Your customized headlines for Thu, May 3, 2012

The Carlyle Group will sell shares in its firm on the Nasdaq stock market Thursday at a price of $22 per share, a slight drop from what the firm had hoped for in its highly anticipated initial public offering.

MADRID — Six months after being laid off from a surveying job, Manuel Martin has had it with Spain.

The construction industry here is moribund, he said, and he has no expectation that it will rebound anytime soon. Pausing during a bicycle ride in the suburbs of Madrid, Martin and a friend noted the for-sale signs displayed at some of the apartment buildings and point to building projects that were abandoned mid-stream.

A top federal regulator overseeing the banking sector said Wednesday that reforms begun after the financial crisis are still far from complete and raised concerns that the energy behind the effort may be fading.

More than a year after President Obama signed a landmark food-safety bill, the key provisions are hung up at a unit of the White House that is in charge of reviewing proposed policy changes.

The delay at the Office of Management and Budget baffles consumer advocates and industry groups, which joined forces to lobby for passage of the legislation and press for its funding. The united front by this unusual alliance — and the president's enthusiastic endorsement of the legislation in the past — makes the hold-up especially puzzling.

MADRID — Six months after being laid off from a surveying job, Manuel Martin has had it with Spain.

The construction industry here is moribund, he said, and he has no expectation that it will rebound anytime soon. Pausing during a bicycle ride in the suburbs of Madrid, Martin and a friend noted the for-sale signs displayed at some of the apartment buildings and point to building projects that were abandoned mid-stream.

— "Politics is weird. And creepy. And now I know lacks even the loosest attachment to anything like reality."

— The backstory on how the White House press pool kept secret President Obama's 36-hour visit to Afghanistan.

Amy Berman was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer when she was 51. In an essay for Health Affairs and The Washington Post, the former nurse reflects on her decision to pursue palliative care, after doctors initially steered her towards more aggressive treatment:

The original idea for the European Monetary Union was a bit odd. Here you had a bunch of very different countries — from Germany to Greece to Ireland — yoked together under a single currency, the euro. It sounded more like a reality show than an economic policy. And it hasn't turned out well.

TUCSON — Richard Carmona, the Democratic candidate for senator from Arizona, had a rough childhood in New York City. His Puerto Rican parents had drug and alcohol problems, and he was homeless for a time. He dropped out of high school and went to Vietnam, where he won two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars.