Two couples in their 80s have committed suicide in Paris, reigniting a debate in France on euthanasia which is still illegal in the country.
Assisted deaths are either legal or have been decriminalised in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and The Netherlands.

#VALUE!

ATLANTA — More than 80 years after they were falsely accused and wrongly convicted in the rapes of a pair of white women in north Alabama, three black men received posthumous pardons on Thursday, essentially absolving the last of the “Scottsboro Boys” of criminal misconduct and closing one of the most notorious chapters of the South’s racial history.

The United States consistently spends far more money per school age student than any other country in the world, something like $11,800 per child compared with $4,000-$5,000 in comparable countries. Excluding the huge sums spent on the 10 percent of children who go to private schools, the United States spends something like $8,000 of public money per child per year. Yet, in 2012, the United States was 27th on the list of world rankings for school educational achievement, well below Cuba, below even Mexico and Brazil.

GLENDALE, Calif. — “Entertainment is one of America’s biggest exports,” Mr. Obama said during a rally here at a DreamWorks studio campus, adding that movies, television shows and music were “part of American diplomacy.”
“The gap between what we can do and what other countries can do is enormous,” he told the crowd of about 1,800 people, most of them DreamWorks employees.

CAIRO — Students who support deposed president Mohamed Morsi have intensified their anti-government demonstrations in recent weeks, staging strikes and clashing with police on university campuses as security forces clamp down on dissent.
The authorities have adopted a tough line in response, granting police the authority to enter college campuses without warrants to quell protests. On Thursday, security forces firing tear gas and water cannons broke up the latest big rally at Cairo University, setting off clashes that left one person dead, according to news agencies.

The question of whether to stay is especially resonant for Americans in Paris, because many feel that they live here by accident. Not many foreigners move to Paris for their dream job. Many do it on a romantic whim. Expatriates often say that they came for six months, but ended up staying for 15 years. And no one is quite sure where the time went. It’s as if Paris is a vortex that lulls you with its hot croissants and grand boulevards. One morning, you wake up middle-aged — still speaking mediocre French.

CEBU, Philippines — Three days after one of the most powerful storms ever to buffet the Philippines, the scale of the devastation and the desperation of the survivors were slowly coming into view.
As Monday dawned, it became increasingly clear that Typhoon Haiyan had ravaged cities, towns and fishing villages when it played a deadly form of hopscotch across the islands of the central Philippines on Friday. By some estimates, at least 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban alone, and with phone service out across stretches of the far-flung archipelago, it was difficult to know if the storm was as deadly in more remote areas.

WASHINGTON — A curious hurdle is threatening to complicate efforts by the United States to reach a major trade agreement with 11 Pacific nations by the end of the year: catfish.
At issue is a pending new catfish inspection program at the Department of Agriculture that would replace but cost far more than an existing catfish inspection program in the Food and Drug Administration. American catfish farmers say the new inspection program would be more rigorous than the one at the F.D.A. and is needed to make sure all domestic and imported catfish is safe to eat.

The Department of Education released its latest report on homeless students last month and the numbers are startling. More than 1.2 million K–12 students for the 2011-12 school year were homeless. This staggering number is considered underreported, since many kids take great measures to hide their homelessness due to embarrassment, and parents do their best to stay under the radar for fear of losing their children.