In the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 967 American service members have lost at least one limb, as of March 1. Of them, 229 have lost more than one. The number of amputees mounted steadily as the U.S. military stormed into Afghanistan in late 2001, then focused on Iraq -- with an invasion in 2003 and a "surge" in 2007. More recently, the number has edged up again as the Obama administration has pumped more troops into Afghanistan.
These amputees are a fraternity of survivors whose private battles on the road, from blood-fresh wound to leather-tough scar, span the eight years of war. From Ground Zero to Baghdad to Afghanistan's Marja, their stories are reminders of conflicts that have lasted long enough for some amputees to be running marathons now, even as their newest brethren struggle with their prosthetics.
Some are immobilized by depression, while others boldly venture into a world where children point at them and adults avert their gaze.
Pope Benedict XVI has apologised to victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. In a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, he acknowledged the sense of betrayal in the Church felt by victims and their families.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, women working in the public and government sectors were entitled to receive a year's maternity leave under family laws enforced by the former Saddam Hussein leadership. In the seven years since the US-led invasion which ousted Saddam, however, maternity leave has been cut to six months.
So media power and political power achieve an ever greater degree of merger, just as in Italy, but let us be quite clear that Murdoch's primary interest is commercial, as it has been ever since he bought into the News of the World 41 years ago. Already we see the pressures that the Murdoch family will bring to bear on David Cameron if he becomes prime minister. On Friday the Times, which now barely disguises its pro-Sky agenda, ran an editorial on the BBC's cuts, accusing its websites of "dumping free content on to markets where its rivals have no public subsidy". The phrase bears an uncanny resemblance to James Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh last year when he talked about the BBC "dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market." The editorial read as if the Times editor James Harding had been taking dictation.
The federal judge overseeing litigation between the city and workers at ground zero on Friday rejected a settlement reached by the two sides, telling lawyers that it did not provide enough compensation to plaintiffs and needed to be renegotiated under his supervision.
Medical experts will be watching closely Monday when a scientist who says she has been intermittently paralyzed by a virus designed at the Pfizer laboratory where she worked in Groton opens a much anticipated trial that could raise questions about safety practices in the dynamic field of genetic engineering.
The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit charging that former Attorney General John Ashcroft is personally responsible for the wrongful detention of an innocent American, Abdullah al-Kidd, can go forward, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today. The ruling denies Ashcroft's request that his appeal be heard by the entire court and upheld the court's September 2009 decision that the federal material witness law cannot be used to detain or investigate suspects where no probable cause exists for criminal charges. The ruling also held that Ashcroft does not have immunity in this case and can be held personally liable for the wrongful detention of al-Kidd.
The new transcripts, published in Italy for the first time yesterday, suggest that Mr Berlusconi telephoned a commissioner on the country's independent broadcast regulator, Agcom, after he learned that a show examining corruption cases against him was due to go out on state broadcaster Rai.
