March 5 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
* China lowered its economic growth forecast to about 7 percent for 2015 at the opening of the country's biggest political event of the year, ushering in what leaders have dubbed a "new normal" of slower growth in the world's second largest economy.(http://on.wsj.com/1B92uOE)
* AbbVie Inc said late Wednesday it will buy cancer biotech Pharmacyclics Inc in a $21 billion deal that returns the North Chicago drug company to deal-making after backing away from a big tax-lowering takeover last year.(http://on.wsj.com/1B93qTd)
* Investors snapped up a half-billion euros of French utility bonds that will pay them no interest, a groundbreaking deal that shows how corporations are rushing to take advantage of Europe's efforts to keep interest rates low to try to revive the continent's economy.(http://on.wsj.com/1B951sl)
* Simon Property Group Inc has made takeover approaches to Macerich Co, seeking to combine two of the largest shopping-mall owners in the U.S.(http://on.wsj.com/1B95pqN)
* Etsy Inc unveiled plans to further test investors' appetite for e-commerce companies, filing for an initial public offering a decade after it was founded in a Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment as a way to sell handmade goods online.(http://on.wsj.com/1B96tLj)
* McDonald's Corp plans to curtail antibiotics use in its U.S. chicken, a move that could help kick-start a broader food-industry response to growing public-health alarm around drug-resistant bacteria.(http://on.wsj.com/1B96rmH)
(Compiled by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru)