BOSTON – Mutual funds aren’t horses. You don’t pick them by name, color or by the celebrity who is involved in the ownership group. Yet two recent stories making headlines in the fund business make it clear that some people get distracted by irrelevant details. The two stories have a …

BOMBAY, India – Demonstrators in India shouted “Death to America!” and burned effigies of President Bush on Tuesday, demanding that he be barred from visiting the country this week. Bush arrives in India Wednesday for a three-day visit focused on strengthening the emerging strategic partnership between India and the United …

WASHINGTON – Innovative and efficient workers are important contributors to the economy’s good health, now and in the future, President Bush said Monday as he projected another year of solid economic growth. To build upon U.S. worker productivity and keep the economy flourishing, Bush made a fresh pitch in his …

BOSTON – Not long ago, a friend asked me to give a talk at the local library, hoping I’d say “something different on retirement savings.” That’s no small challenge, because any discussion of retirement planning typically boils down to “Are you saving enough?” and/or “You need to save more.” I …

WASHINGTON – The number of Iraqi army battalions judged by their American trainers to be capable of leading the fight against the insurgency has grown by nearly 50 percent since last September, but the number operating with no U.S. help has slipped from one to none, senior Pentagon officials said …

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Stray bullets whizzing through slums, kidnappings, suffocating poverty and a dying economy — Haitians have no shortage of things they would like to change about their troubled country. They will have their say on Tuesday in long-delayed elections aimed at restoring elusive democracy, two years after a …

LONDON – Kevin Costner was accused of performing an indecent act as he received a massage at a Scottish hotel, in a claim by a former spa worker filed with a British employment tribunal. The 34-year-old woman claimed the actor exposed himself and carried out a sex act as she …

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – A boat packed with West Africans trying to reach Europe collided with a fishing vessel, leaving 32 of the migrants missing and believed drowned, Mauritanian officials said Sunday. Mauritania, located in the northwest of Africa about 600 miles from Spain’s Canary Islands, has increasingly become a jumping-off …

NEW ORLEANS – The third-place finisher in the New Orleans mayoral primary decided Monday to endorse Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu over incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin in the runoff election. Ron Forman, the head of the Audubon Nature Institute, planned to make the formal announcement Monday afternoon. His campaign and Landrieu’s …

TOKYO – China‘s refusal to hold a summit with Japan because of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi‘s visits to a Tokyo war shrine is “incomprehensible,” he said Tuesday. China has refused to meet with Koizumi in recent years, in part to protest his annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s …