Moscow / AFP Russians went to the polls Sunday in parliamentary polls, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin set to maintain their dominance despite the longest economic crisis of his rule. The nationwide election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen the country seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, plunge into its worst standoff with the West since …

  The betting is that the Federal Reserve won’t raise interest rates at this week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, its key policymaking body. There are already complaints that the Fed, which cut short-term rates to near zero in late 2008, is waiting too long to reverse low rates. Last December, the Fed increased rates by a quarter …

  Data is the raw material we use as the basis for analysis. Investors demand it. Baseball fans love it. Quants live for it. Pollsters depend on it. Data is the difference between anecdote and evidence, between opinion and facts, between life and death (ask a surgeon or airline pilot). Data drives the economic world around us. It is how …