A Mafia Boss Breaks Silence on an Infamous Assassination

Each year, Italians take part in a mid-summer ritual to honor the victims of the Mafia and speak out against the scourge of organized crime. From Palermo to Torino, politicians, church leaders and youth groups gather to mark the July 19, 1992, assassination of anti-mob magistrate Paolo Borsellino, who was killed along with five bodyguards in a meticulously planned car bombing outside his mother’s apartment in the Sicilian capital

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Afghan candidate’s bicycle campaign for president

Every morning, Sangin Mohammed Rahmani says goodbye to his wife, gets on his bicycle, and sets out alone on a bumpy, unpaved Kabul road that he hopes will lead him to the presidency. “This is going to be my vehicle to success,” he says, patting his bicycle, as he pushes it down a rutted, garbage-strewn street. “With my bicycle and my mobile phone, I can solve all the problems of the people.” In a crowded field of 41 Afghan men and women running for president in upcoming August 20th elections, Rahmani stands out because of his one-man, bicycle-borne campaign to become commander-in-chief

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Soccer in Seattle: A New Kind of Football Team Woos Fans

The more than 65,000 fans who filled the seats at Seattle’s Qwest stadium on a recent Saturday made clear by their neon-green body-paint and their buzzing South African-style vuvuzela horns that this was no Seahawks game. They had come to see a different kind of football, the kind that speaks the word with a foreign accent: Chelsea, erstwhile champions of England’s Premier League, vs. the Seattle Sounders, the Emerald City’s new Major League Soccer franchise.

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Family makes trek to find a job

John Spieker stood on the back porch of his newly rented Bailey, Colorado, home, thankful for his Good Samaritan landlord and worried that his previous home, parked in the driveway, wouldn’t get him to work the next day. His 1977 Toyota Dolphin camper, which Spieker rescued from a salvage yard, had carried him, his wife, Katie, and 4-month-old son, Jacob, from Florida to Colorado earlier this summer, a cross-country sojourn in search of work.

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Former England manager Bobby Robson dies

Former manager of the England football team, Bobby Robson, has died aged 76 after a long fight with cancer. The coach led the national side of his home nation between 1982 and 1990 , guiding the team to the semifinal of the 1990 World Cup, where his side were defeated by Germany in a penalty shootout. Robson’s curriculum vitae as a club coach was long and successful including spells with Fulham, Ipswich and Newcastle United in England, PSV Eindhoven in Holland, Sporting Lisbon and Porto in Portugal and Barcelona in Spain.

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China has more than 13 million abortions a year

The number of abortions performed in China each year tops 13 million, with inadequate knowledge of contraception playing a major role in the annual tally, state-run media reported. “Sex education needs to be strengthened, with universities and our society giving more guidance,” Li Ying, a professor at Peking University, told China Daily.

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