Barking Cop Makes Arrest

■ Police in New Haven, Conn., frightened a pair of suspected car thieves into surrendering by barking at them like dogs. The two masked men had holed up in an abandoned house, where police surrounded them and threatened to unleash their canine units. But since there were no police dogs available, officers woofed like angry German shepherds. The suspects quickly […]

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Strange Plumes On Mars

  Mysterious plumes of gas rising more than 150 miles above the surface of Mars have left scientists confounded. On two occasions in the spring of 2012, amateur astronomers spotted a cloud developing on the surface of the Red Planet. The plumes, which spanned about 600 miles in diameter and changed shape constantly, appeared within a few hours and remained […]

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Why the beach is a pitiful sight

Britain’s “decayed seaside resorts” have become a dumping ground for society’s outcasts, said Libby Purves. Towns like Blackpool, Margate, and Clacton-on-Sea were holiday destinations for generations of English families. But they began to decline in the 1970s, when package tours abroad became cheap and popular. Housing prices fell, and authorities began seeing the towns as places to warehouse people difficult […]

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When going ‘green’ makes people sick

When communities like San Francisco and Seattle began banning plastic bags, said Ramesh Ponnuru, it seemed like a public-spirited thing to do. But’ benign-seeming laws often have unintended consequences— and the plastic-bag ban is now producing a sickening result. The reusable shopping bags that people now use to bring groceries home turn out to be breeding grounds for bacteria carried […]

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Guatemala: A nation in the grip of depression

Guatemalans are suffering from “an epidemic of chronic pessimism,” said Jose J. Camacho. We all seem to agree that “everything is bad, nothing is certain, everyone has a price, and something evil lurks behind every good deed.” The media fuel these perceptions by covering every new incidence of violence exhaustively, lavishing special attention on the most frightening and lurid details […]

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Parents can instill narcissism

Proud parents aren’t doing their kids any favors by constantly telling them they are “special” or “exceptional.” Such praise may be intended to bolster kids’ self esteem, but new research suggests that frequently telling children they are superior to other kids may instill a toxic personality trait: narcissism. The researchers studied 565 children ranging from 7 to 12 years old […]

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