MIIX, which was the 15th-largest malpractice insurer when St Paul made its announcement, has since gone into liquidation.

ECONOMIST: Medical-malpractice insurance

The game industry has definitely scaled back its spending from years gone by, when Sony and Microsoft would compete with more elaborate concerts.

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After nearly two years when little has gone right for the software giant in its epic antitrust struggle against America's government, it has had two pieces of good news in a row.

ECONOMIST: Microsoft gets a break

And he gave a frank assessment of where New Labour had gone wrong in its early days in government under Mr Blair, when it saw public service reform in terms of "centralisation rather than decentralisation".

BBC: Brown unity show with Blairites

Ford's plan also has the merit of detailing in crisp, no-nonsense terms where the firm has gone wrong in the past, perhaps because its chief executive, Alan Mulally, was at Boeing when those mistakes were being made.

ECONOMIST: America's carmakers

There was a brief thaw in relations when the Cold War ended, because with the Red Navy gone the U.S. Navy needed to highlight its relevance to fighting ashore, but the more common pattern is for the Navy to constantly question the requirement for Marine assets like vertical-takeoff jets and maritime prepositioning ships (which store warfighting supplies in likely areas of conflict).

FORBES: Gates Challenges Marine Corps' Mission