Ireland holds historic elections this week — a ballot that could devastate the party blamed for the country's dramatic economic reversal and dump it from office after dominating Irish politics for almost 80 years.
Political and economic danger signs flashing in Portugal and Ireland threaten to punch a hole in the European Union's attempts to contain a financial crisis that has gripped the continent for more than a year.
The Philadelphia Union have won Major League Soccer's lottery for the rights to forward Chris Agorsor.
As three "wives" and 16 children of tycoon Stanley Ho grasp for control of his casino fortune, the veneer of professionalism has peeled from his business empire, one of many family-run companies facing succession time bombs in this southern Chinese entrepot.
South Korean midfielder Park Ji-sung, whose goal against Portugal in the 2002 World Cup advanced the United States to the second round, is retiring from international soccer.
As European leaders are frantically discussing whether the European Union's bailout fund should be increased from its current size of $585 billion, it's clear that the debt crisis in the eurozone is entering a new stage - one in which events can unravel quickly. At this stage, the European sovereign debt crisis has become a systemic problem for the European periphery as a whole - and not just a series of mishaps in its individual countries. As a result, it also has become a systemic problem for the European banking system, as much of the periphery's debt sits on balance sheets of major German banks.
Tensions over Europe's simmering debt crisis eased slightly on Wednesday as ailing Portugal, viewed as the next candidate for a bailout after Greece and Ireland, showed it can still raise money on international markets and the EU proposed to boost the size and powers of its rescue fund.
Borrowing rates for Portugal briefly spiked Monday after reports over the weekend that Germany and France are pushing it to accept outside help to keep the debt crisis in Europe from spreading.
A Portuguese model was being held on charges of second-degree murder in the slaying of a celebrity Portuguese television journalist found castrated and bludgeoned to death in a New York hotel, police said Monday.
