Jury ends day without verdict in ex-Senator Edwards' trial
GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Former U.S. Senator John Edwards must wait at least another day to learn the verdict in his federal campaign finance trial, as jurors ended deliberations on Monday without deciding whether he broke the law during his 2008 presidential bid. Edwards is accused of using illegal political funds to hide his pregnant mistress during the campaign, and legal experts have said the outcome of the case could expand the scope of what qualifies as contributions in future elections. ...
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Protests dwindle in Chicago as NATO summit concludes
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Anti-war protests in Chicago dwindled on Monday to a few hundred people at the headquarters of U.S. defense contractor Boeing and President Barack Obama's re-election headquarters as the two-day summit of the NATO military alliance ended. Between 200 and 300 demonstrators, some throwing paper planes, gathered in a festive atmosphere at airplane maker Boeing. The turnout was a fraction of the thousands who attended a march on Sunday where dozens were arrested and a number of protesters and police injured during fierce clashes. ...
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U.S. task force: End routine prostate cancer screening
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A task force advising the U.S. government on Monday recommended against routine use of the prostate-cancer screening test called PSA, or prostate specific antigen, for lack of a discernible health benefit. Like a draft proposal last October, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force gave PSA screening a D, for "don't recommend" in healthy men. The reaction was fast and furious. Screening advocates warned that the recommendation will cost lives, but critics of PSA testing said thousands of men will be spared impotence and incontinence as a result of needless cancer treatment. ...more
U.S. Catholic groups sue to block contraception mandate
(Reuters) - The University of Notre Dame and dozens of other Catholic institutions sued President Barack Obama's administration on Monday to block a government regulation that requires employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives to employees. The regulation, which is part of the president's healthcare reform law, has sparked a nasty fight between the administration and the Roman Catholic Church, which opposes artificial contraception. ...
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Computer hackers access U.S. Justice Department website: spokeswoman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One or more unauthorized users gained access to the inner workings of a website run by the U.S. Justice Department, a department spokeswoman said on Monday after the hacker group Anonymous said they were behind the incident. The hackers accessed a server that operates the Bureau of Justice Statistics' website, the spokeswoman said. The bureau is responsible for collecting and analyzing data about crime ? including computer security incidents ? from throughout the United States. ...more
California college student goes missing in Yosemite
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities combed Yosemite National Park in California on Monday for a 22-year-old college student who disappeared after walking away from the rest of his group during a weekend trip into back-country areas of the park. John Paul Chaufan Field, a senior at the University of California at Santa Cruz, was last seen at mid-morning on Saturday at a campsite near Kibbie Lake in the park's Hetch Hetchy area, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said. ...
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Record California school districts in "financial jeopardy"
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A record 188 school districts in California are in "financial jeopardy," the office of the state's top schools official said on Monday, just a week after Governor Jerry Brown warned of the potential for deep cuts in education spending. Another 61 local education agencies have been added since February by the state superintendent of public instruction's office to its list of districts with either negative or qualified certifications. Local education agencies include school districts, county offices of education and joint powers agencies. ...more
Former Rutgers student gets 30 days jail for bias crime
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A former Rutgers University student was sentenced on Monday to 30 days in jail for a bias crime after he spied on his roommate's gay encounter in a case that drew national attention to bullying. Dharun Ravi, 20, had faced a possible maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars for using a webcam to invade the privacy of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, and an older man in their college dorm room. ...
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Dogged by "bully" charge, nuclear chief Jaczko resigns
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said on Monday that he would resign, following a year of intense criticism over his abrasive management style. Jaczko, 41, did not give a reason for stepping down more than a year before his term expired. The move comes after a year in which Jaczko drew headlines from a series of reports and congressional hearings that painted him as a bully who had reduced some senior female employees to tears. ...
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U.S. states urge return of drug used in executions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifteen states asked the U.S. Justice Department on Monday for help in obtaining an anesthesia drug they use in executions but that a federal judge said in March was illegally imported. The dispute is playing out in a lawsuit over whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has the authority to allow shipments of the sedative sodium thiopental into the country, even though the drug is not approved for U.S. use. The group of 15 state attorneys general said in a letter to U.S. ...more
California Senate votes to allow self-driving cars
SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - California took a step toward becoming the second state in the nation to allow self-driven cars on its roads on Monday, as the state Senate unanimously agreed to allow autonomously driven vehicles such as those pioneered by Google. Google's self-driving cars have already crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and driven along the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway, according to the company, which has taken California lawmakers on test drives. ...
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Crews gain upper hand battling wildfires in Southwest
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Fire crews gained a fragile upper hand against stubborn Arizona wildfires on Monday, but cautioned that tinder-dry conditions and high temperatures could jeopardize containment efforts in coming days. Blazes in rugged, mountainous areas of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado have forced the evacuation of several small towns and torched more than 65 square miles (168 square km) of forest, brush and grass in the U.S. Southwest. ...
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Apple seeks support for new spaceship-like campus
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's chief financial officer is asking the residents of Cupertino, California, to support the company's new 2.8 million square foot spaceship-like campus, which critics say would increase traffic and pressure city services. In a brochure mailed last week to its neighbors in the Silicon Valley city, Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer asked them to write a letter, attend a public meeting, or let the company use their names in support of its building plans, according to one of the people who received it. ...
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Ex-Haiti official gets U.S. prison for telecom bribery
MIAMI (Reuters) - A former senior telecommunications official in Haiti was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday for accepting about $500,000 in bribes from two U.S. companies that secured lucrative long-distance phone contracts in the Caribbean nation. A jury unanimously found Jean Rene Duperval guilty in March in a case based on 2001-2005 dealings that involved several former officials who served under former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Duperval, a 45-year-old resident of Miramar, Florida, had faced up to 20 years imprisonment at his sentencing. U.S. ...more
Four tons of pot found floating off California coast
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have recovered more than four tons of marijuana found bobbing in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast, in one of the largest known seizures of its kind on a maritime smuggling route increasingly used by Mexican drug traffickers. The U.S. Coast Guard received a call on Sunday from a boater about suspicious bales spotted floating about 12 miles off the coast of Orange County, south of Los Angeles, the U.S. Border Patrol said. The U.S. ...more
California college student goes missing in Yosemite
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities combed California's Yosemite National Park on Monday for a 22-year-old college student who disappeared over the weekend after declining to join fellow students on a long back-country hike. John Paul Chaufan Field, a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, was last seen on Saturday morning in the Hetch Hetchy area of the nearly 1,200-square-mile (3,100-square-kilometre) park, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said. ...more
Climber killed in McKinley fall identified as German
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A climber killed in a 1,100-foot (335-meter) fall on Alaska's Mount McKinley as he tried to retrieve a sliding backpack during an ascent of North America's tallest peak has been identified as a 49-year-old German man. Denali National Park officials said Steffen Machulka of Halle, Germany, fell down a ridge to his death on Friday after reaching for the backpack at the mountain's 16,200-foot (4,900-metre) level. ...more
Death penalty sought for Iraq war vet in California killings
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California prosecutors will seek the death penalty against an Iraq war veteran charged with six murders, including the serial "thrill" killings of four homeless men in Orange County, a top prosecutor said on Monday. Itzcoatl Ocampo, a 24-year-old former U.S. Marine, is scheduled to stand trial in September on six counts of first degree murder with special circumstances, including the brutal stabbing deaths of four transients beginning in late December. ...
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Key witness against Clemens says provided drugs to other players
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brian McNamee, the key government witness in the perjury trial of former baseball star Roger Clemens over the use of banned drugs, said on Monday that he had also provided two other players with human growth hormone and helped a third obtain the performance-enhancing drug.
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Mississippi prison under control after inmate riot
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - Authorities regained control of a privately owned prison in Mississippi on Monday after a 12-hour riot in which one guard was killed and nearly 20 other people were injured, prison officials said. Authorities took control of the 2,567-bed Adams County Correctional Center, a low-security prison in Natchez, Mississippi, that houses mostly illegal immigrants for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, at around 2:45 a.m. CDT, according to the Corrections Corporation of America, which owns and operates the facility. ...more
Safety unit probes Fisker plug-in car fire
(Reuters) - U.S. safety regulators are trying to determine the cause of a Texas garage fire that destroyed three vehicles, including a luxury plug-in sports car built by Fisker Automotive. The Fisker Karma, which sells for more than $100,000, was parked in the garage of a newly built home in Sugar Land, Texas, when the fire broke out earlier this month. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent investigators to inspect the site, but has not yet opened a formal investigation. ...more
Lawmakers frustrated in Wal-Mart corruption probe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers investigating Wal-Mart Stores Inc for alleged bribery in Mexico are frustrated by the lack of cooperation they have received from the company, a committee staffer familiar with the investigation said. Attorneys for Wal-Mart briefed the committee earlier on Monday about the company's anti-corruption compliance program, the person said. But Wal-Mart has not committed to briefing the panel on the substantive allegations raised by a New York Times report, a key request of the committee, said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ...
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Coast Guard searching off Texas after fishing boat distress call
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard was searching off the Texas coast on Monday for six people feared missing a day after a distress call indicated a fishing boat may have been sinking in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, the Coast Guard said. A caller radioed on an emergency frequency on Sunday afternoon that the boat was sinking and that he and five other people on board were climbing into a life raft, said Elvie Damaso, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard. U.S. Coast Guard planes and cutters were scouring the waters near Galveston, she said. ...more
Georgia flesh-eating bacteria patient breathing on own: father
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating bacterial infection she contracted after being injured in a zip-line accident nearly three weeks ago is breathing on her own without the help of a ventilator, her father said. The struggle to save 24-year-old Aimee Copeland from necrotizing fasciitis - a bacterial infection that can destroy muscles, skin and tissue - has been chronicled by her father, Andy Copeland, in a blog on the university's website. "She has been off of the ventilator for over 10 hours," Andy Copeland wrote late on Sunday. ...more
Fed's Lockhart says circumstances not ripe for QE3
(Reuters) - The U.S. economy needs "measured" efforts to bolster growth, but the central bank should focus on improving its communications because circumstances do not warrant further bond buying at this time, a top Federal Reserve official said on Monday. Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart said the central bank's policy panel should push forward with efforts to give the public and financial markets a better understanding of how it would react to incoming information on the economy. ...
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Supreme court rules for government on immigrants' residence
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the length of lawful residence in the United States by immigrant parents cannot be considered by the federal government in deciding whether their children should be deported. The justices unanimously handed a victory to the Obama administration and overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that immigrants who entered the United States as children may count their parents' years in this country to satisfy the residency requirements. ...more
"Pre-diabetes," diabetes rising among U.S. teens
By Amy Norton NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The percentage of U.S. teenagers with "pre-diabetes" or full-blown type 2 diabetes has more than doubled in recent years -- though obesity and other heart risk factors have held steady, government researchers reported Monday. The good news, the researchers say, is that teen obesity rates leveled off between 1999 and 2008 -- hovering between 18 percent and 20 percent over the years. Rates of high blood pressure and high LDL cholesterol (the "bad" kind) also remained steady. ...
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On your bike, Portland top U.S. city for cycling
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the most cyclists per capita and even coffee shops that cater to two-wheelers, Portland has been named America's best cycling city, according to a new ranking released on Monday. It knocked Minneapolis, which was tops in 2010, to second place, followed by Boulder, Washington D.C. and Chicago. "No other city in the United States has more cyclists per capita," according to Bicycling magazine, which compiled the list of the top 50 best cycling cities. ...more
U.S. top court decides in vitro fertilization benefits
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that children conceived through in vitro fertilization after the death of a parent were not automatically entitled to survivor benefits under the Social Security law. The justices unanimously sided with the Obama administration and overturned a U.S. appeals court's ruling for a New Jersey woman who is seeking benefits for her twins conceived by artificial insemination after her husband's death. ...more
Supreme Court to hear government eavesdropping appeal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear an Obama administration appeal arguing that attorneys, journalists and human rights groups have no right to sue over a law making it easier for U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on foreign communications. The justices said they would review a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in New York that the plaintiffs have the legal right to proceed with their challenge to a 2008 amendment to the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ...more
Bomb threat forces evacuation at Utah spy site, FBI says
(Reuters) - A bomb threat forced the evacuation of a National Security Agency facility under construction in Utah on Monday but investigators found nothing suspicious, an FBI spokeswoman said. The site for the spy agency is being built at Camp Williams, a military base just south of Salt Lake City. The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the project. FBI spokeswoman Deborah Bertram declined to say how the threat was received but said it led to an evacuation at the site. FBI agents spent several hours at the site after the threat was received. "We found nothing suspicious," Bertram said. U.S. ...more
Ohio man gets six years for plot to smuggle money to Hezbollah
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio man was sentenced on Monday to more than six years in federal prison after pleading guilty to plans to ship $200,000 to the Muslim militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hor Akl, 39, of Toledo had pleaded guilty to planning to send the money inside a sport utility vehicle to Hezbollah to target Israel. Akl was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Carr in Toledo to 75 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement. He had pleaded guilty to five counts. ...more
Computer hackers access U.S. Justice Department website: spokeswoman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One or more unauthorized users gained access to the inner workings of a website run by the U.S. Justice Department, a department spokeswoman said on Monday after the hacker group Anonymous said they were behind the incident. The hackers accessed a server that operates the Bureau of Justice Statistics' website, the spokeswoman said. The bureau is responsible for collecting and analyzing data about crime ? including computer security incidents ? from throughout the United States. ...more
Man who impersonated dead mom sentenced for fraud
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who went to elaborate lengths to impersonate his dead mother as part of a real estate scam was sentenced on Monday to a minimum of 13 years and eight months in prison, prosecutors said. Thomas Parkin, 51, of Brooklyn, donned a red cardigan, wore lipstick and breathed through an oxygen tank to convince investigators that he was his late mother, Irene Pruskin, who died in 2003 at 77. Parkin and a partner also cashed his mother's Social Security checks every month for six years, stealing about $44,000. ...more
Former Rutgers student gets 30 days jail for bias crime
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A former Rutgers University student was sentenced on Monday to 30 days in jail for a bias crime after he spied on his roommate's gay encounter in a case that drew national attention to bullying. Dharun Ravi, 20, had faced a possible maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars for using a webcam to invade the privacy of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, and an older man in their college dorm room. ...
more
California college student goes missing in Yosemite
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities combed Yosemite National Park in California on Monday for a 22-year-old college student who disappeared after walking away from the rest of his group during a weekend trip into back-country areas of the park. John Paul Chaufan Field, a senior at the University of California at Santa Cruz, was last seen at mid-morning on Saturday at a campsite near Kibbie Lake in the park's Hetch Hetchy area, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said. ...
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U.S. states urge return of drug used in executions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifteen states asked the U.S. Justice Department on Monday for help in obtaining an anesthesia drug they use in executions but that a federal judge said in March was illegally imported. The dispute is playing out in a lawsuit over whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has the authority to allow shipments of the sedative sodium thiopental into the country, even though the drug is not approved for U.S. use. The group of 15 state attorneys general said in a letter to U.S. ...more
U.S. Catholic groups sue to block contraception mandate
(Reuters) - The University of Notre Dame and dozens of other Catholic institutions sued President Barack Obama's administration on Monday to block a government regulation that requires employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives to employees. The regulation, which is part of the president's healthcare reform law, has sparked a nasty fight between the administration and the Roman Catholic Church, which opposes artificial contraception. ...
more
California Senate votes to allow self-driving cars
SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - California took a step toward becoming the second state in the nation to allow self-driven cars on its roads on Monday, as the state Senate unanimously agreed to allow autonomously driven vehicles such as those pioneered by Google. Google's self-driving cars have already crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and driven along the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway, according to the company, which has taken California lawmakers on test drives. ...
more
Jury ends day without verdict in ex-Senator Edwards' trial
GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Former U.S. Senator John Edwards must wait at least another day to learn the verdict in his federal campaign finance trial, as jurors ended deliberations on Monday without deciding whether he broke the law during his 2008 presidential bid. Edwards is accused of using illegal political funds to hide his pregnant mistress during the campaign, and legal experts have said the outcome of the case could expand the scope of what qualifies as contributions in future elections. ...
more