain during his encounter with officers last year. ... Full Story | Top |
Episcopalians debate transgender inclusion in ministry
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:30 PM PDT
Reuters - INDIANAPOLIS, IN (Reuters) - A proposal to expand the U.S. Episcopal Church's nondiscrimination canons for the ordained ministry to include "gender identity and expression" passed its first hurdle on Thursday, when it won committee approval at the church's General Convention. The move comes nine years after the Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, approved its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, sparking the departure of conservative parishes. The church now allows gay men and lesbians to join the ordained ministry. ... Full Story | Top |
U.N. to recommend fewer Syria monitors, same mandate: envoys
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:21 PM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will recommend that the Security Council keep the mandate of its Syria monitoring mission unchanged while temporarily reducing the number of unarmed military observers, diplomats said on Thursday. The idea, they said, was to shift the mission's focus from observing a non-existent ceasefire to supporting efforts aimed at securing a political solution, which world powers say is the only way out of the crisis in Syria. The recommendation will be included in a report on options for the future of the U.N. ... Full Story | Top |
Mexico withdraws Argentina automobile-tariff accord
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:19 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has withdrawn a zero-tariff agreement with Argentina on autos in a tit-for-tat trade dispute after the Argentine government's decision to pull out of an auto trade pact between the two countries. Francisco de Rosenzweig, Mexican undersecretary for trade, said on Thursday the measure became effective on June 26. Mexico had said on June 25 that Argentina had pulled out of the auto trade pact over the deal's conditions. "Mexico is taking a reciprocal action," de Rosenzweig said. ... Full Story | Top |
Mexican vote recount confirms Pena Nieto win
Thu,5 Jul 2012 06:13 PM PDT
Reuters -  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A recount on Thursday showed Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto as the clear winner of Sunday's presidential election, but the runner-up still refused to concede, alleging Pena Nieto's party bought millions of votes. The results set up a return to power for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000, when it was frequently accused of vote-rigging. With 99 percent of polling stations counted or recounted, Pena Nieto held 38.2 percent of the vote, 6.7 points ahead of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. ...
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Roberts redux? U.S. top judge may surprise again
Thu,5 Jul 2012 05:31 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over his 30 years in Washington, Chief Justice John Roberts has been difficult to pigeonhole and defied expectations. More than once, he has remade his image. His crucial vote last week when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare plan astonished politicians and commentators, left and right. Yet if history is any indication, the 57-year-old chief justice, appointed for life, will surprise again during the course of a legacy that could last decades. ...
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California high-speed rail plan nearing key votes
Thu,5 Jul 2012 04:50 PM PDT
Reuters - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California lawmakers were nearing a vote on Thursday on a make-or-break $8 billion financing plan to launch the state's planned high-speed rail system, which has been mired in controversy over its management and cost, now pegged at $68 billion. Votes in favor of the plan would mean California could begin selling bonds for its most ambitious public works project and lock in federal funds for a line in the state's Central Valley, while a "no" vote would stop the entire plan in its tracks. ... Full Story | Top |
Key Argentine "Dirty War" figures jailed for baby thefts
Thu,5 Jul 2012 04:25 PM PDT
Reuters - BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Three key figures from Argentina's "Dirty War" got hefty jail terms for the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, an Argentine court ruled on Thursday. The missing children - stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families - are one of the most painful legacies of the crackdown on leftist dissent in which rights groups say up to 30,000 people were killed. Just over 100 of the children have discovered their true identities, but many families are still searching more than three decades later. ... Full Story | Top |
Britain rejects Roche's Avastin in advanced breast cancer treatment
Thu,5 Jul 2012 04:08 PM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Roche Holding AG's cancer drug Avastin has been rejected by Britain's healthcare cost agency as a first-line treatment for advanced breast cancer, the latest in a series of setbacks for this medicine. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said on Friday that although Avastin, when used in combination with the chemotherapy drug Xeloda, could delay cancer from progressing longer than chemotherapy alone, it did not appear to help breast cancer patients live longer overall. ...
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L.A. County voters to decide on condoms in porn
Thu,5 Jul 2012 04:06 PM PDT
Reuters - LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles County voters will decide in November whether to require porn actors to use condoms during film shoots, in a ballot measure that marks a new front for an AIDS group that has long targeted the adult entertainment industry. The ballot initiative is the latest salvo against the industry, after the city of Los Angeles passed a similar requirement in January that has yet to be enforced. ... Full Story | Top |
Romney campaign raises over $100 million in June
Thu,5 Jul 2012 03:38 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney raised more than $100 million in June, his best month yet, a Republican official said on Thursday, putting pressure on President Barack Obama who could become the first incumbent to be outspent in a re-election run. The run-up to the November 6 election is poised to be the most expensive election in U.S. history, as both campaigns rely on outside spending groups with no fundraising limits instead of public financing. Romney's June haul was helped by the U.S. ...
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Defection cheers anti-Assad coalition at Paris meet
Thu,5 Jul 2012 03:32 PM PDT
Reuters -  PARIS (Reuters) - Reports of the defection of a general and personal friend of Bashar al-Assad will cheer the Syrian leader's enemies at a meeting in Paris on Friday of the Western and Arab states that want to drive him from power. A source in the exiled opposition said Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in Assad's Republican Guard, was en route to Paris where the "Friends of Syria" group of states opposed to Assad was due to meet. He has family there. ...
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Mexico withdraws Argentina auto-tariff accord
Thu,5 Jul 2012 03:24 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has withdrawn a zero-tariff agreement with Argentina on autos in a tit-for-tat trade dispute after the Argentine government's decision to pull out of an auto trade pact between the two countries. Francisco de Rosenzweig, Mexican undersecretary for trade, said on Thursday the measure became effective on June 26. Mexico had said on June 25 that Argentina had pulled out of the auto trade pact over the deal's conditions. "Mexico is taking a reciprocal action," de Rosenzweig said. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: Legal eagles redefine healthcare winners, losers
Thu,5 Jul 2012 02:48 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld President Obama's healthcare law under Congress's power to tax, but not its power to regulate the economy, many conservatives were quick to hail the decision as a victory for more limited government. By saying the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not allow Congress to penalize people for "inactivity" - such as someone's decision not to purchase health insurance - the thinking went, the court opened the door to challenges to laws that might attempt to do the same. ...
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Authors say they find 100 new Caravaggio works in Italy
Thu,5 Jul 2012 02:20 PM PDT
Reuters -  ROME (Reuters) - Italian art experts say they have discovered about 100 previously unknown sketches and paintings by Caravaggio, the Italian baroque painter whose realistic and dramatic canvases set a new standard for Western art. Only some 90 paintings by Caravaggio, who died in 1610 in his late 30s after a turbulent life, and was a master of using the chiaroscuro technique of lighting to make his subjects seem to come alive, previously were known to exist. ...
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Left, right criticize Humala over deadly Peru clashes
Thu,5 Jul 2012 02:02 PM PDT
Reuters -  LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian lawmakers on Thursday harshly criticized President Ollanta Humala's crackdown on protests against Newmont's $5 billion Conga mine, as deadly violence prompted calls for him to shuffle his Cabinet. A fifth protester died on Thursday after two days of clashes with police as left-wing leader Marco Arana, a soft-spoken former Roman Catholic priest who has rallied demonstrators to stop construction of the biggest mine in Peruvian history, was released from police custody a day after a video aired on local TV showed him being detained and beaten by police. ...
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Final Mexican results confirming Pena Nieto win
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:58 PM PDT
Reuters - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto was a clear victor in Sunday's presidential election, according to a second tally of votes made after the runner-up refused to accept defeat. With 97 percent of polling stations counted by Thursday afternoon, Pena Nieto held 38.3 percent of the vote, nearly 7 points ahead of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. A win for Pena Nieto sets up a return to power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico, at times ruthlessly, between 1929 and 2000. ...
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Drug war fury awaits Mexico's Pena Nieto
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:42 PM PDT
Reuters -  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In the two days after Enrique Pena Nieto smiled under confetti to celebrate his presidential election win in Mexico, a car bomb killed two policemen, assailants opened fire on a wake near the U.S. border and rival gunmen left 10 dead near the capital. The carnage served as a grim reminder of the drug war the new leader will inherit when he takes office in December. Pena Nieto faces pressure from all sides over a drug war that has killed more than 55,000 people in President Felipe Calderon's six-year presidency. ...
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Finmeccanica sold radio equipment to Syria: report
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:37 PM PDT
Reuters - ROME (Reuters) - A unit of Italian defense technology group Finmeccanica sold sophisticated communications equipment to Syrian police as recently as February, an Italian weekly reported on Thursday, quoting emails published by Wikileaks. According to l'Espresso, Finmeccanica's Selex Elsag unit sold Syrian authorities its Tetra mobile communications equipment, a system used by military, police and emergency services as well as companies and other organizations. Tetra allows secure, encrypted communications from vehicles and helicopters. ... Full Story | Top |
U.N. stops short of endorsing intervention in Mali
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:34 PM PDT
Reuters - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday endorsed West African political efforts to end unrest in Mali but stopped short of backing military intervention in the West African state where al Qaeda-linked militants control significant territory. Ansar Dine and its Salafist allies have hijacked a separatist Tuareg uprising in northern Mali and now control two-thirds of its desert north, which includes the regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu where historic and religious sites have been destroyed in recent days. ... Full Story | Top |
Home sales drop in Toronto and Vancouver, prices up
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:28 PM PDT
Reuters - TORONTO (Reuters) - Home sales in two of Canada's biggest markets slowed sharply in June from the year before, offering more evidence that the country's lengthy real estate boom is softening. Sales in Toronto, Canada's largest city, slumped 13 percent from June 2011, the Toronto Real Estate Board said on Thursday. That decline paled in comparison to the 27 percent plunge in sales in Greater Vancouver, the country's priciest real estate market, where sales hit a 10-year low. ... Full Story | Top |
Obama knocks China trade policy, Romney on campaign tour
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:25 PM PDT
Reuters -  MAUMEE, Ohio (Reuters) - President Barack Obama took a shot at China and Republican rival Mitt Romney on Thursday, complaining to the World Trade Organization that Beijing is abusing trade laws by imposing more than $3 billion in duties on U.S. automobile exports. "Americans aren't afraid to compete," Obama told an enthusiastic crowd in this northern Ohio city hours after his administration filed the complaint with the WTO. "As long as we're competing on a fair playing field instead of an unfair playing field, we're going to do just fine. We're going to make sure that competition is fair. ...
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Asian nations want to sink South Korea whale hunt plan
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:08 PM PDT
Reuters -  PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - South Korea's proposal to resume whaling for scientific research has angered other Asian countries and conservationists who said the practice would skirt a global ban on whale hunting. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she would fight the proposal, which was made on Wednesday at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Panama City, while the United States said it planned to take the matter up with the South Korean government. ...
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Northern Ireland police to investigate 1972 "Bloody Sunday" killings
Thu,5 Jul 2012 01:07 PM PDT
Reuters -  BELFAST (Reuters) - A murder investigation is to be launched into the killings of 13 Roman Catholic civil rights marchers by British soldiers in Londonderry 40 years ago, Northern Ireland's police service said on Thursday. The announcement came a week after Britain's Queen Elizabeth for the first time shook the hand of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla commander Martin McGuinness, who was there on the day, helping draw a line under a conflict that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians. ...
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Romania president accuses government of power grab
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:58 PM PDT
Reuters - BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's president accused the government on Thursday of using an attempt to impeach him as a way of grabbing control of the judiciary and other state institutions. The leftist Social-Liberal Union (USL) government is set to use its parliamentary majority to vote on Friday to suspend right-winger Traian Basescu. A referendum would then be held on his impeachment within a month. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. sanctions Eritrean officials for aiding Somalia militants
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:53 PM PDT
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States imposed sanctions on two Eritrean government officials on Thursday, saying they had assisted Islamist militants including the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab in the lawless neighboring state of Somalia. The U.S. Treasury included the two Eritreans on a list of six people newly placed under sanctions for their role in the Somalian conflict, which U.S. officials see as a growing threat to regional stability across East Africa. ... Full Story | Top |
This just in: Mermaids are NOT real, U.S. agency says
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:34 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This may not be much of a surprise, but mermaids aren't real. No less an authority than the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has debunked the existence of the legendary half-woman, half-fish creatures. NOAA's National Ocean Service came out against the reality of mermaids after a documentary-style science fiction program on the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet suggested in May that the body of a mermaid had been found on a beach. Of course, it wasn't. ...
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Finmeccanica says Syrian technology sale was for civil use
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:30 PM PDT
Reuters - ROME (Reuters) - Italian defense contractor Finmeccanica said on Thursday that it supplied Syria with technology that was designed for civil use after a news report earlier alleged the company had provided sophisticated communications gear that could be used during the ongoing military crackdown. The technology "was designed for use by emergency responders," the company said in a statement. The so-called Tetra technology "was conceived for this function," it said. ... Full Story | Top |
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. needs "extended" in-patient treatment
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:28 PM PDT
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., who disclosed recently that he has been on medical leave since early June with an unspecified condition, is grappling with "physical and emotional ailments" that require in-patient treatment, his office said on Thursday. In a statement, Jackson's press secretary Frank Watkins said the 47-year-old congressman's condition was "more serious than we thought and initially believed" and would require "extended in-patient treatment as well as continuing medical treatment thereafter." The statement did not specify the medical problem. ... Full Story | Top |
Nervous Libyans ready for first taste of democracy
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:26 PM PDT
Reuters -  TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyans will vote in their first free national poll in more than half a century on Saturday amid fears that violence could taint an election meant to usher in a temporary national assembly and draw a line under Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year autocratic reign. Voters will select a 200-member assembly that will choose a cabinet to replace the self-appointed interim government and also pick a new prime minister. Many of the 3,700 candidates have strong Islamic agendas. The chamber was also due to appoint a committee charged with drafting a new constitution. ...
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Greece admits veering from bailout obligations
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:14 PM PDT
Reuters -  ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece conceded on Thursday it had slipped "in some respects" in implementing the cuts and reforms demanded by lenders in exchange for saving Athens from bankruptcy, and tried to persuade them to cut the country some slack. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras made the admission after meeting senior officials from Greece's "troika" of lenders from the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, whose inspectors have begun picking through the country's books after weeks of political paralysis. ...
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Egypt army salutes Mursi, both strive for control
Thu,5 Jul 2012 12:12 PM PDT
Reuters - CAIRO (Reuters) - Sat between Egypt's two top generals, newly elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi oversaw a passing-out ceremony of military recruits on Thursday in a rigidly choreographed scene that could almost have been taken from the era of Hosni Mubarak. Yet beneath the formalities, a more subtle game is at play as two long-time adversaries size each other up for what is likely to be an Islamist war of attrition to scale back the influence of an army that has ruled the nation for 60 years. ... Full Story | Top |
Greek finance minister says Athens must get program on track: FT
Thu,5 Jul 2012 11:59 AM PDT
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's new finance minister Yannis Stournaras said Athens had to get its fiscal reform program back on track before seeking an easing of austerity measures, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. "The program is off-track and we can't ask for anything from our creditors before we get it back on course," Stournaras was quoted as saying by the Financial Times. An official at Greece's Finance Ministry told Reuters that Stournaras's statement did not mean the Greek government had dropped its demand for a change in some terms of its international bailout. ... Full Story | Top |
Bond set at $1 million for Trayvon Martin's killer
Thu,5 Jul 2012 11:55 AM PDT
Reuters -  SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida judge said George Zimmerman was a flight risk and set bond at $1 million on Thursday for the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman had been released on $150,000 bond but was sent back to jail in June after prosecutors alleged he misled the court about his finances and failed to surrender a valid passport. ...
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Long road ahead in U.S.-Pakistan ties after NATO deal
Thu,5 Jul 2012 11:53 AM PDT
Reuters -  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan and the United States are set to resume broader talks on security cooperation, militant threats, aid and other issues in the wake of an agreement to reopen supply routes into Afghanistan, Pakistan's envoy to Washington said on Thursday. But bridging underlying differences that strained U.S.-Pakistani ties close to the breaking point will be daunting as the allies remain at odds over how to handle the twin threats of the Taliban in Afghanistan and militants in Pakistani tribal areas. ...
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