GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Jurors in the trial of former U.S. Senator John Edwards asked on Friday to review more than a dozen prosecution exhibits as they deliberated whether he illegally used campaign funds to conceal his extramarital affair while he ran for president. The North Carolina federal court jurors began deliberating on Friday morning and submitted their request about 2-1/2 hours later. Among the evidence they asked to review were notes from wealthy donor Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and testimony from her lawyer, Alex Forger. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration's top health official on Friday took the debate over whether healthcare coverage should include contraceptives to the campus of a Catholic university that has been deeply divided over the administration's policy. U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a speech at Georgetown University a few miles from the White House, praised the new U.S. healthcare law requiring coverage and called for "conversation and compromise. ...
MF Global customer deemed "frivolous" in fee fight
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former MF Global Holdings Ltd customer was rebuked on Friday by a judge for filing "frivolous" court papers attacking the mounting fees of Louis Freeh, the trustee unwinding the company's bankrupt estate. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn rejected arguments from customer leader James Koutoulas that Freeh should not be allowed to extend a Friday deadline to file financial data about the company. Koutoulas had argued the postponement would allow Freeh, a former FBI director, to rack up unreasonable fees. ...
U.S. soldier referred for court martial for 2009 Iraq shooting
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military clinic in Baghdad in 2009 has been referred to stand trial by military court martial, Joint Base Lewis-McChord said on Friday. Sergeant John Russell, who could face the death penalty if convicted, faces five charges of premeditated murder, one charge of aggravated assault, and one charge of attempted murder. Russell, of the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, is accused of going on a shooting spree at a combat stress center at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, in May 2009. ...
Appeals court affirms minority voting rights law
(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of the landmark U.S. voting rights law aimed at protecting minorities in states and local areas with a history of racial discrimination. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 decision said Congress did not exceed its power by renewing a requirement that nine states, mostly in the South, and dozens of local governments with a history of racial discrimination get federal permission to change their election procedures. ...
El Paso applies for LNG export license from Elba Island
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Natural gas producer and pipeline operator El Paso Corp has joined the growing ranks of companies hoping to export the abundant fuel overseas, after filing an export license for its import terminal in Georgia. El Paso, through its subsidiary Southern LNG, is seeking authorization from the Department of Energy to export up to 0.5 billion cubic feet per day of liquefied natural gas from its Elba Island facility over 25 years, according to a filing on the DoE website on Friday. ...
(Reuters) - All baby boomers should be tested at least once for the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus, according to proposed guidelines from U.S. health officials released on Friday. The often-undiagnosed virus is transmitted through contaminated blood. While infection rates have dropped dramatically since the early 1990s - due in part to the introduction of blood and organ screening - many older adults are still at risk, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the draft guidelines. ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - This weekend's NATO summit is attracting raucous rallies and protests to Chicago that have little to do with the mission of the military alliance, including a large rally of nurses angry about the resources devoted to healthcare in the United States. Hundreds of red-clad nurses from National Nurses United gathered in a downtown Chicago plaza across from city hall for what was expected to be the largest protest to date surrounding the summit, which heads of state including President Barrack Obama will attend. ...
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - Mississippi police have arrested a man they believe is responsible for two highway killings this month, the Department of Public Safety said on Friday. The suspect, James Willie, 28, of Sardis, Mississippi, was arrested Tuesday morning in Tunica, the department said in a statement. Police had responded to a reported rape. Willie is charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping and rape. He will be charged with two counts of capital murder on Friday, the statement said. ...
Small fire breaks out at ADM plant in Illinois
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A small fire broke out at one of agribusiness giant Archer Daniel Midland Co's plants in Decatur, Illinois, on Friday morning. The fire department was called but the fire, which started in the coal storage area of plant's co-generation facility, was put out before firefighters arrived, ADM spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said. The facility helps power operations at the plant. There were no injuries or damage. The cause of the fire, which started around 10 a.m. CDT (1500 GMT) was still being investigated, Anderson said. Anderson said that the facility was still open for ...
(Reuters) - Kraft Foods said on Friday it lowered prices on many of its U.S. coffees, including its flagship brand Maxwell House and some of its instant coffees, citing lower green coffee costs since prices peaked last year. The move comes three days after trend-setter J.M. Smucker Co. cut the cost of well-known brands Folgers and Dunkin' Donuts by an average of 6 percent. It is the second cut to coffee prices since August 2011 for both companies. "These changes reflect sustained decreases in the cost of green coffee," Kraft spokeswoman Bridget MacConnell told Reuters in an email. ...
U.S. test flight seen as "giant leap" for commercial space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An Obama administration plan to cut the cost of spaceflight services faces a key test on Saturday when a privately owned rocket lifts off for a practice run to the International Space Station. If successful, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, would become the first private company to reach the $100 billion outpost, which flies about 240 miles above Earth. ...
After stinging report, Pope softens tone for U.S. nuns
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Friday held out an olive branch to American Roman Catholic nuns, who are reeling from a stinging Vatican report that criticized them as being feminist and politicized. "I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women (nuns) in your country," he said in an address to visiting U.S. bishops. ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - An FBI expert found crucial evidence in the Trayvon Martin case was inconclusive, saying it was impossible to tell if the voice screaming for help belonged to the black Florida teenager or his shooter George Zimmerman just before the neighborhood watch captain pulled the trigger. That detail came from a mass of evidence made public on Thursday in the case that sparked civil rights protests across the United States and debates over guns, self-defense laws and race relations in America. ...
Kansas City Southern says coal shipments weaker
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Railroad operating company Kansas City Southern said on Friday shipments of coal, farm products and chemicals were weaker than expected a month ago, but kept its full-year profit forecast unchanged, saying shipments should pick up once the railroad moves past temporary factors. "We had a much more positive outlook 30 days ago," Chief Financial Officer Michael Upchurch told the Bank of America Merrill Lynch global transportation conference in Boston. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In 1978, after New York City had barely escaped bankruptcy, Mayor Ed Koch went looking for cash from an unlikely source: the city's colleges and other nonprofits, which do not pay taxes on their valuable land. Koch was trying to do then what cash-starved cities are now pulling off: extracting more money from colleges, universities and private hospitals to help restore bare-boned budgets. Two weeks ago, Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Angel Taveras struck a deal with Brown University, which doubled its annual voluntary contribution to nearly $8 million for five years. ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The USS Iowa, which ferried the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the perilous Atlantic waters to a historic meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in the dark days of World War Two, will have to be towed to its final port call. The battleship saw combat in the Pacific, survived a devastating explosion in a gun turret, and even a snub from the city of San Francisco. At the end of its final voyage, the storied warship will have a permanent mooring in Los Angeles. ...
Protests after Houston cop cleared of beating black teen
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The day after an all-white jury acquitted a former Houston police officer for his role in the beating of a 15-year-old African American burglary suspect, community activists rallied a crowd of at least 200 people on the courthouse steps to protest. Andrew Blomberg was acquitted by a jury in Houston on Wednesday in the alleged beating and stomping of Chad Holley two years ago. Protesters carrying signs with slogans like, "No justice, no peace. ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Kansas Governor Sam Brownback apologized on Thursday to blacks for segregation in his state in the last century as he marked the anniversary of a ruling that struck down segregation in schools. The Republican governor said Kansas had never really apologized for the "hateful practice" of segregating black people from white in public places after the abolition of slavery. Brownback signed the proclamation on the 58th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The parents of two Chinese graduate students slain near the University of Southern California last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the school of misrepresenting the area as safe and failing to provide security patrols. The 15-page lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court comes just over a month after Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23, were fatally shot as they were sitting in a 2003 BMW car that had been double-parked. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the first time, there are more black, Hispanic and other minority babies being born in the United States than white babies, according to government data released on Thursday that confirm a long-growing trend. U.S. Census Bureau data show the United States is on its way to becoming "majority minority," with almost half of all young children currently from minority groups, including Hispanic, black and Asian. As of July 1, 2011, 50.4 percent of babies younger than age 1 were minorities or of more than one race, up from 49.5 percent in 2010, the data showed. ...
Oklahoma park accused of letting kids play with tigers
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The Humane Society of the United States is accusing an Oklahoma exotic animal park of allowing children to handle and pose for photographs with juvenile tigers in what they called "a petting zoo for carnivores." Joe Schreibvogel, owner of the G.W. Exotic Animal Park, 65 miles south of Oklahoma City, denies the allegations, and he said on Thursday that the humane society simply wants to bankrupt him. Wayne Pacelle, head of the animal rights organization, contends that allowing visitors to handle the unpredictable felines placed the visitors at risk. ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The USS Iowa, which ferried the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the perilous Atlantic waters to a historic meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in the dark days of World War Two, will have to be towed to its final port call. The battleship saw combat in the Pacific, survived a devastating explosion in a gun turret, and even a snub from the city of San Francisco. At the end of its final voyage, the storied warship will have a permanent mooring in Los Angeles. ...
Mississippi high court declines to rehear pardon case
TUPELO, Miss (Reuters) - Mississippi's high court on Thursday rejected a motion by its state attorney general to reconsider its approval of 10 pardons issued in January by then Governor Haley Barbour. The decision not to rehear the case was handed down by the state Supreme Court without comment. Attorney General Jim Hood had asked the court to void those pardons, among some 200 issued by the former Republican governor, on the grounds that technical procedures set out in the state constitution had not been met. ...
New York state says jobless rate steady at 8.5 pct
(Reuters) - New York state's unemployment rate was unchanged in April from March at 8.5 percent but the state has won back all the private sector jobs lost during the recession, the state's Department of Labor said on Thursday. New York's jobless rate is up from 8 percent in April 2011 and is above the national rate for April of 8.1 percent. Only four other states have regained all the jobs lost during the Great Recession: Alaska, Louisiana, North Dakota and Texas, said Kevin Jack, a state labor market analyst. ...
Family values ex-Nevada lawmaker appears in bikini for Maxim
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - A former Nevada state Senator who ran on a Christian family values platform has posed in a bikini as a write-in candidate for the men's magazine Maxim's "Hot 100" contest. The magazine will announce results of the annual contest next week, but a photo of Elizabeth Halseth posed in a black bikini against a desert mountain backdrop has featured on the magazine's website as one of the most popular 'Hot 100' write-ins of the year. ...
Winds, low humidity bedevil Arizona, Colorado firefighters
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Firefighters struggled against strong winds on Thursday to halt the advance of Arizona wildfires that have charred more than 30 square miles (78 square km) of dry ponderosa forest, brush and grass, and a blaze in nearby Colorado swelled overnight. More than 1,000 firefighters in the two states battled at least five major blazes from the ground while air tankers and helicopters dropped water and fire retardant. Another fire erupted in Minnesota, encroaching on the northern town of Ely. ...
Winds, low humidity bedevil Arizona, Colorado firefighters
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Firefighters struggled against strong winds on Thursday to halt the advance of Arizona wildfires that have charred over 30 square miles of dry ponderosa forest, brush and grass, and a blaze in nearby Colorado swelled overnight. Over 1,000 firefighters in the two states battled at least five major blazes from the ground while air tankers and helicopters made water and fire retardant drops. ...
Defense budget debate touches on Afghanistan, NASCAR
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - War-weary lawmakers nudged President Barack Obama to speed the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan on Thursday but Republicans blocked a big debate on the issue ahead of a NATO summit to chart the way forward in the decade-long conflict. The clash over Afghanistan came as lawmakers in the House of Representatives debated an annual policy bill that would authorize $642.5 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year beginning in October, including $88.5 billion for the Afghan war and other overseas operations. ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal. During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom. ...
U.S. test flight seen as giant leap for commercial space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An Obama administration plan to cut the cost of spaceflight services faces a key test on Saturday when a privately owned rocket lifts off for a practice run to the International Space Station. If successful, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, would become the first private company to reach the $100 billion outpost, which flies about 240 miles above Earth. ...
MF Global customer deemed "frivolous" in fee fight
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former MF Global Holdings Ltd customer was rebuked on Friday by a judge for filing "frivolous" court papers attacking the mounting fees of Louis Freeh, the trustee unwinding the company's bankrupt estate. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn rejected arguments from customer leader James Koutoulas that Freeh should not be allowed to extend a Friday deadline to file financial data about the company. Koutoulas had argued the postponement would allow Freeh, a former FBI director, to rack up unreasonable fees. ...
U.S. soldier referred for court martial for 2009 Iraq shooting
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military clinic in Baghdad in 2009 has been referred to stand trial by military court martial, Joint Base Lewis-McChord said on Friday. Sergeant John Russell, who could face the death penalty if convicted, faces five charges of premeditated murder, one charge of aggravated assault, and one charge of attempted murder. Russell, of the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, is accused of going on a shooting spree at a combat stress center at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, in May 2009. ...
GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Jurors in the trial of former U.S. Senator John Edwards asked on Friday to review more than a dozen prosecution exhibits as they deliberated whether he illegally used campaign funds to conceal his extramarital affair while he ran for president. The North Carolina federal court jurors began deliberating on Friday morning and submitted their request about 2-1/2 hours later. Among the evidence they asked to review were notes from wealthy donor Rachel "Bunny" Mellon and testimony from her lawyer, Alex Forger. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration's top health official on Friday took the debate over whether healthcare coverage should include contraceptives to the campus of a Catholic university that has been deeply divided over the administration's policy. U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a speech at Georgetown University a few miles from the White House, praised the new U.S. healthcare law requiring coverage and called for "conversation and compromise. ...
El Paso applies for LNG export license from Elba Island
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Natural gas producer and pipeline operator El Paso Corp has joined the growing ranks of companies hoping to export the abundant fuel overseas, after filing an export license for its import terminal in Georgia. El Paso, through its subsidiary Southern LNG, is seeking authorization from the Department of Energy to export up to 0.5 billion cubic feet per day of liquefied natural gas from its Elba Island facility over 25 years, according to a filing on the DoE website on Friday. ...
Small fire breaks out at ADM plant in Illinois
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A small fire broke out at one of agribusiness giant Archer Daniel Midland Co's plants in Decatur, Illinois, on Friday morning. The fire department was called but the fire, which started in the coal storage area of plant's co-generation facility, was put out before firefighters arrived, ADM spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said. The facility helps power operations at the plant. There were no injuries or damage. The cause of the fire, which started around 10 a.m. CDT (1500 GMT) was still being investigated, Anderson said. Anderson said that the facility was still open for ...
Appeals court affirms minority voting rights law
(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of the landmark U.S. voting rights law aimed at protecting minorities in states and local areas with a history of racial discrimination. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 decision said Congress did not exceed its power by renewing a requirement that nine states, mostly in the South, and dozens of local governments with a history of racial discrimination get federal permission to change their election procedures. ...
(Reuters) - Kraft Foods said on Friday it lowered prices on many of its U.S. coffees, including its flagship brand Maxwell House and some of its instant coffees, citing lower green coffee costs since prices peaked last year. The move comes three days after trend-setter J.M. Smucker Co. cut the cost of well-known brands Folgers and Dunkin' Donuts by an average of 6 percent. It is the second cut to coffee prices since August 2011 for both companies. "These changes reflect sustained decreases in the cost of green coffee," Kraft spokeswoman Bridget MacConnell told Reuters in an email. ...
(Reuters) - All baby boomers should be tested at least once for the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus, according to proposed guidelines from U.S. health officials released on Friday. The often-undiagnosed virus is transmitted through contaminated blood. While infection rates have dropped dramatically since the early 1990s - due in part to the introduction of blood and organ screening - many older adults are still at risk, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the draft guidelines. ...
