National / International News

Which star is helping Vladimir Putin's health drive?

As Nato plans the drawdown of its forces from Afghanistan, some wonder whether they will dump military hardware there as the Soviet army did.

New York City's population is at an all-time high, with an estimated 8,336,697 people living in the city, according to the most recent U.S. Census Data. "For the first time since before 1950, more people are coming to New York City than leaving," said Mayor Bloomberg.

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Fernando Torres scores the decisive goal as Chelsea beat Steaua Bucharest to reach the Europa League quarter-finals.

Chelsea, Newcastle and Spurs will discover their Europa League quarter-final opponents when the draw is made on Friday.

The Obama administration disputed an earlier report with those numbers. Republican lawmakers have called the releases "outrageous."

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An expert report on the regulation of the press in Scotland is to be published on Friday, it emerges.

Coming off the 2012 election, many at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference are trying to figure out who can best return the party to White House power while upholding conservative principles. And Thursday, the young senators from Florida and Kentucky each made their case.

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Amateur jockey JT McNamara suffers a serious neck injury after a fall at the Cheltenham Festival.

An emergency financial manager with wide-ranging powers is appointed for the troubled US city of Detroit as it struggles with debts of $14bn.

The US central bank says that most major US banks have strong enough balance sheets to proceed with their plans for payouts for shareholders.

Wing George North says Wales fans want them to beat England in Cardiff amid a 'bloodbath' in the Six Nations on Saturday.

Pork DNA is found in halal chicken sausages served in a central London primary school.

Matthew Keys is well known on Twitter for breaking news. Prosecutors allege he leaked the credentials to a Tribune Company server to members of the hacker collective Anonymous.

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India wants the marines returned to stand trial. Italy is refusing to send them back. The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Italian ambassador not to leave the country. Both countries claim they are on solid legal footing.

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The city of Detroit has a very new -- and stark -- economic reality today.

A new face is in control of the city's finances, and it isn't an elected mayor.

Gov. Rick Snyder installed a emergency financial manager to guide the city out of it's deep financial hole.

His name is Kevyn Orr, and his background is as a bankruptcy lawyer. The role of the emergency financial manager was created in 1990, and was granted the powers of the mayor, plus more.

"So if he wants to go after labor contracts, he's able to go after labor contracts," said longtime Detroit journalist Micheline Maynard, now a contributor for forbes.com. "One thing I think a lot of people hope for is that the city streetlights will go back on, because there are big swaths of Detroit that are in the dark, literally."

It's a move that's not without controversy, and maybe a little hope, as well.

"There two schools of thought. Detroit's got this fledgling little recovery; there's been some new investment in the city. Everybody wants that to take flight," Maynard said. "Then there's another side that thinks this undemocratic -- that the people of Detroit don't have a voice in this, and that this goes against the rights of the citizens to decide who's going to run their city and who's going to fix their city."

Maynard said she's seen the city go through a lot to find a way to recovery.

"I think they can fix Detroit, but they have to actually do the work."

Today is the fifth anniversary of the rescue of Bear Stearns by the Federal Reserve. The very moment, perhaps, when "too big to fail" became a standard part of our economic lexicon.

To commemorate the five-year anniversary, Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, will speak at the big political conference going on this week, the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, where he's going to say we ought to break up the big banks. That they are still "too big to fail."

"The banks only got bigger following the financial crisis," said John Carney from CNBC. "Regulators and their bosses on Capitol Hill, the congressmen and senators,are mostly mentally-captured by the big banks. They just think that this is the way things have to be."

Carney thinks Fisher will get a warm welcome at CPAC this weekend.

"This really seems to be something that bridges the political spectrum where you have people on the left saying we should do something and people on the right," said Carney.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is considering what Canada could contribute to ongoing efforts to fight Islamist militants in Mali.

Mark Drakeford is named health minister in a surprise Welsh government reshuffle.

Emmanuel Adebayor scores a crucial extra-time goal as Spurs lose 4-1 at Inter Milan but go through in the Europa League.