By Ju-min Park SEOUL | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:25pm EST SEOUL (Reuters) - Living on $2 bowls of rice in rows of tiny rooms, thousands of young South Koreans are voting early ahead of Wednesday's presidential election as they cram for exams that they hope will lead to a government job for life. There are 30,000 residents of a drab neighbourhood of the ...

By Richard Cowan and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:09pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and top Republican John Boehner met at the White House on Monday as hopes rose that Washington will be able to head off steep tax hikes and spending cuts that could push the economy into recession next year. Aides from both ...

NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:01pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mortimer Zuckerman, the chairman and chief executive of office owner Boston Properties Inc, has pledged $200 million to endow a Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. "At its root, this is an investment in accomplished scholars whose collective mission is both greater understandin...

By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:50pm EST PRISTINA (Reuters) - A court in Kosovo jailed five men on Monday for a total of 54 years for murder and attempted murder in a case stemming from a period of deadly political score-settling after the country's 1998-99 war. The men were described in witness testimony as members of a shadowy int...

By Sinead Carew and Sayantani Ghosh Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:32pm EST (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp's $2.2 billion offer for Clearwire Corp is likely to face resistance from Clearwire's minority shareholders, but accepting the offer may prove to be their best option. Clearwire Chief Executive Erik Prusch said the company could face a restructuring if sharehold...

By Yeganeh Torbati DUBAI | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:31pm EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Monday a way must be found to end the deadlock with major powers over the country's nuclear programme, an Iranian news agency reported, but he offered no new initiative on how to achieve this. Ali Akbar Salehi's comments came ahead of an expec...

MOSCOW | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:30pm EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Champion Denis Lebedev knocked out previously undefeated Colombian challenger Santander "Cha Cha" Silgado in the fourth round to retain his WBA cruiserweight title on Monday. Silgado, 27, looked the better fighter in the first three rounds before the 33-year-old Russian south-paw regained control mi...

By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:17pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday received an official review of the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting the stage for testimony on an incident that prompted a political furor and sharp questions about security at U.S. ...

LOS ANGELES | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:15pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese will get up close and personal with Bill Clinton in a documentary about the former U.S. president, cable channel HBO said on Monday. The documentary, which has full cooperation from Clinton, promises to delve into the two-term Democrat's views on poli...

WILMINGTON, Del | Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:05pm EST WILMINGTON, Del (Reuters) - A Delaware judge on Monday blocked Ancestry.com Inc's shareholder vote on the sale of the family-research website for $1.6 billion to private equity firm Permira Investment Advisors pending added details on the sale process. Ancestry.com shareholders had sued to prevent a vote to ...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:52pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Global funding for the fight against malaria has stalled in the past two years, threatening to reverse what the World Health Organisation (WHO) says are "remarkable recent gains" in the battle to control one of the world's leading infectious killers. After rapid expansion bet...

Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:49pm EST (Reuters) - The United States will face neighbors Canada in a friendly in Houston on January 29, the Canadian Soccer Association said on Monday. The game will come at the end of the traditional January training camps for the two teams and is three days after Canada are scheduled to play Denmark in Tucson, Arizona.U.S. coach Juergen Kli...

By Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans BEIRUT | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:47pm EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said that neither the forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war which is now being fought on the outskirts of Assad's powerbase in Damascus. Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a po...

By Aruna Viswanatha Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:35pm EST (Reuters) - The U.S. credit union regulator sued JPMorgan Securities and Bear Stearns & Co on Monday over $3.6 billion in mortgage securities the bank allegedly sold to credit unions that collapsed because of losses from the securities. The lawsuit by the National Credit Union Administration is its secon...

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss BOSTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:24pm EST BOSTON (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc's initial public offering, will pay a $5 million fine to Massachusetts to settle charges that its bankers improperly influenced its research analysts when the Internet company went public. Massachusetts' top securit...

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:16pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among people who have a genetic susceptibility to colon cancer, those whose diets are heavy in junk food have an even higher risk, according to a new study. "These patients have this very high risk because of this (genetic) mutation they have, but it might be that t...

By Christine Kearney NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:13pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow could have made a testosterone-fueled shoot-'em-up Hollywood version of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Instead, she and screenwriter Mark Boal turned "Zero Dark Thirty" into a more complex look at the decade-long hu...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 2:01pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's mobile ad revenue in the United States will be roughly $4 billion next year, while Facebook Inc's nascent mobile advertising business will more than double, according to a new study by research firm eMarketer. Marketers are boosting spending on ...

By Ethan Bilby BRUSSELS | Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:45pm EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union may force companies operating critical infrastructure in areas such as banking, energy and stock exchanges to report major online attacks and reveal security breaches, a draft EU report seen by Reuters on Monday said. The European Union's executive Commi...

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:37pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The future of retail came to Jamie Nordstrom not in a dream, but though his email inbox from Amazon.com Inc, the online retailer that Nordstrom now targets as his biggest rival. The 40 year-old, great-grandson of Nordstrom Inc founder John W. Nordstrom and pres...

WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:31pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Intel Corp. won an appeal in a patent fight with Negotiated Data Solutions LLC (N-Data) over Ethernet patents that make it possible for computers to easily talk to one another. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Monday that Intel did not infringe the patents because i...

By Liana B. Baker Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:29pm EST (Reuters) - Hulu, the privately held Internet streaming TV service, will generate about $695 million in revenue in 2012 and finish the year with more than 3 million paying subscribers, the company's CEO said on Monday. The company's revenue increased 65 percent from 2011, Chief Executive Jason Kilar said in a ...

By Patricia Reaney and Lisa Richwine Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:08pm EST (Reuters) - "The Hobbit" brought home a big box office treasure over the weekend, setting a December movie record with $84.77 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales as legions of fans turned out for the long-awaited big-screen return to Middle Earth. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" al...

Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:03pm EST (Reuters) - A total of 18 U.S. states are planning to start their own health insurance marketplaces, which will be available to consumers and businesses in 2014, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a blog posting on Monday. The deadline for states to inform the federal government if they would operate hea...

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:45pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators this week could drop their investigation of how Google ranks certain searches, without requiring any major changes in how the online giant does business, according to two people knowledgeable about the investigation. Google had been accused of giving c...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:25pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - A paralyzed woman has been able to feed herself chocolate and move everyday items using a robotic arm directly controlled by thought, showing a level of agility and control approaching that of a human limb. Jan Scheuermann, 53, from Pittsburgh, was diagnosed with a degenera...

By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:11pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fashion designer Carly Cushnie, actress Kate McKinnon and videogame creator Kim Swift may not be household names yet, but they are destined to do great things and will be tomorrow's young stars, Forbes magazine said on Monday. Along with Olympic Gold medalist gymnast ...

By Charlie Dunmore and Claire Davenport BRUSSELS | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:05pm EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's executive Commission is to propose larger health warnings on cigarette packets and a total ban on flavorings such as menthol, a draft revision of EU tobacco rules seen by Reuters showed on Monday. The proposals stop short of f...

Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:03pm EST (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators have approved a new four-strain seasonal influenza vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the company said on Monday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Fluarix Quadrivalent to immunize children age 3 and older and adults against flu virus subtypes A and B contained in the vaccine.It is...

By Simon Evans MIAMI | Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:42am EST MIAMI (Reuters) - The NFC East is a division rich in history and prestige, with a collective 12 Super Bowls won by its teams, and this season it is certainly living up to high expectations. With two regular season games remaining, the New York Giants, defending Super Bowl champions, share a thre...

By Dorene Internicola NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 9:42am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The word "detoxification" is flung around the fitness community as frequently as kettlebells are swung. Yoga teachers regularly speak of detoxifying twists, aerobics instructors of detoxifying sweat, dieters of detoxifying fasts. But health professionals are skeptic...

LONDON | Mon Dec 17, 2012 8:06am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Bradley Wiggins has targeted winning the Giro d'Italia and defending his Tour de France crown back to back next year. Britain's first Tour de France winner was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year on Sunday and immediately set his sights on emulating an incredible 12 months which also saw him ro...

Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:50am EST (Reuters) - The San Francisco 49ers squandered a 28-point lead against an explosive New England Patriots on Sunday but recovered late on to secure a playoffs berth with a thrilling 41-34 road victory. The 49ers dominated early in rainy New England, racing to a 31-3 advantage in the third quarter but Tom Brady and his top-ranked Patrio...

By Genevra Pittman NEW YORK | Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:07am EST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A mercury-containing preservative should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial. In its statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed calls from a World Health Organization ...

LOS ANGELES | Sun Dec 16, 2012 3:23pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A two-day sale of clothing, jewelry and other memorabilia belonging to reclusive movie star Greta Garbo fetched $1.6 million, more than three times the original estimate, according to Julien's Auctions. Garbo's Louis Vuitton streamer trunk, which sold for $37,500, was among the top sellers...

Sun Dec 16, 2012 1:41pm EST LOS ANGELES, Dec 16 - Following are the top 10 movies at North American box offices for the three-day weekend starting December 14, led by "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" at No. 1, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters. 1 (*) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey........$84.77 million2 (2) The Rise of the Guardians............

By Patrick Lang ALTA BADIA, Italy | Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:42am EST ALTA BADIA, Italy (Reuters) - Ted Ligety outclassed his rivals again with a comfortable victory in the classic Italian giant slalom of Alta Badia on Sunday. The world champion won his third giant slalom of the season in a combined time of two minutes and 37.27 seconds, 2.04 ahead of ...

LOS ANGELES | Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:04am EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kelly Clarkson, who became the first contestant to win "American Idol" a decade ago and went on to several chart-topping successes, has gotten engaged to her boyfriend, the singer said in a Twitter message on Saturday. Clarkson, 30, previously revealed she had been dating talent manager Br...

By John Irish PARIS | Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:03am EST PARIS (Reuters) - Actor Gerard Depardieu, accused by French government leaders of trying to dodge taxes by buying a house over the border in Belgium, retorted that he was leaving because "success" was now being punished in his homeland. A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old Dep...

Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:12am EST (Reuters) - Tour rookie Daniel Popovic held his nerve to stay clear of the chasing pack and record a wire-to-wire Australian PGA Championship victory by four strokes on Sunday. The 26-year-old Australian, who led or shared top spot after every round of the $1.3 million tournament at the Palmer Coolum Resort, began the final day two sho...