Euro’s Strength on Agenda for Finance Ministers

BRUSSELS — Concern over the euro came to the fore on Monday ahead of a meeting of finance ministers of the countries using the currency. But this time, with the union’s recession continuing, the topic was the strength of the euro rather than its many weaknesses. As confidence has grown that the European Union will be able to manage its sovereign debt crisis, the euro has made significant...

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Paterno Family Challenges Accusation of Cover-Up

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — A new report commissioned by the family of Joe Paterno, the former Penn State coach, challenges the conclusion by the former F.B.I. director Louis Freeh that Mr. Paterno had conspired to conceal child sex abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator. An executive summary of the critique, released Sunday, said Mr. Freeh’s “observations”...

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All eyes on Frank Ocean as Grammy Awards approach

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Everybody's thinkin' about Frank Ocean.Ocean is a cause celebre and the man with the momentum as Sunday's Grammy Awards approach. One of six top nominees with six nominations apiece, the 25-year-old R&B singer turned cultural talking point will have the music world's attention.It remains to be seen if it will be the "Thinkin Bout You" singer's night, but there's no question...

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help? Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. In her 20s, after a more...

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Heavy Snow and Winds Batter Northeast

A powerful storm swept fast and furiously across the Northeast on Saturday, dumping mountains of snow, forcing hundreds of motorists to abandon their cars at the height of the blizzard and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people. Even with the storm still raging on Saturday morning, officials in Massachusetts ordered the evacuation of some communities along the coast as waves...

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Stars salute MusiCares honoree Bruce Springsteen

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Be it concert or charity auction, Bruce Springsteen can bring any event to a crescendo.Springsteen briefly took over auctioneering duties before being honored as MusiCares person of the year Friday night, exhorting the crowd to bid on a signed Fender electric guitar by amping up the deal. The 63-year-old rock 'n' roll star moved the bid north from $60,000 by offering a series of...

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In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said. The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio. Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of...

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U.S. Use of Mexican Battery Recyclers Is Faulted

United States companies are sending spent lead batteries to recycling plants in Mexico that do not meet American environmental standards, according to an environmental agency created under the North American Free Trade Agreement, putting Mexican communities at risk. In a blistering report submitted this week, the agency, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, notes that the United...

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Big Storm and Its Disruptions Descend on the Northeast

Mary Altaffer/Associated PressPedestrians made their way to work in New York on Friday morning. As heavy, wet snow started to blanket much of the Northeast on Friday morning, people rushed to stores to stock up on supplies, drivers lined up at gas stations to fill their tanks and local authorities from New York City to Maine started working to battle what forecasters said could be the biggest blizzard...

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Uggs? Ugh. NY Fashion Week battles the elements

NEW YORK (AP) — Mother Nature is clearly not a fashionista.An impending blizzard forced Michael Kors to arrive at New York Fashion Week's Project Runway show on Friday in — gasp — Uggs."I came in looking like Pam Anderson," he joked backstage, where the offending boots had been traded for tasteful black leather.Marc Jacobs postponed his Monday night show until Thursday, citing delivery problems, but...

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