THESSALONIKI / AP Authorities in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki evacuated an estimated 75,000 people on Sunday so army experts could defuse a 500-pound (227-kilogram) unexploded World War II bomb found under a gas station. The evacuation started at 7 a.m. Police went house-to-house ringing bells and knocking on doors to remind people living within a 1.9-kilometer (1.2-mile) …

  PHNOM PENH / AP Executive members of Cambodia’s beleaguered opposition party on Sunday accepted the resignation of Sam Rainsy, its charismatic leader, and named his deputy, Kem Sokha, acting chief until a party congress can be held. The action came a day after Sam Rainsy, who has been in self-imposed exile since late 2015, resigned his membership in the …

  Bloomberg The chief executives of 18 automakers asked President Donald Trump to reinstate a US Environmental Protection Agency review of fuel efficiency regulations through 2025 that they say was unfairly cut short during the final days of the Obama administration. In a February 10 letter, executives including Mary Barra of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co.’s Mark Fields and …

  Bloomberg Switzerland shot down the government’s plan to reform corporate taxation, a decision that risks hurting its appeal as a place for multinational companies. After opponents said the reform was a series of “complicated tax tricks,” voters opposed it by 60 percent to 40 percent, according to projections on broadcaster SRF. Polls had suggested the electorate was evenly split …

  Bloomberg Coke is trying to slim down its business, not just its sodas. The Atlanta-based company said its profit fell 55 percent as global sales volume dipped and it booked charges related to getting out of the manufacturing and distribution of its drinks. Coca-Cola Co. has been selling those operations back to independent bottlers around the country and plans …

  Bloomberg Large private companies should have to meet the same corporate governance and reporting requirements that apply to publicly traded firms, a panel of lawmakers recommended, citing the collapse of the department-store chain BHS Group Ltd. BHS, formerly known as British Home Stores, went out of business in April 2016 with a pension deficit of at least 570 million …

  Bloomberg Investors buying into Snap Inc.’s much-anticipated initial public offering won’t have any say on how much the company pays its executives. Snap will not be subject to the say-on-pay provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, the company said in an updated deal prospectus. The act was put in place after the 2008 financial crisis to help investors throttle outsized …

  At their post-Civil War apogee, 19th-century Republicans were the party of activist government, using protectionism to pick commercial winners and promising wondrous benefits from government’s deft interventions in economic life. Today, a Republican administration promises that wisely wielded Washington power can rearrange commercial activities in ways superior to those produced by private-sector calculations in free market transactions. According to …

  The issue of what the UK does or doesn’t owe the European Union risks becoming a landmine in the Brexit negotiations. Britain should pay what it legitimately owes for EU services it signed up to. Divorce is never cheap. But by seeking to maximize payment, and by making payment a precondition for the rest of the talks, the EU …

  Economists have come to rival even journalists and politicians in lack of public esteem. That might be partly because so many economists seem as interested in journalism and politics as in advancing their science. But there’s also a deeper problem: Far from advancing, the science of economics has been going backwards. Economists tend to be either practitioners or theorists. …