Over the past decade, more Americans died from overdoses of prescription painkillers than from heroin and cocaine use combined, according to government health officials. Most of the deaths were due to misuse of the medications— not to treat pain but to achieve a narcotic high. Recreational abuse has fueled a 300% surge in sales since 1999 of drugs like oxycodone, […]
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Why is America a nation of growing inequality? The yawning economic and cultural gap between the well-to-do and the working class—now wider than at almost any point in our history—has academics and pundits searching for explanations. Now, a new Harvard study provides an illuminating—and “horrifying”—insight into what’s going on. The affluent and the working classes, the study found, are raising […]
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I am increasingly convinced that has everything to do with the nature of the space in which people encounter on another, and whether those space bring out peoples divisions or commonalities within cultures. If you are thinking to yourself “We should get more Christians to invite Jews and Muslims to their birthday parties and make them bring their own hot […]
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Living by the ocean may help keep you calmer and relaxed. In a study it showed that the people who lived near the water were less stressed and with less psychological distress. In Roman times it was believed that water has healing and transformational properties. It is also found in Chinese medicine that water is crucial to balancing the body, […]
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Being rich makes you more likely to lie, cheat, and steal. A series of experiments conducted on volunteers with annual incomes ranging between $16,000 and $150,000 found that the wealthiest were most likely to cheat to win a $50 prize, take candy from children, and pocket extra change given to them by mistake. Drivers of pricier cars were also four […]
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As a way to help the street children of India Rita Panicker founded Butterflies, a non-governmental organization back in 2001. She believes that if children who can help themselves become more independent and self-supporting have a better sense of pride in themselves. Some of the children had jobs from rag picking to sweeping floors, but they didn’t have the help […]
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Rome Penitent Pope Francis with centuries of precedent, publicly went to confession in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was believed to be the first time confessing his own sins. The priest hearing his confession appeared to laugh at one point. Just weeks earlier, the pope also met President Obama privately for nearly an hour, twice longer than expected, an encounter that […]
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The Ministry of Education announced that due to high levels of air pollution that they are closing schools in Bangkok and surrounding provinces. Private schools are not required to close but are recommended to do so for the health of their students. According to the Department of Pollution Control the air quality numbers have fallen to harmful levels exceeding safe […]
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Changchun, China The senseless killing of an infant has plunged China’s social media sites into another round of soul-searching. The baby was in a car stolen outside a grocery in northeastern China, and the carjacker admitted to strangling and burying the child. Chinese Internet users contrasted the story with a similar incident in New York City last month, in which […]
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Wellfleet, Mass. Over a two week span, more than 85 dolphins had become stranded along the craggy Cape Codcoastline, including 30 in one day, said the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Typically, 120 dolphins beach themselves from January to April, the high season for stranding. They are regularly pulled by extreme tides into the U-shaped Cape Cod Bay, but never […]
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