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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As a tireless questioner of authority and a consummate Washington insider, pioneering White House correspondent Helen Thomas has covered nine U.S. presidents over a span of nearly a half century.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. court will take the unusual step of rehearing a lawsuit it earlier rejected from a Canadian who claims the U.S. government sent him illegally to Syria where he was tortured for a year, lawyers said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber killed 19 people, mostly women, and wounded 75 on Thursday when she detonated an explosive vest in a crowd of pilgrims being escorted by police to a shrine south of Baghdad, police said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Labor groups on Thursday asked federal regulators to look into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc broke the law during company meetings with store managers where it warned about the consequences of a proposed labor law backed by Democrats.

BREGANCON, France (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask Georgia's president on Friday to sign a French-negotiated ceasefire that contains some apparent concessions to Moscow but would lead to the withdrawal of Russian forces, officials said.

KIEV (Reuters) - Pro-Western Ukraine vowed on Thursday to make Russia seek official permission for movements of its warships based in the ex-Soviet state despite Moscow's objections, placing the neighbors on a collision course.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton will be symbolically put forward as a presidential candidate at the Democratic convention later this month even though she narrowly lost the nominating battle to Barack Obama, the two campaigns said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation aimed at improving U.S. consumer product safety after millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled last summer was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Thursday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's north-south foes have a lot of work ahead to meet a July 2009 deadline to hold elections under a landmark peace deal, the head of the United Nations mission charged with monitoring the accord said on Thursday.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The family of ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic could face prosecution for helping him avoid arrest on war crimes charges for 11 years, a top international official said on Thursday.

TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (Reuters) - Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said on Thursday she would not grant a pardon to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on perjury and other charges, reiterating that the situation needed to be resolved.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States has proposed to waive a ban on nuclear trade with India without conditions such as compliance with a nuclear test ban or U.N. inspections, but diplomats said on Thursday the draft was unlikely to pass.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court committed a woman to indefinite psychiatric care on Thursday for suffocating her five young sons with plastic rubbish bags.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The issue of race in U.S. politics is so sensitive and explosive that it has a language all its own. For outsiders, the code can be hard to break.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Lebanese army investigation into a bomb attack that killed 15 people, including 10 soldiers, is focusing on militant Sunni Islamist involvement, a security source said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - An explosion killed three U.S.-led coalition soldiers while they were on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

HARARE (Reuters) - Botswana's President Seretse Khama Ian Khama will not attend a regional summit if Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition fail to reach a power-sharing agreement, Botswanan officials said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Blocking Russia from joining the World Trade Organization because of the conflict in Georgia would defy common sense and break Western promises, a Russian official said on Thursday in response to U.S. warnings.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to resume work towards formally demarcating their borders but Damascus said the boundaries of the disputed Shebaa Farms would not be drawn until Israel withdrew from them.

LONDON (Reuters) - A government whistleblower who exposed one of Kenya's biggest corruption scandals said on Thursday he would return home for the first time since he fled to Britain three years ago fearing he could be murdered.