WASHINGTON/REDWOOD CITY, California (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney opened a new front on Wednesday in his fight against President Barack Obama, accusing him of presiding over a failing U.S. education system in the grip of union bosses who refuse to accept reforms. In a rare diversion from his campaign focus on the weak economy, Romney laid out an education plan in a speech that represented his most overt appeal to date to Hispanic voters who have largely sided with the Democratic incumbent. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Demographic factors like an aging labor force, as well as more discouraged workers, are the likely behind the drop in the U.S. participation rate, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Thursday. The participation rate, a measure of how many Americans are looking for work, fell in April to a 30-year low at 63.6 percent of the population, as more people dropped out of the workforce. But Dudley also expressed optimism that the high national jobless rate, at 8. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. prosecutors in the corruption case of the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens face suspensions without pay for engaging in reckless professional misconduct by failing to disclose evidence that could have helped him, the Justice Department said on Thursday. A report by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics office, concluded the prosecutors in several instances failed to disclose the evidence to the defense in violation of their obligations, but their actions had not been intentional. ...

CHARDON, Ohio (Reuters) - Suspected Ohio high school shooter T.J. Lane will be charged as an adult for the killings of three students in February and should not be released from jail on bail, an Ohio judge ruled on Thursday. Geauga County Judge Timothy Grendell made the ruling after a hearing. If convicted as an adult, the 17-year-old could be sentenced to life in prison. He would not face the death penalty. A Geauga County sheriff's deputy testified Thursday that Lane told him shortly after the killings that he had aimed for the victim's heads because, "I didn't want them to suffer. ...

GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Jurors deciding whether former U.S. Senator John Edwards broke federal election laws while running for president asked for 20 more pieces of evidence on Thursday, suggesting their fifth day of deliberations is likely not their last. Jurors have nearly four weeks of testimony to consider as they determine whether Edwards, 58, conspired to use more than $900,000 from two supporters to conceal his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, as he chased the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Major League Baseball player David Segui may be called to testify in the perjury trial of ex-pitching ace Roger Clemens, the judge in the case ruled on Thursday. According to prosecutors Segui has been reluctant to travel to Washington for the trial without knowing he will definitely testify. Federal prosecutors had filed a motion to bring Segui as a witness in order to question him about a conversation between Segui and Clemens' former personal trainer Brian McNamee, who has said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey man was in custody on Thursday in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz from his New York City neighborhood, a case that drew national attention to the plight of missing children, authorities said. A law enforcement source told Reuters the suspect is Pedro Hernandez of New Jersey. Police in Camden, New Jersey, say he was picked up there on Wednesday night while visiting relatives. ...