Word: ditch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Zimbabwe has launched a last- ditch war to save the black rhinoceros and shut down an illicit trade in rhino horns...
Like most U.S. warships, the Stark has a last-ditch weapon: the Phalanx, a six-barreled Gatling gun capable of firing 3,000 rounds a minute of uranium, 2 1/2 times as dense as steel, to create a wall of metal in front of the attacking missile. But the Phalanx system has its limitations: it operates only at close range and has difficulty tracking sea-skimming missiles amid the radar "clutter" caused by waves. Even under manual operation, the Stark's Phalanx system should have detected the incoming missiles, but the ship's only warning came just seconds before impact...
...between 1984 and 1986 were controversial enough to be placed in counties other than their own. Gore said Singleton would be moved "if the need arises," a condition to be determined by Singleton's parole agents, who guard him around the clock. Meanwhile, local officials are trying a last-ditch legal maneuver to send him packing. Says County Supervisor Tom Powers: "My wife and I were out walking the other night, and she points to some guy and says, 'Doesn't that person look like Singleton?' " A retired merchant seaman, Singleton could not be blamed if he felt...
...Bound. In one platoon at the M.C.R.D., half the recruits admitted they were afraid of heights. Now they are about to endure what the Marines call the "slide for life," clambering up a 35-ft.-high wooden tower and then descending headfirst down wires that stretch across a muddy ditch. A recruit clings like a frightened tree sloth to the wire. Then, slowly, his grip loosens and he plunges into the muddy water. "You just let go. You didn't even try," snaps the angry instructor. "Back to the squad bay, Private...
...early 1940s, during the German occupation of his native Estonia, he was chief of a Nazi concentration camp in a place called Tartu. Twelve thousand East Europeans were executed there, including 2,000 Jews. Linnas ordered half-naked men, women and children transported to a ditch and gunned down. Some of them he finished off himself...