Nov
27

Books: Woe Is Syphilis, and Other Afflictions of Famous Writers

The old Irishman was a swollen, wheezing mess, blood pressure wildly out of control, kidneys failing, heart fibrillating. “What we have here,” said his new Spanish doctor, “is an antique cardiorenal sclerotic of advanced years.” In fact, what the doctor had there was William Butler Yeats: the poet had a long list of chronic medical problems and experienced one of his regular cardiac crises...
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Books: Woe Is Syphilis, and Other Afflictions of Famous Writers

The old Irishman was a swollen, wheezing mess, blood pressure wildly out of control, kidneys failing, heart fibrillating. “What we have here,” said his new Spanish doctor, “is an antique cardiorenal sclerotic of advanced years.” In fact, what the doctor had there was William Butler Yeats: the poet had a long list of chronic medical problems and experienced one of his regular cardiac crises...
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Puerto Rico Races to Rescue Its Pension Fund

Puerto Rico is fighting to stay afloat in a rising sea of debt. Its economy is sputtering. Its population is shrinking. Its recent election is disputed. Its public pension fund is perilously low on cash. The American territory has just been through a brutal five-year recession, something not experienced in the United States as a whole since the 1930s. Desperate to raise cash, Puerto...
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Nov
26

As Rebels Gain, Congo Again Slips Into Chaos

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — The lights are out in most of Goma. There is little water. The prison is an empty, garbage-strewn wasteland with its rusty front gate swinging wide open and a three-foot hole punched through the back wall, letting loose 1,200 killers, rapists, rogue soldiers and other criminals. Now, rebel fighters are going house to house arresting people, many of whom...
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Legality of Warrantless Cellphone Searches Goes to Courts and Legislatures

Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesHanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation is working on cellphone rights. “The courts are all over the place,” he said. Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide. A Rhode Island judge threw out cellphone...
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Agency Investigates Deaths and Injuries Associated With Bed Rails

Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesGloria Black’s mother died in her bed at a care facility. In November 2006, when Clara Marshall began suffering from the effects of dementia, her family moved her into the Waterford at Fairway Village, an assisted living home in Vancouver, Wash. The facility offered round-the-clock care for Ms. Marshall, who had wandered away from home several times. Her husband...
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Agency Investigates Deaths and Injuries Associated With Bed Rails

Thomas Patterson for The New York TimesGloria Black’s mother died in her bed at a care facility. In November 2006, when Clara Marshall began suffering from the effects of dementia, her family moved her into the Waterford at Fairway Village, an assisted living home in Vancouver, Wash. The facility offered round-the-clock care for Ms. Marshall, who had wandered away from home several times. Her husband...
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Libel Case That Snared BBC Widens to Twitter

PARIS — The Internet, it is sometimes said, turns every citizen into a journalist. If that is the case, some Twitter users in Britain are discovering one of the downsides of the business. As many as 10,000 Twitter users reportedly face the threat of legal action because of comments posted on the Internet or forwarded to others in which they referred to a BBC report wrongly linking a former...
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Nov
25

White House Presses for Drone Rule Book

WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials. The matter may have lost some urgency...
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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

Kuni Takahashi for The New York TimesSex workers in Mumbai’s long-established red-light district, where brothels are dwindling. MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS. ...
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