A puppy boom is under way, as Barbet boosters aim to turn a rare variety of French water dog into a bona fide breed. There are fewer than 100 Barbets in the U.S., but owners of the shaggy pooches say their benefits include an allergy-resistant coat and a family-friendly, energetic personality. When Teacleopatra Biscay's Sapphire—a fluffy, chocolate-colored pooch better known as Cleo—gave birth to 11 puppies this past Thanksgiving in Indiana, the U.S. population of the Barbet breed spiked by 15%. Barbet Then, a few months ago in Pennsylvania, Champion Neigenuveaux's Ermagarde, or just plain old Claire, had a litter of two girls, a 2% jump that brought the total population to some 85 dogs. A puppy boom is under way, as Barbet boosters have ... Continue reading →

What is the happiest nation in the world? The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development published its Better Life Index, and WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to reporter Enda Curran about who came out on top. SYDNEY—Australia is living up to its nickname of "the lucky country," with a new survey marking it as the happiest industrialized nation in the world based on criteria such as jobs, income and health. Having sidestepped the economic malaise gripping much of Europe and with near full employment owing to a once-in-a-century resources boom, Australia has come out on top ahead of Norway and the U.S. in the annual Better Life Index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The findings come despite fresh signs that not every ... Continue reading →

BY ALISTAIR MACDONALD AND PAUL SONNE Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died on Sunday, two years and nine months after the Scottish government discharged him from prison on the grounds that he had about three months to live. The Libyan national died at age 60 after a long fight with prostate cancer, his relatives told the Associated Press. He was the only person ever convicted in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, a passenger plane that exploded over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground. A neighbor of the ...BY ALISTAIR MACDONALD AND PAUL SONNE Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died on Sunday, two years and nine months ... Continue reading →

A few of the army of purple london cabs buzzin' round Baku ahead of #eurovision. @paulsonne http://t.co/zvYGBN4v Continue reading →

VESTMANNAEYJAR, Iceland—Three and a half years after Iceland collapsed in a heap, Dadi Palsson's fish-processing plant has the air of a surprising economic recovery. Mr. Palsson arrived at 4 a.m. on a recent workday. Twelve tons of cod were coming in. Soon, his workers would bone, slice and pack the fish for loading onto towering container ships headed abroad. Three years after a spectacular financial collapse, Iceland is coming back, largely on the strength of its strong exports. Video and reporting by Charles Forelle from the island of Vestmannaeyjar. In 2008, Iceland was the first casualty of the financial crisis that has since primed the euro zone for another economic disaster: Greece is edging toward a cataclysmic exit from the euro, Spain is racked by ... Continue reading →

Four months after the Turkish military, working with U.S. Intelligence, bombed a civilian convoy incorrectly identified as Kurdish militants, survivors and relatives are demanding answers. Reporting and video by WSJ's Joe Parkinson in Uludere, Turkey. ULUDERE, Turkey—After winding along a narrow mountain ridge, a caravan of 38 men and mules paused on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Then they heard the propellers overhead. Minutes later, Turkish military aircraft dropped bombs that killed all but four of the men. The strike in late December was meant to knock out Kurdish separatist fighters. Instead it killed civilians smuggling gasoline, a tragic blunder in Turkey's nearly three-decade campaign against the guerrillas. The killings ignited protests across the country and prompted wide-ranging official inquiries. The civilian toll also set off alarms ... Continue reading →

Who's your daddy? Now a website may know for sure. Companies crossing DNA-mapping technology with social networking are developing a brave new world in which samples of customers' genes can be used to map family trees, find relationships people never knew they had, and identify adopted children's biological parents. Earlier this month, Ancestry.com Inc., a genealogy-research website with about 1.9 million subscribers, rolled out a $99 DNA service that lets users compare some 700,000 points on their own genome with those of others in its database. The site, which also charges a monthly subscription fee of $12.95, uses DNA data to create a map of users' ethnic backgrounds and uncover biological relationships between people. Ancestry, based in Provo, Utah, is the biggest company yet to ... Continue reading →