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The president and trade Go sell (11 March 04:53) |
| As Barack Obama embraces exports, trade friction loomsA GLOOMY office park in suburban Chicago is the home of NewMedical Technology. At the moment the young company has only one main product... |
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Lexington Barack Obamas abortion drama (11 March 04:13) |
| Religion is causing the president headachesIT COULD all come down to abortion. Health-care reform hangs in the balance. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is desperat... |
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Foreign policy Containing Iran (11 March 04:13) |
| The president is trapped between an angry Congress and a stubborn ChinaHE HAS missed his own deadlines, he may not have enough votes and even if the measure passes it is likely to be a water... |
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The film business Hollow-wood (11 March 04:13) |
| The sign is still there, but the film crews increasingly aren’tMORE than 41m Americans tuned in on March 7th to watch “The Hurt Locker” win the award for best picture at th... |
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Unemployment figures Slow going (11 March 04:13) |
| Why is the recovery jobless? Maybe because it isn’t a recoveryIN FEBRUARY, for the twenty-fifth time in 26 months, the American economy shed jobs. The toll—a decline of 36,000... |
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Corruption on the border Assets on the other side (11 March 04:13) |
| Mexico’s drugs gangs are getting ever more cleverONE case that sticks out, says Jay Abbott, is that of Margarita Crispin. Mr Abbott is the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI&... |
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University fees Degrees of pain (11 March 04:13) |
| Colleges nationwide are asking students to pay more for their education“NO ONE should go broke because they chose to go to college,” Barack Obama said in January in his state-of-... |
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Alabamas economy After cotton (11 March 04:13) |
| Alabama’s small cities are poised for recoveryTUCKED between the Tombigbee river and a rural highway meandering north from Mobile sits a warren of huge buildings in Willy Wonka-colours... |
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White House tensions Ballet Rahmbert (11 March 02:35) |
| The gossip surrounding the president’s chief of staff is getting out of hand“LET me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel. I was a congressman in my first eight weeks, and I was in... |
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Almond pollination in California Vitamin Bee (04 March 04:47) |
| A new attempt to save the most vital workers in the orchardsAT THIS time of year Gordon Wardell loves to stand amid the almond blossoms in California’s San Joaquin valley, listening to... |
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The Texas governors race Romping home (04 March 04:47) |
| Rick Perry and Bill White move from the primary to the real electionTHERE’S no sense changing horses in midstream. On March 2nd Texan voters decided that Rick Perry, already in his ten... |
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Guns and the law Old McDonald hadnt an arm (04 March 04:47) |
| The Supreme Court is poised to strike down gun controlsIT HELPS to have a sympathetic plaintiff. Otis McDonald is a 76-year-old African-American grandpa. His folks were sharecroppers in Loui... |
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New Yorks troubled politicians The fall of the Harlem Clubhouse (04 March 04:47) |
| The scandals surrounding New York’s governor and its leading representative in Washington mark the demise of a powerful political machineIN LESS than a week the legendary “Harlem... |
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Lexington Angry white men (04 March 04:47) |
| Will piqued pale males hand the Republicans a victory in November?RACISM explains a lot of white opposition to Barack Obama, say some Democrats. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument ... |
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The New Orleans police A bad shoot (04 March 04:47) |
| Gradually, the story emerges of what happened on the Danziger bridgeA WEEK after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, on September 4th 2005, the police shot six civilians as they were cross... |
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Californias elections The other Brown (04 March 04:47) |
| A late, and philosophical, return to political campaigningTHE dark, floppy hair has gone, and the face is a little rounder, but otherwise Jerry Brown, at 71, looks much as he did when he sle... |
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Health-care reform The die is cast (04 March 04:47) |
| Barack Obama unveils his final strategy for pushing health reform“EVERYTHING there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it…now is the time t... |
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Lexington Is Barack Obama tough enough (25 February 04:46) |
| Conservatives call him too weak to be a warrior. Tell that to the TalibanIF THERE is one thing conservatives agree on, it is that Barack Obama is not tough enough to be commander-in-chief. S... |
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Arkansas politics Democrats beware (25 February 04:46) |
| A spirited scramble for suddenly open Democratic seatsARKANSAS is the only southern state whose representatives have remained almost monolithically Democratic since Reconstruction in the 186... |
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Schools and testing The finger of suspicion (25 February 04:46) |
| Is too much weight given to testing?ON A narrow street of modest bungalows in south-western Atlanta, Walter L. Parks Middle School stands out: a broad, white building of unmistakably institu... |
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The economy Back to the crash (25 February 04:46) |
| The American economy has just had its worst decade since the 1930sTHE headquarters of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lo... |
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The administrations economists Grading the dismal scientists (25 February 04:46) |
| How good is the Council of Economic Advisers?FEW disagreed with Christina Romer, who chairs America’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), when she wrote recently that the early 1960s w... |
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Mitt Romney and the Republicans Fired up ready to go (25 February 04:46) |
| Mitt Romney takes centre-stageTHE election of a new pope in Rome is a model of procedural transparency compared with the mysterious ways in which presidential candidates emerge in America. B... |
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Health reform Seizing the reins at long last (25 February 04:46) |
| After leaving Congress in charge for too long, Barack Obama unveils his own planHEALTH reform has been the Obama administration’s domestic policy priority for nearly a year, but the pr... |
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Californias prison-guards union Fading are the peacemakers (25 February 04:46) |
| One of California’s most powerful political forces may have peakedDON NOVEY used to be the most important man in Californian politics that no one had ever heard of. As president of Cal... |
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Americas children Protecting the weakest (25 February 04:46) |
| The recession may hurt America’s vulnerable childrenOVER the past few years, a growing number of America’s parentless children have found homes. In 2008 there were 463,000 childr... |
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The jobs bill Bogged down (18 February 04:12) |
| The latest victim of Senate in-fightingWITH the mid-term election looming in November, officials in Washington, DC, are facing pressure to do something about jobs. By now, the litany of dism... |
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Politics in Texas The survivor (18 February 04:12) |
| Rick Perry is poised to win Texas’s Republican primary for the governorship—for the third time. Where might that take him next?ON FEBRUARY 15th several hundred conservative activ... |
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Cabling America Fibre in paradise (18 February 04:12) |
| How a small city in Virginia is replacing coal mines with tech jobsTHERE’S no reason for a city to be there, just a stream and a broad Appalachian valley. But Joseph Anderson wanted a ... |
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Denvers transport woes Back to the drawing board (18 February 04:12) |
| A model transit project hits troubleIN 2004 Denver became a public-transport planner’s dream. The sprawling western metropolis approved a $4.7 billion project, known as FasTracks, whic... |
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State-level pensions Promises to keep (18 February 04:12) |
| States face a looming pensions crisisFISCAL officers in the states might be forgiven for having a collective mental breakdown. Over the two years from December 2007 to November 2009, the 50 ... |
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Religion and unemployment God help the jobless (18 February 04:12) |
| Churches are helping the victims of recessionBEING unemployed in the wake of the worst recession since the 1930s is enough to tax anyone’s faith. So a growing number of churches, parti... |
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Americas drug laws A fine too far (18 February 04:12) |
| State stamp laws for drugs make a mockery of the tax codeLOCKED in a vault within the North Carolina Department of Revenue is a lickable bit of Kafka: a government-issued stamp that is expec... |
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Evan Bayh retires Another one bites the dust (18 February 04:12) |
| The Indiana senator’s decision is a blow to Barack Obama“I DO not love Congress,” Evan Bayh declared on February 15th. “I will not, therefore, be a candidate for re-e... |
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The tea-party convention Scenes from a counter-revolution (11 February 04:08) |
| The growing power of the tea-party movement will make it hard for Republican politicians to compromise with the presidentMAKING a virtue of a necessity, Barack Obama has talked endlessly in ... |
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Californias prisons Jailhouse blues (11 February 04:08) |
| California must reduce its prisons’ overcrowding and cost. But how?ONE never quite knows whether Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor, is joking or serious. So it is with... |
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Jack Murtha dies War hero and porker RIP (11 February 04:08) |
| A colourful congressman passes awayTO HIS local newspaper, he was “a great leader and humanitarian”. To Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, he was a “porke... |
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Keeping snakes Constricting the pet supply (11 February 04:08) |
| Snake-owners may soon find their pets regulated by the governmentBOA CONSTRICTORS, pythons and corn snakes decorated sellers’ tables at the Reptile Show in White Plains, New York, las... |
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North Dakotas Senate race On the frontier (11 February 04:08) |
| The state’s quirks are the Democrats’ nightmareON JANUARY 18th, as Democrats scrambled to defend their vital but doomed Senate seat in Massachusetts, the Republican Senate minori... |
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Cyber-security Good for some (11 February 04:08) |
| A growing threat and a growing opportunityBILL MORROW, the head of CSIdentity, a company that protects people from identity theft, paints a grim picture. In the 1980s, he explains, perhaps s... |
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New Orleans Back in the game (11 February 04:08) |
| Two sorts of good news from an unhappy cityNEW ORLEANS is used to big weekends, but the last one stood out. On February 6th voters elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in a landslide more dr... |
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The Republicans economic plans Ryan to the rescue (11 February 04:08) |
| A Congressman with a brave visionIF REPUBLICANS are displeased with their image as the party of “No”, few of them have done much about it. One notable exception is Paul Ryan, a c... |
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Lexington Labour pains (11 February 04:08) |
| Barack Obama will never satisfy his union backers. Nor should he tryRICHARD TRUMKA does not mince his words. The former miner who now leads America’s largest union body, the AFL-CIO, d... |
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Gays in the armed forces The long march (04 February 04:11) |
| The first steps to repeal a controversial discriminatory policyIT WAS Barry Goldwater, a Republican politician, who pointed out that to serve in the armed forces, you don’t have to be ... |
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The defence budget The Pentagon dodges the bullet (04 February 04:11) |
| Barack Obama is spending more on defence than his predecessorsEVEN Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, admits that the $708 billion requested by Barack Obama for defence spending n... |
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Lexington A refreshing dose of honesty (04 February 04:11) |
| Maria Cantwell and the politics of global warmingNOT long after the flood, when Noah was safely back on dry land, God promised: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man...An... |
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New York Citys finances Bloombergs budgets blues (04 February 04:11) |
| New York’s mayor presents two grim economic pictures for the cityTHE jobless rate in New York City increased from 7% in December 2008 to 10.6% a year later. Some 425,000 New Yorkers ar... |
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Californias voter initiatives Sign here (04 February 04:11) |
| The season for ballot-measure petitions has begun. With a twistSEVERAL people shake their heads and keep walking, but two friendly-looking women are now approaching the Beverly Hills market ... |
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Health-care reform The zombie hypothesis (04 February 04:11) |
| Is the president’s effort to reform health care dead or alive?“I DO not quit. We are going to get that done!” So declared a defiant Barack Obama this week during a speech i... |
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The budget and the deficit An opportunity wasted (04 February 04:11) |
| The problems are obvious. How to deal with them is notA YEAR ago, the way forward seemed clear. First, run up large budget deficits to make up for plummeting private demand in the recession.... |
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