THE CIRCLE

Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines and back taxes to French authorities to settle a years-long dispute over allegations of tax fraud. A court in Paris approved a penalty of 500 million euros ($551 million) from the digital giant over charges of tax evasion. In addition, Google said it paid a further 465 million euros ($513 million) in “additional taxes.” French investigators have been investigating Google’s tax set-up since 2015. Google is paying more than $1 billion in fines and back taxes to settle a pair of tax disputes in France, where it has faced years of investigations into whether it has properly declared all of its activity in the country. France’s financial prosecutor said Thursday that a court has approved a €500 million ($553 million) fine the Alphabet  Inc.   GOOG  - 0.27%  subsidiary agreed to in a settlement of a tax-related criminal probe. The prosecutor has been investigating Google fo...

President Donald Trump is stuck in a political box -- largely of his own making -- on Iran, a predicament that becomes more intractable with each alarming cycle of escalation. In the aftermath of a sophisticated attack on a Saudi oilfield, Trump is being torn between two political and character traits that are starting to define his foreign policy. He's desperate to avoid a new Middle East quagmire, but cannot bear to look weak. "I don't want war with anybody," Trump said Monday before returning to bombast. "We have the strongest military in the world ... we're prepared, more than anybody." The struggle raging inside the President helps explain the contradictory twists of a session with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. His remarks left future US strategy opaque. They also underlined how President's plight is the predictable result of his own political choices. Perched on his yellow armchair, next to the Crown Prince of Bah...

China's economic slowdown keeps getting worse. That could give the country incentive to repair its trading relationship with the United States and take more steps to stimulate its economy. The country released data Monday that showed industrial production — an important indicator for China's economy — increased by just 4.4% in August compared to a year earlier. That's worse than the sector's performance in July, when it grew by 4.8%, its weakest growth in 17 years. Industrial production is important because it measures the output of key businesses in China's manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors. The latest figure was also worse than the 5.2% growth that analysts polled by Reuters expected. Other data released Monday by China's National Bureau of Statistics was also poor. Retail sales growth slowed to 7.5% in August, down from July's 7.6% year-on-year uptick. The world's second biggest economy has been struggling because of i...

India’s $150 million Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission will attempt to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s surface this evening for a pioneering exploration of the lunar south pole. If successful, it will be the country’s second journey to the satellite, following the 2008 Chandrayaan-1 orbiter mission. The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was launched aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s GSLV MkIII-M1 rocket on July 22. The spacecraft, which arrived in lunar orbit one month later, consists of the orbiter vehicle, the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover. The Vikram lander will be the first Indian-made object to touch the lunar face, after which it will deploy the artificial intelligenve-powered six-wheeled Pragyan rover. Chandrayaan-2 will also be the first mission to the southern pole of the moon, where the U.S. intends to land astronauts by 2024. This region is known to contain frozen water, an element crucial to organic life that NASA says is also used...