BRUSSELS (AP) — European countries should ease off their austerity and adopt more growth-friendly policies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Monday as he kicked off a series of meetings with the region's top leaders. America's biggest trading partner and the world's largest economic bloc has entered the fourth year of its debt crisis, which has plunged many of the 27 EU governments into recession. The U.S. administration hopes Europe will relent in its focus on debt reduction, which has been hurting growth through spending cuts and tax increases. Lew, who became treasury secretary in February, started his first official...