Financial stocks took a beating Tuesday, pushing down global equities markets along with the euro, after disarray in the euro zone once again raised fears of more financial turmoil.

The New York Police Department, already saddled with corruption scandals, saw its image further tainted on Tuesday with the conviction of a police detective for planting drugs on a woman and her boyfriend.

ATLANTA — One August night, two men walked into a popular restaurant attached to this city’s fanciest shopping mall. They sat at the bar, ordered drinks and pondered the menu. Two women stood behind them.

Economic growth in the United States picked up modestly in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday, and economists generally expect that it will continue at nearly the same pace through the end of the year.

For the better part of a decade, while drama became more ambitious, and reality shows became more outrageous, comedy had the worst track record in prime time. As recently as 2008, only two comedies ranked among the top 10 shows at this point in a new television season. Two years earlier, the total was zero.

ISTANBUL — At least 240 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured after a powerful earthquake shook eastern Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said on Monday.

After he lost much of his hearing last year at age 57, the composer Richard Einhorn despaired of ever really enjoying a concert or musical again. Even using special headsets supplied by the Metropolitan Opera and Broadway theaters, he found himself frustrated by the sound quality, static and interference.

BRUSSELS — With a new sense of urgency, the leaders of the 27 European Union nations grappled directly on Sunday with their thorniest financial and economic problems, and made progress that they promised could yield a complete package of measures within days.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Any old pond will do. Michael L. May set out one recent Wednesday morning from his cramped office at the Rutgers University entomology building to collect a few dragonflies.

The road to a more pristine lagoon in a county park was closed, so Dr. May pulled off a highway two miles from campus and parked alongside a triangular pond lined with tall weeds and poison ivy and wild hibiscus serving up white shuttlecock flowers. With the traffic on U.S. Route 1 whizzing off in the distance, Dr. May, a bushy-bearded Florida native who just turned 65, grabbed his net and shuffled down the bank until his sneakers sank in the mud.

It seems a rare act of civic sacrifice: in the name of deficit reduction, lawmakers from both parties are calling for the end of a longstanding agricultural subsidy that puts about $5 billion a year in the pockets of their farmer constituents. Even major farm groups are accepting the move, saying that with farmers poised to reap bumper profits, they must do their part.