J.J. McGrath

Europe faces another year of dismal economic performance in 2012 that will weigh on global growth, but emerging markets and the United States should at least keep the world economy moving in the right direction.

Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney sought to create doubts about rival Newt Gingrich among South Carolina conservatives on Saturday by criticizing his highly paid work for mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred: Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who was jailed by communists and then went on to lead the bloodless Velvet Revolution and become Czech president, died at 75 on Sunday.

Gold prices will fall below $1,500 an ounce over the next three months and are unlikely to retest September's all-time highs until later next year at the earliest, according to a Reuters poll of 20 hedge-fund managers, economists, and traders.

An Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan was bombed Sunday, the 10th such attack this year, but no fire erupted because the line that runs through North Sinai was already disabled, a security source said.

The U.S. Senate OK'd on Saturday a $1 trillion bill to fund the government and a two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, capping a contentious political year while preparing the arena for a fresh battle in 2012.

As Newt Gingrich surged from an also-ran to a front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, he put a 29-year-old newcomer in as quarterback of his New Hampshire campaign team.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country still grappling with political uncertainty.

An oil-drilling rig with 67 crew members on board capsized and sank off the Russian Far East island of Sakhalin when it ran into a storm while being towed, and 51 of the crew were unaccounted for, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday.

More than 250 people were killed and almost twice that number were missing after a typhoon hit the southern Philippines, officials said Saturday. The storm triggered flash floods and landslides, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Iranian authorities said on Saturday they had arrested an Iranian caught spying for the United States, the Islamic Republic's latest claim of success in a spying war with Washington.

Soldiers baton-charged demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday, a day after street clashes killed eight people and wounded more than 300, marring the first free election most Egyptians can remember.

To understand what ails BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. in the U.S. market, just ask eBay Inc. CEO John Donahoe. Recently, his company had a hundred engineers working on apps for Apple's iPhone, another hundred on apps for Google's Android, and only one or two on apps for RIM's BlackBerry.

Atlanta police say the rapper Slim Dunkin, whose real name is Mario Hamilton, was gunned down Friday as he prepared to record a video, according to The Associated Press.

A judge ruled on Friday that two former senior officials at Pennsylvania State University must stand trial on charges of lying to a grand jury about what they knew of sexual-abuse allegations against a former football coach, Jerry Sandusky.

The death toll from a typhoon in the southern Philippines rose to more than 130, government and army officials said on Saturday, with some domestic flights grounded and wide areas left without power.

Deeply divided U.S. lawmakers on Friday eked out an agreement to extend payroll-tax cuts for just two months, and only after Democrats bowed to Republican demands on a controversial oil pipeline.

About 7 million Americans get jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around one-quarter of them will fall off the rolls in January unless the U.S. Congress renews an extended-benefits program that expires at the end of the year.

Egypt's army has said only parliament will choose the makeup of a constituent assembly, appearing to retreat from earlier statements that riled Islamists and others when a general said unelected bodies would have a role in the selection process.

The bankruptcy estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is preparing to make a $1.33 billion bid for part of apartment owner Archstone that it does not already hold, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The European Union definitely will not impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports because the measure would harm the global crude market, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Sunday.

Britain's Amir Khan lost his World Boxing Association super-lightweight and International Boxing Federation light-welterweight titles on Saturday after he dropped a split decision to American Lamont Peterson in Washington.

Robert Griffin III, a Baylor University quarterback, was chosen as the 77th winner of the Heisman Memorial Trophy as the most outstanding college football player in the United States for 2011.

Manuel Noriega, Panama's ruthless drug-running military dictator of the 1980s, is to be returned home on Sunday, headed for a jungle prison to serve a 20-year term for the murders of opponents during his rule.

United Nations Climate Change Conference participants agreed on a pact Sunday that for the first time would force all the biggest polluters to take action to slow the pace of global changing.

Blue Coat Systems Inc., a maker of equipment that secures, monitors, and speeds Internet traffic, has agreed to be taken private for $1.1 billion in a deal that throws a lifeline to a company beset by falling sales and a U.S. government probe into use of its products by Syria.

Police made dozens of arrests early Saturday as they cleared away the remaining Occupy Boston encampment in the city's financial district in a mostly peaceful action.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Russia on Saturday to demand an end to Vladimir Putin's rule and a rerun of a parliamentary election in the biggest opposition protests since he rose to power more than a decade ago.

Awarding this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the head of the selection panel forecast that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would succumb to a wind of history blowing through the Arab world and be forced to accept democratic change.