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Attacks aimed at Iraqi police, including two in which assailants slammed explosives-packed cars into police stations, killed 25 people Wednesday and maimed dozens in the worst violence in the capital since August.
Less than three months before American troops are to leave Iraq, the blasts were a brutal example of the challenges Iraqi security forces will […]

Dan Chan, with a B-plus average and only a few volunteering credentials, wasn’t optimistic when he applied for a $20,000 scholarship at Ryerson University. But he took the time to fill out a submission, highlighting his achievements, and received one of the awards for the 2010 year.
Nobody was more surprised than the recent MBA graduate, […]

ST. LOUIS

ConocoPhillips says it has collected 99 percent of the offshore spills in China’s Bohai Bay and expects to meet a deadline to finish its cleanup by Tuesday.
China’s State Oceanic Administration, meanwhile, criticized the oil company’s handling of the spills which began in June and said it would work with those affected, reportedly including scallops growers […]

Cleveland has apparently grown weary of the rotting homes dotting its dying neighborhoods and decided to bring in the bulldozers – and send the tab to banks, NPR reported this morning.
It’s the first I’ve heard of what seems an increasingly reasonable, if extreme, response to our seemingly endless housing crisis: Cut our losses, share the pain – and move on. 
Cleveland has […]

Clayton-based Spellman Brady & Co. provided the furniture and signs for the recent renovation of Anheuser-Busch Hall at Fontbonne University.
The three-story, 44,000 square-foot building houses three departments

Fixed mortgage rates fell to at or near record lows. That’s good news for the few who can afford to buy a home or are able to refinance. But the rates have done little to lift the ailing housing market.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate for the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.32 […]

Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc., which reported flat earnings on Wednesday after becoming a public company a week earlier, said it plans to rejuvenate the struggling Baskin-Robbins brand in the U.S. and expand its Dunkin’ Donuts chain into Europe.
Dunkin’ Donuts’ U.S. revenue grew 6.3 percent over the year, helped by the success of new stores. But […]

The Continental Life high-rise apartment building in Midtown

Volkswagen opened a plant in Tennessee last month with 2,000 workers. Honda is hiring 1,000 in Indiana to meet demand for its best-selling Civic. General Motors is looking for 2,500 in Detroit to build the Chevy Volt.
Two years after the end of the Great Recession, the auto industry is hiring again