Randy Travis in surgery after stroke

Country music star Randy Travis suffered a stroke while at a Texas hospital and was in surgery late Wednesday (Thursday, NZ time) , the singer’s publicist said. Publicist Kirt Webster said that the 54-year-old Travis suffered the stroke while he was being treated for congestive heart failure because of a viral illness

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Amnesty International Report on U.S. Maternal Health

Amnesty International may be best known to American audiences for bringing to light horror stories abroad such as the disappearance of political activists in Argentina or the abysmal conditions inside South African prisons under apartheid. But in a new report on pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., Amnesty details the maternal-health care crisis in this country as part of a systemic violation of women’s rights.

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The Abu Ghraib Scandal You Don’t Know

American soldiers often have a tough time with Arabic names, so to guards, he was just “Gus.” To the world outside Abu Ghraib prison, he became an iconic figure, a naked, prostrate Iraqi prisoner crawling on the end of a leash held by Private Lynndie England, the pixyish Army Reserve clerk who posed in several of the infamous photographs that made the name Abu Ghraib synonymous with torture. Now, it emerges, there may be another dimension to Gus’ story and certainly to the horrors of Abu Ghraib.

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