WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit New Zealand, 30 km (20 miles) west of Christchurch early on Saturday morning, causing no immediate reports of casualties but widespread damage, authorities said. The quake, which had a depth of 33 kms (20.5 miles), struck around 4.35 ...

The settlement filing comes on the same day Google announced changes to its privacy policies to make them "more transparent and understandable," Associate General Counsel Mike Yang said on the company website. Launched in February, Buzz initially used an individual's email contacts from ...

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Boeing 747-400 cargo plane operated by United Parcel Service Inc crashed shortly after takeoff into a military compound near Dubai's airport on Friday, killing two crew members, authorities said. U.S. parcel delivery company UPS confirmed the crash of the plane, which was en ...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc removed a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well on Friday afternoon, a company spokesman said. "The Deepwater Horizon BOP stack was successfully detached" from the Macondo well shortly after 1 p.m. CDT (1800 GMT), spokesman ...

MANTEO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Hurricane Earl slapped North Carolina's coast with heavy wind and surf on Friday and then weakened as it swirled up the U.S. eastern seaboard toward New England and Canada as a much tamer storm than feared. Forecasters downgraded Earl to a Category 1 hurricane ...

CHATHAM, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Residents and business owners in the beach communities of Cape Cod and nearby islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard hung plywood over their shop windows on Friday and rued the arrival of Hurricane Earl, which appeared set to spoil their holiday weekend. But ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than expected and private hiring surprised on the upside, easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up economic growth. Nonfarm payrolls fell 54,000, the Labor Department said on ...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's Taliban threatened on Friday to launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon." The warning came after a renewal of militant violence in Pakistan this week that is piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by the ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will outline new measures next week to boost the U.S. economy after August data on Friday showed again that jobs -- the central issue in November elections -- were being created too slowly. Obama, speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, ...

"The usefulness of performance reviews is open to debate. Some people think they are one-sided, ungrounded, and too sugarcoated. Others believe they are an invaluable tool in employee development. Here are three ways to make your reviews more of the latter and less of the former: 1. Reduce ...