For the more than 2 million Americans who suffer from schizophrenia, the biggest hurdle that comes after their hallucinations, voices, and paranoia have been controlled with medication is the seemingly simple task of conversing. Many have no way of knowing whether the person they're talking to is pleased or annoyed, and a new study reveals why. The condition appears to cause disconnections between nerve cells in the auditory regions of the brain, which prevents the brain from discerning changes in pitch like the deepening of a voice expressing frustration.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the chief of staff for Multinational Corps Iraq, told reporters this morning that the troop buildup in Baghdad would be completed by the end of May and that it would be months, and "certainly not weeks," before security began to improve noticeably in the Iraqi capital.
Grozny, Russia—One day last summer, Khamzat Tushayev joined the ranks of the disappeared. His wife, Satsita, trembles as she tells the story, which starts with a June 7 phone call from a man claiming to be with the prosecutor's bureau. The caller asked Tushayev, 47, a former separatist rebel, to come in for questioning—which he did the next morning. "I stayed at the gate, and the guard let my husband inside," she recalls. "I waited and waited. He didn't come back. So I asked the guard to phone the prosecutor's office. But this was what they said: 'There was never any such person here.'"
AP - A suicide car bomber attacked an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, and up to eight Afghans were killed and 22 injured in the blast or by subsequent gunfire from U.S. soldiers, officials said.
AP - An al-Qaida-affiliated group said Saturday it killed 18 kidnapped government security forces in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police, posting an online video of the officers being shot in the back of their heads while kneeling in a field.
AP - As President Bush handed out hugs and toured sites where killer tornadoes hit areas of the South earlier this week, some residents said they hoped the government would be as forthcoming with aid to help rebuild their devastated towns.
Prominent politicians from both parties and a gay-rights group on Saturday condemned right-wing commentator Ann Coulter for her reference Friday to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as a "faggot."