Word: twists
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...seems like a scene from Oliver Twist - a young pupil being beaten by a 300-lb man wielding an inch-thick wooden paddle - but according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly a quarter of a million children were subjected to corporal punishment in public schools in the U.S. during the 2006-2007 academic year. Based on 202 interviews with parents, students, teachers and administrators, and supplemented with data from the U.S. Department of Education, the report reveals how the spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child philosophy continues to rule thousands...
...staff and services. In New York City, some public-school parents recently came under fire for paying school aides out of their own pockets. The local teachers union filed a complaint, alleging that the positions were taking away jobs from higher-paid unionized aides. It's all a new twist on an old story. "School spending has been augmented by private sources for a long time," says Andy Rotherham, a co-founder of Education Sector, a Washington think tank. "But this money is now being looked at as a way to restore more core services that are being cut, rather...
...conservative Republican Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has announced she will be filling in only the number of people in her household and no other information since she doesn't trust the government to use it responsibly. (Technically, doing so would break a federal law.) In a nice twist, the state of Minnesota itself is rallying its residents to send in their forms, since shifting populations nationwide may mean the loss of a Minnesota seat in the House. The Minnesota Complete Count Committee will be in full force at the state fair this summer, handing out buttons and magnets, talking...
...Attack: Berlusconi has blamed L'Espresso and its sister newspaper La Repubblica of having a personal vendetta against him and has publicly told advertisers to deny business to the publications. Presenting himself as a victim of the press is an old tactic with an ironic twist, since the Prime Minister personally owns huge swaths of the Italian media. Still, it's becoming increasingly harder for Berlusconi to convince supporters that his opponents are simply making this all up. (Read "Berlusconi Under Attack - from His Wife...
That's apparently what happened to Rodrigo Rosenberg, a corporate lawyer murdered on May 10 while biking near his home. In a twist that's macabre even for Guatemala, Rosenberg had taped a video three days earlier in which he anticipated his assassination and put the blame on President Alvaro Colom and his imperious wife Sandra Torres. They deny it, saying their right-wing foes coerced Rosenberg into making the video and then had him killed...