Family's concerns off dirt lane in Baghdad far from the spotlight of Obama visit

There is a Baghdad that U.S. Senator Barack Obama is not likely to see. It's places such as the dirt strip that crosses under a highway and leads to a metal door coming off its hinges. It opens into a small house and courtyard — and a couple and their six grown children seeking ways to move forward in a city where violence has eased but life for many remains stuck in place. "I want to believe that the future for Baghdad is now better, that we've turned a corner," said Abdul-Karim Sami, a reed-thin 60-year-old who once hobnobbed with Baghdad's elite as a tennis coach. "I truly want to believe that." But then he ticks off the family's sobering list of woes: food costs rising so sharply that they have cut back on everything but essentials; opportunities so limited that his oldest son peddles trinkets on the street despite a... [read full story]