Last week Mehtab Alam, 29, decapitated his sister Nilofer, 22, with a ceremonial sword, left her bleeding body on the street, and walked into the local thana with her severed head in one hand and the bloody sword in the other and surrendered to the police. His sister’s crime? The woman, a mother of two, married off at the age of 14, had run away from home to live with an old boyfriend, a rickshaw driver. Mehtab had already beaten up the rickshaw driver once for his earlier liaison with the sister. This time he tracked her down to the man’s house, dragged her out onto the street and killed her. 

While one scholarship alone would not undo years of socioeconomic stratification or completely change achievement outcomes between social classes, the lottery scholarship was envisioned as a way to bridge this gap. Although the scholarship aims to reduce the disparity in academic achievement between poorer and more privileged students, and to encourage all students to attend college, it may not necessarily cover the cost of school for the students who receive it. 

Filipino champ Manny Pacquiao believes the only way to decisively defeat arch-nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez in their fourth fight is by being more aggressive and attacking the Mexican from different angles. “I’m going to create a lot of action in the ring,” Pacquiao said during media day at the Wildcard Boxing Club on Wednesday. “I’m focused on [being] more aggressive and creating action… If I wait for him to throw a punch, the fight is going to be boring. There won’t be any action.”

As outgoing Mexican president Felipe Calderon prepares to enter the Ivory Tower of Harvard, skeletons are rattling the walls of Mexico during the last few days of his administration. Within the past week, Mexican authorities have recovered the remains of scores of murder victims from mass grave sites situated in different regions of  the country. At the same time, relatives of victims of gender, state and other forms of violence have been staging demonstrations in Mexico City, Chihuahua City, Acapulco and other places in demand of justice for murder victims and thousands of disappeared persons, some missing for decades.

President Barack Obama is expected to nominate a new Secretary of State soon, as Hillary Clinton intends to step down after the Presidential Inauguration in January. Clinton was a prolific traveler during her four years as Secretary of State, visiting Latin America and the Caribbean fourteen times, but never in a particularly transformative manner. The extent to which her successor emphasizes Western Hemispheric affairs could have far-reaching consequences for interregional cooperation and competition. Senator John Kerry and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are the two most likely candidates for the position. 

He is the longest held prisoner of Iran, sometimes referred to as the Iranian Nelson Mandela. He was on a leave of absence, which is part of a prison furlough system in Iran. His name, Abbas Amirentezam, should be familiar to anyone who knows the history of the U.S. Embassy take-over in 1980 and the plight of the American hostages held for 444 days. He is not referred to in the film Argo. Amirentezam became the other hostage. 

Around The Way, a New York-based company, and Clearly Innovative, a Washington, D.C.-based mobile-app development firm, have launched a mobile app that backers claim will empower and support black-owned businesses." Other ethnic groups have been supporting their own businesses literally for thousands of years," said Eric Hamilton, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Around The Way. "Around The Way is our attempt at doing what other ethnic and racial groups have been doing for a long time."

The first sign that things were going wrong was the stream of locals coming into the office and asking if this was where they were supposed to vote. Scores of people didn’t know their polling places, either because they had forgotten or no one had told them in the first place, so they just found the nearest building with an Obama sign and assumed they had found it. Feeling remarkably less bilingual than I’d hoped, I explained to all of them that we were a campaign office and immediately got to work looking up each one’s polling place. 

The storm hurled wind and rain on the city’s residents, causing flooding in low-lying areas. The rising waters flooded the subway system and crept into homeowners’ basements, where it disrupted the power supply. It also brought out of the shadows the predicament of so-called “basement people” – renters (some undocumented)  living in illegal dwellings, who are especially vulnerable in times of disaster.

After the recent election, many Americans are unsure how the health care reform bill initiated by President Obama will affect them.  This bill includes several provisions that deal with individuals seeking drug addiction prevention and treatment.  Many believe (and hope) that this plan really will make addiction care more affordable and accessible. However, although Obamacare may provide needed assistance to drug addicts, proponents and officials of the bill are hesitant to publicize these benefits in fear of the bill attaining the negative stigma often associated with drug addicts themselves.