Bloomberg Rebiotix Inc., a closely held biotechnology company, said its drug that restores beneficial gut bacteria was better than a placebo at keeping life-threatening intestinal infections from recurring in a human trial. Recurrences of infections with Clostridium difficile, a potentially deadly microbe that often attacks sick, hospitalized patients, were prevented in 63.9 percent of people who took the drug, ...

  Frankfurt / AFP There will still be more books than you could ever read, but visitors to this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair will also be invited to don virtual reality goggles, visit an interactive classroom and discover 3D-printed art as publishers plug into new technology. Organisers of the world’s largest publishing event say the focus on art and technology ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s heating season has started with a bang, as natural gas contracts reverse a two-year slump. Gas for next-day delivery in the UK is on its longest rising streak since at least 2007, when records of broker data compiled by Bloomberg began. The contract has added 23 percent this month, after rising 52 percent in September in the ...

Many of the prominent Conservative Party politicians who led the “leave” campaign in Britain’s referendum on the European Union did so with good intentions. They argued that leaving the EU would allow Britain to escape growth-shackling European policies, freeing markets both internally and externally. It is on this basis that “Economists for Brexit” predicted a Brexit boost of up to ...

  Another small step was taken last week on the steep and winding ascent back to constitutional norms. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the nation’s second-most important court, did its judicial duty by reprimanding Congress for abandoning constitutional propriety. The court declared unconstitutional the unprecedented independence that Congress conferred on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This ...

  Only two years ago, 55 percent of Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom, which was then part of the European Union. Since then, the U.K. has decided it does not want to be part of the EU, so Scottish nationalists now want another vote. If their fellow Scots agree, they should get it. Just not yet. Scotland ...

  Following the 2008 global recession, five major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa joined hands to form the BRICS group in 2011. The bloc held a crucial meeting in Goa recently. Its top highlight was the pledge taken by the members to fast-track establishment of a new ratings agency as the existing ones — Moody’s, Standard ...

  There is good news when it comes to China’s scary and still-growing pile of debt: At least the government recognizes the problem. Its attempts to mitigate those risks, however, seem doomed to fall short. The government’s recent decision to create a market for credit default swaps is a case in point. The idea, as elsewhere, is to give banks ...

  Will Italy follow the U.K.’s example and leave the European Union? Far-fetched as it may seem, capital flows suggest that some people aren’t waiting to find out. To keep the euro area’s accounts in balance, Europe’s central banks track flows of money among the members of the currency union. If, for example, a depositor moves 100 euros from Italy ...

  If, as polls are indicating, Hillary Clinton is the next U.S. president — the election forecaster Nate Silver says there’s an 86 percent chance — her initial years in office will depend less on the size and shape of her victory than on which party controls the Senate. Although the battle for control of the chamber, where Republicans currently ...