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• BRUSSELS (AP) -- When they meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union will face a daunting task: Find a solution to a debt crisis that's spread misery across Europe, raised doubts about the euro currency, rattled investors and threatened global growth.
• Investors have driven up interest rates on Spanish and Italian debt to unsustainable levels, raising the risk those big countries will need a bailout the rest of Europe can't afford. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro is 11 percent, the highest since the euro was adopted in 1999.
• A $125 billion plan to bail out Spanish banks has failed to calm financial markets. Even an election that brought a pro-euro-alliance Greek government to power failed to reassure investors that Greece would continue to pay its bills, keep using the euro and avoid a financial crackup that could set off a worldwide panic.
• The EU leaders will consider plans to:
• --Tackle Europe's government debt problems.
• ___

• A committee of university presidents approved a plan for a four-team college

football playoff, starting in 2014.
• Here's what you need to know about the new postseason format put together by the commissioners of the 11 major college football conferences and Notre Dame's athletic director.
• HOW WILL THE TEAMS BE CHOSEN? A selection committee will pick the four teams, using guidelines such as strength of schedule, head-to-head results and won-loss record, after the regular season. The committee will give preference to conference champions. The makeup of the committee is to be determined, but it will likely be about 20 conference commissioners and college athletic directors.
• WHERE WILL THE GAMES BE PLAYED? The two semifinals will rotate among six sites. The current BCS games are the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.), Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Ariz.) and Orange Bowl (Miami). The Cotton Bowl, now played at the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has to be considered a front-runner to land one of the other two spots. Candidates for

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