Euro Watch: European Commission Offers Grim Forecast for Economy

BRUSSELS — A top E.U. official warned Friday that the economy of the euro area would shrink for the second year in a row and that countries like France and Spain would miss fiscal targets meant to ensure the stability of the common currency. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, forecast growth across the 27-nation European Union of just 0.1 percent this...

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Deadly Bombings Hit Southern India City

Mahesh Kumar A/Associated PressA member of the bomb squad with a sniffer dog arrived at a blast site in Hyderabad on Thursday. NEW DELHI — Two bombs planted on bicycles killed at least 13 people and wounded some 70 in a busy shopping district in the southern India city of Hyderabad at the height of Thursday’s evening rush hour, the largest terrorist bombing in the country since September 2011. ...

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SAfrica police replace top Pistorius investigator

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Ahead of a judge's decision on whether to release Oscar Pistorius on bail, South African police on Thursday appointed a new chief detective in the murder case, replacing a veteran policeman who was himself charged with attempted murder.The sensational twist in the state's troubled investigation fueled growing public fascination with the case against the double-amputee...

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Living With Cancer: Arrivals and Departures

After being nursed and handed over, the baby’s wails rise to a tremolo, but I am determined to give my exhausted daughter and son-in-law a respite on this wintry evening. Commiserating with the little guy’s discomfort — gas, indigestion, colic, ontological insecurity — I swaddle, burp, bink, then cradle him in my arms. I begin walking around the house, swinging and swaying while cooing in soothing...

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Via Video, a Front-Row Seat to a Fashion Show

As the Belstaff runway show began in New York City last week, buyers, designers and bloggers crowded into their seats, jotted notes and took smartphone photos as the models strutted by. But it was another crowd, outside the tents, that Belstaff executives were particularly interested in this season. For the second time, it was live streaming its fashion show. And the Web viewers were...

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Boiko Borisov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Submits Resignation

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria submitted his government’s resignation on Wednesday after a tumultuous week of public anger over rising electricity prices, corruption and worsening living standards that ignited mass protests nationwide and led to bloody clashes with the police on Tuesday night. “The people gave us power, and today we are returning it,” Mr. Borisov said on Wednesday...

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Armstrong won't interview with USADA

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong won't do a tell-all interview under oath with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to reveal everything he knows about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in cycling.USADA officials had told Armstrong he must speak with them if he wanted to reduce his lifetime ban from sports. Under their offer, Wednesday was the deadline for him to agree to the interview.Armstrong attorney...

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Global Update: New Polio Strains That Protect Vaccine Factory Workers

Scientists have created new strains of polio intended to protect workers in factories that make polio vaccine. The new strains have the same ability to invoke an immune reaction as the live viruses now used to make vaccine do, but there is virtually no risk anyone will get polio if one of the new strains somehow escapes. The research team, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook,...

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DealBook: A Revolving Door in Washington That Gets Less Notice

Obsess all you’d like about President Obama’s nomination of Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Who heads the agency is vital, but important fights in Washington are happening in quiet rooms, away from the media gaze.After a widely praised stint as a tough United States attorney, Ms. White spent the last decade serving so many large banks and investment houses that by the...

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Maoists Block Deal to Break Nepal’s Long Political Deadlock

NEW DELHI — Nepal’s major political parties failed on Tuesday to complete an expected agreement to settle a years-long political standoff, after Maoists insisted that the accord include amnesty for past crimes. The amnesty issue derailed a tentative deal reached on Monday to appoint as interim prime minister the chief justice of the country’s supreme court, Khil Raj Regmi, to lead the country...

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