Ever thought of writing a complaint to the police after being held up waiting for them to clear up a traffic accident? In a rare occurrence, Public Works and Traffic Minister Pedro Castro did just that Tuesday. A collision between a semi-trailer rig and a truck at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday left one person dead and snarled traffic on the San Jose-Santa Ana road in front of the Pequeño Mundo discount...

Costa Rica's Ombudsman, (known in Spanish as the Defensoria de La Habitantes) Ofelia Taitelbaum is suspicious of the objectivity of a Chinese study of the local petroleum refinery RECOPE. She feels that the company, KBC, charged with conducting the marketing study, and HQCBC, tasked with a feasibility study, just may be more than a little friendly with the Chinese state petroleum giant, CNPC. ...

By Margot Roosevelt BELOIT, Wisconsin | Fri Nov 2, 2012 7:58am EDT BELOIT, Wisconsin (Reuters) - To Tim Givhan, Obamacare shouldn't be an excuse for election-year polemics: "It's a lifeline." A former IT specialist, Givhan tripped on a machine at work and landed on his head, suffering neurological damage. His employer's insurance company wouldn't...

WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 5:55am EDT WASHINGTON Nov 2 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Climate change was catapulted to the forefront of the U.S. general election on Thursday after New York's independent mayor threw his weight behind Democratic President Barack Obama, citing his stance on climate change. After refusing to endorse any presidential candidate in...

By Njuwa Maina and Tosin Sulaiman KOGELO, Kenya/JOHANNESBURG | Fri Nov 2, 2012 5:24am EDT KOGELO, Kenya/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - In the tiny Kenyan village of Kogelo, U.S. President Barack Obama's ancestral homeland, some people talk of hurt feelings of the kind experienced when a favorite relative has failed to get in touch. Four years ago, Koge...

By Jeff Mason GREEN BAY, Wisconsin | Thu Nov 1, 2012 9:34pm EDT GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney went back on the attack on Thursday, breaking a storm-induced campaign truce to hit the road and pound home their closing messages in the final stretch of a tight battle for the White House. With five ...

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES | Thu Nov 1, 2012 9:11pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The chairman of the California Republican Party will not seek another term as leader of the organization in the country's most populous state, where rival Democrats increasingly dominate the state Legislature, a spokesman said on Thursday. Tom Del Beccaro, who to...

By Thomas Ferraro FENWICK ISLAND, Delaware | Thu Nov 1, 2012 9:00pm EDT FENWICK ISLAND, Delaware (Reuters) - The usually tranquil beachfront communities along the Delaware shore were prepared for the worst from Hurricane Sandy and as luck would have it, they got something less. The damage from flooding is limited, compared to what might have been...

By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 1, 2012 8:52pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Republican senators asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday for a thorough review of a Chinese company's plan to acquire bankrupt battery maker A123, saying military and taxpayer-funded technology must be protected. China's Wanxiang Group Corp i...

By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Missouri | Thu Nov 1, 2012 8:43pm EDT KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Todd Akin, the Republican candidate in the closely watched U.S. Senate race in Missouri, released a new advertisement on Thursday featuring a woman who says she was raped and had an abortion but supports Akin's anti-abortion stand. The TV commerci...

By Jilian Mincer NEW YORK | Thu Nov 1, 2012 7:55pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Officials in New York, New Jersey and other states hit hard by the powerful storm Sandy are anxiously waiting to see when power will be restored in darkened areas and whether polling sites may need to be moved for next Tuesday's presidential election. "We're open for busi...

By Tim Gaynor PHOENIX | Thu Nov 1, 2012 6:33pm EDT PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's hardline stance on illegal immigrants has given him a national profile. But a backlash from angry Latinos is turning his bid for re-election into the toughest of his long career. Republican Arpaio, who turned 80 this year, is seeking a sixth term i...

Thu Nov 1, 2012 5:54pm EDT (Advisory: Note expletives in paragraphs 1 and 4) By Bernie WoodallDETROIT (Reuters) - A Chrysler executive told Donald Trump in a Tweet on Thursday that the real estate executive and television personality was "full of shit" for repeating a notion that Chrysler is shipping U.S. Jeep production to China, which the automaker refutes.Ralp...

DOSWELL, Virginia | Thu Nov 1, 2012 5:49pm EDT DOSWELL, Virginia (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney plans to campaign in Pennsylvania on Sunday to take advantage of what aides see as the possibility of an upset win over President Barack Obama in the traditionally Democratic state. Campaign aides said the visit would likely take pla...

Thu Nov 1, 2012 4:19pm EDT (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term, citing the importance of his record on climate change, particularly in the aftermath of the devastating blow dealt to the New York area by storm Sandy. Bloomberg said Obama has taken significant steps to reduce carbon consumption,...

Judicial police found in 2010 that an employee at the Alajuela Criminal Court was allegedly informing a "friend" of the status of an investigation for his alleged involvement with a car theft ring known as Los Gallos. But it has taken two years to reach a point of her dismissal, although she appears to have been transfered to a less sensitive section of the court, according to a report in the n...

Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:36pm EDT (Reuters) - Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested in Texas on Wednesday for criminal trespass when she tried to bring food and other supplies to protesters opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline, a local official said. Ty Oaks, a corrections officer at the Wood County jail, said Stein, 62, was released after she promi...

By Mark Felsenthal ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey | Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:19pm EDT ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - In a close and bitterly fought campaign for president, it was a day of contrasts: President Barack Obama joined New Jersey's Republican governor to tour storm-ravaged areas, while election rival Mitt Romney was relegated to a subdued d...

By Jonathan Stempel WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:49pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday cleared the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to revive a lawsuit that challenges the 2010 healthcare overhaul on religious grounds, including a claim that it helps fund abortions. Liberty University, a Christian college in Lynch...

By Lisa Lambert SARASOTA, Florida | Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:43pm EDT SARASOTA, Florida (Reuters) - For his political opponents, Vice President Joe Biden might have been playing a trick, but for some of his ardent supporters, he could have been dispensing a special treat on Halloween: mentioning on Wednesday a possible run for president in 2016. After ...

By Brendan O'Brien MILWAUKEE | Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:26pm EDT MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Wisconsin Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin could make history next week as the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate, according to the final poll before the November 6 election released on Wednesday by the Marquette University Law school. The poll showed B...

By Mark Felsenthal ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey | Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:18pm EDT ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - Putting aside partisan differences, President Barack Obama and Republican Governor Chris Christie toured storm-stricken parts of New Jersey on Wednesday, taking in scenes of flooded roads and praising each other for their response to s...

By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:52pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are neck and neck in four of the most hotly contested states in next week's election, but Obama holds a slight advantage in two of them, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. The online survey of fo...

By Steve Holland CORAL GABLES, Florida | Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:36pm EDT CORAL GABLES, Florida (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Mitt Romney held back from his usual attacks on President Barack Obama on Wednesday with the East Coast reeling from storm Sandy, but the positive tone did not extend to other Republican speakers at his events. As Obama tr...

By Thomas Ferraro DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania | Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:15pm EDT DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A new poll released on Wednesday is the latest indication that Pennsylvania, which has not voted Republican in a presidential race since 1988, could do so again next week. In one month, an 11-percentage-point lead held by President Barack...

By Nick Carey MIDDLETOWN, Ohio | Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:35pm EDT MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (Reuters) - When Ohio voter Paul Presta opened his door to two election canvassers one recent Saturday he interrupted them in mid-sentence and asked Jim Lewis about an issue close to his heart. "Do you support the second amendment?" he asked, referring to the U.S. const...

SACRAMENTO | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:58pm EDT SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A California campaign finance regulatory agency can audit a last-minute $11 million out-of-state donation to a political action committee by a mystery group from Arizona, a judge tentatively ruled on Tuesday. A state Superior Court judge in Sacramento wrote that Californians "will suffer irr...

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:24pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 1.2 million Ohio residents have already voted in the state which is seen as one of the most crucial in deciding the November 6 presidential election. The Ohio Secretary of State's office said that as of October 26, about 1.26 million voters had cast ballots by mail-in absentee ball...

By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:13pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama canceled campaign appearances in Ohio on Wednesday and scheduled a trip to New Jersey instead to survey damage caused by powerful storm Sandy, a move designed to portray him as a strong leader a week before Election Day. Obama, who is in a close r...

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:29pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Early voting in Maryland, which was halted for two days because of Hurricane Sandy, will resume on Wednesday and be extended for one day, the governor said on Tuesday. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who had canceled early voting on Monday and Tuesday, said it would now be extended throug...

By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:12pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No one's calling it a "campaign" event. But it will surely dominate the presidential campaign on Wednesday when Democratic President Barack Obama and New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie inspect storm damage in the hard hit coastal state - together. Had Oba...

By David Ingram WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:04pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When someone dared to ask Chris Christie how Superstorm Sandy would influence next week's U.S. elections, the New Jersey governor displayed the confrontation-loving, hard-charging style that has made him a rising national figure. "I don't give a damn about Election Da...

By Steve Holland KETTERING, Ohio | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:03pm EDT KETTERING, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, blown off the campaign trail by Hurricane Sandy, drew a fine line between politicking and storm relief on Tuesday as the weather cast an unpredictable pall over the race with just a week to go until Election Da...

By Steve Holland KETTERING, Ohio | Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:24pm EDT KETTERING, Ohio (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney on Tuesday briefly put aside their fierce battle for the White House, as they avoided politics to focus on relief efforts after mammoth storm Sandy left millions of Americans struggling to recover. With a we...

By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:51pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. presidential race remains a dead heat one week before Election Day but most Americans think President Barack Obama will defeat Republican Mitt Romney, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Tuesday. Obama leads Romney among likely voter...

The National Institute of Housing and Urban Development has announced the creation of a trust to finance housing for middle-income families. According to an article in Nacion.com, the new CEO of the National Institute of Housing and Urban Development (INVU in Spanish), Alvaro Gonzalez, said three lots are available in the province of San José, where the plan is to build high rise condominiums...

Public employees' job performance is evaluated each year and the workers treated with a bonus for excellence, but Labor Minister Sandra Piszk doesn't think the system has ever worked properly. A rough draft of a reform bill was presented to lawmakers this month and has already resulted in a teachers' strike last week. Piszk believes it is because employees have come to regard annual bonuses as ...

By Andy Sullivan Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:34am EDT (Reuters) - Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are scouting an unlikely path to the White House through the vast forests and blueberry barrens of northern Maine. President Barack Obama is expected to win the Pine Tree State easily in the November 6 election.Regardless, Romney allies are...

By John Whitesides and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:05am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A tense and unpredictable race for the White House became even more so on Monday, as mammoth storm Sandy created delicate political challenges for President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney and raised the possibility of a chaotic...

By Lisa Lambert COLUMBUS, Ohio | Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:02pm EDT COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Pulled back to Washington to address the storm pounding the East Coast just days before the presidential election, President Barack Obama passed his campaign banner on Monday to Vice President Joe Biden and the man he has anointed his "Secretary of Explaining ...