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<title>Lawyer: Accused Orlando office shooter mentally ill</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The engineer accused of fatally shooting one employee and wounding five others at the firm where he once worked is "very mentally ...

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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/biDDcwestbk/2009-11-08-fort-hood_N.htm">
<title>Army chief: Avoid speculation about Hasan&#x27;s faith</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/biDDcwestbk/2009-11-08-fort-hood_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[The Army chief of staff says it's important for the country not to get caught up in speculation about the Muslim faith of the ...

]]></description>
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<title>Police: 1 killed, 3 injured in shooting near Vail</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Gunfire erupted inside a bar near the ski town of Vail Saturday night, leaving one man dead and three others wounded, police ...

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<title>In wake of attack, military asks: Who cares for the caregivers?</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Amputations. Combat stress. Divorce. Suicide. For troubled service members, military therapists are at their sides.

]]></description>
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<title>Funeral services held for slain New Mexico nun</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/HCkGx95VZXU/2009-11-07-nun-funeral_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[A slain Catholic nun who lived and worked on the Navajo Indian reservation was remembered Saturday for her passion for the poor ...

]]></description>
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<title>N.J. jurors convict man in &#x27;fat defense&#x27; trial</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/I1VHSaNG_PA/2009-11-07-fat-defense-guilty_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man's defense that he was too fat to ...

]]></description>
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<title>Gift card scandal could sink Baltimore mayor</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/0eDWLWSiDW0/2009-11-07-baltimore-mayor-trial_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[The accusations that Mayor Sheila Dixon used holiday gift cards for the needy during personal shopping sprees may sound like ...

]]></description>
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<title>Suspected shooter sent to Fort Hood for &#x27;fresh start&#x27;</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/ugZoUQ99BsY/2009-11-06-shooter_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[The military must answer for whether it missed warning signs when the Fort Hood shooting suspect performed poorly as a psychiatrist ...

]]></description>
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<title>Young soldiers show heroism in Fort Hood tragedy</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/N1j2c1lPZMc/2009-11-06-heroes_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[Unlike many, maybe even most of the soldiers on this enormous military post, privates first class Marquest Smith and Jeffrey ...

]]></description>
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<title>Weekend forecast: Northwest stormy; mostly dry elsewhere</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The USA's worst weather Saturday and Sunday will be in the Northwest, which will see a wet and windy weekend thanks to a pair ...

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<title>How do you deal with food allergies when eating out?</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/dLAQTO6-y7o/2009-11-06-food-allergies-readers_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[USA TODAY is looking for readers with food allergies who are willing to share their unusual challenges with eating out at restaurants, ...

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<title> FBI team will re-enact Fort Hood massacre</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The FBI on Friday dispatched a special team of investigators from Washington, D.C., to re-create the Fort Hood shooting in an ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/8pf3DHcBVpI/2009-11-05-algore_N.htm">
<title> Gore&#x27;s book a toolbox for fixing climate crises</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/8pf3DHcBVpI/2009-11-05-algore_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[Al Gore, the Nobel-Prize-winning former-vice president-turned-energy entrepreneur, offers tools in his latest book to crack the ...

]]></description>
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<title>Muslim image campaigns suffer after Fort Hood shootings </title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/JH-hU4504Rs/2009-11-06-muslim-image-campaigns_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[The tragic shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, allegedly by an Arab-American Army psychiatrist, may deal a severe blow to image campaigns ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/Z6UDBU6Isik/2009-11-06-baby-found_N.htm">
<title>&#x27;A lot of grown men were shedding tears&#x27; over Fla. baby</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/Z6UDBU6Isik/2009-11-06-baby-found_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[Investigators spent five days searching a rural area of dense vines and marshes for a missing infant, only to find her lying ...

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14816526&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Hispanic higher education: Closing the gap</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14816526&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Improving performance is linked in part to immigration policyTHE University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) is one of the most binational of America&#8217;s big universities. Some 90% of its students come from the borderplex&#8212;the Texan city of El Paso and its much larger sister-city, Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. More than 70% of its students are Mexican or Mexican-American.And that, in turn, means that the El Paso campus is rather different from the University of Texas&#8217;s flagship campus in Austin. More than half of UTEP students are among the first in their families to go to college, and roughly a third come from families with incomes below $20,000 a year. Diana Natalicio, UTEP&#8217;s president, says that for many of her students trouble at work, or an unexpected expense, can derail a whole year of college. UTEP tries to help, offering after-hours advice and instalment plans for tuition fees. Such measures have helped it to become one of the country&#8217;s leading sources of degrees for Hispanic students. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14810231&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Health reform: Now or never?</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14810231&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Efforts to speed health legislation hit some snagsWILL the health bill making its way through Congress reach Barack Obama&#8217;s desk before the end of the year? In May he insisted: &#8220;If we don&#8217;t get it done this year, we&#8217;re not going to get it done.&#8221; Alas, the timetable may be slipping.The House is further along: a 1,990-page final bill was unveiled on November 3rd, and a vote by the full chamber may come as early as November 7th. But as this newspaper went to press, the Senate was still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to put a cost on the Senate Democratic leadership&#8217;s own final bill before it is debated, a process that, by design, is slower than in the House. And whenever the upper chamber passes a final bill, the outcome still needs to be reconciled with the different version that will come out of the House. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14810223&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>The HIV travel ban is lifted: You&#x27;re welcome</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14810223&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[HIV-positive people will at last be allowed to visit AmericaFOR 22 years America has banned HIV-positive people from entering the country without a hard-to-get waiver for fear of the virus spreading. It has not hosted a big international AIDS conference in more than a decade either, because many HIV-positive activists would not be allowed to attend. Only a dozen other countries, including China and Russia, have similar restrictions, and there is no evidence that these bans halt the spread of AIDS. Instead, many say, it makes things worse by stigmatising carriers of the virus.On October 30th Barack Obama announced that he will do away with this cruel rule. From 2010, HIV-positive people will be able to travel to America and will also be able to apply for citizenship there. Reversing the ban will bring families together who were separated because of HIV. &#8220;Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,&#8221; wrote Andrew Sullivan, a British journalist who is HIV-positive after Mr Obama&#8217;s announcement. He has been nervous when visiting his family in Britain for fear that he would not be allowed to re-enter America, where he and his husband live.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14816534&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Arizona&#x27;s budget: Stumped</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14816534&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[An intra-Republican rowEARLIER this year Republicans seemed to be in the ascendant in Arizona, the state of Barry Goldwater, even as they struggled in much of the country. Not only had they retained control in both houses of the state legislature, but a fluke turned a Democratic governor into a Republican one when Janet Napolitano, who became Barack Obama&#8217;s homeland-security secretary, vacated the office for Janice Brewer, who was secretary of state at the time. But Arizona&#8217;s Republicans instead descended into a bitter feud that is bankrupting their state and amusing not even Democrats. Arizona is among the states worst hit by the recession, and years of tax cuts combined with more spending under Ms Napolitano had left its budget out of balance when Mrs Brewer took over. &#8220;By her tenth day in office, she had cut more than any Arizona governor in history,&#8221; boasts her spokesman. In March Mrs Brewer went before the legislature to ask for a temporary one-cent increase in the state sales tax alongside yet more cuts. The Republicans balked. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14803102&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Mayoral races: Money can&#x27;t buy you love</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14803102&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A shabby victory for Michael Bloomberg, but breakthroughs elsewhereON ELECTION day in Queens, one voter asked a fellow New Yorker a question about using the voting machine. &#8220;Honey,&#8221; she replied in a smoky New York accent, &#8220;as long as you vote for Bloomberg, it doesn&#8217;t matter.&#8221; And how right she was. Michael Bloomberg, New York&#8217;s incumbent and independent mayor, only narrowly defeated Bill Thompson, his far less well-known and much poorer Democratic rival. In what turned out to be an embarrassing nail-biter, Mr Bloomberg won by just 5%, days after polls had showed him to be ahead by double digits. This was a far cry from his 20% win in 2005.  Mr Bloomberg is reckoned to have spent $100m to win himself a third term in office, exceeding even the $85m he spent last time and the $74m he spent in 2001. Still, to a man worth some $17 billion, more than anyone else in New York, this is small change. Whether it is good for democracy is another matter. Mr Bloomberg was able to outspend his rival by around 16 to one. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14803112&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Elections in New Jersey and Virginia: Lessons from a double defeat</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14803112&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama will find it hard to take much comfort from this year&#8217;s election dayCREIGH DEEDS is a farm boy turned country lawyer from the Alleghenies, in the south-west of Virginia. On a chilly night before this week&#8217;s governors&#8217; elections in Virginia and New Jersey, he convened a get-out-the-vote rally in Alexandria, a well-to-do suburb just across the Potomac from Washington, DC. It was a cheerless event. Of the few hundred Democratic stalwarts who showed up, many had kind words for their candidate&#8217;s heart, but not for his political skill. &#8220;He hasn&#8217;t run a very good campaign,&#8221; George Pera, a local pastor, admitted sadly. &#8220;I guess everyone knows that.&#8221; Every four years Virginia and New Jersey elect their governors, one year after the presidential election and a year before Congress&#8217;s mid-term elections. And every four years these off-year races are pounced upon as political bellwethers, even though they have proved to give little indication of which way voters will swing in the ensuing mid-terms, let alone in the presidential election two years further on. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14794768&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Lexington: Republicans, riven but resurgent</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14794768&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Why conservative in-fighting may matter less than you might thinkARE the Republicans storming back towards national power? Or do the party&#8217;s ideological divisions doom it to irrelevance? Democrats looking for hope amid the ashes of this week&#8217;s elections point to New York&#8217;s 23rd district. Not only did they win in an area that had been sending Republicans to the House of Representatives since the 19th century; they also watched the Republicans devour one another. Local Republican Party bosses picked a candidate, Dede Scozzafava, to whom conservatives took an instant dislike. Not only was she pro-choice on abortion; she also favoured, until recently, letting unions organise without a secret ballot. National stars such as Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty stuck their harpoons in, urging Republicans to back the candidate of the tiny local Conservative Party. Ms Scozzafava pulled out of the race and endorsed the Democrat, who went on to win. All this shows that the Republicans are tearing themselves apart, salivate the Democrats. &#8220;The most extreme wing of the Republican Party [has] made it clear&#8230;that they&#8217;re not going to tolerate any dissent,&#8221; said Vice-President Joe Biden. Perhaps. Some Republicans do indeed care more about doctrinal purity than winning. &#8220;Moderates by definition have no principles,&#8221; growls Rush Limbaugh, a talk-radio host, adding that RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) &#8220;may become extinct&#8221;. Frank Rich, an excitable liberal columnist, gloats that conservatives are &#8220;re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode&#8221;.  ...]]></description>
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<title>Obama and the unions: Love of Labour</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14745067&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Unions are winning again in Washington, but the big fights are still aheadTHREE years ago, when negotiations with the union representing air-traffic controllers reached an impasse, the administration of George Bush simply imposed a deal that froze salaries, slashed entry-level pay and even set a dress code. Barack Obama, then a senator, sponsored a bill to send the parties to arbitration, without success at the time. As president, Mr Obama ordered talks to resume. In late September, with the help of the arbitrators, the union got its new contract: 3% annual pay increases, higher starting pay and the right, once again, to wear jeans.Ronald Reagan&#8217;s mass firing of illegally striking controllers in 1981 came to signify a turning-point in the fortunes of organised labour, whose share of private-sector workers has fallen to a new low of 7.3% so far this year (see chart). It is tempting to see the controllers&#8217; new deal as marking a turning-point in the other direction. ...]]></description>
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<title>American Jews and Israel: J Street puts a foot in the door</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753768&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Can a handful of peaceniks challenge the power of AIPAC?POLITICAL lore in Washington has long ascribed mighty powers to the Jewish lobby&#8212;and especially to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 2007 two academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, went so far as to write a book accusing &#8220;the lobby&#8221; of hijacking American foreign policy and luring America into the quagmire of Iraq to serve Israel&#8217;s interests. Henceforth, however, it will not be possible to write of a monolithic pro-Israel lobby in America. AIPAC now has a small but vocal competitor. More than 1,500 people, mostly American Jews, but including both Israelis and a few Palestinians, showed up in Washington this week for the first annual conference of J Street, a one-year-old, self-describedly &#8220;pro-Israel, pro-peace&#8221; lobby, whose executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, says it is fighting for the &#8220;heart and soul&#8221; of the American Jewish community. Unlike AIPAC, J Street intends to push aggressively for a two-state solution based on Israel&#8217;s pre-1967 borders. ...]]></description>
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<title>Public-school education: Desert excellence</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753760&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[An Arizonan modelAND what was the Minotaur? The ten-year-olds scribble their answer onto tiny whiteboards and hold them up for the teacher to see. Once each has got a nod, they repeat together: &#8220;half-man, half-bull.&#8221;By the time these fifth-graders at the BASIS school in Scottsdale, Arizona, reach 8th grade they will have the option of taking Advanced Placement (AP) exams, standardised nationally to test high-school students at college level. By the 9th grade, they must do so. As a result, says Michael Block, the school&#8217;s co-founder, our students are &#8220;two years ahead of Arizona and California schools and one year ahead of the east coast.&#8221; ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14779329&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>The economy: A joyless recovery</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14779329&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[New figures suggest that America has at last moved out of recessionON October 29th the government reported that gross domestic product rose at an annualised rate of 3.5% in the third quarter compared to the second. This was the first increase since the second quarter of 2008. It backs up other evidence that the recession ended in the third quarter or just before, though the official decision, by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of academic economists, is still some way off. Robert Gordon, a member of this group, is confident that the recession, which began in December 2007, ended in June. But at 18 months that would still make it the longest since 1933.Consumers are sceptical. Their confidence fell in October, according to the Conference Board, a research group. A poll for The Economist by YouGov found that 35% of respondents think the economy is getting worse; just 28% think it is getting better. Unemployment is still rising, and even a White House adviser, Christina Romer, predicts it will remain &#8220;severely elevated&#8221; throughout next year. A lot of third-quarter growth was the result of temporary government stimulus. Consumer spending grew by 3.4%, the best since early 2007, largely because people were buying new cars in July and August with federal &#8220;cash for clunkers&#8221;. Sales have since fallen back. Residential construction leapt 23.4%, the first advance since the end of 2005, helped by an $8,000 tax credit for buyers of new homes. But new home sales dipped 3.6% in September, as the time to qualify for the credit expired. ...]]></description>
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<title>New York&#x27;s special election: Not right enough</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753792&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A battle for the soul of the Republican Party in upstate New YorkSILVAN JOHNSON has not been this fired up since Sarah Palin joined John McCain&#8217;s presidential ticket. Ms Johnson, a mother of four, volunteered to campaign for Doug Hoffman, candidate of the tiny Conservative Party, because, she says, she was disgusted with the Republican pick in the special election, due on November 3rd, for New York&#8217;s 23rd congressional district.  The House seat was left vacant when John McHugh, a Republican who had represented the district since 1993, joined the Obama administration as secretary of the army. Ms Johnson now mans Mr Hoffman&#8217;s regional office in Fulton, one of 16 to open in recent weeks. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never done anything like this before,&#8221; she says, &#8220;but I realised we have a choice and it&#8217;s not Dede Scozzafava&#8221;&#8212;who was hand-picked by state Republican bosses. Ms Johnson describes Ms Scozzafava as &#8220;practically a Democrat&#8221;, but does &#8220;give her credit for being pro-guns&#8221;.  ...]]></description>
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<title>Dallas does culture: Lights down, curtain up</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753866&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[While other cities are tightening their belts, Dallas is polishing its buckleON ONE side of Flora Street is the Bill and Margot Winspear Opera House, an airy space designed by Norman Foster. Across the street is the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, a silver cube designed by Joshua Prince-Ramus and Rem Koolhaas. &#8220;Aesthetically, it&#8217;s stoic, even off-putting,&#8221; said the theatre manager, leading a tour. The beauty of the space, he explained, is its flexibility: the walls retract, the stage moves and the tiers of seats can be hoisted.Dallas is famous for bold statements&#8212;from big hair to Big Tex, the inflatable cowboy who presides over the state fair&#8212;and the Dallas Arts District, where the theatre and the opera house have both just opened, is of a piece. It spans 68 acres or 19 city blocks, and also includes several museums, a concert hall, a dance theatre and a performing-arts high school once attended by Erykah Badu and Norah Jones. To city leaders, all this epitomises the confidence and audacity of the place. ...]]></description>
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<title>Health-care reform: A public row</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14744889&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Democrats are trying to revive the idea of a government-run health plan&#8220;IT&#8217;S not really a public option, it&#8217;s a consumer option.&#8221; So declared Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, this week. Her effort to rebrand the hugely controversial proposal to add a government-run insurer (usually called a &#8220;public plan&#8221;) to the health reforms now being negotiated seems ridiculous at first blush. In fact, it is part of a concerted and clever push by the political left that could&#8212;just possibly&#8212;revive an idea that had seemed dead and buried.When Mrs Pelosi revealed, on October 29th, the House's version of a health-reform bill, there were no real suprises; as expected, a public plan featured prominently. The real suprise had come three days earlier. Until very recently, it had looked as though the proposal to tack on a public plan was, despite fervent support among the left, politically doomed. First came Barack Obama&#8217;s slippery but clear efforts to back away from it. Then came a crucial vote of the Senate Finance Committee, which rejected the public plan. The final congressional health bill must reconcile the versions coming out of the full House and Senate, and the powerful Finance Committee&#8217;s rejection had appeared to be a final nail in the coffin. ...]]></description>
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<title>Cops and crime in Los Angeles: Exit Bratton</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753858&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The reasons for falling crime rates remain disputedWILLIAM BRATTON, Los Angeles&#8217;s chief of police, has been doing victory laps around the city as he prepares to step down on October 31st. With his broad, scarred face and thick Boston accent, he was already a celebrity cop when he came to Los Angeles in 2002, having previously led the police departments in Boston and New York. Seven years later, his reputation is even starrier.To many Angelenos&#8212;black, brown and white&#8212;Mr Bratton is the quintessential good cop. When he arrived, the city&#8217;s minorities were at war with its police, even though there had been two consecutive black police chiefs. The beating by white cops of Rodney King, a black man, in 1991, was still festering. The police were being audited under court order.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753784&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Mayoral elections: Hard to dislodge</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14753784&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Some big-city incumbents are also up for re-election on November 3rdPOOR Bill Thompson. His heart must have broken a little when Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama&#8217;s spokesman, said that the president would support the Democratic nominee in his mayoral bid, but then went on to say nice things about Michael Bloomberg, New York&#8217;s incumbent, independent mayor without even uttering Mr Thompson&#8217;s name. It is not on the lips of many New Yorkers either. He trails by 18%. He can&#8217;t match Mr Bloomberg in advertising. He&#8217;s been outspent (Mr Bloomberg has deployed $85m of his own cash so far), but he also has himself to blame. &#8220;He never did establish who Bill Thompson is,&#8221; says Doug Muzzio, a politics professor at Baruch College. Instead, he has focused almost entirely on one issue: term limits. Last year Mr Bloomberg, with the backing of the City Council, scrapped New York&#8217;s term limits, reversing two referendums in the 1990s which supported the measure. This did not sit well with many New Yorkers, even Bloomberg supporters. But despite Mr Thompson&#8217;s constant &#8220;Eight is enough&#8221; chant, the issue has not galvanised many voters. ...]]></description>
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<title>Lexington: One year of The One</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14744856&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[He has achieved more than his critics claim, but the meat is yet to comeWHEN he was elected president, Barack Obama made it plain that this was an event of some importance. His supporters, he said, had &#8220;put their hands on the arc of history and [bent] it once more toward the hope of a better day.&#8221; He promised to end the war in Iraq, sort out the Taliban, provide health care for all and erect a cap-and-trade system to save the planet. A year later, he has done none of these things, and some of his supporters are starting to grow impatient. &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221;, a comedy show, reckons his two big accomplishments are &#8220;jack&#8221; and &#8220;squat&#8221;. &#8220;Yes he can&#8221; proclaims the cover of Newsweek, &#8220;(but he sure hasn&#8217;t yet)&#8221;. Mr Obama, for his part, is beginning to sound exasperated. &#8220;I never thought any of this was going to be easy,&#8221; he told a crowd in New Orleans this month. &#8220;Change is hard,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and big change is harder.&#8221; The crowd was friendly enough, but smaller than the crowds he used to attract during the campaign, and less starry-eyed. One young mother in the audience said she didn&#8217;t buy &#8220;all the hype of hope and change&#8221;. Generally speaking, she reckoned the president was &#8220;on the right path&#8221;. But she thought his bail-outs of banks and over-leveraged homeowners were &#8220;a slap in the face for those of us who are fiscally responsible&#8221;. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14699623&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Crime and politics: The velvet glove</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14699623&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Why the soft approach sometimes worksLOOKING after small children is never easy. Many dribble; some bite. But for Joyce Chavis, the problem until a few years ago was that she could not let toddlers in her care step outside her house. The street was packed with prostitutes. Drug-dealers loitered aggressively with pit bulls at their heels. In the local playground the bushes concealed only some of the things that crack-addicted young women were doing to earn their next fix. Until 2004 the West End neighbourhood in High Point, North Carolina, was an open-air drug market. Gun shots punctuated the night. Honest folk were scared to walk to the shops. Jim Summey, a local preacher, recalls a Sunday when his flock could not park because the street was jammed with johns seeking sex and drugs. When he remonstrated with the dealers, they smashed up his car and shot out 58 windows in his church. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14699563&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Lexington: Harry Reid&#x27;s dilemma</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14699563&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[It is hard to represent both America and your home stateMANY of his fellow senators were born rich and politically connected, but not Harry Reid. His first home was a shack made of wooden railway sleepers, soaked in creosote to keep the termites out. (Predictably, it burned down.) His home town, Searchlight, Nevada, had 13 brothels but no church. A local law said no brothel or bar could be too close to a school. When one dive was found to have broken this rule, they moved the school. Mr Reid&#8217;s father was a hard-drinking gold miner. His mother took in laundry for the bordellos. His father sometimes beat her, until the 14-year-old Harry and his younger brother jumped him to make him stop. Young Harry hitchhiked 45 miles to high school and did countless odd jobs, from mucking out cattle to digging graves. Once he stole some returnable bottles, but a brothel-keeper spotted him and set him straight. When he was 32, his father shot himself. Going through the family papers, he learned that his parents were married after their children were born. ...]]></description>
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