One in three adults in the world's top industrial democracies say they know little or nothing about AIDS, a disease thought to have killed more than 28 million people in the past 26 years, a poll showed on Thursday. But the survey, carried out by Ipsos for the World Vision charity, found that in the seven countries studied, 44 percent of respondents would be willing to pay more taxes to combat AIDS, including 50 percent in the United States.

Read the article by Patrick Worsnip: Reuters

Microloans, often used to help small businesses, are now helping private schools in Ghana and elsewhere. The market for such schools is potentially huge. Save the Children estimates that about 100 million children in developing nations are out of school – 60 percent of them girls. Despite some progress toward meeting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015, many countries simply don't have enough public school spaces to educate all their children – particularly in the most remote or economically distraught areas. Even when public schools are available, parents sometimes see these neighborhood private ventures as offering better quality – for perhaps just a little more than the fees associated with public school. The founders of such schools are increasingly attracting small loans from groups looking for sustainable solutions to poverty.

Read the article by Tristan McConnell and Stacy Teicher Khadaroo: The Christian Science Monitor

Inside trailer No. 27 here at the A. L. Davis Playground, where the government set up a camp last year for displaced residents of Hurricane Katrina, Tracy Bernard’s meager possessions are all packed up, even though she has nowhere to go. About a month ago, workers for the Federal Emergency Management Agency swept through her trailer park, a bleak tableau of housing of the last resort, taping eviction notices on the flimsy aluminum doors. Thousands of other trailer residents across Louisiana were informed by FEMA last week that they too would be evicted in the next six months... More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is suffering from an acute shortage of housing that has nearly doubled the cost of rental units in the city, threatening the recovery of the region and the well-being of many residents who decided to return against the odds.

Read the article by Susan Saulny: The New York Times

Malawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid. But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe... Farmers explain Malawi’s extraordinary turnaround - one with broad implications for hunger-fighting methods across Africa - with one word: fertilizer.

Read the article by Celia W. Dugger: The New York Times

The Senate moved on Wednesday to take up a bill providing health insurance for 10 million children, just hours after President Bush said he would veto the legislation because it called for “a massive tax increase.” Behind the scenes, members of Congress stepped up efforts to negotiate a compromise that would satisfy enough House Republicans to override a veto. Senate Republican leaders, working with the White House, tried to block action on the bill, passed last week in the House by a vote of 265 to 142 -- short of the two-thirds majority needed for an override.

Read the article by Robert Pear: The New York Times

Twenty-one states will run out of money for children’s health insurance in the coming year, and at least nine of those states will exhaust their allotments in March if Congress simply continues spending at current levels, a new federal study says. The findings added urgency to bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill intended to overcome an impasse over expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Read the article by Robert Pear: The New York Times

For the first time in more than 40 years, the majority of children in public schools in the South are poor, according to a report released Tuesday. In 11 Southern states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, a significant increase in the number of poor children attending public school has sent district officials scurrying for solutions on how to best educate kids who are coming from economically disadvantaged homes.

Read the article by Halimah Abdullah: McClatchy Newspapers

A surge in investment in solar power is bringing down costs of the alternative energy source, but affordability problems still dog hopes for the 1.6 billion people worldwide without electricity. The sun supplies only a tiny fraction -- less than one tenth of 1 percent -- of mankind's energy needs. But its supporters believe a solar era may be dawning, boosted by western funding to combat oil "addiction" and climate change. Governments from Japan to Germany and the United States are helping the public wean themselves off fossil fuels.

Read the article by Gerard Wynn: Reuters

It's nature vs. nurture. One of the big debates of our time involves the causes of economic growth. Why is North America richer than South America? Why is Africa poor and Europe wealthy? Is it possible to eliminate global poverty? The World Bank estimates that 2.5 billion people still live on $2 a day or less. On one side are economists who argue that societies can nurture economic growth by adopting sound policies. Not so, say other scholars such as Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University. Culture (a.k.a. "nature") predisposes some societies to rapid growth and others to poverty or meager growth.

Read the op-ed by Robert J. Samuelson: The Washington Post

House Democrats, convinced that President Bush blundered by vetoing a children's health bill, plan to approve a very similar bill this week and practically dare him to veto it again. The revised bill would lower the number of adults and higher-income families potentially eligible for the health insurance subsidies, Democrats said, presumably making it easier for Republicans to back it while saving face. But on the key issue of spending, Democrats say they will not budge from the original $35 billion pricetag, which the administration has called too large.

Read the article by Charles Babington: Forbes.com

Senate Democrats on Tuesday reversed President Bush's cuts to education, health research and grants to local communities as they gird for Bush's first-ever veto of a regular appropriations bill. By a 75-19 vote, the Senate gave bipartisan approval to a huge health and education spending bill that will likely be the first of the fiscal 2008 spending bills Democrats will ship to the White House to start a veto battle involving the budget for almost every domestic agency. It promises to be a protracted battle, and Bush has a decided advantage, but Democrats have seized on the massive health and education measure as the best measure with which to challenge Bush and his GOP allies in Congress. The measure totals over $600 billion and reverses a raft of cuts sought by Bush to health research, special education and funding for grants to community groups that help the poor, among others.

Read the article by Andrew Taylor: AP