Rome / AFP Shoddy, price-cutting renovations, in breach of local building regulations, could be partly to blame for the high death toll from this week’s devastating earthquake in central Italy, according to a prosecutor investigating the disaster. As questions mount over the deaths of nearly 300 people, prosecutor Giuseppe Saieva indicated that property owners who commissioned suspected sub-standard work …

  Detroit / AFP Allegations that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) falsified US sales data are meritless and the company’s financial reports are “totally accurate,” chief executive Sergio Marchionne told reporters. Marchionne said the FCA is cooperating with authorities from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department probing the company’s reporting after it was forced to restate unit …

  AFP Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that negotiations on a massive trade between the European Union and the United States were effectively dead in the water. “The talks with the US have de facto failed because we Europeans of course must not succumb to American demands,” he told public broadcaster ZDF. “Nothing is …