One year after Boko Haram abducted 276 Christian teenage girls from a northern Nigerian boarding school, authorities are no closer to finding them—and more have been taken. Amnesty International said this week that the Islamist group has captured at least 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014. Those who escape say they were raped in forced marriages and trained […]
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The average American woman now weighs 166.2 pounds, about the same as the average American man weighed in the early 1960’s. Over the same time period, U.S. men have gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the ’60’s to 195.5 today.
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To delay aging, spend more time standing up. That’s the surprising conclusion of a new study by Swedish scientists, reports The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Researchers at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm took blood samples from a group of sedentary, overweight men and women, all 68 years old, and measured the length of their telomeres—caps on the ends of DNA that […]
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For the past two years, Christian McPhilamy, 8, has put up with a lot of teasing over his long blond locks. But nothing could discourage the Florida boy from growing his hair to help other kids who have lost theirs. McPhilamy started his mission at age 6 after seeing an ad for a children’s hospital. When his hair recently reached […]
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Gun violence now costs Americans an estimated $229 billion a year, including the expense of imprisoning gun offenders, medical treatment for the roughly 31,000 people killed and 75,000 wounded each year, lost wages, and loss of quality of life among victims and their families, according to an analysis by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. By the same measures, […]
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$6 trillion – Upper estimate of the cost to the U.S. of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
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A Canadian man nearly blew off his own head while trying to kill a mouse with a rifle. Dale Whitmell, 40, tried to crush the scampering rodent with the butt of his rifle, but when he slammed the weapon on the ground, it discharged. The bullet grazed his forehead but did not badly wound him. After being released from a […]
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The oceans, like the rest of the planet, set a temperature record in 2014, at 60.9°F (16°C), or 1.03°F above the 20th century average. Acidity is up as well—a bad combination for sea life.
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After eight years of war, bombings, and brutal sectarian violence, Iraq’s civilian population is now suffering an epidemic of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental illnesses, health officials there say. But there are only 100 psychiatrists to serve a population of 39 million.
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Homeowners in Centennial, Colo., woke up to a pleasant surprise last Sunday morning: a group of teens who went around shoveling their neighbors’ sidewalks and driveways free of charge. “They did everything: the whole driveway, the stoop, the whole sidewalk,” said one thankful recipient. “You just don’t see that in this day and age.”The high schoolers refused any money that […]
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