SHEBOYGAN, Wis (Reuters) - The mayor of a Wisconsin town whose heavy drinking last summer sparked pressure to step down lost a special election on Tuesday to a former Democratic state representative.

First-term Sheboygan Mayor Bob Ryan, 48, lost the first mayoral recall election in the city's history to Terry Van Akkeren, 57.

Van Akkeren received about 53 percent of the votes cast to Ryan's 46 percent, according to unofficial returns

(Reuters) - Nearly 12 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2011, an increase of 13 percent over 2010, according to a report released on Wednesday by the research firm Javelin Strategy & Research.

The rise in the use of smartphones and social media by incautious consumers fueled the increase in identity fraud, and 2011 was a year of several big data breaches too, Javelin said.

With the rise in credit

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (Reuters) - Jurors began deliberating on Wednesday to decide whether a former University of Virginia lacrosse player killed his ex-girlfriend in a drunken rage or if her 2010 death was accidental.

Prosecutors accused George Huguely V, 24, of first-degree murder, saying he walked into 22-year-old Yeardley Love's apartment while she was asleep, kicked in her bedroom door and slammed her head against the wall.