National / International News

Amancio Ortega has just bumped Warren Buffett off his No. 3 spot on Forbes' list of billionaires. The Spanish entrepreneur's clothing chain has become highly popular around the world, but do you know the man behind the label?

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Amancio Ortega has just bumped Warren Buffett off his No. 3 spot on Forbes' list of billionaires. The Spanish entrepreneur's clothing chain has become highly popular around the world, but do you know the man behind the label?

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Arsene Wenger insists his side can come back from 3-1 down to beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

Black smoke emerges from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating that cardinals have failed to elect a new pope on their first day of voting.

At the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008, that could be seen as the bad news. If you prefer to think of it as good news though, at the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008. That's according to the Federal Reserve.

It's the paradox of debt -- leverage, as Wall Street likes to say. According to Matt Phillips, with the business website Quartz, this borrowing is, “for the economy, in the short term, a good thing." Phillips said this debt isn't being used for mortgages; mostly people are buying cars with auto loans and borrowing to pay for college.

"In auto loans, there is subprime and subprime has been growing as a share of pie," said Phillips. "If we do want to do any fundamental reshaping to the way the economy works, a necessary precondition to that is to have economic growth. And if economic growth depends on consumer debt, then as long as it doesn't get out of control, you can argue that this is a good thing."

Phillips says the U.S. economy is still largely fueled by debt and consumer spending -- and has been for the last 30 years.

Kerry Griffiths has told of her experience of first meeting and then getting to know Jimmy Savile over many years. She said she never felt upset or violated by his "inappropriate and creepy behaviour" and, at the time, was pleased to be receiving such attention from him.

Royal Bank of Scotland is to give up control of Direct Line after saying it will sell part of its stake in the insurer.

Like the famous cherry blossoms forecast to bloom in a few weeks, this time of year is marked by the arrival of competing, partisan and utterly doomed federal budget proposals.

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Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope to help ease the huge demand for dialysis, but transplants have their own cost.

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Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope this will ease the huge demand for dialysis.

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Our V.I.P. and Radiolab host Jad Abumrad plays a game about unintentional scientific discoveries and inventions.

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Food watchdogs, ministers and retailers must all learn lessons from the horsemeat scandal, David Cameron says as he appears at the Commons Liaison Committee.

Cardinals have entered the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, where they will begin voting to elect a new Pope.

Venezuelan officials say they will set up inquiry to investigate suspicions that President Hugo Chavez might have been murdered by foreign intelligence agencies.

One name has been "retired." Others have never been reused. John is the most popular. It's a tradition going back to the year 533 that a new pope chooses a name other than the one he was born with. He's likely sending a message about what type of leader he hopes to be.

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President Bashar Assad's government has repeatedly blamed religious extremists for the uprising. Now, the most prominent Muslim cleric says it is the religious duty of Syrians to fight in support of the government.

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The DUP and senior members of the UUP held detailed talks about a merger last year, the BBC learns.

A seven-year-old boy dies from his injuries after being struck by a car in the Midlothian town of Penicuik.

A mother is said to have given her 13-year-old daughter three ecstasy tablets as a birthday present, the BBC learns.

New York City police officer Gilberto Valle is convicted of plotting to murder his wife, and cook and eat other women.