Published: Feb 23, 2012
DAYTON, Tex. — A 2-year-old girl was tied up in a restraint attached to her bed. Nearby another 2-year-old child, a boy, was restrained to his bed, too. A third child, a blind 5-year-old girl who appeared to be in a daze, was tied up on a filthy mattress. An 11-year-old boy had a black eye and finger marks on his forearms, and one of his
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
The weary sameness of life at sea has taken its toll on the crew members of the S.S. Glencairn. Even drunk, desperate and quarrelsome, these sullen salts rarely raise or otherwise vary their voices. They sound pretty much the same whether they’re anguished or angry or excited or on their deathbeds. The monotony of a sailor’s lot has
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
Men, or at least male biologists, have long been alarmed that their tiny Y chromosome, once the same size as its buxom partner, the X, will continue to wither away until it simply vanishes. The male sex would then become extinct, they fear, leaving women to invent some virgin-birth method of reproduction and propagate a sexless species. The fear is
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
It was the two-headed baby trout that got everyone’s attention. Photographs of variously mutated brown trout were relegated to an appendix of a scientific study commissioned by the J. R. Simplot Company , whose mining operations have polluted nearby creeks in southern Idaho. The trout were the offspring of local fish caught in the wild that
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
BRUSSELS — During the past decade, the European Union blazed a green trail with a series of laws mandating a low-carbon economy and promises to set an example for other parts of the world. That now seems like another era. A succession of economic crises has pushed European governments to pare subsidies to clean-energy sectors like solar power
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea urged China on Wednesday to follow “international norms” in its treatment of North Korean refugees, as his government shifted to a more aggressive diplomatic effort to persuade China that it should not arrest and repatriate North Koreans who have fled there. Human rights
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
DUBAI — The stock market that has most consistently ranked as a top performer in the Arab world over the past few years has not been that of Dubai or Cairo, but the Palestine Securities Exchange in Nablus on the West Bank. During the Arab Spring uprising last year, the financial crisis in 2008 and the regional boom year of 2005, the exchange
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Published: Feb 23, 2012
BENGHAZI, LIBYA — Malik Muhammad al-Mabrouk sat two weeks ago in a darkened corner of the Uzu Hotel cafe lounge, the screen of his propped-up iPad illuminating his face. Notepad, pen and cellphone at the ready, and wearing his trademark beige photographer’s vest, he was preparing to interview a former opposition leader who recently
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Published: Feb 22, 2012
LOS ANGELES — Antonio R. Villaraigosa was elected mayor of this city in 2005 on a wave of excitement that began collapsing within two years, as he confessed to an extramarital affair with a television reporter, struggled to run City Hall amid an economic downturn and disappointed supporters who thought he was drawn to the glamour, rather than
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Published: Feb 22, 2012
WASHINGTON — In a 2003 decision that the majority said it expected would last for 25 years, the Supreme Court allowed public colleges and universities to take account of race in admission decisions. On Tuesday, the court signaled that it might end such affirmative action much sooner than that. By agreeing to hear a major case involving
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