The Nation: An Ounce of Caution

On New Year's Day a new California law went into effect that sharply reduces the penalties for possession of marijuana. Now anyone caught with less than an ounce of grass will be given only a traffic ticket-type citation and a possible fine of up to $100.The law demands a peculiar kind of precision from police officers, namely a certainty about how much grass makes an ounce.

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Health: Stress and the College Grad

The Latin class you took freshman year may lack real-world usefulness, but researchers think graduates may pick up a different kind of skill in college: stress management. A study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests that highly educated adults handle daily stress better than their less educated counterparts

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Education Survey: China Scores Top Marks; U.S., France Lag

The rise of China as an economic and political juggernaut has become a familiar refrain, but now there’s another area in which the Chinese are suddenly emerging as a world power: education. In the latest Program for International Student Assessment comparative survey of the academic performance of 15-year-olds around the world — an authoritative study released every three years — Chinese teenagers from Shanghai far outscored their international peers in all three subject matters that were tested last year: reading, math and science.

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