'Witch' Pardons Come Centuries Too Late
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LONDON - A Scottish township plans to mark Halloween by officially pardoning 81 people - and their cats - executed centuries ago for being witches.
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The last century, through its great cataclysms, offers two clear, ringing, and, unfortunately, contradictory lessons.
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"Whether you like it or not, it undermines the function of the president."  For Jacques Chirac, the legal clock is ticking: At midnight Saturday, the former French leader officially loses his presidential immunity, and could face investigators' questions _ or worse.Judges could come knocking over at least five cases involving suspected corruption and alleged financial misdeeds, most dating to Chirac's time as Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995 _ the year he became president.It's unlikely that Chirac, 74, would ever go to jail, but the cases loom as a humiliating coda to his four-decade political career. Since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958, a former head of state has never been required to answer allegations of wrongdoing from earlier in his career. Read more
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It would surprise many people to learn that most of those countries have only been around since 1922.
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A study suggests that there are thousands of people serving long sentences for crimes they did not commit but who have no hope that DNA can clear them.
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The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by 1980s radiocarbon dating, a new chemical study suggests.
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Not that long ago, only the aristocratic or famous felt entitled to special privileges, but nowadays we seem to be living in an age of excessive exceptionalism.
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Chief Leschi of the Nisqually Indian tribe was exonerated by a historical court Friday, nearly a century and a half after he was hanged for the death of a militia soldier in what is now Washington state.
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Feminism breaches walls of the fortress after over 500 years
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An 81-year-old who denies harassing her neighbours, terrified a young girl by telling her she was a witch, a court hears.
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A commutation lessens the severity of the punishment. A pardon excuses or forgives the offense itself.
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A woman sentenced to death for killing a police official who tried to rape her has been pardoned by the victim's family, a judiciary official said Wednesday, a welcome resolution to a 7-year-old case that had garnered intense interest at home and abroad.
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If the searing heat spell gripping the Northeast today seems unbearable, just be thankful the year is 2007 and not 1993 â or 1936 for that matter.
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HAGAZ, Eritrea  - For 3-year-old Amira, a law banning female genital mutilation in Eritrea came too late.
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Sorry. Some of those things you learned from your grandmother just are not true.
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Russian officials say an army colonel convicted of killing a young Chechen woman has withdrawn his request for a pardon. Yury Budanov is serving a 10-year sentence for strangling an 18-year-old woman in 2000.
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"God's Crucible Â Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215" (W. W. Norton, 475 pages, $29.95), by David Levering Lewis: Though it all happened 1,300 years ago well Â some of it less than 600 years ago Â Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis says a long military-religious campaign bore seeds of troubled 21st century history.