Oscar Pistorius may compete at this year’s world championships after a judge upheld an appeal against some of his bail restrictions, the athlete’s agent has said.

Judge Bert Bam ruled that Pistorius – who is charged with murder after shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on 14 February – could travel under certain conditions. His passport will be held by a court while he is in South Africa, and he can leave the country only if he …

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Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

I know you’re working to solidify your legacy as Oz the Great and Powerful, but do you ever stop and say to yourself, “Who am I to tell the people of New York City that they can’t have one too many lemon pepper wings and freeze pops?” Based on your behavior, I assume not. Goodness, it must be fantastic to be rich, old, and White. I wish I could get that as a …

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Military bases, universities and companies involved in Barack Obama’s drones programme are to be targeted in a month-long series of protests by activists keen to build on the renewed public focus over the president’s controversial policy.

Dubbed “April Days of Action” by participants, organisers are hoping to capitalise on a series of recent controversies that have thrust the use of drones – especially when it comes to targeted killings of suspected terrorists – into the heart …

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The issue of whether the federal government’s definition of marriage should expand to include gay couples that’s currently making its way through the U.S. Supreme Court is particularly poignant for immigrant couples like Santiago Ortiz and Pablo Garcia. The ruling could mean a lifetime together or the constant fear of separation.

Ortiz, a Puerto Rican-American who was born in New York, and Garcia, a Venezuelan native, fell in love a quarter century ago and married …

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• Listen to this segment

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

HARTMANN: We have a constitutional monarchy here in the United States. We no longer have a representative democracy or a democratic republic. There are nine people who sit in a building about three blocks from where I am sitting right now who decide what the laws of this land are or are not, and in many cases even make up laws out of whole …

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Our country’s democratic values could be under threat if President Obama fast tracks the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

On critical issues, the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated in secret by the Obama administration will undermine democracy in the United States and around the world and further empower transnational corporations. It will circumvent protections for health care, wages, labor rights, consumers’ rights and the environment, and decrease regulation of big finance and risky investment practices.

The only way this …

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NASHVILLE — Two nights a year, Tennessee holds a health care lottery of sorts, giving the medically desperate a chance to get help.

Adrian Casteel, 55, of Nashville, has a heart condition and a steel plate in his back. He has been on Medicare for nine years, but about 20 percent of his expenses are not covered.

State residents who have high medical bills but would not normally qualify for Medicaid, the government health care program …

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Construction workers backed by German police have removed a section of the Berlin Wall to make way for a building project, despite calls for the historic site to be preserved.

Residents expressed shock at the removal of the East Side Gallery, as that section is known, which followed a series of protests, including one attended by the actor David Hasselhoff.

A police spokesman, Alexander Tönnies, said there were no incidents as work had begun at about 5am …

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A battery recycling plant in Vernon is being told to reduce its emissions after recent tests showed it is posing a danger to as many as 110,000 people living in an area that extends from Boyle Heights to Maywood and Huntington Park.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District announced late Friday that Exide Technologies, one of the largest battery recyclers in the world, must also hold public meetings later this spring to inform residents that …

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LIMA, Peru — Peru’s government declared an environmental state of emergency on Monday in a remote Amazon jungle region it says has been affected by years of contamination at the country’s most productive oil fields, which are currently operated by Argentina-based Pluspetrol.

Indigenous groups in the Pastaza River basin near the Ecuador border have been complaining for years about the pollution and the failure of successive governments to address it. Authorities say one reason the pollution …

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