Word: states
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...state remains proud of its native son, no matter how many national debates he may spark. Nevertheless, Obama will be coming home to a state struggling with the sour taste of recession. Although a forecast this month by University of Hawaii economists predicted that the new year will bring improvement, unemployment hovers at 7% and, for the all-important tourist trade, visitor arrivals are down 4.2%. Perhaps worse, at least among the parents of 170,000 public schoolchildren, is the national scolding Hawaii received by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan after Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle closed schools on Fridays...
...Hawaii, the state's most famous local is such a beloved figure that people wear T-shirts that brag about his surfing prowess. Obama is the only President with his name on a Nobel Peace Prize and his face melded with an image of Elvis Presley playing an ukulele in the movie Blue Hawaii. "This is a vacation place and not a retreat for Obama," says University of Hawaii political science professor Neil Milner. "On his past visits, he would visit his old haunts and because of the way Hawaii is, you can't be secluded like former president Bush...
...been campaigning for gay marriage rights. On Wednesday, 10 same-sex couples filed legal motions in a court in Rosario, Argentina, demanding their right to marry. In neighboring Chile, a column in the newspaper Paradiario was headlined, "Gay Marriage Approved in Mexico. In Chile When?" In the swampy Mexican state of Tabasco, 20 gay couples sent a motion to the state legislature asking to allow them to tie the knot. Mexico City's precedent, the activists hope, will have a domino effect across the hemisphere. (See a photographic history of the struggle for gay rights...
...Korean belief system that combines elements of several faiths - but underground churches are particularly feared by authorities because they're estimated to have helped some 20,000 North Koreans defect to China. As a result, the regime routinely imprisons and executes Christian religious leaders who teach their faith without state approval, according to a U.S. State department report. Official figures put the number of practicing Christians at 13,000 in 2001, but South Korean church groups estimate about 100,000 Christians practice in secret churches across the nation now. "We always met for prayer at peoples' homes, in groups...
...with its neighbor, bringing in more foreigners on business and exchange trips; the following year Pyongyang hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students, a massive socialist festival that attracted 22,000 people from 177 countries. With an influx of foreigners, the government saw a need to build four state-run churches in Pyongyang in the following years, though critics maintain they're facades to show the world that it supports freedom of religion. "[Foreign missionaries] are allowed to come for relief or other purposes, only if they promise not to spread the word," argues Kim. (See pictures...