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who decided to see Yasukuni on a recent trip to the Japanese capital. "The harsher they criticize, the more strongly I feel it's not their business," she said of the Chinese. "It's a matter of the prime minister's belief, as he has said, and there is nothing wrong with that."
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AP-GfK Poll: Most agree with scientists on smoking, fewer buy Big Bang, evolution or warming
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Few Americans question that smoking causes cancer. But they express bigger doubts as concepts that scientists consider to be truths get further from our own experiences and the present time, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.
• Americans have more skepticism than confidence in global warming, the age of the Earth and evolution and have the most trouble believing a Big Bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
• Rather than quizzing scientific knowledge, the survey asked people to rate their confidence in several statements about science and medicine.
• On some, there's broad acceptance. Just 4 percent doubt that smoking causes cancer, 6 percent question whether mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain and 8 percent are skeptical there's a genetic code inside our cells. More -- 15 percent -- have doubts about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines.
• About 4 in 10 say they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that life on Earth evolved through a process of natural selection, though most were at least somewhat confident in each of those concepts. But a narrow majority -- 51 percent -- questions the Big Bang theory.
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Cuba's chronic housing deficit endures despite touted real-estate, construction reforms
• HAVANA (AP) -- The residents of 308 Oquendo Street were jolted awake in the middle of the night by violent shaking and a noise that they likened to a freight train, or an exploding bomb.
• Part of their building's seventh floor had collapsed into the interior patio, heavily damaging apartments on the floors below. No one died, but the 120 families living in the building were left homeless.
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