thetownbellman

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articles read & loved no. 66

We Found Our Son in the Subway (Peter Mercurio, NYT)

Reflections of the Boyfriend of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Barbara Holm, The Rumpus)

I Choose To Be Fat (Laura Bogart, Salon)

'Game of Thrones' and the Threatening Fantasy (Maris Kreizman, Medium)

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Leaders strategize on Syria attack, Afghan Taliban kill 12 suspected of government ties, and U.S. Attorney General pressed to explain how DEA uses hidden data. Today is Tuesday, August 27, and this is the World Wrap, brought to you by @dwbronner and @clarerrrr.

Western powers could...

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About 30,000 people have fled their homes in DR Congo since Thursday to seek safety in neighbouring Uganda.

Many say they ran for their lives after a group of rebels started terrorising their villages.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb reports from the makeshift refugee camp that has been set up in western Uganda.

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Archaeologists have discovered a lost ancient Maya city in the rain forests of eastern Mexico.

The city site covers about 54 acres, and could have been home to as many as 40,000 people who lived around the year 1,000 B.C.E.

The Maya civilization was one of the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas. They ruled over large parts of the Yucatan peninsula as well as Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.

They named the city Chactun, meaning “Red Rock” or “Large Rock.”

The archaeologists found 15 pyramids at Chactun, including one that stands 75 feet tall. They also found ball courts, plazas, and tall, sculpted stone shafts called stelae.

(Photos: REUTERS/INAH) 

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Wall St. Journal: US stocks extended steep losses as anxiety mounted over the potential for the Federal Reserve to pull back its stimulus efforts. The selloff rattled across markets, with gold dropping and yields on Treasury bonds marching to two-year highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average...

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You’ve probably heard of The Great Gatsby. But what about The Great Gatsby Curve?

It’s a pretty wonky chart that illustrates how rising inequality is jeopardizing our tradition of economic mobility for future generations.

So what does this mean? Kids of wealthy parents already have more opportunities to succeed than children of poor families—and this is likely to get worse unless we take steps to ensure that all children have access to quality education, health care, and other opportunities that give them a fair shot at economic success.

Learn more.

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Moderate Rohani elected as Iran’s president

Reuters: Iran’s interior minister declared moderate cleric Hassan Rohani the winner of Iran’s presidential election on Saturday after final results revealed Rohani secured just more than 50% of the votes — enough to avoid a run-off.

Rohani has been seen as the most moderate of all the candidates running. 72 percent of the 50 million Iranians eligible to vote turned out.

Photo: Iranian presidential candidate Hassan Rohani (L) waves to supporters in the central Iranian city of Shiraz on June 11. (via Reuters/Fars News/Mohammad Hadi Khosravi)

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BloombergNews: Joe Arpaio, the controversial sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, violated the constitutional rights of Latinos who were stopped and detained as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, a federal judge said.

U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow issued a decision Friday after a...

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Dubai’s striking workers in their own words | Labourers at construction giant Arabtec in the UAE complain of low pay, poor conditions and lack of annual leave.

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Ohio man charged with kidnap, rape as women found

AP: Authorities have announced that they have filed kidnapping and rape charges against a Cleveland man arrested after three women missing for about a decade were found at his home on Monday.

Homeowner Ariel Castro has been charged, while his brothers Pedro and Onil Castro are being held. The brothers face no charges at this time.

Photo: A missing poster still rests on a tree outside the home of Amanda Berry Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Cleveland, Ohio. (Tony Dejak)

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Philippine volcano spews rocks, killing five

AP: One of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes spewed huge rocks and ash Tuesday, killing at least five climbers and trapping more than a dozen others near the crater, officials say. This was its first eruption in three years.

Officials say at least seven were injured from a group of about 20 mountaineers caught by surprise by the eruption.

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A Bedouin woman carries her child as she prepares to leave her home in the West Bank village of Wadi al-Maleh, near the border with Jordan on April 29, 2013. Israeli soldiers on Monday evicted several hundred Bedouins from the village in the occupied West Bank after the army declared the area a live-fire training zone. The residents of Wadi al-Maleh, a village mostly inhabited by shepherds in the arid area, had almost all left their homes by an evening curfew and retreated to neighboring villages, a local leader told Reuters.

[Credit : Mohamad Torokman/Reuters]

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HoustonChronicle: One person was shot dead at Terminal B of Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport, the Chronicle reported. The shooting prompted the FAA to briefly order a ground halt at the airport. Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva said that an armed male suffered at least...

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