After a year of traveling, I had planned a last, short trip. I was going to take the train from Montreal to New Orleans. The travels I had been undertaking earlier this year had brought me to places that were meant to form the background of my second novel.
This trip, however, was for my dad. He, a trumpet player, loved New Orleans and had died a year ago. It felt like the first sensible trip I undertook this year. I had been searching for ways to forget about the last hours at his deathbed. He had been ill for 15 years and his body just would not give up. It was a violent sight. I had decided the trip to New Orleans would put an end to those memories.
Why I Will Never, Ever, Go Back to the United States
Almost 1-in-4 U.S. children lived in poverty 2012, same as '11
Almost 1-in-4 U.S. children lived in poverty in 2012, not statistically different from 2011 despite improvements in the economy, researchers say.
Beth Mattingly of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire and research assistant professor of sociology; Jessica Carson, a research scientist at the Carsey Institute; and Andrew Schaefer, a doctoral student in sociology and a research assistant at the Carsey Institute said the state of New Hampshire experienced the largest increase in child poverty of any state in the country from 2011-12.
Peanut butter used to confirm early-stage Alzheimer's disease
A bit of peanut butter and a ruler may be an easy way confirm a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers say.
Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and colleagues found peanut butter worked well to test for smell sensitivity.
Alex Baer: Tri-Corner Logic: Easy as 1-2-3
It's an interesting phenomenon: You have a tiny shard of the U.S. population holding itself, and the world, hostage via the Shutdown-Blowdown-Blowup fever dreams of a handful of boneheads who dress up like Constitutional preservationists and protectionists -- while those same boneheads betray the very document they themselves claim to be supporting and providing safe harbor, all while using that same document as a handy club on all who dare disagree with them.
It's interesting, all right -- and in the same twisted, horrific, hold-your-breath-way that it's interesting to consider what happens, say, when a freight train filled with 13 million gallons of molasses and Super Glue piles into an oncoming train loaded down with 42 tons of high grit sandpaper and radioactive goose feathers .
IAEA team in Japan to check on Fukushima cleanup
A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met Japanese government officials in Tokyo Monday as part of a mission to check on progress in the cleanup at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which repeatedly leaked radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean after a 2011 earthquake and subsequent meltdowns.
The Japanese government has been stepping up efforts to allow international help after Tokyo was criticized for its perceived reluctance to accept foreign expertise in handling the situation.
What archaeology tells us about the Bible
For the past 20 years, a battle has been waged with spades and scientific tracts over just how mighty David and the Israelites were. A string of archaeologists and Bible scholars, building on critical scholarship from the 1970s and '80s, has argued that David and his son Solomon were the product of a literary tradition that at best exaggerated their rule and perhaps fabricated their existence altogether.
For some, the finds at Qeiyafa have tilted the evidence against such skeptical views of the Bible. Garfinkel says his work here bolsters the argument for a regional government at the time of David – with fortified cities, central taxation, international trade, and distinct religious traditions in the Judean hills. He says it refutes the portrayal by other scholars of an agrarian society in which David was nothing more than a "Bedouin sheikh in a tent."
How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq's nuclear nightmare
Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a long awaited document summarising the findings of an in-depth investigation into the prevalence of congenital birth defects (CBD) in Iraq, which many experts believe is linked to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by Allied forces. According to the 'summary report':
"The rates for spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital birth defects found in the study are consistent with or even lower than international estimates. The study provides no clear evidence to suggest an unusually high rate of congenital birth defects in Iraq."
Letters detail punitive tactics used on Guantánamo hunger strikers
The US military secretly used a variety of tactics to break the resolve of the Guantánamo Bay hunger strikers, including placing them in solitary confinement if they continued to refuse food, newly declassified interviews with detainees reveal.
One prisoner also said that the last British resident held inside the camp, Shaker Aamer, had been targeted and humiliated by the authorities to the point where it became impossible for the 44-year-old to continue his protest.
Toyota announces recall of 10,000 cars
Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. said it is recalling about 10,000 model year 2013 and 2014 cars to replace faulty windshield wiper switches.
The recall involves the 2013-14 Camry and Camry Hybrid, the 2013 Avalon and Avalon Hybrid and the 2014 Corolla, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
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