National / International News

Sharon Kitchen got the shock of her life when she discovered her five-year-old son had accidentally run up a £1,700 bill downloading apps on the family's iPad.

O2 launches a voice call app for smartphones, tablets and PCs which deducts costs from users' existing "pay monthly" subscriptions.

There are arguably two high points in life. 1.) Being forced to to spend an hour taking an online multiple-choice quiz in order to qualify for a student loan. 2.) Having to go to traffic school on a Saturday to keep points off a driver's license. Now, right up there with them is what could happen to people who take intellectual property online without permission.

Several Internet service providers are launching a new Copyright Alert System this week to patrol for customers doing illegal downloads. The system will generate an escalating series of warnings. In theory, a user gets six strikes and then a movie, music or software pirate is out.

But what exactly happens on strike six? Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain just that. 

A 54-year-old man who sexually abused a young girl and assaulted a woman is jailed for nine years.

Air New Zealand says one of its pilots twice nodded off during a flight between London and Los Angeles but the flight was never in danger, reports say.

What's it like to elect a pope?

A Bahraini court sentences pro-democracy activist Zainab al-Khawaja to three months in jail for entering the site of the former Pearl Roundabout.

The prime minister has been criticised after he opposed calls to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece and the Koh-i-Noor diamond to India.

India's finance minister has announced plans to set up the country's first ever women only bank. P Chidambaram says he hopes that it will be granted a license by October.

Supporters hope it will help women establish businesses and give them financial independence. But not everyone is a fan.

"No, no. I feel it is a very cheap and meaningless gimmick. I find it very strange. I never felt unsafe in a mixed bank. I do not think its necessary," says Rina Nag, who has spent her life working in a bank.

Women's rights have been at the center of a heated debate in India following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi late last year. The government is hoping that the $200 million it's investing to set up the banks signals a committment to women's issues and helps produce a new generation of Indian businesswomen.

Groupon’s board of directors fired the company’s CEO yesterday. Andrew Mason founded the daily deal site. This is, in many ways, a familiar story.

An ideas man builds up a business, takes it public, and then…

“Some kind of infrastructure is needed,” says James Abruzzo, co-founder of the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rutgers Business School. “And clearly that was the case here."

The same thing happened to Steve Jobs. Apple’s board forced him out in the mid-1980s. Something similar happened at Yahoo! Jerry Yang started that company, and when he was CEO, he opposed a takeover bid from Microsoft. That was it.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a dean at the Yale School of Management, remembers Polaroid founder Ed Land’s last days as CEO.

“Analysts were saying, ‘How about the bottom line?’  He said, ‘The bottom line is in heaven.’”

Founders who become executives have vision. That’s a given, but management consultant and venture capitalist Peter Cohan argues they can be blinded by that.

“They think, I created this thing. I’m the only one who can run it.” 

And the fact is, Cohan says, no one is irreplaceable.

NHS patients are being bombarded with unwanted medical equipment for stoma care, an investigation by Radio 4's You and Yours has found.

The Harlem Shake viral video trend has been going a month. It's been unique in the speed of its spread.

Once again lawmakers are up against a deadline. This time, it looks like they won't strike some sort of deal. That means about $85 billion worth of spending cuts will start to spread across many federal agencies.

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The search is on to find a couple to travel to Mars, but how easy will it be to get along? Explorer Deborah Shapiro provides marital survival tips.

The family of a five-year-old boy who accidentally spent £1,700 on iTunes receives a full refund.

The rate of unemployment in the eurozone rose to a fresh record high in January, climbing from 11.8% to 11.9%.

Opening most of the NHS in England to private firms could alienate doctors and render the reforms "a complete waste of time", a GP who helped draft the plans warns.

The veteran British actress has won rave reviews for her performance in Jesse Eisenberg's new play The Revisionist, in an intimate off-Broadway production.

The cost of prescription charges in England will rise by 20p to £7.85 from 1 April, the government has announced.

Nick Clegg hails a "stunning victory" for the Liberal Democrats in the Eastleigh by-election, as the UK Independence Party pushes the Conservatives into third place.