 UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he believed al Qaeda was responsible for two suicide car bombs that killed at least 55 people in Syria a week ago and that the death toll in the country's 14-month conflict was now at least 10,000. "A few days ago there was a huge, serious, massive terrorist attack. I believe that there must be al Qaeda behind it. This has created again very serious problems," Ban told a youth event at U.N. headquarters in New York. ...
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood organized a 760-km (470-mile)-long human chain of supporters across the country on Thursday to back the group's presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi in a show of strength ahead of next week's historic vote. From Cairo to Aswan, members of the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), held posters of Mohamed Mursi, the Brotherhood's alternative choice to the group's initial candidate Khairat Shater, who was disqualified over a military court conviction. ...
 After months of silence, George W. Bush finally weighed on the presidential race — with four short words.
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws. U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a statement on Thursday that his panel will invite Dimon to appear before Congress. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A cancer-stricken judge in New York has become an unlikely voice in support of legalizing the use of medical marijuana with the admission that he smokes pot to ease the side-effects of his treatments. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, who is being treated for pancreatic cancer, wrote in a New York Times article on Thursday that he had been using marijuana provided by friends at "great personal risk" to help him cope with the nausea, sleeplessness and loss of appetite from chemotherapy treatments. ...
 GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Former presidential candidate John Edwards knew campaign finance law well enough to concoct a scheme to try to circumvent the law to hide his mistress, a prosecutor said as he and defense attorneys delivered closing arguments on Thursday in Edwards' federal trial on political corruption charges. "Mr. Edwards clearly knew the law and decided to violate it to salvage his campaign," prosecutor Robert Higdon told jurors. "We believe overwhelming evidence has been presented that will allow you to convict Edwards on all counts. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal grand jury indicted a former chairman of a national financial planning association with fraud on Thursday for funneling more than $46 million of his clients' money into risky ventures he co-founded. Mark Spangler, a former chairman of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), diverted the funds, which clients expected to be invested in publicly traded instruments, into his technology ventures instead, the Department of Justice said. The Securities and Exchange Commission also announced parallel civil charges. ...
The House is backing continuation of the war in Afghanistan.
 Autopsy: Evidence of marijuana found in Trayvon Martin's urine and blood. .
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws. U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a statement on Thursday that his panel will invite Dimon to appear before Congress. ...
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposed $10 million conservative ad campaign seeking to revive President Barack Obama's link to his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright ignited a political firestorm on Thursday, with Obama's camp and Republican Mitt Romney trading charges of character assassination. A conservative group backing Romney looked at but then rejected a plan to air television ads reminding voters of Wright, the Chicago pastor whose racially charged sermons prompted Obama to give a major speech on race during the 2008 presidential campaign. ...
Republican lawmakers intensified their efforts on Thursday to get quick congressional action on heading off automatic tax increases and revamping the federal tax code.
 Remember Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar? Michele Bachmann saying Romney's unelectable? Rick Santorum calling Romney "the worst Republican in the country" to run against President Barack Obama?
 (Reuters) - Florida teenage shooting victim Trayvon Martin had traces of marijuana in his system when he was killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, according to case documents released on Thursday. The medical examiner's report was among hundreds of pages released in connection with the February 26 shooting that triggered civil rights protests as well as a debate over guns, self-defense laws and race relations in America. The report showed traces of THC - an ingredient found in marijuana - in Martin's blood plus a positive test for cannabinoids in his urine. ...
 President Barack Obama on Thursday declared a new chapter in U.S. relations with Myanmar, easing an investment ban and naming the first U.S. ambassador to the former pariah state in 22 years to reward it for democratic reforms.
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