National / International News

A pioneering programme to test cancer patients for nearly 100 risk genes is to start in London and could represent the future of treatment in the NHS.

What happens if the Federal Reserve takes away the big can of sterno it put under the U.S. economy?

Public pension funds rebound from recession. But for some the recovery still doesn't mean they are doing as well as they should.

Yahoo's Tumblr acquisition is a big part the mission for new CEO Marissa Mayer -- a mission to make the aging Internet company cool again.

Eight members of a Liverpool-based drugs gang are jailed for supplying tens of millions of pounds worth of cocaine and heroin to Glasgow.

Hearts avoid immediate relegation as the SPL decides it could not say their parent company had breached its rules.

The Royal Navy's former flagship, the Ark Royal, leaves its home port of Portsmouth for the final time, bound for a scrap yard in Turkey.

Yahoo expects the Tumblr deal to increase its audience by 50 percent to more than a billion visitors a month. But the most important thing about those new users is, they’re young.

“You know, the cool, the hip," says IDC tech analyst Ramon Llams. "The people who use Tumblr pretty much each and every single day.  So it’s tapping into an area that Yahoo has slowly been losing share to.”

But a lot could go wrong. Yahoo has bought other Internet startups, only to let them wither away, like Flickr. Yahoo acknowledged this in the press release announcing the Tumblr deal with a “promise not to screw it up.”

Audio Extra: Tech analyst Greg Stergling shares his thoughts on Yahoo's purchase and whether the company can monetize Tumblr's young user base.

Greg Sterling, tech analyst with Opus Research, says, for one thing, Yahoo shouldn’t immediately blanket Tumblr with banner ads.

“If Yahoo were to show up and start throwing traditional banners in there, you’d have a lot of people objecting and it would not be particularly effective.”

Especially since Tumblr CEO David Karp has resisted advertising. 

It remains to be seen whether money can buy hipness, but it can certainly buy brainpower. Since Marissa Mayer took the helm of Yahoo, the company has been acquiring tech and media brains.

A look at Yahoo's recent run on brainpower:

Stamped

Yahoo purchased Stamped, which was Mayer's first acquisition as CEO, in October of 2012. Stamped is a New York City start-up with a mobile app that allows users to record and share recommendations with friends. All of Stamped's nine employees were reported to join Yahoo.

OnTheAir

In December of 2012, Yahoo purchased video chat broadcasting app OnTheAir. The app lets people webcast single or splitscreen interviews. All five members of the start-up joined Yahoo's mobile team.

Snip.It

In January of 2013, Yahoo acquired Snip.It, a Pinterest-like app which lets users clip and display news articles. All but one of Snip.It's 10-person staff were reported to join Yahoo.

Alike

Mayer made a move to purchase Propeld, the maker of mobile app Alike, which lets users mark nearby venues as "favorites," in February of 2013. After the acquisition, the Alike team moved over to work at Yahoo.

Jybe

In March, Yahoo purchased Jybe, a startup food, event, book, and movie recommendations service that hopes to "help connect people with the world around them." Jybe was founded by three ex-Yahoo employees, who will now re-enter the company fold.

Summly

Last month, Yahoo acquired news-reading app Summly from its 17-year-old founder Nick D'Aloisio. D'Aloisio is working with the company to incorporate Summly's technology, which translates long-form news stories into shorter summaries, into Yahoo's mobile apps.

The Godolphin doping scandal widens as seven more horses, including St Leger winner Encke, fail new drugs tests.

Heavy fighting takes place between government and rebel forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the UN is deploying an attack force.

A heavily pregnant British woman is refused permission to board a cross-Channel ferry from France to England.

Send your questions to George Alagiah

People living near a new takeaway complain "Colonel Sanders" is watching them from an oversized advertising sign.

The father of former England footballers Gary and Phil Neville is charged with sexual assault.

US drugs maker Actavis, itself the subject of bid speculation, agrees to buy Dublin-based rival Warner Chilcott for $8.5bn (£5.6bn) including debt.

This week, America's head central banker, Ben Bernanke, gives his economic report card to Congress. At least one president in the Federal Reserve system is saying that this summer the Fed will taper off from its stimulus measures.

Julia Coronado, chief North American economist at BNP Paribas, joins Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio to explain what that could mean for the economy.

An Israeli government investigation concludes a French news report in 2000, which blamed Israeli troops for shooting dead a Palestinian child, was baseless.

An Anglican priest who abused children in the 1960s and 70s is found guilty of 36 separate sex offences.

Russia's only independent polling agency says it may have to close after being targeted by prosecutors under the controversial "foreign agents" law.

A small Florida city waits for the winner of the largest lottery jackpot in US history, more than $590m (£388m), to come forward.

At least one person has died and several others were injured in a series of tornadoes that have torn through the US state of Oklahoma.

Education Minister John O'Dowd has announced some changes to A-levels in Northern Ireland following a local consultation.