Moscow / AFP Russia on Thursday launched large-scale snap military drills, putting its troops on full combat readiness in districts bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, the defence minister said. “In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (President Vladimir Putin), a spot check started today,” Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said ...

  One of the economy’s bright spots is the job market — and it may be even brighter than it seems. Not only are there more jobs (1.3 million so far in 2016), but they may be better-paying, according to a new analysis by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Fed economists report that middle-wage workers ...

  There has been a steady drumbeat of negativity about housing ever since the residential real-estate market crashed. While there are some signs of recovery, psychological damage persists. It has been a few years since we last looked at this issue, so we’re overdue for a revisit. Everyone has to live somewhere, and where and in what kind of housing ...

  The Environmental Protection Agency’s intention to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from airplanes may sound like a small thing. U.S. aircraft are responsible for just 3 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and 0.5 percent of total emissions worldwide. In the U.S., coal-fired power plants generate almost seven times as much carbon dioxide as planes. But air travel grows by 5 ...

  Recession and slowdown in growth are set to drive the youth unemployment rate to a 20-year high with 71 million young people out of work. So, we may see a young population equal to an entire Thailand unemployed by the end of this year. The findings of International Labour Organisation (ILO) are unsettling because it is the labour market ...

  Hillary Clinton enjoys about a five-point polling lead over Donald Trump. One way to look at this is that it’s a margin, at this stage of a presidential race, that is rarely reversed. Here’s another way. The Democrats had a successful convention, the Republicans didn’t. Clinton’s campaign has been smooth; Trump’s has careened between disasters. She has reached out ...

  The Republicans won’t stop harping about President Barack Obama’s handling of the Louisiana floods. Their media focus until this week was to talk exclusively about whether he would break into his August vacation and tour the damage. When he got there, of course, it was (for them) too little, too late. What has been noteworthy about this coverage is ...

  Once upon a time, a regular hacker could make decent money in the world of ransomware, malicious software that locks up parts of a victim’s computer and demands payment to restore access. Now those days are gone. I blame globalization. Ransomware has only recently entered the public consciousness, thanks to the high-profile extortion of a Los Angeles hospital and ...

  New York / Bloomberg U.S. stocks fluctuated amid a batch earnings after erasing an early decline, while investors awaited clues on the path of interest-rate increases before a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Friday. HP Inc. sank 4.9 percent after forecasting earnings that may miss analyst projections. Signet Jewelers Ltd. dropped 14 percent as its profit ...

Dubai / Reuters Gulf stock markets extended losses in early trade on Thursday with banks leading Saudi Arabia down, as investors continued to pull out of equities over concerns about the region’s economic slowdown and policies of austerity. The Saudi index, which on Wednesday fell below minor technical support on the April low of 6,066 points, sank a further 1.4 ...