Bloomberg Volkswagen AG’s Audi brand was raided by German prosecutors as investigations into the manipulation of diesel engines continue to weigh on the automaker more than a year after revelations of emissions cheating. More than 100 police took part in searches Wednesday at the company’s main sites in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm as well as seven other locations across Germany. ...

  AP US homebuilders are feeling more optimistic about their sales prospects than they have been since the high-flying days of the housing boom. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Wednesday jumped to 71 this month. That’s up six points from 65 in February and the highest reading since June 2005. Readings above 50 indicate ...

  DAMASCUS / AP A suicide bomber detonated his explosives’ vest inside the main judicial building in the Syrian capital on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people and wounding many others, state media said. The official news agency, SANA, said another suicide explosion struck a restaurant in Rabweh district of Damascus, leading to an identified number of casualties. The bombing ...

  BRUSSELS / AP European Council President Donald Tusk warned Britain on Wednesday that leaving the EU without any formal agreement would harm the UK most. With Britain set in coming days to launch two years of negotiations preparing its departure, Tusk responded to “threats” from across the English Channel that it might be best to walk away without a ...

  BERLIN / AP Three men and a woman were sentenced to prison terms between three and five years on Wednesday for forming a far-right terrorist group in Germany with a plan to bomb refugee homes. The Munich state court ruled that the four founded the so-called Oldschool Society in August 2014. The group grew to have about 30 members ...

  MOGADISHU / AP Britain’s foreign secretary made a surprise visit to Somalia on Wednesday for talks with the country’s new president as a worsening drought threatens millions of people in the Horn of Africa nation. “It is all so, such a shame that you are facing the problems that you are facing, particularly of course the drought and the ...

  MOSCOW / AP Ukraine on Wednesday announced a transport blockade of rebel-held areas that is likely to cause serious economic disruption and could threaten a precarious cease-fire in the east of the country. “It will be in place until the occupiers return stolen Ukrainian industry to Ukrainian jurisdiction,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the country’s national security council in ...

  MANILA / AP The Philippine vice president is raising alarms about the president’s bloody crackdown on illegal drug use, which she says can’t be solved “with bullets alone,” adding that Filipinos should “defy brazen incursions on their rights.” Vice President Leni Robredo’s videotaped comments, which were issued to the media on Wednesday, are some of her sharpest critiques so ...

    While Friday’s jobs report was strong, a look through the details of the report shows that the same people who won in President Barack Obama’s America are the ones winning in the early months of President Donald Trump’s. Without policy proposals, currently lacking from the White House or Congress, that specifically target the types of voters who elected ...

  One of the inescapable conclusions of the economic crisis that engulfed the world a decade ago was that the culture of banking needed to change. Allowing finance to regulate itself ended in spectacular failure, underwritten by the taxes of the masses who didn’t profit from the culture of risk-taking in those institutions. But the resignation this week of a ...