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Beleaguered Toronto Mayor Rob Ford won a legal victory on Thursday when Canada's top court refused to hear an appeal of a conflict-of-interest case that could have ousted him from office. The case is unrelated to reports by two media outlets last month that Ford had been caught smoking crack cocaine on camera, allegations that he has strongly denied.   The conflict-of-interest case involved Ford's vote at city council to scrap a C$3,150 ($3,100) penalty imposed on him for accepting donations of the same amount for his football foundation from lobbyists. An Ontario judge ruled last November that that vote made him guilty of breaking conflict-of-interest laws, and ordered Ford out of office. He was allowed to stay on the job while he appealed, however, and he won the appeal in January. The Supreme Court of Canada declined on Thursday to hear an appeal of that decision, without specifying reasons. Ford remains under intense scrutiny after U.S. media outlet Gawker and the To

Secrecy disputes disrupted a pretrial hearing on Thursday in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal for five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks in 2001. Defense attorneys said the audio feed to the spectators' gallery had briefly been cut, as was the feed that provides Arabic-to-English translation to the defendants, who include the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.   The interruption came as one of the defense lawyers, U.S. Navy Commander Walter Ruiz, questioned a former commander of the Guantanamo detention operation about whether intelligence agencies or contractors were meddling with attorney-client mail that is supposed to be confidential. Ruiz referred at one point to the CIA and at another to the USDI, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence - a senior U.S. Defense Department post. Prosecutors objected to the questioning and Ruiz said the audio feed had been cut by an unseen hand outside the courtroom. Pr

A Christian group that once promoted therapy to encourage gays and lesbians to overcome their sexual preferences has closed its doors and apologized to homosexuals, acknowledging its mission had been hurtful and ignorant. Exodus International billed itself as the oldest and largest Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality, operating since 1976. It announced it would cease operations in a statement on its website on Wednesday.   The Irvine, California-based group's board unanimously voted to close Exodus International and begin a separate ministry, the statement said. "I am sorry for the pain and hurt that many of you have experienced," President Alan Chambers said in a statement. "I am sorry some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt when your attractions didn't change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents." Chambers said he was

West Virginia, born in the turmoil of the Civil War and now a growing energy hub, marks its 150th birthday on Thursday with statewide bell-ringing, a giant cake and beard-growing contests. _0"> The four-day festival commemorates when Union sympathizers in western Virginia, opposed to their state's support for the slave-owning Confederacy, voted in Wheeling on June 20, 1863, to form their own state. To celebrate the Mountain State's anniversary at the Capitol, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is cutting a birthday cake that measures 8 feet long and more than 3 feet (1 meter) high. Tomblin addressed the legislature in Wheeling to signal the start of festivities for the state of 1.9 million people. He will officiate from the Capitol over a statewide bell-ringing celebration.   West Virginia, the 35th state admitted to the Union, has planned more than 140 events to mark the sesquicentennial. They include concerts, fireworks, beard-growing contests, free steamboat rides, exhi

An Arizona judge on Thursday set a July 18 hearing for convicted murderer Jodi Arias to determine whether the former waitress will face a new jury in the death penalty phase of her trial for brutally killing her ex-boyfriend. The sensational trial began in January and Arias, 32, was convicted by a jury last month. The case became a staple for U.S. cable television viewers with its tale of a soft-spoken young woman charged with stabbing Phoenix-area man Travis Alexander multiple times, slashing his throat and shooting him in the face. Arias took the stand for 18 days and maintained throughout that the killing of Alexander, whose body was discovered slumped in the shower of his home in June 2008, was in self-defense. The former waitress from California was found guilty of murder by a jury but the same jurors who ruled her eligible for the death penalty subsequently failed to reach consensus on whether Arias should be executed.   As part of the process to resolve the mistrial in the

The regulatory board overseeing marijuana legalization in Washington State is leaning toward allowing licensed growers to raise the drug outdoors, citing the much higher carbon footprint of indoor and greenhouse cultivation, board members said. The view, which all three members of the Washington State Liquor Control Board told Reuters they shared, represents a reversal from the draft pot industry rules the body issued last month.   "If they can provide the security parameters that we require for indoor or greenhouse, if they can provide for that outdoors, then it's OK with me," board member Ruthann Kurose said, after a public meeting on Wednesday. Washington and Colorado became the first U.S. states to legalize recreational pot after approval by voters last November, although the use and sale of marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Some 18 states allow pot for medical use. The shift on cultivation rules underscores the degree to which the Washington State bo

The Obama administration has appointed Twitter lawyer Nicole Wong to a new senior advisory position to focus on internet and privacy policy, a White House official said on Thursday. _0"> Wong will work with federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, and will join the White House as Obama focuses more attention and resources on fighting hackers.   Her appointment comes as the Obama administration grapples with issues that arose from the U.S. government's surveillance of internet and phone communications in its anti-terrorism effort. Rick Weiss, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology, said Wong is joining as deputy U.S. chief technology officer and will work with Park on Internet, privacy and technology issues. "She has tremendous expertise in these domains and an unrivaled reputation for fairness, and we look forward to having her on our team," Weiss said. Congress and the White House have been arguing about how best to address cyb

Illinois' finances sank deeper into the red in fiscal 2012, with the general revenue fund deficit hitting a record $9.1 billion as increased spending outran a jump in revenue, according to a report released on Thursday by the state auditor general. _0"> The deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2012, was up $1.1 billion from fiscal 2011 when measured by generally accepted accounting principles, according to the comprehensive annual financial report.   The bigger deficit was driven by a nearly $4.7 billion increase in spending that eclipsed revenue growth of $3.7 billion, the audit said. General fund revenue totaled $37.3 billion. Illinois' financial condition continued to be the worst of any U.S. state. Its assets, including land, buildings, investments, and cash on hand, increased by $3.9 billion over the previous fiscal year, but its liabilities jumped by nearly $6.3 billion mainly because of the issuance of $3.2 billion of general obligation bonds and

When she heard a machine gun blast outside the brand-new brown Mercedes she was riding in with her boyfriend and a friend one night in March 1973, Dianne Sussman ducked reflexively. "That's probably the only reason I'm here," Sussman, 63, told the jury at the federal murder and racketeering trial of accused Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger on Thursday.   When the shooting ended, Sussman turned to the driver of the car, Michael Milano, and found him unresponsive. She asked her boyfriend, Louis Lapiana, if he was OK and all he could muster was a weak "no." Milano, a Boston bartender, is one of 19 people Bulger is accused of killing, either directly or by order, in the 1970s and '80s while running Boston's brutal "Winter Hill" crime gang. He was not the man the gang intended to kill that night, according to former associate John "The Executioner" Martorano. He testified earlier in the week that he pulled the trig

A company that conducted a 2011 background investigation into Edward Snowden, the source of recent leaks about U.S. secret surveillance programs, is itself under investigation, it was revealed at a congressional hearing on Thursday. _0"> Patrick McFarland, the inspector general for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, said his office is probing USIS, a Falls Church, Virginia-based company that specializes in providing information and security services to government agencies.   McFarland told the homeland security subcommittee hearing that there are concerns that USIS may not have carried out its background check into Snowden in an appropriate or thorough matter. "Yes, we do believe that there - there may be some problems," McFarland told the hearing. Senator Claire McCaskill described the probe as a criminal investigation into allegations that USIS systemically failed to adequately conduct investigations under its contract. A USIS spokesman did not immediate

New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez was mobbed by reporters and trailed by a news helicopter on Thursday as investigators probed the killing of a young man found less than a mile from the star tight end's sprawling home in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. _0"> The body of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional football player for the Boston Bandits, was discovered on Monday in an industrial park in the town, which lies about 40 miles south of Boston. Police have since searched Hernandez's house and questioned him. A spokeswoman for the Bristol County Prosecutor's Office, Yasmina Serdarevic, said on Thursday prosecutors were not prepared to discuss possible suspects. "All I can say is that this is an active homicide investigation," she said. Hernandez has also been slapped with a civil lawsuit by a Connecticut man, Alexander Bradley, who claims the Patriots tight end shot him in the face after the two left a Miami strip club in

A fourth Ohio resident charged with holding an intellectually disabled woman and her young daughter against their will is also accused of smashing the woman's hand with a rock to get pain medication for the group, prosecutors said on Thursday. Dezerah Silsby, was taken into custody on Wednesday and appeared in Cleveland federal court on Thursday, accused of being part of a group that conspired to force the woman to perform manual labor, threatened her with snakes, and forced her and her daughter to sleep in a padlocked room.   The 30-year-old woman, who prosecutors identified as "S.E.," and her 5-year-old child were held from May 2011 to October 2012 in an apartment in Ashland, about 70 miles southwest of Cleveland, prosecutors said. The arrests came a little more than a month after the discovery in Cleveland of three women who were held prisoner for about a decade in a home owned by former school bus driver Ariel Castro, who has been charged with rape, kidnapping an

A panel of federal judges ordered California on Thursday to ease overcrowding in state prisons by reducing the number of inmates by about 10,000 this year, and criticized in harsh terms what they described as foot-dragging in dealing with the matter. The three-judge panel also repeated an earlier warning to potentially hold California Governor Jerry Brown in contempt if a reduction plan is not implemented. The governor said he would seek a stay of the ruling.   California, the nation's most populous state, has been under court orders to reduce inmate numbers in its 33-prison system since 2009, when the same three-judge panel ordered it to relieve overcrowding that has caused inadequate medical and mental healthcare. The issue has become a political football for Brown, partly because reducing the population in state prisons has meant that local jurisdictions have to host some convicts in county jails who previously would have been sent to state prisons. Earlier this year, the

A U.S. government watchdog is examining a contractor that conducted a 2011 background investigation into Edward Snowden, the source of recent leaks about U.S. secret surveillance programs. Patrick McFarland, the inspector general for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told lawmakers on Thursday that his office is probing USIS, a Falls Church, Virginia-based company that is the largest private provider of federal government background checks.   The USIS investigation predates the Snowden scandal, but McFarland told the homeland security subcommittee hearing that there are now concerns that USIS may not have carried out its background check into Snowden in an appropriate or thorough manner. The hearing helped underscore questions lawmakers have about the widespread use of contractors in sensitive intelligence work and the oversight of those employees. Not only is much intelligence work handled by contractors, but private contractors also conduct roughly 75 percent of federal

A condemned murderer who tried to seek his own death warrant after Oregon's anti-death penalty governor stopped all executions in the state cannot reject that reprieve, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. Democratic governor John Kitzhaber, in a major salvo in the nation's long-running battle over capital punishment, issued a blanket reprieve to all 36 prisoners on Oregon's death row in November 2011, saying he would allow no more executions on his watch because he believed the death penalty was morally wrong.   But Kitzhaber, a former emergency room physician, stopped short of permanently commuting the sentences, saying the state's law on capital punishment was not his alone to decide. That move came just a month before the scheduled execution of Gary Haugen, who had been convicted in two brutal killings and who responded by suing to seek his own death warrant. Haugen argued that he did not want to live in limbo under an indefinite and impermanent repriev

Turkey's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday he had no objection to silent anti-government protests inspired by a symbolic "Standing Man" vigil, comments that could help draw the sting out of three weeks of often violent demonstrations. Protests against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government have become increasingly creative in recent days, as police and demonstrators seek to avoid the fierce clashes that have dented Turkey's reputation for stability in the volatile Middle East.   Police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse around 5,000 demonstrators in the northern city of Eskisehir overnight, Dogan news agency said, and there were small disturbances in Ankara, but on nowhere near the scale of previous weeks. In Istanbul, the cradle of the unrest that has unsettled markets and presented Erdogan with the greatest public challenge of his 10-year rule, a sense of calm returned to streets around the central Taksim Square that saw nights of running

For centuries since the colonization of the New World, entrepreneurs have dreamed of building a canal spanning Nicaragua to make it easier to tap Asia's riches. Sixteenth century Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes yearned to cleave the isthmus, and ever since, French, American and Dutch financiers have all made abortive, Quixotic attempts to bisect the Central American country's volcano-studded terrain.   Now it's the turn of the Chinese. And skepticism is as strong as ever. The Hong Kong-based company that won a concession to design, build and manage a $40 billion canal to rival Panama's says it has been lured by an energy renaissance in the United States and its belief that world trade could double by 2030. The company, HKND Group, was registered last year in the Cayman Islands. This would be its first infrastructure project, and its 40-year-old boss, Wang Jing, is relatively unknown. There is still no firm route for the proposed canal, which would cost about f

President Michel Suleiman has called on the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah movement to pull its guerrillas out of Syria , saying any further involvement in its neighbor's civil war would fuel instability in Lebanon. _0"> Hezbollah militants spearheaded the recapture of the strategic border town of Qusair two weeks ago by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which now appear to be preparing for an offensive in the northern city of Aleppo.   "If they take part in a battle for Aleppo, and more Hezbollah fighters are killed, it will lead to more tension," Suleiman told the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir in an interview published on Thursday. "This should end in Qusair, and (Hezbollah) should return home." Hezbollah's intervention in Syria against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels has further inflamed sectarian rivalry in Lebanon, where fighting between Alawite pro-Assad and Sunni Muslim anti-Assad gunmen in the northern city of Tripoli has

France and Spain led a Europe-wide push on Thursday to get U.S. Internet giant Google to change its policies on collecting user data. News that the U.S. National Security Agency under the Prism surveillance program secretly gathered user data from nine U.S. companies, including Google, to track people's movements and contacts makes the timing especially sensitive for Google. France's data protection watchdog (CNIL) said Google had broken French law and gave it three months to change its privacy policies or risk a fine of up to 150,000 euros ($200,000).   Spain's Data Protection Agency (AEPD) told Google it would be fined between 40,000 euros and 300,000 euros for each of the five violations of the law, that it had failed to be clear about what it did with data, may be processing a "disproportionate" amount and holding onto it for an "undetermined or unjustified" period of time. The CNIL, which has been leading Europe's inquiry since Google lau

Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab rebel group threatened to keep attacking "disbelievers" without respite, a day after launching a deadly assault against the United Nations in the capital Mogadishu. Security was tight on Thursday as Somali army pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns blocked the main road linking the city center with the fortified airport and nearby U.N. base that was targeted. A water canon truck blasted away bloodstains on the street.   The al Qaeda-linked militants were driven out of Mogadishu almost two years ago by African peacekeepers and government troops. Wednesday's attack, which killed 22 people including four foreigners, highlighted the fragility of security gains and the insurgents' ability to strike at government-controlled areas. "Our aim is to expel the disbelievers from Muslim lands," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's spokesman for military operations, told Reuters. "Until that goal is achieved, th

Pakistan's powerful military has played a central role in convincing Afghanistan's Taliban rebels to hold talks with the United States, U.S. and Pakistani officials said, a shift from widely held views in Washington that it was obstructing peace in the region. U.S. and Taliban officials were due to meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in the next few days, raising hopes for negotiated peace after 12 years of war between American-led forces and the Islamist insurgents.   Neighboring Pakistan's role in the war has been ambiguous - it is a U.S. ally but has a long history of supporting the Taliban as its proxy in Afghanistan , part of its wider jockeying with regional rival India. Western officials believe Pakistan may now calculate that its interest is better served by helping to broker peace that would lead to the emergence of a friendly government in Kabul capable of stabilizing Afghanistan and preventing chaos spilling over the border. Several military and civilian o

China's factory activity weakened to a nine-month low in June as demand faltered, a preliminary survey showed, heightening the risk of a sharper second quarter slowdown and increasing the heat on the central bank to loosen policy. China's economy grew at its slowest pace for 13 years in 2012 and so far this year data has been weaker than expected, bringing warnings the country could miss its growth target of 7.5 percent for this year, though possibly not by much.   And as the economy shows signs of faltering, a squeeze in Chinese money markets over the past two weeks has sharply tightened monetary conditions, adding to the pressure on the People's Bank of China to take steps to ease policy. "Headline activity indicators such as industrial production and fixed asset investment are weak but are not collapsing, while labor market conditions remain tight," said Zhang Zhiwei, economist at Nomura International in Hong Kong. "We believe the government is comm