King: Bad economy puts more families on the streets

The tears begin and her voice trembles as Ruth Martinez remembers the first few days of her new world. She would leave work, pick up her son Jacob at school and drive aimlessly, sometimes sneaking back to the office, “to watch TV there without my boss knowing.” Her husband had lost his job, and the stress drove them apart

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Stock Technicians’ Verdict: The Market Rally Will Continue

Wall Street’s number crunchers are happy. Stock technicians, who use mathematical formulas as well as charts and historical data to figure out where share prices are headed, believe the market’s rally that started in early March, and has pushed stocks up 36% in less than two months, is here to stay. They say stocks will rise another 10%, before the market stalls.

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Was the Alarm Over Swine Flu Justified?

Like a patient suffering from a particularly tenacious case of, well, the flu, the H1N1 virus seemed to gain ground and lose it over the weekend, leaving health officials still cautious, but hopeful that the disease might be on the wane. The number of confirmed infections continues to rise, with the World Health Organization reporting 898 infections in 18 countries as of May 3, and the Centers for Disease Control tallying 226 confirmed cases in 30 states. The continuing spread led Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to predict on Sunday that the WHO might soon raise its pandemic alert level from phase 5 to the highest stage, phase 6, which would indicate that a full flu pandemic was underway

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Pirates seized after threatening Navy ship

The French Navy said they seized 11 pirates Sunday after they apparently mistook a French military vessel for a commercial ship and made a run at it. Two pirate assault boats approached the Nivose “at great speed,” Capt. Christophe Prazuck said, but a French helicopter intervened before the attackers had time to fire at the French Navy ship.

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Baghdad Bombings: Is Iraq Unraveling Again?

At least five bomb attacks in Iraq in the past 48 hours have left some 140 people dead, wounded dozens more and raised fears that the country may be returning to the sectarian violence from which it has only just emerged. On Thursday three bombs in central Baghdad and areas northeast of the capital killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 100

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Russia Rearms

Russia’s leaders are getting used to cutting budgets this year. As the country sinks deeper into recession — unemployment, according to some estimates, is as high as 12% and the economy is predicted to shrink by about 4.5% in 2009 — the government is slashing spending at most of its ministries. The Energy Ministry’s budget is down by 33%, and that of the Transport Ministry by 30%

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Asia tumbles after Wall Street slide

Asian and Pacific markets tumbled on Tuesday, following a rocky day on Wall Street. The Nikkei average was down 3.4 percent at the midday break, while the All Ordinaries index in Australia had slipped 2.7 percent. In Seoul, the KOSPI slipped 1.9 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was off 3.9 percent

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Suspected Basque separatist leader arrested in France

A suspected leader of the Basque separatist group ETA and two alleged accomplices were arrested Saturday in a city near the southern coast of France, a CNN partner station reported, citing police sources. The key suspect arrested in the joint French-Spanish operation in Perpignan was identified as Jurdan Martitegui Lizaso, CNN+ said

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Southern province a gauge to China’s economy

For gauging the economic health of China, Guangdong province is a canary in a coal mine. Double-digit growth rates in China are now a thing of the past. The nation’s first quarter gross domestic product grew 6.1 percent, the government announced Thursday — down from 10.6 percent a year ago.

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