Obama Goes to Rio: A Nod to Brazil’s Growing Power

In March 1961, Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution was a three-alarm reminder that CIA-engineered coups weren’t enough to keep communism out of the western hemisphere. Living standards had to be raised in Latin America, then as now the world’s most inegalitarian region.

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Germany Tries Its Last Nazi War Crimes Defendant

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, an 89-year-old retired auto worker from Ohio went on trial in Germany on Monday in what many are calling the country’s last Nazi war crimes proceeding. That’s not the only reason the world is watching the trial closely: John Demjanjuk is also No.

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A Tale of Two Priests

The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church traditionally couch even the harshest disagreements in decorous, ecclesiastical language. But it didn’t take a decoder ring to figure out what Rome-based Archbishop Raymond Burke meant in a late-September address when he charged Boston Cardinal Sen O’Malley with being under the influence of Satan, “the father of lies.” Burke’s broadside at O’Malley was inspired by the Cardinal’s decision to permit and preside over a funeral Mass for the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

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Scientists try to keep centenarians on their toes

An $80 million research project aimed at giving people 50 active years after the age of 50 was launched by scientists at the University of Leeds in northern England Tuesday. About half of the babies born in Western countries today will live until they are 100 years old, according to recent research published in the medical journal The Lancet, so the challenge is to ensure they remain active throughout their old age.

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Pardon for black boxer jailed for interracial dating waits on Obama

The White House refused to indicate Monday whether President Obama will issue a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the African-American boxing champion convicted in 1913 for dating a white woman. The House of Representatives on July 29 unanimously passed a resolution urging Obama to grant a pardon; the Senate passed a similar measure by a voice vote on June 24

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