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 ...

NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) - The U.S. government is likely to take a loss on General Motors Co in the first offering of the automaker's stock, six people familiar with preparations for the landmark IPO said. Subsequent offerings of the government's holdings may be profitable depending on how ...

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 ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than expected and private hiring was a positive surprise, relieving concerns about a stalling economic recovery. Nonfarm payrolls fell 54,000 as jobs were lost in the government sector, and ...

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 ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said. The agency "has a huge role to play ...

Harvard students enrolled in Warren's contracts class were informed that a different professor will be teaching the class instead, according to a report in The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of an email to the students. "Professor Warren regrets that she will not be able to teach you ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Burger King Holdings Inc agreed to sell itself to investment firm 3G Capital for $3.26 billion, giving the No. 2 U.S. fast-food chain breathing room to fix its business and close the gap with leader McDonald's Corp. At $24 per share, the offer represents a 46 percent ...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government sought to avert a run on the country's top private bank by nervous investors after directors at Kabulbank resigned, ostensibly to meet new rules but also amid media allegations of graft. Long queues were seen outside several Kabulbank branches in the ...

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada conducted separate reviews of the diapers in response to nearly 4,700 incident reports of diaper rash arising from Pampers Dry Max, according to a CPSC statement. The Dry Max diapers, promoted as thinner and more absorbent than other ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co won the bidding war to buy data storage company 3PAR Inc for $2.4 billion, as rival Dell Inc bowed out on Thursday. HP raised its cash offer by $3 to $33 per share, beating Dell's $32-a-share offer and ending an escalation of bids that many analysts said had ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its mobile users to play songs wherever they are as it steps up its rivalry with Apple Inc, according to people familiar with the matter. Google's Andy Rubin, the ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics' first tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, will go on sale in two weeks, it said on Thursday, turning up the heat on Apple Inc's iPad. Global handset vendors and PC makers including Nokia, LG Electronics and Hewlett-Packard Co are moving into the new category of ...

T.I. whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., 29, was arrested with his wife on Sunset Boulevard Wednesday night after police smelled marijuana coming from a car in which the Grammy award-winning rapper was a passenger. He was booked for possession of a controlled substance and was released after ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies are cutting healthcare costs further amid a continuing sour economy, scaling back benefits and shifting a greater share of the expense to employees. The findings, published on Thursday, come as the congressional campaign heats up over the nation's stagnant economic ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. companies are cutting healthcare costs further amid a continuing sour economy, scaling back benefits and shifting a greater share of the expense to employees. The findings, published on Thursday, come as the U.S. congressional campaign heats up over the nation's ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Critics hoping for more from Apple Inc's Web-to-TV plans -- a device, say, that would revolutionize living room entertainment the way the iPad changed tablet computing -- may just need to wait a bit longer. Shortly after Apple unveiled its latest Apple TV product on ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AOL Inc said on Thursday it has renewed a search agreement with Google Inc, further cementing a decade-long partnership as AOL tries to turn around its business. The new five-year deal, effective immediately, includes a revenue share on a per-search basis. Additional financial ...

The Federal Communications Commission has been prodding phone, cable and Internet companies for months to find consensus on the thorny issue of net neutrality -- a debate over whether high-speed Internet providers should be allowed to give preferential treatment to content providers who pay for ...

BURBANK, California (Reuters) - A booming market of tweens is changing the landscape of online games. This audience of boys and girls aged 8 to 11 has game publishers launching new games like Disney Online's "World of Cars Online" and Sony Online Entertainment's "Star Wars: Clone ...

Baidu CFO Jennifer Li, speaking at a company event, said broader future investment priorities for the company would include mobile Internet and ecommerce initiatives in the business-to-consumer space. Baidu began expanding its investments in mobile Internet last year, including its introduction of ...

"While monthly filings are volatile, consumer bankruptcies are still the highest they have been since Congress overhauled the bankruptcy law in 2005," ABI Executive Director Samuel Gerdano said in the report. A total of 127,028 consumer bankruptcies were filed in August, according to the ...

"Nokia is discontinuing the Ovi Files service, effective October 1, 2010," the company said, asking users to uninstall the Ovi Files Connector from their computers. Nokia started to build its own Internet services offering in 2007, but has ramped down several unsuccessful products ...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Aggressively lowering blood pressure did little to prevent kidney damage in blacks, unless protein in their urine showed evidence of damage in the first place, researchers reported on Wednesday. Doctors had hoped to show that dropping blood pressures to 130/80 or below would ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The future of an 80-acre New York apartment complex will be at stake on Thursday as a judge considers whether a venture led by a prominent hedge fund investor may conduct a foreclosure auction. William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management LP and Boston-based Winthrop ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An altered version of the cancer drug Gleevec could form the basis of a new class of drugs that block the development of brain-damaging plaques in Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. They said they hoped drugmakers could tinker with the formula for Gleevec, ...