PARIS / AFP Europe and Russia are set to launch an unmanned spacecraft on Monday to smell Mars’ atmosphere for gassy evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet, or may do so still. ExoMars 2016, the first of a two-phase Mars exploration, will see an orbiter hoisted from Kazakhstan at 0931 GMT Monday on a Russian Proton rocket. ...

Havana / AFP The European Union and Cuba signed a deal to normalize relations, including an agreement on the delicate issue of human rights—a breakthrough just ahead of US President Barack Obama’s historic visit to the island. The agreement, the culmination of nearly two years of negotiations, is a further step toward ending the communist country’s status as a pariah ...

BLOOMBERG Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians are gearing up to march in Sunday’s anti-government protests, which could tip the balance against President Dilma Rousseff in her struggle to remain in office. As of Friday evening, more than 360,000 people had signed up on a Facebook page pledging to take part in opposition marches, a 20 percent increase from Thursday morning. ...

Bloomberg A battle over 27 of the world’s most luxurious resorts spilled over into a Manhattan bankruptcy court the day after a U.K. court approved a settlement involving two former business partners — American entrepreneur Omar Amanat and Russian-born real estate developer Vladislav Doronin. British Virgin Islands-based Aman Resorts Group Ltd., or ARGL, filed a lawsuit in New York blaming ...

Bloomberg Shanghai authorities held a meeting to discuss measures to cool a surge in property prices after recent frenzied residential homebuying, according to people familiar with the matter. The municipal government’s National Development and Reform Commission held discussions with regional authorities from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) , said the people, who ...

Bloomberg At One Riverside Park, a new luxury-condo tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a never-lived-in four-bedroom apartment is available for rent at $22,995 a month, about $2,000 less than the owner was seeking in January. The 2,830-square-foot (260-square-meter) dwelling, with floor-to-ceiling windows and panoramic views of the Hudson River, has competition for tenants. Forty-five percent of the 161 units ...

Bloomberg Marissa Mayer is hopeful of keeping her job leading Yahoo! Inc. even if the struggling Web pioneer changes hands. Under pressure from investors and facing a potential proxy fight, the chief executive officer has pledged to do what’s best for shareholders as Yahoo reviews alternatives for separating its core internet business from a stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. ...

Relaxnews Amazon is working on a platform aimed at teachers and students. According to Techcrunch the platform will enable educators to host and share course materials and the company has already started targeting teachers with something called the Amazon Education Wait List. A message on the site reads –”Someday soon, educators everywhere will have free and unlimited access to first-class ...

Relaxnews A new update for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android users is now available and Adobe recommends downloading and installing it as soon as possible The latest patch – update version 21.0.0.182 – addresses 23 separate potential exploits including one that, according to Adobe, is already being used by hackers for nefarious reasons. Although a number of major websites from ...

Relaxnews Google has made a beta version of its new mobile operating system, Android N, available to developers on a handful of devices (the Nexus 5X, 6, 6P, 9, the Nexus Player and the Pixel C), revealing new features such as a multi-window mode, a simplified notifications system, new options for managing data use and enhanced battery saving. The main ...