"There are a whole bunch of better ways to spend the money," Obama said in an ABC News interview when pressed twice whether he would use his veto power to block such a move. He did not directly answer the question. Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in charge of Congress, reiterated his ...

NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters Life!) - Feeling stressed and in need of a vacation? You are not alone but more than half of Americans do not take all their vacation days, even though they think they need a holiday more this year than last. And nearly a third of workers who do take a break check in with ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state attorney general candidate Sean Coffey on Thursday said he was the only contender qualified to police Wall Street and called Democratic rivals career politicians fixated on becoming governor. Coffey is one of five Democrats seeking the nomination to succeed ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare patients with more doctors to choose from do not necessarily get more or better care, researchers reported on Thursday in an analysis demonstrating how complicated U.S. healthcare reform will be. The Dartmouth Atlas analysis questions the Obama administration's ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to a two-month low, while the trade deficit narrowed sharply in July, hopeful signs for the stuttering economic recovery. The data on Thursday helped to calm fears of a sharp slowdown in growth and ...

A strengthening La Nina could "contribute to increased Atlantic hurricane activity by decreasing the vertical wind shear over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean," said the CPC in a monthly update. While storm projections have been scaled back recently, many weather watchers ...

"Conflicts between Boomers and GenYs may feel inevitable. They have different approaches to getting work done, assumptions about how to do things, and philosophies about what work means. They also have a lot to teach each other. To help bridge the generation gap, pair people of these ...

Anjem Choudary added in remarks to Reuters he expected like-minded groups to stage flag burnings in the United States, Belgium, Ireland, Lebanon and Indonesia to highlight what he called the U.S. occupation of Muslim lands. Pastor Terry Jones, leader of a tiny Protestant church in Gainesville, ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan will limit foreign involvement in two major anti-crime units in a move likely to worry its Western backers and stoke fears about President Hamid Karzai's commitment to fighting endemic graft. Afghanistan is one of the world's most corrupt countries and Washington ...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Uncertainty over the shape of Australia's controversial mining tax is likely to last well into 2011 after national elections which returned the country's first minority government since World War Two. The 30 percent tax on big iron ore and coal mines is the centerpiece of ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. reforms are poised to dramatically shift the nation's healthcare spending, not only curbing Medicare costs but also pumping more money toward the private sector as roughly 32 million people gain coverage. Although the law has little impact on overall healthcare ...

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oracle Corp has offered its new co-president, former Hewlett-Packard chief Mark Hurd, a hiring package with a bonus of up to $10 million and options potentially worth tens of millions more. Oracle, the world's No. 3 software maker, named Hurd co-president on ...

PARMA, Ohio (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in charge of Congress, said on Wednesday the United States could not afford to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich and accused Republicans of being fiscally irresponsible. On a campaign trip to Ohio less than two months ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The sole Republican candidate for New York attorney general says he does not want to be the next "sheriff of Wall Street" and would give up the national prominence the job offers in favor of tackling political corruption in the capital. Dan Donovan, 53, a career ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's search engine now displays results before users finish typing. The new technology, dubbed Google Instant, can shave two seconds to five seconds off every Internet search, Google said on Wednesday, and could entice users to search more on its website.

"My challenge, and the challenge of every Democratic candidate who is out there, is just making sure people understand that there is a choice here," Obama told ABC News in an interview taped earlier in Cleveland. The full interview will be aired on ABC's Good Morning America on ...

In televised interviews to argue for President Barack Obama's latest proposals for business investment tax breaks and infrastructure investment, Geithner said the plan was important to repair the damage caused by the financial crisis and should win broad support among Democrats, Republicans and ...

The study published on Friday in the journal "Health Affairs" recommended policy reforms and broader efforts to get uninsured children into government medical programs, including the use of income tax data for automatic enrollment. An estimated 7.3 million children were uninsured on an ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Younger chief executives with high testosterone levels may be more likely to try a hostile takeover -- and to get burned in the attempt, Canadian researchers said on Wednesday. They found age was clearly linked with aggressive takeover behavior, and did a careful but ...

Geithner, speaking to CNBC television, also said he believed that there was support in Congress for President Barack Obama's latest proposed package of tax breaks for businesses and spending on infrastructure to stimulate the economy. (Reporting by David Lawder)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new Alzheimer's compound kept toxic clumps from forming in the brains of mice, without causing side effects seen in similar drugs, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. They said the drug changes the way an enzyme called gamma secretase works, without completely blocking it, an ...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Fidel Castro said Cuba's economic model no longer works, a U.S.-based journalist reported on Wednesday following interviews with the former president last week. Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, wrote in a blog that he asked Castro, 84, if Cuba's ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California regulators are seeking fines of up to $9.9 billion from a unit of health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc, citing mismanaged medical claims, failure to pay doctors and other lapses. The California Department of Insurance alleges that PacifiCare violated state law ...

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Igor, which posed no immediate threat to land, was packing top sustained winds near 40 miles per hour and moving slowly west at 8 miles per hour. It was expected to be centered south of the Cape Verde Islands by Thursday, the Miami-based hurricane center ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan security forces used batons on unruly customers scrambling to withdraw their savings on Wednesday from a branch of the graft-hit Kabulbank, the country's biggest private financial institution. Kabulbank's troubles have threatened to add a financial crisis to Afghanistan's ...

Speaking ahead of an economic address set for later in the day by President Barack Obama, Boehner also proposed that the U.S. government cut spending for next year to 2008 levels -- before federal corporate bailouts and Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus plan. Boehner's call for a freeze on ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge refused on Tuesday to lift a ban on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research despite Obama administration warnings it would set back key research and cost more than a thousand jobs. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected the Obama ...

The company, which pioneered the delivery of software as a service to companies over the Web, said on Wednesday Chatter Mobile would be available from later this year for Apple devices and Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Chatter, a kind of Facebook for the enterprise, allows company employees to ...

In a statement issued on Wednesday before trade unions meet to decide on possible further protests, Sarkozy said he was asking his government to make some amendments in the pension reform bill but not on the rise in minimum pensionable age. "There is no question of going back on this," ...

The BP probe, which will be released on Wednesday, is one of many launched after the blowout led to an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 men and caused the worst offshore oil spill in history. The Journal said the report would explain why engineers missed key signs ...

Reid, speaking at an alternative energy conference he hosts annually in Las Vegas, also said he had at least one Republican senator ready to vote for a small business jobs bill when Congress returns to work next week. Democrats have been focused on freeing up credit and giving tax breaks to small ...

CADEREYTA, Mexico (Reuters) - An explosion ripped through a major Mexican refinery on Tuesday, killing one worker and pushing gasoline and diesel prices higher on worries state oil monopoly Pemex will have to import more fuel. Pemex, the world's No. 7 crude producer and a large fuel importer, said ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co sued former Chief Executive Mark Hurd and asked a court to block him from joining Oracle Corp, saying his hiring by the rival technology firm puts HP's trade secrets "in peril." Oracle, the world's third-largest software maker, named Hurd ...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - An Alabama judge said on Tuesday he would appoint a receiver to oversee the sewer system revenues of debt-ridden Jefferson County, in a setback for county authorities. The Bank of New York Mellon, trustee for the county's creditor banks, won its request for the ...

Google announced in July that it was buying ITA Software, one of the Web's key providers of airline travel software, for $700 million. The concern is that Google could create a travel website, with ITA at its heart, and then use its dominance of search to steer potential travelers to its site ...

ETA's announcement on Sunday of another truce, without announcing its permanent disarmament, has disappointed all Spain's democratic political parties, he said at a news conference. "(ETA's) announcements are worth nothing, only their decisions -- and only one decision ... to lay down their ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of London commuters struggled to get to and from work on Tuesday as a 24-hour strike by workers on the capital's underground rail system disrupted much of the network, hurting the city's convalescent economy. Passengers took to bikes and buses, walked, or made use of ...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Leaders of South Africa's labor federation COSATU have agreed with the government on a 7.5 percent wage rise but have so far failed to sell the draft deal to rank-and-file workers, union officials said on Tuesday. They told Reuters that COSATU leaders had approved the rise ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The State University of New York has adopted new practices to help prevent students from falling victim to deceptive credit card marketing that can burden them with too much debt in tough economic times. Under an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose ...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will soon turn some small-scale manufacturing and retail services into cooperatives as the state retreats from minor businesses in an effort to boost the island's troubled economy, government and Communist Party sources said. The moves are the latest reforms by President ...

Hermine's path kept it away from major oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico, and refineries in Texas were unaffected by the passage of the storm, operators said. The storm was expected to weaken during the next 48 hours and become a tropical depression later Tuesday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has frozen the assets of leading shareholders and borrowers at Kabulbank, officials said on Tuesday, throwing graft-riddled Afghanistan's top private bank into crisis and sparking long queues of anxious investors. Afghanistan is one of the world's most corrupt ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Google Inc will launch its service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year, its chief executive said, as it extends its reach from the desktop to the living room. CEO Eric Schmidt said the service, which will allow full Internet ...

HERZLIYA, Israel (Reuters Life!) - Israeli start-up firm Tawkon has developed software to measure mobile telephone handset radiation aimed at helping users reduce exposure to emissions without giving up their phones. Tawkon's (pronounced talk-on) application is already available for Research In ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has frozen the assets of leading shareholders and borrowers at Kabulbank, the country's top private lender, after the resignation of two top directors triggered a crisis, officials said on Tuesday. The central bank on Monday ordered the assets of Kabulbank's former ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The hallucinogen psilocybin -- known by the street name magic mushrooms -- may help ease the anxiety that often accompanies late-stage cancer, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Cancer patients given a moderate dose of psilocybin -- a hallucinogen with effects similar to LSD -- ...

The size of the business district area blocked off was reduced and bus services resumed, but schools remained closed and a state of emergency in the city of 350,000 people will remain until mid-Wednesday. Aftershocks, the strongest with a magnitude of 5.4, were still rocking the region as Prime ...

These costs, which also include administrative costs, payments to plaintiffs and lawyer fees, account for 2.4 percent of annual U.S. healthcare spending, Michelle Mello of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues reported. So-called defensive medicine costs alone totaled an estimated ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chemicals used to make non-stick coatings on cookware and to waterproof fabrics may raise levels of cholesterol in children, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Children in a study with the highest levels of these compounds in their blood had measurably higher levels of total ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain cannot trust Sunday's truce announcement by armed Basque separatist group ETA and will continue to pursue its members, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said on national television on Monday. The ceasefire announcement on Sunday could well be an attempt by ETA to ...

The source said a final decision has not yet been made. Oracle was not immediately available for a comment. Hurd resigned on August 6, after a probe into sexual harassment allegations. HP said he filed inaccurate expense reports related to Jodie Fisher, a marketing contractor who worked for Hurd's ...

MADRID (Reuters) - The Basque rebel group ETA called a halt to armed attacks on Sunday but the government said the declaration was not enough and urged the weakened organization to renounce violence once and for all. The group, which has killed more than 850 people in half a century of armed ...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pro-Taliban Pakistani militants are trying to create a sectarian rift, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday, as a new wave of violence piled pressure on a government already struggling with a flood crisis. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for bomb ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, previewing a big push on the U.S. economy next week, on Saturday defended policies that he said "have stopped the bleeding" and put the middle class on the road to recovery. Obama, struggling to bring down the 9.6 percent jobless rate, is to ...

Last year, Craigslist replaced its "erotic services" ads with a new "adult" category it said would be closely screened. The move came after a masseuse who offered her services on Craigslist was killed and a client was charged with her murder. The man charged in the case ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday he would outline new measures next week to boost the U.S. economy, but analysts were skeptical he would be able to deliver a big enough package to lift growth significantly. Obama made his remarks after August data showed that jobs -- ...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc successfully replaced a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well late on Friday, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen called the equipment switch "an important milestone" ...

The world No. 1 search engine company said the probe is the first by a U.S. legal authority into the fairness of its rankings, which can make or break commercial websites. Google faces a similar probe by the European Commission, prompted by complaints from some small websites that felt they were ...

CHATHAM, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Residents and business owners in the beach communities of Cape Cod and nearby islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard hung plywood over their shop windows on Friday and rued the arrival of Hurricane Earl, which appeared set to spoil their holiday weekend. But ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Republican Meg Whitman has opened up a 7-point lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in their closely watched race for California governor, the latest poll of likely voters showed on Friday. Whitman, a billionaire former eBay chief executive who has already poured more than $100 ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors in Gabriel Capital LP, a so-called feeder fund that funneled money to imprisoned swindler Bernard Madoff, were awarded $12.74 million by a panel of three arbitrators, court records show. The award to two New Jersey investment funds was disclosed in a filing Thursday ...

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Boeing 747-400 cargo plane operated by United Parcel Service Inc crashed shortly after takeoff into a military compound near Dubai's airport on Friday, killing two crew members, authorities said. U.S. parcel delivery company UPS confirmed the crash of the plane, which was en ...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Striking South African state workers held small-scale protests on Friday as union and government negotiators prepared for bargaining next week aimed at ending the three-week walkout by about 1.3 million. The unions rejected a government offer of 7.5 percent pay raises, ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Banks have acknowledged they need to be more open about the size of their bonus pools and the methodology for paying star bankers after making progress in other areas of reforming pay structures. More policy changes are needed to reduce the excessive risk taking that was blamed ...

The study published on Friday in the journal "Health Affairs" recommended policy reforms and broader efforts to get uninsured children into government medical programs, including the use of income tax data for automatic enrollment. An estimated 7.3 million children were uninsured on an ...