Faced with a renewed stock market slide that has wiped out €4.4tn in trading value, China is again on the prowl for scapegoats.

The US economy slowed sharply in the first quarter of the year, with annualised GDP growth falling to just 0.2% from 2.2% in the final quarter of 2014.

Authorities are trying to determine what caused a support frame to collapse yesterday during an aerial hair-hanging stunt as part of a circus performance in Rhode Island, sending eight acrobats crashing to the ground and onto a dancer below.

Moscow police interrupted a play featuring the trial of punk rockers Pussy Riot yesterday and warned its Swiss director for violating visa rules in what a government critic said was part of an anti-Western campaign.

Hurricane Sandy is threatening 50 million people on America's heavily-populated east coast today and forecasters warned that New York could bear the brunt of the one-of-a-kind superstorm.

A FEDERAL judge yesterday upheld a gay judge’s ruling striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, noting that his fellow justice could not be presumed to have a personal stake in the case just because he was in a long-term same-sex relationship.

A FEDERAL grand jury indicted two-time presidential candidate John Edwards yesterday over $925,000 (€634,117) spent to keep his mistress and their baby in hiding during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

A FEDERAL judge has declared the foundation of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law unconstitutional, ruling that the government cannot require Americans to purchase insurance.

Stocks posted big gains today after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered reassuring words on the economy and as US growth turned out to be better than expected this spring.

US FEDERAL authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the BP oil spill disaster.

A FEDERAL judge accused of groping two of his female court employees and trying to force them to perform sex acts pleaded guilty yesterday to obstruction of justice in exchange for sex crimes charges being dropped.

THE Swiss agreed to continue the policy of giving EU citizens free access to jobs in their country and to extend it to Bulgaria and Romania, despite recession and fear of an influx of foreigners.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama today turned to some of the most respected names in the business world for fresh ideas to end the US financial upheaval and win the confidence of voters.

ALAN DUKES recently argued the fact that national governments had not been rendered irrelevant by the political evolution of the EU was confirmed by commonsense and mirrored his own long experience of working within its institutions.

The US stock market notched its second straight daily advance today, with investors encouraged by a pull-back in oil prices and some better-than-expected economic data.

US president George Bush was surprised by the criticism levelled against him and his administration by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in his new book, the White House said on Monday.

An Australian court today overturned the government’s decision to cancel the work visa of an Indian doctor accused – and later cleared – of links to the failed June terrorist attacks on London and Scotland.

A former air traffic controller accused of planting homemade bombs in March outside the homes of four co-workers and a Federal Aviation Administration official pleaded guilty today to one single count that could put him in prison for more than a decade.

Solid earnings from Verizon Communications lifted stocks on Wall Street today, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its best close in six years even as oil prices neared an all-time high.

US stocks rose modestly in the United States today after investors bobbed and weaved with every word of new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony before Congress.

A wall collapsed at an administrative building in the Russian capital today, an emergency official said, and a Russian news agency reported an unknown number of casualties.

Footprints inside the Sago Mine in West Virginia indicate the trapped miners tried to use a mechanised mine car to force their way out after the explosion, family members of the sole survivor said.

NEWCOURT made a solid debut on the AIM and IEX markets yesterday as shares in Dublin traded at €0.86 per share.

FEDERAL authorities began counting down to Hurricane Rita's arrival with last-minute promises to deliver fuel to hundreds of thousands of evacuees fleeing the shifting storm that covered half of the Gulf of Mexico.

A FEDERAL judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit charging that US chemical companies committed war crimes against some 4 million Vietnamese citizens by making Agent Orange, the military defoliant that allegedly caused birth defects, miscarriages and cancer.

THE US economy may grow 4% this year and has begun an “expansion phase,” said John Taylor, the treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs.

Commandos stormed a school today in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire.

A weak profit outlook from 3M Co disappointed Wall Street today, leaving stocks mixed as investors grew worried that second-half profits will fall short of expectations.

THE Danbury Federal Correctional Institution is only about 20 miles from Martha Stewart’s home in Connecticut, but it will seem like a world away from her usual lifestyle.

A FEDERAL judge yesterday denied Martha Stewart’s latest request for a new trial based on allegations that a government ink expert lied on the witness stand at her first trial.

Airport security screeners refused to let a cancer patient board a flight home to Denver because they said she no longer resembled her identification photos.

US investors anxious to get back into the stock market pounced on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s bullish economic report today, sending stocks soaring and propelling the Dow Jones industrial average up 123 points to its highest level in more than two-and-a-half years.

Investors left stocks in limbo today, making few commitments while they awaited Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s testimony before Congress later this week.

COMMENTS from Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan took US stocks off their lows at midsession yesterday, with the Dow Jones industrial average losses easing and the Nasdaq composite index holding a solid gain.

A suspicious white powder was today found in the postroom at German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s offices as anthrax fears spread around the world.

President Bush plans to push for sweeping changes in airport security, including armed officers on flights, as the Justice Department warns that terrorists may be plotting more destruction.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan foresees no quick end to sluggish economic growth in the United States and has signalled that the Fed stands ready to cut interest rates for a seventh time this year.

Federal police agents will fly to Colombia with the Brazil squad to protect the players during the Copa America.