NEWS As the Syrian civil war rages into its third year, it is taking a wide and disastrous toll on the country’s young people. Nearly one-third of the population of 22 million inside Syria needs humanitarian help, and 1.4 million have fled their homeland altogether. Of about 500,000 seeking shelter in Jordan, about 55 percent are under 18. Jodi Rudoren reports from Sabha, Jordan.
Investigators in three countries continued unraveling the plot behind a brazen $50 million diamond robbery in Belgium, focusing Thursday on a Swiss lawyer, a real estate businessman and a French luxury car exporter with a prison record for fraud. Doreen Carvajal reports from Paris.
An elementary school in eastern Slovakia is a microcosm of one of Europe’s biggest challenges: how to bring its most disadvantaged minority, the Roma, into the mainstream. Andrew Higgins reports from Sarisske Michalany, Slovakia.
The two companies that make vaccines against cervical cancer announced Thursday that they would cut their prices to the world’s poorest countries below $5 per dose, eventually making it possible for millions of girls to be protected against a major deadly cancer. Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports.
Memorials to victims of drug violence are ubiquitous in Culiacán, Mexico, but officials are slowly asking families’ permission to replace them with discreet marble plaques. Karla Zabludovsky reports from Culiácan, Mexico.
Just in time for Richard Wagner’s bicentennial this month, a controversy has erupted over a new production of the opera “Tannhäuser†in Düsseldorf because of violent depictions of a Nazi concentration camp in its staging. Nicholas Kulish reports from Berlin.
A group of investors plans to file an unusual lawsuit against the Bank of Spain, accusing the central bank of failing to warn investors of the problems at Bankia, a giant mortgage lender whose downfall helped set off a banking crisis that obliged Spain to seek a bailout from Europe. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.
ARTS With the National Art Museum of China, also known as Namoc, planning to open in a new building in Beijing in 2017, and Hong Kong projected to open its M+ museum in a new cultural district about the same time, the cities could emerge as twin titans of contemporary Chinese culture. Kevin Holden Platt reports from Beijing.
Frieze New York, which opens its second edition Friday in Randall’s Island Park in Manhattan, remains a daring move and a gamble for the London art show and its organizers. Roslyn Sulcas reports from London.
SPORTS The man chosen to follow Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager is described as loyal, dependable, full of integrity. The fact that United, probably the biggest brand in global soccer, handed David Moyes a six-year contract makes its own statement. Rob Hughes writes from London.
