Bear Lake County Library District

Officials and homeowners throughout the Red River Valley raced to finish levees and lay sandbags as the Mississippi, Red and St. Croix rivers began to overflow in some places. In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has called out the National Guard to help vulnerable communities prepare, and officials in St. Paul declared an emergency.

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The former Fed chairman says he didn't create the housing bubble and couldn't have prevented the economic calamity that followed the bubble's collapse.

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House Democrats' overhaul bill would cut the federal deficit by $138 billion over the first decade.

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The Congressional Budget Office calculated that House Democrats' overhaul legislation would cut the federal deficit by $138 billion over the first decade — with an overall price tag of $940 billion during that period.

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American Colleen LaRose is accused of conspiring with jihadists and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war. Authorities say she wanted to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims. Her trial was set for May 3.

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Japan and a number of developing nations opposed the proposed ban, which was backed by the United States. Japan imports 80 percent of its Atlantic bluefin, which is a popular ingredient in sushi.

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Banks weren't the only ones giving big bonuses in the boom years before the worst financial crisis in generations. The government also was handing out millions of dollars to bank regulators, rewarding "superior" work even as an avalanche of risky mortgages helped create the meltdown.

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The Congressional Budget Office has apparently finished tallying up the cost of health overhaul and preliminary reports put the total at $940 billion over the first decade. Over the same period, the plan would reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion.

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Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the health care package will also reduce the federal deficit by more than $100 billion over its first 10 years.

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CBO releases cost estimates for health care overhaul.

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The chief minister of India's most populous state came from humble origins, but Mayawati, as she is known, has not been shy about displaying her wealth. Recently, the show of opulence at a political rally — where she accepted a garland made entirely of money — seems to have gone too far, even by her standards.

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A rise in food prices last month was offset by a drop in gasoline and other energy costs. The Labor Department's report indicates there is little sign of inflation, which enables the Federal Reserve to keep its key interest rate at a record low to help revive the economy.

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The Labor Department says the number of newly laid-off workers requesting jobless benefits fell 5,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 457,000. That nearly matched analysts' estimates of 455,000.

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Israel's emergency service said the rocket was fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and killed a man in an agricultural community just north of Gaza. It was the first death from such an attack since Israel's Gaza offensive last year.

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Banking giant Wachovia has agreed to pay $160 million to settle a federal investigation into laundering of South American drug money. The deal, announced by the U.S. Attorney in Miami, said the bank had laundered the money since at least 2003 using Mexican exchange houses.

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Scholar Philip Jenkins argues that scriptures in the Quran are less brutal than those in the Bible. In his new book, Jesus Wars, Jenkins points out that violence in the Quran is mostly defensive, but in the Bible, it is often a method of genocide.

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As health care overhaul legislation winds its way toward the finish line, both sides are working to get their opinions heard. As usual, some use fear and exaggeration to make their claims. How accurate are these 30-second attempts to boil down a year's worth of debate? We decided to put a few to the test.

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The current law punishes crack users 100 times more heavily than powder cocaine users. Critics say the sentencing disparity has had a huge impact on people of color, partly because crack cocaine is much cheaper. A bill passed by the Senate brings the 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1.

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A new study finds that the number of people in multigenerational households grew by 2.5 million between 2007 and 2008. The trend is fueled by young adults, but older adults are also slightly more likely to share households. Another big factor is the increasingly large share of immigrants living in the U.S.

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Performed in 1727, Double Falsehood was purported to be a "lost" play by Shakespeare. Critics dismissed it as a fake, and it was quickly forgotten. But professor Brean Hammond says the "rattling good yarn" has Shakespearean roots.

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