Italy

Swine flu, renamed under pork-lobby pressure to “influenza A (H1N1) virus, human,” and referred to as “killer Mexican flu” by anti-immigration activists, had infected 985 people, or 0.0000145 percent of…

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An American cattleman. A 6.3 earthquake in the Abruzzo region of Italy damaged buildings in 26 towns, destroyed numerous historic monuments, left tens of thousands of people homeless, and killed…

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Caught in the Web, 1860. Federal agents arrested hedge-fund manager Bernard Madoff and charged him with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, possibly the largest in Wall Street history. Madoff…

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The Labor Department reported that 533,000 people lost their jobs in November, a further 621,000 people were forced into part-time employment, and 422,000 more simply dropped out of the labor…

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Barack Obama was elected the 44th president, and first African-American president, of the United States, receiving 365 electoral votes in an election that saw perhaps the highest turnout among registered…

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Democrats were outvoting Republicans in all nine states that track the party affiliations of early voters, indicating a likely election victory for Barack Obama. George Mason University“It’s gonna get nasty,”…

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Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars…

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The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision seized the IndyMac Bank of California, worth an estimated 32 billion dollars, after the bank’s closure in the wake of mortgage industry collapse,AFPand the…

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The Supreme Court overturned the 32-year ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., ruling 5-4 that there is a Second Amendment right to own a gun for personal use. Justice John…

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