Ten Words from Today's NY Times - Dec. 19, 2012

Proponents of stricter controls on firearms said they were cautiously optimistic that, perhaps this time, something concrete and lasting would be enacted.

Even as this was happening, millions of American gun owners — about 40 percent of American households report having a gun — remained deeply resistant to any moves to curtail Second Amendment gun rights.

Still, the cascading developments since Friday’s shooting led one of the leading gun control organizations, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, to proclaim a legal and cultural groundswell in the nation’s view of firearms.

Parks and courtyards are being defoliated for firewood, turning streets once lined with trees into avenues bordered by stumps.

Months’ worth of trash is piled high, often beside bread lines where hundreds of people wait for a meager stack of loaves.

Overlaying it all is a mix of fatigue and distrust, the sentiments of a population divided in multiple ways.

For most of Syria’s 21-month uprising, Aleppo, a commercial and government center built around its historic Old City, was spared the battles engulfing the country.

He understood the desperation at the window, the eyes looking in, alternately angry and plaintive.

The prevalence of three cancers — multiple myeloma, prostate and thyroid — was significantly higher, but only in rescue and recovery workers and not in the rest of the exposed population.

The study was released on Tuesday, and was to be published in the Wednesday issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association — too late to influence Dr. Howard’s decision, but perhaps not too late to influence public opinion going forward or to affect whether Congress will decide to replenish the victim compensation fund should more money be needed.