By Mohammed Abbas and Khaled Yacoub Oweis JEDDAH/AMMAN | Tue Nov 6, 2012 6:11pm EST JEDDAH/AMMAN (Reuters) - Deadly explosions struck a Damascus district housing members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect and gunmen killed the brother of the speaker of parliament, as violence escalated in the capital. Britain suggested offering As...

By Michael Winfrey and Karolina Tagaris ATHENS | Tue Nov 6, 2012 6:10pm EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's coalition government hopes to overcome its own divisions and defy protesters' fury at parliament's gates on Wednesday to push through an austerity package needed to secure an injection of aid and avert bankruptcy. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras...

LOS ANGELES | Tue Nov 6, 2012 6:08pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp on Tuesday reported quarterly profit that beat analyst expectations thanks to growth at the company's cable television networks. Shares jumped 2.4 percent after hours.The media giant that owns Fox Broadcasting and The Wall Street Journal said adjusted earnings per...

By Suzanne Barlyn Tue Nov 6, 2012 6:06pm EST (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley is trying to halt a securities arbitration case filed by a Facebook investor who blames the firm and other companies for losses she suffered in the social media giant's botched initial public offering and is seeking $1.9 million in damages. Morgan Stanley, a lead underwriter for the I...

By Lauren Tara LaCapra Tue Nov 6, 2012 5:53pm EST (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) is aiming to win market share in bond trading, but it is not big enough to compete against rivals like Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), and should instead focus on shrinking that business, JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein analyst said. Even as Morgan Stanley tries to win m...

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS | Tue Nov 6, 2012 5:49pm EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday. That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell...

WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 6, 2012 5:22pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Move over, America. It's a wide world out there, and as Americans cast their votes on Tuesday there are plenty of international endorsements for both candidates to gloat over - or sweep under the rug. Venezuelan socialist President Hugo Chavez may be a ferocious critic of U.S. policy, but he ...

By John McCrank NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 5:16pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ.O), which runs the No. 2 U.S. equities exchange, plans to offer discounts on retail orders in early 2013, the company said in a notice to traders on Tuesday. Nasdaq said its retail price improvement program would be similar to one launched by Big Boa...

By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 6, 2012 4:53pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sporadic complaints about voting procedures surfaced from Pennsylvania to Florida on Tuesday, while long lines in many states posed their own challenges in what could be one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history. It was unclear what impact controversi...

By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 4:51pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Tuesday, the last day of trading before the election results came to a close, as investors looked forward to a resolution to the drawn-out race for the White House. The rally defied a string of weaker-than expected results from U.S. companies ...

By John Ruwitch BEIJING | Tue Nov 6, 2012 4:38pm EST BEIJING (Reuters) - In 1981, five years after his death, China's ruling Communist Party began to save history from Mao Zedong. Today, speculation about whether it is poised to finish the job has cast a spotlight on one of the most emotive debates simmering inside the party - how much of Mao can...

By Eddie Allen DETROIT | Tue Nov 6, 2012 4:14pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - A former General Motors Co engineer and her husband, charged with conspiring to steal the automaker's trade secrets, were seen throwing out bags of shredded documents in a shopping plaza in 2006, FBI agents said on Tuesday. Shanshan Du, 53, the former GM employee, and her hus...

Tue Nov 6, 2012 3:53pm EST (Reuters) - The injury-hit Dallas Mavericks will be without forward Shawn Marion for at least three games because of a sprained left knee ligament, the National Basketball Association team said on Tuesday. Marion, a four-time All-Star, has been scratched from Wednesday's home game against the Toronto Raptors and will not travel with the...

By Philip Barbara BAY HEAD, New Jersey | Tue Nov 6, 2012 3:05pm EST BAY HEAD, New Jersey (Reuters) - It was far from an ordinary Election Day in the exclusive seaside community of Bay Head, but residents were determined that the destruction and chaos left by the massive storm Sandy would not deter them from voting. Bay Head has no power. Parts of...

LOS ANGELES | Tue Nov 6, 2012 2:23pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - R&B star Rihanna unveiled a duet entitled "Nobodies Business" with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown on Tuesday, three years after Brown was charged with assaulting her. The song was part of an official track list that Barbadian singer Rihanna tweeted to her followers for her upcoming album "Una...

By Patricia Zengerle and Jeff Mason CLEVELAND/CHICAGO | Tue Nov 6, 2012 2:05pm EST CLEVELAND/CHICAGO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney battled down to the wire on Tuesday, mounting a last-minute Election Day drive to get their supporters to the polls in a handful of states that will decide the winner in a ne...

Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:58pm EST (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp (DISH.O), the second-largest U.S. satellite TV company after DirecTV (DTV.O), reported a third-quarter loss due to high litigation costs, but at least one analyst said the results highlighted weaknesses in the company's core business. Revenue fell about 2 percent to $3.52 billion. The company also said it l...

By Robert Muller PRAGUE | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:56pm EST PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech center-right cabinet will survive a parliamentary vote of confidence on Wednesday after a group of backbenchers in the ruling center-right Civic Democratic Party gave up a rebellion threatening to bring down Prime Minister Petr Necas. Necas has been struggling to ke...

DUBAI | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:55pm EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain said it had arrested four suspects on Tuesday in the bombings that killed two people in the capital Manama and accused the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of being behind the attacks. Public Security Chief Major-General Tariq Al Hassan said in a statement published by the official Bahrain New...

CLEVELAND, Ohio | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:52pm EST CLEVELAND, Ohio (Reuters) - If there was any doubt that the U.S. presidential fight hinges on Ohio, an awkward campaign airplane traffic jam at the Cleveland airport made it clear on Tuesday. Minutes after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney touched down on the tarmac, Vice President Joe Biden swoope...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:46pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Traders and investors seem to agree on one thing about Tuesday's U.S. presidential election: The markets want a clear winner by Wednesday morning. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll shows a tight national race, with Democratic President Barack Obama up two point...

By Mohammed Abbas and Suleiman Al-Khalidi JEDDAH/AMMAN | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:45pm EST JEDDAH/AMMAN (Reuters) - Britain floated the notion on Tuesday of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad leaving power with immunity from prosecution while the opposition said at least 100 more people were killed in the country's 19-month revolt. "Anything, anything, t...

By Jessica Toonkel NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 2:04pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Century Investments has hired Patrick Bannigan, an Ameriprise Financial (AMP.N) executive, as its new chief operating officer. Bannigan was formerly president of RiverSource Funds, part of Ameriprise's Columbia Management division. He is replacing Barry Fink, w...

By Jon Herskovitz JOHANNESBURG | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:40pm EST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Photographs suggesting that South African police planted weapons on the bodies of workers shot dead by police at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine have been shown to an inquiry into the bloodiest security incident since apartheid. In police photographs taken shortl...

PRETORIA | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:39pm EST PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa immortalized former president Nelson Mandela on Tuesday in a set of new banknotes bearing the image of the anti-apartheid leader, who remains a rare unifying force in a country still scarred by its racially divided past. The government announced the new notes earlier this year on the...

By Jeff Mason CHICAGO | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:38pm EST CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated Republican rival Mitt Romney on Tuesday for running a hard-fought race for the White House and expressed confidence he would win re-election during a stop at a local campaign office to thank volunteers. "I ... want to say to Governor R...

By Hadeel Al Shalchi TRIPOLI | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:34pm EST TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A member of Libya's former ruling council was found dead in a locked car after he went missing for a day, a security official said on Tuesday. The official, who declined to be named, said that Abdel-Basset Bin Naama was the victim of a family feud. He was found dead on ...

By Edith Honan NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:23pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sharon Brown was so determined to cast her vote that she returned to her flooded home the night before in order to be within walking distance of her voting precinct in the Rockaway Park neighborhood on Election Day. "Living through that storm, watching that water come up, i...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:21pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Tuesday on speculation the presidential election will produce a clear winner, removing a major source of uncertainty that has dogged investors. Investors awaited results of a close race that will set the country's course for the next four years o...

By Bill Berkrot LOS ANGELES | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:14pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Common visible signs of aging may not just be a vanity or employment problem. They may also be a harbinger of heart disease. In a large, long-term study, people who displayed three to four signs of aging, such as receding hairlines at the temples, baldness at the cro...

By Petar Komnenic BELGRADE | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:13pm EST BELGRADE (Reuters) - Montenegro's Democratic Party of Socialists, in power for more than two decades, sealed a coalition deal on Tuesday to govern for the next four years and steer the ex-Yugoslav republic through EU accession talks. The DPS, in coalition with the Social Democratic Party, wo...

By Nick Zieminski Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:00pm EST (Reuters) - Superstorm Sandy will slash earnings at New Jersey casinos and benefit home repair and discount retailers but have limited impact on other sectors and is unlikely to trigger credit downgrades, credit agency Moody's Investors Service said. While potential credit downgrades exist, no rating actions we...

By Deena Beasley and Bill Berkrot LOS ANGELES | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:57pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Amgen Inc's experimental cholesterol-lowering drug, AMG145, reduced levels of "bad" cholesterol up to 66 percent in patients already taking statin drugs, according to results from a mid-stage trial that were presented on Tuesday. The trial results ...

By Ece Toksabay ISTANBUL | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:16pm EST ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey on Tuesday opened the trial in absentia of former Israeli military commanders charged over the 2010 killings of nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound aid ship. The proceedings against four of Israel's most senior retired commanders, including the ex-head of the army, has ...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:15pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many new heart devices, such as valves and stents, are approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) without good studies showing that they offer any benefits beyond existing treatments, according to a new study. "This really leaves open the questi...

By Joe Bavier and Ange Aboa ABIDJAN | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:13pm EST ABIDJAN (Reuters) - As darkness falls over Ivory Coast's lagoon-side commercial capital a steady thumping cuts through the tropical night. But where once the thud of heavy weapons set the Abidjan's residents scrambling indoors for cover, tonight it is a reggae bass line that draws ...

NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:53am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of job openings slipped slightly in September, suggesting the labor market is still recovering at a slow pace, data showed on Tuesday. Job openings - a measure of labor demand - fell to 3.56 million from 3.66 million in August, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and...

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Katya Wachtel and Lauren Tara LaCapra BOSTON/NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:34am EST BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - There is one group of voters Mitt Romney should win in a landslide in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election: hedge fund managers. Most of the best-known hedge fund managers threw their support and, more importantl...

By Randall Palmer NEW DELHI | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:32am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Canadian firms will be able to export uranium and nuclear reactors to India for the first time in almost four decades under an agreement between the two nations, their prime ministers said, but more work is needed to implement the deal. Once implemented, the agreement...

By Tiemoko Diallo BAMAKO | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:26am EST BAMAKO (Reuters) - Military experts from Africa, the United Nations and Europe have drawn up preliminary plans to recapture northern Mali from al Qaeda-linked rebels, African officials said on Tuesday. A source with knowledge of the plan said it will involve a force of more than 4,000 personn...