Tag Archives: education

Taliban, Pakistan make permanent truce in volatile valley

The Taliban and the government of North West Frontier Province in Pakistan have agreed to a permanent cease-fire in the nation’s volatile Swat Valley, an official said. Syed Mohammad Javed, commissioner for the Malakand region, which includes Swat Valley, told reporters in Mingora that the two parties had agreed to make permanent a 10-day cease-fire declared earlier this week. Javed said the agreement meant boys schools will reopen on Monday and camps will be set up for Swat residents who have fled the fighting or whose homes had been destroyed.

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With a New Budget, Now Californians Brace for the Pain

Thanks to the California state budget that was approved early Thursday morning, my husband and I — relatively new citizens of the Golden State — will help bridge the extraordinary $42 billion deficit next year by paying approximately $1,000 in additional taxes, fees and loss of dependent tax credits. And this figure will remain at that level only if we make no purchases for 12 months in an effort to avoid the new 1-cent-on-the-dollar increase in sales tax. It is, of course, a better option than getting laid off, not receiving our 2008 tax refund or being unable to drive through an abandoned highway repair project — the brutal realities of a state in freefall with no balanced budget

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Black actors still face Oscar challenges

On a winter evening in early 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to win an Oscar, a best supporting actress honor for her performance as Mammy, the servant in "Gone With the Wind." She accepted her award at the Academy Awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove, a nightclub in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, where she was seated in the segregated section at the rear of the room. Though her win was played as a sign of progress for black actors in America — “Not only was she the first of her race to receive an Award, but she was also the first Negro ever to sit at an Academy banquet,” said Daily Variety, according to Mason Wiley and Damien Bona’s indispensable “Inside Oscar” — her role was poorly received by much of the black community.

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