Sep
29
2011
Five years ago, millions of bad loans that banks had peddled—in order to feed the profitable securities market—began to fail and foreclosures began climbing. Washington ignored it then and continues to ignore it in all but name today. Millions of people lost their homes and millions more will follow. But amid all the chatter about deficits and coming presidential elections, it’s easy to forget this crisis continues apace. One in eight mortgages are past due; …
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Sep
27
2011
Federal authorities are investigating allegations of inmate beatings and other misconduct by deputies in Los Angeles County jails, with FBI agents going so far as to sneak a cellphone to an inmate to get reports from inside, according to law enforcement sources.
The inquiries include allegations that deputies broke an inmate’s jaw and other facial bones and beat another man for two minutes while he was unconscious.
Their investigation created a flap recently when Los Angeles County …
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Sep
23
2011
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Thousands of jubilant, flag-waving Palestinians, watching on outdoor screens across the West Bank, cheered their president on Friday as he submitted his historic request for recognition of a state of Palestine to the United Nations.
Mahmoud Abbas’ defiant stance, pushing for U.N. recognition over strong objections from the U.S. and Israel, has struck a chord with Palestinians increasingly disillusioned after nearly two decades of failed efforts to bring them independence. At the …
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Sep
20
2011
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan— Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber on Tuesday in his home in the capital, the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations to rock the country in recent months.
Rabbani was the head of a government panel set up last year to try to begin negotiations with the Taliban, and his death was seen as a serious blow to those still-nascent efforts.
The bomber, who apparently had explosives …
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Sep
20
2011
An 18-year-old law that prevented serving US military personnel from disclosing that they were gay has been formally repealed.
At one minute past midnight eastern time (0401 GMT), the controversial don’t ask don’t tell (DADT) law was abolished after its repeal was signed into law some nine months ago.
Introduced by President Clinton in 1993 as a compromise step to full equality, DADT allowed gay and lesbian members of the military to serve only if their sexuality …
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Sep
20
2011
ATLANTA — Troy Davis, whose death row case ignited an international campaign to save his life, has lost what appeared to be his last attempt to avoid death by lethal injection on Wednesday.
Rejecting pleas by Mr. Davis’s lawyers that shaky witness testimony and a lack of physical evidence presented enough doubt about his guilt to spare him death, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled on Tuesday morning that Mr. Davis, 42, should …
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Sep
19
2011
Defense lawyers mounted a final effort on Monday for Troy Davis, a Georgia man set to be executed on Wednesday for the murder of a police officer even though his supporters say he may be innocent.
The lawyers were due to present their evidence in Atlanta to Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Parole, a five-person panel that will weigh whether to grant or deny clemency or issue a stay of execution of up to 90-days, his …
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Sep
16
2011
TACOMA, Wash. — Students in Washington state’s third-largest school district are taking a fourth straight day off Friday as opposing sides in a teachers strike meet with a judge, after the instructors defied his order to return to the classroom. SOTA High School students Jacob Glickman, 17, Rachael Martin, 17, of and Nick Vargish, 17, on car from left, cheer on the striking teachers gathered to picket in front of Tacoma school district building, …
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Sep
16
2011
With time running out for Troy Davis — the condemned man convicted of killing a Savannah, Ga., police officer — activists are planning to take to the streets of Atlanta on Friday night to demand that his execution be stayed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP President Benjamin Jealous will lead a 6 p.m. march from Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. There, …
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Sep
14
2011
BOSTON—Harvard Law professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren officially launched her Democratic campaign for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, hoping for a chance to take on Republican Sen. Scott Brown in next year’s election.
Warren, who greeted commuters at a subway station in Boston before embarking on a tour of the state, cast herself as fighter for the middle class, saying she’s “stood up to some pretty tough folks over the past few years.”
“There’s been a …
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