Why the Economic Recovery Is Slowing Down

John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the most famous practitioners of the high-minded guessing game known as economics, once noted that in the dismal science, “the majority is always wrong.” How else to explain the fact that so many economists upgraded their growth forecasts for the American economy at the end of last year, often to well above 3%, when the numbers so far this year have come in below 2%? The plunge is due to many things, from higher food and oil prices to supply-chain disruptions in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster to a terrible housing market.

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Netanyahu rules out freeze on Israeli settlements, source says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a complete halt of Jewish settlements will not happen, according to a parliament source. Netanyahu said at a closed-door Knesset committee meeting that Israel would agree only to a partial reduction of housing construction and for a limited time, not the year the United States would like, said a government official who was not authorized to speak about the meeting and did not want to be identified.

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AIDS patients struggle in isolated Cambodian town

Van Thy says the government evicted her from her home in the Cambodian capital and trucked her and others out to a town an hour away where she now lives in a hot green metal shed with no running water and dim prospects. Before the move, she had a job as a dishwasher, but now the 36-year-old woman is unemployed, penniless and her health has taken a turn for the worse

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Senate confirms Sotomayor for Supreme Court

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who rose from the housing projects of the Bronx to the top of the legal profession, made history Thursday when the Senate confirmed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Sotomayor was easily confirmed in a 68-31 vote.

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