Will the Recession Doom the Last Sunday Blue Laws?

A handful of state legislatures have declared it’s closing time for Sunday alcohol sales restrictions, saying an extra day of sales could give their foundering budgets a much-needed shot of revenue. Those states — Georgia, Connecticut, Texas, Alabama and Minnesota — enjoy overwhelming voter support for an extra day of sales, but face opposition from members of the Christian right, who say that selling on Sunday undermines safety and tears apart families. “During times of economic stress, our families are under enough pressure,” says Jim Beck, the president of the Georgia Christian Coalition

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Dozens missing after riverboat collision in Bangladesh

More than 60 passengers were missing after a riverboat collided with a trawler in southern Bangladesh Thursday, police said. In his first major speech since being confirmed, the nation’s first black attorney general told an overflow crowd celebrating Black History Month at the Justice Department the nation remains “voluntarily socially segregated.” “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder declared

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Behind the French Ruling on WWII Deportations of Jews

Following decades of debate over the nation’s wartime history, France’s highest judicial body has formally ruled that the French state bears moral and legal responsibility for the deportation of nearly 76,000 Jews during the nation’s WWII occupation. In doing so, the court officially recognized the willful participation of France’s collaborationist Vichy government in anti-Semitic persecution that had long been attributed to Nazi occupying powers. The ruling Monday, by the Conseil d’Etat, or State Council, was cheered by organizations representing French Jews and families of Jews who were deported during the war — a mere 3,000 of whom ultimately returned

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Australian PM: Wildfire arson is mass murder

Investigators in Australia believe some of the deadly wildfires ravaging dry southeastern bushland may have been set, a conclusion prompting Australia’s prime minister to call such acts "mass murder." Officials in Victoria state have launched arson investigations into some of the blazes, which have killed at least 166 people, decimated massive spans of land and left thousands of people homeless. “I think it’s important that the nation braces itself for more bad news,” said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, tearing up at one point during a TV interview on Monday. “This is a little horror which few of us anticipated.” News that some fires may have been deliberately set brought a note of disgust from the prime minister

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