By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:29pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act. Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes an...

WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:28pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren is expected to secure a seat on the Senate Banking Committee, two congressional aides said on Tuesday, a move that would give the Wall Street critic a powerful platform from which to oversee financial firms. "We see her as an effective advocate for consumer...

By Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:26pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers on Tuesday blocked a treaty to protect people with disabilities from discrimination despite a passionate plea from former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who was severely wounded in World War Two. The Senate voted 61-38 to pass the United Nat...

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:17pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp shares jumped more than 2 percent on Tuesday as the top chipmaker sold $6 billion in bonds to fund stock buybacks and other business activities. Intel sold the bonds in a range of maturities from five years to 30 years, according to IFR, a Thomson Re...

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:14pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Greek hospitals are in such dire straits that staff are failing to keep up basic disease controls such as using gloves and gowns, threatening a rise in multidrug-resistant infections, according to Europe's top health official. Greece already h...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 4:19pm EST (Reuters) - Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar is set to be feted with a retrospective of his work by the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in London, the Academy said on Tuesday. The December 13 tribute will feature the "Volver" director in conversation with British director Stephen Frears ("The Queen"), Brit...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 4:13pm EST (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Lakers, still trying to find their way this season, will be without Pau Gasol when they try to snap the Houston Rockets' five-game home winning streak on Tuesday. Gasol, averaging a National Basketball Association career low in points with 12.6 per game, will take a rest on the bench due to tendinitis in both...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 4:11pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Less than a quarter of new doctors finishing an internal medicine training program planned to become a primary care physician instead of a specialist, in a new study. That suggests fewer generalists will be entering the workforce, researchers said - possibly exac...

By Karen Jacobs Tue Dec 4, 2012 4:07pm EST (Reuters) - American Airlines passenger service agents, the only major employee group at the carrier not unionized, began voting Tuesday on whether to be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union. About 9,700 airport agents and reservations representatives are eligible to cast ballots in a ...

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:40pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) board member Rajat Gupta can remain free on bail while he appeals his insider-trading conviction, an appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Gupta had been scheduled to surrender January 8 to start a two-year prison sentence. But after hearing...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:34pm EST (Reuters) - American International Group Inc (AIG.N) shuffled the management of its mortgage insurance unit for the second time this year, naming a new chief executive for United Guaranty and moving the prior CEO to a senior underwriting position. AIG said on Tuesday that Donna DeMaio would become CEO of United Guaranty, which has becom...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:11pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among people with advanced cancer, poorer patients are less likely to be referred for clinical trials of experimental drugs, a new study from the UK suggests. Because those early trials will eventually help regulators decide if drugs should be approved for a wide...

By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE | Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:07pm EST MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr collapsed on Tuesday after giving a motivational talk at an economic development conference in Wisconsin. The 78-year-old football legend fell to the floor after his 45-minute keynote speech at the Monona Terrace c...

PHOENIX | Tue Dec 4, 2012 2:59pm EST PHOENIX (Reuters) - Police are looking for an 11-year-old leukemia patient spirited out of a Phoenix hospital by her mother and are concerned a chest catheter in the girl's heart could lead to a fatal infection, authorities said on Tuesday. Emily Bracamontes went missing from Phoenix Children's Hospital on November 28...

LOS ANGELES | Tue Dec 4, 2012 2:56pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Lady Gaga purchased 55 items belonging to late singer Michael Jackson in a weekend auction that raised more than $5 million, a portion of which will be donated to charity, Julien's Auctions said. The auction, held in Beverly Hills, showcased 465 lots of items spanning Jackson's car...

LOS ANGELES | Tue Dec 4, 2012 2:54pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co. was ordered to pay the British creator of the television game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" $319 million after a Los Angeles court rejected the company's request for a new trial. Britain's Celador International, which created the quiz show, sued Disney in 2004 al...

NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 2:42pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eddie Murphy was once among Hollywood's top box office draws, but he now has the dubious honor of being crowned its most overpaid actor, according to Forbes magazine. In its annual list, determined by the misalignment between star salaries and their films' box office take, Murphy, once a one-man ...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 2:23pm EST (Reuters) - The Washington Nationals bolstered their already strong pitching rotation by agreeing to a one-year, $13 million contract with right-hander Dan Haren, Major League Baseball's (MLB) website reported on Tuesday. Haren, pending a physical, will join a rotation that boasts Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez, e...

WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 1:49pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2011 rule that requires mobile data providers to offer roaming agreements to their competitors, rejecting a challenge brought by Verizon Wireless. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had sufficient authority to issue the rule, and the rule does...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 1:48pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Fistfights among kids have become less common over the last decade in 19 of 30 countries surveyed in a new report. "It was not something that we anticipated," said William Pickett, the lead author of the study in the journal Pediatrics and a professor at Queen's Univ...

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI | Tue Dec 4, 2012 1:45pm EST FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks' (NSN) German services unit faces closure and 1,000 jobs are at risk as Nokia and Siemens shake up the joint venture, two sources said. One of the people familiar with the situation said the closure would be effective by the end of 2013 and will be annou...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Dec 4, 2012 1:37pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said it acquired a five-person video chat company on Tuesday, the second deal by new Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to bolster Yahoo's mobile capabilities. Yahoo did not disclose the financial terms of its acquisition of OnTheAir, but said the team w...

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 1:09pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One in five teens who lost one of their parents to cancer cut or burn themselves, compared to one in ten teens with two living parents, according to a new Swedish study. "We were very surprised to find that so many did it," said lead researcher Tove Grenklo, a b...

By Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 12:48pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Chinese computer programmer was spared prison time and sentenced to six months of house arrest on Tuesday after he admitted to stealing millions of dollars of software code from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bo Zhang, 33, had pleaded guilty ...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 12:47pm EST (Reuters) - EMC Corp, the world's leading maker of corporate data storage equipment, and its publicly-traded subsidiary, software maker VMware Inc, are planning to merge their data analytics and cloud application assets, EMC said on its website. EMC said on Tuesday the companies expect to combine a number of divisions into the new grou...

NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 11:56am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications, majority owner of the biggest U.S. mobile service, is not interested in buying spectrum from Dish Network and does not plan to make any big acquisitions, its top executive said on Tuesday. While investors have been speculating that Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen could make a...

NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 10:37am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy was named as the PGA Tour Player of the Year on Tuesday, capping an outstanding season for the world number one. As expected, the 23-year-old was the popular choice for the annual Jack Nicklaus Award, decided by a vote from eligible tour players, becoming the youn...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Tue Dec 4, 2012 9:01am EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - NATO told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons in his fight against encroaching rebel forces would be met by an immediate international response. The warning from NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen came as Syrian forces bombar...

By Fred Barbash WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:56am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a few weeks remaining before the onset of "fiscal cliff," a bipartisan delegation of governors is set to meet Tuesday with President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in search of some answers about the impact of deficit reduction measures on their state budg...

GENEVA | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:51am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations' top human rights official on Tuesday urged Iran to free an imprisoned female lawyer whose health is deteriorating due to a hunger strike and to lift a travel ban on her family. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said sh...

By John O'Donnell and Robin Emmott BRUSSELS | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:49am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Germany and France publicly clashed on Tuesday over plans to put the European Central Bank in charge of supervising banks, deepening a dispute over the scope of the ECB's powers that threatens to undermine one of Europe's boldest reforms. With time runni...

TOKYO | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:36am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc will invest as much as $120 million in Sharp Corp, a cash injection likely to make it the struggling Japanese TV maker's biggest shareholder, and to boost Sharp's efforts to remain viable. As part of the agreement Qualcomm, through its Pixtronix subsidiary, will work with Sharp - which sup...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:34am EST (Reuters) - Toll Brothers Inc (TOL.N), the largest luxury homebuilder in the United States, reported a higher quarterly profit and said new orders rose sharply, indicating that the U.S. housing market is well on its way to recovery. The U.S. housing recovery has gained traction this year with prices for single-family homes having risen ...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:29am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures edged up in low volume on Tuesday as the market remains hostage to negotiations in Washington on how to avert a "fiscal cliff" that could push the U.S. economy into recession. Republicans in Congress proposed steep spending cuts to bring down the budget def...

By Yeganeh Torbati and Daniel Fineren DUBAI | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:28am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday it had captured a U.S. intelligence drone in its airspace over the Gulf in the last few days, but the U.S. military quickly denied having lost any unmanned aircraft in the Middle East. The incident highlighted tensions in the Gulf as th...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:23am EST (Reuters) - Activist investor Carl Icahn on Tuesday abandoned his effort to acquire control of U.S. truck and military vehicle maker Oshkosh Corp (OSK.N) after shareholders tendered fewer shares than he had hoped for. Only 22 percent of shares were tendered in his $32.50 per share offer, less than the 25 percent threshold Icahn had soug...

By Huw Jones and David Milliken LONDON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:16am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Bankers' pay needs to be curbed further to reflect the risk of a bank failure many years after a bonus has been awarded, the Bank of England (BoE) said before the annual bonus season begins next month. The European Union has already introduced curbs on bankers'...

By Jack Kim SEOUL | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:16am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's two main presidential contenders clashed on Tuesday in a debate over security policy as North Korea readied a rocket launch that is timed to coincide with the South's December 19 election. Both conservative Park Geun-hye, the daughter of South Korean dictator Park Chun...

By Georgina Prodhan VIENNA | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:10am EST VIENNA (Reuters) - An Austrian student group plans to go to court in a bid to make Facebook Inc, the world's biggest social network, do more to protect the privacy of its hundreds of millions of members. Campaign group europe-v-facebook, which has been lobbying for better data protection by ...

MANILA | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:06am EST MANILA (Reuters) - The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year pounded the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday and about 40 people were dead or missing, media said, after the storm destroyed homes and brought down power and communication lines. Typhoon Bopha, with wind gusts of up to 195 kph (121 mph), ma...