Word: worst
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fourth-graders were proficient or better in reading, making them the best in the nation. Yet according to the random sampling done every few years by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test, a mere 18% of the state's fourth-graders were proficient, making them the worst in the nation. Even in Lake Wobegon that doesn't happen. Only in America. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, led by reformer Chester Finn Jr., has been analyzing state standards for more than a decade and concludes, "Two-thirds of U.S. children attend schools in states with mediocre standards or worse...
...anxious, 32% have trouble sleeping, and 20% are depressed. After a season of big news, of war and storms and swindlers, pirates and poison peanut butter, 43% are watching the news even more, taking the medicine even if it tastes bad because skipping it could be risky. (See the worst business deals...
...that worst-case scenario crossed your mind last week, it was probably because you'd just read news reports that federal authorities had detected signs that hackers - likely from Russia and China, countries with militaries known to be pursuing cyberwarfare capabilities - had penetrated the computer systems that control the power grid. It was unclear when these intrusions had taken place, but they had left a software signature. If that wasn't disturbing enough, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a Congress-authorized regulator, issued an alert that the utilities had not adequately surveyed their computer systems to detect vulnerabilities. (Read...
...virtually impossible to bring down the entire North American grid," says Major General (Rtd) Dale Meyerrose, a cybersecurity expert who recently retired as chief information officer for the Director of National Intelligence. The electricity-distribution system is highly decentralized, and there's no central control system; at worst, cyberattackers may be able to damage sections of the grid...
...Foggy Bottom, the response could be: Why not, indeed? The worst-kept diplomatic secret in the world may be that the State Department pretty much sees eye to eye with North Korea on a central issue: Washington should deal with Pyongyang one-on-one. The multilateral approach of the six-party talks has been at best cumbersome and at worst counterproductive, some diplomats say. Charles L. (Jack) Pritchard, Bush's former special envoy to the DPRK, has said all the participants in the talks "made it abundantly clear" that they support direct U.S. engagement, including the Chinese, the North...