Former President George H. W. Bush stable in hospital

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• Former President George H. W. Bush stable in hospital
• Inventories boost economic growth but trend weak
• U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case says he was held in a 'cage'
• Managers delighted their stores sold winning lottery tickets
• Rights groups challenge Arizona's denial of benefits to immigrants
• Penn State to pay over $2.4 million to president fired over Sandusky
• California bill seeks lower threshold for passing school tax measures
• Environmental activist long wanted in U.S. arson attacks surrenders
• New York governor orders insurers to speed up Sandy claims
• "East Coast rapist" pleads guilty to Virginia attack
• Hurricane center pushes to improve storm surge warnings
• Eccentric owner of Cadillac Ranch in Texas facing child sex charges
• Jeb Bush, with cash and clout, pushes contentious school reforms
• Managers delighted their stores sold winning lottery tickets
• Romney arrives at White House for lunch with Obama
• U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case takes stand at hearing
• Thousands touched by photograph of New York cop helping shoeless man
• Illinois state Representative Ford indicted on federal bank fraud charges
• New York fast-food workers rally for better pay, union
• Weak start to November hits some big retailers
• Drought expands, blankets High Plains
• Pending home sales rise, beating expectations
• Fast-food workers in New York protest for higher wages
• November auto sales up on storm recovery, pent-up demand
• BP's Carson, California, refinery FCC malfunctions: sources
• Japan halts beef imports from one U.S. meat plant
• Strike shuts down most terminals at Port of Los Angeles
• Eccentric owner of Cadillac Ranch in Texas facing child sex charges
• Cuomo administration delays lifting NY ban on controversial drilling
• New NY insurance rules needed due to disagreements: official

Former President George H. W. Bush stable in hospital Posted: 29 Nov 2012 10:04 AM PST HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former President George H. W. Bush is being treated at a Houston hospital for complications related to bronchitis and is in stable condition, the hospital said on Thursday. "President Bush has been in and out of The Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center being treated for complications related to his bronchitis," Bush's office said in a statement released by the hospital. "He is in stable condition, and is expected to be released within the next 72 hours." The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday that Bush, 88, has been in the hospital for a week. ...

Inventories boost economic growth but trend weak Posted: 29 Nov 2012 01:44 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as restocking by businesses provided a big boost, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the recovery's underlying weakness. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, with export growth also helping to offset the weakest consumer spending and first drop in business investment in more than a year. ...

U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case says he was held in a 'cage' Posted: 29 Nov 2012 04:54 PM PST FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) - A U.S. Army private facing court-martial on suspicion of leaking secret documents to the WikiLeaks website testified on Thursday he was confined to a "cage" in the early days after his arrest in 2010, and thought he would die there. Bradley Manning, in his first public comments since his arrest in Iraq, said his isolation led to a rapid decline in his awareness of his surroundings. He said that he was initially given little or no information about the charges against him. "My nights were my days and my days were my nights," Manning said. ...

Managers delighted their stores sold winning lottery tickets Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:57 PM PST DEARBORN, Mo./FOUNTAIN HILLS, Arizona (Reuters) - Managers of a Missouri gas station and an Arizona food store expressed delight on Thursday that they may have handed tickets to the two prospective multi-millionaire winners of a record $587.5 million Powerball lottery jackpot. The two winning tickets were sold at the gas station and sandwich shop in the tiny farming town of Dearborn, Missouri, about 30 miles north of Kansas City, Missouri, and the food store in Fountain Hills, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. Dearborn, population 500, reveled in its sudden place in the spotlight. ...

Rights groups challenge Arizona's denial of benefits to immigrants Posted: 29 Nov 2012 06:36 PM PST PHOENIX (Reuters) - Civil rights groups filed suit on Thursday to challenge an order by Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer blocking illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses despite receiving temporary legal status under an Obama administration program. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five immigrants who qualify for deferred deportation status under a new policy by President Barack Obama's administration, says that the governor's executive order issued this summer was unconstitutional and should be blocked. ...

Penn State to pay over $2.4 million to president fired over Sandusky Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:04 PM PST PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Former Penn State University President Graham Spanier, who was accused of covering up the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal and fired a year ago, will be paid more than $2.4 million in severance and compensation, the university said on Thursday. Spanier, 64, who served as Penn State president for 16 years, has pleaded not guilty to child endangerment, perjury, criminal conspiracy and other charges for failing to report the former assistant football coach's assaults on boys. ...

California bill seeks lower threshold for passing school tax measures Posted: 29 Nov 2012 06:31 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A top California Democrat aims to ease requirements for voters to approve local taxes for schools, a potential first test of the state's tax-limiting Proposition 13 now that Democrats hold a supermajority in the Legislature State Senator Mark Leno said on Thursday he would introduce a bill on Monday for a constitutional amendment that would reduce the threshold for approving school "parcel taxes" to 55 percent from two-thirds of voters set by Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 voter-approved measure best known for limiting property taxes. ...

Environmental activist long wanted in U.S. arson attacks surrenders Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:58 PM PST PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A Canadian environmentalist accused of taking part in a campaign of arson attacks across the U.S. West surrendered on Thursday after a decade on the run to face charges in what authorities call the "largest eco-terrorism case" in U.S. history. Rebecca Jeanette Rubin turned herself in to FBI agents at the Canadian border in Blaine, Washington, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. ...

New York governor orders insurers to speed up Sandy claims Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:31 PM PST (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday imposed emergency regulations on insurers to speed the processing of claims from hundreds of thousands of state residents whose properties were damaged or destroyed when Superstorm Sandy struck a month ago. Among the measures Cuomo unveiled was a requirement reducing the time limit for insurance company claims adjusters to respond to a claim to six days from 15 days. ...

"East Coast rapist" pleads guilty to Virginia attack Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:51 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Connecticut man police say is the "the East Coast rapist" who terrorized women for more than a decade pled guilty on Thursday in a 2001 attack on a Virginia woman, the first time someone has taken responsibility for crimes in any of these cases. Aaron Thomas, 40, of New Haven, Connecticut, pled guilty in Loudoun County Circuit Court to the rape and abduction of a 41-year-old woman, according to online records. He faces a prison sentence of life on these charges. A charge of forcible sodomy was dropped. ...

Hurricane center pushes to improve storm surge warnings Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:41 AM PST MIAMI (Reuters) - Friday marks the end of an Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season where the greatest devastation was caused by water rather than wind, U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb said. Accordingly, the center is ramping up efforts to develop new warnings that better convey the threat from the deadly storm surge pushed ashore by monsters like Sandy, which slammed the U.S. Northeast in October. "We've been working toward a new storm surge warning for a few years now," Knabb told Reuters in an interview at the hurricane center in Miami. ...

Eccentric owner of Cadillac Ranch in Texas facing child sex charges Posted: 29 Nov 2012 04:53 PM PST SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Eccentric Texas oil millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 has been indicted on child molestation charges in Amarillo and was released after posting a bond, according to court records. Marsh, 74, who considers the Roman numerals "III" to be pretentious and prefers the suffix "3," is best known as the owner of the iconic Cadillac Ranch, a work of public art featuring 10 brightly painted Cadillac cars buried nose-first in the ground along Interstate 40 in the Texas Panhandle. ...

Jeb Bush, with cash and clout, pushes contentious school reforms Posted: 29 Nov 2012 11:46 AM PST (Reuters) - Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush soared to rock star status in the education world on the strength of a chart. A simple graph, it tracked fourth-grade reading scores. In 1998, when Bush was elected governor, Florida kids scored far below the national average. By the end of his second term, in 2007, they were far ahead, with especially impressive gains for low-income and minority students. Those results earned Bush bipartisan acclaim. As he convenes a star-studded policy summit this week in Washington, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential education reformers in the ...

Managers delighted their stores sold winning lottery tickets Posted: 29 Nov 2012 03:11 PM PST DEARBORN, Mo./FOUNTAIN HILLS, Arizona (Reuters) - Managers of a Missouri gas station and an Arizona food store said on Thursday they were delighted that they may have handed tickets to the two prospective multi-millionaire winners of a record $587.5 million Powerball lottery jackpot. The two winning tickets were sold at the gas station and sandwich shop in the tiny farming town of Dearborn, Missouri, about 30 miles north of Kansas City, and the food store in Fountain Hills, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. ...

Romney arrives at White House for lunch with Obama Posted: 29 Nov 2012 10:26 AM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrived at the White House on Thursday for private talks with President Barack Obama, their first meeting since this month's election. Romney, who lost a bitterly fought contest to the Democratic incumbent, stepped out of a black sport-utility vehicle at around 12:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) and entered the West Wing of the White House. The lunch meeting is a chance for Obama to show bipartisanship at a time when he is seeking Republican cooperation to avoid a looming "fiscal cliff. ...

U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case takes stand at hearing Posted: 29 Nov 2012 12:44 PM PST FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) - A U.S. Army private facing court-martial for allegedly leaking secret documents to the WikiLeaks website took the witness stand on Thursday at a pre-trial hearing to make his first public statements since his arrest in Iraq in 2010. Bradley Manning's testimony came on the third day of a hearing to determine whether his case should proceed to a full court-martial. Manning has offered to plead guilty to less serious offenses than those with which he has been charged, according to his lawyer. ...

Thousands touched by photograph of New York cop helping shoeless man Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:22 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A photograph of a New York City police officer crouching by a shoeless panhandler to give him a new pair of boots on a cold night in Times Square has drawn a deluge of praise after it was published on the police department's Facebook page this week. By Thursday afternoon, nearly 394,000 people had clicked a button on the department's Facebook page to indicate that they "liked" the photograph. Tens of thousands left comments, most praising Officer Lawrence DePrimo for his charitable deed. ...

Illinois state Representative Ford indicted on federal bank fraud charges Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:09 PM PST CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois State Representative La Shawn K. Ford was indicted on Thursday on federal bank fraud charges, with U.S. prosecutors saying that Ford submitted false income information in applying for a credit line. Ford, 40, is the second state legislator from Chicago to be indicted this year. In a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, Ford, a Democrat, was charged with obtaining a $500,000 increase in a line of credit from the failed ShoreBank by submitting false income information. ...

New York fast-food workers rally for better pay, union Posted: 29 Nov 2012 01:19 PM PST NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fast-food restaurant employees, many of whom work for minimum wage, protested in New York City on Thursday demanding higher pay and the right to form a union as part of a movement called "Fast Food Forward." The campaign seeks to roughly double hourly pay to $15 an hour. It is being billed as the largest attempt to unionize fast-food workers in the United States, where the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Leading the effort is New York Communities for Change (NYCC), a group that has helped organize low-wage carwash and grocery workers in New York. ...

Weak start to November hits some big retailers Posted: 29 Nov 2012 10:10 AM PST (Reuters) - Weak sales at leading U.S. retailers in early November dragged down their results for the month as the effects of major Northeast storms offset brisk activity over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Retailers on average reported a 1.6 percent increase in sales at stores open at least a year, about half the 3.3 percent rise that analysts had forecast and below a year-earlier gain of 3.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Target Corp and Macy's Inc, two of the biggest companies to report monthly sales on Thursday, missed analysts' expectations. ...

Drought expands, blankets High Plains Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:23 AM PST (Reuters) - Drought is tightening its grip on the central United States as winter weather sets in, threatening to ravage the new wheat crop and spelling more hardship for farmers and ranchers already weary of the costly and ongoing dry conditions. While conditions started to improve earlier in November, they turned harsh to close out the month as above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation proved a dire combination in many regions, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly compilation of data gathered by federal and academic scientists issued Thursday. ...

Pending home sales rise, beating expectations Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:10 AM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in October, a sign the housing market recovery advanced into the fourth quarter despite a mammoth storm and concerns over looming tax hikes. The National Association of Realtors said on Thursday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in October, gained 5.2 percent to 104.8. Economists polled by Reuters had expected signed contracts, which usually become sales after a month or two, to rise 0.8 percent last month. ...

Fast-food workers in New York protest for higher wages Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:12 AM PST (Reuters) - Fast-food restaurant employees protested in New York City on Thursday, demanding higher pay and the right to form a union - the latest attempt by lower-wage workers in the United States to increase their compensation. The campaign, called "Fast Food Forward," seeks to roughly double hourly pay to $15 an hour and is being billed as the largest attempt to unionize U.S. fast-food workers. Leading the effort is New York Communities for Change, a group that has helped unionize low-wage carwash and grocery workers in New York. ...

November auto sales up on storm recovery, pent-up demand Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:54 AM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Auto sales are expected to rebound robustly in November, potentially hitting their strongest pace in more than four years, as consumers in the Northeast returned to dealerships after superstorm Sandy hurt demand in late October. November sales were also boosted by pent-up demand for vehicles as consumers replaced their aging cars and trucks, analysts and executives said. ...

BP's Carson, California, refinery FCC malfunctions: sources Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:40 AM PST HOUSTON (Reuters) - A malfunction on the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit at BP Plc's 240,000 barrel-per-day Los Angeles-area refinery in Carson, California, triggered flaring on Thursday, according to industry and trade sources. BP reported unplanned flaring at the refinery to California pollution regulators but did not specify the cause of the problem. A BP spokesman declined to discuss operations at the Carson refinery Thursday morning. (Reporting by Erwin Seba)

Japan halts beef imports from one U.S. meat plant Posted: 29 Nov 2012 04:16 AM PST TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on Thursday stopped importing beef from a U.S. meat plant after American authorities failed to confirm that beef from the plant without proper documents met Japan's safety requirements on the U.S. origin, the health and farm ministries said. Cargoes of beef from a plant of Cargill Inc in Schuyler, Nebraska, which arrived Tokyo on November 22, included a package without quarantine documents, and the two ministries asked the U.S. authorities to confirm the age of the cattle concerned. The import halt came after U.S. ...

Strike shuts down most terminals at Port of Los Angeles Posted: 28 Nov 2012 08:10 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A strike by clerical workers shut down terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Wednesday after other workers refused to cross picket lines at the nation's busiest combined cargo complex, officials said. Seven of eight terminals at the Port of Los Angeles were shut down by the action, along with three of six terminals at the neighboring Port of Long Beach, officials at the facilities said. The strike is the largest work stoppage at the ports in a decade, but its effects on the movement of goods could ultimately be limited if workers return soon. ...

Eccentric owner of Cadillac Ranch in Texas facing child sex charges Posted: 29 Nov 2012 06:49 PM PST SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Eccentric Texas oil millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 has been indicted on child molestation charges in Amarillo and was released after posting a bond, according to court records. Marsh, 74, who considers the Roman numerals "III" to be pretentious and prefers the suffix "3," is best known as the owner of the iconic Cadillac Ranch, a work of public art featuring 10 brightly painted Cadillac cars buried nose-first in the ground along Interstate 40 in the Texas Panhandle. ...

Cuomo administration delays lifting NY ban on controversial drilling Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:37 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration will delay a decision on whether to overturn a four-year-old ban on a contentious oil and gas drilling process after a state agency received more time to draft proposed regulations on fracking. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, which oversees the state's oil and gas industry, filed a notice with New York's Department of State for a 90-day extension to its original deadline of Thursday. ...

New NY insurance rules needed due to disagreements: official Posted: 29 Nov 2012 02:19 PM PST (Reuters) - New York State implemented emergency regulations requiring insurance companies to adjust claims related to superstorm Sandy more quickly, after the industry was unable to agree on a voluntary program, an official with the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a number of large insurers would not give the state a firm commitment to adjust claims as fast as regulators wanted. (Reporting By Ben Berkowitz)

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