Currencies are like ghosts — you can never quite get your hands around them, yet they can haunt an economy’s growth rate or an investor’s portfolio forevermore. Perhaps that is because the value of a dollar or a euro is at best a guesstimable number — dependent on the present moment’s madness of crowds and popular opinion, or the next minute’s rationality of longer-term fundamentals. Relative annual price swings of 10 to 20 percent vs. alternative choices are commonplace. And this appears to be the case for the euro when compared with the dollar, pound, yen and perhaps even the upstart and tightly controlled Chinese yuan. It could go up or down — anywhere, really — based upon this week’s policy decisions involving the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the G-5 central banks and, of course, the markets’ herd-like interpretation of them . Read full article > >

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The euro may fall — and take the U.S. recovery with it

In “The Descendants,” George Clooney plays the scion of an old Hawaii family with many troubles on his hands.

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Movie Review | ‘The Descendants’: ‘Descendants,’ With George Clooney – Review

It was unclear if the university would allow Joe Paterno to coach till the end of the season. His immediate future was in the hands of Penn State’s Board of Trustees.

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Penn State Coach Joe Paterno Is Fired

Three children have died in recent years, allegedly at the hands of parents who had a child-rearing book by the preacher Michael Pearl, who advocates physical punishment.

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Deaths Put Focus on Pastor’s Advocacy of Spanking

After what allegedly happened to “Victim 2,” a boy estimated to be 10 years old, in the same room where Penn State football players shower, it’s near impossible to keep reading the grand jury’s report . By “Victim 8,” numbness turns to anger. You want to scream at the traumatized graduate assistant coach in 2002 and janitor in 2000 who saw and didn’t stop it, according to the report released by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. You want to grab hold of and shake those who reported the crime only to their superiors, washed their hands of responsibility and then let it go, treating a kid’s life as if it were a football that slipped through their hands. Read full article > >

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If Jerry Sandusky allegations are true, Penn State and Joe Paterno deserve part of the blame

In 1986, Bob Wieland, who lost his legs in Vietnam, completed the race in about 98 hours on his hands.

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Bob Wieland’s Athletic Accomplishments Continue to Inspire

At the hands of his victims.

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‘World’ Hacker Claims ‘Persecution’

Here in the heartland, Vladimir Putin’s revelation that he would take the presidency back from Dmitry Medvedev, essentially plucking the March election out of the hands of voters and installing himself as ruler for years to come, should have left the opposition more impotent than ever. Instead, its members have picked themselves up and gone into quiet rebellion, doing their best to pretend that imperious Moscow doesn’t exist. Read full article > >

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Russia girds for next Putin presidency as some look past it

Here in the heartland, Vladimir Putin’s revelation that he would take the presidency back from Dmitry Medvedev, essentially plucking the March election out of the hands of voters and installing himself as ruler for years to come, should have left the opposition more impotent than ever. Instead, its members have picked themselves up and gone into quiet rebellion, doing their best to pretend that imperious Moscow doesn’t exist. Read full article > >

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Russia girds for next Putin presidency as some look past it

BEIJING — It took the hands of a Chinese grandmother working 7,500 miles from his kitchen for Scott Drewno to correct the way he has been making xiao long bao. The dumplings, a Shanghainese specialty, are served for breakfast daily in every major city in China. They seem to defy the laws of physics; filled with aromatic soup, the wrappers must be constructed with just enough elasticity to contain the hot liquid without breaking. Getting the soup inside them is another matter entirely. Read full article > >

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The chef who cooked Chinese, then went to China

BEIRUT — A renowned political cartoonist whose drawings expressed Syrians’ frustrated hopes for change was grabbed after he left his studio early Thursday and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands and dumped him on a road outside Damascus. One of Syria’s most famous artists, Ali Ferzat, 60, earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria’s autocratic Assad family. Read full article > >

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Syrian gunmen break hands of anti-regime cartoonist, warn him to stop drawing

BEIRUT — A renowned political cartoonist whose drawings expressed Syrians’ frustrated hopes for change was grabbed after he left his studio early Thursday and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands and dumped him on a road outside Damascus. One of Syria’s most famous artists, Ali Ferzat, 60, earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria’s autocratic Assad family. Read full article > >

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Syrian gunmen break hands of anti-regime cartoonist, warn him to stop drawing

Can India recover from their defeat at the hands of England?

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Cricket debacle

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh — This is where the first war set off by the Soviet collapse took place. And it may be where the next one breaks out. Twenty years ago, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, unleashed from Soviet control, waged a bitter struggle for this mountainous region in the South Caucasus. A cease-fire was reached in 1994, after about 30,000 people had been killed, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh outside Azerbaijan’s control, as an unrecognized, de facto republic in the hands of ethnic Armenians. Read full article > >

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In Nagorno-Karabakh, peace elusive 20 years after Soviet fall

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh — This is where the first war set off by the Soviet collapse took place. And it may be where the next one breaks out. Twenty years ago, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, unleashed from Soviet control, waged a bitter struggle for this mountainous region in the South Caucasus. A cease-fire was reached in 1994, after about 30,000 people had been killed, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh outside Azerbaijan’s control, as an unrecognized, de facto republic in the hands of ethnic Armenians. Read full article > >

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In Nagorno-Karabakh, peace elusive 20 years after Soviet fall