Russian orphanages are a scandal, said Jennifer Rankin. State institutions house nearly 400,000 children, a population larger than many cities. But less than one third of these children are actually orphans. Many “fall into the system when their parents, often fighting a losing battle with alcohol or drugs,” lose their parental rights. Even more of them—nearly half the total—have disabilities, […]
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What happened to the Conservatives’ promise to roll back the surveillance state? said James Ball. The British are already the most-spied-upon people on the planet, with hundreds of thousands of video cameras recording our comings and goings. Junior-level bureaucrats have the authority to “ping” our mobile phones to find out where we are at any given moment. Now they also […]
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Over the past decade, thanks in part to widespread restrictions on when and where people can light up, the number of Americans who smoke has rapidly declined. But despite that reduction, some 58 million Americans are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although this is a 50 percent drop […]
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The Republicans have a euphemism for undocumented workers— illegals — said Peter Beinart. With a tone of disgust, that single, dehumanizing noun has become the GOP presidential candidates’ preferred way to describe the millions of human beings picking our produce, cooking our food, cutting our lawns, and watching over our kids. It’s “the latest in a long line of euphemisms […]
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BEIJING – The greatest risk China faces in its historic modernization is the massive imbalance between urban and rural areas, according to the country’s top agriculture official. “The most important and difficult task is to resolve issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers … to realize the agricultural modernization and the urbanization of most farmers,” said Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu […]
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Researchers have found some 200 million termite mounds that stretch for thousands of miles across northeastern Brazil. The area measures 88,000 square miles an area larger than the state of Minnesota. They stand about 10 feet tall, about 30 feet wide, and may be up to 4000 years old. The only way to see these mounds is by using a […]
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A new analysis of 166 studies on childhood vaccines has come to a resoundingly clear conclusion: Vaccination does not cause autism and is extremely safe and effective.The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality commissioned a systematic review on the subject in response to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement which has been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping […]
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■ A Missouri couple have used their record lottery winnings to improve their hometown. Mark and Cindy Hill have spent chunks of their $293 million fortune on the town of Camden Point buying it a new firehouse and baseball field, refurbishing the town’s waste-water system, and topping up the high school scholarship fund.The Hills’ gifts amounted to 25 years of […]
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Despite long-running drought, overall food situation appears similar to previous years. North Korea’s spending on imports of cereals decreased again in August, after recovering slightly the previous month, data from Chinese government figures show. Cereals – which include rice imports – decreased along with nearly every other food as classified by trade groups, and continued a downward trend that contrasts […]
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Mapping the infant universe is no easy task. New data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite is giving astronomers their most complete look yet at the very earliest moments of the universe. Planck, which measures microwave radiation, has created a heat map of the temperatures present in the universe a mere 370,000 years after the Big Bang. The data […]
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