GERMANY

Wall Street fell for a third straight day on Thursday after continued contraction in manufacturing in both the euro zone and China fueled worries about the global economy.

The number of Americans claiming new unemployment benefits dropped to a four-year low last week, offering further evidence the jobs market recovery was gaining traction.

The euro zone slid back into recession in March as output fell for the second quarter running, reaching a new three-month low, according to Markit's Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index on Thursday.

The worst of the euro zone crisis is over and the European Central Bank will act if inflation risks grow, ECB President Mario Draghi said in a German newspaper interview released on Thursday, seeking to ease angst in Germany about price rises.

Stock index futures fell on Thursday after manufacturing data in the euro zone and China increased worry about a slowing global economy.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower opening on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.6 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.57 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.58 percent at 1000 GMT.

Asian shares gave back earlier gains Thursday after data showed China's factory activity shrank for a fifth successive month, underscoring concerns about a growth slowdown in the world's second largest economy.

Asian shares inched up Thursday but remained in ranges as investors waited for manufacturing data from China and the euro zone due during this session for more clues about the state of their economies.

Germany's Deutsche Bank AG changed the legal status of its main U.S. subsidiary, Taunus Corp, as a way to avoid injecting billions of dollars of capital into the unit by 2015.

European policy makers have identified a large shortfall in computing and IT skills among young people that threatens to dent Europe's ability to compete and could exacerbate youth unemployment in the coming decade.

John Demjanjuk, the former Nazi guard convicted for his involvement with the deaths of 28,000 people, will be buried in Cleveland, Ohio, the city where he settled after fleeing Germany after World War II.

The move means that banks in Japan and 10 EU nations have been given a six-month break from being cut off from the US financial system while they work to reduce their dependence on Iranian oil.

At speeds even he could barely imagine, Albert Einstein's private papers and innermost thoughts will soon be available online, from a rare scribble of "E=mc2" in his own hand, to political pipe-dreams and secret love letters to his mistress.

Ninety-five-year-old actress and great-aunt of Paris Hilton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, has been in and out of the hospital since the early 2000's. The ailing 95-year-old is making headlines as her much younger husband, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt and her daughter, Constance, Francesa Hilton, prepare to duke it out in court over a conservatorship of Gabor.

Shares of Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 2 percent in pre-market trading after the No. 1 database developer reported third-quarter results that beat estimates.They fell later.

Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Colombian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo are set to be nominated to lead the World Bank, sources with knowledge of emerging market efforts to find candidates said on Tuesday.

The world's largest television and online retailer QVC Inc. is starting a joint venture with China's national radio broadcaster to enter the world's most populous growing consumer and media market.

The French president’s 2010 campaign seems reminiscent of the British election in 1979, when Conservative Margaret Thatcher fought to become the UK’s first Prime Minister.

The most significant legacy of the coup was the blowback the U.S. suffered in Iran.

The survey suggests that almost one-third of Europeans surveyed hold strong prejudices against Jews.

Major indexes across Europe were down Tuesday on negative news regarding an expected slowdown in Chinese economic growth.