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...rout of No. 1--ranked Maria Sharapova in straight sets; after injuries and fashion pursuits had sidelined her for more than a year; in Melbourne. Motivated, she said, by the memory of her murdered older half sister Yetunde--whose name she invoked after every net change--Williams became the lowest-ranked woman to win a Grand Slam singles trophy in 29 years and jumped in the world rankings, from 81 to 14. Vowing to refocus her energies on tennis, she said, "I think I get the greatest satisfaction just ... proving everyone wrong. I just love that...
...Mustafa Sheikh, deputy managing director of Telcom Somalia says, the absence of a functioning government for 16 years has been a boon for private enterprise. His firm is one of three in Somalia that provides fixed-line and mobile phones, creating competition so fierce that rates are among the lowest in the world. And business is excellent. Telcom boasts an annual average return of 35% on investment since its founding in the midst of the civil war in 1994. Last December, Sheikh secured $14 million from his Chinese partners, Shenzhen-based Huawei, to upgrade his service. In total, the Somalian...
Tokyo's short-term goal, of course, is to give a boost to the country's sagging economy. Japan's gross national product is expected to grow this year by just 2.3%, its lowest level since 1974. The government believes a cut in income taxes will spark not only consumer spending but business investment. At the same time, however, Nakasone wants to reduce Japan's $840 billion national debt. To that end, the sales tax and savings-interest levy are expected to generate revenues of $28 billion...
...kids' lives have become even more rushed, scheduled and digitized than Elkind could have imagined in 1981, yet many psychosocial metrics of childhood have improved. The teen pregnancy rate in 2000, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has figures, was the lowest since 1976. (And that's not simply because of condoms: the overall incidence of sexual intercourse among adolescents declined significantly from 1995 to 2002, according to the CDC.) Teen drug use has dropped steadily over the past decade. There's less school violence and juvenile crime. And the death rate...
...changed since then; China's economy is still racing along, car bombs are still exploding in Baghdad and Americans are still hooked on their gas-guzzling SUVs. But one crucial thing is changing: oil prices are actually falling. Crude oil futures fell below $50 a barrel Thursday afternoon, their lowest level since May of 2005. Gasoline prices are down too, to around $2.25 a gallon on average, from a peak of just over $3 last summer. It's all good news for the economy, since lower energy prices traditionally help tame inflation and could ease pressure on the Federal Reserve...