By Scott Malone CANTON, Mass | Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:46pm EDT CANTON, Mass (Reuters) - A Massachusetts state court judge delayed for a day a decision on whether to make public testimony that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave more than two decades ago in divorce proceedings involving the founder of the Staples Inc office products cha...

By Deborah Charles WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:22pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In Florida, Virginia and Indiana, voters have received phone calls that wrongly told them there was no need to cast a ballot in person on Election Day because they could vote by phone. In Ohio and Wisconsin, billboards in mostly low-income and minority neighborhood...

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:59pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of smartphones, infringed Apple patents to make its smartphones and tablets, a U.S. trade panel judge said in a preliminary decision issued on Wednesday. Apple had filed a complaint in mid-2011, accusing Samsung ...

By Susan Guyett INDIANAPOLIS | Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:45pm EDT INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - The Republican candidate for the Senate in Indiana, Richard Mourdock, said on Wednesday he was sorry if anyone misunderstood a comment on rape and abortion, and White House hopeful Mitt Romney's campaign said he would stand by the controversial candidate. Mourdock...

By Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:43pm EDT (Reuters) - Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz chided U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not seriously addressing the troubled U.S. housing market during the recent series of presidential debates. The Columbia University economics ...

By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:29pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zynga Inc raised the lower end of its 2012 earnings outlook on Wednesday as the company reported a slight uptick in revenue that beat the Street's rock-bottom expectations. Quarterly revenue rose to $317 million, a...

BOSTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:26pm EDT BOSTON (Reuters) - Symantec Corp, the top maker of computer security software, reported a 6 percent jump in quarterly profit as its new chief executive conducted a strategic review of the company's operations after his predecessor's firing in July. The company, which has seen its stock languish for years, reported net...

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:24pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fallen Wall Street insider Rajat Gupta was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday for leaking Goldman Sachs boardroom secrets to the hedge fund manager at the center of the U.S. government's crackdown on insider trading, a much lighter sentence than prosecutors had sought. Gupta, 63, who ...

By Steve Keating Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:11pm EDT (Reuters) - Baseball fans will get just one look at San Francisco Giants ace Matt Cain in the World Series but that will be more than enough for the Detroit Tigers, who would prefer to see as little as possible of the big right-hander. Cain has not been as overpowering this postseason as he was while tossing a ...

By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:07pm EDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has indicated to Russia that it will accept U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's proposal for a Muslim holiday ceasefire in Syria, Moscow's U.N. envoy said on Wednesday. "We...

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:05pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended lower for a second day on Wednesday, as investors soured on another round of underwhelming corporate results and the Federal Reserve said it would stick to its stimulus plan. Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI slipped 25.11 points, or 0.19 perc...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:03pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc seems to still be the drug of choice for consumers of all stripes looking for sleek gadgetry. But traders are starting to doubt the hype, and the stock's technicals are painting a bleak picture ahead of Apple's earnings due Thursday.According to technical anal...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:00pm EDT (Reuters) - In line with the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise, posters from every Bond movie in the series are hitting the auction block in December, along with stills, lobby cards, scripts and other 007 ephemera. Auctioneer Profiles in History said the Bond poster collection is expected to take in well over $200,000, led b...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:56pm EDT (Reuters) - The death toll from a U.S. outbreak of fungal meningitis due to injections of tainted steroid medication has reached 24 with Indiana now reporting a third death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. Eight new cases of meningitis were reported, pushing the total nationally to 312 cases in 17 stat...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:54pm EDT (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Wednesday that various staff groups involved in compliance and legal issues will soon all report to its general counsel as the world's largest retailer works on coordinating efforts after an alleged foreign bribery scandal. In a memo sent by Chief Executive Mike Duke, the company said that starti...

By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:41pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States filed a fraud lawsuit against Bank of America Corp, accusing it of causing taxpayers more than $1 billion of losses by selling thousands of toxic mortgage loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Wednesday's case, originally brought by a whistleblower, i...

By Pedro da Costa and Alister Bull WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:36pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday stuck to its plan to keep stimulating U.S. growth until the job market improves even as it acknowledged some parts of the economy were looking a bit better. In a statement after a two-day meeting, the central bank re...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:36pm EDT (Reuters) - The Dallas Cowboys' defense was dealt a severe blow on Wednesday as leading tackler Sean Lee was ruled out for the rest of the National Football League (NFL) season because of a toe injury. The 26-year-old linebacker, the team's defensive leader, was placed on injured reserve and will need surgery to repair torn ligaments i...

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:31pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A newer version of the Pill may carry a slightly higher blood clot risk than older formulations - but it's still a small risk, says the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In new recommendations, the group says that women should be aware of the "poss...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:27pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. single-family home sales surged in September to the highest level in nearly 2-1/2 years, further evidence the housing market recovery is gaining steam. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that new home sales increased 5.7 percent to a seasonally adjus...

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:26pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Washington-based filmmaker is taking a hard look at how the U.S. stock market evolved from a crowded, noisy trading space into a quiet one dominated by machines in her new film, "Ghost Exchange." The feature-length documentary film portrays the market as a system in ne...

NEW DELHI | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:21pm EDT NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Ferrari will race with the flag of the Italian navy on their cars at this weekend's Indian Formula One Grand Prix in a gesture of support for two Italian sailors charged with killing Indian fishermen. The Italian team said on their website (www.ferrari.com) on Wednesday they would be paying tr...

By Simon Evans Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:13pm EDT (Reuters) - After their Super Bowl aspirations with quarterback Brett Favre ended in disappointment, the National Football League's (NFL) Minnesota Vikings looked like a team on the decline and destined for a spell of quiet rebuilding. But heading into the midway point of their 2012 campaign, the Vikings are 5-2 ...

By Edith Honan NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:10pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Hockey League's (NHL) New York Islanders are moving to Brooklyn in 2015, it was announced on Wednesday. The Islanders will leave their traditional home base at Nassau County on Long Island when their current lease expires after the 2014-15 season.They will sha...

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:06pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican candidate Mitt Romney was 1 percentage point ahead of President Barack Obama in Wednesday's Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll in a presidential race that is effectively a dead heat less than two weeks before the November 6 election. In a reversal of Tuesda...

By Edith Honan NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:48pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - A full 82-game National Hockey League (NHL) season in 2012-13 was becoming increasingly unlikely because of the lack of progress between the league and union representing its locked-out players, Commissioner Gary Bettman said on Wednesday. The NHL, which locked out its pla...

By Kate Holton LONDON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:45pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Incoming New York Times chief Mark Thompson told Reuters on Wednesday his U.S. employer had given him full support since a sexual abuse scandal erupted at Britain's BBC where he had been in charge until last month. His handling of the matter at the British Broadcasting Corpora...

LOS ANGELES | Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:45pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tom Cruise filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against magazines that claimed he had abandoned his daughter, Suri, following his divorce from actress Katie Holmes. The "Mission: Impossible" star filed the lawsuit in U.S. court in Los Angeles against the publishers of celebr...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:37pm EDT (Reuters) - Triple major winner Padraig Harrington held off a last-day charge by U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson to win the end-of-season PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda by one shot on Wednesday. Irishman Harrington, a late addition to the elite four-man field, fired a four-under-par 67 at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton for a ...

Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:21pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - Former Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) trader Jerome Kerviel said on Wednesday he would make a final appeal to the French Supreme Court against a three-year jail sentence for his role in the nation's biggest rogue-trading scandal. Kerviel announced he would go to France's highest court after losing his first attempt to ove...

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES | Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:04pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country singer Jason Aldean drove straight to the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with his latest album "Night Train," while country-pop darling Taylor Swift's new release is already storming its way to a high debut. Aldean's fifth studio album n...

By Marice Richter DALLAS | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:44pm EDT DALLAS (Reuters) - The U.S. outbreak of West Nile virus has killed 219 people this year, after another 36 deaths from the mosquito-borne disease were reported last week, government figures showed Wednesday. In what is the second-worst year on record for the disease, the total number of cases ...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:16pm EDT CHICAGO (Reuters) - An advisory committee for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Wednesday to recommend that pregnant women be immunized against pertussis during each pregnancy in hopes of stemming a growing U.S. outbreak of the illness, also known as whooping co...

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:13pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Elizabeth Taylor surpassed Michael Jackson as the highest-earning dead celebrity in the past year, with her estate pulling in $210 million, much of it from the auction of her jewels, costumes and artwork, Forbes said on Wednesday. Jackson, who died in 2009, dropped into second place wi...

By Ulf Laessing and Khalid Abdelaziz KHARTOUM | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:10pm EDT KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan said on Wednesday that an Israeli air strike had caused the huge explosion and fire at an arms factory in Khartoum that killed two people, while Israel's defense and foreign ministry declined to comment. Sudan, which analysts say is used as an a...

By Oliver Holmes and Shaimaa Fayed BEIRUT/CAIRO | Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:05pm EDT BEIRUT/CAIRO (Reuters) - Syria said on Wednesday its military command was still studying a proposal for a holiday ceasefire with rebels - contradicting international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi's announcement that Damascus had agreed to a truce. The statement threw Brahimi...

By Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:57pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama voiced confidence that if re-elected he would secure within six months a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans equivalent to the "grand bargain" he failed to achieve last year. Obama made the bold prediction in an interview Tuesday with th...

By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:54pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday a Facebook post in which an Islamic militant group claimed credit for a recent attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya did not constitute hard evidence of who was responsible. "Posting something on Fac...

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:46pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump offered to pay $5 million to the charity of President Barack Obama's choice if Obama releases his college and passport records, the real estate mogul and television personality said on Wednesday. "Frankly, it's a check that I very much want to write," Trump said in a YouTube video ...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:44pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of U.S. pediatricians on Monday recommended that cheerleading be designated an official sport, mainly to help prevent injuries, which the doctors say can be catastrophic. Some of the group's other recommendations include requiring cheerleaders to pass ...