Word: spate
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...South Africa Erupts As a South African, I was shocked by the recent spate of violence against immigrants in the townships of Johannesburg [June 2]. The authorities gave various reasons for the outbreak, but the problem boils down to the resentment of the have-nots. Many immigrants who had worked hard to build a life in South Africa were the targets of violent robbery and theft. The criminals were said to have been opportunists, not organized gangs. The inefficiency and hamfistedness of the government's response raises the question: how long will it be before this happens again? And what...
...official at the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated last summer that executions will be stepped up in the next two years, and may approach the frequency of the Depression era, when there were three executions a week. Any attempt to stop the spate of killings must begin quickly. Public debate has nearly ended—the Times buried Brooks’ execution on page 28. Unless those with an interest in justice step forward soon, we will see the issue turned over to people like the pro-execution demonstrators outside the prison in Huntsville. They posed for the cameras with...
...what about the scientists at Colorado State, considered one of the nation's premier hurricane forecast labs? In 2006 and 2007 they warned of unusually bad storm seasons, but both years turned out to be unusually calm. This year they see another depressing spate of depressions on the Atlantic horizon. Their latest forecast calls for 15 tropical storms, eight hurricanes and four strong hurricanes; a normal year sees about two-thirds of that activity. They might, of course, be proved right, but given their recent track record they also run the risk of crying wolf, which is part...
...were urged to warn their children that even men in beards and hats are capable of evil. The rabbi's candid sermon has stirred debate among the shuttered Haredim. One stunned participant told reporters that "not since Moses" had a rabbi spoken publicly on such forbidden sexual topics. The spate of abuse cases prompted Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, to call on his fellow religious leaders "to vomit these parents and rabbis out of the camp and do everything in our power to save the souls of these young children...
...Whether or not Venkatesan has grounds for her case, the situation has troubling implications. The litigious threats are among a recent spate of well-publicized incidents in which conflicts that have failed to find mediation in the classroom have spilled into other realms, like the Internet or the courthouse. Like the Horace Mann case, featuring vicious Facebook groups aimed at high school teachers, Venkatesan’s move to a lawsuit and book deal represent a failure of reconciliation within the classroom. Student-teacher arguments are nothing new, of course, but these escalated clashes still suggest a lack of mutual...