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'Crack Baby' Scare Overblown, Teen Research Says

Research in teens adds fresh evidence that the 1980s "crack baby" scare was overblown, finding little proof of any major long-term ill effects in children whose mothers used cocaine during pregnancy.

Some studies have linked pregnant women's cocaine use with children's behavior difficulties, attention problems, anxiety and worse school performance. But the effects were mostly small and may have resulted from other factors including family problems or violence, parents' continued drug use and poverty, the researchers said.

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Lebanese Army Official Denies Rocket Attack on Israel

A rocket was fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel late Sunday night, the state-run National News Agency reported although a high-ranking military official denied the attack.

No rocket was fired on the Jewish state, the official told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) although he confirmed that an explosion had taken place.

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'Yugonostalgia' as Croatia Prepares to Join EU

Forget the European Union, many in this Croatian village are saying. The group of nations being celebrated this weekend is one that died more than 20 years ago when Yugoslavia — now fervently remembered as a haven of peace, prosperity and equality — fell apart in a cascade of ethnic wars.

Thousands of people came together Saturday in the birthplace of Yugoslavia's late communist leader, Josip Broz Tito, to mark his birthday and pay their respects to him and the ex-federation.

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Female Suicide Bomber Injures 12 in Russia's Dagestan

Twelve people were hospitalized and two of them were in a critical condition after a female suicide bomber blew herself up in Russia's restive Dagestan region Saturday, in the second bombing attack this week, a police spokeswoman said.

The bomber blew herself up not far from the interior ministry building in the center of Makhachkala, spokeswoman Fatina Ubaidatova told Agence France Presse.

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Mosque Blast Kills 12 in Eastern Afghanistan

Authorities in eastern Afghanistan say explosives transported by suspected Taliban fighters accidentally detonated while they were stopped at a mosque, killing 12 people.

Local official Qasim Desewal said Saturday that four civilians and eight militants died in the blast during evening prayers the night before in Ghazni province's district of Andar.

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Patient Falls from Ambulance and Dies in Brazil

Officials say an elderly man suffering from Alzheimer's disease fell from an ambulance and died in southeastern Brazil.

Graciele Gomes da Silva heads the health department of the city of Joao Pinheiro. She says 82-year-old Luis Jose Lima apparently opened the ambulance's back door, fell to the highway and was hit by an oncoming car that left the scene.

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Healthy Gorilla Born to 1st Time Parents at U.S. Zoo

A baby gorilla has been born to first-time parents at an Ohio zoo.

The healthy 5-pound (2.2-kilogram) male gorilla arrived Thursday at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, joining 16 other gorillas there.

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Crane Accident Cuts Power to One-Third of Vietnam

One mistake by a clumsy crane operator caused a 10-hour blackout over about a third of Vietnam, exposing the fragility of the nation's power grid.

State electricity company EVN said in a statement Thursday that the blackout occurred Wednesday after the crane operator knocked a tree down onto the main north-south high voltage power transmission line.

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Surgeons Remove Tiger's Basketball-Sized Hairball

It's not unusual for a cat to get a hairball, but a 400-pound (180-kilogram) tiger needed help from veterinary surgeons when he couldn't hack up a soccer ball-sized hairball by himself.

The 17-year-old tiger named Ty underwent the procedure Wednesday at a veterinary center in the Tampa Bay area community of Clearwater. Doctors said in a statement that they safely removed the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) obstruction from Ty's stomach.

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Brown Hounded for Calling Manila 'Gates of Hell'

Dan Brown's description of Manila as "the gates of hell" in the American novelist's latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

The book "Inferno," which is being sold in the Philippines, describes a visitor to the city who is taken aback by poverty, crime and prostitution.

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