TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto-Dominion Bank

The result, the first from a Canadian bank in a quarter that has seen Canadian housing sales activity slow, was roughly in line with analysts' estimates.

Shares fell 0.9 percent to C$83.25, underperforming TD's Canadian banking peers, which were also in the red on Thursday.

Income from TD's flagship Canadian retail bank rose 5 percent to C$847 million as stronger business lending and lower loan-loss provisions helped offset slowing consumer loan growth.

Canadian home sales activity has been more sluggish so far this year than in 2012, although prices have risen slightly.

Low interest rates have also pinched retail banking income by reducing the margins on loans.

This has prompted TD to bulk up its higher-margin lending in areas such as auto lending and credit cards. During the quarter, TD closed its acquisition of Target Corp's $5.9 billion U.S. credit card portfolio.

TD's U.S. retail banking network produced income of US$392 million, up 9 percent, on the back of loan and deposit growth.

"The basic business - the Canadian and U.S. personal and commercial banking - performed pretty well," said John Kinsey, a portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities in Toronto.

The bank, Canada's second-largest, earned a net C$1.72 billion ($1.66 billion), or C1.78 a share, in the second quarter ended April 30. That compared with a year-earlier profit of C$1.69 billion, or C$1.78 a share.

Excluding items including a C$58 million amortization charge, earnings were C$1.90 a share. Analysts on average had expected C$1.91, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

TD has about 1,100 bank branches in Canada and about 1,300 in the United States, with a sizeable presence on the Eastern seaboard. It also owns 45 percent of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.

The bank announced it would buy back up to 12 million of its common shares, or about 1.3 percent of the bank's outstanding shares.

Colleen Johnston, the bank's chief financial officer, said the buyback was related to the bank's strong capital position.

TD's Tier 1 common equity ratio was 8.8 percent during the quarter, even after absorbing the Target credit card acquisition as well as the $688 million purchase of asset manager Epoch Investments, which also closed during the quarter.

That's comfortably ahead of the 8 percent level the Canadian banks will be expected to hold as of 2016.

"We're now at the point, as are other Canadian banks, where we can start more actively thinking about capital deployment, having built to these very good levels," said Johnston.

Wholesale banking income, which accounts for trading, investment banking and corporate lending, rose 12 percent to C$220 million, due to stronger trading-related revenue and lower expenses.

Barclays Capital analyst John Aiken said TD's results likely won't materially change expectations for the Canadian banks still to report, though he said the strong capital markets result should bode well for Royal Bank of Canada , which reports next Thursday.

National Bank of Canada , the country's No. 6 bank, reports on Friday.

($1 = $1.0336 Canadian)

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

MIAMI (Reuters) - Miami guard Dwyane Wade said the Heat may have paid the price for their grueling seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers as the San Antonio Spurs took advantage of late turnovers and missed opportunities to win game one of the Finals 92-88.

The Spurs took care of Memphis in four games in the Western Conference final, a full week before Miami's game seven against the Pacers and while there is always a debate over 'rust v rest' as an advantage, Wade felt the Heat had tired.

"I thought that we were a little fatigued, honestly, in the fourth quarter, looking around," Wade, who had 18 points, told reporters.

"We looked like a team that came off a sevengame series. I thought we got some shots we wanted but we were a little careless at times as well. We turned it over," he said.

"We did a great job all game but having five turnovers in the fourth quarter isn't going to win you a game, especially not in the Finals.

"We'll be better prepared next time and hopefully make better decisions in the fourth quarter."

The five Miami turnovers in the final quarter resulted in six points for the Spurs.

Wade's team mate LeBron James agreed that fatigue was at play.

"I could see it on a few of our guys' faces, (they) felt a little fatigued, still felt a little banged up from that seven-game series," said James.

"The Spurs looked like they were rested in the fourth quarter and they took advantage of that.

"We had some mental mistakes and there are only a couple of teams that you can't make mistakes against, especially in the fourth - and San Antonio is first among them," added the league's Most Valuable Player.

Miami will take heart from knowing they lost their opening game, also on home court, to the Chicago Bulls in the second round of this year's playoffs and came back to win the series 4-1.

The Heat also did exactly the same in last year's final against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

"One thing about our team is that we've gotten better as the series went on. We hate to lose before we start to get a little edge but that's what happens," said James, who recorded his tenth career playoff triple-double with 18 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists.

"We will see if we can continue to repeat what we have been doing and come back on Sunday, with a better game plan, and try to even the series."

(Editing by Ian Ransom)

Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku said the election date should be linked to the automatic dissolution of Zimbabwe's parliament on June 29 at the end of its current five-year term.

A new constitution overwhelmingly accepted in a March 16 referendum requires amendments to electoral laws and voting procedures that lawyers' groups say need about two months to complete.

Veritas, an independent legal research group, said Friday that the court's July date is impractical.

A lawsuit was brought to the court on May 24 to force Mugabe to call early polls. The private court application claimed the country could not be run without the existence of the parliament, rendering the government illegal.

But Veritas said the constitution allows for the executive arm and government ministries to continue operating without a sitting parliament for up to four months after the legislature dissolves on June 29.

Judge Chidyausiku, sitting alongside eight senior judges in the Constitutional Court, said their ruling ordered elections to be held by July 31. He described Mugabe's failure to announce the election date as "a violation of his duties."

Two judges dissented.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader in a shaky coalition with Mugabe after violent and disputed elections in 2008, wants a vote that would end their power-sharing agreement to be held in September at the earliest.

Tsvangirai said in a statement Friday that the court had no power to set an election date and the judges had "overstepped their mandate."

Zimbabweans still expect electoral and wider reforms along with an intensive voter registration campaign "that would not have anyone unnecessarily disenfranchised" in the upcoming elections, he said.

The judgment was not available later Friday for legal experts to comment. But they did say an appeal cannot be made on the Constitutional Court's ruling and only parliament can pass a law to overturn it.

Mugabe's fractious ZANU-PF party has repeatedly called for early polls to endorse Mugabe, 89, for another five-year presidential term. Mugabe led the nation to independence from colonial rule in 1980.

The new constitution limits the presidential office to two five-year terms but is not retroactive, allowing Mugabe if re-elected to serve up to age 99.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to host the U.N. World Tourism Organization summit in mid-August. An estimated 2,000 foreign delegates are expected to attend and a bitterly contested poll shortly before would likely raise concerns among organizers.

Previous elections since 2000 have been marred by violence, political intimidation and allegations of vote-rigging.

Veritas said disobeying a constitutional court ruling could lead to contempt of court proceedings. But contempt charges in the past against at least two of Mugabe's senior ministers were ignored and no further action was taken.

The protesters gathered at an entrance to the stadium where Kenny gave the keynote address and received an honorary degree, with some holding signs saying it was a scandal that the Catholic school was hosting Kenny.

The bill Kenny supports allows abortion only if a doctor authorizes it to save a woman's life. But opponents say it would lead to widespread abortions because of a provision that permits it if a woman threatens suicide.

Protester C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League called that "the proverbial Mack truck loophole" and said Boston College's decision to honor Kenny undermines the church's anti-abortion teachings.

"What rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when our own Catholic institutions honor someone who's trying to legalize abortion in his country?" he said.

Kenny didn't mention the controversy during his keynote address.

Afterward, Kenny told reporters the bill does nothing to change an 1861 Irish law that makes abortion a crime punishable by life in prison.

Instead, the bill "is setting out clarity and legal certainty, that is intended to save lives, not to end them," he said.

In 1992, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled abortion should be legal if doctors determine it's needed to save the woman's life. In 1992 and 2002, voters rejected two referendums to allow abortion to stop a physical threat to a woman's life, not including suicide.

The current bill is being debated following last year's death of a woman who was hospitalized at the start of a protracted miscarriage during her 17th week of pregnancy. Doctors refused her request for an abortion and she died of massive organ failure.

The bill permits a single doctor to authorize an abortion if the woman's life is in immediate danger. Two doctors must approve if a pregnancy poses a potentially lethal risk. The approval of three doctors is required if the woman is threatening suicide.

O'Malley announced he'd skip Boston College's graduation earlier this month, saying Irish bishops had concluded the bill "represents a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law," and noting that U.S. bishops have asked Catholic institutions not to honor officials who promote abortion.

Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said Monday that Kenny' s invitation was unrelated to the controversial legislation and was offered solely because of historical ties between his country and a school founded by an Irish Jesuit to serve Irish immigrants.

He said the invitation to Kenny in no way erodes the school's anti-abortion stance.

"Boston College as a Catholic institution fully supports the church's commitment to the unborn," he said.

Last year's offensive rookie of the year Thursday again threw in a quadrant of the practice field to fellow rehabbing Redskins Pierre Garcon, Fred Davis, Jordan Reed and Roy Helu as Griffin continued his recovery from Jan. 9 surgery on his right knee.

Griffin says "it's been a journey." The quarterback ran two miles earlier this week for the first time since he was injured. Griffini says while everyone "gets to see the flowers and roses side of it out here throwing and running with a little bounce in your step," he's had "to be patiently aggressive."

A Delhi court on Thursday granted the 27-year-old bail until June 6, Kishore Gaekwad told Reuters.

The court said there was no threat of the player tampering with evidence in the spot-fixing scandal.

Chavan, former India test bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and a third Rajasthan Royals player, Ajit Chandila, were arrested on May 16 for allegedly taking money to concede a pre-determined number of runs in Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

The trio have denied any wrongdoing. (Reporting by Sichitra Mohanty, Writing by Amlan Chakraborty, editing by Justin Palmer)

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan increased to 3.71 percent. That's up from 3.67 percent last week, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average rate on the 15-year mortgage, a popular refinancing option, rose to 2.98 percent. That's up from 2.94 percent last week, also a record low.

The rate on the 30-year loan has been below 4 percent since early December. Low rates are a key reason the housing industry is showing modest signs of a recovery this year.

In April, sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes rose near two-year highs. Builders are gaining more confidence in the market, breaking ground on more homes and requesting more permits to build single-family homes later this year.

Low rates could also provide some help to the economy if more people refinance. When people refinance at lower rates, they pay less interest on their loans and have more money to spend.

Still, the pace of home sales remains well below healthy levels. Economists say it could be years before the market is fully healed.

Many people are still having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can't afford larger down payments required by banks. Some would-be home buyers are holding off because they fear that home prices could keep falling.

The economy is growing only modestly and job creation slowed sharply in April and May. U.S. employers created only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year.

Mortgage rates have been dropping because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis has led investors to buy more Treasury securities, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increase, the yield falls.

To calculate average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 point, unchanged from last week. The fee for 15-year loans also was unchanged at 0.7 point.

The average rate on one-year adjustable rate mortgages slipped to 2.78 percent from 2.79 percent last week. The fee for one-year adjustable rate loans was 0.5, up from 0.4.

REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp unveiled the "Xbox One" on Tuesday, its first new gaming console in eight years, and its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media content.

The Xbox One took four years to develop and will be the launchpad for a "Halo" live-action video series produced by Steven Spielberg.

It will be sold worldwide "later this year," games unit chief Don Mattrick told reporters at an event at the software company's campus near Seattle, without providing details on timing or pricing.

The device will also be the first platform to release the next installment in Activision Blizzard Inc's blockbuster shooter franchise, "Call of Duty".

Microsoft hopes its third-generation Xbox console will attract video game fans who are increasingly sampling games on mobile devices, while also becoming a hub for living room entertainment.

The new device interacts with a television, responds to voice and gesture commands, includes group video calling on Skype, 15 exclusive game titles and original programming content.

The Xbox One will chiefly compete with Nintendo Co's new Wii U and Sony Corp's forthcoming PlayStation 4 for a bigger slice of the $65 billion-a-year computer game market.

Microsoft did not refer to the new gadget as a "console" but rather an entertainment system, signaling its renewed focus on making the Xbox a sort of window for media and entertainment content, said Forrester Research's James McQuivey.

The software giant is "trying to break out of the category" and risks having to battle not just Sony and Nintendo but Apple Inc, Google Inc and others to control consumer entertainment in the age of Smart TVs, tablets and smartphones, he said.

Acclaimed movie maker Steven Spielberg will be executive-producing a television series based on Microsoft's blockbuster sci-fi game "Halo" -- one of the game industry's largest franchises by revenue -- for the Xbox One.

The new console will also offer exclusive National Football League content and eight new game franchises, executives said.

Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business declined to put a figure on the company's investment in exclusive game and video content, but called it a "very serious commitment," in an interview with Reuters.

CONSOLE TO MOBILE

Console gaming still accounts for the largest share, of about 42 percent, of the $65 billion world gaming market, according to Microsoft. But playing games on smartphones and tablets is gaining ground.

Videogame publishers have moved towards integrating their games across consoles, PCs and mobile devices to keep gamers engaged. Microsoft said it will have an updated SmartGlass app that connects the Xbox One to tablets and smartphones.

"This is what we needed, a machine that could connect all the possibilities the devices that exist can bring," Yves Guillemot, CEO of games publisher Ubisoft, told Reuters.

The device will have 8 gigabytes of memory and comes with a new-generation Kinect sensor that communicates a user's voice and gesture commands to the console.

The original Kinect was launched in 2010 and sold separately. Bundling the Kinect -- which costs $100 in the current version -- may inflate the Xbox One's overall price tag.

Mehdi said Microsoft is still "evaluating" sale price.

"As a gamer, I wanted to see the additional features to make the gaming experience better," said Dennis "Thresh" Fong, a former professional video gamer and now CEO of gamer network Raptr.

Sony had touted the new PlayStation 4's live streaming of games and social features like a "share" button on its controller when it announced its new console, Fong said.

Despite its strong brand and 'cool' factor, the Xbox itself is not a key financial factor for the world's largest software maker. Its Entertainment & Devices unit is set to break $10 billion in sales for the first time this year, but that's half the sales of its Windows unit, and a lot less profitable, averaging less than 15 percent margin compared to 60 percent or higher for Windows or Office.

The company has more than 46 million users of its online gaming and digital entertainment service Xbox Live. That is still a fraction of the people who pay for its software.

Microsoft's stock closed down 0.7 percent at $34.85.

"Xbox is not going to move the revenue needle but it might change the business model for the better as Microsoft tries to learn how to have the kind of relationship Xbox does" with consumers, McQuivey said.

(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Dan Grebler, Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay)

Amina Tyler appeared in court smiling and enveloped in a white robe and was questioned by the judge over her possession of pepper spray, the basis of the charge of carrying an incendiary object.

Outside some 200 protesters, many religious conservatives, chanted slogans against Tyler, accusing her of attacking the city and insulting Islam. They also shouted insults at the defense lawyers and accused them of "sullying" the image of the city, a center for religious pilgrimage and home of Tunisia's holiest mosque.

Tyler scandalized Tunisia in March by posting online photos of herself topless with the slogan "my body is my own" written on her torso.

She went into hiding because of death threats but reemerged May 19 in Kairouan where she scrawled "Femen" on a wall near the city's main mosque, the same day police stopped a group of ultraconservative Muslims from holding their annual conference, resulting in clashes and tear gas.

Tyler was detained by police as an angry mob gathered.

Her lawyers argue that the 1894 statute should not apply to her can of pepper spray.

Tyler told the judge that she had been given the pepper spray by a foreign journalist for her own protection and had been carrying it for the last two months. The judge adjourned the session to deliberate on the charge.

Lawyers saying they represented the city petitioned the judge that Tyler be given the more serious charge of threatening the security of the city, but their request was turned down.

Tyler's father was present in court and expressed his support for his daughter.

"I am proud of my daughter who has honored the rights of women," Mounir Sboui told The Associated Press. "Maybe her acts were rash, but this is her way of expressing these ideas."

Tyler's case is the latest flashpoint in the battle over Tunisia's identity after the overthrow of the secular dictatorship in January 2011 saw the rise of ultraconservative Islamists known as salafis pushing for greater piety.

The case attracted attention in Europe and three members of Femen, two French and a German, demonstrated topless in front of Tunis' court building Wednesday, calling for Tyler's release. They were arrested and remained in custody.

.

Swartz committed suicide in January before going to trial for allegedly stealing millions of academic articles from a private database using a computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Swartz's estate asked for the documents to be released to shed light on what they have termed an overzealous prosecution of the 26-year-old.

The documents, which include information about Swartz's purported hacking into the JSTOR database using MIT's computer network, must be stripped of the names of witnesses and law enforcement personnel, District Judge Nathaniel Gorton ordered. Information about weaknesses in the two institution's computer networks must also be redacted, Gorton said.

Since Swartz's death, "MIT and JSTOR were subjected to a variety of threats and harassing incidents by individuals purportedly retaliating in the name of Mr. Swartz," Gorton wrote to explain why the names should not be released. The incidents included a hoax report in February that a gunman was on the loose on MIT's campus.

Swartz founded the group Demand Progress and led a successful campaign to block a bill introduced in 2011 in the U.S. House of Representatives called the Stop Online Piracy Act, which generated fierce opposition in the technological community. He also helped create an early version of the Web feed system RSS and played a role in building the popular news sharing web site Reddit.

The case ignited a controversy over U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz's reliance on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act law. Prosecutors working for Ortiz used the law to charge Swartz with 13 felony counts that carried maximum prison time of 35 years although he had not profited from the JSTOR downloading.

Ortiz's office, which had pressed to have the names removed from the documents, praised the ruling. "We believe that the Court's ruling strikes a reasonable balance between providing the public access to relevant information and protecting the privacy and safety interests of witnesses and victims in this matter," spokeswoman Christina DiIorio-Sterling said in an email.

(Reporting by Aaron Pressman; editing by Andrew Hay)