Health-Care Reform After Kennedy: A Scaled-Back Bill?

It has not been lost on many that Ted Kennedy’s death came at a moment when the cause he described as the greatest one of his public life — universal health care — seems to be stumbling just short of the goal line. Kennedy’s absence has been felt all year on Capitol Hill, and there are many on both sides who believe that health reform might be closer to becoming a reality if he had been in any shape to bring his negotiating skills to bear. So what effect will his passing have on the prospects for health reform?

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Behind Mexico’s Wave of Beheadings

There’s a peaceful aura about the lifeless faces lined up on the video, death having drained the tension from their cheeks, their eyes wide shut above thick mustaches and square jaws. But as the shot pans out, the horror of their end is revealed: The dead men’s heads have been roughly hacked away from their torsos, which the camera finds hanging upside down across the room on meat hooks, their blood draining away onto white floor tiles.

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Pro-Taliban cleric pulls out of peace deal

Pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad has announced he has pulled out of a peace deal in the violence-plagued Swat Valley, saying the government is not serious about implementing Islamic law, or sharia, in the region. Mohammad brokered the cease-fire in late February between the Pakistani government and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who commands the Taliban in Swat Valley. With the deal, the area would come under sharia law, which — under the Taliban’s strict interpretation — would prevent women from even being seen in public without their husbands or fathers

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Afghan supply base eviction prompts U.S. access scramble

Kyrgyzstan said Friday its president has ordered the closure of U.S. military’s only base in Central Asia, further squeezing access for troops and supplies heading into Afghanistan. However, the closure comes as two other central Asian nations — Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – reportedly agreed to allow transit of U.S

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