Denied food stamps, Rachelle Grimmer, who had lived a wandering existence in recent months, took a hostage at gunpoint at a social services office before shooting her two children and herself.

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Laredo, Tex., Food Stamp Standoff Ends in Killings and Suicide

The nation’s struggling economy and an uptick in major natural disasters in recent months mean more Americans than ever are using federal money to buy food. More than 46.2 million people received a total of $75.3 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , formerly known as food stamps, in fiscal 2011, according to Agriculture Department statistics released Monday. Officials said participation spiked in the closing days of the fiscal year as Hurricane Irene caused destruction across a dozen East Coast states. Read full article > >

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Obama administration targeting food stamp fraud as program reaches record highs

Each of the top presidential candidates already has at least one super PAC raising unlimited funds to support his or her campaign. Now some members of Congress are getting in on the action, too. Several new super PACs have sprung up in recent months with the explicit aim of helping a particular lawmaker, including Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.). There are also super PACs that have formed to oppose the reelections of Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.). Read full article > >

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Congressional incumbents start attracting ‘super PACs:’ The Influence Industry

UK house prices have remained “surprisingly resilient” in recent months, says the Nationwide, as it records a further rise in values.

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House price strength ‘a surprise’

Concerned about the pace and price of construction projects for the poor, the new director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development has shuffled staff, set strict building deadlines and made sweeping changes to how the embattled agency does business with developers. Three managers have been removed in recent months and five new ones will be brought in to help overhaul the department, which oversees federally funded affordable-housing construction in the District. Developers will be required to have a documented track record, adequate financial backing and the ability to finish construction within two years. Read full article > >

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Embattled D.C. housing agency tightens HUD projects’ oversight

American Crossroads, the largest of a new generation of political interest groups, is seeking to use a loophole in campaign laws to do something that has occupied a gray area of election law: produce advertisements featuring federal candidates and officeholders. That would be a step that Crossroads and other “super PACs” have not taken so far. But the conservative Crossroads says it is just following a precedent set by the Democratic Party, which has spent at least a half-million dollars in recent months on ads featuring Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) talking about his record. Read full article > >

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‘Super PAC’ American Crossroads seeks permission to feature candidates in ads

The Obama administration is ramping up civil rights enforcement against local police nationwide, opening a number of investigations to determine whether officers are guilty of brutality or discrimination against Hispanics and other minorities. In recent months, the Justice Department has begun inquiries into major city police departments such as Portland, Ore ., where officers shot several people who had mental health issues, and Seattle, where police were accused of gunning down a homeless Native American woodcarver. The department issued a scathing report earlier this month accusing Puerto Rico police of a “staggering level of crime and corruption.’’ Read full article > >

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Justice Department boosts activity to police the police

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

When there’s political upheaval in Tehran, it’s often interwoven with the explosive question of possible outreach to the United States. And that may be the case with a recent feud between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The key figure in this dispute is Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei , Ahmadinejad’s former chief of staff and said to be his choice as successor in the next Iranian presidential elections, scheduled for 2013. In recent months, Mashaei is said to have initiated a series of contacts attempting to open a dialogue with the United States. Read full article > >

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Internal strife emerges as Tehran looks westward

Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.

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Syria’s ‘reformer’

The Washington area is one of the few regions in the country where home values have been consistently climbing in recent months, with typical prices increasing 8 percent since hitting bottom two years ago.

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Home-price uptick goes only so far

The scale of thefts of appliances intended for curbside pickup in recent months suggests an organized enterprise.

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Missing Appliances Puzzle Sanitation Officials

KABUL – The Taliban in recent months has developed increasingly sophisticated and nimble propaganda tactics that have alarmed U.S. officials struggling to curb the militant group’s growing influence across Afghanistan. Art and Literature – Propaganda – History – Twentieth Century – Wars and Conflicts

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Taliban steps up propaganda war

Mudslides and floods have killed more than 1,500 people across China in recent months and as latest pictures show, even the rescuers themselves are struggling to cope with the force of the water.

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Dramatic rescues in China floods