High & Low Finance: Report Lays Out Plan to Reduce Government Role in Home Financing

Can the American mortgage market ever function again without Uncle Sam guaranteeing that lenders will be repaid? It is amazing just how few people think it can. “For the foreseeable future, there is simply not enough capacity on the balance sheets of U.S. banks to allow a reliance on depository institutions as the sole source of liquidity for the mortgage market,” stated a report on...

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IHT Rendezvous: Eve Best Returns to the Globe, This Time as a Director

LONDON — The recent press conference announcing the 2013 season at Shakespeare’s Globe on one level seemed like variations on an ongoing theme.A onetime Falstaff at this address, Roger Allam, is returning to open the season as Prospero in “The Tempest,” directed by Jeremy Herrin, while the perennial favorite, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” will be seen in May in a new staging, this time from the Globe’s...

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Hibbert, Lee suspended after Warriors-Pacers fight

NEW YORK (AP) — Pacers center Roy Hibbert and Warriors forward David Lee have each been suspended a game without pay for starting an altercation during their game that drifted into the stands.Three other players were fined for the incident in the fourth quarter of Indiana's 108-97 home win Tuesday. Hibbert was ejected after the skirmish, which began when he and Lee exchanged shoves under the basket...

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too. On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national...

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Penney Reports Big Loss for Fourth Quarter

NEW YORK (AP) — Boy, it just wasn't J.C. Penney's year. The mid-priced department store chain on Wednesday reported another much larger-than-expected loss in the fiscal fourth quarter on a nearly 30 percent plunge in revenue in the latest sign that shoppers aren't happy with the changes it's made in the past year. The results mark a full year of massive quarterly losses and revenue...

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The Lede: Video of Fatal Balloon Crash in Egypt Captured by Witness

Last Updated, 5:59 p.m. As our colleague David Kirkpatrick reports, at least 18 people were killed and three were injured when a high-altitude balloon carrying tourists burst into flames near the Egyptian monuments at Luxor on Tuesday.According to Egyptian media accounts, the pilot had been pulling a rope to stabilize the balloon as it landed in a field of sugar cane near the southern city of Luxor....

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Experts: Pistorius violated basic firearms rules

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Even if Oscar Pistorius is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in South Africa believe that, by his own account, the star athlete violated basic gun-handling regulations and exposed himself to a homicide charge by shooting into a closed door without knowing who was behind it.Particularly jarring for firearms instructors and legal experts is that Pistorius testified...

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Advanced Breast Cancer May Be Rising Among Young Women, Study Finds

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have increased slightly over the last three decades, according to a study released Tuesday. But more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study’s authors said. They do not know what may have caused the apparent increase. Some outside experts questioned...

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DealBook: Tribune Hire Banks to Weigh a Sale of Its Newspapers

4:43 p.m. | Updated The Tribune Company has hired investment banks to weigh a sale of its top newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, the media conglomerate said on Tuesday.The media company, which emerged from bankruptcy late last year, has retained JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners as advisers, a spokesman for Tribune said.The spokesman, Gary Weitman, added that the...

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Skepticism Surrounds Resumption of Nuclear Talks With Iran

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program resume here on Tuesday after a break of eight months, but there is a general atmosphere of gloom about their prospects for success, even if narrowly defined. Since talks in Moscow last June, Iran has continued to increase its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, has begun to install a new...

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