ANTIQUES SHOPS

The company and the union negotiated for about 10 hours on Thursday without reaching a deal. They started again at about 9 a.m. Eastern Time Friday and were currently taking a lunch break, a union spokesman said.

Despite the ongoing talks, John Melia, the spokesman for the Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2, representing 8,500 Con Edison union workers locked out by the company on July 1, said the two sides were still far apart.

"Nothing has changed. Things are still grim," Melia told Reuters. In addition to health care costs and wages, one of the major sticking points is the company's insistence that defined benefit pensions be changed to a 401(k) type of retirement savings account.

A spokeswoman at Con Edison, Sara Banda, said it was too early to say how the talks were going since they were still ongoing.

Neither side could say whether the talks would continue over the weekend.

"We won't know whether the talks will continue over the weekend until later today," Melia said.

Meanwhile, a heat wave continued to bake the Big Apple for a third day in a row and replacement crews made up mostly of Con Edison managers sweated in the heat as New Yorkers cranked up their air conditioners, straining parts of the grid.

Temperatures in New York were expected to reach as high as 92 Fahrenheit (33 Celsius) on Friday, 98 F on Saturday and 90 F on Sunday before returning to more normal levels in the mid-80s next week, according to AccuWeather.com.

On Wednesday, Con Edison reduced voltage by 5 percent in several Brooklyn neighborhoods to protect the overall system and maintain service as crews fixed lines feeding power to the communities.

On Thursday, the company reduced voltage in additional Brooklyn neighborhoods and in some Bronx neighborhoods.

The company said the replacement crews had made some repairs but were still working on feeder cables in the affected neighborhoods.

The voltage reductions remained in place Friday afternoon. Air conditioning doesn't lose power in a voltage reduction, but incandescent lights, hot water heaters and some motors are slightly affected.

The reductions were the first since the company locked out the union workers after contract talks broke down.

Con Edison said the voltage reductions were unrelated to the lockout, noting the company had reduced the voltage in parts of Brooklyn and Queens during a heat wave before the lockout in June.

But the union said the voltage reductions were a sign that Con Edison could not keep the system running without the union workers.

"If something goes wrong, Con Edison will not be able to respond in a timely manner, endangering all New Yorkers," the union's Melia said.

WORKERS INJURED

The union has claimed the replacement workers were suffering injuries due to their inexperience.

Four replacement workers have been injured since the lockout began but none of the injuries was life threatening, according to Con Edison.

One worker suffered second-degree burns on his face, another had a suspected heart attack while off duty, a third had minor burns on his hand, and the fourth suffered partial hearing loss after an air horn was blasted in his ear.

The company said many managers in the field came up from the union ranks and were experienced in fixing the cables to keep the system running.

So far, voltage reductions were relatively minor, and only 134 customers were without power Friday afternoon -- out of the 3.2 million homes and businesses Con Edison serves in New York City and Westchester County.

The company asked all customers to conserve power during the heat wave but has not told customers in the affected Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods to turn off their air conditioners.

(Reporting By Scott DiSavino and Steve James; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

At the June 28-29 summit, Italy's technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti and Spanish leader Mariano Rajoy overcame Merkel's reluctance to use the bailout funds to stabilise bond markets and directly help the banks of struggling euro zone countries.

"I think we are getting near the limit of what the Bundestag (lower house) and the population are willing to bear," Michael Stuebgen, speaker on European policy for the conservatives in the German parliament, told Reuters.

Merkel has insisted the summit agreements do not contradict Germany's insistence on strict conditions for aid to its euro zone partners or its opposition, based on German law, to accepting liability for other nations' debt.

Stuebgen and the conservatives' parliamentary leader Volker Kauder, who was interviewed in a German newspaper, expressed anger at Monti's portrayal of the summit as a defeat for Merkel.

"Mario Monti's comments ... were out of order. He gave the impression that he had won and the chancellor lost. But Monti's interpretation was wrong and other countries, including Finland, have since contradicted him," Kauder told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The conservative parliamentary leader said this erroneous interpretation had contributed to 26 MPs from the ruling centre-right coalition voting against the ratification of the permanent bailout fund (European Stability Mechanism) and the fiscal pact for budget discipline on July 29, hours after the summit.

The ESM and fiscal pact were approved with large majorities in both the lower and upper house thanks to opposition support, but must now be endorsed by the Constitutional Court and head of state before German ratification is complete.

Kauder said it was acceptable to pass the laws with the help of opposition MPs, but added: "It is true that there are more, not fewer, questions in our parliamentary bloc (about the bailouts)."

"Our partners in Europe should take note," Kauder said.

Impatience with Germany's growing exposure to the sovereign debt problems of its euro zone partners was also expressed in an open letter by about 150 economists published in a German paper on Thursday.

The economists said Merkel had been forced into "wrong" decisions at the EU summit regarding the banking system. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a radio interview on Friday he was "furious" at the economists for misleading the public.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Stephen Brown; Writing by Stephen Brown, Editing by Gareth Jones)

The figure is about 22 times the daily rate of donations for the previous two months, according to a statement on the website, which said the defense fund had collected $55,000 over the past two months.

"We are confident that Mr. Zimmerman will be released soon," according to the website statement.

Zimmerman, who had been free on a $150,000 bond, was sent back to jail in June after prosecutors alleged he misled the court about his finances and failed to surrender a valid passport.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester said Thursday in his new bond order that he believed Zimmerman and his wife Shellie intended to flee the country but were thwarted by the judge's requirement that Zimmerman wear an electronic monitoring device.

Defense attorney, Mark O'Mara, said Thursday that Zimmerman and his family could not post the higher bond, which typically would require a deposit of 10 percent cash and the rest secured by collateral, without donations from supporters.

Shawn Vincent, who manages the website for O'Mara, told Reuters the largest donation overnight was $1,000, and that most contributions ranged between $10 and $25.

Since May 3, when O'Mara took control of Zimmerman's defense fundraising, donations have averaged $500 to $1,000 per day, he said.

In granting bond, Lester imposed numerous restrictions. He said that if released from jail again, Zimmerman must submit to electronic monitoring, remain in Seminole County, stay away from the Orlando-Sanford International Airport, refrain from applying for a passport or holding a bank account, avoid alcohol and obey a curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.

The defense website said Zimmerman's security team had established a temporary safe house for him to go to upon his release from jail, but that a permanent location was still being sought.

Zimmerman is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the February 26 shooting death of 17-year-old Martin in a gated community in the central Florida city of Sanford.

Martin's killing drew national attention because police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman. They cited Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law and Zimmerman's claim that he used deadly force because he believed his life was being threatened by Martin.

Zimmerman, 28, was later arrested on second-degree murder charges, which carry a penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

Shellie Zimmerman has been charged with perjury for allegedly working with her husband to hide from the judge at least $135,000 that was raised by Zimmerman, through a personal website and Paypal account, prior to his arrest.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Bernadette Baum)