Word: spurs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Some wonder if the desire to drive through more of his oft-deferred reforms could spur Koizumi to extend his tenure. But he already appears to be handing tough choices off to his unnamed successor. He has avoided discussing any substantial reforms beyond postal privatization, and while LDP party secretary Tsutomu Takebe has admitted that mounting social-services costs have made a consumption tax hike imminent, Koizumi has committed not to raise them. With tough battles yet to come, University of Kyoto politics professor Terumasa Nakanishi and others believe stepping down as promised may be Koizumi's smartest move?leaving...
...known as the one-child policy, officials in the provinces have often resorted to draconian measures--forced sterilizations and late-term abortions among them--to prevent the country's population of 1.3 billion from expanding into a Malthusian nightmare. Government leaders credit China's stringent population control with helping spur economic growth by reducing the number of mouths that must be fed. But in 2002, as personal freedoms proliferated in other areas of life, parliament voted to ease the deeply unpopular policy. Instead of forbidding extra children outright, the new law, among other reforms, allowed couples to have multiple offspring...
DIED. JUDE WANNISKI, 69, conservative journalist who, as an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal in the 1970s, coined the phrase "supply-side economics" for the theory, later embraced by Ronald Reagan, that tax cuts spur production and growth; of a heart attack; in Morristown, N.J. A tireless publicity hound, he went on to advise G.O.P. candidates and write the economics tome The Way the World Works, prompting fellow conservative George Will to write, "I wish that I were as confident about something as he is of everything...
...prison. The rape and murder of Jessica Lunsford, 9, in March caused Florida to pass a law in May that mandates lifetime monitoring with ankle bracelets for anyone convicted of a sex crime against a minor. The 2003 abduction of North Dakota college student Dru Sjodin helped spur the creation of a national online registry of sex offenders that began rolling out in July...
Cindy Sheehan, 48, is not a natural-born revolutionary. She speaks in a high, almost childlike voice. She says like as often as any teenager, as in, "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment." When her supporters gather to discuss strategy, Sheehan is not to be found in the circle of beach chairs; she is 50 yards up the road, doing yet another interview, hugging yet another stranger. But here she is, the mother of Casey, 24, who died in Iraq last year, and now the central character in the strange, swirling protest she initiated...