Madonna fan guilty in NYC resisting arrest trial

NEW YORK (AP) — A former firefighter with a crush on Madonna has been convicted of resisting arrest outside her former New York City apartment building as he spray-painted poster boards with love notes.A jury delivered its verdict Friday in Robert Linhart‘s trial. He could face up to a year in jail. Defense lawyer Lawrence...

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Official: China can meet 7.5 percent growth target

BEIJING (AP) — China‘s sharp economic downturn has ended after trade and consumer spending improved in October but the world’s second-largest economy is not ready for a recovery and exporters face tough conditions, officials said Saturday.The economy should be able to meet the government’s 7.5 percent growth target this year, the chairman of the country’s...

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GSK rotavirus shot chosen for UK immunisation campaign

LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline‘s Rotarix vaccine has been chosen for Britain‘s first routine rotavirus immunisation programme to protect babies and children against the most common cause of severe diarrhoea and vomiting.Rotarix, a two-dose oral vaccine squirted into the baby’s mouth, will be added to the childhood immunisation schedule for three years...

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China derides U.S. “Cold War mentality” towards telecoms firm Huawei

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States is exhibiting a “Cold War mentality” with its fears that Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei poses a security risk because of its ties to the Communist Party, China‘s commerce minister said on Saturday.The U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee warned last month that Beijing could...

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Twin explosions strike southern Syrian city

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria‘s state-run news agency says two large explosions have struck the southern city of Daraa, causing multiple casualties and heavy material damage.SANA did not immediately give further information or say what the target of Saturday’s explosions was. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights...

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Ex-oilman named new leader of world’s Anglicans

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain named a former oil executive as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans on Friday as the church struggles to overcome a painful rift over the issues of female bishops and same-sex marriage.Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for little more than a year,...

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Stock index futures signal flat to higher open

PARIS (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a flat to higher open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.15 percent, Dow Jones futures flat and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.29 percent at 1000 GMT.World stocks were on course for their worst weekly performance since June on Friday as concerns over the U.S. fiscal cliff and the outlook...

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Hepatitis hits more than 1,000 refugees in South Sudan: UNHCR

GENEVA (Reuters) – An outbreak of hepatitis E has infected at least 1,050 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan, killing 26 and threatening to spread further among people still arriving in crowded camps, the United Nations said on Friday.About 175,000 people have already fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states,...

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Exclusive: SEC left computers vulnerable to cyber attacks – sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Staffers at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission failed to encrypt some of their computers containing highly sensitive information from stock exchanges, leaving the data vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.While the computers were unprotected, there was no evidence that hacking or spying...

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Assad says will live and die in Syria

DOHA (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said he would “live and die” in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella...

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How South Korea’s Dark Oscar Entry ‘Pieta’ Cut Out Producers, Investors

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – By his 15th film, Kim Ki-duk, the director of South Korea‘s Best Foreign Picture Oscar entry “Pieta,” was sick of money shaping his cinematic vision.The director, who told an audience at the Landmark Theatre that he tries in his movies to ruthlessly dissect society with all its nuances and complexities, said he didn’t want Hollywood-type...

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Home repossessions ‘fall further’

8 November 2012 Last updated at 05:46 ETThe number of homes being repossessed has fallen to a five-year low, according to mortgage lenders. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said there were 8,200 repossessions in the third quarter of 2012, the lowest quarterly number since 2007.The figure was down from 8,500 in the...

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Massachusetts pharmacy board head fired after meningitis outbreak

BOSTON (Reuters) – Authorities fired the director of the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy after he failed to investigate a complaint against New England Compounding Center, the company at the center of a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak, state officials said on Wednesday.NECC is linked to a meningitis outbreak that has infected more than 400 people and caused...

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BlackBerry 10 maker dismisses ‘dead on arrival’ comment about new device

OTTAWA – Research In Motion turned to core supporters Wednesday in Ottawa, hoping to upsell its new BlackBerry 10 operating system as the company’s shares fell after a biting report from a securities analyst.The company (TSX:RIM) invited federal politicians and their staff to a sneak preview of the yet-to-be-released devices, an event that RIM’s Canadian...

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Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery...

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TV networks to staff: watch what you tweet on Election Day

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. television networks face a new challenge in covering this year’s excruciatingly close presidential election: prevent closely guarded exit poll results from leaking onto Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.The major TV news networks agreed to shield early exit poll data suggesting who is leading in a state until...

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Ahead of the Bell: US Consumer Credit

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans felt more confident about the economy in September and likely stepped up borrowing.Economists forecast consumer borrowing rose by $ 10.3 billion in September from August, according to a survey by FactSet. The Federal Reserve will release the report at 3 p.m. EST Wednesday. In August, consumers...

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Election over but final Florida results still not in

MIAMI (Reuters) – Americans gave President Barack Obama a second term in office, but it still wasn’t clear early on Wednesday whether the president won the key battleground state of Florida.The vote in the state, which introduced the terms “hanging chads” and “butterfly ballots” to the masses in its historic 2000 presidential election, was too close to...

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Move over, Obama; Twitter had a big night too

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama called it – in less than 140 characters.Around 11:15 pm EST, just as the networks were beginning to call the race in his favor, Obama took to Twitter to proclaim himself the winner over Republican candidate Mitt Romney. “This happened because of you. Thank you,” Obama tweeted.That...

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Canada firms to capitalize on nuclear trade with India

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 will end a ban on nuclear cooperation Canada imposed in 1976 after...

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Aerosmith puts on Boston street concert on Memory Lane

BOSTON (Reuters) – Thousands of music fans clogged a Boston street on Monday to hear Grammy award-winning rock band Aerosmith perform a free concert in front of the apartment building where the musicians began their career four decades ago.The band blared out hits including “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” from the back of a specially converted tractor-trailer...

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A Write-Off That Shows Tax Reform Will Be No Game

Theodore Jones has had season tickets on the 43-yard line at Tiger Stadium, home of the perennial football powerhouse Louisiana State University, for almost 20 years. The seats, along with two others, cost him $ 5,340. That’s $ 1,640 for the tickets’ face value, plus $ 3,700 in mandatory donations that Jones gets to write off. The Baton Rouge lawyer...

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Chinese women’s rights activist sent to labor camp again

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese woman who has campaigned against the strict one-child policy has been sent to labor camp for one and a half years, the third time she has been detained for criticizing the government, her husband said on Tuesday.Mao Hengfeng, who lives in Shanghai, was seized in Beijing by a team of security officials on September 20 when...

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Ericsson eyes steady growth despite global downturn

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Telecoms gear maker Ericsson expects slower expansion in the more profitable services segment of its business and the same level of growth in its core mobile network equipment market, it said on Tuesday.Competition and increased product commoditization have pressured prices in the industry for years. Europe’s debt crisis and weaker...

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